News

Martin Connell, one of Canada’s most influential philanthropists and a prominent business leader, will receive the Lincoln Alexander Outstanding Leader Award May 30 from the University of Guelph.

U of G’s highest leadership award was created in 2006 to honour Lincoln Alexander, who served as Guelph’s chancellor for an unprecedented 15 years.

The award is presented annually by Guelph’s College of Management and Economics (CME) to exemplary and dedicated Canadian leaders whose careers have included groundbreaking, socially significant pursuits.

The story of the University of Guelph’s Better Planet Project is being told in a decorative donor wall, where each of the tiles says a bit about the donor, what their donation will fund, and why they felt it so important to give sizable financial gifts to the university.

At its unveiling ceremony last Thursday seven new donors were celebrated for their philanthropy.

Today's Guelph Mercury reports that local food and culinary activist Anita Stewart is now a member of the Order of Canada. Last June, Stewart received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Guelph's College of Management and Economics. Read more on Anita Stewart

Associate Professor, Joe Barth and Assistant Professor, Statia Elliot recently published an article in the Journal of Product and Brand Management. The article, “Wine Label Design and Personality Preferences of Millennials,” discusses the purpose of the study Barth and Elliot conducted to explore the design and brand personality of wine labels and their appeal to the millennial market – the newest segment of wine consumers.

Josh Leyte-Jammu, CME B.Comm. Accounting student, competed in the seventh annual University of Waterloo Accounting Conference (UWAC) this past weekend with first year Waterloo Accounting students, Rida Raza and Carrie Law, and fourth year Concordia student, Ben Leung.   

As last year drew to a close, University of Guelph economics researchers Sylvain Charlebois and Francis Tapon were predicting the 2012 overall price increase in food would be about two per cent.

However, Charlebois cautioned at the time, unpredictable heat, cold and rainfall continue to influence farming in ways never experienced in modern-era agriculture. He warned that could send their numbers askew.

“If the weather co-operates, our predictions will be fine,” he said. “But how can we know what Mother Nature will do?”

Alastair Summerlee, University of Guelph president and vice-chancellor, will deliver the keynote session at the Spring Perspectives on Teaching Conference on May 14. Presented by the Teaching Support Centre, the one-day conference runs 9 a.m.-4 p.m. in Social Science Centre, Room 2050.

CME grad Thomas Sobotka along with his father Jozef and brother Filip, decided to develop a robot to automate building inspections after witnessing another inspector duct tape a digital camera to a broom so he could see around a corner. The Sobotkas started FTD Highrise Inspection Inc. and hired engineers to build hired engineers to build a robot that can reach places people cannot and now enables inspection of an entire building.

Sylvain Charlebois, CME's Associate Dean (Academics) and Kerry Godfrey, Director of HTM, met with the Rector and other representatives from Lääne-Viru College in Estonia last week. The contingent from Estonia were interested in how curriculum is developed in a Canadian business school, as well as finding out more about the process for getting new programs accepted at our university.