Our Next World Champion?
It could be in wrestling again, but this time it's a tiny (5-foot-2, 112-pounds) woman everyone is watching. Hazelton's Carol Huynh is the number 1-ranked female in the 48-kilogram category in both the NAIA and Canadian Interuniversity Sport. The Canadian Olympic trials are in December and Huynh's coaches say she has a realistic chance at making the team and getting a medal.

International Dialogue
Canadian Maurice Strong, special advisor to the secretary-general of the United Nations, wins the first Jack P. Blaney award for dialogue. Strong is a distinguished public servant and pre-eminent environmentalist. The Blaney Award is given annually to an individual on the international scene who exemplifies the spirit and programs of the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue.

Igali's Cause
SFU athletics is rallying behind Olympic gold medal winner Daniel Igali in his dream to build a school for his home village in Nigeria. Igali's goal is to raise $300,000. The foundation for the school is already complete through an initial $50,000, and activities, including an elementary school basketball clinic and all proceeds from the Clan's final home basketball game, are helping raise the rest. To participate, contact Igali at danieligali@aol.com.

Solving Scheduling Woes
Computing science student Bistra Dilkina is the outstanding female research undergraduate, according to the Computing Research Association. Dilkina is a research assistant in the intelligent systems lab, where she works on an artificial intelligence project involving the development of a programming system for difficult scheduling problems.

Winning Ways
SFU has a remarkable record with awards from the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). For the third year in a row, the university has won one of the four NSERC doctoral awards. Martin Dvorak from engineering science is this year's winner, Ashley Monks from psychology won last year, and Eldon Emberly from physics won in 2001. Four engineering and science PhD awards are given out nationally each year.

Scots, Wha Hae
From the address to the haggis during Robbie Burns day to dispensing sandwiches to the homeless, Frank Campbell never stops. His energy and enthusiasm, coupled with his willingness to help anyone on campus or off, is a key element in his being given the annual staff achievement award. Campbell runs the television studio in the learning and instructional development centre.

Remembering
Ellen Gee, chair of the department of sociology and the program in Latin American studies, died suddenly in November. She was an authority on Canadian demography, the sociology of aging, and the sociology of the family.

Iris Garland, charter faculty member and founder of the contemporary dance program, died in October. She was a winner of the Canada Trust Teaching Excellence Award and pioneered the teaching of dance and dance theory over the Internet.

Shirley Ann Black, a charter laboratory instructor in chemistry, died in August. She taught many organic chemistry courses over her 30 years at SFU.

Running off with ADIDAS
Cross-country runner Emilie Mondor racks up the wins, both here and in the U.S. She dominates the Canadian championships and defends her title at the NAIA race, breaking a 15-year-old record established by SFU's Leah Pells. And now she has signed a three-year contract with athletic accessories giant Adidas. It means she will have to stop competing for the university, but Mondor says the deal will put her in a better position to achieve her goal of running in the 2004 Olympics in Athens. She will continue her biology studies at SFU.

Labour of Love
The first recipient of the B.C. Federation of Labour's award for excellence in labour studies is third-year student Dale McCartney. He is honoured for his grades and his volunteer service on behalf of the centre for labour studies. He is currently working on a Web site that will serve as an introduction to B.C. labour history.

Violence at Work
An SFU study finds B.C. correctional officers are at higher risk of on-the-job criminal violence than any other employees. Criminology professor Neil Boyd and PhD candidate Aili Malm find that correctional officers make, proportionately, about twice as many Workers' Compensation Board claims resulting from criminal violence than do police officers. The reason: corrections officers are often dealing with pre-trial inmates who are angry and/or withdrawing from drugs. www.neilboyd.net

Culture Club
Primatologist Biruté Galdikas concludes that orangutan populations have their own distinct cultures and that great-ape cultures may have existed for at least 14 million years. Galdikas studies orangutans of Tanjung Puting Park in Borneo and is co-author of the recent paper Orangutan Cultures and the Evolution of Material Culture. www.sciencemag.org

Rock On
What's 3.825 billion years old and lives near Hudson Bay? Answer: the planet's oldest piece of volcanic rock. Found during the summer by earth sciences professor Laurent Godin and others, it could give us clues to the origin of life on Earth.

Those Naughty Victorians
The English department's Colette Colligan looks at Victorian erotica in her doctoral thesis,Obscenity and Empire: England's Obscene Print Culture in the Nineteenth Century. She points out that although the obscenity was meant to provoke and shock, it also allowed the exploration of then taboo subjects such as homosexuality, and helped redefine moral codes, attitudes, and laws. www.sfu.ca/~ccolliga/

Critical Focus
The Royal Society of Canada's Lorne Pierce Medal for outstanding achievement in critical or imaginative literature goes to the English department's Sandra Djwa for her work as biographer, critic, and historian. It's the first time since 1970 the award has gone to a scholar in Western Canada. www.sfu.ca/~djwa/

Earth sciences professor John Clague wins the society's biennial Bancroft Award for exceptional instruction and research in geology. www.sfu.ca/earth-sciences

Ethics and Politics: Strange Bedfellows?
Not for Hal Weinberg. He is SFU's first director of research ethics, winner of the Science Council of B.C. career achievement award, and the re-elected mayor of Anmore. Weinberg is a brain expert who is continuing research into Down syndrome and, except for a three-year period, has been mayor of Anmore since 1987. He is also one of seven from the university awarded Queen's Golden Jubilee Medals.

Moving Pictures
Three of Chris Welsby's experimental films are featured in a major retrospective exhibition touring the world. They appear in Shoot Shoot Shoot: The First Decade of the London Film-Makers' Co-operative & British Avant-Garde Film 1966-76. Welsby, a film and video instructor at SFU's school for the contemporary arts, draws his influences from 20th century artists such as Mark Rothco, Sol Lewit and Agnes Martin.www.sfu.ca/~welsby/

Heads? Or Tails?
You might as well flip a coin as put your fate in the hands of a jury, according to SFU researchers. A 10-year study of the jury system finds that most jurors don't understand the law and most don't understand what constitutes reasonable doubt, says researcher Gordon Rose, a former Lower Mainland drug prosecutor.

Lonely Decision
Dropping out of school is a big step. Yet more than half of aboriginal youths who drop out of school in Alert Bay do so without consulting anyone. They agonize, they weigh the pros and cons, but they make their decision alone. That's the finding of PhD psychology student Kim van der Woerd, who is looking at education and health issues among aboriginal youth. Approximately 61 percent of aboriginal students do not complete Grade 12 within six years of starting high school, compared with 26 percent of non-aboriginal students.

Keep on Truckin'
Surrey campus student Mitch Jarvi is a VIP with the Ford Motor Company. His Web site, devoted to Ford's T150 truck, Harley-Davidson edition, is generating more than 300,000 hits a month. Jarvi and his friend Mike Stephenson got the royal treatment from Ford in January, including a tour of the company's home base in Detroit and attendance at the largest care show in the world. www.fordharley.com

Gold, Silver, Bronze
Librarian Gwen Bird wins four medals from the Gay Games in the 40 - 44 age class. She brings home gold in the 800-metre and 1,500-metre freestyle, silver in the 400-metre freestyle, and bronze in the 200-metre freestyle. The 2002 games, in Sydney, Australia, attracted 1,400 participants.

From Information to Communication
That's how Andrew Feenberg says we move in response to technological innovation. The new Canada Research Chair in the philosophy of technology is looking at the question: Is technology helping or hindering societal progress? aq

Column Art by Greg White

© 2003 aq magazine