New Trail Autumn 2012 by University of Alberta Alumni

au t u m n 2012

UNIVERSIT Y OF ALBERTA

ALUMNI MAGA ZINE

on the

front lines The Global Impact of Virology Research at the U of A

All Star Alumni Bloggers They Have What it Takes 2012 Alumni Awards Celebrating Our Best

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On the cover: Maya Shmulevitz,’96 BSc, points to the protruding cell-attachment proteins of a computer generated virus.

features 10 Sweating the Small Stuff How Virology Research at the U of A is Making its Mark on the World Stage

19 Alumni Awards 2012 Celebrating the Achievements of our Extraordinary Alumni Family

27 A Winning Way With Words Norma Dunning’s Life-changing Decision

28 Balancing the Scales The Challenges of Sustainable Food Production

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Executive Director Sean Price, ’95 BCom, MBA Supervising Editor Cynthia Strawson, ’05 BA Acting Editor Wanda Vivequin Associate Editors Sarah Ligon, Christie Hutchinson Contributing Editor Meghan Sylvester, ’06 Art Directors Marcey Andrews, Ray Au, ’88 BFA Associate Art Director Lisa Hall, ’89 BA Advisory Board Anne Bailey, ’84 BA; Linda Banister, ’83 BCom, ’87 MPM; Jason Cobb, ’96 BA; Susan Colberg, ’83 BFA, ’91 MVA; Deb Hammacher; Lawrence Kwok, ’04 BSc(Eng); John Mahon, ’76 BMus, ’83 MBA; Robert Moyles, ’86 BCom; Julie Naylor, ’95 BA, ’05 MA CONTACT US E-mail (Comments/Letters/Class Notes) alumni@ualberta.ca Address Updates 780-492-3471; toll free 1-866-492-7516 or alumrec@ualberta.ca Call 780-492-3224; toll free 1-800-661-2593 Mail

30 A Familiar Face in a New Role Ralph Young Takes Over as University Chancellor from Linda Hughes

34 Net Worked Five Young Alumni Turn Personal Blogging into Professional Careers

departments 34

Bear Country The U of A Community

Whatsoever Things Are True Column by Aritha van Herk

Question Period Kirstin Kotelko on Being a Trailblazer

41 Trails Art from an Alumnus

Office of Alumni Relations, University of Alberta, Main Floor, Enterprise Square, 10230 Jasper Avenue, Edmonton, AB T5J 4P6

Facebook U of A Alumni Association Twitter @UofA_Alumni TO ADVERTISE E-MAIL ashley.davis@ualberta.ca This University of Alberta Alumni Association magazine is published three times a year and mailed free to over 138,000 alumni. The views and opinions expressed in the magazine are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the University or the Alumni Association. All material copyright ©. New Trail cannot be held responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or photographs. ISSN: 0824-8125 Copyright 2011 Publications Mail Agreement No. 40112326 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Office of Alumni Relations University of Alberta, Main Floor, Enterprise Square 10230 Jasper Avenue Edmonton, AB T5J 4P6

42 Events In Edmonton and Beyond 44

Class Notes Keeping Classmates Up to Date

In Memoriam Bidding Farewell to Friends

Photo Finish The Picture-Perfect Finale enviroink.indd 1

10/1/08 10:44:38 AM

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OFFICE OF ALUMNI RELATIONS

Sean Price, ’95 BCom, MBA Associate Vice-President Cynthia Strawson, ’05 BA Director, Marketing, Communications & Affinity Relationships Tracy Salmon, ’91 BA, ’96 MSc Acting Director, Alumni Programs Manager, Alumni Travel & Edmonton Programs Kyla Amrhein, ’09 BA Volunteer Co-ordinator Larissa Brese, ’09 BA Assistant, Alumni Branches Chloe Chalmers, ’00 BA Co-ordinator, Student Engagement Lesley Dirkson Administrative Assistant/Receptionist Colleen Elliott, ’94 BEd Co-ordinator, Alumni Special Events Coleen Graham, ’88 BSc(HEc), ’93 MEd Executive Project Manager Lisa Hall, ’89 BA Co-ordinator, Graphic Communications Jennifer Jenkins, ’95 BEd Class Giving Co-ordinator Shelley Josey, ’02 MEd Assistant, Alumni Recognition Jodeen Litwin, ’90 BSc(HEc) Co-ordinator, Alumni Recognition Sarah Ligon Communications Co-ordinator Cristine Myhre Co-ordinator, Alumni Chapters John Perrino, ’93 BA(RecAdmin) Co-ordinator, Alumni Branches Andrea Porter, ’03 BCom Finance and HR Co-ordinator Daven Seeberran Class Giving Co-ordinator Lindsay Sylvester Marketing Lead Meghan Sylvester, ’06 BA Marketing and Communications Assistant Angela Tom, ’03 BA Co-ordinator, Edmonton Programs Diane Tougas Assistant to the Associate Vice-President Vi Warkentin Assistant, Alumni Chapters Katy Yachimec, ’04 BA Assistant, Edmonton Programs Debbie Yee, ’92 BA Co-ordinator, Electronic Communication

Alumni Council Executive President Jane Halford, ’94 BCom President Elect Glenn Stowkowy, ’76 BSc(ElecE) Past-President, Vice-President: Nominating & Bylaws Jim Hole, ’79 BSc(Ag) Vice-President: Reputation & Messaging Mary Pat Barry, ’04 MA Vice-President: Educational Engagement Lorne Parker, ’08 EdD Vice-President: Alumni Giving Ximena Ramos Salas, ’07 MSc Vice-President: Student Engagement Kirstin Kotelko, ’06 BSc Vice-President: Histories & Traditions Cindie LeBlanc, ’01 BA

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Vice-President: Volunteerism Rob Parks, ’87 BEd, ’99 MBA Board of Governors Representatives: Jim Hole ’79 BSc(Ag) Don Fleming, ’76 BEd Senate Representatives Stephen Leppard, ’86 BEd, ’92 MEd, ’03 EdD Anne Lopushinsky, ’79 BSc Secretary Linda Banister, ’83 BCom, ’87 MPM Faculty Representatives Academic Representative Jason Acker, ’95 BSc, ’97 MSc,’00 PhD,’09 MBA Agricultural, Life & Environmental Science Kirstin Kotelko, ’06 BSc Arts Michael Janz, ’08 BA Augustana Jason Collins, ’97 BA Business Rob Parks ’87 BEd, ’99 MBA Campus Saint-Jean Cindie LeBlanc, ’01 BA Dentistry Matthew Woynorowski, ’05 BSc, ’10 DDS Education Lorne Parker, ’08 BEd Engineering vacant Extension Mary Pat Barry, ’04 MA Graduate Studies vacant Law William Ostapek, ’79 BSc, ’83 LLB Medicine vacant Native Studies Darlene Bouvier, ’91 BA, ’09 BA(NS) Nursing Janis Sasaki, ’83 BScN, ’87 LLB Pharmacy Adam Gordon, ’08 BSc (Pharm) Physical Education & Recreation Wanda Wetterberg, ’74 BA Public Health Ximena Ramos Salas, ’87 BSc Rehabilitation Medicine Linda Miller, ’89 BSc Science Luca Vanzella, ’81 BSc, ’88 MSc Members at Large Linda Banister, ’83 BCom, ’87 MPM Jason Krips, ’93 BCom, ’96 LLB Ex Officio Honorary President Indira Samarasekera Vice-President Advancement O’Neil Outar Vice-President (University Relations) Debra Pozega Osburn Executive Director Alumni Association Sean Price, ’95 BCom, MBA Dean of Students Frank Robinson Graduate Students’ Association Huimin Zhong Students’ Union Colten Yamagishi

upfront On June 25, 2012, family, friends and colleagues bade farewell to one of our alumni family, Michelle Shegelski (née Ernst), ’07 BA, at a service that recalled the life of a young woman cut short by the tragic events at HUB Mall 10 days earlier. Michelle’s passing, along with that of two other security guards on June 15, shook our campus community to its core and connected us in collective shock and grief. To Michelle’s family and friends, we extend our deepest sympathies. The event reminded us again how much we value our relationships with each and every one of you—our U of A alumni—and how strong these connections are. In the spirit of our commitment to this connection—and keeping you connected with the University throughout all stages of your life—our staff team have re-launched as the Office of Alumni Relations. Also reflecting this commitment is a new look to this magazine. We hope you are enjoying the redesigned and re-imagined New Trail, this being our fourth issue since launching the new look a year ago. Each issue is wrapped around a theme, this one being sustainability and the intricate connections among the environment, agriculture, food and human physical and social health. The first section includes Bear Country, an invitation to explore recent and interesting happenings around campus, and then introduces a “big think” article—something to make you proud. In this issue we have a piece on virology research at the U of A. We also include a current student voice, smaller features and a Q & A, and we round off the magazine with our ever-popular Class Notes section. The redesign seeks to reflect the incredible diversity of you, our readership, as well as the tremendous activity at our university. We understand New Trail is an important means of staying connected with your alma mater. Please continue to let us know how we’re doing.

Jane Halford, ’94 BCom, President, Alumni Association

Sean Price, ’95 BCom, MBA, Associate Vice-President, Alumni Relations; Executive Director, Alumni Association

a campus that’s truly “green and gold” Sustainability by the Numbers

Convocation stories

30%

250

Over two weeks This Past june, the U of A graduated 6,624 students. Meet Some of The members of the class of 2012 Who are now part of our big alumni family.

Energy the U of A produces each year through the District Energy System

Tonnes of organic waste collected for composting in 2011-12

Tonnes of paper and cardboard recycled last year

370,000

676

Beverage containers recycled in 2010-11

126,000,000

2,300,000

Litres of water conserved between 2005 and 2011

Tonnes of CO2 emissions reduced through the Energy Management Program since 1975

15 MILLION Dollars saved in 2009-10 due to the U of A’s Energy Management Program

University of Alberta—a great university and a great employer! My name is Farzana Nisar Gohar. I worked on campus full time since 2005 and at the same time completed my master’s degree in educational leadership and administration. What an awesome experience! One of the best and thrilling parts of my convocation on June 12, 2012, was my family back home was able to watch me via the live webcast while I was crossing the stage. Way to go U of A!!! Farzana Nisar Gohar

Thanks for everything @UofA_Augustana. I may be done with my degree, but I continue to learn from the incredible people I met there. #MadProps Nick Andrew Sommer

Convocation on Tuesday and then moving to Ukraine to intern for the largest marketing agency in the country, thanks to @UAlberta. #UAlberta12 Stephan Bociurkiw

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Each year, thousands of students move out of the University of Alberta’s student residences. To help students divert waste from the landfill, the Office of Sustainability partnered with campus and community organizations to implement the first annual Eco Move Out.

the results are in!

Sustainability is the process of living within the limits of available physical, natural and social resources in ways that allow the living systems in which humans are embedded to thrive in perpetuity.” —Academic Advisory Committee Working Definition, Office of Sustainability, 2010

Eco Move Out helps residents reduce waste by collecting nontraditional items for reuse or recycling. For two weeks in April, Eco Move Out bins were available at several residences to collect electronics, non-perishable food items and toiletries, empty personal care and beauty containers, and reusable clothing and household items. The items were donated to Shanked Computer Recycling Inc., the Campus Food Bank, Goodwill Industries of Alberta, Homeward Trust Edmonton’s FIND and Terracycle. For more information about sustainability at the University of Alberta,visit sustainability.ualberta.ca.

ELECTRONICS

2,890 lbs to be recycled by Shanked Computer Recycling

6,576 lbs that’s almost

3,000 kgs of goods Which were either donated or recycled thanks to Eco Move Out 2012.

NON-PERISHABLE FOOD ITEMS AND TOILETRIES

EMPTY PERSONAL CARE AND BEAUTY CONTAINERS

REUSABLE CLOTHING AND HOUSEHOLD ITEMS

912 lbs

645 containers

2,648 lbs

donated to the Campus Food Bank

The U of A has been named one of Canada’s Greenest Employers for four years running. 4 newtrail.ualberta.ca

A grand total of

to be transformed into recycled plastic by Terracycle

donated to Goodwill Industries of Alberta

Professor Roger Epp, ’84 BA, shows off one of the 10 solar panels installed on the roof of Augustana’s Convocation Centre. The panels relieve up to 30 per cent of the water-heating requirements of the campus cafeteria and gym.

Did you know that egg shell membranes could help power cars of the future? A team led by materials engineering professor David Mitlin is using carbonized eggshell membranes to build supercapacitors that are smaller than a quarter, charge up almost instantaneously, hold three times the energy of current designs, and are remarkably resistant to corrosion. Did You Know?

Did you know that eating fish could help stave off vision loss in old age? Did You A research team from the U of A’s Know? Department of Ophthalmology recently released a study which pinpointed a certain omega-3 fatty acid, found in oily fish such as salmon, that prevented the build-up of a toxic molecule which damages the retina with age.

bottom right photo by richard siemens

Supporting Sustainable Change Thanks to savings created through recycling and energy-efficiency projects on campus, students, staff and faculty have access to two funding programs—Green Grants and the Sustainability Enhancement Fund—that support sustainability-related project ideas. Recent projects include an in-vessel composter at Augustana Campus, the rehabilitation of two outdoor spaces for growing food and indigenous herbs at the Faculty of Education, and the Eco Car team, a student group that designed and built a zero-emission, sustainability focused vehicle (shown above). The team competes with the vehicle all over the world and promotes alternative energy through demonstrations at local schools and community events.

Did You Know?

Did you know that behavioural psychologist Sheree Kwong See uses puppets to test children’s reactions to stereotypes of older people?

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Other New “Kids” on Campus New Coaches, new deans and a new provost all begin new terms this fall.

Head Hockey Coach

New Kid on Campus

Student Life

Nikita-Kiran Singh is one smart cookie. The Red Deer resident and valedictorian at Hunting Hills High School has racked up $103,000 in scholarships, which should just about cover her tuition, room and board for the next four years. After weighing her options, she says, the choice to attend the U of A was a no-brainer. What made you decide to attend the U of A? I was considering a few different schools—University of Calgary, McGill, Toronto—but after visiting them all, I just felt the best at the U of A. Most of my family went to the U of A, and I have lots of family in Edmonton, so I would have the greatest support. And, just walking around the U of A campus, I felt like I was home.

What courses are you most looking forward to this fall? I’m enrolled in a comparative literature class. I know I’m in a science program, but I also really like reading and writing. And I’m really excited about taking a French class. Learning languages is a hobby of mine. I also speak 6 newtrail.ualberta.ca

Head Basketball Coach Barnaby Craddock takes over the Golden Bears basketball team, after serving as head coach of the Fraser Valley Cascades for the last five years.

Provost and Vice-President (Academic) Dean of rehab medicine, Martin Ferguson-Pell, steps in for 2012‑2013 while current provost Carl Amrhein is on sabbatical.

Dean of Science Jonathan Schaeffer takes the helm in the Faculty of Science after being a member of the U of A faculty for 28 years. He most recently served as vice-provost and associate vice-president (information technology).

Singh in front of the U of A’s new CCIS building

Hindi, and I went on exchange with my school to France last year, so I want to get better at French. What most excites you about heading off to university? The challenge of moving away, and meeting new people, and taking all of these interesting courses. At home, I dance a lot—jazz, tap and ballet—so I’m looking into dance classes, maybe with Orchesis. The ballroom dance club sounds

like fun. Also, I love to write. I was the editor of our school literary magazine, so I want to look into writing opportunities. What was your first impression of campus? When I saw the new science building, CCIS, I thought, “Wow, this is so cool.” It made me really excited to think that I would be taking classes there. And then there are all the historical buildings. It’s just such a pretty campus.

Dean of Native Studies Brendan Hokowhitu will begin a five-year appointment as dean of the Faculty of Native Studies later this year. Hokowhitu was a professor and associate dean of humanities at the University of Otago, New Zealand.

Dean of Medicine & Dentistry D. Douglas Miller takes the lead of the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry. He was most recently a physician and clinical scientist from the Georgia Health Sciences University.

photo by John Ulan

What do you plan to study? Biological sciences. My ultimate goal is to apply to medical school. From the time I was young, I wanted to be in a profession that allowed me to help people, and I really love science.

Ian Herbers, ’92 BPE, most recently the head coach of the Milwaukee Admirals, will head up the Golden Bears hockey team, which was 20‑6‑2 last year.

U of A Professor Receives America’s Highest Civilian Award

left photo supplied by jay hirabayashi

Hirabayashi as a university student

Did you know that playing video games might just help improve brain function? Jacqueline Pei from the U of A’s Department of Educational Psychology is looking at innovative ways to use video games to treat Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). Her research team has found that, with the help of a video game called Caribbean Quest, students with FASD have shown positive signs of improvement in the areas of cognitive functioning and self-regulation. Did You Know?

Edmonton sociologist Gordon Hirabayashi, who died in January at 93, was recognized with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded posthumously by U.S. President Barack Obama in May at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. Hirabayashi was honoured for his fight against the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War. Born in Seattle, Washington, Hirabayashi was a university student when he refused a 1942 order to report for transfer to an internment camp in the months following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour. He spent more than a year in prison as a result of his protest. His conviction was overturned in 1986, and, in 1999, the area once occupied by the Arizona prison where Hirabayashi served out his sentence was renamed in his honour. “He waited a long time to have his stand for justice vindicated in the courts—over 40 years,” his son Jay Hirabayashi, ’73 BA, told the Edmonton Journal. “It’s very significant for us that President Obama was thoughtful and considerate enough to recognize what my dad did to contribute to the civil rights movement.” The medal is given for contributions to American national interest, world peace and cultural endeavours. This year, Hirabayashi was one of 13 recipients, including singer Bob Dylan, novelist Toni Morrison and pioneer astronaut John Glenn.

U of A researchers help find the elusive Higgs This past July, physicists at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN outside Geneva, Switzerland, revealed a new subatomic particle that they believe is the elusive Higgs boson—the key to understanding why there is life in the universe. Researchers at the U of A were heavily involved in the construction and installation of the ATLAS detector, one of two detectors that independently observed that mystery particle. Over the years professors James Pinfold, Doug Gingrich and Roger Moore, as well as members of their particle physics group, have spent countless hours working on design, construction and data analysis on the U of A campus and made dozens of trips to CERN to install equipment, run beam tests and take results directly from the ATLAS detector. Although there is much work still to be done in determining the precise nature of the particle and its significance for our understanding of the universe, the magnitude of the discovery is immense, especially for those who have been intimately involved in the project from the beginning. “This is a moment particle physics has been waiting for,” says Gingrich. “It renews the dream many of us first had 20 years ago when we set out to discover the Higgs boson. The page turns, as we now proceed to study the properties of this new particle and determine its true identity.” new trail autumn 2012 7

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The Commonest of Cures by Aritha van Herk

know a woman who can make the most savoury of broths out of a mere handful of ingredients. Every time I visit, a pot of soup sits queenly on her stove, wafting the smell only soup can emanate, with its accompaniment of heat and comfort. She believes passionately that soup is a reflection of care and love, and she puts that mindfulness into her soups, which are as much her signature as her name. I am a soup enthusiast, an aficionado of soups and an inveterate maker of soups. In truth, I appreciate soup more than fine dining, extravagant ingredients, subtle sauces or perfect plating. My cultural background decrees this. In my Dutch Calvinist family, Sundays were a day of rest: we did necessary chores but spent the day quietly, and soup was our main meal. Made the day before, it required no extra preparation, and signalled a ritual we practised as part of the day’s flavour, “Sunday Soup.” Of course, soup serves as an overfamiliar metaphor. We all know the story about stone soup readily concocted out of water, stones and the small handfuls of spices, rice and vegetable scraps that are shared. I am justly cynical about Chicken Soup’s franchised potential for the soul, with its motivational remedies. Groucho Marx’s

recipe for the film Duck Soup is more to my liking: “Take two turkeys, one goose, four cabbages, but no duck, and mix them together. After one taste, you’ll duck soup for the rest of your life.” For those who think soup is the equivalent of opening a tin of Campbell’s, a greater truth speaks. Soup is a potential counter-measure to our carelessness about sustainability, our terrible addiction to plenty, our expectation that food will always be readily available and that we will enjoy choice and variety, affordability and access. In Canada, we spend only one-eighth of our income on food. How fortunate, how well-fed and how casually oblivious we are. Because every year, the average Canadian family household produces 275 kilograms of food waste. Twentyfive per cent of this food goes into the garbage (as opposed to recycling or composting). Most of it is edible. This is a shocking statistic, the shadow side of the abundance that we take for granted. We expect to be able to buy bananas and strawberries in the dead of winter and fresh asparagus all year round. Add to this pervasive attitude the fact that our food is plentiful and incredibly varied, and we demonstrate collectively a spoiled and heedless assumption. I think of our perverse aesthetic of the

dandelion as a weed. Instead of spraying them with chemicals, let’s harvest the leaves when they are young and tender, and celebrate spring and summer with dandelion greens, dandelion flower fritters and dandelion root tea. I think of beet tops, celery ends, broccoli stems. I think of onion and garlic skins, carrot and potato peelings. Conscientious folks put them into compost bins. Others put them in the garbage, never thinking they are throwing out the equivalent of feeding another person every year. These leftovers, boiled in a pot with a few litres of water and spices, make a fabulous stock, the basis for any kind of soup. If every one of us made a weekly vegetable soup out of the scraps we compost or discard, our health would be better, our smiles would be wider, our lives would be warmer. And so, as a gesture to wellness and sustainability, I am in favour of one small step. On the next rainy day, make a pot of soup. Dandelion Greens Soup, anyone? The pot is boiling. My kitchen smells glorious.

Aritha van Herk, ’76 BA, ’78 MA, makes soup to clear her head, to celebrate friends and to cure melancholia. She lives and writes in Calgary, Alberta. new trail autumn 2012 9

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by rick pilger

smallstuff sweating the

The work of internationally recognized virologists at the University of Alberta has propelled the University to the front lines of a biological war against viral disease.

hey exist at the very edge of life: not alive in the way we normally imagine life, but not exactly lifeless, either. Outside the cell of a susceptible host, a virus is no more alive than a grain of salt. Once it penetrates a targeted cell, however, it commandeers the cell’s reproductive technology and puts it to its own use, churning out copy after copy of itself. Viruses are the most abundant biological entities on earth, outnum bering all others put together. Viruses are studies in minimalism. They are simply a snippet of genetic material (DNA or RNA) wrapped up in a protein coat and, in some viruses, augmented by an outer coat of lipid material torn from the cell of a host. It wasn’t until after the advent of the electron microscope in the 1930s that anyone actually saw a virus and witnessed their amazing diversity of shapes.

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— Michael Houghton Micheal Houghton

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Viruses have afflicted humankind since the dawn of history, and, despite some medical triumphs—perhaps most notably the eradication of smallpox and the suppression of polio—viruses continue to have enormous impact on human health and mortality throughout the world. “Back in the ’60s and ’70s, we thought we had pretty much conquered infectious disease,” wryly notes Michael Houghton, who holds the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Virology at the U of A. But then came HIV and SARS, new pandemic influenza strains and an awakening to the damage wrought by hepatitis viruses. Any sense of complacency was shattered, and the war on viral diseases was stepped up. Fresh efforts were made to understand exactly how viruses are able to enter cells and hijack their reproductive capability. British-born Houghton is a veteran of the war against viral disease. In 1989, working with colleagues at the California-based biotechnology company Chiron, he was the first to identify the hepatitis C virus. “It was like looking for a needle in a haystack,” says Houghton, recalling the seven-year search for the virus, which infects more than 170 million people around the world, including 300,000 Canadians. This year, more than 15,000 people in North America will die from hepatitis C, which can lead to cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer. The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is most readily spread through blood, so once the virus was identified, Houghton was able to develop a blood-screening test to protect patients who receive blood transfusions. Previously, those receiving a blood transfusion had a onein-20 chance of contracting hepatitis C. “Now the risk is so low we can hardly measure it,” says Houghton.

photo by michael holly

“The virology and immunology work being done at this university is outstanding. It’s one of the best departments of its kind in the world.”

photo by richard siemens

Since developing the blood-screening test, Houghton has been working on a vaccine for hepatitis C. Given the variability of HCV—there are at least six major strains with hundreds of subtypes, and the virus is constantly evolving—many researchers thought it would be impossible to develop one vaccine that could neutralize the many types. When the Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology was created at the U of A two years ago, Houghton accepted the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in virology and came to Alberta to continue his quest for a vaccine. “The virology and immunology work being done at this university is outstanding. It’s one of the best departments of its kind in the world,” he says. The new institute aims to reduce the burden of viral disease around the world. It unites a consortium of researchers that supports discoveries in vaccines, treatments and diagnostic tests for viral diseases affecting humans. Its two dozen principal researchers bring a diversity of backgrounds to research, focused on everything from how to prevent organ transplant recipients from viral disease to how viruses evade the body’s killer cells. Houghton’s work since accepting the CERC has already led to a major breakthrough. In February 2012, he revealed at a CERC summit in Vancouver that a vaccine prototype developed in collaboration with his research associate, John Law, is capable of causing an immune response. Over the next few years, Houghton and Lorne Tyrrell, director of the Li Ka Shing Institute, will test an augmented version of the vaccine in a group of Canadians with the highest risk of contracting hepatitis C—intravenous drug users.

Norm Kneteman (left) and Lorne Tyrrell

Houghton’s huge step toward a hepatitis C vaccine is the latest of several important contributions U of A researchers have made to the advancement of virology. A seminal figure in virology at the University is John S. Colter, ’45 BSc. As chair of the University’s biochemistry department from 1961 until 1987, he attracted talented young researchers and built the department into one of the best in North America. A renowned virologist himself—for 27 years an associate editor of the journal Virology—Colter did pioneering work isolating infectious RNA from mammalian viruses. In 1957, he published the revolutionary finding that genetic material from positivestrand RNA viruses was itself infectious. It was through Colter that Tyrrell— the visionary behind the Li Ka Shing Institute—developed his interest in virology. Tyrrell, a former dean of the U of A’s Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, is one of the most honoured individuals in Canadian medicine. In 1986, having taught part of a new graduate course

in virology, he developed an interest in the hepatitis B virus (HBV), which is a major problem in the developing world. A colleague in the chemistry department, Morris Robins, shared his enthusiasm, and together they went to work to find an antiviral agent. That work continued even after Robins relocated to an American university and, in 1998, resulted in the licensing of the first oral antiviral agent to treat chronic HBV infection. Today, that antiviral agent, lamivudine, is licensed in more than 200 countries, with cumulative sales of about $5 billion. Second- and third-generation oral antivirals have followed. Tyrrell was also involved in another of the University’s important contributions to virology. With Norm Kneteman, a U of A professor of surgery, and graduate student David Mercer, ’92 BMed Sc,’94 MD, ’00 PhD, Tyrrell was part of the team that developed a novel mouse model for hepatitis testing. This breakthrough, published in the journal Nature Medicine in 2001, provided the first non-primate animal for practical new trail autumn 2012 13

NUMBER OF U OF A RESEARCHERS STUDYING VIRUSES OR IMMUNE RESPONSE TO VIRAL INFECTIONS: VALUE OF VIROLOGYIMMUNOLOGY GRANTS/ FUNDING HELD BY U OF A RESEARCHERS:

FACULTIES AND DEPARTMENTS INVOLVED IN VIROLOGY: FACULTY OF MEDICINE & DENTISTRY DEPARTMENT OF BIOCHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT OF CELL BIOLOGY DEPARTMENT OF MEDICAL MICROBIOLOGY & IMMUNOLOGY DEPARTMENT OF MEDICINE DEPARTMENT OF LABORATORY MEDICINE & PATHOLOGY DEPARTMENT OF ONCOLOGY DEPARTMENT OF PEDIATRICS DEPARTMENT OF SURGERY FACULTY OF SCIENCE DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY FACULTY OF PHARMACY & PHARMACEUTICAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT OF PHARMACEUTICAL SCIENCES

$10 MILLION $39.4 MILLION $25 MILLION* CANADIAN INSTITUTES OF HEALTH RESEARCH

CANADIAN FOUNDATION FOR INNOVATION

GLAXOSMITHKLINE

testing of drugs intended for treatment of hepatitis C. The company formed to commercialize the patented technology, KMT Hepatech Inc., now does testing for clients around the world and acts as the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s primary site for animal-model testing of antivirals against hepatitis C. Lorne Babiuk is another highly acclaimed researcher involved in the Li Ka Shing Institute. As the U of A’s vice-president (research), Babiuk doesn’t get to spend much time in the laboratory these days, but shares his expertise as one of the institute’s principal investigators. Babiuk is a top-ranked researcher in zoonotic diseases—diseases that pass from animals to humans. He came to

Lorne Babiuk

14 newtrail.ualberta.ca

the U of A from the University of Saskatchewan school of veterinary medicine, where he played a key role in growing the Vaccine and Infectious Diseases Organization (VIDO) from a little-known operation to an internationally recognized institute with more than 170 researchers. Among Babiuk’s important contributions to virology is his work related to rotavirus, a virus identified in animals and children suffering from acute diarrhea. After developing a new technique to grow the virus in the laboratory, Babiuk created a vaccine to control the disease in calves, saving the cattle industry about $300 million annually. The same technology was then used to produce a vaccine for children.

Before the vaccine, rotavirus infections had claimed the lives of about 500,000 children each year. The disease is now all but eliminated in North America and significantly reduced elsewhere. Babiuk’s primary focus these days is on improving existing vaccines and finding better ways to administer them without using needles. He recently received one of the world’s most prestigious awards for medical research, the Canada Gairdner Wightman Award, for his work in vaccine development. In his role as research vice-president, Babiuk supported Tyrrell’s vision and hard work, which brought about the Li Ka Shing Institute. The institute was created in 2010 thanks to a $25-million donation from Hong Kong businessman and philanthropist Li Ka Shing and a commitment of $52.5 million in new related funding from the Alberta government. Li’s donation, the largest cash gift in the University’s history, recognized the U of A’s excellence in virology. It was also the result of some interesting points of convergence. “There were some mutual interests—a perfect storm if you will,” explains Tyrrell. “With our development of a hepatitis B treatment, we had done something of benefit to the people of China, where there are about 150 million infected with the virus,” he says. (Worldwide, the number is close to 400 million people infected.) And, Tyrrell notes, Alberta has contributed to the fortunes of Li, the majority shareholder in Husky Oil. Today, the reputation and expertise of the Li Ka Shing Institute’s senior faculty has enabled recruitment of some of the best and brightest young researchers.

photo by richard siemens

*$20 million (over 20 years) plus $5 million recent additional endowment (2010-2012)

10,000 BC

1157 BC

Believed to have emerged in human populations

Pharaoh Ramses V dies, his mummified remains bear pustules characteristic of smallpox disease

1096-1291 16TH CENTURY

Crusaders bring smallpox to Europe

Smallpox well established over most of Europe Successive waves of European explorers and colonization serve to spread the disease to other countries

SMALLPOX IMPACT HISTORY SMALLPOX IS AN ACUTE CONTAGIOUS DISEASE CAUSED BY VARIOLA VIRUS, A MEMBER OF THE ORTHOPOX VIRUS FAMILY

Smallpox is one of the most devastating diseases known to humanity. For centuries, repeated epidemics swept across continents, decimating populations and changing the course of history.

SMALLPOX IS THE ONLY HUMAN DISEASE EVER TO HAVE BEEN ERADICATED

18TH CENTURY

Leading cause of death in the 18th century 1796

One in 10 children die in Sweden

First ever experimental test of a safe smallpox vaccine

One in 7 children die in Russia

Killed an estimated

400,000

1950

by the end of the century

1967

WHO initiates the Intensified Smallpox Eradication Program Vaccination is responsible for a drop to an annual

150 YEARS

after the introduction of vaccination, an estimated

50 MILLION CASES

occurred in the world each year

10-15 MILLION CASES 1977

Last naturally occurring detected case, Somalia 1980

WHO CERTIFIES ERADICATION OF SMALLPOX

Like Water Off a Duck’s Back Katherine Magor is not immune to the sense of beauty and serenity kindled by the sight of a mallard paddling on a wilderness pond. But she sees more than an expression of nature’s charm; she also sees a perfect viral host.

Ducks—mallards, in particular—are a natural host of the influenza virus, explains the U of A biology professor. Ducks carry the virus with them on their vast migrations, shedding it in ponds and lakes wherever they go. From water, the virus finds its way into animals—pigs, usually— where it is changed into a form that can be transmitted among mammals. “I’m trying to understand, at the molecular level, why ducks aren’t harmed by strains of flu that can kill humans, pigs, mice…anything else,” says Magor, a principal investigator with the Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology. A comment at a conference sent Magor on a new track of research not long ago. “We heard someone say bioinformatics (used to search the DNA sequences of organisms) showed chickens don’t have that gene,” she says, referring to retinoic acid inducible gene-I, or RIG-I, a gene ducks have that allows their bodies to detect the flu virus. “It’s easy to understand why chickens are dead in 18 hours, and ducks survive,” says Magor. Since confirming the gene’s absence in chickens, she has been working with the battery of genes—at least 100 of them—that are turned on as part of the duck’s immune response to protect them from the deadly influenza virus. “Very few of them have been characterized,” she says. “We are taking them one at a time and putting them into chicken cells that don’t otherwise respond well to the virus to see the antiviral effect they promote.” Timing of immune response is another focus of Magor’s research. “Somehow the virus has figured out how to shut down our response, and, for a couple of days, it’s there replicating in us,” she says. Finding out how the virus does this could potentially lead to better treatment by developing ways to trigger immune response genes faster in humans. new trail autumn 2012 15

a pox on viruses David Evans is regarded as one of the world’s top experts on poxviruses. As a voting member of the World Health Organization’s smallpox scientific advisory committee, he has been called on to assess high-security storage facilities in the U.S. and Russia where the only remaining smallpox viruses are protected. He has spent 25 years studying one particular poxvirus: vaccinia, the virus used for vaccination against smallpox.

Recently, Evans, associate director of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology, has turned his attention to using vaccinia as a therapeutic agent for killing cancer cells. His prime collaborator in this research is U of A professor of experimental oncology, Mary Hitt. She has expertise in cancer testing using preclinical animal models and has carried out research using adenoviruses—the virus most often used for gene therapy—to target cancer cells. The idea of using the vaccinia virus to attack tumour cells is not new. What Evans and Hitt are focusing on are ways to create a modified vaccinia virus that is capable of destroying cancer cells yet very safe to use. Evans and Hitt’s research, sponsored by the Alberta Cancer Foundation, has raised intriguing questions about some of the genes involved in helping the virus replicate. “What I got interested in was how we could make the virus safer by disrupting or knocking out some of the genes involved in nucleotide metabolism to restrict the growth of the virus to just cancer cells,” he says. Evans explains that when the vaccinia virus infects a cell, that cell 16 newtrail.ualberta.ca

may be resting, not prepared for replication. That’s far from ideal for the virus which, unable to reproduce on its own, must hijack the cell’s systems for its own reproductive purposes. So the vaccinia carries, encoded in its DNA, genes that allow it to fire up a resting cell’s reproductive machinery. The research is looking at creating a modified vaccinia strain by knocking out as many genes as possible that the virus uses to replicate even in resting cells. Given that cancer involves uncontrolled cell reproduction, the modified virus should continue to target cancer cells but would be less toxic to normal cells. “It’s a juggling act,” says Evans. “You don’t want to make such a gutless virus that it can’t attack and kill the tumour cells but, at the same time, you don’t want to leave such remaining virulence that it’s a hazard to the rest of the animal or patient.” The results of the experiments— some using immunosuppressed mice, others using mice with functioning immune systems—have produced encouraging results. “It’s early days yet, but we think that this is certainly a strategy for making these viruses safer.”

Among these is Maya Shmulevitz, ’96 BSc, who joined the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the U of A in 2011, relocating from Dalhousie. There, she worked with U of A alumnus Patrick Lee, ’70 BSc, ’78 PhD, who in 1995 discovered that a medically benign virus, the reovirus, could infect and kill cancer cells. “One of the very attractive features of joining the institute was the sheer number of world-class virologists all working together in one space. The close proximity means that different laboratories share common reagents (substances used in chemical reactions) and methodologies, and have stimulating discussions about viruses on a daily basis. The atmosphere is as exciting as I hoped it would be,” says Shmulevitz. Shmulevitz works on “supercharging” oncolytic viruses and exploring their potential in cancer therapy. “We commonly associate viruses with disease, but some viruses can also be used for therapy. Oncolytic viruses are viruses that replicate efficiently in cancer cells but not in normal cells. Such viruses offer tremendous potential for cancer therapy,” says Shmulevitz. “We anticipate that within 20 years, therapeutic viruses will be viable health solutions. We believe that understanding and optimizing oncolytic viruses now, will ensure the success of virotherapy in the near future,” she adds. Another recent addition to the U of A virology faculty is David Marchant. The native of British Columbia did his PhD in HIV molecular biology at University College, London, where he became interested in respiratory viruses. Marchant, who took up duties this spring at the U of A as assistant

photo by john ulan

Maya Shmulevitz,’96 BSc and graduate student Adil Mohamed, ’08 BSc, ’11 BSc

professor, plans to focus his research on respiratory infections that cross from the lungs into the heart, causing myocarditis. The Li Ka Shing Institute shares a close working relationship with the Alberta Provincial Laboratory of Public Health and its virologists. Recent recruit Julian Tang works in all aspects of clinical virology, including the epidemiology, diagnosis, pathogenesis and treatment of viral diseases. A native of Singapore, he has a particular interest in viral diseases spread through the air. Lilly Pang, also working at the provincial lab, brings an expertise in gastrointestinal infections to collaborations with U of A researchers. She has done notable work relating to the norovirus, its associated gastroenteritis outbreaks and its unique patterns of infections. “Alberta is an ideal place to study norovirus infection and its pathogenesis,” she says, pointing out that the province is relatively isolated from sources of new infection, has long winters and has an excellent system in place for monitoring gastroenteritis. While discovery is the lifeblood of

“We anticipate that within 20 years, therapeutic viruses will be viable health solutions. We believe that understanding and optimizing oncolytic viruses now, will ensure the success of virotherapy in the near future.” — Maya Shmulevitz

the institute, both Tyrrell and Houghton agree that the equally vital focus must be on taking research findings from the laboratory to the hospital bed. “We are all about taking discovery research and translating it,” says Tyrrell. “We recognize the importance of using our research to help patients, and to help the economy,” says Houghton, referring not just to the possible commercialization of discoveries but also to the reduction in medical costs. Houghton has begun to explore the possible involvement of viruses

in a variety of diseases not firmly linked to viral infections—conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease and rheumatoid arthritis. “There are probably viruses causing a lot more disease than we currently know about,” he says. “To be able to affect human health positively has always been my goal,” says Houghton. Through groundbreaking research at the U of A, he and his colleagues waging the war on viruses are doing just that. new trail autumn 2012 17

PL A N

Roadtrip to see your classmates at

S E L A MNI

AELEKUEND•2012 W

Join us for: Friday, September 21

Saturday, September 22

Devonian Botanic Garden Tour and Lunch

Faculty of ALES Alumni Breakfast

11 am – 3 pm, Cost $25.00/person (includes transportation)

9 am – 11 am, Hotel MacDonald, Complimentary, Space is limited

Human Ecology Clothing and Textiles Collection Tour Pre-registration is required (maximum 8 per tour). Tour times 1:30 pm, 2:00 pm, 2:30 pm and 3:00 pm, No charge

Please RSVP for all alumni weekend events at

www.alumni.ualberta.ca

by Rick pilger

2012 alumni recognition awards An innovator in international aid. A medical pioneer. An industrychanging inventor. The recipients of the 2012 Alumni Recognition Awards are some of the most successful individuals in their fields, earning them our respect and the alumni association’s highest awards.

ALUMNI HONOUR AWARD Recognizing the significant contributions made over a number of years by University of Alberta alumni in their local communities and beyond Sten Berg, ’54 BSc(Ag), has made significant contributions to agriculture in Canada and beyond. Sten was organizer of the Western Hog Grower’s Association (WHGA) and was known for his innovative hog breeding and production management practices. In 1962, as chair of the WHGA market development committee, he pioneered outreach to the Japanese market. At its peak, 15 per cent of Alberta’s hog

production went to Japan. In 1974, Sten was appointed to the Alberta Export Agency. He later launched his own market consulting firm and served as chair of the Alberta Cattle Commission. He was involved in numerous projects in China, including an evaluation of human and natural resources of the Himalayan mountain territories. Sten also served as a Strathcona County elected councillor. Andrew Dawrant, ’93 BA, is widely considered the top Chinese-English language interpreter working in China today. Andrew is the only native English speaker accepted as a Chinese language interpreter at the United Nations. He has also served at other high-level meetings of the UN, G8/G20 and

International Atomic Energy Agency. Andrew began his career as a Chinese language interpreter for the Government of Canada in 1996 after graduating from the U of A and completing conference interpreter training. He instructed in the simultaneous interpretation program at Beijing Foreign Studies University and, in 2002, simultaneously interpreted a speech by U.S. president George W. Bush broadcast to an audience of hundreds of millions across China. Currently, he works as managing director of Sinophone Interpretation, a firm based in Shanghai. Merna Forster, ’76 BA, has made important contributions to bringing Canadian history alive. Merna has done this

through innovative public awareness initiatives that promote a better understanding of the brilliance, ingenuity, energy and creative power of Canadian women. The recipient of many awards, she has worked on numerous public education programs and outreach activities in Canada’s national parks and national historic sites. She is also well known for her public presentations, her writing and her media commentary. Her life work has culminated in a trio of invaluable resources: the heroines.ca website she created in 2004 and two best-selling books, 100 Canadian Heroines: Famous and Forgotten Faces and 100 More Canadian Heroines: Famous and Forgotten Faces. She is currently executive director of the Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History Project at the University of Victoria. new trail autumn 2012 19

distinguished alumni award The Alumni Association’s most prestigious award recognizing a living graduate whose truly outstanding achievements have earned them national or international prominence

Putting money where it matters most

elow his window, his Timorese landlord was using the money from Scott’s rent to refurbish minibuses and to hire local boys to work as drivers and mechanics. “He was soon the largest employer in the neighbourhood and provided an island of stability and prosperity, all because of my rent cheque,” says Scott. Unfortunately, Scott wasn’t witnessing that type of local improvement at his day job. “It was frustrating,” he recalls. “Here we were, spending more on the peacekeeping mission than the GDP of the country, yet with no change on the ground as far as jobs created or anything like that. Everything we were using, whether bottled water or laundry materials, was being flown in.” After seeing the same thing happening in Afghanistan, Scott 20 newtrail.ualberta.ca

decided to ally himself with the people who were really making a difference. In 2004, he quit his job with the Canadian foreign service and created the organization now known as Building Markets. Was he taking a chance? Not really, says Scott. “Here’s the secret about being a Canadian: the worst-case scenario in Canada is the best-case scenario in some parts of the world. With my degree from the University of Alberta and my work experience, it wasn’t like I was going to starve if it didn’t work out.” Scott’s big idea was simple: when international missions and foreign aid agencies go to a country in desperate straits, they buy a lot of stuff—why not buy it locally and spur local recovery? With support from the UN, the World Bank and the governments of Canada and Australia, Scott’s organization

(initially named Peace Dividend Trust) looked into where aid money goes. Their study of 10 UN peacekeeping missions found that only five per cent of the missions’ budgets entered the economies of the host countries. As a result of Scott’s work, the UN, NATO and the U.S. have all changed the way they procure goods for foreign aid. The Pentagon alone has since procured more than $1 billion in goods and services from Afghan companies, creating thousands of jobs. To complement its aid study, Building Markets also undertook a pilot project to match Afghan entrepreneurs with procurement officers. Their original goal was to redirect $5 million into the Afghan economy. They did better. The project’s total is now more than $580 million, and it has been the single largest driver of economic growth in Afghanistan since 2007.

Begun with a staff of four, Building Markets has grown to more than 120 people with offices in six countries. It has operated alongside 10 peace and humanitarian missions. In total, Scott and his team have been instrumental in creating more than 130,000 jobs and redirecting $1.1 billion into some of the world’s poorest economies. The day-to-day work of helping international procurement officers identify suitable local entrepreneurs is all as “dull as ditchwater,” says Scott. But, dull or not, the change that Building Markets has brought about has caught the world’s attention, resulting in a plethora of awards. Most satisfying for him, though, he says, is seeing international aid organizations begin to change the way they look at reducing poverty—eschewing handouts in favour of bringing about real economic change.

Photo by Blair Gable

Scott Gilmore, ’95 BCom, was working with a UN peacekeeping mission to East Timor in 2001 when he realized the noises to which he awoke each morning weren’t just annoying clatter—they were the sounds of positive economic change.

Dianne Greenough, ’78 BEd, has taken the art and athletics of cheerleading to new heights. In 1995, she was invited to develop an acrobatics co-ed cheer team for the Edmonton Eskimos Football Club, which was soon regarded as North America’s best. Her Victoria School of the Arts cheer teams won 52 city and provincial titles and 200 championship trophies from competitions around the world. She recently coached the gold medal-winning Team Canada in the ICU World Cheerleading Championships. She has choreographed numerous high-profile events, including the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, the 2001 World Track and Field Championships and the 2005 World Masters Games. She is the creator of the Alberta Cheerleading Association and also founded Perfect Storm Athletics, which works with young people in fitness, leadership and success. Megan M. Hodge, ’73 BSc(Speech), has dedicated her career to advocating for children with severe speech sound disorders. A longtime faculty member in the U of A Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, she has been an innovative teacher, mentor and champion of clinically relevant research. In 2005, she received the Eve Kassirer Award from the Canadian Association of Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists for outstanding professional achievement. Megan’s work has resulted in the development of a widely used tool for measuring children’s speech intelligibility, as well as an effective intervention approach for children and their families. Known by the trademarked name Let’s Start Talking, this innovative and creative program applies theoretical

The Awards program has honoured more than 450 alumni who have distinguished themselves — and the U of A — through contributions to their profession and the community at large.

principles of neuroplasticity and speech learning to a structured curriculum. W. Laird Hunter, ’74 BA, ’75 LLB, has devoted much of his career to helping advance the law and regulatory regime applicable to charities and non-profits in Canada. Appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 2006, he brought together Canadian federal and provincial departments with voluntary-sector representatives to improve the regulatory environment in which non-profits operate. He has worked on provincial and federal legislative reviews of co-operatives in eight Canadian provinces and contributed to the advancement of First Nations communities. Laird was instrumental in shaping the First Nations Commercial and Industrial Development Act. In 2012, the Law Society of Alberta and the Canadian Bar Association honoured him with a 2012 Distinguished Service Award in recognition of his pro bono activities. Yasmin Jivraj, ’80 BSc, is a seasoned business executive with more than 30 years of experience in the information technology (IT) sector. She is president and co-owner of Edmonton-based Acrodex, which

has offices across Canada and a development centre in India. An active community leader, she has served on the boards of CBC/ Radio-Canada and the Edmonton Economic Development Corporation. She is a supporter of, and has served on the board of, the Aga Khan Foundation Canada. For her contributions to the advancement of IT she was named a Fellow in 2005 by the Canadian Information Processing Society and, in 2011, NAIT awarded her an Honorary Bachelor of Technology in Technology Management. Prem Kalia, ’64 BEd, has lived a life of service through teaching and advocating for global peace, universal brotherhood and social justice. He has done this in the classroom, the United Nations Club, the Multicultural Council of the Alberta Teachers’ Association and the Mother Teresa Habitat Institute. Through the Mahatma Gandhi Canadian Foundation for World Peace, he brought attention to many issues, raising awareness and supporting initiatives that share Gandhi’s philosophy. As chair of the foundation for more than a decade, he was a recognizable leader who established the U of A’s Gandhi Institute and local conferences at high schools. He was instrumental in establishing Gandhi Peace Weeks and the Mahatma Gandhi World Peace Graduate Scholarship at the U of A.

Krishan Joshee, ’68 BEd, is a highly respected community leader whose efforts have built bridges between cultures and communities for the purpose of serving society. A former science teacher, he is a model for engaged citizenship. He has been on the board of organizations as diverse as the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, the Edmonton Police Commission, the National Film Board and the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. He is a founder and former president of the Edmonton Heritage Festival, and former premier Ralph Klein declared him a lifetime chair of the Wild Rose Foundation. In the late 1980s, Krishan helped create the Mahatma Gandhi Canadian Foundation for World Peace. He has also received the Alberta Achievement Award for Service and the Order of Canada. Patricia C. Lane, ’79 BA, ’82 LLB, has championed equality in the legal profession. Her work on employment benefits for same-sex couples and their ability to be married in Manitoba permanently changed that province’s social landscape. She served on the Collaborative Practice Manitoba Association for many years. She also helped develop the Youth Helping Youth program and, in 2003, the youth new trail autumn 2012 21

involved won the inaugural Sybil Shack Human Rights Youth Award. Her honours include the 2010 Ally Award, presented by the Canadian Bar Association for work advancing equality of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and two-spirited people. She is active in programming nationally and in the U.S. on effective conflict resolution communication and has board positions on the Women Lawyers Forum for both jurisdictions. Jean McBean, ’68 BA, ’72 LLB, won widespread respect within the legal profession and in the broader community for her passion for social justice, and for the thousands of volunteer hours she committed to serving those most vulnerable in society. For four decades, she was an active teacher in the areas of family law and matrimonial property law to members of the legal profession and members of the bench, as well

as to the general public. In 2001, she left private practice to set up legal aid offices for family law in both Edmonton and Calgary. A former president of the Alberta New Democratic Party, she also served a term as a commissioner of the Alberta Electoral Boundaries Commission. (Ms. McBean passed away in April 2012.) Michael R. A. Mowat, ’79 PhD, is a cancer researcher whose work focuses on tumour suppression genes. Over the last 30 years, Michael—a senior scientist and professor at the Manitoba Institute of Cell Biology—has published in many high-impact scientific journals, including his seminal paper in the journal Nature in 1985 that clarified the true role of the gene p53. He showed it to be a tumour suppressor, not a tumour-causing gene, and p53 is today the most studied gene in human disease. In 1992, the U.S.

National Cancer Institute invited Michael to serve on its committee for research excellence in lung cancer. He is also recognized for his teaching, mentoring and relentless dedication to community service. Donald A. Sinclair, ’73 MEd, is an outstanding leader in education whose work has benefitted many educational institutions in his native Australia. He has written award-winning textbooks and served as chief appointments officer for the Victorian Ministry of Education. Determined to improve the world around him, he volunteered to teach long-sentence prisoners to matriculation level at night. He has also been involved in Australia’s Ryder-Cheshire Foundation almost since its inception 50 years ago and, as its national chairman, provided leadership to its efforts to ease the suffering of the disabled and destitute of impoverished areas.

the alumni centenary award for voluntary service Recognizes alumni who have demonstrated commitment, dedication and service to the University of Alberta Michael Bullock, ’60 MD, has been a key supporter of U of A medical students since 1991, when he and his wife, based in California, established a bursary that provides financial support to two students for their entire medical training. Michael worked as a railroad brakeman and in logging camps to put himself through university and worked as a medical technologist before enrolling in medicine. During breaks from medical school, he worked, literally, night and day to finance his education. Michael wishes to reward students who are “self-reliant” and who have earned money to help pay for medical school. He believes that such students should find time to “smell the roses.”

Wendy C. Jerome, ’58 BPE, is one of the University of Alberta’s most willing volunteers. A reunion class organizer for the Office of Alumni Relations, she helps out with numerous alumni events and activities and is an active committee member for the Physical Education and Recreation Alumni Association. A former professor at Laurentian University and former national coach with the Canadian track and field team, Wendy is a pioneering Canadian sports psychologist. One of the first people in North America to earn a degree in sports psychology, she founded Canada’s first undergraduate sports psychology program in 2001 at Laurentian. Wendy has worked with athletes from almost every sport and from five countries.

22 newtrail.ualberta.ca

In 2009, in recognition of his leadership and his diverse contributions to the nation, he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia. Mogens Smed, ’72 BA, is a creative business leader whose decisions are guided by a steadfast environmental consciousness. He founded Smed Manufacturing in the mid-1990s and focused on producing modular interiors for office space, reducing reliance on traditional building materials, which often end up in landfills. After building SMED International into a multimilliondollar company, Mogens founded DIRTT (Doing It Right This Time), which has pushed the envelope of modular interiors by using and producing less waste, and adding more design and performance to its products. Interiors & Sources magazine named Mogens an Environmental Champion for his commitment to stopping the corporate cycle of procure, build and demolish. DIRTT has received numerous other awards recognizing the excellence of its products and its environmental commitment.

Alumni Award of Excellence Celebrating recent, outstanding accomplishments of University of Alberta graduates J. Waymatea Ellis, ’97 BEd, is the lead singer, face and founder of Canada’s top reggae band, Souljah Fyah. Honoured at the 2011 Western Canadian Music Awards for Urban Recording of the Year, Souljah Fyah has appeared at some of Canada’s most prestigious music festivals and was nominated for a JUNO Award in 2009. As a social studies teacher, she tied

distinguished alumni award The Alumni Association’s most prestigious award recognizing a living graduate whose truly outstanding achievements have earned them national or international prominence

one very big very small invention On May 2 of this year, both Lubomyr T. Romankiw, ’55 BSc(Eng) and Steve Jobs were among those inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Washington, D.C.

Photo by Jimmy Jeong / JimmyShoots.com

ad the Apple cofounder been alive to participate, he could have been expected to shake Lubomyr’s hand with extra warmth—for without the work of the U of A alumnus in making data storage compact and affordable, there may well have been no Apple computer, no iPod, no iPhone. Had things turned out differently, the man who co-invented the thin-film read/write head for IBM may have spent his career as a professor at the University of Alberta. When Lubomyr finished his doctorate at MIT, he was offered a position in materials engineering at the U of A. However, rather than wait a year for the funding to be acquired, he accepted a job offer with IBM. That was in 1962, and he has been there ever since. Today, he serves as a fellow at the company’s T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., where he mentors younger researchers and pursues projects of his choosing.

At IBM, Lubomyr built up the Center for Electrochemical Technology and Microfabrication. He is credited with being instrumental in changing the perception of electroplating—the same basic process used in days past to rechrome metal bumpers—from an unpredictable art to an important branch of science and technology. Beginning in the late 1960s, he brought his expertise in electroplating to the project that would ultimately take him and his IBM colleague David Thompson to the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Using patented photolithography and the electroplating techniques Lubomyr had invented, they dramatically improved the data storage capacity of magnetic disk drives, decreasing the size of the disks from 24 to 2.5 inches in diameter. Interestingly, one of the first customers for their compact new head was Steve Wozniak, who was building the desktop

computer he and Jobs would transform into Apple Computers. “Exactly when the first small disk went on the market, he bought it from IBM,” recalls Lubomyr. “That was before IBM began building its own desktops.” The basic processes and structures Lubomyr pioneered have been used ever since by virtually all magnetic head manufacturers around the world. “The way it’s done is still about the same,” says Lubomyr. “It uses the materials and processes I developed with my group.” That innovative technology has led to an amazing drop in the cost of data storage—from about $500,000 per gigabyte in 1979 to less than 50 cents today—and has ushered in the new digital age. Without massive low-cost storage and rapid access to stored data, we would not have the Internet, genetic engineering, genomics, the International Space Station or much else we now take for granted.

Lubomyr admits to thinking about retiring, “but then another challenge comes along,” he says ruefully. Right now, he’s scaling up the work he did scaling down magnetic heads in order to create better solar panels. In total, he holds 67 patents and has more than 150 published inventions, but throughout his career he has been as much a mentor as an inventor. At IBM, he assembled, trained and led a group of outstanding electrochemists, chemical engineers and material scientists, with whom he solved a number of key problems in electrochemistry and electronics. To his protégés he offers the advice that defines his own life: “Go the extra mile and persevere. Put your heart, mind and soul in what you are doing. Let go of your ideas so they can bloom in others. And”—perhaps nothing describes him more—“let others be caught up by seeing your own enthusiasm for what you do.” new trail autumn 2012 23

distinguished alumni award The Alumni Association’s most prestigious award recognizing a living graduate whose truly outstanding achievements have earned them national or international prominence

frontline medicine

he breadth of Ted’s contributions to health care in Alberta is recognized in professional circles in his being named one of Alberta’s Physicians of the Century and receiving the Pharmacy Centennial Award of Distinction—the only person to make both lists. While he was doing his internship at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, Ted obtained penicillin from Ottawa and administered it to a patient via an IV drip. In order to reuse it for other patients, and having training in chemistry, he extracted the antibiotic from the patient’s urine to treat others, with excellent results. Always alert to happenings on the forefront of medical research and practice, Ted was the first in Western Canada to do Rh blood typing to ensure compatibility for blood transfusions. He became interested in allergic rhinitis—the cluster of symptoms triggered by breathing allergens—and decided

24 newtrail.ualberta.ca

to pursue graduate studies in New York, where he worked alongside Robert Cooke, the founder of the American Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. At the University of Pittsburgh, Ted conducted major pharmacological and clinical studies on new antihistamines and identified two—neohetramine and thephorin—as having very low side effects, making them suitable for over-the-counter sales. Neohetramine, in particular, he found to decrease cold symptoms and, as a result of his clinical studies, the use of antihistamines in cold remedies has become universal. During four years of intense study in the U.S., Ted also spent time as a teaching and research fellow at the University of Pittsburgh, served as a resident physician in pulmonary medicine at the Albert Einstein Hospital in New York, and was a fellow in medicine at the Lahey Clinic in Boston. Despite many

offers of attractive positions in the U.S., he chose to return to Edmonton, arriving back in 1950 as one of the first trained allergists in Western Canada. Ted had just nicely settled into his allergy practice when the polio epidemic of 1953 redirected his attention. Having trained in pulmonary medicine, he volunteered to work with polio patients and, in 1955, founded a pulmonary laboratory to study their respiratory disabilities. He directed the lab, located at the U of A, until he returned his focus solely to his allergy practice in 1957. In the ensuing years, his reputation as an allergist continued to grow. In addition to treating patients, he taught at the University, lectured around the world, and initiated the first course for the American College of Physicians at the Banff Centre. And his innovations continued. In collaboration with the pharmaceutical company Merck, he designed the first nasal

steroid aerosol spray for use on seasonal and perennial rhinitis and the control of nasal polyps. To treat a patient with severe allergic swelling in the eyes, he worked with a pharmacist to design eye drops incorporating a drug normally inhaled. That preparation was later marketed under the name Opticrom. At 94, Ted still has an extraordinary passion for education and medical discovery. But his contributions to the community go beyond the medical. He has provided leadership to many community organizations, including Scouts Canada, the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, and the Phoenix Theatre. He was also the president of the Alberta Ballet and the Council of Christians and Jews and is a generous supporter of the U of A, having established four endowments for student education. Looking back at an extra ordinary career, Ted says simply, “I enjoyed the practice of medicine, and I enjoyed the people.”

Photo by richard siemens

In almost seven decades of practising medicine, Theodore (Teddy) Aaron, ’39 BSc, ’42 MD, not only witnessed major changes in the discipline, he was at the forefront of a number of them. He was the first person in Alberta to administer penicillin, and his research led to the use of antihistamines in cold medications.

music to country and culture, sharing the message that “uniqueness is not a weakness.” She is currently studying to be a minister of prayer with the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers to enhance her work with children. She has also been recognized as one of Avenue magazine’s Top 40 under 40 and with a Women of Vision award from Global TV Edmonton. Benjamin Sparrow, ’99 BSc(Eng), is the CEO of Saltworks Technologies and lead inventor of its series of revolutionary desalination processes. Saltworks’ patented processes produce freshwater and solid salt from a variety of water sources, including seawater, mine tailings and oil-and-gas-produced water. Its technologies are proving to be lower-cost than conventional methods and environmentally friendly, using renewable heat from the sun or waste heat from industrial processes. His company is working with Albertan oil majors and has delivered plants to the Canadian navy, NASA and a major Australian energy company. In 2012, he was recognized with Business in Vancouver’s Top 40 Under 40 B.C. Award, based on his leadership, exemplary work ethic and groundbreaking accomplishments. Jane Walter, ’93 BEd, founded organicKidz in 2008 to provide safe, toxin-free baby bottles as an alternative to plastic ones containing bisphenol A (BPA). Created from food-grade stainless steel, her baby bottles are now sold in 35 countries. They have been featured on the Today Show and in O, The Oprah Magazine and endorsed by celebrity parents as well as Disneyfamily.com and Healthy Child Healthy World, which named organicKidz its first Trusted Partner in Canada.

Now in its 19th year, the Awards program celebrates the incredible impact our alumni have on the world around them. The ceremony is a real highlight for all who attend.

The bottles were also selected as a winner of the 2009 JPMA (Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association) Innovation Awards. Dedicated to improving the quality of life for children, she is a founding member of the 10,000 Kids Project, created to help feed Calgary children to promote their success at school.

Alumni Horizon Award Recognizing the outstanding achievements of University of Alberta alumni early in their careers Graham Buksa, ’04 BSc(Eng), has applied his inventiveness and drive to building longboards that have revolutionized the sport of longboarding. Graham built his first board while still a student. After graduation, he founded Rayne Longboards in North Vancouver and won the 2004 Small Business B.C. Plan competition. He has grown Rayne to a business of 30 employees, developed a line of 11 board designs and branched out into ancillary products. He has made Rayne a global brand and built a team of racers that includes world champion Kevin Reimer. Graham approaches his designs scientifically and builds the boards in his own high-efficiency factory with support from the National Research Council.

Punita Chohan, ’08 Dip(Ed), has a gift for creativity and a talent for inspiring others. An award-winning artist, she is inspired by—and, in turn, inspires— women of many generations and backgrounds. As a cosmetology instructor at Edmonton’s M.E. LaZerte High School, she teaches her students to see the internal beauty of each person. She works with community groups—from hospitals and senior associations to the Cerebral Palsy Association in Alberta and the Women’s Emergency Accommodation Centre—as part of her lesson plans, providing students a greater appreciation for others. She has been recognized with the City of Edmonton Cultural Diversity in the Arts Award and was named a YWCA Woman of Distinction. Abdullah Saleh, ’10 MD, a general surgery resident, is the founder and executive director of ICChange, an Alberta-based organization that manages and supports international development projects. In 2006, while a medical student, he founded the Kenya Ceramic Project, providing ceramic water filters and high-efficiency stoves to rural Kenyans. In 2008, he founded a project to aid Burmese refugees and also spoke at a UN conference about his work to show how university students can lead development projects. The recipient of a Clinton Global Initiative University Commitment Award and

Canadian Medical Association Resident Leader Award, he was also recently awarded the Grand Challenges Canada Rising Stars grant for the development of a medical records initiative for the slum of Kibera, Kenya. Shannon D. Scott, ’06 PhD, is one of few Canadian health-care researchers involved in the field of knowledge translation. An associate professor of nursing at the U of A, she has developed a program of research focused on understanding how research findings are transferred and used in child-health settings. She has published more than 60 papers in refereed journals and presented her work nationally and internationally. In 2011, she was given special recognition when she received the Monique Bégin Prize for Knowledge Translation from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research. She recently received funding as one of the co-directors of a National Centres of Excellence group entitled TREKK (Translating Emergency Knowledge for Kids). Warren Serink, ’00 BA, is an award-winning producer who has reported on breaking news from around the world. After leaving the U of A, he earned a graduate diploma in journalism and began a career in digital media, starting with an internship at the CBC bureau in London, England. In 2007, Warren became a producer new trail autumn 2012 25

You are invited to join us at the 2012 Alumni Recognition Awards on September 20, 2012 at the Winspear Centre for Music. To register for this complimentary event visit www.ualberta.ca/alumni/weekend

at CBS News in New York. His assignments have taken him to Haiti and Chile after the 2010 earthquakes, the U.S. Gulf Coast during the BP oil spill, and Joplin, Missouri, following the deadly tornado. He has also had a front-row seat at events such as U.S. President Barack Obama’s inauguration, Michael Jackson’s funeral and Prince Harry’s royal tour of the Caribbean and Brazil.

In 1983, he began his 14-year career with the Edmonton Eskimos, starting in the second game and playing the next 187 in a row. Elected by fans to the Eskimos’ All-Century team, Blake played in five Grey Cup Games and was twice named a CFL Western Division All-Star. Since retiring from the Eskimos, he consistently gives back to Edmonton’s amateur football community as a coach and leader.

Dorothy Thunder, ’02 BA(Native Studies), is helping keep the Cree language alive through her dedication and hard work. Dorothy, who is currently pursuing a master’s degree in linguistics with the goal of producing a corpus of the Cree language, is a highly regarded Cree language teacher who bridges the gap between academia and the community. Dorothy contributed to the team translating Father Émile Grouard’s 1883 Cree prayer book into modern Cree and English. That work resulted in the publication The Beginning of Print Culture in Athabasca Country, which was recently named Alberta’s scholarly book of the year. Having spent years creating a set of textbooks for Cree language classrooms, Dorothy is now developing an online version of her courses.

Keltie Duggan, ’94 BA, can look back on a distinguished career as a competitive swimmer. A member of Canada’s national team from 1987 until 1993, she won gold medals at the 1987 Pan American Games, the 1989 Pan Pacific Championships, and the 1990 Commonwealth Games. She was also a member of the Canadian Olympic Swim team in 1988. In 1989-90, she was named Swimming Canada’s athlete of the year. She was the U of A’s female Athlete of the Year in 1989-90 and earned five consecutive Academic AllCanadian honours. In 1994, Keltie began volunteering at the Alberta Children’s Hospital to further her goal of becoming a doctor. She graduated from the University of Calgary medical school in 2000.

sports wall of fame Recognizing the contributions of alumni as athletes and builders of University sport Blake Dermott, ’84 BEd, is one of the most durable football players in Edmonton. As a Golden Bear, he started all 41 games during his career and was unanimously selected twice as a Canada West All-Star. As a student athlete, he won a gold medal at the 1982 CIS Wrestling Championships. 26 newtrail.ualberta.ca

R. Gerald Glassford, ’64 MA, has left an indelible mark on the evolution of the U of A Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation. Gerry came to the U of A in 1963 as a graduate student, having taught and coached at high schools in B.C. A year after he received his master’s degree, he was appointed as a faculty member in physical education and began helping coach the Golden Bears basketball team. As chair of the Department of Physical Education and dean of the faculty from 1981 to 1990, he served as a mentor to countless students, academic colleagues,

University athletes and coaches. Gerry served on 57 University, provincial, national and international committees and chaired the conferences associated with both Universiade 1983 and the 1978 Commonwealth Games. Janine Helland, ’93 BPE, enjoyed a career as one of Canada’s most outstanding soccer players. With the Pandas, she was a four-time All-Canadian, the championship MVP when her team won the 1989 national

championship and was named the winner of the Bakewell Trophy in 1992 as the U of A’s top female athlete. Beginning with the 1990-91 season, she played in 47 games over 10 seasons for the Canadian women’s soccer team, serving as captain. As a coach, Janine helped lead the Grant MacEwan Griffins to the collegiate national championships in 1994, where they placed fourth. Currently co-ordinator of community programs for KidSport Edmonton, she has also contributed to sport through executive director roles with Judo Alberta and Ringette Alberta.

The Honourable Dr. Lois E. Hole Student Spirit Award Celebrates student spirit and the many contributions students make to the betterment of the University community and beyond Kirsten Poon, ’12 BSc, plans to pursue a career in primary care medicine and to advocate for preventive health care and healthier communities. She already has an impressive record of community service, including serving as chair of the City of Edmonton Youth Council for 2010-11. Kirsten is also a founding member and board director of a startup non-profit organization, Literacy Without Borders, which aims to help communities establish sustainable literacy programs by recruiting post-secondary students to travel to developing countries and share literacy models. Additionally, Kirsten has been active on the executive of the Rotaract Club of Edmonton, which is associated with Rotary International and promotes service to the community. Stephen Lee, a fourth-year medical student, has been very active in the community. In 2010-11, he helped lead the MD Ambassadors Committee, a group of students that represented the U of A medical school to high school and undergraduates. The goal was to connect with a greater diversity of prospective students. He also co-founded a program that brought medical students together with small groups of undergrads of diverse backgrounds. He founded and ran Students for Learning, a program that helped academically struggling elementary children in the community, pairing university mentors with individual children for an entire year. Stephen also served as webmaster for the Kenya Ceramic Project, which promotes the use of ceramic filters for access to healthy drinking water.

By ron chalmers

Norma Dunning A Winning Way with Words

photo by richard siemens

Norma Dunning, ’12 BA (Native Studies) has always written but never did anything with it. That all changed when her son applied for college. “While he was filling in the paperwork, I looked at him and thought, ‘Why do you get to do that and not me? School is for everyone,’” she recalls. “He said to me, ‘Why don’t you fill one [application] out and see what happens?’” Being accepted to study at the U of A—just before she turned 51—was the realization of a dream for Dunning. “It was always my dream to get a degree. I knew I was smart and I deserved it. It’s one of those things that was bypassed in my youth—one of those things that didn’t get done, one of those things I wanted to do. I had children and I raised my family, and it was my time,” she says. Fast-forward to 2012. While finishing up her studies, Dunning’s talents as a creative writer were revealed to a committee adjudicating entries for a new award created in memory of alumnus Jason Kapalka’s (’92 BA, ’94 MA) father, Stephen. So impressed was the committee with Dunning’s entry that she won the inaugural Stephen Kapalka Memorial Prize in Creative Writing, worth $4,000, for her fictional account of a contemporary Inuit woman called Annie. “I had so much fun writing Annie,” Dunning says. “I started to fall in love with the characters…they were to be investigated, revealed, sorted out.” The Stephen Kapalka prize was created in 2011 with a $100,000 endowment from Kapalka, who earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in English at the U of A. He co-founded PopCap Games, a Seattle-based video game company that was sold to Electronic Arts in 2011.

“My experiences in the creative writing program at the U of A were among the most useful of my university years,” Kapalka says. “Throughout my years in game design, clarity and originality in writing have always been critical skills.” Dunning’s winning entry was, in fact, the first chapter of Annie Muktuk, an 11,000-word novella she had written that gives an uninhibited account of the title character—a young, contemporary Inuit woman. The work will surprise anyone

with stereotypical expectations of Inuit peoples. Dunning, herself an Inuk, has lived most of her adult life in the south. “Aboriginal writers and artists get pigeon-holed,” she says. “We’re expected to write traditional stories and to make representational art. But that isn’t what we are now.” “I’m very honoured by this award—and by the attention my Annie is getting.” With files from Michael Davies-Venn new trail autumn 2012 27

By John Kennelly and Alastair Cribb

Sustainable Food Production: Balancing the Scales One of humankind’s most remarkable accomplishments has been producing more food with the same or fewer resources.

rom 1950 to 1990, the world’s farmers improved their yields enough to feed a global population that doubled to 5.3 billion people, with food prices declining by one per cent a year. But the rate of yield improvements has since slowed in most countries, including Canada, contributing to recordhigh food prices and growing concerns about food security. If we don’t reverse the trend, we’re in trouble. World food demand is expected to double again in the next 40 years. Rising incomes are increasing demand for livestock products and for non-food bioproducts such as biofuels, biofibres, biopharmaceuticals and bioplastics. Climate change is demanding the development of new crop varieties that can adapt to changing weather patterns and resist invasive plants, insects and disease. Meeting these needs without destroying the Earth’s resource base depends on improving agricultural productivity and efficiency. To help meet that challenge, Canada must invest more heavily in agricultural and food research which is the principal source of new technologies, environmental efficiencies, agricultural yield growth and nutritionally superior foods. Studies show the benefits of such investment can exceed costs by 10 to one or more. Yet investment in agricultural and food research in Canada continues to languish. Funding for agricultural and food research can come from three sources: governments, through our taxes; producers, who pay commodity levies or “checkoffs”; and the private sector. What is needed is a holistic approach that encompasses all three sources. Australia has had success with such an approach: their investment in wheat research is now four times higher than Canada’s. 28 newtrail.ualberta.ca

Public funding for research is effective when producer and private funding is inadequate and where the benefits of research go well beyond a specific product made for the marketplace. Examples include basic scientific research where discoveries can have broad applications, and research that creates health and environmental benefits. The return on such publicly funded research is very high, but governments have many other demands competing for public dollars. Research by the private sector has been a powerful tool in improving agricultural yields when private firms can capture the value of their research

through intellectual property rights (IPRs). This has occurred with advances in proprietary poultry and hog genetics research. Patent protection has also stimulated a great deal of private research by global life science firms in North American hybrid crops (corn, canola, cotton) and biotech crops (soybeans, corn, canola). With IPRs, producers pay upwards of 10 per cent of their expected gross income each year for the latest seed varieties. In turn, companies reinvest about 10 per cent of their seed sale revenue in research. The result has been a rapid improvement in crop performance and widespread producer

adoption of these crops. But with nonbiotech and non-hybrid crops, where IPRs are weaker—such as wheat, barley, oats, lentils, peas and flax—private investment has been limited and gains in yields generally slower. Producer-funded research plays an important role for livestock and some crops. Levies, or checkoffs, are collected on the sale of farm products and reinvested in research by producer-managed boards. The levy is equitable because the cost is borne by both consumers and producers, who most directly benefit from productivity improvement. The success of the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers, the Dairy Farmers of Canada and the Australian Grains Research and Development Corporation research program demonstrates how powerful this producer-funded model can be. Unfortunately, most Canadian research checkoffs are set far too low to provide adequate industry-driven research funding. There is a clear social imperative to invest in improving the world’s food production in a sustainable way. To do this, we must improve investment in agricultural and food research. That requires more long-term public funding for plant, animal and food research, a modern investment climate for private firms to benefit from their own research, and enhancements that make the producer-controlled funding model more effective. By increasing research investment, Canada can “do well by doing good,” creating economic benefits at home while helping address pressing global food security challenges. John Kennelly, ’80 PhD is Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural Life and Environmental Sciences

as.ca festivalofide 012 14-18, 2 November

. Festival of Ideas 2012 it, ideas spark change at k loo u yo y wa r he Eit s disrupt social social and cultural structure in fts shi t tha a ide the s explore s and even scientific ations, political arrangement n Lebowitz, relationships, cultural expect mentary from people like Fra com s mis ’t Don ys. wa tic ma discoveries in dra t. Tickets on sale now. ze winner, Thomas J. Sargan Jian Ghomeshi, and Nobel Pri

ALUMNI AMBASSADORS

Volunteers giving their time and talent in support of the University of Alberta

Alumni can get involved and give back in many ways: • giving career advice • recruiting students • helping with Alumni Association events • giving back to the community through special projects To learn becoming an Alumni Ambassador contact Jennifer at To learn moremore aboutabout becoming an Alumni Ambassador contact the Office of Alumni Affairs at 780-492-3224 (1-800-661-2593) visit www.ualberta.ca/alumni/ambassador. 780-492-6530 or visitor www.ualberta.ca/alumni/ambassador.

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new trail autumn 2012 29

By ron chalmers

A Familiar Face Takes on New Role

Chancellor Ralph Young Continuing his community commitments Ralph Young’s new role as the U of A’s 20th chancellor involves an easy commute across the river from his downtown office at Melcor Developments, where he is the CEO. The two roles are also an “easy commute” in that they both involve similar values. “For any business to be healthy in our community, we need a healthy and strong community,” says Young, who started his term July 1. In academe, as in business, he says, “we want to do what 30 newtrail.ualberta.ca

we can to support community initiatives.” Melcor has a long history of helping the community, most recently with the Stan Melton Chair in Real Estate at the U of A School of Business. The company is also the lead private donor to the Melcor-YMCA Village, an affordablehousing facility that opens this fall in the Boyle Renaissance redevelopment. On a personal level, Young also has a strong commitment to community, serving on the boards of the Edmonton Regional Airports Authority, Alberta Innovates Health Solutions and Citadel Theatre. Young joined Melton Real Estate (now Melcor) after earning his MBA degree from the U of A in 1971. He has stayed close to the University throughout his career, serving on the Alumni Council, Senate, Board of Governors and several School of Business committees. As chancellor, his role is to lead the 62-member Senate in its mandate, which

is to inquire on any matters of importance to the University, to promote the best interests of the University and to connect the University with the community. Young has a special personal interest in raising the profile of the history and heritage of Western Canada. That interest connects to his community concern, he explains. “Unless people have an understanding of who they are, and where they came from, and what is here, they can’t contribute to society.” He believes the need to elevate our collective self-awareness is especially great in the Prairies. “We are a young society, and we don’t promote ourselves very much.” Young sees the University as aligning with that purpose through research, teaching and community outreach. He believes that a university is fundamental to a society that strives for continuous growth, improvement and excellence.

photo by JOHN ulan

Edmonton business stalwart Ralph Young, ’71 MBA was installed as new U of A Chancellor in June, taking over from Linda Hughes, who led the Senate from 2008 to 2012.

Linda Hughes, Chancellor Emeritus

Photo by Richard Siemens

A commitment to opening the doors of possibility When Linda Hughes joined the U of A Senate in 2008 as chancellor, she saw that its role was much greater than its “advisory body” job description might suggest: “It was a group of people who had a lot of passion about the University and wanted to be more engaged—to do something relevant.” Hughes has since conferred more than 33,900 earned degrees and more than 60 honorary degrees during her almost-four-year term. But she and her Senate colleagues have also looked beyond those formalities and beyond the campus. One of the innovative ways they did this was by launching U School, which brings classes of elementary school students from socially vulnerable communities to the campus for a week. The University had hosted shorter visits before. But Hughes and her colleagues wanted to give students a fuller experience of participating in university life and to encourage their aspirations for higher education. “We want them to know, ‘You could come here; you could do this,’” she says. In U School, the students’ regular curriculum is enriched through handson sessions with professors, staff and undergraduate and graduate students, as well as tours of laboratories, libraries, the Timms Centre and the Butterdome. Hughes says, almost unanimously, students who may never have considered higher education finish the week by saying they want to return. The many volunteers who help make U School happen also enjoy the experience, she says, and gain a deeper

appreciation of the leadership role of the University in its wider community. During Hughes’s term, which ended recently, the Senate also created a Dinners On Us program, inviting international, rural, local, undergraduate or graduate students to dinner at senators’ homes. The goal was to communicate to students that they are valued at the U of A and help them make new community connections, as well as giving senators the chance to learn about student experiences. Hughes also enjoyed working with the Senate’s Provincial and Northern Engagement Committee, which arranges Chancellor Conversations in centres outside Edmonton. “The communities

are very proud of the U of A, very engaged, and keen to have their children attend,” she says. These activities reflect a commitment to community consistent with Hughes’s personal history as a writer, editor and publisher of the Edmonton Journal, from which she retired in 2006, and with her continuing service on the Edmonton Homeless Commission and on the boards of the Edmonton Community Foundation and the Royal Alexandra Hospital Foundation. They also exemplify the University’s commitment to the “uplifting of the whole people,” as described by the University’s founding president, Henry Marshall Tory, at the very first convocation.

new trail autumn 2012 31

Kirstin Kotelko,

’06 BSc(Ag)

Your family has run a successful cattle ranch for four generations now. Did you always intend on going into the family business? Actually, I had no intention of coming back to the farm. I wasn’t keen on carrying on with business as usual. My passion was always healthy food and knowing what goes into the food we eat. But when I graduated, we felt the market was calling for a premium 32 newtrail.ualberta.ca

branded beef with information available to the consumer about where the beef came from and how the cattle were raised. We literally started with no sales under the Spring Creek Ranch brand. I just picked up a truckload of samples and started handing them out to chefs in town, and it exploded from there. Over a six-year period, we grew from no sales to $8 million a year in sales.

Would you describe yourself as a “foodie” then? I’ve always been into food; growing up on a farm instills that in you. We grew our own food and made our own food. My grandparents were also into cooking and that carried its way through to me. So when I went to university and didn’t have the ability to grow my own food, I realized how important food—and where it comes from—really was to me.

photos by JOHN ulan

Kirstin Kotelko is shaking up Alberta’s beef industry. She’s a fourthgeneration farmer, and her company, Spring Creek, near Vegreville, AB, has been a trailblazer in the business of sustainably produced beef. Here, she talks about how you can be a good steward of the land and still reap the rewards.

By Erica Viegas, ’06 BCom

What goes into Spring Creek cattle —and what doesn’t? They eat a diet of barley silage, barley grain and vitamin E, and then, when they are out on pasture, it’s prairie grasses. Basically, that’s it. They are never given growth hormones or antibiotics. “Sustainability” is a well-used— and often abused—term in food production. What makes Spring Creek earn the label “sustainable”? We’ve developed the technology to take something that’s normally considered a waste product and a nuisance—manure—and convert that into green energy. (See sidebar for how it’s done.) Why is sustainability such an important part of your business model? Agriculture is seen as hard on the environment, especially cattle production. By doing things to change that, we are putting ourselves in a much better position for the next 50 to 100 years, when the environment becomes more of a focus in how people consume. Hormone-free beef was a real rarity when the Spring Creek label was founded in 2006. What made your family decide it was worth the risk? The American grocery store chain Whole Foods was opening their first location in Toronto, and they came to us, and said, “We think you’ll be a good fit for building a program for us that would be hormone- and antibiotic-free.” Even before our green energy program, we’d already won a national environmental stewardship award just for the recycling of water we were doing at our ranch. We’ve always been pretty progressive—even getting into cattle production in the first place. When my dad came back to the family farm after he graduated from the U of A, they were a mixed family farm, producing grains and crops. It’s what everyone in our area was doing. We were

considered cavalier for getting into larger-scale cattle production in this area of Alberta.

Where can people try some Spring Creek beef? Choices Markets in Vancouver and the Calgary Co-op have fresh Spring Creek meat and Safeway has our frozen burgers and meatballs. A lot of great local restaurants also carry us: Café de Ville in Edmonton, Charcut in Calgary and the Vancouver Club in Vancouver. Was there anything in your education at the U of A that has been particularly valuable to you in your work? The networks and the people you meet. Without knowing it at the time, I went to school with people I now do business with. We’ve gone back to the Faculty of ALES and done projects on consumer acceptance and marketing with the students and the professors—and these are the same profs that taught me. What has been the secret to your success? The timing was huge. There was a huge demand for this kind of product, and there was no one else out there doing it. What’s next for you and for Spring Creek? To keep expanding the brand and make it more available to consumers. We want it to be something that’s accessible, so they don’t have to go to a certain grocery store or only on a certain day. So last September, we partnered with Nilsson Brothers Inc. to expand the product nationally and internationally. In the next 10 years, we can have a pretty big impact on the agriculture community, encouraging producers to raise antibiotic- and hormone-free cattle and converting a lot of the commodity production. It’s exciting because it will hopefully encourage more young and innovative people in the industry.

Bern Kotelko

Waste Not, Want Not What do you do with the waste produced by 36,000 head of cattle? Where others saw only a problem to be disposed of, Kirstin’s family saw a multimillion-dollar opportunity. At a biorefinery near the family’s 6,000-acre cattle feed yard, Kirstin’s father, Bern, ’76 BSc(Ag), brother Peter, ’05 BSc(MechE), uncle Mike Kotelko, and business partners Evan, ’88 BCom, and Shane Chrapko, ’90 BSc(Ag), have developed the technology to turn cow manure into a renewable energy, creating a virtuous loop that supplies power to the local community. A feed yard like the Kotelkos’ can produce hundreds of tonnes of waste a day, creating all sorts of problems for the soil, water and air quality in the surrounding area. But their patented technology uses bacteria to digest the manure, producing methane, which can be converted into natural gas. “We currently produce five megawatts of energy, which is enough to power the population of Vegreville,” says Bern, who also runs Highland Feeders. Theirs is the first biorefinery of its kind in Canada, and Bern predicts it will be a huge “game changer” in the cattle industry. “In the next three to five years, more of our revenue will come from energy production than food production.” “Participating in the energy side of the equation has unlimited potential for growth,” says Bern. “And we want to be an active part of creating an industry that is sustainable.” —Sarah Ligon new trail autumn 2012 33

By Omar Mouallem

How five alumni bloggers used the social media platform to launch careers

If your image of a blogger is someone who never leaves his housecoat, let alone his house, you need to upgrade your stereotype. Around the world, bloggers have helped topple regimes, launch movements and hold mainstream media accountable. Yes, some bloggers still tell you what they had for breakfast. And, yes, many still begin a post with: “Sorry I haven’t blogged for awhile….” But, with so many millions of blogs out there that even the experts have lost count, such personal and careless monologues have lost out in the survival of the fittest. The best blogs—the ones that have millions of readers, not just a handful of family and friends— educate, entertain and occasionally enrage. And as these five alumni will tell you, they can also launch careers. 34 newtrail.ualberta.ca

I’ve gone from sitting in a room chatting with a few pals to chatting with the world as things happen.”

The Media Maven Adam Rozenhart, ’03 BA @bingofuel theunknownstudio.ca

In 1990, 11-year-old “timevoyager” was connected to a protozoan Internet.

photo by aaron pedersen/3ten photography

“Y

ou’d dial directly into these text-based bulletin board systems, so it was all command lines: Y for ‘yes.’ N for ‘no,’” explains a taller, bearded timevoyager, who eventually made the online switch to his birth name: Adam Rozenhart. This blogger—and digital strategist for advertising and public relations powerhouse Calder Bateman—has already spent two-thirds of his life online, always staying ahead of the trends. Rozenhart earned his reputation as a social media expert when he co-founded the rabble-rousing blog Oilers Nation in 2007, in response to the NHL team trading two star players. Upset fans, he recalls, “wanted to bring signs into

Rexall Place and express themselves.” Rozenhart and “Wanye Gretz,” a friend who has yet to eschew his alias, took their complaints online and got such experts as radio host Jason Gregor to contribute. After just five years, Oilers Nation was getting two million hits per month and had birthed a money-making empire, the Nation Network, which now has a blogging franchise for nearly every Canadian NHL team. But Rozenhart’s wandering heart convinced him to sell his shares in 2011 in order to devote more time to his other online ventures, namely The Unknown Studio. This blog, with its monthly podcast

to more than 3,000 subscribers, sees Rozenhart and co-host Scott Bourgeois share their unbridled enthusiasm for Edmonton’s culture as well as a more careful critique of local civic issues. The Unknown Studio is also where the self-confessed class clown writes the occasional humour article, a skill he honed as a staff writer at The Gateway for six years. A favourite for readers is his Friday column, where he dedicates a post to skewering complainers, who, he says, take the Internet for granted. “We should be in awe of this thing—this thing that connects us with the world.” Rozenhart resists the urge to spew thoughtless detritus in an online venue. “I’m happy to say I’ve never been totally ashamed of something I’ve published.” And then, pausing and raising a brow, he asks, “Why? Do you know something?” new trail autumn 2012 35

The fashionista Caroline Gault, ’10 BA @carolinegault www.carolinegault.com

Caroline Gault knows all about taking risks—and about shooting the proverbial three-pointer from half-court.

Be yourself. That’s the only way to set yourself apart from the millions of other blogs.”

36 newtrail.ualberta.ca

photo by aaron pedersen/3ten photography, Makeup by Nickol Walkemeyer, Hair by Salon Montage

“I

’ve had weird experiences of knowing when the moment was and saying, ‘Do it,’” explains the 25-year-old writer and former Panda’s basketball player. After seeing an early issue of the Edmontonbased fashion magazine Parlour in 2008, she queried the editor. “I said I’d do anything— delivery, whatever,” she recalls. “And then my first interview was Lady Gaga.” Back then, Gaga was in town playing a West Edmonton Mall nightclub, but before the issue hit newsstands, she was a superstar selling out stadiums. And Gault was looking for her next big break. She actually Googled “how to be a magazine editor” and found countless tips. “One of them said, ‘You have to start a blog—and get publishing.’ I was like, ‘OK, I’ll start a blog.’” Her longtime boyfriend, Mike Vanden Ham, ’09 BSc(Eng), helped with the HTML, but nobody could have helped her with better timing. The day after her third post, a behindthe-scenes of the Gaga interview, Hollywood gossip blogger Perez Hilton posted a link to her Parlour profile, and Gault’s blog got a flurry of traffic. “I’m very aware that I’ve been in the right place at the right time, but also I think you have to be the right person.” Gault certainly has been toiling these past three years to be that person: the person with an Edmonton Journal column, an editorial position at FASHION magazine and various other bylines. Her blog, she says, acted as a portfolio to get her to where she is today, but she’s now so busy on paid writing gigs the blog has to take a back seat. The funny thing is, she didn’t intend to become a fashion expert in the first place. She just wanted to write. But fashion journalism, it seems, fit her like a Gucci glove.

The indie king Aaron Levin, ’04 BSc, ’08 MSc @weirdcanada weirdcanada.com

What is a blog? What isn’t a blog? These are questions for the academics. But this is definitely more than something I just do with my spare time.”

Aaron Levin comes within a second of confessing that his blog, Weird Canada, is “all I have…”

photo by brent goldsmith

hen he backpedals—perhaps taking into account his loved ones, his Toronto home, his three degrees, his job as a content analyst with Kobo eReader—and tries again: “Well, it’s this huge thing in my life.” Weird Canada, which some may call an online magazine but which he prefers to describe as a “publisher,” is a daily dose of the nation’s best independent music. Even with volunteer writers and editors involved, Levin spends up to two hours a day on Weird Canada, which won CBC’s 2011 award for Best Indie Music Website just two years after it launched. With up to 2,000 unique visitors a day, the blog can end up being an artist’s first exposure to wider audiences—as it was for Grimes (a.k.a. Claire Boucher), now an indie music superstar—or, for readers, the first bite of something beautifully unfamiliar. But Levin asserts that it’s not about tastemaking. “It’s about sharing.” And it’s not about money, either. Weird Canada doesn’t receive any grants (although Levin has tried) or advertising revenue (which he vehemently rejects), but it gets some funding from the Canada-wide concerts it hosts. The rest comes out of his wallet because, for Levin, it’s less a company than a destiny. Growing up in Edmonton, he was a voracious listener even at age 12. “Any song that moved me, I wanted to know it. Where was it from? Who made it? What were the other bands they were into?” he says. “I hated not knowing.” At 17, he started collecting rare records and got so good at it that selling them helped pay his way through grad school. But after completing a master’s degree in mathematics, he wanted to develop his creative side, so he took a tailor-made job as CJSR’s music director, where a mountain of advanced music avalanched into Weird Canada. Now at 30, he has spent half his life on a musical treasure hunt. “I’m always in this constant flux of excitement and creativity and ideas,” he says. “So I may have given up many things, but I could never be happier.” new trail autumn 2012 37

I’d be lying if I didn’t say that a small reason I blog is because I have an audience. At least, now I do.”

The community crusader Mack Male, ’07 BSc @mastermaq blog.mastermaq.ca

38 newtrail.ualberta.ca

photo by aaron pedersen/3ten photography

My blog is a chronicle of my growth—learning about seasonal produce and meeting farmers and connecting with the community.”

Where do blogging, gastronomy and civic affairs intersect? If you ask power bloggers and real-life partners Sharon Yeo and Mack Male, the answer is: food trucks.

uring a 2010 vacation in San Francisco, the sight of a mobile food festival simultaneously tapped into Yeo’s passion for culinary arts and Male’s for urban issues. A few months later, they brought the idea home to Edmonton with What the Truck?!, a regular event that brings hundreds of people downtown to sample dozens of dishes—all served out of food trucks. “I just like seeing people on the street, meeting their neighbours,” says Yeo, 29, a co-ordinator with Catholic Social Services, whose blog, Only Here For the Food, is mandatory reading for local foodies. But Male, who writes about technology and civic affairs, sees the event as the beginning of something broader. He calls what’s going on “smallscale revitalization.” Although Yeo and Male keep hisand-hers blogs, they learn more about themselves and their passions by writing about them online.

“I’m a big believer that when you teach someone about something, you learn about it yourself,” says Male, a computer programmer. He also says he dedicates so much of his waking life to blogging (without pay) because it helps him organize his thoughts. For Yeo, the transformation came after moving out of her childhood home and having to fend for herself—at least in the kitchen. She has been chronicling her self-education since 2005, when Male recognized his friend’s literary desires and encouraged her to start blogging. A few years later, they were a couple and Male was the benefactor of delicious home-cooked meals. But there’s another reason Male loves blogging: “You can go back in time really, really quickly.” For example, go to his site and click back to 2003. Find “My New Blog!” and you’ll read an eager 19-year-old’s pithy posts about the music he’s listening

The Foodie Sharon Yeo, BEd ’05 @sharonyeo onlyhereforthefood.ca

to, the technology he’s sampling, the birthdays he’s celebrating. Essentially, it was “blogging for my 20 closest friends.” Now, click forward to 2009 and witness him mobilize a social media offensive against lobbyists trying to preserve the municipal airport—a controversial downtown expanse that he and like-minded Edmontonians would rather see converted to a mixed-use space. Or to 2012, when the Alberta election day scoreboard he programmed got 60,000 page views in a single day. Yeo also started as a hobbyist but now, if she misses one of her regular columns—like Tuesday’s “Food Notes,” a distilled “what’s happening” in the Edmonton culinary scene—people tsktsk her. “It’s nice to know that people appreciate the effort,” she says. “If I was only blogging for myself, I don’t think I’d still be doing it consistently.” Now, when there’s an announcement at City Hall or a grand opening for a restaurant, the suits and chefs want them there. It has made for some tricky scheduling as a couple, but not to worry: ever the technophile, Male has set up a shared online calendar so the two can still budget time for each other. new trail autumn 2012 39

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FOLLOWING THE FOOTS TEPS OF U N I V E R S I T Y O F A L B E R TA A LU M N I

A photograph of the installation Saltus Illuminati at the Art Gallery of Alberta in 2012.

visit to an Alberta forest devastated by the mountain pine beetle inspired Arlene Wasylynchuk (Hannochko), ’68 BA, ’70 BEd, ’91 BFA, to give the forest a new life in her series Saltus Illuminati— Latin for “the forest illuminated”—which appeared as a solo exhibit at the Art Gallery of Alberta last spring. Eschewing her traditional painter’s tools, Arlene collected twigs, moss and other debris from the forest floor and dripped and dragged them across the surface of translucent Lexan sheets, up to four metres long. “When I’m painting with the debris, I’m not just pouring my energy into painting but the forest is transferring its energy, too,” explains Wasylynchuk.

A real breakthrough in the work came when Wasylynchuk decided to roll up her paintings and stand them on end. “Traditionally, I’ve worked twodimensionally,” she says of her 20-year career. “But I thought, ‘What if I rolled these translucent sheets and actually made trees?’” Then, using LED light ropes, she lit the trees from within, creating a glowing, seemingly enchanted forest that illuminated the stages of devastation wrought by the mountain pine beetle: some healthy, white trunks and other decaying, rust-coloured ones. “The work is multi-layered,” explains Wasylynchuk. “It is about the enchanting energy and magic of forests. It is about growth, death and regeneration. It is

about our relationship to our natural forest environments and the threats to their existence. BC lost the fight for their forests, but Alberta Sustainable Resources is trying very hard to prevent the pine beetle from taking hold here.” This past June, Wasylynchuk won the inaugural Eldon & Anne Foote Edmonton Visual Arts Prize, a $10,000 cash award for an Edmonton-area artist. She has exhibited extensively across Alberta, as well as in Europe, Asia and South America and is represented by the Scott Gallery in Edmonton. Take a video tour of Saltus Illuminati on the New Trail website. – Sarah Ligon new trail autumn 2012 41

alumni events

EVENTS IN EDMONTON Educated Wallet Setting up RESPs? Thinking about retirement? The Educated Wallet series of workshops provide advice for every stage of your financial planning. www.ualberta.ca/alumni/wallet

How Much Is Enough? | October 20, 2012 Jim Yih, ’91 BCom, one of Edmonton’s leading professional retirement planners, explains how to set aside enough for your retirement.

ALUMNI WEEKEND – EDMONTON

Financial Literacy for Kids | November 3, 2012

September 20-23, 2012

Wondering how to help your children avoid financial pitfalls and teach them to be savvy with their money? Learn the financial fundamentals you should be teaching your children from Lesley Scorgie, ’05 BCom, author of Rich by Thirty and Rich by Forty.

Tuck Shop cinnamon buns, campus tours, musical entertainment, gala awards, beer tastings, lectures and more make Alumni Weekend THE alumni event of the season. With over 60 events, there isn’t room to list them all. Go to www.ualberta.ca/alumni/weekend to get full details and reserve your spot today.

Financial Fundamentals | November 15, 2012 Want to know how to come up with the best repayment plan for your student loan or other debt? Wondering about smart ways to save or invest? Our panel of money experts discusses the basics of financial security and prosperity.

OCTOBER

DECEMBER

SEPTEMBER

NOVEMBER Timothy Caulfied October 17

brenda parlee November 14

Joanna harrington December 12

MORE EVENTS IN EDMONTON Educated Luncheon Learn over your lunch hour from some of the leading minds at the U of A and from alumni who are trailblazers in their fields. Our speakers for the 2012-13 season of monthly lectures include bio-ethicist Timothy Caulfield, ’87 BSc, ’90 LLB; U of A sociologist Brenda Parlee; and Associate Dean of Graduate Studies Joanna Harrington. View our complete line-up and register today. www.ualberta.ca/alumni/luncheon

For more information and to register for any of these events, visit us online at www.ualberta.ca/alumni/events. grande prairie

fort mcmurray camrose

calgary

lethbridge

vancouver victoria

toronto

seattle

AROUND THE WORLD The Alumni Association has more than 50 branches that extend the boundaries of the U of A community to the far reaches of the province, the country and the world. Branch events happen all year long. Look for us in:

london

boston

san francisco

new york

los angeles

washington, DC

phoenix

Hong kong

minneapolis

denver

houston

australia

dallas

For more events, contests and up-to-date information, subscribe online to e-trail, the Alumni Association’s monthly electronic magazine.

42 newtrail.ualberta.ca

1. In March, young alumni caught Oilers fever during an Oilers vs. Stars game at The Pint in Vancouver.

2. Jennifer Faulkner, Associate Executive Director of Alberta Ballet in Edmonton, and Tracy Salmon, ’91 BA, ’96 MSc, Manager of the Alumni Association’s Edmonton programs, show off a tutu and pointe shoes at one of the Educated Critic events prior to a performance of Love Lies Bleeding in May. 3. Vancouver-area alumni donned their best hats and fascinators for an alumni event at Hastings Park in May.

4. This spring alumni in Toronto gathered at a reception to hear a lecture by guest speaker Dr. Atul Humar, an infectious disease physician at the U of A. (L-R) Nabil Melhem, ’00 BA; Elias Tiamiyu, ’04 BA; Akthem Sumrain, ’00 BCom; Gina Wheatcroft, ’94 BEd; and Guy Laroche, ’08 BA.

5. Over 300 kids and their family had an “egg-cellent” time at the Alumni Association’s 5th Annual Easter Egg Hunt in Quad in April. Photo by Sam Brooks, ’12 BSc(Eng).

6. Ninety alumni and friends gathered at the new Enjoy Centre in St. Albert to hear garden guru Jim Hole, ’76 BSc(Ag), share his wisdom on container gardening. Photo by Sam Brooks, ’12 BSc(Eng). 7. Fashion designer Michael Kaye, ’88 BA, squeezes in a photo with Edmonton “first lady” Lynn Mandel at an alumni reception in New York in May before heading to a special performance of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.

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new trail autumn 2012 43

CL A SS NOTES

1950s

’50, Manoly R. Lupul, BA, ’51 BEd, has published The Politics of Multiculturalism, a memoir about his involvement in the municipal, provincial and federal multicultural movement while he was a professor at the U of A’s Faculty of Education (1958-90). The book is available on campus from the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, where he was the founding director (197686). Manoly was recognized for his scholarly achievements and community service with the Alumni Honour Award in 2002 and with membership in the Order of Canada in 2004. ’50 Nicholas Spillios, BA, ’51 BEd, was recently awarded the Norman HorrocksScarecrow Press Annual Conference Award

for his work with various library associations at the American Library Association Retired Members Roundtable. Prior to retirement, he worked in learning resource services at the Edmonton Public Library (EPL). Nicholas has also served as a trustee of the EPL and as president of Friends of Canadian Libraries. ’52 Benni Chisholm, Dip(Nu), ’53 BSc(Nu), has published her first novel Stained Sand, a classic murder mystery set in Hawaii. After having spent the past 35 years in Calgary, Benni and her husband moved to Vancouver Island. She is looking forward to reuniting with her nursing classmates this September for their 60th reunion. For more about Benni’s book, visit www.BenniChisholm.ca.

’59, Myer Horowitz, MEd, received an honorary degree from Royal Roads University in Victoria, B.C., where he is chair of the university’s Research Ethics Board, an adjunct professor of education studies, and a member of the advisory board in the School of Communication and Culture. Myer was president of the U of A from 1979 to 1989, and continues his service to the University as president emeritus and as a special adviser to the Centre for Research for Teacher Education and Development. He has been recognized for his work in post-secondary education and in the community with many honours, including the Order of Canada in 1990 and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal earlier this year.

1960s

’66 Harry Gaede, BA, ’69 LLB, a provincial court judge, was the recipient of an Augustana Alumni Citation Award in April. The award recognizes a non-alumnus for significant contributions to the life of the U of A’s Augustana Campus. ’67 Lorne Sawula, BPE, ’69 MA, ’77 PhD, nicknamed “Dr. Volleyball” for his commitment to the sport, will lead the NAIT Ooks Women’s volleyball program for the 2012-2013 season. ’67 Gail Duguid, Nurs(Dip), ’68 BSc(Nu), is organizing a 45th reunion of the UAH nursing class of September 1967, October 12-14 on Salt Spring Island, B.C. For more information, contact Gail at geduguid@shaw.ca or 1-250478-8439. 44 newtrail.ualberta.ca

Alumnae from the nursing class of January 1962 tour the new Edmonton Clinic Health Academy as part of their 50th reunion this past June. Catch up with your old friends at Alumni Weekend 2012, September 20-23. All alumni, their families and friends are invited, and this year the classes of 1952, 1962, 1972 and 1987 are celebrating big anniversaries with special events. Find out more at ualberta.ca/alumni/weekend.

’68 Enid Lee Davis, BEd, was honoured in May with a 2012 Professional Achievement Award from Idaho State University, where she received both a master’s and and a PhD in education. Enid is a part-time clinical practitioner with the LDS Social Services in Idaho Falls. ’68 Brent D. Shaw, BA, ’71 MA, was recently elected to the American Philosophical Society. He is a professor at Princeton University. ’69, Arlene Ponting, BSc, ’95 PhD, will retire from her position as chief executive officer at the Science Alberta Foundation in December. The foundation is a non-profit organization

1970s

’70 Glen Huser, BEd, ’89 MA, was nominated for a BC Book Prize for his children’s book The Runaway. ’71 Robert Bertram, MBA, of Aurora, ON, received a 2012 Institute of Corporate Directors Fellowship Award in May. The award is the highest distinction for corporate directors in Canada and is presented to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to Canadian enterprises, not-for-

committed to providing quality science learning experiences, encouraging youth to enter science-based careers and enhancing science awareness and literacy. Arlene has served as CEO for the past 13 years.

’67, Sheelagh Whittaker, BSc, has recently published her first book, The Slaidburn Angel. Part murder-mystery, part historical non-fiction, Sheelagh’s book tells of her family’s journey from England to settle in Edmonton in 1953. For more information, visit dundurn.com/books/slaidburn_angel.

profit organizations and Crown corporations. Robert serves on the board of directors for Nexen, having retired as executive vice-president, investments, of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board. ’72 Elizabeth Harrison, LLB, a partner with the Vancouver law firm Farris, was recently selected to receive a 2012 Influential Women in Business Lifetime Achievement Award from Business in Vancouver, a weekly newspaper targeted at

Lower Mainland business leaders. This award celebrates British Columbia’s most influential women in business based on their professional accomplishments and community involvement. ’75 Colleen Clark, BA(RecAdmin), a career specialist and corporate trainer, is the new writer for the Globe and Mail column “Nine to Five,” where she answers questions about the workplace. Visit theglobeandmail.com/reporton-business to learn more.

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new trail autumn 2012 45

CL A SS NOTES

70s ’75 Charles Donald Gardner, BA, ’78 LLB, was recently named assistant chief judge for the Edmonton region of the Provincial Court of Alberta.

’75 Allan Mah, BCom, of Edmonton, has been appointed to the NAIT board of governors. A past director of the U of A Business Alumni Association, Allan is a highly respected professional property manager. Dedicated to his profession and community, he teaches many programs for the Alberta Real Estate Association and is on a number of non-profit boards.

‘75 Hal Kvisle, BSc(Eng), retired president and CEO of TransCanada Corporation, was recently named to the Calgary Business Hall of Fame. ’75 Kenna McKinnon (Wild), BA, has written a young adult science fiction novel, The Jive Hive, to be published later in 2012 by Imajin Books.

‘76 Glenn Stowkowy, BSc(ElecE), was named president-elect of the U of A Alumni Association at the annual general meeting in May. He will take the reins from current president Jane Halford, ’94 BCom, after her two-year term ends next year. Since graduating from the U of A, Glenn has worked as an electrical engineering consultant for the same firm, Morgan Dowhan Engineering, which was acquired by Stantec in 1996. He is vice-president of Stantec and is responsible for the buildings engineering group’s education and science and technology sectors.

Over his 36-year career, Glenn has been the electrical consultant on several facilities on campus, including the Electrical & Computer Engineering Research Facility, the Engineering Teaching & Learning Complex, the National Institute for Nanotechnology, the Natural Resources Engineering Facility, the Health Research Innovation Facility and the Edmonton Clinic Health Academy. He was also the engineer-of-record on the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute at the University of Alberta Hospital and the new Edmonton International Airport Expansion. Glenn and his wife, Donna, have one son, Kyle, ’05 BA, who did his undergraduate degree at the U of A prior to graduating from the Faculty of Law at the University of Saskatchewan. Kyle is an associate with an Edmonton law firm.

’76 Douglas Stollery, LLB, was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual Canadian General Counsel Awards. Doug is general counsel at Edmonton-based conglomerate PCL Constructors Inc. ’78 David Keast, BEd, ’88 MEd, ’95 PhD, has been appointed president and CEO of Great Plains College in Saskatchewan. Previously, David was the director of the University of Lethbridge’s Edmonton campus. ’78 Don Tapscott, MEd, ’01 LLD(Honorary), a leading thinker on management and media, will be joining the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto as an inaugural fellow at the school’s Martin Prosperity Institute.

46 newtrail.ualberta.ca

’79 Roger Moore, BSc(CivE), ’88 BEd, ’97 MEd, has been honoured with two teaching awards: the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education’s inaugural College Sector Education Award and NorQuest College’s Jaye Fredrickson Award for Teaching Excellence. Roger is an instructor at NorQuest’s Faculty of Foundational and Intercultural Studies.

1980s

’83 Garth Kirkham, BSc, principal at Kirkham Geosystems Ltd., was awarded the Julian Boldy Award by the Geological Society of the Canadian Institute of Mining for his exceptional service to the society and the exploration industry. Garth was recognized for his efforts in mineral resource modelling and estimation, and for his leadership to both the society and the geosciences profession. This is the third CIM national award for Garth. ’84 Keith Walker, MLS, a librarian at Medicine Hat College, was recently inducted into the University of Lethbridge’s Alumni Honour Society.

’85 Malcolm Brown, MSc, writes, “After finishing post-graduate research at Queen Mary College, University of London, I entered into market research, first in the UK and then in France. I have lived in Paris since the end of 1991 and am married with two teenage daughters.” He adds that he is currently working for TNS, a leading global market research company specializing in international business-to-business market research.

’85, Ken Lueers, BSc , was recently appointed president of ConocoPhillips Canada. ’86, Bill Cheung, LLB, and his wife, Helen, recently attended a special awards ceremony in Beijing where well-known Chinese artist Fan Zeng was awarded an honorary degree by the U of A. Bill is a former member of the U of A Alumni Council and a former member of the University’s Board of Governors.

Alumnus Leaves Mission Control for Calgary After 14 years in Houston as a NASA flight surgeon, Doug Hamilton, ’80 BSc(Eng), ’84 MSc(Eng), has headed back to Alberta, where he’s now a professor in the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Medicine. Doug recently appeared on CBC National and CBC’s Quirks & Quarks to discuss his highly publicized study about eye and brain abnormalities found in astronauts after space travel.

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CL A SS NOTES

1990s

’91 Allison Anderson (Lambert), BA, writes, “I’m pursuing a master’s degree in social work through the University of Calgary, Edmonton Division, and in my spare time I work as a research assistant and indulge my interests in the arts.” Allison lives in Lamont, AB, with her husband and two children.

’91 Bonnie Halvorson-Bourgeois, MSc, was recently awarded a Partners in Excellence Award for her contributions to the Massachussetts General Hospital’s Institute of Health Professionals, where she is a clinical instructor. Bonnie was cited for her leadership and innovation in teaching, course design, clinical supervision and advising. Additionally, she was recognized for her contributions to scholarly work, program assessment and the design of a new bilingual and bi-literacy concentration within the Department of Communication Sciences.

’95 Serge Cipko, PhD, co-ordinator of the Ukrainian Diaspora Studies Initiative at the University of Toronto’s Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, has published a new book, Ukrainians in Argentina, 1897-1950: Making of a Community (CIUS Press). Based on archival research and drawing from the immigrant press, the book recounts Ukrainians’ contributions to cultural, political, religious and other organizations in Argentina. Visit www.tinyurl.com/ Ukrainians-inArgentina for more information.

’96 Donna Clark, LLB, of London, ON, was recently appointed as a trustee of the Thames Valley District School Board. Donna is a litigation lawyer who started her own firm in 2002.

’95, Darcy Molstad, BSc, a lieutenant-colonel with the Canadian Forces, is now the commanding officer of 425 Tactical Fighter Squadron, based out of Bagotville, QC. This is the eighth relocation in the past 15 years for

’91 Ian Forbes, BFA, ‘97 MFA, was a featured artist this spring at Edmonton art gallery Latitude 53, where his mural “The Big Foldy Painting of Death” stretched 38 metres along the walls of the main space. In this visual

48 newtrail.ualberta.ca

Darcy and his wife, Jodi Forster-Molstad, ’99, BSc PT. The couple met while at Strathcona Composite High School and competed together on the U of A’s varsity track and field team: Jodi was a medal-winning runner and Darcy, a national-level pole vaulter.

narrative, Ian included recurring characters, text bubbles and references to life and death, history, the environment and nursery rhymes. He worked on the project from November 28, 2011, until March 9, 2012, and blogged about his progress at www.ianforbes.ca.

Ian Forbes’s mural “The Big Foldy Painting of Death” is more than 38 metres long.

2000s

’01 Cynthia Dives, BEd, received her master’s degree in literacy education from Queens College at the City University of New York. Cynthia graduated with honours and as a member of Kappa Delta Pi, the international honour society in Education. ’02 Sandy Bonny, MSc, ‘07 PhD, has published a collection of literary short fiction, The Sometimes Lake (Thistledown Press). In these 12 stories, Sandy explores her interest in science and its unexpected effect on human action and emotion. For more information, visit www.thistledownpress.com. ’04 Matt Jeneroux, BA, was recently elected to his first term in the Alberta legislature, where he represents the new riding of Edmonton-Southwest.

’06 Kari, BA, and sister Brittany Trogen, ’08, BSc, have co-authored their first children’s book, Margaret and the Moth Tree, which is about a plainlooking orphan and what it means to be beautiful. Kari moved to Toronto after receiving her master’s degree in creative writing from the University of New Brunswick. Brittany now lives in New York, where she works as a science writer and contributor to the popular science blog Brittany (left) and Kari Trogen (right). scienceinseconds.com.

’06 Mandy Quon, BA, of Edmonton, was recently appointed regional sales manager at Fairmont Mountain Resorts. Mandy appeared on the Food Network program Family Restaurant and its spinoff show, The Quon Dynasty, which aired on Citytv. Both shows follow the highs and lows of the Quons as they operate their family business, the Lingnan Restaurant in Edmonton. ’07, Tyler MacIntyre, BA, has won a “Rosie” for best director at the Alberta Film and Television Awards for his short film Secret Identity. The film, by Tyler and his producer, John Negropontes, ’07 BA, also won best film at the 2011 ComicCon in San Diego, CA, and the International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival in Phoenix, AZ. “The best film prizes are very rewarding as a producer,” says John, “but I’m

overjoyed that Tyler won best director at this year’s Rosies.” ’10 Stephanie Eddy, BA, an Okotoks-based project analyst, is the new food columnist for the Globe and Mail. She also writes the popular food blog clockworklemon.com, visited by more than 4,000 people a day. ’12, Yumi Nakajima, BSc(Eng), recently volunteered with Engineering Ministries International in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, designing the expansion of a group home for abandoned seniors. “I conducted percolation and water quality tests, helped locate appropriate spots for the septic tank, drafted existing column locations, and worked alongside a senior structural engineer on the seismic design,” says Yumi.

A Closer Shave

’06 Tonya Callaghan, MEd, has been selected as this year’s winner of the Canadian Association for the Study of Women and Education (CASWE) Doctoral Award for her outstanding dissertation. Tonya is also the recipient of a Killam postdoctoral fellowship and a fellowship from the Canada Research Council. She is currently conducting education research at the University of Calgary.

’10 Kate MacDonald, BA, and her husband Brad, are working to revive the “art” of the wet shave. Frustrated with spending money on products that irritated their skin and provided a mediocre shave, Kate and Brad decided to revisit the early days of shaving. Their skin problems vanished when they started using antique razors and shaving brushes, igniting a passion they have since channelled into a business. From their Victoria, BC, shop, The Copper Hat (thecopperhat.com), the pair sell vintage razors, new safety razors (with individual blades, not plastic cartridges), and accessories such as soap mugs, aftershaves and blade banks. Brad makes most of the shaving brushes, and together they make their own brand of all-natural shaving soap.

new trail autumn 2012 49

CL A SS NOTES

Let Me Tell You ’bout the Birds and the Bees How three alumnae saved the family farm and started a cottage industry

All in the family: Winemakers and alumnae Xina (left) and Tonia Chrapko (right) with their mother, Elizabeth (centre).

hen my dad, Victor Chrapko, married my mom, Elizabeth Chrapko (Achtemichuk), ’64 BSc(Nu), I’m sure they had no idea what a very productive union theirs would be. They not only produced, in short order, four future U of A alumni—my brothers Evan, ’88 BCom, and Shane, ’90 BSc(Ag), and my sister Xina, ’93 BSc(Nu), and me—but they also planted the seeds of what would grow to be Alberta’s first and only organic winery. Located 150 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, Birds & Bees Organic Winery and Meadery has been producing orchard wines and mead, a honey-based wine, since 2005. However, it has been a long and unexpected journey bringing our family business to fruition. To begin with, my dad had always planned to become a veterinarian, doing a little farming on the side. But his plans changed when his own father had a stroke, leaving him, as a teenager, with a mother and siblings to support. Even though he didn’t get to go to university, Dad was determined to send all of his children and to keep the farm going should any of us decide to farm someday. For decades, the family farm has been on the decline. Now, more than ever, anyone 50 newtrail.ualberta.ca

with a smaller farm needs to find ways to diversify and add value in order to stay in business. My dad, a hobby winemaker and consummate entrepreneur, envisioned a future for our farm as an orchard and winery. As my parents approached their so-called “retirement years,” they started planting fruit by the acre. In northern Alberta, this was a counterintuitive move. It took years of lobbying the government to allow small-scale production of commercial wine in the province, but in 2005, the Cottage Wine Regulations finally came into effect—thanks to efforts by my dad. Unfortunately, he didn’t live to see his dream of selling his wine at Alberta farmers markets fully realized. He died unexpectedly in 2008, and, just as our father had, my siblings and I found ourselves faced with having to make a big decision about the family farm. Ultimately, my sister Xina and I decided to change careers and work full time at growing the winery. If the challenge for my parents was to get the cottage

wine industry started, the challenge for us has been to change the stereotype of fruit wines as being sweet and syrupy, and to loosen regulations so that small-scale producers like us can sell at farmers markets and direct to licensees. In both of these we have succeeded. Since 2009, we have been selling at farmers markets from Lethbridge to Grande Prairie, and our wines now go for up to $50 a bottle at high-end restaurants such as the Banff Springs Hotel. To keep up with demand, we quintupled production in 2009 and tripled it in 2011. In total, we make nine artisanal table wines, all made from indigenous plants and fruits—including the world’s only alfalfa wine. They range from dry to semi-sweet. Along the way, sustainability has always been a part both of our farming practices and our business decisions. From the beginning, my grandparents and parents practised good stewardship of the land. In fact, when they decided to become certified organic in the 1990s, they didn’t have to go through the usual three-year transition period because they already met all the clean-farming practices. Similarly, my sister and I strive for a low carbon footprint when bottling our wines. We use lighter, eco-friendly bottles (less glass means less fuel for transport), and we recently switched from corks to screw caps. Screw caps are not only more sustainable, they preserve wine better, resulting in 10 per cent less spoilage. Luckily for us, our mom is still actively involved in the business, providing a wealth of information, guidance and moral support. So here we are: two generations of alumnae ensuring that both a small family farm and a nascent Alberta wine industry have a sustainable future. Find out more at BirdsandBeesWinery.com. And come wine with us! – Tonia Chrapko, ’89 BEd

Communications and Technology Graduate Program

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Class update contest Share your memories and

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Submit a class note, update your information and be eligible to win one of two cash prizes:

Fashions and hairstyles may change, but your University of Alberta memories last forever. We invite you to share them!

$1,915 or $2,015 Visit www.ualberta.ca/alumni/classupdate Enter by August 20, 2012, and you could win!

new trail autumn 2012 51

CL A SS NOTES

Alumni Receive Alberta’s Highest Honour

Alberta Engineers and Geoscientists Awarded

Four U of A alumni were selected to be invested into the Alberta Order of Excellence for their exemplary records of service on the local, provincial and international stage: Robert Hironaka, ’51 BSc(Ag), ’53 MSc, of Lethbridge, for strengthening multiculturalism in Alberta and for his contributions to the scientific community in the area of animal nutrition Irving Kipnes, ’59 BSc(Eng), ’09 LLD(Honorary), of Edmonton, for his leadership in business and his work as a tireless advocate for many community, health, education and arts endeavours Preston Manning, ’64 BA, ’08 LLD(Honorary), of Calgary, for his lifelong dedication to public service, including his contributions as founder of the Reform Party Ronald Southern, ’53 BSc, ’91 LLD(Honorary), of Calgary, for his leadership in the corporate world and as a co-founder of Calgary’s Spruce Meadows, which has grown into a world-renowned equestrian centre

Several alumni were recently presented with 2012 Summit Awards by the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta. Recipients include: Jim Smith, ’72 BSc(Eng), who received an Honorary Life Membership Michael Ricketts, ’67 BSc(Eng), who received the Community Service Award Arindom Sen, ’95 BSc(Eng), who received the Excellence in Education Award

Alumni in Alberta Sports Hall of Fame Every year, the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame and Museum honours Alberta’s greatest athletes, sports pioneers and media leaders. This year, five inductees were U of A alumni: Barb Clark Parolin, ’80 BEd, ’87 Dip(Ed), ’09 MEd, was recognized as a swimmer. Dale Henwood, ’74 BPE, ’76 Dip(Ed), ’76 MA, was recognized for his devotion to sports development in Canada and for advocating the value of health and sports in youth. Edward Molstad, ’67 BSc, ’70 LLB, was recognized for his contributions to the legal relationship between players and the Canadian Football League. Bob Niven, ’64 BSc(Eng), was recognized for his contribution to building a Canadian winter sports legacy, including his significant role in bringing the 1988 Winter Olympics to Calgary. Gary De Man, ’55 Dip(Ed), ’58 BEd, was recognized with an Achievement Award for his contributions to the sport of football in Alberta since 1962.

Alumni Authors Headline Literary Festival LitFest, the only non-fiction festival in Canada, brings together bestselling, award-winning and emerging authors, and this year nearly half of those in its lineup hold a degree from the U of A: ’71, Pierrette Requier, BEd | ’81, Geo Takach, BA, ’85 LLB, ’03 MA | ’83, David Belke, BEd | ’86, Douglas James Roche, LLD(Honorary) ’91, Anna Marie Sewell, BA | ’93, Terri Robson, BEd | ’96, Andrea House, BA | ’00, Myrl Coulter, BA, ’01 MA, ’07 PhD For more information, visit litfestalberta.org.

52 newtrail.ualberta.ca

IN MEMORIAM

The Alumni Association notes with sorrow the passing of the following graduates (passings occurred between September 2011 and June 2012 unless otherwise noted)

’28 Dermott McInnes, BA, ’31 BDiv, of North Vancouver, BC, in February

’42 Henry Cornelius Belhouse, BSc, of North Vancouver, BC, in March

’47 Enid Margaret Bessemer, BA, of Calgary, AB, in December

’50 Alan Strathcona Hodgson, BSc(Ag), ’68 LLB, of Edmonton, AB, in April

’52 John Scott Little, BSc, ’54 DDS, of Edmonton, AB, in March

’34 Clarence Albert Johnson, BSc, ’36 MSc, of Sebring, FL, in March

’42 Margaret Hiller (Ludwig), Dip(Nu), ’43 BSc(Nu), of Edmonton, AB, in May

’47 Bill McLaggan, BSc(Eng), of Calgary, AB, in March

’50 Patrick Morgan Mahoney, BA, ’51 LLB, of North Vancouver, BC, in June

’52 Marilyn Alice MacKinnon, BEd, ’74 Dip(Ed), of Edmonton, AB, in April

’34 Gladys Taverner Pearson (Hill), Dip(Nu), of Winnipeg, MB, in December

’42 Ralph Norman McManus, BSc(Eng), ’46 MSc, of Edmonton, AB, in March

’47 Irma Young (Rolf), BSc(HEc), of Edmonton, AB, in April

’50 John Payne, BSc(Pharm), of Calgary, AB, in June

’53 Joan Demanchuk (Walters), Dip(Ed), of Edmonton, AB, in March

’36 Ruth Atkins (Cochrane), Dip(Nu), of Ottawa, ON, in April

’42 Ronald Edward Phillips, BSc(Eng), of Nanaimo, BC, in March

’48 Arthur Bernard Baker, Dip(Ed), ’55 BEd, of Edmonton, AB, in March

’50 William Rodney, BA, of Victoria, BC, in March

’53 Evelyn Patricia Pinnell, Dip(Nu), of Surry, BC, in November

’36 John George Sparrow, BSc(Eng), of Simcoe, ON, in February

’43 Pearl Melnyk (Holowaychuk), Dip(Nu), ’44 BSc(Nu), of Edmonton, AB, in April

’48 John Jerome Collins, BCom, of Surrey, BC, in December

’50 Lloyd Schulte, BSc(Eng), of Calgary, AB, in March

’53 Edward Robert Wachowich, BA, ’54 LLB, of Edmonton, AB, in April

’36 Elvins Yuill Spencer, BSc, ’38 MSc, of London, ON, in March

’43 Marilyn Mercia Miller (Diamond), BA, of Calgary, AB, in April

’48 Robert Lavon Jones, BCom, of Calgary, AB, in April

’50 John Bown Stewart, BSc, of Vancouver, BC, in April

’54 James Ernest Buchholz, BSc(Eng), of Parksville, BC, in May

’37 Edward Macpherson Bredin, BA, ’38 LLB, of Calgary, AB, in April

’43 Arthur Campbell Walsh, MD, of Oakland, PA, in October

’48 Irene Cathleen McCormick (Spady), BA, ’49 Dip(Ed), ’50 BEd, of Provost, AB, in March

’50 George Charles Walker, BSc(Eng), of Cobble Hill, BC, in February

’54 William Albert Doe, DDS, of Vancouver, BC, in December

’37 George Milledge Tuttle, BA, ’49 BDiv, of Sidney, BC, in May

’44 Marion Jefferies (Blackburn), BSc, of Calgary, AB, in April

’48 Charles F. McCullagh, BSc, of Calgary, AB, in June

’50 T. Fred Wihak, DDS, of Melville, SK, in January

’54 Grace Lydia Edler, Dip(Ed), ’64 BEd, of Calgary, AB, in November

’39 Frank Joseph Lewis, BSc(Eng), of London, ON, in January

’44 Harold Krivel, MD, of Vancouver, BC, in March

’48 Richard Evan Potter, BCom, of Edmonton, AB, in April

’54 Milton Reinhold Fenske, Dip(Ed), ’55 BEd, ’61 MEd, ’68 PhD, of Edmonton, AB, in November

’39 Alvin Clarence Nelson, BSc(Eng), of North York, ON, in April

’45 Phyllis Eleanor Haase, Dip(Nu), of Muskogen, MI, in April

’48 Elizabeth Pamela Jane Smith (Wildman), BA, ’79 BA(RecAdmin), ’85 MA, ’97 PhD, of Edmonton, AB, in April

’51 Eiko Atsu (Iwashita), BSc(HEc), of Renton, WA, in May ’51 Arthur Ross Jones, BSc(Ag), of Edmonton, AB, in October

’54 Danny Tadashi Nishimura, BSc(Eng), of Deep River, ON, in February

’40 Trevor Davies, LLB, ’41 BA, of Edmonton, AB, in May

’45 Jack Longworth, BSc(Eng), of Edmonton, AB, in March

’49 James Stanley Denis, BSc(Eng), of Calgary, AB, in April

’51 Lloyd Kenneth Peterson, BSc(Ag), of Edmonton, AB, in May

’54 William Macdonald Parker, BSc(Eng), of Calgary, AB, in December

’40 Margaret Mary McLeod (Spreull), BA, of Ottawa, ON, in September

’45 Doreen Mary Weaver (Daly), Dip(Nu), ’75 BSc(Nu), of North Saanich, BC, in March

’49 Ronald Stevens McGillivray, BCom, of Edmonton, AB, in June

’51 Raymond Browning Phipps, Dip(Ed), ’53 BEd, ’65 MEd, of Edmonton, AB, in May

’54 William Andrew Sayers, BA, ’61 BDiv, of Calgary, AB, in February

’40 Grace Mary Raworth (Sutherland), BSc(HEc), of West Vancouver, BC, in February

’46 William John Astle, BCom, of Edmonton, AB, in May

’49 Chester Orlando Peel, BSc(Eng), ’65 BEd, of Nanaimo, AB, in March

’51 William Joseph Plank, BSc(Eng), of Oakville, ON, in April

’55 Doral August de Maere, BSc(CivEng), of Calgary, AB, in December

’41 Iris Vivian Bales (Amundsen), BSc(HEc), of Toronto, ON, in June

’46 Delbert Cooper Purnell, BSc(Ag), of Eckville, AB, in April

’50 David Murray Barnes, BA, ’51 BCom, of Mount Eliza, VIC, Australia, in April

’52 Anton John Fettig, BSc(Eng), of Edmonton, AB, in April

’55 Margaret Bayard Kelley, BA, of Langley, BC, in October

’41 Nellie Irene Forrest (Coyle), BSc(HEc), of Port Coquitlam, BC, in February

’46 John Skory, BSc(Ag), of New London, CT, in June

’50 Roy Torgny Berg, BSc(Ag), of Sherwood Park, AB, in May

’52 Irene Clarabelle Hutton, BEd, of Limerick, SK, in March

’55 Dorothy Jean Nicholl, BEd, of Edmonton, AB, in April

new trail autumn 2012 53

IN MEMORIAM

’56 Owen Robert Jordan, BSc, of Calgary, AB, in May

’60 Ann Christina Castle, BSc(HEc), of Salmon Arm, BC, in March

’63 John Powell Haggarty, BEd, ’74 MEd, of Edmonton, AB, in May

’66 George Patrick Walsh, BEd, ’69 BA, of Edmonton, AB, in April

’70 Lawrence Fraser Hutchings, BA, ’71 LLB, of Canmore, AB, in May

’56 Lillian Margaret Munz, Dip(Ed), ’57 BEd, of Calgary, AB, in June

’60 Malcolm James Hannah, BSc(Eng), of High River, AB, in May

’63 Dorothy Kathleen Hutton (Balfour), BEd, of Edmonton, AB, in May

’67 Herbert Clemens Andersen, BSc(Ag), of Camrose, AB, in March

’70 Russell Phillips, BEd, of Edmonton, AB, in June

’56 George Topolnisky, BEd, of Andrew, AB, in March

’60 Margaret Isabella Main, BEd, of Calgary, AB, in November

’63 Richard John Law, BA, ’66 LLB, of Victoria, BC, in April

’67 Bonnie Carolyn Chomik (Strader), BSc(Pharm), of Sherwod Park, AB, in September

’71 Janet Elizabeth Christie (Ablett), BEd, of Calgary, AB, in November

’56 Arnold Norber Van Stekelenburg, DDS, of White Rock, BC, in April

’60 Kenneth P. Wheeler, BSc, ’62 BCom, in April

’64 Douglas Albert Marte, BCom, of Regina, SK, in November

’67 William John Wakaryk, BSc(Eng), of Canmore, AB, in March

’71 Donald Earl Magdalinski, BEd, of St. Albert, AB, in March

’56 Robert M. Wilson, BSc(Eng), of Port Coquitlam, BC, in April

’61 Stephen Jeremiah Buckley, BEd, of Calgary, AB, in May

’64 Richard Lee Steeves, BEd, of Camrose, AB, in February

’68 Alec Bilesky, BSc, ’77 BEd, of Sherwood Park, AB, in May

’71 Arnie Norman Neufeld, Dip(Ed), of Winnipeg, MB, in May

’57 Bernadine New (Kuzmic), BCom, of Regina, SK, in January

’61 Konrad Georg Haderlein, MA, ’71 PhD, of Saskatoon, SK, in May

’65 Armand Joseph Laing, BEd, of St. Paul, AB, in May

’68 Keith Marcellus, BEd, of Vancouver, BC, in April

’71 Gayle Kathleen Penton, BEd, of Calgary, AB, in May

’57 Joachim Nicholas Strilchuk, BSc, of Calgary, AB, in February

’61 Sheila Mary Lalonde, BEd, of Edmonton, AB, in April

’65 Kenneth Ward Morris, BA, of Vancouver, BC, in March

’68 Jean Mary McBean, BA, ’72 LLB, of Victoria, BC, in April

’72 Richard Wayne Haag, MSc, of Edmonton, AB, in April

’58 Gordon Gunster Bruins, BSc(Ag), of Medicine Hat, AB, in February

’61 James MacIntosh, DDS, of Campbell River, BC, in February

’65 Miles Oliver Nysetvold, BEd, of Wainwright, AB, in February

’68 Donald Marvin Reuer, BA, of Wetaskiwin, AB, in November

’72 Robert D. Lund, BSc, of St. Albert, AB, in May

’58 Frank Edward Dembicki, Dip(Ed), of Fort Saskatchewan, AB, in May

’61 Kathleen Amelia Steinhauer, Dip(PHNu), of Edmonton, AB, in March

’65 J. Fraser Smith, BSc, of Sydney, BC, in September

’69 Lois Norene Campbell, BEd, of Edmonton, AB, in April

’72 Stephania Jeroslavya Makofka, BEd, of Ma-Me-O Beach, AB, in June

’58 Qayum A. Shaikh, BSc(Eng), ’60 MSc, of Calgary, AB, in March

’62 Allan Wayne Anderson, BSc(Ag), ’66 MSc, of St. Albert, AB, in March

’66 Robert Harry Brown, BSc, ’70 MD, of Edmonton, AB, in March

’69 Peter Lawson, BEd, of Medicine Hat, AB, in March

’72 James Bruce Sibbald, BEd, of Sherwood Park, AB, in April

’58 Kenneth Christopher Rainsberry, BSc(Eng), of Victoria, BC, in March

’62 Kenneth Robert Kirsch, BA, ’65 BEd, ’82 Dip(Ed), of Edmonton, AB, in April

’66 Stanley Clayton Fossen, BEd, ’72 Dip(Ed), of St. Albert, AB, in May

’69 Pamela Susan Miles, BCom, of Edmonton, AB, in February

’73 Maria Magdeline Berze, BEd, of St. Albert, AB, in April

’59 Frederick Calvin Astle, BSc(Eng), of Calgary, AB, in February

’62 Arthur R. Knight, PhD, of Saskatoon, SK, in November

’66 Nina Leone Foster, BA, ’67 LLB, of Edmonton, AB, in March

’69 Dorothy Eudoxia Tanasiuk, BEd, of Edmonton, AB, in May

’73 George Herbert Best, BEd, of Edmonton, AB, in March

’59 Allan Yook Foo Lee, BSc(Eng), of London, ON, in December

’62 Gerrie Allen Leslie, BSc(Pharm), ’65 MSc, of Sherwood, OR, in February

’66 Wilbert Edward Frey, BEd, ’68 Dip(Ed), of Edmonton, AB, in April

’70 Eric Lawrence Faider, BA, of Calgary, AB, in May

’73 Horace R. Gopeesingh, BSc(Eng), of Calgary, AB, in June

’59 Neale Peter Leveque, BSc, of Calgary, AB, in April

’62 George Hamill Peacock, DDS, of Saskatoon, SK, in November

’66 John Hamilton House, PhD, of Toronto, ON, in April

’70 Donald James Gates, BSc, ’74 MSc, ’82 PhD, of Sacramento, CA, in April

’73 Elizabeth Joyce Kissel (Hillman), BEd, of Bonnyville, AB, in November

’60 Norman Joseph Bedard, DDS, of Nelson, BC, in February

’62 Norman Tozer, BSc(Eng), of Calgary, AB, in May

’66 Marguerite Marie Lacoursiere, BEd, of Edmonton, AB, in April

’70 Louis Sam Hassan, BEd, of St. Paul, AB, in April

’73 James Douglas McLeod, LLB, of Calgary, AB, in December

54 newtrail.ualberta.ca

’74 Anne Patricia De Moissac, BEd, of Leduc, AB, in March

’77 Lori Shane Feldman, BSc, of Calgary, AB, in November

’82 Keith Orval Mills, BSc(Spec), of Surrey, BC, in April

’88 Kenneth Gene Molnar, BSc(Eng), of Lethbridge, AB, in February

’94 Stephen Morris Lynch, BA, of Vancouver, BC, in May

’74 Eleanor Jean Duplessis, BEd, of Grande Prairie, AB, in December

’77 Darrell Robert Jamha, BSc, ’80 BEd, of Edmonton, AB, in March

’83 Nelson Leslie Eshleman, BCom, of Edmonton, AB, in March

’89 Arlene Diane KehlertRamsey, BA, of Bruderheim, AB, in April

’96 Patricia Dougherty, MEd, of Edmonton, AB, in June

’74 Gillian Geere, BSc, of Delta, BC, in January

’78 Peter Lucas, BCom, of Surrey, BC, in October

’83 Gary Dean Kushneryk, BA(Spec), of Edmonton, AB, in December

’89 Joseph Wilfred Semanuik, BEd, of Wetaskiwin, AB, in April

’96 Venus Antoinette Olson, BSc(Nu), of Edmonton, AB, in May

’74 Ben Michael Nathanson, Dip(Ed), ’74 BEd, of Edmonton, AB, in May

’78 Patricia Linda-Johanna Price, BA, of Edmonton, AB, in December

’83 Robert Leslie Moore, MBA, of Edmonton, AB, in April

’90 Denise D’Auteuil, BEd, of Fahler, AB, in May

’02 Laressa Dawn Rudyk, BSc, of Edmonton, AB, in March

’75 Johanna Ellen Bargholz, BEd, of Coronation, AB, in April

’79 Yves Girouard, PhD, of Gatineau, QC, in March

’84 Gayle Colleen Hennig, BSc(HEc), of Japan, in April

’91 Heather Marie MacDonald, Dip(Nu), of Edmonton, AB, in November

’03 Michelle Lai Mun Chang, BSc(Eng), of Edmonton, AB, in May

’75 Antonio Henry Brophy, BEd, of Edmonton, AB, in March

’79 Dharmendra Kumar Katarey, BSc, of Edmonton, AB, in May

’84 Cheryl Dawn Hunchak, BEd, of Peace River, AB, in October

’91 Neil Vanalstine, BPE, of Calgary, AB, in May

’03 Greg Michael Price, BSc(Eng), of Calgary, AB, in May

’75 Myron Murray Marche, Dip(Ed), ’78 MEd, of Toronto, ON, in June

’80 Robert Stanley Gabruck, BEd, of Killam, AB, in May

’84 Patricia Gay Moilliet, Dip(Ed), of Edmonton, AB, in May

’92 Stephen Glen Giddings, BSc, of Keswick, ON, in May

’06 Katherine Anne Hannas, BEd, of Calmar, AB, in May

’75 Theodore Adam Ondrus, BSc(Pharm), ’77 MSc, of Edmonton, AB, in April

’80 Russell Craig Hartwig, MBA, of Red Deer, AB, in March

’85 Man Fung Vincent Choi, BMedSc, ’87 MD, of Calgary, AB, in April

’92 James Andrew Hamilton, Dip(Sc), of Dartmouth, NS, in January

’07 Michelle Shegelski (Ernst), BA, in Edmonton, AB, in June

’75 Ellen Joan Stone, BEd, of Edmonton, AB, in April

’80 Shahnaz Ibrahim, BA, ’82 BEd, of Mississauga, ON, in October

’85 Igor Gavanski, MA, ’88 PhD, of Vancouver, BC, in December

’92 Eugene Humphrey Senetza, BSc(Ag), of Smoky Lake, AB, in May

’10 Dawn Caron Fenton, BFA, of Edmonton, AB, in April

’76 Richard David Barry, BA, ’79 Cert(Arts), ’83 LLB, of Edmonton, AB, in May

’81 Janet Faith King-Rebus, BA, ’86 BSc(OT), of Castlegar, BC, in January

’86 Arthur Frederick Eastlake, BEd, of Sherwood Park, AB, in December

’94 Darolyn Gwen Burden, Dip(Ed), ’97 MEd, of St. Albert, AB, in April

’76 Tydfil Watt (Martin), BEd, of Vermillion, AB, in February

’81 Kevin Hotoshi Morishita, BSc(Pharm), of Vancouver, BC, in November

’88 Don Clark Mikado, BSc(Pharm), of Lethbridge, AB, in March

’94 Sheila Anne Clegg-Lazzary, BA, of Edmonton, AB, in March

Submit remembrances of U of A graduates by sending an e-mail to alumni@ualberta.ca. Tributes are posted to the “In Memoriam” webpage at www.ualberta.ca/alumni.

new trail autumn 2012 55

A Local Garden with Global Impact Funds raised from the garden—run entirely by community volunteers working with donated plants and seeds—support the Tubahumurize Association. The non-governmental organization provides opportunities for women to acquire skills, become economically self-sufficient, open small-scale businesses and find a community of support. As well as offering a range of vocational training opportunities, Tubahumurize teaches students to grow

56 newtrail.ualberta.ca

their own vegetables and prepare a hot meal. Other programs include art, health education and traditional dance. Most of the women are survivors of genocide and gender-based violence, and many are living with HIV/AIDS. “Our goal is to fight against domestic violence,” says Jeanne Mwiliriza, Tubahumurize founder. “With support from the Green & Gold Community Garden, we have been able to assist these women to escape domestic violence. We have been able to change what is happening in our community.” The garden, located at South Campus, is a joint initiative between the School of Public Health and the Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences. Since opening in 2009, the garden has raised more than $60,000 for Tubahumurize. The funds have allowed the association to expand its trauma counselling services to outlying areas, as well as provide health education and microcredit loan programs. “I commend your willingness to care. That is how you change the world,” says Mwiliriza. – Donna Richardson

photos by michael holly

o some, it may be just a freshly picked tomato, a pungent sprig of cilantro or snapfresh green beans. But produce from the University of Alberta’s Green & Gold Community Garden does much more than nourish local Edmontonians—it also helps marginalized women and their families in Rwanda.

S T R AT E G I C THINKING SMALL CLASS SIZES

TRANSFORM O P P O R T U N I T Y C O L L A B O R AT I V E LEARNING

FA L L 2 0 1 3

CRITICAL THINKING

ENGAGED L E A D E R S H I P

NEXT ST

ALBERTA MBA

ADMISSION

FULL TIME, EVENING & EXECUTIVE

www.mba.net CALL 780-492-3946 OR

EMAIL mba@ualberta.ca

PM40112326

Share a Tradition – Share your memories with new generations of students during your faculty open house.

Start A Tradition – It’s never too early for an introduction to the Green & Gold. Check out tours and events with your children or grandchildren.

Make Your Mark Again – Join forces with your classmates to establish a legacy with a class gift.

Indulge In Education – Savour a hot original-recipe Tuck Shop cinnamon bun while you exercise your mind by attending a faculty-hosted lecture or an alumni “Coffee Talk” in the Tuck Shop Tent.

celebrate all weekend, from red-carpet to blue jeans,

there’s an event for everyone. Visit the website to claim your spot.

details at 780-492-3224 or www.ualberta.ca/alumni/weekend AluMnI WEEkEnd grATEfullY AcknoWlEdgES our SponSorS: