News Briefs

War memorial to be restored

TORONTO – This city’s oldest freestanding monument, which commemorates University of Toronto students who died defending their country before confederation, is being restored by the city.

A U of T news story said the monument to the Canadian Volunteers, located behind the university’s Morrison Pavilion on Queen’s Park Crescent, was erected in 1870, ten years after the formation of the University Rifle Corps, organized by Prof. Henry Croft in the shadow of the American Civil War and the threat to British North America. On June 2, 1866, three University College students were killed by members of the Fenian Brotherhood at the battle of Ridgeway on the Niagara Frontier.

The release notes that according to Martin Friedland in The University of Toronto: A History, the bell in the great tower of University College tolled every minute until their bodies were brought back to the university. In addition to the Volunteers monument, they are commemorated with a memorial window in the East Hall of University College.

Test drive in the lab

VANCOUVER – In a new Simon Fraser University lab, drivers buckle up and hit a virtual highway, allowing researchers to observe their stress levels, decision-making patterns, and factors that prompt safe or aggressive driving — even road rage.

The subjects use a driving simulator that appears real enough as a partial Ford Focus, with life-size driving scenes unfolding around it, according to a SFU release. Housed in Tom Spalek’s psychology lab, the simulator is one of only a few in Canada and will enable research to study attention phenomena in more realistic situations than ever before. Studies can be done on factors like dividing tasks or even age differences, to see how they interact in determining a driver’s performance.

Investigations can also track how driving efficiency is affected by various in-auto devices, such as GPS displays, or DVD players, information of interest to organizations concerned with improving traffic safety.

Contemporary convocation

CALGARY – The University of Calgary is fusing traditional with contemporary styles at its fall convocation, which will feature dimmed lights, a sleek stage and a more concise ceremony.

“Convocation is a momentous event,” says Sheila O’Brien, special advisor to the president on student life, in a news release. O’Brien, who led the initiative to have the convocation setting redesigned, described convocation as “a ceremony acknowledging years of hard work and dedication, and our students deserve to be celebrated in great style.”

The stage was designed by Andrew King, a sessional in the U of C Faculty of Environmental Design. King says the new look should help highlight each graduate and their accomplishments and will create a resonant moment for everyone involved.

Geography awareness

ST. JOHN'S - Memorial University is hosting a series of events in mid-November that it hopes will combat what one professor termed “rampant geographic illiteracy.”

Geography Awareness Week is a new initiative of the Canadian Association of Geographers, and is modeled on the U.S. National Geographic Society week that has been held since 1987, said a Memorial news story. According to Chris Sharpe, past president of the association and a Memorial professor, the venture aims to highlight how the physical and human geography of both the province and the country is changing, and the implications for the social, cultural, economic, political and environmental landscapes.

“It's a beginning, to try and help people understand how geography impacts lives,” he said. “We want to give the public the same message that we give to our first year students: there is a geography of everything.”

Western grad heads WHO

LONDON - Dr. Margaret Chan of China, a graduate of the University of Western Ontario's medial school, has been appointed to the position of Director-General of the World Health Organization.

Chan graduated from Brescia University College, which is affiliated with Western, in 1973 with a degree in Home Economics. She then went on the medical school, receiving her Doctor of Medicine in 1977.

Drugstore investment

EDMONTON - Canada’s largest drugstore chain of companies, Edmonton-based Katz Group, and the province of Alberta have announced they will each contribute $7 million to the University of Alberta, and create the potential for a total investment of $25 million.

According to a U of A release, the Katz Group, owners of the Rexall, Medicine Shoppe, Pharma Plus and Guardian IDA chains, has also committed to help the University raise an additional $5.5 million from pharmaceutical and related industries. The province will then match those monies, for a potential total investment of $25 million.

The recently announced $14 million, the largest ever one-time gift to a Canadian pharmacy school, will fund new educational initiatives in Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Law.

“At a time when pharmacists are playing an expanding role in patient care, it’s more important than ever that we invest in developing our next generation of health care professionals.” said Daryl Katz, a graduate of the U of A’s law school and Chairman, Katz Group

Physical conditions linked to anxiety

WINNIPEG – University of Manitoba researchers have found that anxiety disorders appear to be independently linked to several physical conditions, including thyroid disease, respiratory disease, arthritis and migraine headaches.

A U of M news release said the findings, published in late October in Archives of Internal Medicine, suggest this co-occurrence of disorders may increase the risk of disability and negatively affect quality of life. Anxiety disorders include panic disorder, agoraphobia (fear of being in a situation where panic or anxiety may occur and escape from the situation might be difficult), social phobia and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

According to researchers, studies have found that people with phobic (fearful) anxiety may be more likely to experience sudden cardiac death, and rates of anxiety disorders are higher than expected in patients with thyroid disease, cancer, hypertension and several other conditions.