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Underwritt en by The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company. Manulife and the Block Design are trademarks of The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company and are used by it, and by its aff iliates under licence. ©2019 The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company. All rights reserved. Manulife, PO Box 670, Stn Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2J 4B8.

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Accessible formats and communication supports are available upon request. Visit Manulife.com/accessibility for more information. WINTER 2019 VOLUME 75 NUMBER 3

features

18 What’s With Those Cinnamon Buns? These iconic bits of baking hold a special place in the hearts of alumni from many eras. We investigate why 26 Alumni Awards 32 grads who ask questions, then find the answers departments

3 Your Letters 5 Notes What’s new and noteworthy 10 Continuing Education Be prepared. Be very prepared 13 Thesis Open your mind and absorb a few thoughts on learning 41 Trails Where you’ve been and where you’re going 44 Class Notes 51 In Memoriam 56 Small Talk

ON THE COVER For decades, the U of A cinnamon bun fuelled many a study session, and even a few daydreams and doodles. Curtis Gillespie pays homage to this yeasty legend. Page 18. Illustration by Hylton Warburton; photos this page and cover by John Ulan; cinnamon buns by Lorraine Huntley new trail winter 2019 1 }upfront

OFFICE OF ALUMNI RELATIONS Medicine Sean Price, ’95 BCom Beverly Wilson, ’83 BMedSc, ’85 MD Associate Vice-President Native Studies Greg Latham Chancy Black Water, Awakas’ikitstakiaki Director, Alumni Engagement (Deer Offering Woman), ’10 BA(NativeStu), ’10 Cert(AborGov/Ptnshp) Tracy Salmon, ’91 BA(Hons), ’96 MSc Director, Alumni Programs Nursing Christine Westerlund, ’95 BScN(Hons), Coleen Graham, ’88 BSc(HEc), ’93 MEd ’01 MSc Senior Manager, Strategic Initiatives When Anything Is Possible Pharmacy ALUMNI COUNCIL EXECUTIVE Ali Damani, ’02 BSc(Pharm) Alumni Association President Public Health university of alumni top microsurgeons in the world. Heather Raymond, ’82 BEd, ’86 Dip(Ed), Salima Thawer, ’03 BSc, ’05 Dip(DentHyg), aren’t quick to brag. We have a His team successfully performed ’95 MEd, ’02 PhD ’06 BSc(DentHyg), ’13 MPH reputation for humility. A modest the first replanted arm surgery in Past-President Rehabilitation Medicine strength. We don’t do great things Canada and saved that child’s limb. Ayaz Bhanji, ’91 BSc(Pharm) Michele Moon, ’92 BSc(OT), ’05 MSc Committee Chairs: Alumni Awards Science seeking recognition, we do them That’s amazing. Rick Dowell, ’03 BSc(MechEng), ’09 MBA; Keri Reid, ’05 BSc because it’s the right thing to do Stories like that inspire Salima Thawer, ’03 BSc, ’05 Dip(DentHyg), ’06 BSc(DentHyg), ’13 MPH MEMBERS AT LARGE at the right moment. But after me. They make me feel as if Ali Assi, ’15 MPH Committee Chair: Alumni Student Council Yasmin Barre, ’09 BSc, ’12 MSc attending the Alumni Awards this anything is possible. In an age Phil Wong, ’85 BSc(Spec) past September, I wonder if we when, let’s face it, most of the Ramesh Bhambhani, ’66 BSc, ’68 MSc, ’72 PhD Committee Chair: Career Services Maxine Clarke, ’03 BCom should change our tune. news we get is negative, hearing , ’07 BScN, ’15 MBA Joel Johnston, ’16 BA(RecSpoTourism), Sitting in the audience, I got stories of alumni making good Committee Chair: Priority Programs ’16 Cert(AboriginalSpo/Rec), Jessica Vandenberghe, ’00 BSc(ChemEng), ’03 MSc ’16 Cert(CommEngage/ServLearn) goosebumps. Here were people on the U of A’s promise to uplift Jesse Moore, ’09 BA, ’09 Cert(Trans) Committee Chair: Volunteerism Rachel Persad, ’15 BA(Criminology) from my community who saw the whole people is the dose of Melissa Myskiw, ’05 BA, ’17 MA Ruth Spetter, ’94 BCom serious problems — issues where positivity I need. It’s meaningful Board of Governors Representatives Michael Wong, ’01 BCom it would be so easy to just turn a to be part of a group that includes Mary Pat Barry, ’04 MA Ryan Thompson, ’03 BSc(Hons), ’13 MA blind eye — and did what needed so much good and so much EX OFFICIO Senate Representatives Honorary President to be done to help. None of them potential. It fills me with hope. Charlene Butler, ’09 MBA David Turpin was seeking accolades. All of them That’s why I think we should Tyler Hanson, ’00 BSc(MechEng) Interim Vice-President (Advancement) Kelly Spencer, ’97 BA, ’19 MA acted with a social conscience. be less modest about alumni FACULTY REPRESENTATIVES Associate Vice-President (Alumni Relations) Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences This year was the 25th success — because we could Sean Price, ’95 BCom Chris Kallal, ’14 BSc(Forest) anniversary of the U of A all use a little hope these days. Dean of Students Arts André Costopoulos Alumni Awards, which recognize We don’t need to brag about Jim Gibbon, ’85 BSc, ’87 BA, ’06 MBA Dean of Students Designate professional achievement, our own achievements, but we Augustana Bryce Meldrum community service and innovation should happily brag about the Matthew Hebert, ’05 BA Graduate Students’ Association Business from our community. You can meet achievements of our neighbours Marc Waddingham Denise Prefontaine, ’86 BA(RecAdmin), ’95 MBA the 32 grads honoured this year on and people in our community. They Students’ Union Campus Saint-Jean Adam Brown page 26. deserve recognition and it feels Thomas Pomerleau, ’18 BCom(Bilingual) Listening to the stories of these good to give it. The more alumni Dentistry grads, I realized there’s no limit to I meet, the more stories I hear, the Hafiz Damani, ’93 BSc(Dent), ’95 DDS where our degrees can take us. We better I feel about our future. Education Ken Shields, ’69 BEd, ’84 MEd are equipped to handle the tough At the Alumni Awards I heard Engineering jobs, even when they’re unexpected. 32 incredible alumni stories. That Gail J. Powley, ’84 BSc(ChemEng) For example, Gary Lobay, ’68 MD, means I’ve got another 289,968 Extension could not have anticipated that on stories to hear. What’s yours? Melissa Myskiw, ’05 BA, ’17 MA Graduate Studies his first on-call shift he’d have to Olena (Alyona) Shynkaruk, ’16 PhD treat a child with a severed arm. Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation But he was ready. He had a medical Vacant degree from the U of A and had just Law Alexander Yiu, ’03 BA, ’06 LLB spent six months learning from the

Heather Raymond, ’82 BEd, ’86 Dip(Ed), ’95 MEd, ’02 PhD

president, alumni association PHOTO BY JOHN ULAN

2 ualberta.ca/newtrail } letters

We would like to hear your comments about the magazine. Send us your letters by post or email to the addresses on page 4. Letters may be edited for length or clarity. Part of a Balanced Breakfast @wadekelly: I wanted to pass along how much I enjoy Whoever is reading this publication! It helps me feel responsible connected to the U of A even though I live for #NewTrail in now. And it makes me so proud @UAlbertaAlumni, reading about all of the research and you’re killing it. accomplishments of my fellow alumni. I have been a student Reading the autumn issue was a great at three universities way to enjoy my Saturday coffee! and yours is the only –Stacy Oleksy, ’97 BSc(HEcol), alumni publication ’02 MSc, Oakville, Ont. I read.

Wade Kelly, ’04 BEd, ’12 MEd, Melbourne, ‘Unsubstantiated Folklore’ Editor’s note: Bert MacKay wrote in reference to the story “How to Catch Fire” (Spring 2019, page 23), in which we stated that Karl Clark, a No Holds Barred chemist and oilsands researcher, “dumped oily sand, hot water and caustic soda into an Editor’s note: The following letter arrived in the New Trail mailbag, accompanied by “a little memorabilia,” old-fashioned washing machine” while which turned out to be this fantastic Bar None patch (pictured). Elaine Mellor sent the note in reference experimenting with oil extraction techniques. to a short item on page 40 of the Autumn 2019 issue, which mentioned the origins of Bar None. If anyone I find this comment not only historically knows more about the “Take Your Professor for Coffee” tradition, contact us at [email protected]. incorrect but addressing Karl Clark so When I read the New Trail item “Did You Know?” I was reminded that I have a small poorly in an unsubstantiated folklore crest from Bar None. The dances were fun — and featured square dances — and there myth is sad. I am a close friend for many was a chuckwagon, if I remember correctly. At the time I took part in these festivities years of the family of the late Dr. Karl I was not aware of the original meaning of the Bar None symbol. Clark, the chemistry expert who is I also remember something called “Take Your Professor for Coffee.” I don’t remember credited with developing the oilsands at what time of the year this occurred but the idea was, a female student would invite extraction process. His daughter Mary the professor for coffee — they would troop off to the Tuck Shop and the rest of the Clark Sheppard, ’49 BA, told me he never class would disperse. At the time I was the only female in a group of engineering and at any time used a washing machine and geology classes in one of those old green army huts. When I got to the classroom door this “is a pure malevolent myth.” with my prof, I was swarmed by several engineering students, all holding $1 each and It’s notable that stories in the their professor, and saying to me, “Please take our professor for coffee!” So, I went off to magazine do not provide source the Tuck Shop with a gaggle of professors who all went along with this bit of silliness. material, which is anathema to me as a When did this tradition start? Did it last long? Did this practice take place only in technology writer, historian and former the sciences, when most profs at the time were male? power engineer. I expected a story on –Elaine E. Mellor, ’63 BSc, ’66 BEd, wind turbines, solar, geothermal, nuclear, fusion, tidal, hydro, natural gas — but that never happened. Only generic words that gave little fact or conclusion. The late Mary Clark Sheppard is a MORE ONLINE Find these stories graduate of U of A and spoke to students and more at ualberta.ca/newtrail. in university 20 years ago about her father’s remarkable research work, which I also researched for 40 years. Baseball’s Mary compiled an excellent book on her Bench-Clearing father’s incredibly detailed energy work Fights and all of the Alberta scientists who Half brawl, half were involved. The book is called Oil ballet — despite Sands Scientist: The Letters of Karl Fresh From the Oven the spontaneity, A. Clark, 1920 - 1949, printed by the Make your own Tuck Shop these tussles are cinnamon buns at home highly ritualized Press.

TOP PHOTO BY JOHN ULAN; BOTTOM PHOTO GETTY IMAGES with this handy video and predictable –Bert MacKay, Edmonton

new trail winter 2019 3 UALBERTA.CA/NEWTRAIL

AdvertiseAdvertise Supervising Editor Mary Lou Reeleder Editor-in-Chief Lisa Cook Managing Editor and Digital Editor withwith usus Karen Sherlock Associate Editor Mifi Purvis, ’93 BA Art Director Send your message straight Marcey Andrews Staff Writer to the minds of U of A alumni Stephanie Bailey, ’10 BA(Hons) Editorial Assistant Lisa Szabo, ’16 BA around the world — in print Senior Photographer John Ulan and online. Digital Melissa Fabrizio, ’16 BA; Matt Schneider, ’07 BA(Hons), ’09 MA; Ryan Whitefield, ’10 BA Social Media Joyce Yu, ’07 BA, ’15 MA Copy Editor/Fact Checker Therese Kehler, Barb Wilkinson Proofreader Philip Mail Advisory Board Anne Bailey, ’84 BA; Rhonda Kronyk, ’04 BA, ’07 MA; Robert Moyles, ’86 BCom; Sean Price, ’95 BCom; Michel Proulx; Karen Unland, ’94 BA CONTACT US Email (Comments/Letters/Class Notes): [email protected] Call: 780-492-3224; 1-800-661-2593 Mail: Office of Advancement, University of Alberta, Third Floor, Enterprise Square, 10230 Jasper Ave., Edmonton, AB T5J 4P6 Instagram & : @UAlbertaAlumni Facebook: UAlberta Alumni Address Updates: 780-492-3471; 1-866-492-7516 or [email protected] TO ADVERTISE Email: [email protected] Call: 780-248-5726

This University of Alberta Alumni Association magazine is published three times a year. It is mailed to more than 130,000 alumni and friends. The views and opinions expressed in the magazine do not necessarily represent the views of the Find our media guide at uab.ca/NTads. University of Alberta or the U of A Alumni Association. All material copyright ©. New Trail cannot be held responsible for Email newtrailualberta.ca or call unsolicited manuscripts or photographs. 780-248-5726 to book today! ISSN: 0824-8125 Copyright 2019 Publications Mail Agreement No. 40112326 If undeliverable in Canada, return to: Office of Advancement, University of Alberta, Third Floor, Enterprise Square, 10230 Jasper Ave. Edmonton, AB T5J 4P6 Printed in Canada

The University of Alberta respectfully acknowledges that we are situated on Treaty 6 territory, traditional lands of and Métis people.

4 ualberta.ca/newtrail noteswhat’s new and noteworthy

a marathon baseball game in Sherwood Park, Alta., in August raised more than $486,000 to support human trials of a promising new cancer drug, PCLX-001. The Play Ball! drug, based on a U of A finding, shuts down the abnormal chemical signalling in 56 people play for 84 hours many common cancers and triggers those cells to die, but spares the healthy cells. The Dianne and Irving Kipnes Foundation matched donations dollar for dollar up to hit a home run for to $250,000 toward the total raised for the Cure Cancer Foundation. Organizers cancer research of the World’s Longest Game hope to claim the Guinness World Records title for

PHOTO BY MANDY KOSTIUK longest baseball game. –ross neitz

new trail winter 2019 5 }notes

aspect of quilling,” says Sara NUMBERS Howdle, course co-ordinator. Knowledge keepers stressed the importance of the sacredness and teachings within those technical pieces.” The class teaches about porcupine quilling in relation to wahkohtowin, a Cree 80%Increase in how quickly garden waste decays using a new mixture and Métis concept of the created by U of A soil scientist interconnectedness of all Scott Chang and researchers from beings and relationships, Beijing Forestry University says Howdle. It shows the rich relationship between the porcupine and Indigenous RESEARCH peoples and emphasizes the DISCOVERY COULD sacredness of the art. PAVE WAY TO NEW Howdle says land-based learning opportunities are ALZHEIMER’S valuable but can be expensive TREATMENT and require students to be U of A researchers are one step closer to what they say away from home for stretches could be an effective treatment of time. Bringing the HANDS-ON LEARNING for Alzheimer’s disease. experiences to urban settings Neurologist Jack Porcupine Goes to the City can create opportunities for Jhamandas, ’74 BSc(Hons), more people to participate. ’76 MSc, and his team have Students learn traditional teachings of found two short peptides that, Cree and Métis art of porcupine quilling “This allows us to bring more elders onto campus when injected daily for five weeks, significantly improved skinning a porcupine in Teachings, was the first and make campus feel not memory in mice genetically a classroom is far from a land-based class the faculty only more welcoming, but modified to have Alzheimer’s typical learning experience. has offered in an urban also more of a space where disease. The peptides, or But for some U of A students, setting. Métis artist Melissa- Indigenous knowledges are strings of amino acids, also it was a transformative one. Jo (MJ) Belcourt Moses, not just seen as legitimate, but reduced some of the harmful “A lot of us have not been Edmonton’s Indigenous Artist truly a part of the nucleus.” physical changes in the brain that characterize the disease. raised learning our cultural in Residence, introduced The course was created The discovery builds on the traditions or ways of doing students to the process of by the Rupertsland Centre team’s previous research into things, so I think it’s really porcupine quilling, including for Métis Research and the a compound called AC253 that important to have this here at harvesting — in this case, Indigenous Women and can block the toxic effects of university,” says Pam Greene, from roadkill — plucking, Youth Resilience Project in amyloid beta, a protein many a student in the Faculty of cleaning, dyeing and stitching. response to requests from scientists believe to be a major contributor to Alzheimer’s Native Studies. But the teachings go much students for more land-based as it is often found in large The course, Porcupine deeper. and traditional teachings. quantities in patients’ brains. Goes to the City: Quillwork “It’s not just the technical –jordan mae cook, ’07 ba AC253 is too complex to be able to make it an effective oral drug, so the U of A team chopped it into smaller peptide strings and discovered two “Social media lets narcissists make a shorter strings that have the same beneficial effect as the perfect picture of themselves, edit it, full compound when tested in mice. These shorter peptides doctor it, throw it online and watch are potentially easier to turn into an effective oral drug. the stream of potentially global social The find builds on 15 to 20 years of work, Jhamandas says. approval. It’s the narcissist’s perfect tool.” The next goal is to manufacture an oral version of the drug Psychology professor Kyle Nash, whose study suggests approval on social media can help so human clinical trials can

certain kinds of narcissists deal with the psychological distress of being excluded begin. –ryan o’byrne, ’06 ba PHOTO BY SARA HOWDLE

6 ualberta.ca/newtrail Footnotes

A brief look at what’s new at the U

Cuts Require ‘Tough Decisions’ The university faces a $79-million cut in funding for the 2019-20 fiscal year. The provincial budget, released Oct. 24, announced post- secondary funding cuts of 12.5 per cent over four years, as well as tuition increases of up to seven per cent in each of the next three years. “Meeting the challenge of this budget cut and changes anticipated for the following years will not be easy, and we will need to make tough decisions,” said U of A President David Turpin. Updates will be available at uab.ca/budget. DO CHICKADEES UNDERSTAND HUMANS? The excitement you hear in your friend’s voice when she tells you about her promotion — chickadees can recognize it, too. In experiments, PhD candidate New Dean of Jenna Congdon, ’15 MSc, exposed humans and black-capped chickadees to high- and low-arousal calls Medicine & Dentistry from different species. Both were able to identify the difference in each other’s vocalizations and that Brenda Hemmelgarn will of giant pandas. “This is fascinating because a chickadee that has never come across a giant panda take over in January as before is able to categorize high- and low-arousal vocalizations,” Congdon says. –katie willis, ’13 ba, ’18 ma dean of the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry for a five-year term. She most recently headed EXPERT ADVICE the Department of Community Health HOW TO COPE WITH EMOTIONS AT FAMILY EVENTS Sciences at the Holidays and special events are a time for celebration, but if you find yourself feeling blue in the University of . midst of a family gathering, you’re not alone. Michaela Kadambi, ’98 MEd, ’03 PhD, a psychologist with the university’s Counselling & Clinical Services, says events like these can make us feel Indigenous Centre gloomy by calling attention to strained relationships, the absence of loved ones or things missing Gets Funding Boost from our own lives. So, instead of feeling guilty the next time you find grief or anger amid the The Wahkohtowin Law confetti and cake, embrace your feelings and try these practical tips. –bev betkowski and Governance Lodge, a U of A centre that ACKNOWLEDGE TAKE A EMBRACE supports Indigenous ABSENT LOVED ONES TIME OUT GOODBYES groups in revitalizing their Think about ways to include If you’re having a hard time Don’t avoid emotional governance and legal the person you’re missing, holding it together, take a goodbyes to loved ones who traditions, has received a whether as a group or privately. breather. Go somewhere live far away. It’s normal to $134,000 federal grant. It Set a place for them at the quiet, get some air or have a cry, Kadambi says, and those will support development table or include something cry. If you have a supportive shared moments where of the lodge, workshops that reminds you of them, friend who can go with you, feelings are visible can make and Indigenous public

CHRIS MIKULA / ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES like a piece of jewelry. take them along. for a beautiful farewell. legal education strategies.

new trail winter 2019 7 }notes

Constitutional Studies. NUMBERS “It’s a reflection of our values and of our federal structure — the provinces LAW and the federal government Not Your Average had bitter fights during this process. There were winners 10,000 The number of visitors to History Lesson and losers, big personalities, the university’s open house YouTubers tell the story behind the Constitution fascinating stories.” for prospective students in During a 2011 conference October, a new record how do you get young people interested in something hosted by the centre, as seemingly dry and boring as the Canadian Constitution? some of the surviving You summon the help of six YouTube stars and create a flashy participants of the 1981 REAL LIFE drama featuring retro costumes and 1980s pop songs. Constitution negotiations NEW RELATIONSHIP, That’s what the U of A’s Centre for Constitutional Studies were interviewed for a SAME OL’ YOU did when it teamed up with the National Film Board of Canada documentary that was never There’s a reason your new to create Supreme Law, an interactive documentary that details made. Paradis contacted romance feels a lot like your how and why the Constitution was created in 1982. Bonnie Thompson, ’93 BA, at last one. A U of A study has The tale is anything but boring. Getting all parties the NFB to see if the found that after the honeymoon to agree to the Constitution involved “Gangs! material could be phase fades, people tend to have the same dynamics in new Backstabbing! Trahison! (betrayal),” as the ad‑libbing preserved. partnerships as in past ones. co-hosts gleefully tell it. For more on “This was an these and other The study surveyed 554 The drama is told in five narratives, with great U of A enormous and people at four points: a year popular Canadian YouTubers representing five stories, visit rare opportunity before their first intimate points of view — then-prime minister Pierre folio.ca. to learn about relationship ended and again Trudeau, Quebec, the West, Indigenous Peoples and constitution- during the final year, then women. Viewers can also check out 11 bonus “deep making from those within the first year of the new relationship and a year dives,” background essays reviewed by U of A researchers who participated and after that. It looked at seven that feature historic photos and video clips. negotiated the final deal,” indicators, including relationship “It’s very important to understand what went into the Paradis says. and sexual satisfaction, ability making of our Constitution because it’s very much a reflection The show can be streamed to open up to a partner and of the people we are,” says Patricia Paradis, ’75 BA, ’76 on the NFB website at nfb.ca/ confidence in whether the Dip(Ed), ’83 MEd, ’88 LLB, executive director of the Centre for supremelaw. –helen metella relationship would last. All but two indicators remained stable across both relationships. Frequency of sex and expressing admiration for their partner improved early in the second romance, says human ecology professor Matthew Johnson, who led the study. But by the middle phase, most relationship indicators were similar to the same phase of the first partnership. “This research shows that chances are, you are going to fall into the same patterns in many aspects of the relationship,” Johnson says. To combat these patterns, he advises taking stock of past partnerships and addressing personal issues that may be contributing to problems. “Having a more balanced view of the negatives and positives gives us realistic expectations for the new relationship.”

–bev betkowski CANADA OF BOARD FILM NATIONAL

8 ualberta.ca/newtrail TRUE OR FALSE? THE LOWDOWN ON FLU SHOTS A flu shot is a safe, effective way to reduce the risk of getting or spreading a truly unpleasant and sometimes deadly illness, says a U of A infectious disease specialist. “You can protect yourself, you can protect others and it’s a safe vaccine,” says Lynora Saxinger. “I actually see very little downside to it.” But myths persist due to outdated information or outright misinformation, she says. See if you can tell myth from fact when it comes to influenza injections. (The information below refers to the available injectable vaccine, not the live intranasal vaccine.) –gillian rutherford

YOU MIGHT STILL GET THE FLU true. “The vaccine doesn’t make you bulletproof,” says Saxinger. But if you do get the flu, it tends to be milder and patients are less likely to require hospitalization or die.

THE VACCINE ISN’T SAFE false. Vaccines have among the highest levels lead investigator on the project. TREE OF LIFE of testing, safety and monitoring of all modern “And if we want to understand medical interventions, she says. A flu injection Scientists Unlock how the tree of life works, we poses zero risk of contracting influenza because need to examine the relationships it contains no live virus. Vaccine ingredients a Billion Years of between species. That’s where such as formaldehyde and aluminum may sound Plant Evolution genetic sequencing comes in.” frightening, but the amounts are minuscule The study gives insight into how and most occur naturally in the body in higher International group amounts. The risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome, undertook genetic green plant species — nearly half a an immune disorder that can occur after sequencing of more million of them — evolved over the triggers such as infection, is much higher after than 1,100 species last billion years. By sequencing being infected with influenza than after getting and analyzing genes from a broad a flu shot, Saxinger says. Scientists have completed a nine- sampling of plant species, the year quest to get to the root of the researchers were able to gain a FLU SHOTS ARE UNSAFE FOR MANY PEOPLE complex genetic history of green more complete picture of the gene false. People with an egg allergy can safely plants — a wide-ranging group and genome duplications that get a flu shot, though those with a previous that includes everything from enabled evolutionary innovations severe reaction should check with a public green algae and farm crops to such as the ability to grow tall and health unit regarding whether they should mosses and trees. make seeds, flowers and fruits. get further doses. Those you might think of The One Thousand Plant Study co-author James as medically vulnerable — seniors, people Transcriptomes Initiative, or Leebens-Mack, a professor of with chronic illnesses — should be immunized because influenza can be so harmful for 1KP, brought together nearly plant biology at the University them, and in the case of pregnant women, 200 plant biologists from around of Georgia’s Franklin College influenza can harm their pregnancy. the world to sequence and analyze of Arts and Sciences, says the genes from more than 1,100 plant research shows that over the last I’M HEALTHY, SO GETTING species. Their study, published billion years, ancestral green algal THE FLU ISN’T A BIG DEAL in Nature, provides the most species split into two separate false. “Most people cannot function with influenza; it’s quite different from a cold. On comprehensive evolutionary evolutionary lineages. One average it’s five days of being down for the tree for green plants and sets up included flowering plants, land count and 10 days of illness.” In some closed a framework for understanding plants and related algal groups, environments, such as a workplace or school, plant diversity around the planet. and the other lineage comprised almost everyone can get sick. That causes a lot “In the tree of life, everything a diverse array of green algae. of disruption in people’s lives, says Saxinger, not to mention the risk posed to others’ safety. is interrelated,” says U of A –alan flurry and

SHAKZU / ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES genomicist Gane Ka-Shu Wong, katie willis, ’13 ba, ’18 ma

new trail winter 2019 9 }continuing education

Learning doesn’t end when you accept your degree. We are all lifelong learners, whether we pursue lessons in a class or a lecture hall — or these lessons pursue us. Curtis Gillespie, ’85 BA(Spec), reflects on the continuing opportunities for education that life throws our way, sometimes when we least expect them. by Curtis Gillespie

Some years after my siblings and I left home, my parents gave each of us a hand-constructed memory chest with keepsakes from our childhood. It’s a cherished part of my life and I look through it often with pleasure and gratitude. But the things I recall with a little embarrassment are my Cub and Scout badges, which my mother must have unstitched from my various uniforms and stored for safekeeping. I love her for a million reasons and that’s one of them, but it had to be a bit of a bummer for her because there were just so few badges. The lonely three or four that have settled like dried flower petals at the bottom of the chest are hard to decipher for what they signify, but they appear to be recognizing such things as good hygiene and politeness, which, I don’t really need to say, were turned into badges purely to prevent the empty-shirted humiliation of those of us not quite at the top rung of Boy Scout achievement. Getting one of these badges was like going to Navy SEAL training and getting a commendation for knowing which fork to use for the salad course at a formal dinner. If you were hopelessly non-outdoorsy, as I was, the empty spaces across the front of my shirt and down the arms were actually a kind of semaphore (another skill I didn’t have) telling the world, “Do not under any circumstances put your life in this guy’s hands!” Yet, astonishingly, three of my friends did just that (possibly because I neglected to inform them I had never earned the camping badge) when we Bring Out the Boy Scout decided to hike the West Coast Trail I TOOK ‘BE PREPARED’ TO A WHOLE NEW LEVEL ON MY SUMMER HIKING TRIP. this past summer. It is a notoriously I’D LIKE TO THINK THAT’S WHY MY FRIENDS AND I CAME HOME ALIVE challenging six- to eight-day trek on the west side of Island was in the Boy Scouts of Canada between the ages of about eight and 12. I don’t through the rainforest and along the remember much of it except for having to wear a funny hat and neckerchief, coastline. You have to pack everything and that we began and ended each weekly meeting by squatting in a circle on in and out — all your food, cooking gear, our haunches like a wolf pack listening to our Sixer (our leader) shout, “DYB, toiletries, tent, sleeping bag, clothes, DYB, DYB!” Meaning, Do Your Best. To which we’d leap up with two fingers over emergency supplies, toilet paper. And each ear to imitate young wolves as we shouted, “DOB, DOB, DOB!” Meaning, it’s a commitment. There is one escape Do Our Best. Our uniforms had ample space across the chest and down both arms to hatch on the trail, roughly halfway sew onI badges and proudly display them as evidence of our skill at things like pitching through, but other than that, it’s genuine

tents, chopping wood, staunching wounds, tying knots and starting campfires. be ready or you’re in trouble adventuring. ILLUSTRATION BY SUTHERLAND; KELLY PHOTO BY JOHN ULAN

10 ualberta.ca/newtrail Natasha Danha is a second-year science student and scholarship recipient

Paying it forward with a gift of life insurance

Former international student Dilip Kembhavi and his wife, Alaka, wanted to give back to the community that gave them so much.

By arranging a gift of life insurance to the university, the Kembhavis will help more students than they ever imagined possible. “Donating life insurance was appealing — To learn how you can make a difference by giving a gift providing good tax benefits while allowing us to create a substantial impact in the future.” of life insurance, please contact us: Donors Dilip Kembhavi, ‘74 MEng, ’78 MBA, and his wife, Alaka 780-492-2616 | [email protected] | uab.ca/LifeIns }continuing education

Hundreds of guidebooks and online repellent (which I didn’t use), dozens beetle on its back for a few seconds but resources offer many thousands of tips, of metres of different strengths of luckily the water was only a couple of but they all pretty much give the same rope (which I didn’t use), a roll of heavy feet deep. Danny’s got wonky. Jon fundamental advice: duct tape (which I didn’t use), four or decided a six-day backpacking trip was Be prepared. five different kinds of antiseptics and a good time to experiment with a new As departure day loomed I could feel wound closure materials (which I didn’t camp fuel system and managed to singe the Scout in me coming out. I sensed use), rescue and disaster materials such a large patch of hair off his leg. Greg the clean fingernail badge wasn’t going as foil body wraps (which I didn’t use), appeared to have no problems, a fact for to do us much good four days into the extra batteries for my headlamp (which which we will never forgive him. trail with no roads or escape routes or I didn’t use, primarily because I didn’t According to the rules of narrative rangers or cell signals, not to mention figure out how to use the headlamp drama, it’s at this point in the story possible bears, cougars, cliffs, tides, until the fourth night), repair materials that we should come to the crux of streams, ladders and campfires. So I for tent, sleeping bag, backpack, hiking the matter, a dangerous event we did what any self-aware and insecure boots, clothing and poles (none of which encountered but overcame — a bear, a Scout would do. I overcompensated. To I used), two kinds of Benadryl (which serious fall, a broken ankle, a tidal wave. say that I went over the top in my gear I didn’t use), three hats (one of which I While I can partly adhere to dramatic preparations is like saying the Rolling used) and a bug net for my head (which tradition (in that I nearly committed a Stones don’t know when to quit. My I didn’t use). This is in contrast to the homicide when a hiker we met assumed wife, Cathy, eyed my near-daily trips to single pair of sunglasses I brought and I was Greg’s father; I am three years the equipment store with bemusement, lost on the second day. older), I have to report that there were pausing one day to say, “You do know The first half of the hike went pretty no tragedies and no major dramas. One you have to put all this on your back, much as I had hoped. It was difficult; it member of our troop suffered mild right?” I packed and unpacked my was beautiful; it was a little treacherous hypothermia but a big mug of hot miso backpack seven or eight times, laying in spots. It was taxing and exhausting, soup set him right. No, the truth is that every item out on the floor in the but doable. And best of all, I felt my even though the conditions got worse basement. I analyzed each according to preparations had paid off. Sure, I had and the trail got substantially more my ruthlessly logical standards, which way too much gear, but I felt I had things taxing the more tired we got, somehow, was how I ended up bringing 30 cubes under control. I felt good, and I know my we did fine. of bouillon, a dozen tea bags and a huge trail mates felt the same. I suppose it’s because we were sack of powdered milk — but only one Then we crossed the Nitinat River prepared. Preparation, I learned, isn’t hiking shirt. (The one thing I probably and went from Hobbiton to Mordor. We only about bringing along what you’ll didn’t prepare for enough was the soon realized the taxing and slightly need, but what you’ll need to feel good actual hike. I suspect I spent more time treacherous trail we’d been on for the about yourself. Solid preparation might debating whether to bring two or three past three days was the gladiator training sometimes sound like it’s obsessively pairs of hiking socks than I did in those before hitting the lion-filled Colosseum readying yourself for every potential socks training for the trip.) floor. Most of the 40 kilometres to the calamity, but I wonder if it isn’t actually The way we prepare for something finish line was across terrain that was the opposite. Maybe being prepared is says a lot, not only about who we are but up and down, up and down, often with a cosmic way of getting the universe also about who we think we are and how some rock scrambling. And we were on your side so that nothing disastrous we want others to perceive us. I think always — I mean always — negotiating a happens. It’s a hopeful, even optimistic, the four of us displayed four types of path choked with roots, branches, mud, practice. If we feel ready for anything, preparation, all of which flowed from rocks, ferns and logs. Nearly every step then odds are it will go pretty well most our individual natures. Greg was nimble held injury potential. Every footfall had of the time, which, by extension, means and efficient in a quirky scientist kind to be considered and judged. I was often we should not be afraid to try new things of way. Jon was self-reliant and trusted exhausted at precisely the moment and embark on new adventures. Even if his wealth of experience. Danny was we’d arrive at a ladder complex. Ah, the we never got that badge. This is why the both analytical and physical per his ladders. There are some 70 to 80 along the only real preparation advice I can offer nature. And I pursued outright disaster trail, and the highest must be 30 metres. you intrepid life Scouts is this: mitigation. My goal was to plan ahead On one ladder I stopped counting rungs DYB, DYB, DYB! for the inevitable mishap I was likely to on the way down when I hit 80. trigger but which I could then resolve And we began to encounter other Curtis Gillespie has written five books and earned through having anticipated triggering it. problems. I managed to fall into a tidal seven National Magazine Awards. His New Trail article “A Hard Walk” won gold for best article of When we hit the trail, I had in my pack pool with the weight of my pack pulling 2018 from CASE, an international post-secondary bear spray (which I didn’t use), cougar me under. I scrambled around like a association.

12 ualberta.ca/newtrail thesisdiving deep into one idea

there is a lot we don’t know about how we learn — about the mechanics and magic of our brains and neural networks. Thoughts on Learning And there’s more to learning than what’s between our ears. In the following pages, we explore how our brains do their thing: A dynamic process, learning is part how our experiences help us change our minds, how ignoring memory, part understanding and part a problem can help solve it, how neuro-atypical minds can openness to changing your mind in the help in the workplace. What we discover along the way is a

ILLUSTRATION BY BYRON EGGENSCHWILER BYRON BY ILLUSTRATION face of new facts and experiences little surprising.

new trail winter 2019 13 }thesis

stories inside them than we Give it a minute: part of might think. Consider, for how we learn depends on example, all the work that other species living inside takes place inside our brain our gut. as our conscious mind sleeps. During work she started “When a person is in in her post-doc and finished a resting state, there’s a at the U of A, Taylor and network of structures along her team found that gut the midline of the brain that bacteria of lab mice in are active,” says Clayton opioid withdrawal existed Dickson, a psychology in different abundances professor working with the than they did in healthy U of A’s Neuroscience and mice. So, she transplanted Mental Health Institute. the fecal matter of mice who “The same network shows were in withdrawal into up when you’re lightly the colons of the healthy anesthetized or starting mice. “We saw the healthy to fall asleep.” Even in the animals start to behave as absence of inputs from though they were in opioid the senses, this network withdrawal. And we saw connects disparate parts inflammation in their spinal of the brain and has a role cords and brains,” she says. in consolidating memories Though they’d never had an and socking them away. This opioid, the composition of important aspect of how we the introduced gut bacteria When Your learn is a focus of Dickson’s changed their behaviour, lab. But the default neural rewiring their “learning” network doesn’t act alone. process, making the mice less Thoughts Run The theatre of the mind apt to behave in typical ways. is generated by more than But we are not slaves Away With You the machinery of the brain. to our neural networks or Learning is labour, and memory socks away its We’re awash in chemical gut colonists. A man from neurotransmitters, too. Sherwood Park, Alta., brings yields for a rainy day. But how we learn and recall Serotonin is a familiar good tidings about the involves surprising processes — and body parts one, the dearth of which conscious steps we can take is associated with anxiety to enhance our ability to and depression. A couple of learn, by making the task of my mom is a visually Apparently, if parts of studies indicate serotonin has memorization easier. impaired nonagenarian. your brain don’t have enough an important role in memory. Jim Gerwing, ’83 BPE, ’14 A few years ago, she started visual input, they’ll start But here’s where it gets weird: MEd, just happens to be the seeing things: colourful making images of their this part of the machinery of winner of the 2019 Canadian patterns on the floor and own volition. Clusters of our brains is not in our head Memory Championships. He walls. Next came people, in specialized cells in our brains at all, but in our bowels. believes a person’s memory pairs and dozens, going up are customized during the “The more I dig into it, is more or less a genetic fait and down escalators. Then act of learning to recognize the freakier it gets,” says accompli. “But it’s something car traffic showed up in the things such as facial features, Anna Taylor, neuroscientist you can hack,” he says. kitchen. She easily recognized for example. It’s why we see and assistant professor “I was taking a that her hallucinations faces in car grills or wood in the Department of developmental anatomy weren’t real: they never grain. When those cells don’t Pharmacology. “People often class and I had to learn the goaded her or even interacted have enough input, they think of bacteria as ‘the stages of development of with her. A Swiss scientist “think” those remembered other,’ but symbiotic bacteria the fetus — all these Latin named Charles Bonnet images into being. make neurotransmitters, terms!” he says. So, he tried first described similarly As Bonnet codified this which bind to our receptors a technique known as a benign visions in his own syndrome, he marvelled at and activate regions in our “memory palace,” which grandfather 250 years ago. how “the theatre of the mind brain.” In fact, 95 per cent of involved an imaginary walk- About a third of people could be generated by the our body’s serotonin is made through of a place he knew experiencing degrees of machinery of the brain.” in our gut, thanks to the well — his apartment — and blindness later in life will We have less control over interaction between specific he assigned specific develop the syndrome named the relationship between human cells and our bacterial Latin terms to individual

after Bonnet. our brains and the facts and colonizers. household items. EGGENSCHWILER BYRON BY ILLUSTRATION

14 ualberta.ca/newtrail “The more I dig into it, the freakier it gets. People often think of bacteria as ‘the other,’ but symbiotic bacteria make neurotransmitters, which … activate regions in our brain.” Anna Taylor Neuroscientist and assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology

After this exercise, Gerwing was able to recall 100 per cent of those unfamiliar terms in the correct order. Memorizing is not exactly learning, but once you’ve committed the facts to heart you are free to recall, analyze and apply them in different contexts. Aside from making him a memory champ triumphing over competitors decades younger, 60-year-old Gerwing says his memory work (yes, it’s work — he trains every morning) helps him in other ways. He doesn’t keep a calendar, doesn’t need a we don’t slip in the shower or step in dog grocery list. He’s great with poop — it’s also monitoring our internal names and faces and he can world. deliver a speech calmly and “Part of our brain works in an automatic way that we’re not in direct control of. Our accurately without notes. THE ART OF mind is always moving around,” he says. “And it helps me really be “In times of calm, quiet or meditation, we present in the moment,” he UNTHINKING can have access to those parts of our mind says. His approach to hacking that are outside our focus.” That’s when the memory is kind of inspiring. When answers are hard to “a-ha” hits. When we consider that come by, switch lanes But unrolling your yoga mat may not clusters of cells in our brains unfurl the eurekas. “It’s tricky because it’s it happens all the time. You’re in the a paradoxical kind of thing,” says Singhal. can generate visions based on shower and a solution to a problem you “When you’re meditating or doing yoga, you past learning, when we find thought about last week emerges from are focusing your attention in a particular that gut composition may the steam. You’re walking the dog when way, and the focus is to not be focused.” change learning behaviour, a brilliant idea drops, seemingly out of It’s hard to empirically study the content when we imagine our default nowhere. You’ve been unthinking. of our consciousness, he says. But to neural networks firing up “We’re always thinking, even though unleash your unthinking, avoid screens and we might not be aware of it,” says Anthony good books and do something mindless. while we rest — it’s nice to Singhal, head of the U of A’s Attention and Go for a walk, wash the windows, file that know that guys like Gerwing Action Lab and chair of the Department of stack of papers. When you tune out the are trying to take charge of Psychology. While our brain is constantly noise, you can tune in to your unthinking.

OLEG MURAVSKIY / ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES the process. –mifi purvis, ’93 ba monitoring the external environment — so –jennifer allford, ’84 ba

new trail winter 2019 15 }thesis

Change How You Think Atypical Learning and Eunice Doroni, ’15 BA, ’18 BA, ’18 Cert(CSL), ’18 Cert(IntLearning), Remarkable Results grew up considering three career choices: lawyer, doctor, nurse. But, Not everyone’s brain operates the same way. as she marched toward door No. 1, Shouldn’t we try to make the most of it? something changed her mind. Once we choose — whether it’s what car to buy or what subject to study — it’s tough to switch. But much has been said of teenager Greta “I began to wonder, as I watched that we change our minds all the time, Thunberg’s ascent as a climate change little boy, whether I was like him.” Brown’s almost automatically. We choose activist. She has read the science and hunch proved correct when, as a young different shoes based on weather, is undistracted by political noise. Like adult, she was diagnosed as being on the or we shift our grip on a Ping-Pong other people with autism, Thunberg has autism spectrum. paddle based on the play. What’s happening in our brains that makes what psychologists call “intense special She knew she needed a work decisions easy or hard? interests,” explains Heather Brown, a environment that better matched her “Whether easy or difficult, there professor of educational psychology. strengths. On the suggestion of her are arguments for there being “We happily absorb enormous amounts therapist, she tried grad school. She common mechanisms behind of detailed information about those excelled. “The great thing about grad all decision-making,” says Craig interests.” Though she’s never met school for someone with autism is that Chapman, associate professor in Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation. Thunberg, like her, Brown is on the autism you’re allowed to have an intense special But if we had to weigh every spectrum. And like Thunberg, Brown says, interest,” says Brown. “The more intensely decision, we’d get nothing done. “Many of us are more concerned with I studied and learned, the better I did.” “Some decision-making happens truth than we are with social approval.” But that doesn’t happen on its own. below our level of awareness.” Brown’s research compares the abilities Neurodiverse people can struggle to The point at which we stop of people with autism to those of the find the right work environment. Brown considering new information and make a choice is called the general population. Her work contributes says the accommodations each needs to decision threshold. “In a simple to a growing body of research that thrive are as unique as the individual, model, we can see what would suggests in the right context, neurodiverse but it’s worth the effort. “Society needs happen if you commit at a lower people will thrive. Neurodiversity is people with neurodiverse brains. Some threshold,” Chapman says. atypical neurological development, Brown of our greatest achievements have Decisions with more sources says. “It is the result of natural human been conceived by brains that worked of information may have a higher neurocognitive variation,” she explains. differently,” she says. In addition to decision threshold, giving a greater degree of confidence in the choice, “And we deserve acceptance and respect.” Thunberg, examples include Pokémon as Doroni found. In her undergrad, With the right environment, neurodiverse inventor Satoshi Tajiri and actor Anthony she took a class with a community people will lift up more than themselves. Hopkins. service learning component, found This is the narrative arc of Brown’s own Brown says one barrier to neurodiverse herself in a placement at the Sexual career, which had a rocky beginning when people finding thriving careers is a lack Assault Centre and discovered she started teaching elementary school. “I of appreciation for what they can bring. careers in the non-profit sector. “I was like, ‘Huh. That’s a thing,’ ” she struggled with parts of the job,” she says. A second is that it can be hard for people says. The experience provided new “Mostly the social challenge of working to understand other perspectives. “Which information that overtook the old. with other teachers.” Then she learned is kind of ironic, since that’s one of the “During my first degree, I was that one of her students had autism. diagnostic criteria for autism.” –lewis kelly like, ‘I have to chase the A’s.’ I focused on school work,” she says. “When I opened up to other opportunities, I realized that non- profit is where I want to be.” “Every single person is a different human being, Chapman says changes to how and every single person has a different experience we access information make our our choices narrower, affecting our with any bit of language that you throw at them. decisions. He advises we consider We need to be in the middle of the mix, because we the source and pursue that which is outside our comfort zone. can’t look at our language or our mind or our brain In an age of recalcitrance, from the outside. It doesn’t work that way.” Eunice Doroni did just that, and it worked out beautifully. Juhani Järvikivi, co-principal investigator of Words in the World, a donor-funded project to take psycholinguistics research from the lab to the global community –jennifer allford, ’84 ba, with files from mifi purvis, ’93 ba

16 ualberta.ca/newtrail In the arm-wrestle of intelligence, which limb would win?

by lewis kelly illustration by gwen keraval

in one corner: in the other corner:

Introducing the amazing arm from the BLINC lab Here, we have the most marvellous mollusk of them all, (a.k.a. Bionic Limbs for Improved Natural Control). Octopus vulgaris. The octopus doesn’t confine its brain Creating prosthetic devices that work naturally takes to its head. Two-thirds of its neurons are in its limbs. expertise in medicine, engineering, robotics, occupational Each sucker on each arm is wired with thousands of therapy and more. The BLINC lab, led by Jacqueline Hebert neurons that guide its sense of taste and touch. In other and Patrick Pilarski, ’09 PhD, brings researchers together words, the arms can think for themselves. to craft prostheses that seem straight from science fiction.

This arm can see. The U of A’s BLINC lab has tested Each of the octopus’s eight appendages can touch, prosthetic arms that use cameras to “see” what the SENSE smell and even “taste” different chemicals. The user is trying to pick up. Computer vision processing AND SENSE arms seem to explore and gather information analyzes the images from the cameras and predicts how ABILITY semi‑autonomously, but the creature can direct the prosthetic should move to achieve the user’s goals. them when needed.

The limited number of ways a user can interact with The octopus uses its brainy, neuron-lined arms and the prosthesis presents a design challenge. “For suckers to learn mazes, to unscrew a mason jar from example, for a person with an above-elbow amputation, the inside and to find and master escape routes. Mimic we have two signals we can use: biceps and triceps octopuses, which change their pattern, texture and ARMED colour in response to stress from the presence of flexing,” says Riley Dawson, ’14 BSc(CompEng), a WITH WAYS graduate student at the BLINC lab. Using just two TO LEARN potential predators, have a kind of “smart skin.” It lets signals to tell a machine to tie your shoes is tough. them camouflage themselves instantly, hiding in plain So, they build arms that can learn from inference and sight on a signal from their neural networks. pattern recognition. Theoretically, Dawson says, this system could let users catch a ball, for example.

The BLINC lab’s devices include the Bento Arm and They say research moves slowly, but evolution is HANDi Hand. “Together they’re a fully functioning slower. Cephalopods, which include cuttlefish and robotic arm that moves like a human’s,” Dawson says. octopuses, have been around for 500 million years. But with only a few control signals available, he says CHANGE Some squid lost their shells 200 million years ago users can’t yet, say, operate fingers individually. Here’s WITHIN and octopuses evolved to lose theirs as long ago as where artificial intelligence comes in: his team is REACH 145 million years. And octopuses edit their RNA at building an arm that can learn. Predicting when the greater rates than they do DNA, which serves to slow arms might be ready for widespread use is a fool’s down their genome evolution compared with that of errand, but the technology makes gains all the time. other creatures.

THE WINNER!! The neural network of Octopus vulgaris’s clever limbs is backed by millions of years of evolution, so it’s our overall winner. But the BLINC lab’s smart arm, with its artificial intelligence, is learning fast. Future competitions may be harder to judge.

new trail winter 2019 17 18 ualberta.ca/newtrail new trail winter 2019 19 lorraine huntley was fresh out of cooking school in 1977 when she was offered a job by the iconic University of Alberta food services manager, Joyce Kerr. Without knowing what a fervent house of worship she was entering, Huntley took the job and was soon doing well enough under Kerr’s exacting eye that she was elevated to the role of Holy Knot‑Maker. The cathedral — the Central Academic Building, or CAB — had been serving its sacred cinnamon buns since 1971 in the basement cafeteria. Every day, working in the sepulchral depths of the temple where the buns were produced and sold, Huntley got a good look Above, Joyce Kerr serves at the people for whom she was tying the knot: hordes of students so cinnamon buns to hungry desperate for a bun that it was as if that baked knot of dough, sugar and students in CAB. Staff would bake upwards of 50 dozen buns a day cinnamon was all that separated pass from fail. (And as she gently reminds and the pans would be empty by me when we talk, they were technically knots, not buns nor rolls.) Huntley noon. Though the recipe’s origins recalls that they were delicious, huge and cheap. For a quarter, a student are lost in time, the buns’ name comes from the Tuck Shop, shown on a tight budget would get enough calories to last the day. below and right in the 1910s. Some days it must have seemed as if every soul on campus was in line. Depending on the day of the week, Kerr, Huntley and the third Sister of the Order of the Holy Dough, Shirley Kaminski, would bake upwards of 50 dozen buns. The pans were empty by noon. “There would be lineups!” Huntley recalls with a laugh. “We sold so many of them that Mrs. Kerr told us once that those buns paid our wages.” The rush sometimes induced a state of near panic in the front counter staff. “We’d be working away in the kitchen and every so often one of the girls from the front counter would yell back into the kitchen, ‘Are they ready yet? Are they ready?! Are they done?!’ ” Not that they rushed. Kerr was old school and it rubbed off on her staff, says Huntley. Kerr perfected recipes. She ran a fastidiously clean and organized kitchen. And nothing got wasted, ever, an ethos that her staff adopted to varying degrees. One time, Huntley recalls, there was a bomb scare and the building was evacuated. Outside, Kaminski began to get nervous. She had 16 dozen buns in the oven. Huntley was standing beside her. “She started to go back inside, and I said, ‘Shirley, let them burn,’ and she said, ‘There’s no way I’m letting 16 dozen buns burn.’ And so she went back

20 ualberta.ca/newtrail PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA ARCHIVES ACCESSION #1970-93 in while the alarm was still going, pulled the buns out of the oven and came back outside.” If Kaminski hadn’t gone back in — a brave culinary marine determined to leave no buns behind — a student probably would have done so in her place. Former students remember the cinnamon buns with the kind of passion normally reserved for first loves. Edmonton writer Marty Chan, ’90 BA(Spec), penned an ode to the CAB buns in the Autumn 2017 issue of New Trail, in which he wrote that the buns “changed my life” when he realized he was organizing his days around the buns and, as a result, failing his engineering classes. Using his devotion to the buns as his inspiration, he switched to English and soared. Over the years, grads have shared many a bun memory in New Trail. “Those buns got me through six years “There would be lineups! We sold so many of early-morning lectures,” reminisced of them that Mrs. Kerr told us once that Tom Fan, ’81 BSc(MechEng), ’83 MSc. Wrote Katherine Orrell, ’81 BA: “I worked those buns paid our wages.” in campus mail during the summer – lorraine huntley and I would take a break between my rounds and grab one … the most delicious buns ever!” Teri Nichol, ’87 BEd, became “instantly addicted” after her first bun and said, living in New Zealand, that thoughts of the buns made her homesick. “Just the smell of them made me feel able to cope with the full workload I had.”

the origins of the iconic treat stretch back much further than the CAB cafeteria to the Tuck Shop, a café/corner store on the eastern edge of university campus originally set up in 1917. Tuck, as it was colloquially known, had a colourful history. It had been privately owned by an assortment of bookmakers and undertakers. According to reports through the years, Tuck at various times

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA ARCHIVES ACCESSION #1973-18-030 new trail winter 2019 21 Why is this simple cinnamon bun so powerful, exactly? Well, because it functions on so many levels. Obviously, they are delicious. But they are also symbolic.

thanks to Kerr, was its iconic bun. As New Trail reported in 1982, Kerr was the right person in the right place at the right time to save Tuck’s buns, as it were. In 1968, when the university had acquired the Tuck Shop, Kerr became manager of the lunch counter. “And there the fateful meeting took place.... She perfected and standardized the bun recipe, and when the Tuck Shop closed she ensured it would have a legacy by making the Tuck Shop Cinnamon Buns a feature of the new CAB Cafeteria,” the story notes. While the provenance of the original bun recipe is lost in the yeasty mists of time, it was Kerr — who ran a test kitchen in SUB that developed and housed a basement dance hall, a chicken tested recipes for all campus food operations — who created the recipe coop inside the building proper and a for the CAB buns that alumni came to know. set of old streetcar rails that stuck out Like many iconic cultural signifiers of past and present that we from the north side of the building. Over tend to accept without ever truly unpacking the why and how of many decades and through multiple their hold on us — Elvis, the Cold War, the Kardashians — the Tuck transformations, the Tuck Shop was the Shop bun is shrouded in mystery, beset by persistent rumour, subject main student hangout on campus. to misinterpretation and even misattribution, and even sometimes “It was the centre of everything,” challenged by pretenders to the throne. Michael Hinz, ’64 BEd, Hugh Morrison, ’30 BA, recalled of the remembers an outlet called Hot Caf, roughly Tuck Shop in the 2001-02 Winter issue where the west end of CAB is today, where his of New Trail. He actually took a class in mother worked as a baker. “One of the major Tuck. “There were only four of us, and we attractions was the cinnamon buns that came would meet with our professor — who out of the oven at 10 a.m. Students lined up was young, himself — at Tuck.” for them!” Hinz recalls them as being very The buns were a definite draw. Joseph different from the Tuck Shop buns — they had The Varsity Tuck Shop went through Rapaich, ’67 BSc(MechEng), told New raisins and were buttery. There is no record of various iterations Trail in 2018: “While attending U of A, a cross‑fertilization between Tuck and Hot Caf. over the decades. Below, Tuck in the group of us lived two doors down from Java Jive in HUB also served an impressive 1930s. Right, Tuck the Tuck Shop and enjoyed many, many, cinnamon bun, supplied by Dagmar Kuehn, with a ’60s vibe. many of those famous buns.” Tuck even played a role in the writing of our provincial history. Peter Lougheed, ’51 BA, ’52 LLB, ’86 LLD (Honorary), was apparently besotted with a young lady who appeared on the cover of the U of A phone directory one year. Her name was Jeanne Rogers, ’51 BA. They had a mutual friend named Dunc Stockwell, who arranged a meeting between the two at (where else?) the Tuck Shop. They would, of course, go on to get married and play a dynamic role as a couple in shaping what Alberta is today. The U of A took over running the Tuck Shop in 1968. When the building was demolished in 1970 to make way for the Fine Arts Building, two things survived. One, thankfully, was Kerr, who ran the Tuck Shop in her role as food services majordomo. The second,

22 ualberta.ca/newtrail PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA ARCHIVES ACCESSION #1981-174-1 who ran the Sugarplum Pantry from 1982 to 1997. Kuehn notes that she Sugarbowl bun being denser and more loved the Tuck Shop buns but used a slightly different recipe. (I can verify buttery. Which illustrates just how that the buns were rabidly consumed, as those were roughly the years different buns can be, even when they I attended the U of A and, being an arts student, I tended to hang out in use the same basic ingredients and HUB rather than CAB.) originate from the same recipe. As for conspiracy theories, perhaps the most persistent still in play today is that the Tuck recipe was somehow airlifted, stolen, put on microfilm and probably put on CinnaLeaks by Edward Snowden expressly and here we come to the knotty for use by the Highlevel Diner and the Sugarbowl, which sit close together side of the story. In theory, it doesn’t just east of campus. Some have said that the cinnamon buns are, if not seem that complicated to make or eat a outright copies of the Tuck bun, at least its progeny. cinnamon bun (follow a recipe, open your Not so, says Kim Franklin, co-owner of the Highlevel Diner. “In fact,” mouth), until you stop to think about she tells me via email, “there is no truth to the story that our recipe the individual histories and memories comes from the Tuck Shop on campus. Our buns have nostalgically been that every bun seems to carry along with compared to them but it is not the same recipe.” Their recipe came from it: the stories, recipes, myths, rumours Toronto along with their first baker, she says. and reminiscences. Why is the Tuck It would seem logical to connect the two, given that the Diner bun and Shop bun so powerful, exactly? Well, the Tuck bun share a certain girth and knottiness. But no, says Franklin. because it functions on so many levels. Pure happenstance. Obviously, they are delicious. But they Which would also then apply to the Sugarbowl bun, since it’s derived are also symbolic. They are a shorthand from the same Diner recipe. Abel Shiferaw owns the Sugarbowl and tells reference that allows us to communicate me, over a Bowl bun and a coffee, that a Highlevel Diner employee brought with our past and present — the scent of the recipe with him when he reopened the Sugarbowl in 1988, though it the stories we tell about ourselves. was modified slightly over the years. Yet as much as we might wax poetic, Decades of investigative reporting on this subject have demonstrated it turns out that it’s not nostalgia that that the Highlevel Diner bun and Sugarbowl bun are Tuck-worthy brings on a rush of fond memories when representatives of the art, yet different even from each other, the we smell a cinnamon bun like the ones

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA ARCHIVES ACCESSION #1972-108-662-2 new trail winter 2019 23 If collective memory can be transmitted in a scent, then process sensation and also to the parts that house memory. Which is why the Tuck Shop bun powerful scents can so instantaneously transport us across decades and was considerably continents to scenes so vivid they could be happening right in front of us. Other senses take gravel roads to get to the brain, but smells take the more than a hunk neural autobahn to the temporal lobe cortex, registering as both sense of dough, sugar and memory. It’s even more amazing and mysterious than that. Dickson tells me and cinnamon. researchers are conducting experiments on the connection between scent and memory in which people are given a task while, unbeknownst to them, a positive scent is pumped into the room. Later, while asleep and hooked up to brain monitoring machines, the scent is pumped into the we ate as university students. It’s biology. room, at which point their hippocampus activates. The next morning, the I spoke with U of A researcher subjects typically have better recall of the previous day’s task. Clayton Dickson about what is actually “Our brain is screening the movie over again, in our memories, happening inside our brains when we activated by a simple scent,” says Dickson. get a whiff of a scent reminiscent of one Which is why the smell of cinnamon and sugar and yeast so deliciously of those old Tuck Shop buns. Dickson combined can not only make somebody hungry, it can also whisk them is a professor in the departments of back decades to their lives as students, waiting anxiously in line in CAB: psychology and physiology and a I am so hungry I might pass out, when are the buns going to be ready? I member of the U of A’s Neuroscience and might cry if they run out, man, I am so late for class, is that actually snow Mental Health Institute. falling out there, I wonder if Suzy will acknowledge my existence today, Smells can call up deeply rooted I need to get those overdue library books returned, oh, here come the buns! memories from our past, he says. Smell is Memories ignited with dizzying immediacy and a microscopic attention one of our most powerful senses and has to detail that is both soul-filling and a bit spooky. even followed a different evolutionary And you thought this story was just about cinnamon buns. path than our other senses. To condense decades of brain research into a few paragraphs: sight, sound and the tuck shop bun was served in cab until 1994, when food services touch are all processed through various on campus were privatized, says Huntley. Kerr had retired by then and specialized pathways before they can Huntley had moved to a different department. The Tuck bun was made check in at the brain. But smells, says no longer, but it hardly faded from memory. Huntley still gets wistful Dickson, go straight to our olfactory bulb, inquiries a few times a year from alumni waxing nostalgic, and she still which essentially has two projections makes the buns occasionally on special request (including for Alumni emanating from it. One goes to the Weekend 2019 this past September). Students who swarmed CAB may olfactory cortex to download smells. never have set foot in the original Tuck Shop, but the Tuck legacy and a The other, incredibly, drives straight into vital strand of U of A history lived on in their mouths and nostrils. And, one of the older parts of our brain, the as alumni, in their memories. entorhinal cortex, which is one of the Kerr died in 2012. Her granddaughter, Melissa Wolski, has fond front doors to the hippocampus and the memories of spending the day with her grandmother making cinnamon two medial temporal lobe regions that buns. She and Huntley remain among the few who can say they’ve had a have evolved to hold episodic memory. hands-on demonstration from Kerr. At a conservative estimate, Huntley In other words, our olfactory bulb has tied more than a million knots over the years. (She even made the buns connects to parts of the brain that photographed for this story.) “They have to be hand‑cut and hand-tied. And if they aren’t made right, they’re not Tuck Shop cinnamon buns,” she says. It’s the kind of knowledge that seems almost inconsequential upon first brush, but the closer we get to losing it, the more it takes on an aura of profound learning. Who is going to have it in their hands to make the Tuck Shop bun once Wolski and Huntley no longer feel the knead? If collective memory can be transmitted in a scent, then the Tuck Shop bun was considerably more than a hunk of dough, sugar and cinnamon. It represents a time of life that memory and nostalgia tend to airbrush ever so slightly; a time that, for many, was particularly meaningful. The thrilling intellectual discoveries of a university education. The first blushes of young love. The excitement of becoming who we are meant to become. What could possibly capture the intellectual and emotional content of such an important stage of life? Books? Music? Friends made and lost? Yes, all of these. But in the end, perhaps it would be best to simply follow our noses.

24 ualberta.ca/newtrail Tuck Shop Cinnamon Buns This version of the original recipe was adapted for home kitchens by Joyce Kerr, former U of A food services manager, and published in New Trail in 1982.

Soften 2 packages instant yeast While the dough is rising: OR (not both) 1 oz Fleischmann’s fresh yeast In ½ cup warm water In a flat pan melt 1/3 cup margarine And 2 tbsp sugar Set aside to cool. Let this mixture set until the yeast is dissolved (about 10 minutes). In a flat dish, mix 1 cup white sugar And 1½ tsp cinnamon In a large bowl put 2 cups boiling water Add 3 tbsp margarine Turn the raised dough onto a lightly floured 2 tsp salt work surface. Let the dough set 5 to 10 minutes And 3 tbsp sugar to “firm up.” Cut the dough into pieces about the size of an orange. Dip each piece of dough first Let the margarine melt and the mixture cool a bit. into the melted margarine, then coat it well in the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Stretch the dough Then add 2 cups all-purpose flour piece until it is 4 to 5 inches long and form it into a simple knot. Beat this mixture hard until very smooth and creamy (about 5 minutes). Place the knots side by side in a 9" x 12" x 2" pan. (Be sure the pan is 2" deep and allow a 3" square Then add softened yeast mixture for each bun.) Let the finished buns rise for 3 eggs about 45 minutes. Bake at 375 F for 30 minutes. And 3¼ cups more flour This recipe makes 18 good-sized buns.

Continue beating until dough is very smooth. Note: An electric mixer is needed for this recipe (It should be a very soft dough.) Cover and let as it requires a lot of beating. If the dough is too stand in a warm place to rise until the dough soft to handle, add a bit more flour. However, the is doubled in bulk (about 1 hour). less flour used the better the buns will be.

new trail winter 2019 25 € distinguished alumni award FOR TEACHING CHILDREN TO CELEBRATE CULTURAL DIVERSITY Mona Nashman, ’79 BEd Educator, global citizen

There’s curriculum and there’s education. Sometimes you need to build upon one to truly achieve the other. Those are words that Nashman — an educator and ambassador for cultural acceptance and religious understanding — has lived by during her 40-year teaching career, about half of which was spent leading an international baccalaureate school in CURIOUS. COURAGEOUS. the Sultanate of Oman. That’s where she was COMMUNITY-MINDED. when New York City’s World MEET 32 GRADS WHO Trade Center was attacked.   “In 2001, 9/11 happened DON’T BACK DOWN and the Arabic culture and the Islamic faith were taking a beating. And I was right It takes a lot of nerve to ask a question, and even more to there in the middle of it,” she search for the answer. When these grads asked how to says. “I was a Muslim woman and I thought, ‘I have to stay. get proper medical care in developing nations or how to I have to right this ship.’ ” help people come to terms with their identities, what did Soon, students at ABA (formerly the American- they do? They revolutionized TB treatment or they told British Academy) were difficult stories with hope. Read on for more ways these on missions to counter anti‑Islamism, one person grads channelled their skills in service of answers. at a time. Some trekked into the depths of Bangladesh to build a school, while others € went to Tanzania and built a By Therese Kehler library. They fundraised for war survivors in South Sudan

and a playground at a Syrian CARTER ROBERT ILLUSTRATION BY

26 ualberta.ca/newtrail refugee camp. Nashman also is it about teaching the kids is a mentor and adviser at system, I know there are,” she founded an annual student about the world around them Edmonton Islamic Academy, says. “But there can be better leadership symposium, and how can they influence where she continues to things happening, where we which gathered teens from the world in the best possible explore novel ways of teach kids to bring the world all over the world to explore way for the betterment of teaching children to become together, where we teach themes of social justice. humanity?” Nashman says. better citizens. them the commonalities that “Is education about a In 2015, Nashman “There are good things exist in humanity.” curriculum we deliver? Or returned to Edmonton. She happening in our school –scott lingley, ’92 ba

new trail winter 2019 27 € sports wall of fame Serge Lajoie, ’93 BEd, ’11 MA Lajoie played hockey for the Golden Bears from 1988 to 1993 and won national championships as a player, assistant coach and head coach. He now coaches players from young kids to Western Hockey League athletes.

€ sports wall of fame Jane Cox Kolodnicki, ’91 BEd While attending Campus Saint- Jean from 1989 to 1991, Kolodnicki was among € Canada’s best alumni award of excellence Every discussion on the and, throughout his life, his student-athletes three‑year path to the mother, a teacher, and his dad, in long jump and new education system in operator of the community’s sprints. She now For transforming Maskwacîs, Alta., came first school bus service, teaches in Calgary back to one question: What reinforced the importance and coaches education in high school is best for the children? of education. Today, Wildcat and university four Alberta Guiding the process was runs the schools commission, athletes. Wildcat, superintendent of the an authority that oversees First Nations Maskwacîs Education Schools 11 schools and 2,100 students Commission. from four neighbouring Cree ’95 MEd Brian Wildcat, Wildcat grew up in the Nations: Ermineskin, Louis Bull,

Educator and collaborator central Alberta community Montana and Samson. JOHN ULAN BY PHOTO

€ alumni service award “The Peer of Peers Award is a really meaningful For going for engineering students recognition; it means our efforts to engage in K. Steven Knudsen, ’84 BSc(CompEng), ’87 MSc, Entrepreneur, mentor the community and share our enthusiasm and expertise didn’t go unnoticed. It is even more of When it comes to sharing his excitement for discovery and problem-solving, Knudsen goes the distance for engineering students. He drives thousands of an honour because it involves fellow students in kilometres, shares his experience as a mentor in the Pod — a maker community the nomination process.” for students that he was instrumental in setting up — and helped create the Ranek Kiil, ’15 BSc(CompEng), a software engineer at Apple Peer of Peers Award, allowing classmates to honour one of their own. and a recipient of the Peer of Peers Award

28 ualberta.ca/newtrail € alumni honour award FOR GIVING LUNG CANCER PATIENTS LONGER AND BETTER LIVES Tony Mok, ’82 BMedSc, ’84 MD Lung cancer researcher

In 1996, when Mok started his new job at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, lung cancer’s deadly reach was well-known, but few efforts were being made to understand it better. was home to one-third of the world’s smokers and an inordinately high number of lung cancer diagnoses among female non-smokers. Mok opted to specialize in lung cancer — and that decision has changed the lives of innumerable patients who have benefited from his pioneering strategies. His dedication means that one day some lung cancers might be treated as a chronic condition rather than a death sentence.

Deaths in 2018 from lung cancer 1.8 million

Brian Wildcat visits with students in the Grade 1 classroom in Ermineskin Elementary School in Maskwacîs, Alta. His daughter, Devon Wildcat, ’16 BEd, is the classroom teacher. The phrase 2004 23% Nehiyaw Niya, visible on the bulletin Year that researchers from Harvard Rate of NSCLC board, translates to “I am Cree.” discovered a mutation in the epidermal patients today growth factor receptor of some non- who will survive small-cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC), which for five years sustains the cancer cell. By stopping after diagnosis, Wildcat saw potential for keeps his eyes on future the growth signal of this receptor, lung up from 15 per the four nations to be a strong opportunities and day-to-day cancer cells cease to survive. cent in 2001. united force so, in 2015, when realities. “Sometimes it can be he was superintendent of a tough job, but what keeps Knowing the higher prevalence of this mutation Ermineskin Schools, he began me going is the future — the in Asia, Mok and his team built upon the Harvard to work in earnest to create sense of hope for the future,” discovery. They became the first to demonstrate a collaborative system with Wildcat says. “If we do our job how molecular targeted therapy — now known a curriculum built around right, not only are we affecting as EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor — was superior Nehiyawatisowin — Cree the lives of those kids today, to standard chemotherapy in patients with the mutation’s biomarker. The research, published in a character — and improved we’re affecting and changing 2009 journal article, showed that testing patients for student outcomes. As future generations.” the mutation and adapting treatment accordingly superintendent, Wildcat –scott lingley, ’92 ba #1 could result in longer life and better quality of life.

“The work I did in the Pod and the conversations “Sometimes, you go to Google and you don’t even know which that I had with Steven led me to start seeing keywords to type in. It’s hugely valuable to be able to reach out the beauty and creativity behind everything to Steven and say, ‘Hey, I want to program 10 different LEDs to engineers produce. School became less about do something. Do you have any ideas?’ And he’d usually come getting through homework and more about back with a few options.” learning to do cool things.” Fred Drury, ’19 BSc(CompEng), was a regular participant in the HackED hackathons and one of the first members of the Pod startup incubator. Portia Rayner, a second-year engineering student working He is now a software engineer for Cybernius Medical. on a bionic prosthetic hand with human-like intuition

new trail winter 2019 29 € distinguished alumni award FOR BRINGING CLIMATE CHANGE HOME Reza Nasseri, ’70 BSc(ElecEng) CEO of Landmark Group of Companies

In late September, climate change was fuelling discussions at the United Nations, headlines in the news and youth rallies around the world. It felt to Nasseri like an awakening — one that he fervently hopes will inspire governments to act. “It’s high time. People want to do something but it’s hard to change,” says Nasseri, whose Landmark Group of Companies works to reduce the environmental footprint of building homes. “If you really want to do something, make it legislation. Don’t leave it at the voluntary because then you create a field that is not level.” Nasseri wants his company to lead the way in making a difference. For example, with laser accuracy and machines working from a 3D blueprint, one arm of the company produces home components that already include all the extras — roofs with shingles, exterior walls with siding, and interior walls with electrical, plumbing and drywall. It makes home construction both less expensive and less by more home-building lights, appliances, power Green Canada and the first environmentally taxing, companies. That, he supply and heating can help in Alberta to sell Net Zero says Nasseri. “If a house says, may take a push. reduce a home’s greenhouse homes as standard pre- takes eight months to build, He points to efforts as gas emissions. Some builders, designed models. you can imagine how many simple as building new he says, fear these changes “We did it,” he says. Then hundreds of trips that big houses to meet better drive away buyers because of other builders followed and trucks, small trucks, make standards of energy the increased cost. the houses sold just fine, he going back and forth.” efficiency as rated through Landmark Homes stepped adds. “If it is the same for Nasseri is keen to see the Canadian EnerGuide up to take that risk as one of everybody, that fear goes

this thinking adopted program. Adjustments to the original members of Built away and people just do it.” CARTER ROBERT ILLUSTRATION BY

30 ualberta.ca/newtrail last remaining book from a destroyed village library — that accompanies a refugee family fleeing from war. It’s a story of resilience, the power of words and the importance of stories, Collyer says.

„ A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader by Maria Popova € and Claudia Bedrick: This alumni honour award collection of letters and € accompanying illustrations For changing alumni honour award „ Say Something by Peter reflects on the joys of Reynolds: A picture book reading and how books the experience For bringing about the importance of deepen the human of newcomers speaking up. “I love this experience. The letters in distress the joy of book, which reminds come from the likes of Jane reading to readers that the world needs Goodall, Shonda Rhimes Lubna Zaeem, ’07 MEd us all to say something and Judy Blume. “[They Psychologist for new Canadians children with words, art, courage are] an inspiring collection and our unique voice.” of reflections by lifelong Calm, compassionate and a Steacy Lee Collyer, readers who have lived onetime newcomer herself, ’85 BEd „ The Wall in the Middle extraordinary lives and Zaeem helps immigrants Founder, Calgary Reads of the Book by Jon Agee: hope to pass the gift and refugees deal with A young knight foolishly of reading to the next turbulent times, including Collyer does it all believes a wall protects him generation.” domestic violence, trauma with Calgary Reads, from the tiger, rhino and and anger. A few key points the children’s literacy ogre on the other side. But „ The Enchanted Hour along Zaeem’s path: organization she founded in when crocodiles and rising by Meghan Cox Gurdon: Edmonton, the unknown 1998: volunteers in schools waters threaten his safety, Stories aren’t just for little destination of her dreams: and provides literacy he realizes the wall may children at bedtime, and Zaeem was an ordinary woman learning opportunities for this title looks at how be separating him from with a dream to attain a higher parents and teachers. She reading out loud consoles, those who can help. “We education when, in 1992, she also established a book never know for sure what uplifts and invigorates moved from Pakistan to Boston bank that handed out more is on the other side of at every age. “This book with her husband and two than 44,000 books last year the ‘walls’ in our lives,” says will transform your toddlers. That dream was still alone. So who better to Collyer. “Be brave and open understanding of reading alive when the family came to recommend the next books to new possibilities!” aloud in the age of Edmonton 10 years later. In 2007, you should add to your distraction,” says Collyer. “It after two decades attending shelf? Collyer offers these „ The Treasure Box is an enlightening mixture universities in three countries, five titles — three picture by Margaret Wild: This of memoir and advocacy she completed her master’s in books and two adult reads unusual children’s book is using science, history, art educational psychology. about (of course) reading. centred on a treasure — the and literature.” Cultural bonds: Being a newcomer helps connect Zaeem to her clients, many of € whom believe talking about alumni service award personal issues is a huge “Though Da is successful in taboo. “It was easier for them For believing business, he is always humble to open up with me.” in the power of and graceful to everyone around Counting her blessings: She him. He patiently listens to our raised two children, cared for connections aging parents and juggled jobs, questions and concerns and puts studies, charity work and two Da Li, ’98 BCom in effort to help us to go through international moves. Zaeem wouldn’t have it any other Entrepreneur and community builder, challenges. He likes to share his founder and CEO, Deya Tech Enterprise way. “I wanted my children experience at the U of A with new to see that it’s not just about When Li couldn’t find an alumni community students and parents from China.” being successful in a career, in Beijing, he built one, growing the group but how you are as a human

LEFT CRUFT CHRISTY ILLUSTRATION BY ADAM ILLUSTRATION RIGHT BY LUNDY; from 30 to 360 members in seven years. Winston Kan, managing director, Alberta Beijing Office being.” –scott lingley, ’92 ba

new trail winter 2019 31 € alumni honour award For changing the landscape € of Canadian agriculture alumni horizon award Sidney H. Pawlowski, ’54 BSc(Ag), ’59 MSc For building a Plant scientist

community of fit In the 1960s, Western in 1967. At the time, Canada’s wheat farmers Canada produced moms and healthy were in trouble — collapsed 60,000 tonnes of families prices, growing quotas and mustard but within massive surplus inventory 40 years production as a lubricant in steam Kellie Willie, ’08 BPE, ’11 BScN soon had farmers being paid had quadrupled. Now the engines. It had almost Obstetrics nurse, owner of Fit Your Life not to grow wheat. The need Canadian Prairies are a top disappeared until it was seen for diversification was clear producer and the world’s as a source of edible oil. Willie combined her nursing and and Pawlowski helped make second-largest exporter of In 1977, the team released fitness expertise into an Edmonton- that happen with two oilseed mustard seed. Candle, the first strain based fitness studio for pregnant crops that changed the lay From there, Pawlowski that could be successfully women and new moms. Her clients of the land. moved to Saskatoon, grown in northern Prairie say it goes beyond just their physical As a plant breeder in where he worked with climates. Canola — as the well-being, looking after the emotional Lethbridge, Alta., Pawlowski Keith Downey, the “father new “Canadian oil” product and social health of women on their developed the world’s first of canola.” Downey’s team was named — is now the journey to motherhood and beyond. pure yellow mustard seed: had been working with second-largest field crop in Lethbridge 22A released rapeseed, historically used the country.

“[Kellie] spent the first few years of her career working as a nurse in labour € and delivery. A few years in, she told alumni honour award those closest to her that she would fuse both of her passions — physical FOR CREATING OPPORTUNITIES fitness and helping women transition into a new season of their life, OUT OF HUMAN WASTE motherhood. What she didn’t know Jing Cheng Yu, ’89 MSc is that she would build a strong President and CTO of CanFit Resource Recovery Technologies Inc., Beijing community and shift a culture.” With patented technologies and a strong belief in environmental protection, Lila Berg, ’11 BEd, ’11 BPE, teacher, Edmonton Public Schools Yu is finding new ways to deal with China’s waste, from biological handling techniques for kitchen waste to treatment plants that convert human excreta into useful products like clean soil, non-potable water and electricity. Since “Fit Your Life has now turned 2002, Yu’s Beijing-based company, CanFit Resource Recovery Technologies, has into so much more than just tackled a variety of challenges presented by life in the world’s most populous a fitness studio; Kellie has country — sorting domestic waste and recyclables, building disposal facilities, created an entire village looking for ways to recycle landfill leachate (the liquid that results when rain of women that support passes through a landfill) and creating the nation’s first manure recycling centre. each other through huge moments of their lives, through so much more than Youthnited Nations, which connects just physical fitness.” € alumni horizon award young people with the UN’s sustainable Amy Darby, nurse, Royal Alexandra Hospital development goals. A current project, in and Fit Your Life client For wholehearted efforts connection with the Uganda Partnership, involves fundraising for a staffed and to make a better world stocked medical clinic to be built in a “Kellie has single-handedly created an Marnie L. Colborne, southwestern Ugandan community, army of Fit Moms who band together ’17 BScN(Hons) something keenly desired by residents. As a practising nurse at a hospital, as well to help and support one another and Registered nurse, global activist, lecturer at the Faculty of Nursing as at a clinic specializing in esthetics and lift each other up daily. She is the regenerative medicine, Colborne treats leader of this army. She is the rock.” Colborne blazes with a passion to make a each patient with respect and dignity and Jamie Straker, Fit Your Life co-owner difference at home and around the world. never loses sight of her duty to protect

and instructor She is a co-founder of the non-profit their health and well-being. CRUFT ADAM ILLUSTRATION BY

32 ualberta.ca/newtrail € The Donor alumni innovation award “We’d like to take a moment to thank Alexander for his gift and for the family for consenting on his behalf. A moment of silence, please.” This operating For designing room scene, recognizing a person’s final gift of organ donation, doesn’t happen nearly often enough. new hope for With a rate of 21 donors per million people, Canada lags behind countries including Spain, the United transplant success States and the United Kingdom. Darren Freed, The Demand ’97 BMedSc, ’98 MD, ’16 PostgradCert(Med) One donor can potentially save Jayan Nagendran, eight lives but of the ’00 BMedSc, ’01 MD, ’09 PhD 4,500 Canadians waiting for a transplant, several Surgeons, co-founders of Tevosol hundred will die first. Two patients are dying in two Consider lungs: only different cities. One is the story The Match one in 200 deaths will of heartbreak as a life is cut short. The donor and recipient could be in the same qualify to be a donor. The other is a story of hope because hospital or across the country. Either way, medical Of those, one in five are acceptable for transplant. an organ transplant can make the teams plan every movement based on the This means one in three difference. An ice-filled cooler whereabouts of the organ. The donor remains on life support until the retrieval team is on hand. waiting for lungs will will transport the organ from one die before receiving patient to the other. However, once The recipient’s surgery begins based on the organ’s ETA. The goal: as soon as the new organ arrives, a transplant. the organ is placed in the cooler, the damaged one is removed. a countdown begins. In just a few hours that organ will no longer be viable for a transplant. With support from financial donors, Freed and Nagendran designed a system that they say will help more organs make it to more patients.

A Better Journey Tevosol’s Ex-Vivo Organ Support System aims to The Journey make warm the norm. The existing gold standard The portable chamber, for transporting organs currently being tested on consists of three plastic lungs, is built to replicate bags, various solutions the inside of a healthy and an ice box. Cooling human body, providing a slows metabolism and normal body temperature, minimizes cell death. With oxygen and fluids. Clinical this process, a heart can trials show promise, with remain viable for about recovered lungs able five hours, lungs for about to remain viable for as seven and a liver for 12. long as 24 hours.

An Opportunity Lost More Transplantable Organs But the race against time and distance is often lost. Tevosol’s portable chamber reduces the problem of travel time, while About 75 per cent of donated hearts and lungs are also providing an opportunity for damaged organs to be repaired. discarded because they are no longer viable when In November, Freed and Nagendran celebrated 12 successful lung they reach their destination. transplants using the Ex-Vivo Organ Support system. ILLUSTRATION BY ERIC CHOW ERIC ILLUSTRATION BY

new trail winter 2019 33 a product of colonization and exacerbated by residential schools. “The way to eliminate TB is to eliminate poverty,” he says. “But in the meantime, let’s treat the TB patient.”

„ TB in Canada today: In 2017, Canada had the world’s second-lowest rate of active TB. The worrying statistic, Enarson says, is that among Inuit communities the rate is almost 300 times higher than that of the non- Indigenous, Canadian-born population. “Canada should do better. Canada should always do better.”

„ A retirement speech with impact: When Enarson’s mentor, Karel Styblo, retired, Enarson summarized his mentor’s work in a speech. That speech grew into the five components of the DOTS (Directly Observed Therapy, Short-course) strategy, which was adopted by the World Health Organization in 1994 and became policy around the world.

„ Empowering the people: € In Nicaragua, a clinic worker distinguished alumni award following the five-point protocol decided to travel to a patient’s home, says FOR HELPING CONTROL Enarson. En route, her Land TB AROUND THE WORLD Rover ended up between two warring factions. She Donald Enarson, ’69 BSc, ’70 MD waited on the floor until the Scientist, professor and medical doctor bullets stopped, plus another hour for good measure, then Over the course of „ Disease of the poor: accompanied by the rise of carried on to her patient’s his career, Enarson Tuberculosis is a curable tuberculosis. It was tied to home. “There was somebody helped revolutionize bacterial disease that is people moving into urban who was incredibly proud the control of tuberculosis. spread through the air. centres, “then settling in of what she was doing and Here are some of his Enarson’s work helped make a two-room shack … shut committed — with her thoughts on the past and the connection between TB in together for months life — to doing it. That’s the present states of tuberculosis and poverty. The industrial at a time,” Enarson says. person that should have

and lung disease. age of the early 1900s was Similarly, TB in Canada was gotten the [alumni] award.” CARTER ROBERT ILLUSTRATION BY

34 ualberta.ca/newtrail € alumni honour award For bringing Canada’s Indigenous stories to the stage Kenneth T. Williams, ’90 BA(Spec), ’92 MFA Playwright, assistant professor

Williams’ path to becoming a renowned Indigenous playwright has included being a bartender, door-to-door encyclopedia salesman and journalist, along with earning a half-star review for his play Thunderstick. Known for his wicked sense of humour, onstage and off, Williams now has several acclaimed plays, which address uncomfortable subjects and portray his Indigenous characters as multi‑dimensional and complex, reflecting the world they inhabit. He was the U of A’s first Indigenous student to earn a master’s in playwriting and he has returned as a professor, mentoring young artists to become future storytellers.

€ alumni innovation award For opening new doors to fitness and health Tim Gourlay, ’09 BCom, ’18 MBA Entrepreneur, fitness fanatic € It took five years of building the nerve to alumni innovation award start his fitness enterprise. Now, Gourlay offers some “pool-side” wisdom that he wishes he had taken at the outset. “Go FOR HELPING NORTHERN TEENS for it,” says Gourlay, a former volleyball athlete. “Jump in and figure out how to BECOME FUTURE LEADERS swim afterwards.” Fitset, an app that acts Candice Lys, ’06 BA(Hons) as an on-demand membership pass to Founder of FOXY (Fostering Open eXpression among Youth) 86 Edmonton exercise studios, staves and SMASH (Strength, Masculinities, and Sexual Health) off ennui by connecting users to yoga, spin classes, climbing centres, and, yes, Motherhood was a turning point in With arts-based school workshops even swimming pools. Once Gourlay Lys’s understanding of the impact of and summer on-the-land retreats for took the entrepreneurial plunge, the residential schools, which took away peer leaders, teens learn about sexual only obstacles between him and his next cultural values, ceremonies — and health and making good decisions in venture were the ones designed for his little children, just like her son, Luca an environment rooted in traditional Fitset Ninja gym facility, which opened (pictured above). ways and healing ceremonies. in 2018. Gourlay received guidance “I can’t imagine the idea that “The way we look at it is that sexual from the ThresholdImpact University of somebody would come and take and mental health are so intricately Alberta Venture Mentoring Service and he my baby,” she says. “The fact that entwined. You can’t have one without continues to offer inspiration to members of the university’s entrepreneurship centre, residential schools haven’t had an even the other,” she says. eHUB. “He gets his energy from deeply greater impact, that really speaks to Luca went to the retreats this year, held values rather than from extrinsic the resilience of Indigenous Peoples.” along with Lys’s mom, Julie Lys, ’00 motivators such as money or recognition,” Lys has tapped into that resilience BScN. “The relationship between the says mentor Tom Viinikka, ’04 BA, ’15 MBA. with FOXY and SMASH, organizations three of us — to see that support, what “Those deeply held values are loves for she co-founded that are working to that looks like across generations — I fitness and health — not just for himself help northern teens grow into “more think that’s really special and

PHOTO BY JOHN ULAN BY PHOTO but for everyone.” able-to-cope-with-the-world” people. important for young folks to see.”

new trail winter 2019 35 36 ’14 Cert(AborGov/Ptnshp), ’17 JD ’14 Cert(AborGov/Ptnshp), weren’t there, then she made made she then there, weren’t

where she realized that we we that she realized where heard. If she was at a table at atable was she If heard. our that toensure wanted ualberta.ca/newtrail sure that there was a seat aseat was there that sure communities. [Bearhead] [Bearhead] communities. at that table for someone someone for table at that Nations and Métis in the the in Métis and Nations a connection with Inuit Inuit with a connection Treaty Six territory but territory Six Treaty Lawyer, throat singer singer throat Lawyer, oftentimes there is not not is there oftentimes representation of First First of representation voices were also being being also were voices Inuit Edmontonmiut Inuit Jenna Broomfield Jenna from our community. our from There’s such a large alarge such There’s ’14 BA(NativeStu), and member of of member and only a privileged few see the work she does on a personal level. A few of these women talk about about talk women these of A few level. a personal on does she work the see few a privileged only Bearhead (pictured centre, above) has been behind the scenes of some of the most important important most the of some of scenes the behind been has above) centre, (pictured Bearhead educational efforts helpingeducational Canadians learn efforts about reconciliation and Indigenous history. But how her encouragement, kindness and willingness to listen has helped in their own work. own their in helped has listen to willingness and kindness encouragement, her how always been like that. … When …When that. like been always FOR HELPING CANADIANS the work that she does. She’s does. she work that the It was everybody else in the the in else everybody It was wants to take any credit for for credit any totake wants She’s never one that really really that one She’s never it’s anybody else this time. time. this else it’s anybody she does a project, it’s like, it’s like, aproject, does she I think it is awesome that that awesome it is I think room. She can’t really say say really can’t She room. she is getting recognized recognized getting is she Moose Hide Campaign well, I didn’t really do it. it. do really Ididn’t well, WITH RECONCILIATIONWITH National Education Strategist for the the for Strategist Seneca Crowe Seneca for the work that work that the for she has done. has she Charlene Bearhead, alumni honour award honour alumni Educator, advocate € School Boards Association School Boards connected, and she just had had just she and connected, me this history and got me me got and history this me this never-ending belief in in belief never-ending this and shame ... It was never never It was ... shame and acceptable for me to just tojust me for acceptable be who I was until I met Imet until I was who be Co‑ordinator, Alberta [Bearhead] and she told told she and [Bearhead] me and what I could do. do. Icould me and what Indigenous Relations Relations Indigenous I carried so much guilt guilt much so I carried I honestly don’t know don’t know I honestly So if I didn’t meet her, meet Ididn’t if So ’85 BEd Layla Dumont Layla where I would be. where

and patience. Whenever I am Iam Whenever patience. and we should, but at least we’re but at least should, we teachings of love, kindness kindness love, of teachings to her. And she always says says always she to her. And getting frustrated, I can go can I frustrated, getting I work with students, with with students, I work with something like, “It might “It might like, something influence in the way that that way the influence in not moving as quickly as as quickly as moving not be frustrating that we’re that frustrating be Knowledge & Research &Research Knowledge just trying to follow her her tofollow trying just Manager, Indigenous people in general. I’m general. in people Danielle Powder Danielle Centre, Concordia Concordia Centre, I definitely see her her see I definitely on the path!” University

PHOTO BY JOHN ULAN € the first Syrian refugee alumni honour award student at Highlands junior high school in Edmonton, For a ‘do the where Yeung teaches. “Everything is just a math’ approach to little bit harder,” Yeung cleaning dirty dirt says. “It’s an ebb and flow; it doesn’t go away after three Bruce C.W. McGee, magical months. Those ’80 BSc(ElecEng), ’84 MEng, ’98 PhD waves of homesickness President and CEO, McMillan-McGee kind of hit every so often.” In Homes, Yeung shares Tell it with data, math and the efforts made at the analysis. Then sell it with a story. school to make Abu Bakr For McGee, founder of a € feel at home, such as halal company that has remediated alumni award of excellence more than 120 of the world’s most food in the cafeteria, a chemically contaminated sites, For giving words to a private prayer space and the story is simple: clean “dirty soccer. “Our secretaries dirt” at heavily polluted sites and refugee and his story learned to say hello in protect clean water resources for Arabic. It’s those little future generations. Winnie Yeung, ’04 BEd touchstones that make you To do this, employees Teacher, author feel less like an outsider.” of McMillan-McGee send When Yeung suggested electricity to custom-made As the daughter of Chinese immigrants, Yeung knew the book’s title, Abu Bakr electrodes buried deep in the stories of her family’s grief at having left their home for a was enthusiastic, instantly ground and inject water to help better life. As a young teacher in Japan, she experienced relating it to Homs, the city conduct electrical currents the exhaustion and feelings of being “underwater” during in Syria where he’d lived. between the electrodes. As two homesickness-filled years in a strange land. “Then I explained the ground temperature rises, The first-time author drew on those emotions in homes,” Yeung says. “It’s not trapped chemicals become writing Homes: A Refugee Story, which chronicles the life like a house. It’s where our a vapour that is vacuum- of Abu Bakr al Rabeeah, a 14-year-old Iraqi citizen who was heart feels the most at ease.” extracted for safe disposal. But the key to success, according to McGee, is math and data — constant numerical € modelling that monitors and alumni honour award adjusts for the electrical, thermal and chemical changes taking place in the ground. FOR HONEST WORDS ABOUT THE McGee developed the core technology while a graduate STORY OF THE MÉTIS IDENTITY student in the electrical Marilyn Dumont, ’90 BA engineering department, creating an industry that didn’t Poet, teacher exist even 25 years ago. “We are Dumont’s poetry is graceful, dignified and brutally honest as it speaks to privileged to live in a free society and culture that supports and the Métis identity and people. From school textbooks to her award-winning embraces entrepreneurship,” he collections, the imagery in Dumont’s writing is painfully vivid as she explores says. “Love it and live it.” how the legacy of Canada’s colonial history is still a reality for First Nations and Métis communities. This poem comes from her collection, A Really Good Brown Girl, which has been reprinted 15 times since its original release in 1996. The poem is part of the English 12 First Peoples course in the British Columbia curriculum.

Leather and Naughahyde by marilyn dumont

So, I’m having coffee with this treaty guy from up north and we’re laughing at how crazy ‘the mooniyaw’ are in the city and the con- versation comes around to where I’m from, as it does in under- ground languages, in the oblique way it does to find out someone’s status without actually asking, and knowing this, I say I’m Metis like it’s an apology and he says, ‘mmh,’ like he forgives me, like he’s got a big heart and mine’s pumping diluted blood and his voice has sounded well-fed up till this point, but now it goes thin like he’s across the room taking another look and when he returns he’s

BOTTOM ILLUSTRATION BY ADAM CRUFT; TOP ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTY ILLUSTRATION BY CRUFT; TOP BOTTOM ADAM ILLUSTRATION BY LUNDY got ‘this look,’ that says he’s leather and I’m naughahyde.

new trail winter 2019 37 € distinguished alumni award For safeguarding human health while valuing education Ram Deva Mehta, ’72 PhD Leader in genetic toxicology

Humans come into contact with thousands of chemicals each day. Since 1984, Mehta has been a leader in the science of finding the substances that could be hazardous to our health, analyzing everything from food, pharmaceuticals and chemical products to water and air quality. His PBR Laboratories was one of the first private-sector ventures in Canada to develop and employ genetic toxicology tests, with an innovative process that used bacteria, yeast and animal-derived cell lines instead of live animals. “Genetic toxicology provides the simplest way to exclude a number of potential cancer- causing chemicals before going to animal and clinical studies,” he says. By 1997, PBR had become the first Canadian laboratory to earn an international quality assurance designation that allowed its results to be accepted around the world. Mehta says he is humbled and conscious that his achievements have been possible thanks to the great gift he received as a child in India, when € he became the first of his siblings to alumni service award be allowed to attend the village school. Mehta’s gratitude fuels his other passion: FOR KEEPING BOTH THE PAST to make education a basic right. He is co-founder of three charities that AND THE FUTURE ALIVE make education accessible to children in Nepal, India and Canada. He notes with Ronald Grant McCullough, ’54 BSc(Ag) pride that today the literacy rate in his Businessman, volunteer and rancher former village is 90 per cent; 60 years ago it was less than 10 per cent. To McCullough, being true to your school means nurturing those past relationships Mehta and his company have also and building for the future. In the 65 years since graduating, McCullough has helped students gain hands-on experience, kept his grad class connected with a periodic newsletter and by organizing class through mentoring and opportunities reunions. One favourite: the 1994 Midnite Sun Saggy Aggie Skinny Dip in the Pelly River north of Whitehorse. McCullough has also been part of many initiatives to to work on various R&D projects at PBR. improve student opportunities in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Some projects have even had real-life Sciences. Like in 2015, when McCullough suggested a “Centennial Club” be impact, such as the high school test of air established to celebrate the faculty’s 100th year and encourage grads to give back. quality in a school portable. When students He bought the first “membership” and helped fund the McCullough ALES Centennial found worryingly high levels of mould Dutch Fund, which allows students to study in the Netherlands to learn Dutch spores, it led to the portable being closed. high‑tech agricultural techniques. He and his wife, Brenda McCullough, ’74 BEd, “Education has become a paramount ’03 MBA, have also sponsored the Lilian McCullough Breast Cancer Research Chair. thing in my mind,” he says. “Everybody

“Keep close contact with your alma mater,” he says. “And be ready to give back.” must get educated.” JOHN ULAN; BY CARTERPHOTO ROBERT ILLUSTRATION BY

38 ualberta.ca/newtrail € alumni honour award For pioneering a microsurgery that has macro impact Gary L.W. Lobay, ’68 MD Plastic surgeon, medical pioneer

Microsurgery involves repairing tiny blood vessels, nerves and tendons and offers enormous benefits to people whose limbs or digits have been severed through trauma. Lobay is an innovator who led the field’s evolution in Western Canada. A few highlights:

„ An accident and an opportunity. Lobay had spent six months learning from the world’s top microsurgeons when, in 1974, he returned to Alberta and made history. He used his new skills (along with specialized sutures he’d recently brought back in his pocket) in a groundbreaking surgery to replant (a term that means to surgically reattach) the severed arm of a three-year-old farm girl. The child’s arm function was restored — and Lobay’s career path was set.

„ New frontiers, exciting challenges. In the next four decades, Lobay had more firsts, including being the University of Alberta’s first microsurgeon and conducting Canada’s first series of thumb replants, in which full function was restored.

„ A doctor and a gentleman. Renowned for his bedside manner and his ability to connect with patients, Lobay is also lauded for his humility: working with the team, sharing the credit and persevering until the job is done.

„ Shaping the future. Lobay took pride in helping hundreds of medical trainees develop their surgical skills. His former students are equally grateful for his lessons on how to be a good doctor — one who listens and cares about all aspects of a patient’s needs.

new trail winter 2019 39 € alumni horizon award FOR FILLING THE BELLIES € OF HUNGRY KIDS sports wall of fame Jeremy Bryant, ’12 BCom Sean Co-founder of Mealshare Chursinoff, The California Cobb salad at Original Joe’s is packed with ’91 BEd turkey, bacon and avocado, and it rings in at a little over A year after 17 bucks. And if you’ve ever ordered the Cobb to fill your Chursinoff joined growling tummy, a hungry kid also got something to eat. the Golden Bears basketball team That’s thanks to Mealshare, a non-profit created in 2013 € in 1985, the Bears by Bryant and his cousin Andrew Hall. Partner restaurants alumni service award were ranked No. 1 make a donation each time a Mealshare-branded item is in Canada. He ordered off the menu. Mealshare sends the money to charity For making the world is now a special needs teacher in organizations — ranging from local Boys and Girls Club (and the U of A) Calgary. chapters to the international Save the Children fund — that prepare and serve healthy meals to hungry youngsters. a better place Here is a little more food for thought: Dick Wilson, ’74 BA, ’75 LLB Lawyer, tireless volunteer Mealshare’s goal for meals Wilson’s face registers a moment provided to youth in need by the of surprise at the question, did he end of 2019. As of September, the ever feel stretched too thin? It’s in counter on the charity’s website € was at 3,077,294. reference to Wilson’s busy career 3.5 million sports wall as a litigation lawyer, his family, a of fame nine-year gig as a law faculty lecturer, his work with numerous professional Golden Bears organizations and the lengthy list of Number of university councils, committees and Wrestling, restaurants, in boards with which he’d volunteered ’69 - ’72 40 communities, for more than two decades. With 13,824 The powerhouse that have a cheeky grin, he replies: “I never partnered with Number of meals served in 2018 through Golden Bears Edmonton’s Youth Empowerment & Support thought so.” wrestling teams of Mealshare since Services, one of Mealshare’s charity Wilson offers these thoughts on 1969 to 1972 hold it started. partners. Another partner, the Calgary Boys making your own mark in the world. the distinction of and Girls Club, offers meals to the 13,700 being the U of A’s children and youth it serves each year. first national With privilege comes responsibility: championship Wilson’s parents emphasized the dynasty, winning importance of acknowledging a debt three consecutive to society and finding ways to help CIAU titles. out. “We were all blessed with good intellects … and it was just expected 850,000 that you would give back.” Carrying 500 Canadians who use a food bank every month; on the custom, Wilson says his grown about 35 per cent are children and youth. children are now finding their own ways to connect with the community.

Group therapy: Volunteering can € be a lot of fun. Lively discussions alumni horizon award and brainstorming sessions that harness the power of the group mind For efforts to reduce overdose deaths can present you with entirely new points of view. “It is a very energizing Elaine Hyshka, ’07 BA, ’16 PhD environment.” Assistant professor, School of Public Health, Scientific director, Inner City Health and Wellness Program, Royal Alexandra Hospital The real reward: Wilson’s volunteer efforts were their own reward, time As an undergrad, Hyshka learned that criminalization was ineffective for preventing and again. “There is a sense of substance use and could actually increase harm for some people. Yet policies were not satisfaction from making the world being reformed. People with substance use disorders were dying preventable deaths. a better place, or leaving it a better More than a decade later, Hyshka is driving that reform, advocating for programs that are place — whether you did your best compassionate, evidence-based and that build public understanding. “Our present response or not,” he says. “But it’s also to substance use is oriented around moral judgment, stigma and criminalization,” she says. satisfying to see that, you know, “In the end, success looks like not punishing people for their health conditions and, instead, I did some good.” connecting them to effective care.” –rachel harper

40 ualberta.ca/newtrail trailswhere you’ve been and where you’re going

Even when the heat was on, Leah Kudel, ’07 BEd, kept a steady hand while competing in Blown Away, a new Netflix reality series about the art of glass‑blowing. The Edmonton-based artist — and self‑proclaimed pyromaniac — now plans to start her own glassware line and set up a studio for teaching in the next year. PHOTO COURTESY OF MARBLEMEDIA

new trail winter 2019 41 }trails Books

Check out the latest books published by look at the smallest and one amid the forces that will ignite alumni, including a history of personal of the most densely populated the War of 1812. nations in the Americas. hygiene, a travel guide to Vancouver and € a love story set at West Edmonton Mall. € HISTORY Compiled by Kate Black, ’16 BA TRAVEL The Famous Five: Canada’s 111 Places in Vancouver Crusaders for Women’s Rights That You Must Not Miss by Barbara Smith, ’81 BA, € € by Dave Doroghy and Graeme Heritage House Publishing, HEALTH FICTION Menzies, ’04 MA, Emons heritagehouse.ca Rejuvenate Your Death Train of Provincetown Publishing, 111places.com Brain Naturally by Trent Portigal, ’12 MA, A history of the five women by Robert Rogers, Radiant Press, radiantpress.ca This guide ventures beyond who spearheaded the Persons ’71 BSc, self‑published, Stanley Park and the Steam Case, which established the selfhealdistributing.com A Dickensian novella following Clock with unusual highlights right of women to be appointed two improbable heroes as they not on most tourists’ radars. to the Senate. A herbalist’s perspective on resist establishment in a rigid maintaining and regaining prairie city. € € mental health. ESSAYS SHORT FICTION € Before I Was a Critic I The Eater of Dreams € HISTORY Was a Human Being by Kat Cameron (Katherine CHILDREN’S LITERATURE The Baghdad Set: Iraq by Amy Fung, ’05 BA, Miller, ’85 BA, ’88 BA(Cert)), Dreamer Through the Eyes of British ’09 MA, Book*hug Press, Thistledown Press, written by Patricia Lin, Intelligence, 1941-45 bookhugpress.ca thistledownpress.com ’97 BSc, illustrated by Victoria by Adrian O’Sullivan, Kitsco, ’70 BA, ’72 Dip(Ed), ’69 MA, Palgrave Macmillan, Fung’s debut collection lends In 15 interconnected stories, self‑published palgrave.com an art critic’s perspective women examine the inner on Canada’s identity, settler fractures in their lives and The evocative illustrations This final volume in a trilogy colonialism and mythologies of remember lost relationships. in this picture book inspire provides the first intelligence multiculturalism. children to tap into their inner history of Iraq during the € artists and dreamers. Second World War. € WILDLIFE EDUCATION The New Beachcomber’s Guide € € An Education in ‘Evil’: to the Pacific Northwest MEDICINE MEMOIR Implications for Curriculum, by J. Duane Sept, ’72 BSc, Craniofacial Embryogenetics Airline Pilot: A Day in the Life Pedagogy, and Beyond Harbour Publishing, and Development by Grant Corriveau, ’73 BSc, by Cathryn van Kessel, ’16 harbourpublishing.com by Geoffrey H. Sperber and self-published PhD, Palgrave Macmillan, Steven M. Sperber, ’95 BSc, palgrave.com This updated edition of ’96 BSc(SpecCert), PMPH USA, Commercial pilot Corriveau Sept’s guide helps readers pmphusa.com gives readers a front-row seat It’s easy to label historical and identify hundreds of species to the challenges and thrills of contemporary figures as “evil,” of marine life, from sea This third edition describes a day’s work. but van Kessel argues that anemones to sea stars. recent technical advances and reimagining our use of the genetic insights in assessing € word can open new possibilities € craniofacial abnormalities. HISTORY in and out of the classroom. HISTORY El Salvador Today: Vital Signs, a Half-Century € Archaeological Sites, Arts € of Emergency Medical MUSIC & Culture, Government, FICTION Services in Calgary Saxophone Technique History, Economy, Geography Twice Chosen Man written by Zoey Duncan, edited by Sarah Anne Wolkowski, & Environment, and By L Leighton Decore, by Tim Prieur, ’76 BMedSc, ’02 MMus, self-published Science & Technology ’62 BA, ’65 LLB, FriesenPress, ’78 MD, Emergency Medical by Carlos R. Colindres, ’92 BSc, books.friesenpress.com Services Foundation, A book of exercises to help self-published emsfoundation.ca saxophone players of all levels A group of French-Canadian have fun while sharpening In seven chapters, El Salvador voyageurs journey to the A history of Calgary’s their skills. Today gives a comprehensive mouth of the Columbia River ambulance services that tells

42 ualberta.ca/newtrail the 19th‑century ballet Giselle. In this book, the interdisciplinary research team discusses the process.

€ City-Builder James K.M. Cheng (Architect, Landscape This stunning book is the first major documentation of the work of one City-Builder: The Architecture of + Urban Designer, Photographer) was born of the world’s leading shaper of emerging cities, James K.M. Cheng. James K. M. Cheng in Hong Kong and studied architecture at City-Builder Trevor Boddy€ MUSIC Devising high-density residential complexes, Cheng combines expertise the University of Washington, and Harvard, in urban and garden design, commercial real estate development, and founding his Vancouver firm in 1978. His James Cheng’s urban ideas and residential carefully proportioned architecture into a new and synthetic role, that of innovative residential and mixed-use buildings architectureARCHITECTURE have transformed Vancouver over Sweet Thunder:“City-Builder.” Because Duke he took most of the photography, this is the rare completed across North America and Asia the past three decades, and are increasingly were recognized with his receiving the Order architecture book with visuals framed by their designer. City-Builder: influential on high-density city-building The Architecture of James K.M. Cheng The Architecture of of Canada in 2014. The Architecture of James K.M. Cheng is also a history of Vancouver worldwide. City-Builder:Working with large development The www.jamescheng.comEllington’s Musicurban design since 1980, in and is the first narrative in print to describe companies, city planning departments, and document the birth and growth of “Vancouverism,” currently citizen’s organizations and his own talented staff, James Cheng crafts engaging and influencing new residential development in other cities ranging from Trevor Boddy Nine(Editor, Texts Author) wasThemes generous publicArchitecture spaces that are dignified by of born in Edmonton and studied architecture James K.M. Cheng Dubai to San Diego to Beijing to . the architecturally ambitious housing designed at the University of Calgary and is currently around them. This book combines a critical a Vancouver-based architecture critic, biography by critic/curator/urbanist Trevor curator and consulting urban designer. His James K. M. Cheng by Jack Chambers, ’70 PhD, Trevor Boddy Boddy along with his commentary and analysis most recent books are Glacier Skywalk and of the collected built and unbuilt works in Stantec: Airports, both published by Figure 1 of Canada, the and Asia. Most of Vancouver. self-published the photographsby of the JKMCATrevor architecture Boddy, ’75 www.trevorboddy.ca. and public spaces featured on these pages are taken by James Cheng himself, and building and urban designBA, plans have beenImages re-drawn Publishing, George Baird (Preface) is a graduate of the University of Toronto, where he is specially for this book, the only volume on his emeritus professor at the Daniels School of work. The late Bing Thom was a prominent Architecture (formerly at Harvard GSD), and Vancouver imagespublishing.comarchitect and Cheng’s supervisor Chambers identifies key while working on Arthur Erickson’s Robson a founding partner of Baird Sampson Neuert. www.bsnarchitects.ca Square. Thom said of his work: “He starts

with urban design that people like and admire, themes in the jazz legend’s then proceeds to shaping architecture that is its best reflection. James Cheng has set the agenda for Vancouver.” 50-year career as a composer, Trevor Boddy City-Builder gives insights the stories of system‑wide orchestrator, pianist and into the works of James changes and front‑line cultural icon. Cheng, an architect who caregivers. has shaped Vancouver’s COVER IMAGE TBC € urban landscape. € HISTORY SCIENCE Memories of Bonnie Doon: € Food 5.0: How We Our Stories, Our History ARCHITECTURE Feed the Future by Tom Monto, ’83 BA, edited Stantec: Airports by Robert D. Saik, ’83 BSc(Ag), by Astrid Blodgett, ’86 BA, by Trevor Boddy, self-published ’96 MA, designed by Craig ’75 BA, Figure 1, Pinder, ’05 BDes, co-ordinated figure1publishing.com Saik reflects on past, present by Margaret Russell, and future agricultural ’72 BLS, ’91 MLIS, Bonnie Boddy provides a history practices to investigate the Doon Community League, and analysis of the airports challenge of feeding a rapidly bonniedoon.ca built by the Edmonton- growing population. based firm. Marking the 100th anniversary € of the Bonnie Doon PHOTOGRAPHY Community League, this Homelands collaborative effort features ecstasy and bliss. Political and € by Pieter de Vos, ’96 BA, ’02 MSc, stories from the community’s personal chaos ensue. EDUCATION ’14 PhD, Daylight Books, first century. Promoting Social daylightbooks.org € Inclusion: Co‑Creating € MANAGEMENT Environments That Foster Seven years of documentary CHILDREN’S LITERATURE Leading-Edge Research in Equity and Belonging photographs reveal spatial Sapphire the Great and Public Sector Innovation edited by Kate Scorgie, justice and social inclusion in the Meaning of Life edited by Eleanor Glor, ’67 BA, ’96 PhD, and Chris Forlin, Pretoria, South Africa, 25 years by Beverley Brenna, ’10 PhD, Peter Lang, peterlang.com Emerald Publishing, after apartheid. Pajama Press, pajamapress.ca books.emeraldinsight.com A collection of top articles from € After learning her parents have The Innovation Journal, which is This volume provides POETRY split up, nine-year-old Jeannie devoted to building knowledge strategies for building Odyssey: Wanderings and her hamster navigate about public sector innovation. equitable communities in the Global Village changing family dynamics. and promoting inclusion by Larry Smeets, ’90 LLB, € of marginalized people. self‑published € CULTURE HISTORY Netflix Nostalgia: Streaming € A collection of poems The Clean Body: A the Past on Demand FICTION explores the nature of the Modern History edited by Kathryn Pallister, Molly of the Mall: Literary Lass human condition through a by Peter Ward, ’64 BA, ’66 MA, ’01 PhD, Rowman & Littlefield, and Purveyor of Fine Footwear wide range of perspectives McGill-Queen’s University rowman.com by Heidi L.M. Jacobs, and historical eras. Press, mqup.ca ’92 BA(Hons), ’93 MA, NeWest A collection of scholarly Press, newestpress.com € A history of one of the most writing that examines how ART important revolutions in Netflix satisfies pop culture’s U of A English major Molly The Creation of iGiselle western culture: personal craving for nostalgia. looks for love while working at edited by Nora Foster Stovel. hygiene. West Edmonton Mall. With essays by Wayne DeFehr, € ’03 PhD, Emilie St. Hilaire, € POETRY ’15 MFA, Sergio Poo Hernandez FICTION Let Us Not Think of Tell us about your recent publication. ’15 MSc, Laura Sydora, ’13 MA, Love by Numbers Them as Barbarians Email a write-up with a high-resolution University of Alberta Press, by Gary Dvorkin, ’73 BA, by Peter Midgley, ’06 PhD, cover image to [email protected]. uap.ualberta.ca ’79 MD, self‑published NeWest Press, newestpress.com Or mail your write-up and book to New Trail Books at the mailing address on page 4. We cannot guarantee all U of A researchers created a On Valentine’s Day in 2042, a Midgely’s poems give submitted write-ups will be included video game that reimagines company launches a DNA code perspective on love, migration, on this list. Inclusion does not the tragic narrative of guaranteeing eternal romantic and war in Namibia. denote endorsement by New Trail.

new trail winter 2019 43 }trails class notes

We’d love to hear what you’re doing. Tell us about Irene and Jim Mitchell with the Snow White Motel in Qualicum Beach. your new baby or your new job. Celebrate a personal accomplishment or a volunteer activity or share your favourite campus memories. Submit a class note at uab.ca/classnotes or email [email protected]. Notes will be edited for length, clarity and style.

Compiled by Kate Black, ’16 BA Class Notes

1940s

’46 Irene Mitchell, Dip(Ed), rang in her 100th birthday with family in Courtenay, B.C., and their families. She in August. The celebration recently moved from an marks a century of adventure independent living residence for Mitchell, from working as in Nanaimo, B.C., back to a teacher in Banff, Jasper and Qualicum Beach to be closer Calgary, Alta., to buying and to family. How has she stayed operating the Snow White on top of it all? Mitchell’s Motel with her husband, daughter, Ambernadine Jim, in Qualicum Beach, B.C. Mitchell Tody, ’74 BSc(Pharm), Mitchell has enjoyed trips shares her mother’s secret to Italian Steakhouse + Wine to Israel, Greece, Germany, a good memory: memorizing Bar in Edmonton and ended Australia, New Zealand and something new, like a poem, with views of the city from Fiji with her two daughters every day. the Hapchyns’ penthouse. Six other classmates plus their family members were able to attend –– some of whom travelled from out of town 1950s for the occasion –– including Jim Hardy, ’59 DDS, Myron Stechishin, ’59 DDS, Ernie ’59 Rota Dalderis Otto, DDS, Rakochey,’59 DDS, Nestor wrote in with a dispatch Mitenko, ’59 DDS, Don from her dentistry class’s Upton, ’59 DDS, and Ed DID YOU KNOW? 60-year reunion this July. Derworiz, ’59 DDS. The two The first aerial photograph of the U of A was taken The event, arranged and remaining classmates, Alan in 1919 by distinguished aviator Wilfrid “Wop” May, hosted by Peter Hapchyn, Richardson, ’59 DDS, ’65 MSc, who survived the biplane firefight that took down ’59 DDS, and his wife, Anne and Louis Melosky, ’59 DDS, the Red Baron. May had briefly attended the U of A before enlisting in the First World War in 1916. Hapchyn, ’56 Dip(Nu), ’57 were unable to make it. The BScN, began with a private group enjoyed reminiscing

luncheon at the Bistecca and sharing photos from ILLUSTRATION BY WENTING LI

44 ualberta.ca/newtrail The 60-year dentistry class reunion: (from left, front row) Jim Hardy, Myron Stechishin, Rota Otto; (back row) Ernie Rakochey, Nestor Mitenko, Peter Hapchyn, Don Upton, Ed Derworiz. Bottom: The class’s 15-year anniversary.

Family Matters Mother-daughter duo Pearl A. Gyan-Dyck, ’84 MEd, and Aum Nicol, ’85 BEd, wrote in with an update on where their paths have taken them since graduating. Nicol’s mother, Gyan- Dyck, completed a doctorate in leadership education from the University of San Diego in 1998, taught for 30 years in central Alberta’s Battle River School district and became an instructor at the U of A’s Faculty of Education. After retirement, Gyan-Dyck moved to Creston, B.C., and is now serving as a worship leader at their U of A classes, labs and churches in and around Kootenay, B.C. parties, and made a toast Nicol’s teaching in honour of the 17 other career led her and her classmates who had died husband, Chris Nicol, ’84 since graduation. BEd, to Westlock, Alta., where they lived for 17 years. They now live in Grande Prairie, Alta., where her husband is chair of the kinesiology department at the regional college and the Prevention of Nuclear award-winning documentary where she helped found War, which was awarded the films. During her 30-year the Grande Prairie 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. career as a filmmaker, Children’s Festival in 2017. The Nicols have two 1960s teacher and community children: their daughter activist, Thomas’s work has is a surf instructor in championed causes including Tofino, B.C., and their ’60 Mary-Wynne Ashford, son has recently started BSc(HEc), ’61 BEd, was his teaching career in awarded the Cam Coady Creston. Publishing has also Medal of Excellence, a become a family matter. Doctors of BC award that Nicol plans on reissuing recognizes a physician’s her self-published outstanding contributions s book A Multicultural 1970 Alphabet under her own to the medical profession in British Columbia. Ashford publishing brand, Sunara Press. She also recently was honoured for her work as ’74 Lorna Thomas, BA, published her mother’s both a family physician and ’75 Dip(Ed), ’79 MEd, was Gift of the Gurus, which an international advocate awarded the Alberta draws upon Gyan-Dyck’s for peace and nuclear Media Arts Alliance doctoral research on disarmament. Notably, she Society’s Spirit of Helen developing the inner self was co-president of the Award in recognition of of students.

TOP PHOTO BY SIGRID OTTO International Physicians for her advocacy and for her Lorna Thomas

new trail winter 2019 45 }trails class notes

disability inclusion, mental health promotion and harm reduction.

’79 Ellen Criss, BEd, ’06 MEd, has retired from Roland Michener School in Slave Lake, Alta., where she has been the band teacher since 1995. Her students marked the occasion with a surprise performance in June.

1980s AUGUST 1959

’84 Scott Bower, BPE, shared how a New Trail story inspired him to launch his own business. The article, My, How Time Flies “Calling All Cars,” in the Before he was an Alumni Award recipient, Summer 2006 issue, profiled Ronald Grant McCullough, ’54 BSc(Ag), U of A student Dominic (page 38), had a wild summer involving an airplane, a close call with a mountain range McKenzie, ’12 BCom, who and three run-ins with the law. had recently won an award In April 1959, McCullough passed a note for starting up a business to his MBA classmate Robin Eccles during importing Japanese used cars. class at Western University. He wanted to do AUGUST 2019 “After teaching English in something new for summer break. His idea? Japan for close to 20 years, Buy an airplane and tour South America. In the weeks that followed, Eccles rushed to I wanted to do something get his pilot licence and the two bought a made it back unscathed in time for the start different,” Bower writes. single-engine Piper for $4,200, christened the of the fall term. “The article in New Trail Canada Goose by their dean’s wife. On the In August, 60 years later, McCullough and was the spark that lit the 92-day journey, they were incarcerated thrice Eccles tracked down the Canada Goose near fire under my butt — soon and nearly ran the plane into a cliff in the Edmonton, which is now owned and happily after, a friend and I founded Andes near Curicó, Chile. Nevertheless, they flown by a commercial pilot. Japan Car Direct, a Japanese used vehicle dealership and car export company. It has most customers coming to Cross of Ivan Mazepa ’85 Chris Vilcsak, been a long, twisty and very us through Google and good from his home country BSc(MechEng), ’97 MBA, interesting road to becoming old word-of-mouth. So, I’m of Ukraine. The cross is celebrating the 20th a successful and growing hoping it soon will be time recognizes his contributions anniversary of Solution 105 company now mainly run for me to spend more time to strengthening the Consulting, the Edmonton- by three guys in their late in the golf pastures, garden, international profile of that based energy consulting 30s that I play ice hockey gym and ice rink!” country. Luciuk is a professor company he founded to help with. Our main markets are of political geography at the organizations optimize the America, Canada, the United ’84 Lubomyr Luciuk, Royal Military College of cost and impact of their Kingdom and Europe, with PhD, was awarded the Canada in Kingston, Ont. environmental output.

46 ualberta.ca/newtrail Heather McPherson

DID YOU KNOW? The first computer on campus — the LGP-30, acquired in 1957 for $40,000 — was in use 24 hours a day, seven days a week calculating mathematical problems. What had taken a theoretical physicist a month or more to solve using a mechanical desk calculator, the computer could solve in an hour.

’88 Sydney Lancaster, ’89 Linda M. Green BA(Spec), had her Abraham, BA(Spec), had her interdisciplinary artwork photography exhibited at the featured at the Art Gallery juried Sooke Fine Arts Show of St. Albert (Alta.) this in British Columbia this fall. Boundary/Time/ summer. As well, Abraham’s Surface features video that poetry and short stories documents the creation and have been included in several destruction of a 150-metre- Vancouver Island anthologies long sculpture she built on and shows. the shores of Green Point in Newfoundland’s Gros Morne National Park. Lancaster say she was nominated as first ambassador for women, made the sculpture the federal NDP candidate peace and security in June with natural materials for Edmonton Strathcona by Prime Minister Justin to mark the geological following member of Trudeau. This diplomatic boundary separating the Parliament Linda Duncan’s, position was created by Cambrian and Ordovician ’70 BA, ’73 LLB, retirement: “I the Liberal government periods. Lancaster notes am excited to represent the to advance its feminist that John W. F. Waldron, a 1990s constituency that has been foreign policy and advise structural geologist at the my home my entire adult life on protecting the rights of U of A, provided scientific and to run in the riding of my women and girls who face input and practical ’97 Heather McPherson, alma mater.” She has since violence and insecurity. support for the piece. BEd, ’07 MEd, wrote in to been elected. (See page 48 for O’Neill has been a federal a list of newly elected alumni adviser on peace and members of Parliament). security for women since 2011 and she co-founded the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, which aims to stop the use of Sports Hall of Fame Inductees children in armed conflict. Bill Mojelski, ’70 BA, ’74 Dip(Ed), and Blaine Kjorlien, ’78 BEd, both former teachers at Wetaskiwin Composite ’04 Christopher Carr, BCom, High School, have been inducted into the Wetaskiwin and has accepted a position with County Sports Hall of Fame. Mojelski was recognized for his efforts in documenting the county’s sporting history. Boston-based Touchplan Kjorlien was honoured for his athletic record in football and 2000s as its Canadian director. wrestling at Camrose Lutheran College (now Augustana Touchplan has created a Campus) and the U of A, as well as his later influence as a web-based collaboration tool high school coach. ’01 Jacqueline O’Neill, BCom, designed for the construction

ILLUSTRATION BY WENTING LI was appointed Canada’s industry. In his new role,

new trail winter 2019 47 }trails class notes

Carr is responsible for leading Touchplan’s growth into Canada.

’04 Jessica Heine, BMus, has released her folk-pop album Goodbye Party with Edmonton-based Fallen Tree Records. Goodbye Party, which touches on themes spanning love, loss and life transitions, is her third album.

’09 Carla Prado, PhD, has been named to the Top 40 Under 40 list by the Caldwell Partners recruitment firm. Prado, an associate professor of nutrition at the U of A, is an expert in body composition assessment and has been recognized widely for her research surrounding diet and health outcomes of cancer patients.

IN THE NEWS 2010s Changing the Game ’13 Yuri Sulyma, BSc(Hons) James Makokis, ’04 BSc(Nutr/Food), (right) and Anthony Johnson are recently earned a PhD in the first Indigenous, two-spirit couple to win The Amazing Race Canada. mathematics from the Earlier this year, they zigzagged across the country, beating nine teams University of Texas at Austin contending for the prize. The pair took the opportunity to advocate for and has begun an assistant causes close to their hearts, donning outfits such as handmade red skirts professorship at Brown for missing and murdered Indigenous women and blue shirts that read University in Providence, R.I. Water Is Life to show the cultural importance of water. –cbc Sulyma extends thanks to his professors in the honours math program at the U of A and to Andy Liu, ’72 MSc, ’76 PhD, who, through his SMART math enrichment program, allowed Sulyma Nine Alumni Elected as Members of Parliament to pursue his passion for mathematics in junior high. Nine alumni were voted in as members of Parliament in the recent federal election: , ’92 BSc(Spec) (Red Deer - Lacombe), Michael Cooper, ’06 BA, ’09 LLB (St. Albert - Edmonton), , ’85 BA, ’88 LLB (Vancouver Kingsway), Jean-Yves Duclos, ’88 BA(Hons) ’16 Jamie Hudson, BSc, ’16 (Quebec), Matthew Jeneroux, ’04 BA (Edmonton Riverbend), Greg McLean, ’85 BCom (Calgary Cert(ResearchSci), has Centre), Heather McPherson, ’97 BEd, ’07 MEd (Edmonton Strathcona), , received an international ’72 Dip(Ed) (Bow River), , ’02 BA(Hons) (Lakeland). student award from the

Academy of Spinal Cord CTV / BELL MEDIA

48 ualberta.ca/newtrail CAMPUS YEAR LOUGHEED COLLEGE SAINT-JEAN LECTURES Êtes-vous une ancienne ou un ancien du Campus Saint-Jean? SPONSORED BY: Partagez votre expérience dans le New Trail. Pour ce faire, nous vous invitons à remplir le formulaire ici: ualberta.ca/campus- saint-jean/anciens-et-amis/new-trail. WHAT’S NEXT

’68 Claudette Tardif, BEd, ’78 MEd, Paul Martin en 2005, fonction qu’elle FOR ALBERTA? ’84 PhD, a reçu un doctorat honorifique occupa jusqu’à sa retraite en 2018. Free | Open to the Public en Droit de l’Université de l’Alberta en novembre. Reconnue comme ’12 Laurier Amyotte, BCom, est une des principales championnes et un policier à Edmonton Police défenseures des droits des minorités Service depuis 2012. Dans ses temps November 14, 2019 linguistiques et culturelles, elle a libres, il adore jouer au hockey et 6:30-8:00 pm | CCIS, U of A contribué de manière importante à est enthousiaste de participer à LEADERSHIP IN l’éducation postsecondaire et à la vie l’organisation du match de hockey THE DIGITAL AGE publique. Elle enseigna à la Faculté annuel de la Classique héritage du Saint-Jean à partir de 1977 et fut Campus Saint-Jean, dont l’histoire January 16, 2020 doyenne de 1995 à 2003. Elle était vice- est étroitement liée au hockey. 6:30-8:00 pm | Telus Centre, U of A présidente par intérim des relations La 9ème édition de la Classique TRUTH AND extérieures lorsqu’elle fut nommée au héritage se déroulera le 25 janvier Sénat canadien par le premier ministre 2020 à l’aréna Clare Drake. RECONCILIATION FEATURING AMAZING RACE WINNERS, THE MAKOKIS FAMILY

February 13, 2020 6:30-8:00 pm | Telus Centre, U of A WILL MILLENIALS Music Is Their Forte SAVE ALBERTA? The U of A Summer Band presented its 31st summer concert in July at the Dutch UNPACKING THE IMPACT OF Canadian Club in Edmonton. Directed by Graeme Peppink, ’88 BEd, Jackie GENERATIONAL TRENDS Malcolm and student conductor Meijun Chen, ’18 BA, this 80-piece concert band features wind and percussion players from across the Edmonton area. MARCH 12, 2020 6:30-8:00 pm | Telus Centre, U of A OUR ENERGY FUTURE Injury Professionals for her essay on how to promote APRIL 9, 2020 accessibility, develop 6:30-8:00 pm | Telus Centre, U of A interdisciplinary teamwork, THE FUTURE OF and translate information HEALTH CARE about the Canadian PRECISION HEALTH health-care system for prospective international students. Hudson, who Visit our website for more leadership development opportunities: will soon begin her job as an emergency room nurse, uab.ca/LCL will be the university’s first nursing student to receive the Certificate in International Learning when she crosses the convocation stage in November. Jamie Hudson

new trail winter 2019 49 }trails class notes

ALUMNI ADVICE

HOW TO BREAK YOUR PLASTIC HABIT Tips to free you from single-use products IN THE NEWS By Barb Wilkinson

Everywhere Melissa Gorrie, The Thrill of Discovery ’04 BSc(Hons), ’07 LLB, looked she saw plastic: shopping Paleontologist Emily Bamforth, ’05 BSc(Spec), is passionate about bags, produce bags, fruits dinosaurs — and inspiring the next generation of female scientists. She and vegetables wrapped in was recently awarded the 2019 YWCA Regina Women of Distinction plastic. She wasn’t imagining science award for her work, which includes discovering and naming things: we use around 15 billion plastic bags a year in Canada three new fossil species. Her latest feat was unearthing the skull (not alone. Most are in use for only the one pictured) of an Edmontosaurus near Eastend, Sask. — only the a few minutes but take up to second found in that province. –the london free press 1,000 years to decompose. Instead of just getting angry and frustrated, Gorrie teamed up with her husband, Sean Stepchuk, ’04 BCom, ’08 LLB, to launch Waste Free Edmonton. The organization targets single-use plastics and strives Alumni Named to Order of Canada to raise public awareness about the environmental cost Three alumni were named to the Order of Canada in June. Eldon Godfrey, ’57 BCom, was of convenience. They even recognized for his contributions to the sport of diving, as a judge, official and volunteer in started a campaign to develop Canada and abroad. Brian Sykes, ’65 BSc(Hons), U of A professor emeritus and biochemist, a single-use plastics bylaw was honoured for his protein-structure research using nuclear magnetic resonance to discourage disposables, spectroscopy. Allan Wachowich, ’57 BA, ’58 LLB, ’10 LLD (Honorary), former chief justice which was cited in a City of of Alberta’s Court of Queen’s Bench, was recognized for his dedication to the law and his Edmonton report on the issue. community as a volunteer with multiple charitable organizations. The city has since

committed to creating a plan LEFT PHOTO BY TROY FLEECE / REGINA LEADER-POST, A DIVISION OF POSTMEDIA NETWORK INC.; RIGHT PHOTO BY OLGA MILTSOVA / ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES

50 ualberta.ca/newtrail The Alumni Association notes with sorrow ’54 Rita Elna Calhoun the passing of the following graduates (Dickson), BScN, to restrict single-use plastics (based on information received between of Edmonton, AB, as early as January 2021, as June 2019 and September 2019). in August 2019 part of its new 25-year waste ’54 Zelma Maude management strategy. In Gilbertson (Anderson), the meantime, Gorrie and Dip(Ed), ’57 Dip(Ed), Stepchuk offer a few strategies ’58 BEd, of Taber, that anyone can use to curb AB, in July 2019 plastic use. ’54 Donald Mackay Newton, BPE, ’54 Plan ahead Dip(Ed), of Sammamish, WA, in July 2019 In addition to bringing your own shopping bags, Gorrie In Memoriam ’54 Ronald Harvey recommends thinking twice Wensel, BSc, ’56 MD, before popping fruits and ’48 Mary Ellen Pyrch ’51 Frederick Enns, in August 2019 (Dickson), BSc, ’74 BEd, ’59 MEd, ’61 PhD, of veggies into store-provided ’55 John Andrew BLS, of Victoria, BC, Calgary, AB, in June 2019 clear bags. Most don’t need 1940S Agrios, BA, ’56 LLB, in August 2019 it. For the rest, get some ’42 Jessie Eileen ’51 Shirley E. Mutch of Edmonton, AB, in reusable produce bags. Bring Morrison (Lancaster), ’48 Wilma Elizabeth (Fuller), Dip(Ed), September 2019 BA, ’47 BEd, of High Russell, BSc(HEc), of Calgary, AB, in your own containers to the ’55 Joan Gratz (Aplin), Level, AB, in May 2019 of St. Thomas, ON, August 2019 bulk aisle to avoid unnecessary BSc(HEc), of Olds, in September 2019 packaging. “Question what ’46 James Hunter ’51 Donald O’Donoghue AB, in August 2019 Robson, BSc(Ag), ’48 George Willford Stewart, BSc, of Calgary, you’re putting in single-use ’55 Laurence George of Calgary, AB, in Sutherland, BCom, of AB, in September 2019 bags and push back if a store Hoye, BSc, ’56 MSc, December 2018 Victoria, BC, in May 2019 doesn’t want you to use your ’52 Lawrence Lake of Lethbridge, AB, own containers,” Gorrie says. ’46 Stuart Redmond ’48 James William Bell, BSc, of Calgary, in June 2019 And keep reusable bags in a Wright, BSc(ChemEng), Thompson, BSc, AB, in August 2019 ’55 Florence Lillian location where you’ll actually ’47 MSc, of Columbus, in July 2019 OH, in June 2019 ’52 William Allyn Walasko (Laidlaw), remember to use them, like by ’49 Richard Baker Dowling, BSc(ElecEng), Dip(Nu), of Calgary, your back door or in your car. ’47 Sonia Olga Batt, Frankish, BSc(Ag), of Edmonton, AB, AB, in June 2019 Dip(Nu), ’48 Dip(Nu), ’73 ’51 MSc, of Surrey, in March 2019 ’55 Walder George W. BScN, of Edmonton, BC, in July 2019 Trash-less takeout AB, in June 2019 ’52 Elaine Mable White, BA, ’59 LLB, One of Gorrie’s most surprising ’49 Kathleen Ellen Goodridge, Dip(Nu), of of Edmonton, AB, in suggestions is using reusable ’47 James Alfred Hyde, BA, of Victoria, Victoria, BC, in July 2019 September 2019 Brown, BSc, of Calgary, containers when you want AB, in July 2019 AB, in March 2019 ’52 Elizabeth Emily ’55 Zenon A. Wiznura, to pick up restaurant food ’49 Catherine Lavina Paschen, Dip(Ed), ’55 BSc, ’69 Dip(Ed), on the way home. “We call ’47 Catherine Hudson Neighbor, BSc(HEc), BEd, ’82 Dip(Ed), ’83 of Edmonton, AB, the restaurant and tell them (Oviatt), Dip(Ed), of Victoria, BC, in MEd, of Edmonton, in August 2019 in July 2019 February 2019 AB, in March 2019 we have our own containers. ’56 Paul Guy Piquette, Most are happy to use our ’47 John Anderson ’52 Marvin Maurice Dip(Ed), ’65 BEd, ’72 containers and some give us Randle, BSc(CivEng), Starko, BSc, ’57 MD, MEd, of Plamondon, extra food,” she says. Storing of Woodstock, ON, 1950S of Edmonton, AB, AB, in April 2019 in June 2019 in August 2019 a kit of containers and mugs ’56 David William Smith, in your car can be handy for ’50 Mary N. Dumaine ’47 Stella Frances (Wachowich), ’52 Astrid Ustina BSc(Ag), ’59 MSc, of an impromptu coffee run or Staley (Holosko), BA, BSc(Pharm), in June 2019 (Oro), BSc(Pharm), Guelph, ON, in June 2019 leftovers while dining out, too. of Pacific Palisades, of Edmonton, AB, ’57 Mary Agnes CA, in July 2019 ’50 James Arthur in June 2019 Halliday, BSc, Baughn, BSc(HEc), ’58 Re-evaluate recycling ’48 William Daniel of Stratford, AB, ’53 Kenneth Wilbert BEd, of Victoria, BC, Continue recycling — but Dickie, BCom, ’51 LLB, of in June 2019 Bride, BEd, ’62 MEd, in September 2019 Calgary, AB, in May 2019 ’73 PhD, of Victoria, treat it as a last resort. Only ’57 Lilian Jean Beland ’50 Manoly Robert BC, in August 2019 nine per cent of plastic waste ’48 Marion Ethel Lupul, BA, ’51 BEd, of (Paul), Dip(Ed), ’58 generated each year in Canada Grimsrud (Brennan), Calgary, AB, in July 2019 ’53 Norman Wolfe BEd, of Edmonton, is recycled. “We do a lot of Dip(Nu), ’49 BScN, Simons, BA, ’54 LLB, AB, in August 2019 of Edmonton, AB, in ’50 Murray Santo of Edmonton, AB, in wishful recycling,” says Gorrie. ’57 Arlene Olive Angelo September 2019 Tempest, BSc(CivEng), September 2019 In fact, about 25 per cent of the of Calgary, AB, in (Boykowich), Dip(RM), blue bag material in Edmonton ’48 Elaine Margaret August 2019 ’53 Gordon E. of Qualicum Beach, ends up in the landfill either Kernahan, Dip(Nu), Stephenson, BA, ’59 BC, in May 2019 because it’s not recyclable ’49 BScN, of Calgary, ’50 Frederick Hamilton MA, of Edmonton, ’57 Irvin Herbert Frank, or not sorted properly. She AB, in May 2019 Trollope, BSc, ’51 MSc, of AB, in May 2019 Calgary, AB, in June 2019 Dip(Ed), ’65 BEd, ’70 recommends looking online to ’48 James Malcolm ’54 Bernard Benedict Dip(Ed), of Camrose, see if what you’re discarding Pritchard, BA, ’51 ’51 Geraldine Frances Boyko, DDS, of Calgary, AB, in June 2019 belongs in the recycling bin, LLB, of Medicine Hat, Brown (Fitzgerald), AB, in September 2019 a hazardous waste depot, a AB, in June 2019 BA, of Sherwood Park, reuse centre or the landfill. AB, in September 2019

new trail winter 2019 51 }trails in memoriam

’57 Winona Evelyne ’59 David John ’63 Ruth Mryglod ’66 Arthur Michael ’68 Denise Marie-Rose BEd, of Edmonton, Miller, Dip(Ed), ’76 BEd, Beiersdorfer, BCom, (Olsen), BA, in Danielson, Nobert (Lambert), AB, in May 2019 in September 2019 of Victoria, BC, in September 2019 BSc(MechEng), ’68 BEd, of Edmonton, August 2019 MSc, of Calgary, AB, in April 2019 ’71 Walter Cherniwchan, ’57 Gregory Mursky, ’63 Frances Elaine AB, in July 2019 BEd, of St. Albert, BA, of Mequon, WI, ’59 James Garvey Mueller (Meikle), BEd, ’68 Lynn Eugene AB, in June 2019 in August 2019 Donlevy, BPE, ’61 BEd, ’73 BA, in August 2019 ’66 George Lin Mah- Stenhouse (Sundby), ’75 MA, of Calgary, Poy, MD, of Calgary, Dip(Nu), of Fairview, ’71 David L. Fleiger, ’57 Lynn Allen AB, in August 2019 ’63 Robert McBride AB, in August 2019 AB, in May 2019 PhD, of Edmonton, Patrick, BSc, ’60 LLB, Pogue, BCom, of Calgary, AB, in June 2019 of Edmonton, AB, in ’59 Charles Gordon AB, in July 2019 ’66 Martin Eugene ’68 Larry J. Wynn, BEd, September 2019 Halls, BSc(CivEng), Muldoon, PhD, of Jasper, AB, in May 2019 ’71 James Steven ’68 MSc, of Edmonton, ’64 Theodore Maitland of Toronto, ON, in Lazaruk, BSc, ’72 Dip(Ed), ’58 Patricia Joan AB, in December 2018 Gordon Charmbury, August 2019 ’69 Irene Helen Bochon, ’73 BEd, in August 2019 Anderson (Sharplin), BSc(Pharm), of Calgary, BEd, of Edmonton, Dip(Nu), of Calgary, ’59 David Angus AB, in July 2019 ’66 Rex Amundson AB, in May 2019 ’71 Heather Ann McKay, AB, in May 2019 McCullagh, BSc(CivEng), North, BEd, ’75 MEd, BEd, of St. Albert, in August 2019 ’64 Robert John Holmes, in August 2019 ’69 Patrick Noel Heaney, AB, in June 2019 ’58 Jean Margaret BEd, of Summerland, BEd, in December 2018 Beilman (Simpson), ’59 Alan Sedgewick BC, in June 2019 ’66 Patricia June Rock, ’72 Willa Bowen, ’69 Helmut Charles Dip(Nu), of Edmonton, Richardson, DDS, Dip(Nu), of High River, BSc, of Calgary, AB, Meckelborg, BEd, AB, in July 2019 ’65 MSc, of Delta, BC, ’64 Zonia Lazarowich AB, in April 2019 in September 2018 in September 2019 (Niniowsky), BEd, ’70 of Lethbridge, AB, ’58 Shirley Joan MMus, of Edmonton, ’66 Ernest Francis in April 2019 ’72 Douglas Martin Bolter (Brown), AB, in September 2019 Stevens, BCom, Beingessner, BEd, ’69 Judith Lynn Rappel Dip(Nu), of Canmore, of Edmonton, AB, ’76 Dip(Ed), ’78 MEd, (MacLeod), BEd, of AB, in July 2019 ’64 Edward Arthur in July 2019 of Red Deer, AB, in 1960S Meighen, BSc, of Calgary, AB, in May 2019 December 2018 ’58 James Gordon Boyd, ’60 Helen Corns, Edmonton, AB, in ’66 Rosalind Ann ’69 Henry Francis ’72 Christopher BSc(PetEng), in May 2019 BEd, of Calgary, AB, January 2019 Sydie (Beard), MA, ’70 Reinbold, BEd, of Brian Grey, BCom, in August 2019 PhD, of Edmonton, ’58 Peter Laverne ’64 Gordon McKenzie AB, in June 2019 St. Albert, AB, in of Edmonton, AB, in Cantelon, BSc(CivEng), ’60 Dagny Marion Miller, BEd, of St. Albert, August 2019 September 2019 ’66 BEd, in May 2019 Hepburn, Dip(Nu), AB, in July 2019 ’67 Lionel Charles ’69 George Edward ’72 Laurier Jean Joly, of Edmonton, AB, Benoit, MEd, of ’58 Gordon Thomas ’64 Maxine Isabel Taylor, BEd, of Magrath, BEd, of Victoria, BC, in August 2019 Saskatoon, SK, Fletcher, MD, of O’Riordan, BEd, of Red in June 2019 AB, in February 2019 in January 2019 Prospect, PA, in ’60 Dennis Melvin Deer, AB, in May 2019 ’69 Lynn E. Weinlos, ’72 Joseph Raymond August 2019 Kadatz, BPE, ’65 MA, of ’67 Paul Joseph Labrie, ’64 Lillian Soroka, BA, BA(Hons), of Edmonton, Lajeunesse, BEd, Calgary, AB, in June 2019 BEd, of Edmonton, ’58 Jas Walter ’74 BEd, of Edmonton, AB, in June 2019 AB, in August 2019 of Sherwood Park, French, BA, ’59 BEd, ’61 June Colleen AB, in June 2019 AB, in July 2019 ’69 Bradley Jackson of Edmonton, AB, McDonald (Jamison), ’67 Norman Angus ’65 Frances Helen Engel, Willis, BA(Hons), ’75 ’72 Nadine Elizabeth in December 2018 BPE, of Edmonton, McDonald, MD, BEd, of Edmonton, LLB, of Edmonton, Meikle (Purpur), AB, in July 2019 of St. Albert, AB, ’58 Patricia Ann Otto, AB, in July 2019 in August 2019 AB, in July 2019 BPE, in July 2019 Dip(Nu), of Clifford, ’62 Robert Bertram ’65 Irvin Robert ’72 Katia Starchuk ON, in August 2019 Church, BSc(Ag), ’63 ’67 Kenneth Dale Gottschlich, (Horobec), BEd, MSc, ’15 LLD (Honorary), Oliphant, BA, of ’58 Jeanette Patricia BSc(MetEng), of Leduc, in July 2019 of Calgary, AB, in Medicine Hat, AB, 1970S Pick, Dip(Nu), ’59 AB, in September 2019 September 2019 in June 2019 BScN, of Calgary, ’70 William Robert ’73 Mary Bartko, ’65 Raymond Einar BEd, in April 2019 AB, in August 2019 ’62 Richard Albert ’67 Janet Simonton, L. Askin, BEd, ’73 MA, Grimson, BSc(Ag), Nobbs, BSc(CivEng), BA, of Calgary, AB, in August 2019 ’58 Adolphe W. Wenger, ’69 MSc, of Brooks, ’73 Parminder Singh ’67 MBA, of Duncan, in May 2019 BSc(ChemEng), of Saint- AB, in July 2019 ’70 Myron M. Dubyk, Basahti, BEd, ’78 BC, in May 2019 Léonard, QC, in May 2019 ’67 Siu Sik Wong, BA, BEd, of Mundare, Dip(Ed), of Edmonton, ’65 Campbell Arthur AB, in July 2019 ’62 Gordon Dale ’70 BCom, of Edmonton, AB, in July 2019 ’58 Kathleen R. Hancock, BEd, of Simpson, BSc(Pharm), AB, in July 2019 Yaworski, BSc(Pharm), Vermilion, AB, in ’70 Audrey Ann Gargus, ’73 Elaine Rose Eden, of Red Deer, AB, of Edmonton, AB, August 2019 ’68 Barbara Claire BEd, of Edmonton, AB, Cert(AdvObst), of in April 2019 in May 2019 Allan (Murray), BA, in September 2019 Qualicum Beach, ’65 Donald Robert BC, in April 2019 ’62 Warren D. Wilde, ’69 BLS, of Vermilion, ’59 Ronald Hjalmar McLeod, BEd, of ’70 Henry Raymond BEd, of Victoria, BC, AB, in June 2019 Anderson, BSc, ’61 Edmonton, AB, Groleau, BA, of ’73 Donald Allan in August 2019 BEd, of Victoria, in May 2019 ’68 Jessie-Jerri June Edmonton, AB, in Mitchell, MEd, of Truro, NS, in June 2019 BC, in June 2019 ’63 Janet Millicent Gresiuk-Jackson, BA, January 2019 ’65 Roland Wayne Armstrong (Jackson), ’70 BEd, ’72 Dip(Ed), ’86 ’59 Marilyn Islay Phare, BEd, ’75 ’70 Margaret Mary ’73 William Dollinger MA, in June 2019 BSc(HEc), of Edmonton, Assheton-Smith, Dip(Ed), of Edmonton, Moroz, BEd, of Preston, BSc(Med), AB, in August 2019 ’75 MD, of Orem, Dip(Nu), ’61 BScN, ’87 ’63 William Robert AB, in July 2019 Abbotsford, BC, in UT, in June 2019 PhD, of Edmonton, Duncan, BSc(MetEng), ’68 Dennis Edward December 2018 ’66 Dale H. Berg, MA, AB, in August 2019 in July 2019 Malloy, BCom, ’76 ’73 PhD, of Winnipeg, ’70 Lorraine Audrey ’73 Roger Francis BSc(MechEng), in Schmitz (Kaiser), Cooper Smith, PhD, MB, in May 2019 September 2019

52 ualberta.ca/newtrail of Charlottetown, ’76 Linda Susan Sharpe, ’79 Phillip Reginald ’88 Bonnie Kim of Edmonton, AB, PE, in June 2019 BEd, in March 2019 Klics, BSc, in July 2019 Kirkpatrick, PhD, in July 2019 of Edmonton, AB, ’73 Richard Stanley ’76 Raymond Albert ’79 Norma Ann Soltice in June 2019 Stelmaczonek, BA, Soucy, BEd, of (McKoen), BEd, of ’74 LLB, of Edmonton, Vancouver, BC, in Rocky Mountain House, ’88 Lawrence Beverly 2000S AB, in June 2019 August 2019 AB, in May 2019 Selzler, BSc, of Sherwood Park, ’00 Norma Jaye ’73 Robert Samuel ’76 Phyllis Evelyn AB, in July 2019 Fredrickson, MEd, Thornberry, PhD, Stewart (Mattoon), of Edmonton, AB, of Edmonton, AB, BEd, of Clairmont, 1980S ’89 Mark Oliver in May 2019 in May 2019 AB, in January 2019 Chatenay, BSc(Dent), ’80 Helen-Mary Coates, ’91 DDS, in August 2019 ’01 Kelly James ’74 Stephen Joseph ’77 Dale William BEd, in May 2019 Smith, BA, of Oakville, Gawlinski, LLB, of Janssen, BCom, ’89 David John ON, in July 2019 Edmonton, AB, in of Edmonton, AB, ’81 Stephen W. Wilson, Kowalchuk, BEd, September 2019 in August 2019 LLB, of Calgary, of Sherwood Park, ’02 Edana Celeste Mayes, AB, in April 2019 AB, in July 2019 BA, in August 2019 ’74 Brenda Jean ’77 Angela Doreen Jeske, Heffernan, Dip(RM), ’79 BEd, ’90 MA, of Red ’82 Michael Emil Brandt, ’89 Lydell ’02 Christopher Warren BSc(PT), of Edmonton, Deer, AB, in July 2019 BA, in September 2019 Sheldon Melnyk, Fred Sargent, BA, ’07 AB, in September 2019 BSc(MiningEng), MPH, of Edmonton, ’77 Eileen Mae Loeffler, ’82 Donald Bruce AB, in August 2019 Henderson, BA, of of Calgary, AB, in ’74 Dewayani Gajanan BEd, of Sherwood September 2019 Pundit (Kekre), Park, AB, in June 2019 Edmonton, AB, in ’04 Darcy Allen Dietz, BEd, of Edmonton, September 2018 MSc, of Edmonton, AB, in July 2019 ’77 Dennis Patrick AB, in June 2019 Myers, BSc, in May 2019 ’82 Frank Karamchand ’75 Kenny McHerbert Seerattan, BEd, in 1990S ’05 Matthew ’77 Heather Faith Adams, MA, in September 2019 ’90 Heidi Chris Michael Bogda, Parliament, BEd, August 2019 Catherine Bundschoks, BSc, of Edmonton, of Edmonton, AB, ’82 Kenneth William BA(Spec), in May 2019 AB, in July 2019 ’75 Donna May in June 2019 Moore, MLS, of Sooke, Buchanan, BEd, ’76 BC, in June 2019 ’91 Duane John Baker, ’08 Richard James ’77 Marion Frances Dip(Ed), in May 2019 BSc(MechEng), in Babott, BEd, of Calgary, Peterson, BEd, in ’82 Daphne Elizabeth August 2019 AB, in June 2019 ’75 Gladice Mary August 2019 Starr, BSc(CivEng), Ditzian, MA, of in August 2019 ’91 Vincent Morllen ’78 Vaughn Harold Edmonton, AB, Gabert, BSc(Ag), Alward, MEd, ’82 ’83 Mary Catherine in June 2019 ’94 MSc, ’97 PhD, of PhD, of Sackville, Johnson, BA, of Fort Saskatchewan, ’75 Jewel Fae NB, in May 2019 Edmonton, AB, AB, in July 2019 Klaasen, Dip(Ed), in in June 2019 ’78 Alexander Peter September 2019 ’91 Tracey Barbara Campbell, BEd, ’88 ’84 Jon Rider Glover, Lubkey, Dip(Nu), ’75 John Panchuk, MEd, of Cochrane, AB, BSc(Pharm), in July 2019 of Edmonton, AB, BEd, of Lac La Biche, in September 2019 ’85 Michael Harold in August 2019 AB, in April 2019 ’78 Marshall Vance Ellenwood, BCom, ’92 Francis Shepard ’75 Brynly Hugh Eliason, BSc(Ag), ’83 of Abbotsford, BC, McGowan, MA, Roberts, BEd, of MSc, in August 2019 in June 2019 of Vancouver, BC, Lethbridge, AB, ’85 Daniel James Wahl, in August 2019 in July 2019 ’78 Kristin Lish, BEd, of Holladay, BSc(Ag), in June 2019 ’93 Gina Dawn Langager, ’76 Vera K. Drobot, UT, in June 2019 ’86 Kathie Jean BA, of Edmonton, BA(RecAdmin), of Walker, BA, ’89 BEd, AB, in July 2019 Edmonton, AB, in ’78 Stephen Charles Long, BSc, ’81 of Edmonton, AB, September 2019 ’93 James Leonard BSc(Pharm), of Calgary, in August 2019 Sander, BA, ’98 BEd, ’76 Bruce Cecil Duncan, AB, in July 2019 ’87 Michael John Cooke, in September 2019 BCom, in March 2019 ’79 Andrew Curran, BA, in July 2019 ’94 Susan Sandra Brun, ’76 Peter Lorin BA(RecAdmin), ’87 Shirley Isabell BFA, in May 2018 Fuglem, BSc(Forest), of Vernon, BC, in Missiaen, BA, ’79 MSc, in June 2019 August 2019 of Kelowna, BC, ’94 Michele Louise Pearson, BA, in ’76 Carol Klontz, BEd, ’79 Lorraine Genevieve in June 2019 August 2019 ’85 Dip(Ed), of Viking, Deschenes, BEd, in ’87 Linda Margaret AB, in August 2019 September 2019 Rogers, BEd, in June 2019 ’96 Isaac Yakoub Isaac, If you’ve lost a loved PhD, of Edmonton, one who is a University ’76 Gregory Stephen ’79 Brian Robert ’88 Henriette AB, in August 2019 of Alberta alumnus, Noval, BCom, ’78 BA, Fitzgerald, BSc(Spec), Marie Beauchamp, contact alumni records at of Black Diamond, of Edmonton, AB, BScN(Hons), of ’97 Christopher [email protected], AB, in May 2019 in May 2019 Edmonton, AB, in James Postle, BEd, 780-492-3471 or September 2019 1-866-492-7516.

new trail winter 2019 53 }trails

DON’T MISS OUT ON … thehub attend / volunteer / learn / benefit ALUMNI COUNCIL Are you passionate about your alma mater and eager to strengthen the SPEAKER’S CORNER relationship between the U of A and its alumni? Apply to join Alumni Council — a group of engaged SIX TIPS TO alumni from the Edmonton area who lead the Alumni Association BUTT OUT BURNOUT in supporting other grads and the By Carissa Halton, ’03 BA university. Next deadline: Feb. 28. uabgrad.ca/alumnicouncil Where’s the line between job stress and job burnout? It’s difficult to spot. “Workplace burnout looks different for everyone,” says Margot Ross- Graham, ’86 BA(RecAdmin), business coach and CBC Edmonton AM’s workplace columnist. Burnout happens when you can no longer cope with chronic workplace stress, but many of us don’t recognize it until we’ve already quit a job or seen our personal life suffer. Here’s Ross-Graham’s FIND SOMEONE YOU CAN increase a sense of well-being. advice to ease the pressure: TRUST AT WORK Lean on a Research shows that greenery, confidant with whom you can even just a houseplant in your @tara.dragon: Ready LEARN TO READ THE SIGNS vent safely, then brainstorm office, can significantly improve to cheer on the Golden Are you feeling exhausted solutions. Beware of colleagues your mental health. Bears at our first event or depleted? Do you see who pile on and fan the flames of Alumni Weekend! yourself becoming distant or of negativity. TAKE YOUR VACATION — ALL cynical about your job? Have OF IT! Forty per cent of tara dragon martin, you noticed a decline in your SHAKE UP YOUR ROUTINE Canadians don’t take their ’00 bcom productivity? These are the If you have to speak with a allotted vacation time. Some three aspects of workplace colleague, walk over to their say they can’t afford it. To this burnout, according to the desk rather than emailing excuse Ross-Graham says, World Health Organization. them. Not only do you get your “You don’t have to fly or drive blood moving, you counteract anywhere — heck, just spend EVENT WISDOM SEEK EXPERT ADVICE See workplace loneliness, which the week reading — but the “I challenge each of what your employee benefits exacerbates burnout. fact is, we all need to recharge.” package has to offer, if you you to exert your have one, and take advantage ENJOY A NATURE BATH The Ross-Graham is one of many positive influence and of any counselling that your Japanese practice of forest speakers to share expertise at bring forth the change employee assistance program bathing — taking a nature alumni events. Visit ualberta. you know is needed may provide. walk — has been proven to ca/alumni/events. to help this troubled world. Allow the ideas and thoughts you spill onto what may The number of flat tires replaced at first seem infertile 5,000+ by forestry students since 1971. In ground to touch the The number of online scholarly journals, trade total, they’ve driven more than one publications and magazines available to grads million kilometres on gravel roads seeds of minds waiting through Alumni eResources. Access everything during spring field schools. This to be presented with from the latest in health research to the hottest year marks the 50th anniversary of celebrity gossip. alumni.library.ualberta.ca 33 forestry studies at the U of A. another point of view.” Mona Nashman, ’79 BEd, Distinguished Be Social @UAlbertaAlumni @UAlbertaAlumni @UAlbertaAlumni Alumni Award recipient (page 26), in her

speech at the ceremony this year TOP LEFT PHOTO BY PAMELA JOE MCFARLANE / ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES

54 ualberta.ca/newtrail Keep learning...stay connected! Spring Session Expert-led, continuing education courses for adults 50+ who want to keep learning and stay connected.

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with the University of Alberta have over 50 expert-led Expert led, continuing education courses April 27 for adults 50+ who want to keep learning to May 15 and stay connected 2020 courses available. . my-ella.com Program Guide Plus, a variety of noon-hour presentations during the 2020 Spring Session, April 27 to May 15 at the University of Alberta. You can participate in up to four daily courses for the low cost of only $350*. There are no prerequisites, homework or marks and everyone is welcome. Registration begins March 10, 2020.

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new trail winter 2019 55 We want to hear from you! Share a campus memory for a chance to be featured in a future issue. Email [email protected]. smalltalk

Home Sweet Residence Freedom, finally! Nothing compares to that feeling of moving out on your own for the first time. But then the laundry piles up, along with your roommate’s dirty dishes. We asked grads to tell us what they remember most about their first home away from home. Read more or share your story at facebook.com/UAlbertaAlumni.

Very “economical” ground floor. I just remember pretty much freezing to death waiting for the bus. Ahh, memories ... –Colleen Chwedoruk, ’85BEd moved into a double basement room at Faculté Saint-Jean on my 18th birthday in 1989. My mom dropped me off with my Yes, my life began when I arrived at Pembina Hall in I 1961, age 17. It was a shelter and social club that housed clothes, bedding and an ironing board. LOL! a bunch of naive and starry-eyed residents who had All one needs for independence, I suppose. big plans – about 150 women just like me. We ate together in a basement dining room, and the “warden” The carpet was 1970s orange and brown and talked to us about manners and social graces. We had there was a toilet in a small closet under to wear skirts to dinner and to class. A lot of rules, the stairs. Each floor had a single phone including a curfew, with locked doors. A lot of events to share and we had co-ed shower rooms. such as dances and sing-songs (yes, sing-songs, the folk era). All very corny in hindsight, but at the time There weren’t many secrets between dorm we loved it. Or at least I did. –Anita Jenkins, ’66 BEd mates back then! –Sandra Chaffee, ’96BSc

What happened at St. Joe’s ’79‑’82 stays at St. Joe’s … –Joe MacKenzie, ’83 BA, ’85 BEd, ’90 MA

My first home My grandmother, Edith G. Hamilton, lived in Pembina Hall away from home in 1918 and went on to graduate as a medical doctor from was Lister Hall. I Long Island Women’s Hospital in the 1920s to practise in was so shy when I Lacombe, Alta. My father, Douglas H. Shearer, attended started university, U of A in agriculture from 1948 to 1952. He lived in St. and that didn’t Steve’s in that time, where he made many lifelong friends! actually change He helped to start Bar None! –Carolyn Reilly until well after I finished my 3A 9013 HUB. I still remember it. degree, but I still I remember waiting at the hitchhiking zone just It was a -35 C day in Edmonton had a lot of fun north of the Windsor parkade. Usually didn’t winter. Looked at classmates, and cherish my have to wait too long to get a ride back to the jealousy was on their faces. Yes, Lister memories. west end. Times have changed. Don’t see many, the class was in Tory.

–Marie Eaton, ’05 MA if any, hitchhikers now. –Don Charnaw, ’77 BPE –Mu Liu, ’06 BCom SIMARD RÉMY BY ILLUSTRATIONS

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