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VOLUME TWO, ISSUE ONE / FEBRUARY 2007 Teaching and Learning Scholars TABLE OF CONTENTS Arts Teaching and Learning Scholars (cover) 2 Hadjistavropoulos captures SHRF award 3 Four Faculty of Arts professors representing three proj- Dion visits campus 3 ects have received funding from the Teaching Develop- Research successes 3 ment Centre to develop projects designed to enhance Teaching corner 3-4 teaching and learning at the U of R. Journalism student wins major award 5 JSSS fundraising success 5 Finland student exchange 5-6 Dr Kathleen Wall, professor of English and coordinator Fondation fransaskoise funding announced 6 of the first-year English program, has been given $2 000 Saskatchewan Book Awards 6 to hire a graduate student researcher to examine ways in SIPP essay contest winner 7 which the learning experiences of language other than Arts student’s international experience 7-8 English (LOE) students may be improved. Wall notes U of R alumna’s new academic post 8 that there is general consensus that LOE learners “are Research profile 8 not thriving in our classrooms,” and that they lack both Geography student’s mapping project 9 adequate skills in English and sufficient cultural knowl- Piracy and the ESA 9 edge to enable them to succeed in university studies. As 2007 Woodrow Lloyd Lecture 9-10 a result, the graduate student researcher will be tasked HRI Ross King illustrated lecture 11 with discovering “which practices most enable LOE learn- Upcoming events 11-12 ers to succeed in first-year English classes” and “what other institutions have done to facilitate the success of LOE learners.” Teaching and Learning Dr Thomas Bredohl, associate professor of history, to- gether with Dr Ian Germani, associate professor and Scholars department head in History, have received $3 600 in sup- Three projects receive funding from port for their project, entitled “A web-based interactive field guide for an international study program.” The proj- Teaching Development Centre ect seeks to develop an online field guide, complete with historic maps and images, that will be available to students of History 390 while they are on their study trip to Paris and Berlin. Bredohl and Germani explain that “traditional resources such as textbooks, monographs and journal articles are of limited use during a field trip.” Their new teaching tool will greatly enhance on-site learning and, in addition, provide students with “the op- portunity to put their own research material on the website.” Dr Ken Leyton-Brown, associate professor of history, has been granted $3 300 towards development of the “History Tree” Project. The History Tree, Leyton-Brown explains, is an interactive tool that, incorporating text, images and sound from a database source, “can be used better to teach history at the University of Regina.” The trees can be comprised of a theoretically infinite number of branches, and professors may input their own data into the database and, therefore, build their own unique trees. The result of this project will be to make students of history “more active learners” with a “greater degree of independence in exploring aspects of the material under study than is the case with more traditional types of delivery.” For further information on the Teaching Development Centre’s mandate and initiatives, please visit the website at www.uregina.ca/tdc. Teaching and Learning Scholars (from left to right): Drs Ian Germani, Thomas Bredohl, Ken Leyton-Brown, and Kathleen Wall Stéphane Dion and MPs Ken Dryden and Ralph Goodale Hadjistavropoulos wins on 13 January 2007. Dr Piwowar shared his research on the spatial and temporal scale of climate change based SHRF achievement award on his analyses of remote sensing data, and Dr Sauchyn Award recognizes research on pain promoted the value of adaptation research. management Dr Thomas Hadjistavropoulos, professor of psychology and director of the Centre on Aging and Health, was Research successes honoured by the Saskatchewan Health Research Founda- tion with an Achievement Award at the Foundation’s an- Prof Gennadiy Chernov (Journalism) is the co-author nual awards dinner in Saskatoon on 7 December 2006. of an article about commercial intrusion in television The award recognizes his important work “as an expert news content that has been accepted for publication in on pain among seniors and as a leading thinker on the Electronic News: A Journal of Research and Ideas, Edition ethics of pain management.” #2, scheduled for June 2007. His article "The Commer- cialization of Local Television News" has also been accepted for presentation at the 2007 American Academy of Advertising Conference to be held in Burlington, Ver- mont. Drs Marion Jones (Economics) and Ben Cecil (Geogra- phy) have been awarded $22 533.44 by the Saskatchewan Housing Research Program (SHRP) for their energy efficiency housing project in North Central Regina. Dr Thomas Hadjistavropoulos (Psychology/Centre on Aging and Health) is co-investigator on a newly-funded CIHR grant ($229 077 over three years). The project title is “Évaluation d'un programme de soulagement de la douleur auprès des aînés avec difficultés de communica- Hadjistavropoulos speaking at SHRF-sponsored tion vivant en milieu de soins de longue durée.” kick-off to Health Week at the U of R Dr Hadjistavropoulos, who also holds the prestigious RBC Senior Fellowship for 2006-2010 along with many other awards and major research grants, has developed a variety of assessment methodologies, including a pain assessment checklist for seniors who have limited ability to communicate as a result of dementia. This checklist is Corner now in use in different facilities to help ensure that seniors with dementia receive appropriate treatment for their pain. Klingon in the “Pain among seniors with dementia is often undertreated classroom because such patients have difficulty expressing them- selves verbally,” he said. “As a result, caregivers become When Dr Brent Galloway (Indian Lan- less likely to recognize signs of pain and pain problems guages, Literature and Linguistics) steps into can go undetected. I am grateful that our efforts to his classes, sometimes his students aren’t change this situation have been recognized in this way.” sure what to think. The First Nations Univer- sity of Canada professor will show up from time to time costumed as a Klingon, a mem- ber of the war-like species in the various Star Trek series. Dr Galloway has become an in- Climate change a hot topic Teaching ternational expert in the made-up alien language, and he shares his knowledge with his New Liberal leader meets with Arts linguistics students. researchers on environment Dr Galloway recalls how he got started in this Geography professors Joe Piwowar (Canada Research unusual line of research: “When I was doing Chair) and Dave Sauchyn were among U of R climate graduate work at UC Berkeley there were change researchers who met with Liberal leader three seemingly unrelated events that influ- enced me to use some Klingon language ma- “In my semantics class, I hand out some dif- terial in teaching two of my classes here at ferent pages from the Klingon Dictionary. the U of R and First Nations University. When Since in that class we discuss the concept of I heard that Star Trek, the first science fiction linguistic relativity (‘your language influences show to show intelligent contact with alien how you think’) originated by Benjamin Whorf civilizations, might be cancelled, I was part of and Edward Sapir, what could be more appro- the letter-writing campaign that saved it (I priate than to teach one class in costume as still have a copy of the letter). The second the Klingon, Worf? I discuss with the stu- thing was that, while I was working to docu- dents how Okrand built the language with ment and save Amerindian languages, I had a grammar, sounds and vocabulary to match desk in the Survey of California and Other In- the warrior culture of the Klingons, and ask dian Languages right next to Marc Okrand, them to find examples illustrating that for an the future inventor of the Klingon language. I assignment on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis on was writing a grammar of Halkomelem, a BC linguistic relativity. The students enjoy both Indian language, and Marc was writing a classes and the material, even those who grammar of Mutsun Costanoan, a California don't know what Star Trek is.” Indian language. We got to know each other. The third thing was that Richard Eakins, a Former student Lindsay Weichel, now a professor of biology, each year was costumed Rhodes Scholar studying at Oxford University, and made up (by the theatre department) as recalls that “Dr Galloway's Klingon classes Gregor Mendel to give a lecture on Mendel's were really original. I think that they show discoveries, and was also costumed for an- how he tries to get students with different in- other lecture as Charles Darwin to lecture on terests to really engage with the material. It evolution. These were extremely popular certainly grabs the attention of all the stu- classes and very effective. dents in the class, whether they are 'Trekkies' or not. It also leads to an interesting discus- sion of the variety of career paths that can be followed with a linguistics degree, since the person who created Klingon was a linguist.” Another student, Janelle Eirich, who’s plan- ning a career as a speech pathologist, en- joyed the experience: “Brent's Klingon classes are a lot of fun! He even dresses as a Klingon, and depending on the focus of the class, he will lecture about the phonology, syntax, and/or semantics of the Klingon language (while wearing his Klingon costume).

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