Engineers Lend Their Skills

Publications Mail Agreement No.40042804 CONCORDIA'S Vol. 23, No. 8 http://ctr.concordia.ca January 13, 2005 Engineers lend their skills PATRICK MCD ONAGH than those at street level. This wind-speed difference creates the high winds familiar to pedestrians walk "It has been like raising a baby from birth through ing between tall buildings. childhood, then the teenage years with all its prob Stathopoulos has a wind tunnel lab on the second lems, and now to adulthood:' floor of rented space at Ste. Catherine and Guy. That's Osama Moselhi, a professor in the Depart There, his research team constructed a model of the ment of Building, Civil and Environmental building and its surroundings to test wind condi Engineering, describing the new Integrated Eqgi tions from various directions. neering. Computer Science and Visual Arts Complex. "Buildings today are rarely box structures; they The building is nearing completion on Ste. Catherine have many different configurations," Stathopoulos St. between Guy and Mackay Sts. said. "The new building will have different levels, Moselhi, a specialist in construction engineering canopies or other features to dissipate strong winds and management, has served on the project commit before they hit the sidewalk. Trees and statues can tee since the late 1990s. As the building grew, he was also make a difference:• part of the team monitoring its progress. Then there's the challenge presented by snow Professor Ted Stathopoulos, Associate Dean of storms, which could dump huge amounts of snow in Graduate Studies and an expert on wind engineering inconvenient places such as the entrance. and building aerodynamics, carried out several stud Stathopoulos is able to predict where there is likely to ies for the building's architects and engineers. be a greater snow deposit, and again the building The City of Montreal requires that new tall build designers have taken these predictions into account. ings be subject to a wind study; in fact, Stathopoulos The third and most difficult test involves the dis was instrumental in drafting those guidelines. persion of exhaust. The new complex houses Osama Moselhi, Fariborz Haghighat and Andreas Athienitis Tall buildings can create harsh wind environ engineering labs .and visual arts facilities that use in front of the new building. Occupation of the 17-storey ENCS unit ments. Wind speed increases with altitude, so winds takes place May to September. The 12-storey V18ual Arts side, to be completed in the early summer, should be ready for 2005-06. at the tops of tall buildings are significantly stronger continued on page 2 Novelist Mary de Michele imagines famous opera singer's love life BARBARA B LACK the stage, breaks up her marriage, focus on. gives her two children and gradually As she has created them, all three of Mary de Michele has written a novel turns her into a housewife - an Carusds lovers are aspects of her: Ada, inspired by the life of the great opera unmarried one, because divorce from the brash, ambitious older sister, Rina, singer Enrico Caruso. her first husband was illegal. Eventu the romantic, and Dorothy, the Amer Tenor ofLove, published in the Unit ally, Ada leaves and Rina takes over as ican, a quiet, bookish modernist De ed States by Simon and Schuster and Carusds lover and caregiver to his Michele was born in Italy, and said Canada by Penguin, is an unabashedly children. that she changed from an outgoing. sensual book by a writer who laugh The great singer isn't portrayed as a exuberant child to a quiet one when ingly describes herself as a romantic cruel philanderer, but as a force of her family immigrated to Canada. feminist. "The poet in me is still work nature. In the course of writing the book, ing;' she said in an interview. Caruso was the world's first super de Michele, like her father, fell in love De Michele has published eight col star, thanks not only to his talent but with opera, particularly the composer lections of poetry, but only one also to the advent of the gramophone. Puccini, who wrote La Boheme. Visit previous novel, Under My Skin. She He became a regular at New York's ing the places Caruso had known has taught creative writing in the Eng Metropolitan Opera, a household helped her understand him better; lish Department for many years. name, and a fabulously wealthy man. drafts of the novel were written while Caruso was indeed a tenor of love. The second part of the book is from she was poet in residence at the Uni De Michele's novel is about his effect the point of view of the young New versity of Bologna in 2003. on three women who loved him. Yorker who became Carusds wife. When she talks about writing, her The story starts in 1897, when the De Michele grew up with her face glows. The blank page is a bit J. ambitious young Neapolitan singer father's love of opera, and did a lot of daunting. she admitted, but "I love met a prosperous Florentine family research. "In terms of narrative, I'm rewriting and developing:' As for the who helped advance his career. There always interested in what is true. Even process of creating characters, ''I've were two young women in the Gia in my poetry, I'm interesteq in dia never been so high! I think writers are chetti family, Ada and Rina, both logues with historical figures:• like actors, happy to be out of our singers in their own right. However, it was the interior life of selves:• In the novel, Rina sadly watches as the women and the mythic quality of Mary de Michele Caruso partners her older sister on the great tenor that she wanted to continued on page 2 I TH1S ISS E 2 Testing pitfalls 3 Ecology unites 5 Defiant Imagination 6 Light of foot Expert has views Eastern European challenges Lectures at MMFA Dancers get stage skills - - - --------------- ~ --------------- - ----------------------,. Testing expert deplores 'teaching to the test' His research is focused on educational evaluation and 10 Literacy Test, now a graduation requirement for sec assessment, and he talks about it in everyday language, ondary students in Ontario. Unfortunately, many avoiding jargon. • students fail the test despite repeated attempts. "I try, even in my academic writing, to use the clearest, "Ontario may be forced to issue special diplomas for most accessible language possible;• he said in an inter those who have met all other graduation requirements view. "I want my work to be read not just by academic but just can't pass these tests, because without a high colleagues but by those affected in practice: teachers, leg school diploma, students cannot continue their educa islators and the public:• tion" even in trade and technical schools. Volante's most recent article outlines his ideas on the There are two models for standardized tests. Norm-ref use and abuse of standardized tests. "Teaching to the test: erenced tests create bell curve distributions of the scores What every educator and policy-maker should know" was of those writing them, against which each student is published in the Canadian Journal ofEducational Admin ranked. This competitive model results in many failures istration and Policy. by definition, since half the students will always be below He describes the corrupting effect of what he calls average. "high-stakes" standardized testing. There are jurisdic Volante much prefers criterion-referenced tests, where tions in the United States where schools receive student performance is measured against pre-set stan merit-based financing. If their students do well, as meas dard for success; using this model, it is at least possible for ured by standardized tests, the schools benefit each student to pass. monetarily. Testing may help identify student strengths and weak The result sometimes is "teaching to the test;' where nesses, but it is frequently misused to track school teachers spend too much time preparing students for the performance. Volante deplores the annual "report cards" test rather than simply covering the curriculum. Volante published by the Fraser Institute because schools are also reports instances where teachers or administrators ranked against one another, meaning there will always be have given students the answers to boost scores because lots of "failures:• so much depends on them. "Since we know that the single greatest predictor of Louis Volante The use of such tests is a growing phenomenon in student performance is the student's socio-economic Canada as well. Standardized test results are snapshots, background, how does it help a poor family on one side of BEVERLY AKERMAN but they can distract public attention from a three the city to be told that the 'best school' is located at the dimensional view of a student's performance. other end?" Animated, dynamic, passionate about his subject, Louis For example, in language arts, reading and writing are What standardized tests usually "reveal" is the superior Volante comes across as the kind of teacher one remem typically measured, "but a well-rounded literacy program performance of "private" schools. bers warmly years after graduation. also includes speaking and listening components, which In Quebec, nearly all private schools actually receive He arrived at Concordia last summer as an assistant are usually not part of these tests:• To design, administer large government subsidies. Volante subscribes to the professor of education. He has taught at the Ontario Insti and evaluate tests measuring all four parameters would notion that every dollar taken from the public system tute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, substantially increase their cost, and duplicate the ongo weakens it "Why, as a society, if we won't support two-tier where he obtained his PhD, and also at Ryerson Universi ing evaluation of students by teachers.

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