Alma Matters
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ALMA MATTERS SPRING/SUMMER 2006 Publication for the Marianopolis College Community “Fill your house with books and music.” Many speakers shared - Marvin Gameroff, father of David ‘79 with the audience their This quote, from the late father of a graduate, was memories of Marianopo- the advice given to David Gameroff as he was prepar- lis and their motivations ing to move his young family into their new home. for helping out with the It was also the quote that inspired the launch of the move included: Nicholas capital campaign Moving hearts and minds / Vers de Kasirer ‘78, Dean of Law, nouveaux horizons, which is the fundraising effort to McGill, Mary Liistro support the move into the new home of Maria- Hébert, Chair of nopolis College. the Board, Françoise On April 5th of this year, Marianopolis held the Boisvert, C.N.D. ‘58, photo by Charles Montgomery public launch for its capital campaign. Hosted in Director General of Mari- Back row:Robert Heckler, David Gameroff ’79, Françoise Beaubien Vien ’58, Michael Sendbuehler, Bridget Fetterly ’86, John Archer ’79, Barth Gillan. the art deco auditorium of the College’s future home anopolis, Jill de Vil- Front row: Josée Gravel ’75, Mary Liistro Hébert, Jill de Villafranca, Françoise Boisvert ’58 on Westmount Avenue, the launch presented to an lafranca, Chair of the Mar- assembly of students, faculty, alumni, parents and ianopolis Millennium Foundation, John Archer The highlight of the morning was the an- friends the needs of the College as it prepares for the ‘79, RBC Dominion Securities, Josée Gravel ‘75, GE nouncement of the largest donation ever received pending move to the new campus. Capital Solutions, Patti McDonald ‘80, Academic by the College from an individual - from alumna and The goal of the campaign is to raise $10 MN. Of Advisor at Marianopolis and Andrew Wilmer, former parent Françoise Beaubien Vien, to support this, $8 MN will support technology, renovations Marianopolis Teacher, co-chairs of the Faculty & Staff the Learning Centre in the new building. As well, to the new building, and the construction of a new Campaign, Lorraine Caza, C.N.D., Congregation the Congregation of Notre Dame announced their gymnasium. The remaining $2 MN will be used to Leader, Françoise Beaubien Vien ‘58, President, support to the Marianopolis campaign - a $2 MN establish a permanent endowment fund within the Pathonic Foundation, and S. David Gameroff ‘79. contribution to assist with the building project. Marianopolis Millennium Foundation, primarily to Co-emcees for the launch were Angie Ip ‘05 and Campaign co-chairs Josée Gravel and John Archer support the financial awards, scholarships and bur- Maggie Mulrooney ‘06. Music student Wen Sei introduced the campaign priorities and announced saries that the College makes available to students Yan provided a wonderful performance to begin the that over $3,500,000 has already been contributed every year. event. to the campaign, including contributions from the Faculty and Staff totalling over $142,000 from over 80% of the campus community. On the Move - an update on the new campus Although there is still much money to be raised onstruction is well underway to build the with a scheduled completion date of May 1st before the campaign can be completed, there is a new gymnasium at the new campus. 2007. The College will then move into the new committed group of volunteers working very hard CThe complex must be built under- building over the summer, to begin opera- to ensure success. This campaign will ensure that ground, due to zoning by-laws, and has been tions on the new site in August 2007. the building is renovated to bring it up to modern underway since November 2005. The project standards, thereby providing a fitting home for the is on schedule to be completed by the end of College for years to come. For more information 2006, and will connect to the existing build- about the capital campaign visit our website: ing via an underground passageway. www.marianopolis.edu/mv/ or contact the cam- Permits for the demolition of parts of the in- paign office at (514) 937-7923. terior of the existing building were secured this spring. The contract for this phase of the CONTENT project has been awarded to Pomerleau Con- Alumni Article 2 struction, with some of the demolition work beginning in June. All of the requirements for On Campus 5 the permit to renovate parts of the interior Faculty & Staff 7 have been met, so this permit should be issued Alumni News & Notables 8 shortly. The renovations to the interior of the Marianopolis Will Miss 10 building will occur over the next 12 months, Sneak peek at our new gym! - photo by Don Howlett Alumni Events 11 Alumni Article Helping earthquake victims in Pakistan by Dr. Talat S. Chughtai ’87 ctober 8th, 2005 8:50AM: The moment thetist to receive treatment. In the middle of this, would wheel the patient into a waiting area and that a massive earthquake struck Pak- there was still one operating room where non- simply shout out “Who is the family of .......?” Oistan. This date will be etched in the earthquake cases had to be dealt with. The chief When someone came forward from the sea of minds of the Pakistani people, not unlike Sep- of surgery was handling all of the “normal” sur- faces, we would trust them, as there was no way tember 11th for Americans. It was a 6 minute pe- geries for the hospital’s regular young clientele. of identifying them, and allow them to take the riod that changed and continues to profoundly af- patient. Many times there was no response and fect the lives of over 3 million people living in so an orderly would have to accompany the pa- Northern Pakistan. tient alone. After my last case of the week, an 8- A magnitude 7.6 earthquake, 80 000 dead, year-old girl, when asking for her family, a 6- more than 200 000 injured, over 3 million peo- year-old girl slowly came from the crowd to say ple homeless and the numbers would continue to in a ‘shy/trying to be strong’ voice “I am her fam- rise. 26 hospitals, 600 clinics gone and the health ily.” A 6-year-old girl left to care for her sister. My care workers dead or missing. Scenes of entire vil- colleagues and I were no longer able to hold off lages wiped out and thousands of people buried the tears that we had to date suppressed. beneath, as well as the hundreds of thousands left My co-workers were my support, and they be- injured. Many have called it the largest surgical dis- come friends for life: Russian surgeon and “earth- aster in (recent) history. Local resources were quake expert,” Dr. Valerie Mitish, who without overwhelmed. The world responded: field hos- Dr. Mitish of Russia and Dr.Talat Chughtai ’87 speaking a word of English ran the show at PIMS; pitals were set up and manned by doctors from Dr. Abbasi, the chief of surgery, who knew every countries from every continent. Canada sent a The most salient feature in this scene is etched case going on in his unit and the name of every DART team for logistical purposes such as water in my mind: from 7AM to midnight, we literally surgeon, local and foreign; Dr. Farid, a local or- purification. felt the reverberating screams and cries of children thopedic surgeon, who came in at 7 a.m. and left Distraught, I donated money via the internet and calling for their mothers. Most did not know at midnight, operating non-stop without saying continued with my daily routine as a surgeon in that they no had a mother, or a father or broth- a word; Dr. Ali, my colleague and a source of sup- Toronto. I was born in Canada, but my parents ers and sisters. These children were “the lucky port during our stay; Dr. Nasir, from London, Eng- emigrated from Pakistan around 1960. One night, ones,” survivors from the mountains. land, also of Pakistani descent. I saw an interview with Pakistani President Gen- My formal surgical training is in surgery of the I cannot imagine a people being more appre- eral Pervez Musharraf. “We need money...... and neck, chest and abdomen but I spent my week ciative than the Pakistanis, who would stop us on we need surgeons,” he said and I knew I would doing orthopedic and plastic surgery. You are the street, hug us, and thank us for coming to help. be heading to Pakistan. Along with a colleague, forced to be flexible, to adapt your skills and We even received thanks from stern-faced an- I signed up with the Canadian Relief Founda- learn quickly in a disaster situation. I did ampu- titerrorist squad members we would have to go tion’s Canadian Medical Assist Team (CMAT), a tations and revisions of amputations, as well as re- through daily to get into the hospital. Pakistani vol- non-governmental organization and within days pairs of soft tissue crush injuries, performed brain, unteers were also everywhere, helping their coun- I found myself part of a team of a GP/anesthetist, chest surgery, abdominal surgery, and numer- trymen. 4 nurses and 2 paramedics in Islamabad, Pakistan. ous amputations and skin grafts. Resources were Our small patients somehow manage to smile, The Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences not available to fix every injury. but don’t let the smiles deceive you. Many have (PIMS), a tertiary care trauma centre in Islamabad, Another challenge was how to calm these hys- no homes.