Laurentian Alumni Fall 2017
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LAURENTIAN ALUMNI FALL 2017 This document has been prepared to comply to The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act,2005 AN AWARD-WINNING PUBLICATION Greetings fellow alumni, This is my first official message as the of many dedicated volunteers and newly elected Laurentian University university staff that work hard to serve Alumni Association (LUAA) President our members to the best of our ability. and I am honored to have the We have implemented two of three opportunity to represent our 59,000+ initiatives associated with our goals Voyageurs. 2017 has been an exciting within the strategic plan. One of these year for the LUAA and I am proud to exciting initiatives is One Million Hours inform you that our magazine recently of Volunteerism, which I encourage you received the silver award for best online to register for, and track your volunteer alumni publication in the country by the hours. Canadian Council for the Advancement of Education (CCAE). Months of work The LUAA has another ambitious year in go into the creation of the semi-annual store, and we hope you take advantage Laurentian Alumni Magazine and its of everything we’re doing to ensure you success is attributed to the joint efforts continue to have a positive experience of our alumni relations team, LUAA with your alma mater. communications committee, designers, writers and university colleagues, in We can all benefit from being Laurentian addition to the incredible alumni whose alumni, and we all have something stories we have the pleasure of telling. that we can contribute to. Whether it’s logging your volunteer hours with What has been equally thrilling for us and making a difference in your the alumni association this year is community, providing mentorship to a our progress as we continue to work current student in need, or making a gift through our 2016 to 2019 Strategic to support the leaders of tomorrow, your Plan: Strengthened. This three-year involvement, big or small, goes a long plan outlines our mission statement way. and vision for the transformation of the association and I encourage you to So come back to visit, attend our events, review the plan and provide feedback to or join a board or committee. Take the Board of Directors. advantage of preferred rates from our affinity partners such as TD Meloche Your alumni board is comprised Monnex for home and auto insurance, This document has been prepared to comply to The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 Canada Life for health, dental and life insurance, or the MBNA alumni credit card. Make use of the exclusive discounts offered to you by various businesses just for being a Laurentian graduate. Over time, some of you may have lost touch with your alma mater, and if you have, that’s okay. There’s never been a better time to reconnect. I hope that you will make your way back and remember that you always have a home at Laurentian. ADAM CECCHETTO, B.Sc. ’03 Senior Environmental Scientist, Denison Environmental This document has been prepared to comply to The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 Ryan Lafraniere B.Sc. ‘09 CURLER TURNS COACH AND CHAMPION Laurentian’s Ryan Lafraniere inspires Voyageurs to victory By Suzanne Bowness Earlier this year, for the first time ever, as part of Curling Canada’s Long-Term Laurentian University claimed a national Athlete Development model. curling championship title. Laurentian grad Ryan Lafraniere was responsible To say it’s been a good year would be for leading the women’s team to victory, an understatement. not once, but twice. THE RIGHT PLAYERS In addition to taking the 2017 U Lafraniere, who has been coaching at SPORTS/Curling Canada University Laurentian for seven years (he also Championships in Thunder Bay, Ontario, coaches the men’s team), calls this they also earned the Ontario University women’s team extremely resilient. Athletics (OUA) Championship in “Team cohesion is certainly a strong Oshawa, Ontario. point with this particular team. They work very well together. The team The two banners that proudly hang in dynamics are unbelievable, which is Laurentian’s Ben Avery Building are incredible for teams. They’re able to particularly significant. They represent park things mentally, put that aside, the first provincial championship for the regroup, reassess, which is an extremely Voyageurs since the University’s Nordic important thing to have, especially in skiers won the OUA title in 2002- this sport,” he says. 03 and the first national university championship since a 1990-91 win by He had already worked with all of these the women’s basketball team. girls in the past, coaching Smith in high school, and Burns and Masters in The Voyageurs curling team, composed university, plus he’s worked with all the of Skip Krysta Burns, Third Megan girls at Bantam and Junior camps. Smith, Second Sara Guy and Lead Laura Masters, is also a U21 team that Besides a hectic tournament season won a bronze medal at the Canadian that lasts from October to March, the Junior Women’s Championship this practice schedule is fairly gruelling, with year. USPORT or U25 (under 25) is a practices on Saturday and/or Sunday university division that overlaps with (games are played on Tuesday nights). the junior classification (U21 – under 21), The girls also curl in a competitive This document has been prepared to comply to The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 league in Sudbury at the Idylwylde has completed his certifications to Golf and Country Club. Practices focus become a Level III coach and instructor. on drills and technical work to refine He’s also trained as a master learning sweeping and delivery, but equally on facilitator and master evaluator. off-ice mental preparation including goal setting, season planning and Besides training coaches, Lafraniere strategy/tactics. After each game, is also the Director of the Amethyst Lafraniere spends time debriefing with Curling Camp in Sudbury, and travels the team to work on the next. Games in the summer to do other week-long typically last two to three hours. curling camps in Edmonton, Alberta and Waterloo, Ontario. In July, he As their coach, Laurentian’s Lafraniere is travelled to Germany to work for the with his teams all the way, but he’s not World Curling Federation training high always allowed to be physically present. performance athletes at their curling Unlike many sports where coaches are a camp. familiar sight at the sideline, curling only allows them to counsel players for five If you think this all sounds like a full- minutes at the game’s midpoint, and time job, it will surprise you that an even shorter ninety seconds during Lafraniere also works as a teacher. each of two time-outs. After graduating from Laurentian in 2009 with his Bachelor of Science in That means a lot of focus on the pre- Chemistry and Biochemistry, he did a game, debrief, and developing routines bachelor’s and then a master’s degree during practices. in Education at Nipissing University, and is now head of the science department “As a coach, it’s my job to give them and teacher of biology and chemistry all the tools that they need in order to at Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School in be successful, and hope that they draw Sudbury. He also teaches in the faculty from their tool box somewhere down of Education at Laurentian, training new the line during the game, because I teachers to teach science. can’t prompt re-focus. They have to work as a unit in order to do that,” says While teaching and curling keep him Lafraniere. busy, Lafraniere also makes time to volunteer, and was involved with Whatever he is advising his team, it’s Laurentian’s Alumni Association, where working. he served as Vice-President. He first joined the group as a student member THE RIGHT COACH of Laurentian Student Alumni. In addition to his coaching career, Lafraniere was a competitive curler in A CURLER FOR LIFE his own right. He curled in the national Lafraniere calls curling “a sport for life”, Junior championships in 2004 for and say he loves it for the camaraderie. Northern Ontario, and curled at two He adds that being a curler himself national championships for Laurentian. inspired him to become a coach. “I like He got into coaching 15 years ago, and to give back to the sport that has really This document has been prepared to comply to The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 given a lot to me. Working with the athletes is always enjoyable, and to try and empower them to become the best athlete, the best student, and the best person they can be is really rewarding.” He says curling rewards the athlete beyond the ice because it teaches players about everything from mental toughness to problem solving to good sportsmanship. “Everyone likes winning, but it’s not really about winning or losing, it’s about having the competitive spirit and enjoying yourself and having fun out on the ice,” he says. Now that the season is over, Lafraniere says he’s looking forward to doing it all again. “The team is back next year. I’m hoping that we’ll have a good season like we had last year,” he says. This document has been prepared to comply to The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 Alisha Gauvreau BA ‘09 14,000 YEARS IN THE MAKING Laurentian grad’s discovery on Canada’s west coast could change the way we think about human settlement in North America. By Jason Hagerman, BA’07 Driftwood litters pristine sand and Ancient Landscapes Archaeology pebble beaches.