MAY 24, 2001 Http:/ /Pr.Concordia.Ca/Ctr

's ort VOL. 25, N° 17 MAY 24, 2001 http:/ /pr.concordia.ca/ctr / Lydia Sharman wins teaching award Excavation for the new science complex begins next Dr. Lowy's achievements recognized pagel page& pagel Construction begins on Concordia's science complex BY BARBARA BLACK site from West Broadway to Sher cated in the refitted Drummond ments, the Centre for Functional departments located at Loyola will brooke St. Building. Genomics and the Centre for keep them abreast of developments. onstruction is starting on the The existing parking lot near the Excavation is expected to take Research in Molecular Modelling, as If you have queries about the pro Csite of the new science complex Bryan Building will be temporarily place June through July, and by mid well as a major part of the Psycholo ject, please contact Eugenia Xenos, on Concordia's Loyola Campus. Very relocated behind the TJ Building, the August, workers should be pouring gy Department. University Web site coordinator, at soon, an eight-foot construction performance arts annex at 7315 Ter concrete foundations for the new A newsletter is being planned to [email protected] or 848- fence is going up around the site, rebonne St. building. The excavation company, keep area residents informed about 4279. Ann M. Bennett, Assistant to enclosing the Bryan Building and the By the first week of June, the occu L.A. Hebert, plans to work through the construction project. Webcams the Executive Director of the Rector's adjacent parking lot. pants of the Bryan Building (the the traditional mid-summer construc will follow its progress from the top Cabinet, will have special responsi The fence will help keep the dust Communication Studies and Journal tion holiday. They will work Mon of the Drummond Building and the bility for keeping in touch with our down, and construction workers will ism Departments) will be relocated days to Fridays from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central Building; they will be linked Loyola neighbours. She can be periodically clean the area. The fence to Hingston Hall and the Central The new science complex is pro to the university's Web site devoted reached at [email protected] should also help muffle the noise of Building for at least three years, after jected to open in September 2003. It to the new buildings, at http://build or 848-4851. trucks, which will enter and exit the which they will be permanently relo- will house the natural science depart- ings.concordia.ca/. A listserve for See Official Groundbreaking, page 6. Literacy project gets $3-million grant New technological tools will help develop early learning skills BY JANI CE HAMILTON ject may have an impact on a very approach to learning to read, it large number of children." includes a detailed curriculum and oncordia's Centre for the Study more than 100 books. There are Cof Leaming and Performance, Enhancing literacy in Montreal extensive manuals and professional based in the Department of Educa The Success For All program, development workshops for teach tion, will be part of a $9-million developed by a researcher from ers, and a facilitator at each school to research project with the Baltimore Johns Hopkins University, was first help teachers implement the pro based Success For All Foundation implemented in Baltimore in 1987, gram. (SFA). says Bette Chambers, director of the Each child's progress is assessed The project involves developing SFA's early learning program. At the every eight weeks, and as soon as a new technological tools to enhance a time, she was an associate professor child falls behind , he or she is literacy program now used in some of Early Childhood Education at assigned a one-on-one tutor. This 2,000 schools, mostly in high-pover Concordia. The SFA had a high suc makes the program very expensive, ty areas in the United States. Concor cess rate in teaching children to read, but in the U.S., Title I funding-fed dia will receive one-third of the U.S. so in 1992, Abrami arranged to eral government funding for schools An ofjbeat hospital visit by artists federal government research grant, bring a pilot project to Montreal. in high-poverty areas-makes it pos Hopital is an art show in a hospital-the abandoned Bellechasse or about $3 million over five years. The program is currently being sible. Hospital in Rosemont, to be precise. Many Concordia-connected "This is a huge award, and we are used at two English Montreal School In Montreal, however, Chambers artists are part of this site-specific exhibition, now on view at 3950 honoured, flattered and excited to be Board elementary schools: Hamp says, "we were on a tight budget and de Bellechasse, just west of Pie-IX Blvd. recognized," said Centre director and stead School, where many students couldn't afford certified teacher Education professor Philip Abrami. have learning problems, and Park tutors, so we started working on a Ingrid Bachmann and Mindy Yan Miller teach in Fine Arts' Fibres "It will bring us an opportunity to do dale. computer program to help para-pro unit; Trevor Gould teaches in Sculpture; Jo-Anne Balcaen and Peter research we couldn't have imagined Chambers, who is still an adjunct fessional and volunteer tutors." Hobbs finished their MFAs last year; Shelley Low has her MFA in before." professor at Concordia, attributes the The goal of this new research pro Ceramics; and Jonathan lnksetter was a Fine Arts student. The school dropout rate is a seri program's success to "its philosophy ject is to use DVD, video, Web and Above, a piece by Lorraine Oades, who teaches an interdisciplinary ous problem in Canada and the U.S., of relentlessness and high expecta computer technologies to improve course and another called Women in Fine Arts. She built a realistic Abrami said. "Research indicates that tions. We don't give up." four components of the SFA pro- model of the hospital itself. In one of the tiny windows is a monitor developing early skills in literacy is Integrating a· phonics-based showing the live action in a neighboring hospital room. the key to school success. This pro- approach and a whole language continued on page 10 • Lydia Sharman: Hands-on designer wins teaching award BY JAM ES MAR TIN . at _he~ <?Wf1 Ql;laker school. The bilin she gets from teaching . gual:tdettk dbwntown FACE is still She showed off some of the he testimonials in support of thri.vmg tinder the English Montreal research books she has her students TLydia Shannan's winning nomi School Board. create, and talked about their suc nation for the Faculty of Fine Arts She wrote The Amazing Book of cesses. There's the one who was Distinguished Teacher Award were Shapes, a children's book that has invited to exhibit a chair design in wide-ranging, but almost all singled been translated into Dutch, Greek, London , and another who designed out how her personal experiences German, Hebrew, Catalan and the children's furniture for the Gre enrich the classroom. Castilian, and earned a PhD from the iche & Scaff optician stores. For someone whose early years Royal College of Art. There are photos of a camping were shaped by progressive, vegetari Dr. Shannan's philosophy of edu trip, in which her class field-tested an Quakers, this comes as no sur cation is based on balance and inte their designs for portable shelters prise. "l think l have a fairly unusual gration. She is a passionate advocate built mainly from recycled materials profile ," she said in an interview. of "providing a full , generous, and in minus 10-degree weather. ln 1957, freshly graduated from appropriate education, while creating Dr. Sharman is especially proud of London's Central School of Art and a bridge to the community beyond the young women Design Art stu Design, Sharman was thrust into the the university." dents, and tries to be their mentor. working world when one of her stu ln Concordia's Design Art pro "It was exceptional for a woman to dent designs, a molded plywood gram, students learn two-dimension be in this profession in the 1960s, chair on a metal base, was bought al , three-dimensional, and media 70s and 80s, and it's still unusual and put into commercial production. design . Sharman says her experience today," she said. She would spend the next few yea rs as a design practitioner contributes "l just love to see that expression working in design offices in London to her strong belief in Co ncordia's on their faces when they first see one and New York, before moving to conceptual approach to design. ln of their own three-dimensional Montreal. the workplace, a designer must call designs brought to fruition . They've on a variety of skills. "The ltalians done all the drawings, made the This chair, designed by third-year student Sidney Kristianson, is a "most M any artistic contributions to city don't have any problem being archi maquette, and gone through the ingenious design," says Dr. Sharman. The frame is made of two bent steel ln the early 1960s, the Canadian rods. The seat and back are ca rdboard tubes threaded onto the frame. There tect, artist and graphic designer, all process of making, say, a chair-and design industry was coming into its is no gluing or fasteners and t he chair can be taken apart and reassembled. in one person." there it is!" own. Sharman was heavily involved She is also , by her own admission, Dr.

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