University College Alumni Magazine FALL 2017 + The State of SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH in Canada STUDENT MENTAL HEALTH THE AGING FEMALE BRAIN UC ALUMNI OF INFLUENCE 2017 DIRECTOR DANIEL BROOKS Please join us in celebrating the 2017 UC ALUMNI of INFLUENCE AT THE SIXTH ANNUAL AWARDS DINNER AND GALA Thursday, November 16, 2017 e C a r l u 444 Yonge Street, Toronto Reception at 6:00 p.m. Dinner at 7:00 p.m. • Black tie optional • Host bar Individual tickets $150 Table of 10 $1250 Purchase tickets at my.alumni.utoronto.ca/aoi2017 If you would like to sponsor a student seat or table, please call (416)978-2968. For more information, please visit uc.utoronto.ca/aoi or call (416)978-2968. Please inform us if you require an accommodation in order to attend this event. Read more about this year’s honourees on page 20. PRINCIP AL’S MESSAGE KEYNOTE THE BIOETHICS OF EVERYDAY LIFE BY DONALD AINSLIE PART WAY THROUGH my doctoral or his infection, whether health care studies in philosophy, in the early professionals with HIV should be 1990s, I took a gap year. I returned restricted in their practices. to Toronto, my home town, and But these were not the moral worked at a housing program for questions that the residents I was people with HIV and special needs: working with were facing. They homelessness, psychiatric illness, wrestled with when to disclose their recovery from drug addiction, and condition to others; what sexual the like. This turns out to have been responsibility entailed; and how to one of the worst years of the AIDS have a meaningful life when it seemed epidemic and I did my best to help likely to be massively abbreviated. the residents of the program struggle with ill health and stigma on top of I started to realize that these questions their other challenges. in what I now call the bioethics of everyday life are pervasive and indeed I usually worked the night shift, have a kind of logical priority to the from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m., and dominant questions in bioethics that meant that, on the quiet nights, that focus on medical practice and I could read. I became interested in public health. If we want patients to what philosophers were saying about have autonomy over their health care the AIDS crisis. decisions, we presuppose that each Philosophers had first addressed the of us has something at stake morally moral issues arising from disease and in our own personal struggles with illness in the 1960s as part of the new health and disease. interdisciplinary field of bioethics. My work that year inspired me to take As medicine developed techniques a second master’s degree in bioethics that prolonged life—whether that of when I returned to grad school, and a newborn with severe disabilities or it remains a research and teaching an octogenarian in an intensive care interest. unit—more and more people came to realize that doctors’ medical expertise More often than not during my term did not guarantee that they knew what as UC Principal, I have taught a BEST (BA 1921 UC), co-discoverer of was morally right for their patients. large, introductory bioethics class, a insulin; JOHN MCCRAE (BA 1894 particularly interesting pedagogical When I started reading what UC), World War One field doctor task in that most of the students bioethicists had written about the and poet; ERVING GOFFMAN (BA are specializing in the sciences and AIDS epidemic, I was struck by how 1945 UC), the sociologist of stigma; thus rarely get the chance to reflect the questions they explored were and REVA GERSTEIN (BA 1938 critically on their main areas of study. primarily addressed to health care and UC), psychologist and mental health public health professionals—whether This issue of UC Magazine explores pioneer. This issue demonstrates testing for HIV should be mandatory how others in our community engage that the College—its staff, students, for certain groups, whether physicians with the challenge of health and faculty, and alumni—continue to work treating an HIV-positive patient have disease. University College alumni to better our response to what Susan a duty to warn third parties of her include such giants as CHARLES Sontag called the “night-side of life.” UC ALUMNI MAGAZINE 03 CONTRIBUTORS KIRK SIBBALD TRACY HOWARD JENNIFER MCINTYRE Born and raised in Saskatchewan, Tracy Howard (“Healthier Minds,” Jennifer McIntyre (“Cerebral Kirk Sibbald (“An Intimate Pursuit,” page 12) is a writer, editor, and CorteXX,” page 16) is a writer and page 38) has been writing in one content director specializing in editor based in Toronto, Ontario. She form or another for as long as he lifestyle, health, and travel. She’s builds model airplanes in her spare can remember. After graduating contributed Today’s Parent, Flare, the time, bakes a mean chocolate chip with a BA in English (University of Toronto Star, and was also formerly cookie, and holds the regional record Saskatchewan) and MA in Journalism the editor in chief of CAA Magazine. for most bones broken in a solo (University of Western Ontario), She had once pondered psychology urban bicycle accident. Jennifer has Sibbald worked in newspapers for a as an alternative career path, so found written for CBC Sports, the Discovery short while before moving into the writing about the mental health Channel, Deutsche Welle Online, and communications and marketing field. struggles of U of T students for this CNIB.ca. Her work has also appeared He currently lives in Saskatoon with issue an intriguing assignment. in Grain Magazine, Seasons Magazine, his spouse and two young daughters. While it’s alarming to hear about the The Journal of the Canadian high rates of anxiety and depression Association for the Advancement of among students, Tracy thinks the Women in Sport, Dandelion, Ms. conversation happening now around Magazine, Xtra, and Lexicon. Her mental health is a positive step. website is jenmceditor.com. SHELDON GORDON Sheldon Gordon (“Funding the Fundamentals,” page 8) is a freelance writer based in Toronto. He served in the parliamentary press gallery with the Toronto Star and Financial Post, was an editorial writer and columnist with the Globe and Mail, and a current affairs producer with CBC -TV. 04 UC ALUMNI MAGAZINE FEATURES University College Alumni Magazine 08 EDITOR Yvonne Palkowski (BA 2004 UC) 12 SPECIAL THANKS Donald Ainslie Alana Clarke (BA 2008 UC) Michael Henry Lori MacIntyre Naomi Handley ART DIRECTION + DESIGN Amber Moon PRINTING Flash Reproductions CORRESPONDENCE AND 16 UNDELIVERABLE COPIES TO: Funding the 08 University College Fundamentals Advancement Office The state of scientific 15 King’s College Circle research in Canada 38 Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 3H7 Healthy Minds 12 University College Alumni Magazine How UC is helping DEPARTMENTS students who struggle is published twice a year by the with mental health 03 Principal’s Message University College Advancement and well-being 06 Calendar Office and is circulated to 25,000 alumni and friends of University Cerebral CorteXX 16 30 Class Notes College, University of Toronto. Gillian Einstein’s work on the aging female brain is 34 Nota Bene To update your address or changing the way we look 42 Obituary & In Memoriam unsubscribe send an email to at human health [email protected] with your name and address or UC Alumni of Influence 20 call (416) 978-2139 or toll-free 2017 edition 1 (800) 463-6048. An Intimate Pursuit 38 For director PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT Daniel Brooks (BA 1981 40041311 UC), a life in theatre is about more than a career UC ALUMNI MAGAZINE 05 CALENDAR MAKING MODELS UC ALUMNI SALON September 6 to October 6, 2017 September 25, 2017 at 6:00 p.m. An exhibition bringing together architecture and How Urban Archaeology is Reshaping our art to advance critical ideas in experimental Understanding of Toronto’s Early architecture in Toronto. Immigration History Art Museum, University of Toronto Art Centre John Lorinc (BSc 1987 UC), Northeast corner of UC Senior Editor, Spacing For info: artmuseum.utoronto.ca UC Alumni Lounge, Room H12 For info: (416) 978-2968 S.J. STUBBS LECTURE IN CLASSICS September 19, 2017 at 4:30 p.m. UC ALUMNI BOOK CLUB Truth to Power: Politics From Below in Roman Comedy September 28, 2017 at 7:00 p.m. Professor Amy Richlin Join the discussion on Professor of Classics The Betrayers by David Bezmogis University of California Los Angeles UC Room 240 UC Room 140 For info: (416) 978-2968 SEPFor info: (416) 978-7416 F.E.L. PRIESTLEY MEMORIAL LECTURES UC ALUMNI SALON IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS October 18, 2017 at 6:00 p.m. October 16, 17 & 18, 2017 at 4:30 p.m. Healthy Brain Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease: The Seven Grandmothers: Indigenous Law, Ethics, Clearing the Garbage from Your Brain Cells and Canada’s Constitution Professor Wai Huang (Ho) Yu (BSc 1991 UC) Professor John Borrows Assistant Professor of Pathology and Cell Biology Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law Columbia University Nexen Chair in Indigenous Leadership UC Alumni Lounge, Room H12 University of Victoria For info: (416) 978-2968 UC Room 140 For info: (416) 978-7416 SOBEY ART AWARD October 24 to December 9, 2017 An exhibition of five works by artists shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award for contemporary young Canadian artists. Art Musem, University of Toronto Art Centre Northeast corner of UC 16 John Borrows For info: artmuseum.utoronto.ca FEB JAN UC ALUMNI BOOK CLUB PUGLIESE-ZORZI ITALIAN UC ALUMNI SALON January 18, 2018 at 7:00 p.m. CANADIAN STUDIES February 15, 2018 Join the discussion on The Best Kind LECTURE SERIES Holding Power to Account: February 1, 2018 at 5:30 p.m.