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Dr. Gail Michener
Gail Michener began teaching at the 免费福利资源在线看片 as a sessional instructor in Biological Sciences in 1977. She was an NSERC 免费福利资源在线看片 Research Fellow from 1981 to 1985. Later, she served as department chair from 1993 to1996, and from 2003 to 2008 she held a Board of Governors Research Chair. In retirement, Gail continues her seminal research on the behavioural ecology of Richardson鈥檚 groundsquirrels.
Gail speaks about the challenges of the 免费福利资源在线看片 and her students to be recognized for their research excellence.
The full audio interview will be made available online in late 2017. For more information please contact the 免费福利资源在线看片 of Lethbridge Archives. (mike.perry@uleth.ca)
So it was, I mean, I think that was a really interesting time.听 And it was a remarkable thing for people to think that it was reasonable to have a university in Lethbridge.听 And for a number of years, you know, we fought the听the idea at Calgary and Edmonton that, well we must be a dinky, dinky little place and, you know, oh well can鈥檛 be any serious research going on there.听 And in fact there was one period ...听when would that have been?听 Must have been towards the mid-80s where there was a commission, I don鈥檛 remember exact terminology.听听The government was basically, I think, looking at a way to cut back on how much funding it needed to give to the 免费福利资源在线看片, and wanted to make the point that this should just be a teaching university, nothing more basically than a glorified community college.听 And so a gentleman was hired and I will not be able to remember his name, he was from Quebec I believe, to do an assessment of what people did at the 免费福利资源在线看片 of Lethbridge. 听And he ended up being so impressed by the amount and quality of research that was being done and the extent to which we involved the undergraduates in the research, which of course we did because we didn鈥檛 have graduate students back in those days so everybody did.听 He reported back to the government and the government had to change its tune rather rapidly and say, 鈥極h we will continue to support the 免费福利资源在线看片 of Lethbridge because it鈥檚 got this reputation.鈥� 听So yes, that was听interesting.听听We were all asked to听write a little document about听what it was and听how our research contributed to the institution and so forth, which was really very easy to do in those days because if we didn鈥檛 have the undergraduate students. 听We had no help at all. 听So,听very much we involved the students in what was going on and already we had people with international reputations and so forth, so it was actually a very easy case to make.
And then I remember, I had some students who went off to Calgary or Edmonton, I don鈥檛 recollect. 听I guess maybe in some cases they were transferring into professional degree programs, you know, dentistry, medicine or something like that, and being contacted by them.听听You know saying, 鈥極h you know these people don鈥檛 think the Animal Physiology course you taught is听up to the standard of their听Animal Physiology course.鈥� 听And then I would look into what they were doing, you know.听听And,听discover that in some of these cases they couldn鈥檛 even offer undergraduate labs with the course because they already had class sizes that were too big for Physiology or something like that. 听Whereas here, our Physiology students not only took the lecture course, they took lab courses. 听So, we made the point that they were actually better educated than their own students. 听But there was听that听assumption that because the 免费福利资源在线看片 of Lethbridge had sort of magically grown up out of nowhere, that听it must not be a high quality institution. 听But that was pretty quickly laid to rest.
(Interviewed by Johanna DeVisser)
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