UNews - Venkat Mahadevan

Fine Arts website garners accolades

trevor.kenney — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:53:17 +0000

The Faculty of Fine Arts recently took home first-place honours at Digital Alberta's mediaFresh Awards for its new video website, Experience Fine Arts:
www.lethbridgefinearts.ca

The mediaFresh awards are dedicated to recognizing Alberta digital media professionals and post-secondary students who have created outstanding projects and programs.

The U of L Fine Arts site won in the Non-Commercial Website category. Criteria the judges used in making their selection included: marketing goals and purpose; interactivity and user-friendliness; information design and navigation; visual design; and programming and technical aspects. The panel of judges consisted of recognized leaders and experts in the field of digital media.
Experience Fine Arts was developed with prospective art, music, drama and new media students in mind.

"We wanted to provide future students with a glimpse of what they can experience once they come to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge and join our creative community," explains Desmond Rochfort, Faculty of Fine Arts dean.

The site includes videos featuring excerpts from classes, students talking about their experiences, special projects, general information about degree options and a complete list of fine arts events throughout the year.

The website was designed by Jesse Johnstone (BFA '10) during his internship placement in consultation with an advisory committee made up of Desmond Rochfort, Emily Luce, Chris Morris, Venkat Mahadevan and Katherine Wasiak.

The initial group of videos were shot and edited by former new media student Matt Babinec, with the idea being to continue adding and expanding the library of videos. The plan is to refresh the video site on a regular basis by adding between two and four new videos each year.

"It is exciting to have this new and interesting method of reaching prospective students, and to further see it acknowledged with this provincial award," says Rochfort.

Campus Kudos

trevor.kenney — Fri, 07 May 2010 17:51:13 +0000

Shelley Scott (Theatre & Dramatic Arts) is presenting a paper called Asian Canadian Women Playwrights: The Ties that Bind at the GENesis Asian-Canadian Theatre Conference, May 3-9 in Toronto. The conference is the first of its kind in Canada.

Three U of L alumni have made the long list (Prairies and North region) for the 2010 Sobey Art Award. Daniel Wong (BFA '03) and Mary-Anne McTrowe (BFA '98), as The Cedar Tavern Singers AKA Les Phonorealistes, and Robyn Moody (BFA '00) are all in the running for this prestigious award.

Deric Olsen (New Media) has been invited to be an artist/filmmaker-in-residence at the New Media Studio Laboratory (NMSL) at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Regina, July 5-9. While there he will work on high definition post-production and delivery methods, and present New Format, New Challenges: Exploring Techniques in High Definition Disc Authoring and Design.

Alumnus Zoran Rajcic (BMgt '94) won the Western Hockey League's 2009-10 Marketing/Public Relations Award. Rajcic is the director of business operations for the Everett Silvertips.

The Faculty of Fine Arts video site (www.lethbridgefinearts.ca) is a finalist in the Best Non-Commercial Website category of Digital Alberta's Media Fresh awards. The web designer was New Media major Jesse Johnston and the advisory committee included:
Dr. Desmond Rochfort, Emily Luce, Chris Morris, Venkat Mahadevan and Katherine Wasiak.

Dr. Ed Jurkowski (Music) presented a paper entitled, How Formal Function Theory can inform Nineteenth-Century Deformed Sonata Designs: A Case Study using Bruckner's Symphonies, at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Arizona (Tucson, Ariz.) during the annual joint meeting of the Rocky Mountain Societies for Music Theory and Musicology.

Dr. Arlan Schultz (Music) had his composition Ikos-kun tu 'bar ba premiered by The Rubbing Stone Ensemble at a concert at the Rozsa Centre in Calgary.

Karen Mahar (dean's office) received a $3,000 scholarship from Alberta Advanced Education in recognition of her exceptional work in her first year as a graduate student. Mahar is now in her second year of an MA in English.

Deanna Oye (Music) and Peter Visentin (Music) presented recitals of solo and duo music at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Manitoba and Canadian Mennonite ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in Winnipeg last month. They also conducted master's classes and lessons in the areas of collaborative piano and violin. Visentin gave a lecture on his research into musicians' injuries to the Medical Rehabilitation Faculty of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Manitoba, and Oye also played a solo recital in Brandon, Man. following a week as senior piano adjudicator at the Brandon Festival of the Arts.

Changing habits can start before New Year's

trevor.kenney — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:25:22 +0000

By SUZANNE MCINTOSH

Did 2009 fly by for you? As we all know this has been an extremely busy and, at times, stressful year. It's at this time when many people begin to think about what they have and have not accomplished in the past year and turn to making resolutions for the New Year. This can be stressful in itself, after all who likes to make resolutions that you may never get around to or are difficult to keep?

You don't have to wait until New Year's to make some changes to your own health and wellness, and as Everett Mámor states, "Without health, there is no point. To anything."

So how to do this without adding to both your stress and to that list of things that never get done?

First step – start small! Everyone remembers the SMART acronym – Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic and Timely. As far as taking stock of your health and wellness and making some positive changes, the most important part of this acronym is "Achievable". Making sure your goals are achievable is a huge factor in determining how successful you will be.

Throughout my year here at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, I have met a number of people who have made small (and some not so small) changes to their own health and wellness by taking achievable steps. Here is a story, may it inspire you – not make you feel guilty or overwhelmed with one more thing you need to do – but prompt you to take a look at your own health and wellness and bring you one step closer to feeling less tired, having more energy, or just having some fun.

Venkat Mahadevan works as a Technical Specialist in Fine Arts, New Media. Venkat told me that a year ago he weighed 195 lbs and realized this was not an ideal weight for him. He felt drained of energy and thought it might have something to do with his diet. So he decided to cut out the "unholy trinity" (his words) of junk foods – pop, chips and sugar (especially chocolate).

Venkat started out making small changes first by cutting out a few candy bars a week, and soon started replacing these types of foods with fruit. He noticed that he was starting to lose weight. Then he did some research on what types of food he should eat and started including more vegetables, fruits and whole grains in his diet. He then cut out fried foods and white breads. Venkat says that he now avoids buying any of the unholy trinity foods at the grocery store. By summer he had lost between 46 and 50 lbs and this has stabilized over the past few months. He has noticed a positive change in his energy levels and just "feels better". In fact, when he does slip and eat some of the junk foods, he notices a definite change in how he feels after eating – and not for the better.

Recently, Venkat took one more small step; he made an appointment to see Diane Britton, Health Centre dietitian. Diane was able to add a few healthy eating tips but mostly encouraged his habits and reinforced that he was doing the right thing. He suggested it might have been more helpful to see her earlier on in his journey to healthy eating.

Suzanne McIntosh is the Health and Wellness co-ordinator at the U of L

Changing habits can be done one step at a time

trevor.kenney — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:24:32 +0000

Did 2009 fly by for you? As we all know this has been an extremely busy and, at times, stressful year. It's at this time when many people begin to think about what they have and have not accomplished in the past year and turn to making resolutions for the New Year. This can be stressful in itself, after all who likes to make resolutions that you may never get around to or are difficult to keep?

You don't have to wait until New Year's to make some changes to your own health and wellness, and as Everett Mámor states, "Without health, there is no point. To anything."

So how to do this without adding to both your stress and to that list of things that never get done?

Throughout my year here at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, I have met a number of people who have made small (and some not so small) changes to their own health and wellness by taking achievable steps. Here is a story, may it inspire you – not make you feel guilty or overwhelmed with one more thing you need to do – but prompt you to take a look at your own health and wellness and bring you one step closer to feeling less tired, having more energy, or just having some fun.
Venkat Mahadevan works as a Technical Specialist in Fine Arts, New Media. Venkat told me that a year ago he weighed 195 lbs and realized this was not an ideal weight for him. He felt drained of energy and thought it might have something to do with his diet. So he decided to cut out the "unholy trinity" (his words) of junk foods – pop, chips and sugar (especially chocolate).

UNews - Venkat Mahadevan

Fine Arts website garners accolades

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Campus Kudos

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Changing habits can start before New Year's

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Changing habits can be done one step at a time

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