UNews - Shelly Wismath

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Victoria graduate student pens 2024 Bridge Prize short story contest winning entry

trevor.kenney — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 14:23:05 +0000

Jeremy Audet is, at heart, a storyteller — and now he is an award-winning author. The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Victoria graduate student’s short story, The Lobster, was selected as the best of the 187 entries for the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s nationwide Bridge Prize short story contest.

Jeremy Audet earned the top prize of $7,500, the largest cash prize for student writing in Canada.

The win earned Audet the top prize of $7,500, the largest cash prize for student writing in Canada, and validated a process that was years in the making. Audet, a wildland firefighter in British Columbia, described the emotions he experienced when he learned he’d won the competition.

"When I received the call telling me I was being awarded the Bridge Prize, I was standing in an airfield in the Northern Rockies, waiting to be deployed to a new wildfire. As we spoke, helicopters and trucks came and went, a column of dark smoke thickened in the distance, and thousands of people nearby were being forced from their homes,” he said. “There was joy and relief in my heart, knowing that a story I had spent years working on had received such warm praise. I'm immensely grateful to the Bridge Prize organizers, Terry Whitehead and Dr. Shelly Wismath, the brilliant jurors, and the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge for recognizing the strength of storytelling.”

Audet’s story was described as “dense and contemplative; the rhythm is tidal . . . the story is simultaneously speculative, contemporary, and historical. The writer has great talent, feeling and artistry,” commented Bridge Prize juror and Quebec author Madeleine Thien.

As the winner, Audet was able to work with Sirarose Wilensky, editor with House of Anansi Press, on The Lobster, which is now featured on the Bridge Prize website.

The biennial competition, established in 2020, is the only national writing competition of its kind in Canada and featured submissions from students in nine provinces. Only students attending colleges and universities in Canada can apply, with $12,000 in cash prizes awarded. The winner and three finalists also receive a $200 gift card courtesy of Munro’s Books of Victoria. New this year, the contest also recognized the best story written by an undergraduate student and the best written by a student at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge.

“Congratulations to Jeremy, the three finalists, and our new award winners for their compelling short stories,” says Dr. Shelly Wismath, retired dean of the School of Liberal Education and Bridge Prize administrator. “Once again, our local and main juries praised the high quality of writing, diverse styles and imaginative storytelling. The future of Canadian fiction is in very good hands.”

Other finalists, who were each awarded $1,000, included:

Susan Sechrist from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of British Columbia and her story Ecphrasis.

“Memorable characters and concepts in an efficient and innovative vignette structure. Had a collage-like feel, or mosaic-like, with the smaller daubs of colour creating the larger picture. Elegant and skillful,” concluded juror George Murray.

Ayda Niknami, also from UBC, created The Martyr’s Mother, which was described as, “Imaginative, fast-paced, interesting, visual. The Martyr’s Mother is commendable for being highly imaginative capturing the readers imagination. It was interesting and very visual,” said juror Michelle Good.

Camille Pavlenko, from UBC and a ULethbridge alumna, was the third finalist with her story A Disease of the Hollow Organs.

“The writing is inviting, open and imaginative, with characters interacting and intertwining beautifully like a well-orchestrated dance,” commented juror Danny Ramadan. “The metaphors were delightful, and the command of the plot was strong and capable.”

A new prize recognizing the top undergraduate story honour went to Caitlyn Harding of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of the Fraser Valley. Her piece, If Normandie Avenue Could Talk, also won her $1,000.

Indie MacGarva earned $500 as the best story from ULethbridge writers with Alice Is There.

The cycle now begins for the 2026 Bridge Prize with the competition’s Main Jury to be announced in November. Submissions for the event open in January 2025.

Bridge Prize short story competition continuing to attract country’s most talented post-secondary writers

trevor.kenney — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 17:22:34 +0000

A total of 184 submissions from 36 universities and colleges across nine provinces have been received for the 2024 Bridge Prize post-secondary short story fiction writing competition.

The biennial competition, the largest literary cash prize event for post-secondary students in Canada, is open to both undergraduate and graduate students who are a registered student at the time of the submission deadline. This year’s submissions include representation from some of Canada’s biggest post-secondary schools, such as McGill ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of British Columbia and ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Toronto, as well as smaller universities and colleges across the nation.

“The Bridge Prize continues to grow in popularity as a meaningful national prize recognizing excellence in short story writing at the post-secondary level,” says Dr. Shelly Wismath of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s School of Liberal Education. Wismath was dean of the school when the Bridge Prize initiative was launched with the support of lead donor Terry Whitehead (BA ’94), ULethbridge’s current Chancellor.

“Since its inception in 2020, over 1,000 short stories have been written and submitted, which suggests students are excited by the short story genre as a form of storytelling.”

Over the next four months, a local jury, comprised of 28 volunteers from ULethbridge and local cultural communities, will evaluate the 184 entries. Each story will be read by a minimum of four jurors. The author’s identity and school are not shared with jury members. The local jury will identify up to 10 short stories that will be elevated to the main jury who will read and adjudicate over the summer.

Dr. Shelly Wismath says students continue to show their enthusiasm for the short story form.

The main jury is comprised of established authors from across Canada. A winner will be determined by late July, and the winning author will work with a professional editor to arrive at the final version. The winning author and three finalists will be announced in September and the winning short story will be published on the Bridge Prize website.

“The Bridge Prize and the students who participate benefit from the support of our jurors who value the work of the next generation of storytellers in Canada,” adds Wismath. “We are grateful for the ongoing commitment from our local and main jurors, and to our sponsor, Munro’s Books of Victoria, for their continued support.”

The winner of the Bridge Prize receives $7,500 and three finalists each receive $1,000 and a $200 gift card from Munro’s Books. A $500 award goes to the top story written by a ULethbridge student. The winning author also receives a bronze sculpture, created by artist and sculptor, Niall Donaghy, of the ULethbridge Faculty of Fine Arts. More than $11,000 is awarded each competition, and since its inception, over 1,000 student stories have been submitted and $22,000 in prize money awarded.

2024 Main Jurors

Michelle Good (Saskatchewan) — author of Five Little Indians (winner of Canada Reads and Amazon First Novel; Giller Prize finalist in 2022)

Nicholas Herring (PEI) — author of Some Hellish (winner of Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize)

Sheena Kamal (Quebec) — Award-wining crime fiction writer and young adult novelist

George Murray (Newfoundland and Labrador) — Poet and author. Former Poet Laureate for St. John’s

Danny Ramadan (British Columbia) — Activist and author of The Foghorn Echoes and several children’s books. Finalist in the 2020 Bridge Prize

Madeleine Thien (Quebec) — Novelist and short story author. Winner of the Giller Prize and Governor General’s Award for the novel, Do Not Say We Have Nothing

Main jury identified for 2024 Bridge Prize national short story competition

trevor.kenney — Thu, 12 Jan 2023 16:21:49 +0000

The main jury for Canada’s largest literary prize for post-secondary students has been chosen — and it features influential literary voices from across the country.

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s biennial Bridge Prize short story competition, presented by the School of Liberal Education, is now entering its third competitive cycle. Following highly successful competitions in 2020 and 2022 that have established the Bridge Prize as a significant national literary event, the 2024 edition has attracted another esteemed group of jurors.

“It’s exciting to announce another stellar national jury who will adjudicate the 2024 installment of the Bridge Prize,” says Dr. Shelly Wismath, dean of the School of Liberal Education. “The main jury includes award-winning authors of international renown and new and emerging literary voices representing different literary genres and regions across Canada. This is truly a national literary endeavour, and we are grateful for the jurors’ commitment to supporting post-secondary students and the next generation of Canadian literary artists.”

The jury consists of Michelle Good (Saskatchewan), Nicholas Herring (Prince Edward Island), Sheena Kamal (Quebec), George Murray (Newfoundland & Labrador), Danny Ramadan (British Columbia) and Madeleine Thien (Quebec).

The Bridge Prize, initiated by ULethbridge alumnus Terry Whitehead (BA ’94), has elicited more than 500 short story entries over the first two competitions. The first prize winner earns $7,500, while three additional finalists garner $1,000 apiece, making it the largest cash prize for any student writing competition in Canada. Munro’s Books, based in Victoria, B.C., is the returning major sponsor, and hands out $200 gift cards to all four winners. The winner also has their short story edited by Shirarose Wilensky, an editor with the House of Anansi Press.

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Toronto graduate student Chido Muchemwa won the 2022 Bridge Prize and was recently awarded a scholarship from the prestigious Miles Morland Foundation in the United Kingdom. The grant supports first-time novelists as they embark on writing their first novel. In addition, Muchemwa is presently in discussions with a Canadian publisher to publish a collection of her short stories.

"Winning the Bridge Prize gave me the confidence to pursue opportunities that I had previously felt I wasn’t ready for yet. I am so grateful to the Bridge Prize for taking student writers seriously and I encourage anyone eligible to apply. It really could be you,” says Muchemwa.

Submissions for the 2024 competition open January 23, 2023, and will close January 22, 2024. For more information, visit The Bridge Prize web page.

Following are short biographies of the jurors for the 2024 competition.

Michelle Good

Michelle Good is a Cree writer and member of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. After working for Indigenous organizations for 25 years, she obtained a law degree and advocated for residential school survivors. She earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of British Columbia while managing her own law firm. Her poems, short stories and essays have been published in magazines and anthologies across Canada, and her poetry was included on two lists of the best Canadian poetry in 2016 and 2017. Five Little Indians, her first novel, won the HarperCollins/UBC Best New Fiction Prize, the Amazon First Novel Award, the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Award, the Evergreen Award, the City of Vancouver Book of the Year Award and Canada Reads 2022. It was also longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a finalist for the Writer’s Trust Award, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes.

Nicholas Herring

Nicholas Herring is a carpenter and writer whose work has appeared in The Puritan and The Fiddlehead. He graduated from St. Jerome’s ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in Ontario with an Honours in English Literature and attended the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Toronto where he completed a Master of Arts in Creative Writing. He received the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize in 2022 for his debut novel, Some Hellish. Herring lives in Murray Harbour, Prince Edward Island.

Sheena Kamal

Sheena Kamal is the author of four novels. She holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts (HBA) in Political Science from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Toronto and was awarded a TD Canada Trust scholarship for community leadership and activism around the issue of homelessness. Her debut novel, The Lost Ones (US)/Eyes Like Mine (UK), won the 2018 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, a Strand Magazine Critics Award and Macavity Award for Best First Novel. It has been sold in 15 countries and was a Globe and Mail Bestseller, a Time Magazine Recommended Read, an iBooks Best Book, a Bustle Best Book and a Powell's Pick. Her debut YA novel, Fight Like a Girl, was shortlisted for the White Pine Award. Kamal lives in Montreal.

George Murray

George Murray is the author of 10 books, including seven books of poetry, two best-selling books of aphorisms and a book for children — his latest being Problematica: New and Selected Poems, 1995 – 2020. His work has been widely anthologized and published in magazines, journals and newspapers all over Canada, as well as internationally, including: The Drunken Boat, Granta, Iowa Review, Jacket, London Magazine, Mid-American Review, New American Writing, New Welsh Review, The Puritan, Radical Society and The Walrus. Raised in rural Ontario, Murray currently lives in St. John's, Newfoundland.

Danny Ramadan

Danny Ramadan is a Syrian-Canadian author and advocate for LGBTQ+ refugees. His debut novel, The Clothesline Swing, was shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award, longlisted for Canada Reads and named a Best Book of the Year by the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star. Danny’s children’s book, Salma the Syrian Chef, won the Nautilus Book Award, The Middle East Book Award and was named a Best Book by both Kirkus and School Library Journal. His latest novel, The Foghorn Echoes, was released in 2022. His upcoming memoir, Crooked Teeth, will be released by Penguin Random House in 2024. Danny has an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC. In 2020, he was a finalist for the inaugural Bridge Prize award for his short story On the Miraculous Return of Khalid from the Dead. Ramadan lives in Vancouver.

Madeleine Thien

Madeliene Thien was born in Vancouver. She is the author of four books of fiction, including Dogs at the Perimeter and Do Not Say We Have Nothing, which received the 2016 Giller Prize and The Governor-General’s Literary Award for Fiction. Her books have been shortlisted for The Booker Prize, The Women’s Prize for Fiction, and The Folio Prize, longlisted for a Carnegie Medal and translated into more than 25 languages. Madeleine’s essays and stories can be found in The New Yorker, Granta, Brick, The Guardian, The Times Literary Supplement and The New York Review of Books. She has taught literature and fiction in Canada, China, Germany, Nigeria, the United States, Zimbabwe, Singapore and Japan and currently teaches writing and literature at the City ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of New York.

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Toronto student captures ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Bridge Prize short story contest

trevor.kenney — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 22:11:28 +0000

Seeking to rediscover her voice, ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Toronto student Chido Muchemwa entered The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Bridge Prize short story contest on a whim and produced the grand prize-winning submission. Her story, If It Wasn’t for the Nights, was deemed the best of 187 entries from throughout the country and earned her the $7,500 first-place award, the largest cash prize for student writing in Canada.

Bridge Prize winner Chido Muchemwa

“When I submitted to the Bridge Prize, I never thought I would win. I did it impulsively because I felt I needed to do something to convince myself that I was indeed still a writer,” says Muchemwa, a Zimbabwean writer currently living in Canada and PhD candidate in the Faculty of Information at the U of T. “My father died in 2020, and I felt like words abandoned me.”

Muchemwa was joined by three other finalists as award winners for the biennial event. The Bridge Prize was established in 2019 by the ULethbridge School of Liberal Education and Vancouver-based alumnus and donor Terry Whitehead (BA ’94). It is Canada’s only national short story competition open exclusively to post-secondary graduate and undergraduate students studying at Canadian universities and colleges.

Each of the other three finalists, Lily Scriven (York ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ), Eliza Ives (��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of New Brunswick), Fernando Tarini (��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary), earned $1,000 prizes, while each winning author also earned $200 gift cards from major sponsor Munro’s Books. Waubgeshig Rice, who is also a juror for the 2022 Giller Prize, served on the Bridge Prize jury and is enthused about the quality of writing from the post-secondary generation.

“Serving on the Bridge Prize jury has been a major career highlight,” says Rice. “The stories submitted provided me a thorough glimpse of the exceptional talent among emerging writers in Canada today. I was captivated by the craft and content in each of the submissions, and I look forward to reading more from these gifted authors in the future!”

Muchemwa’s work was praised by juror Lisa Moore.

“The language is transparent, unadorned, and concise — an elegant piece of writing. The story is jampacked with nuanced moments, calibrations of tension and a kind of uneasy epiphany — not sentimental but ephemeral and beautifully satisfying,” she says.

For Muchemwa, whose work has appeared in Lolwe, Augur, Catapult, Baltimore Review and Bacopa Literary Review, the act of putting her ideas into a story again was cathartic.

“If It Wasn’t for the Nights is the only new story that I have been able to write since 2020,” she says. “The Bridge Prize is a much-needed confidence boost, and a reminder that the process doesn’t have to be perfect to produce good, meaningful stories.”

Muchemwa has an MFA in Creative Writing from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Wyoming in 2014 and has been shortlisted twice for the Short Story Day Africa Prize and placed second in the Humber Literary Review’s 2020 Emerging Writers Fiction Contest and in the 2022 Prism International Jacob Zilber Prize for Short Fiction.

Eliza Ives wrote Office Story, which was noted by juror Joan Thomas as being, “Sly and witty, it captures the soul-destroying daily realities of life in a contemporary bureaucracy. The dialogue is terrific. So expertly done — Office Story reads like a published work.”

Juror Sam Wiebe was impressed by Lily Scriven’s Women in the Morning Light.

“Thoughtful and elegantly written, clever but not flippant, with resonant themes of art, history, and female perspective,” says Wiebe. “An enviably smooth prose style.”

Fernando Tarini’s Durian Days was praised for its “Clever angle, refreshing take on grief and youth,” by juror Francesca Ekwuyasi.

About the Bridge Prize

• Established in 2019 and first awarded in 2020, a new competition will run every second year.

• Total prize money for the Bridge Prize is $10,500, with $7,500 to the winner and $1,000 each to three finalists.

• 187 stories from students attending 48 post-secondary institutions in nine provinces across Canada were entered for 2022.

• An initial group of 30 local jurors, comprised of campus and community-based ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ and cultural leaders, read all 187 stories. Each story was read by a minimum of three jurors, after which the field was narrowed to the top 70. Every local juror then read each of the 70 stories before 10 were sent on to the main jury.

• The six-person main jury was comprised of authors, artists and educators Francesca Ekwuyasi, Lisa Moore, Waubgeshig Rice, Bill Richardson, Joan Thomas and Sam Wiebe.

• For more, visit the Bridge Prize web page.

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge appoints first ever Evelyn Hamilton Chair in Liberal Education

caroline.zentner — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 21:25:01 +0000

The School of Liberal Education has appointed Miranda Leibel as the first Evelyn Hamilton Chair in Liberal Education at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge.

“We are so pleased to announce that Miranda will become the School of Liberal Education’s inaugural Evelyn Hamilton Chair,” says Dr. Shelly Wismath, dean of the school. “Her work on open and transparent government and social policy fits well with research and teaching in the School of Liberal Education and with the aims of the Evelyn Hamilton Chair.”

Photo by Sierra Duffey

The Chair was established a year ago following a $2-million donation from Art and Mary Jane Crooks. The position was named in honour of Art’s mother, Evelyn Hamilton, who had an expansive and inquisitive worldview and demonstrated lifelong learning.

“I’m excited to join the School of Liberal Education,” says Leibel. “There are lots of folks from all kinds of disciplines working together here and that’s really what energizes me — being around people who are doing completely different things and having the opportunity to learn from them and their work. I think there’s a lot of possibilities for collaboration.”

Leibel was born and raised in Edmonton and obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta. She began her studies in the political science department with a desire to focus on international relations.

“I took lots of different classes and just found that, actually, that wasn’t what I was most interested in,” says Leibel. “I started taking more classes on Canadian politics, specifically around social justice, feminism, race and settler colonialism.”

When it came time to pursue a doctoral degree, Leibel moved to Ottawa and attended Carleton ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ. She defended her PhD thesis earlier this summer through Carleton’s Institute of Indigenous and Canadian Studies, after focusing her research on review processes for the deaths of children in care across Canada.

“Very quickly, I realized a lot of these inquiries were about Indigenous children in care,” she says. “Of course, that fits into a broader context where Indigenous children are vastly over-represented in child welfare systems across Canada. I wanted to think about why that was and how the conversations that come out of the review process could potentially bring the issue to a wider audience and increase awareness, but also have potential concerns when graphic details are shared and become a subject for public consumption.”

Leibel says important policy changes can result, but more often than not, government officials and the media are imagining their audience to be white settler Canadians.

“There are a lot of Indigenous-led organizations and activists doing really phenomenal work,” she says. “Ensuring that those are the voices given the space to take on those more prominent roles and say what the solutions would be is the right thing to do.”

The goal of the Evelyn Hamilton Chair is to instill among students the liberal education goals of rigorous inquiry, the pursuit of knowledge and critical thought grounded in evidence-based reasoning. The Chair will advance a culture that educates and promotes discussion among students, the public and decision makers on how to think clearly and carefully about issues and assess evidence and impact.

In keeping with that goal, Leibel will conduct research into data literacy and open government. Open government is a recent phenomenon that has gained traction with the ability to digitize records. The Canadian government has an open government portal which allows anyone to access data and digital records such as government contracts, maps and surveys.

“On one hand, it’s really exciting to be able to go in and see how the government is making decisions and how it’s reaching conclusions about different things,” she says. “But, on the other hand, when you go in and look at the statistics, unless you know a lot about statistics and have that data literacy, it’s not actually particularly helpful for a lot of people.”

Leibel’s interest is in how open government information could be used to address social justice demands and movements, such as advancing reconciliation and feminist goals. She also hopes to get students involved in the research. In addition to research, Leibel will begin her teaching duties next semester.

New Community Bridge Lab serves as hub for connecting students to each other, ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ and community

trevor.kenney — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 18:08:38 +0000

Community Bridge Lab Showcase takes place Thursday, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Dr. Foster James Penny Building (324 5 St S)

One of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s greatest contributions to southern Alberta is the annual influx of bright, talented, eager minds ready to contribute to society. Building on that, ULethbridge opened the new Community Bridge Lab (CBL) in January — a specific space designed to support multi-disciplinary and community-engaged student research projects across the social sciences and humanities.

ULethbridge student Rebeca Spencer working in the field with environmentalists and stewards of land in southern Alberta.

The Community Bridge Lab acts as a hub for academic and community organizations that have research and project needs to connect with ULethbridge students who have project ideas and skills to contribute. The CBL enhances student training through expanded work-integrated learning opportunities and creates even more opportunities for community organizations to draw on the unique skill sets of ULethbridge students, even as it supports the core elements of a liberal education.

“Traditional lab spaces are a hallmark of the sciences but more often than not, are lacking for the social sciences — making this lab a wonderful addition to campus,” says Dr. Shelly Wismath, Dean of the School of Liberal Education. “Student-engaged and community-centric work is a strength of our university and until now, independent and group-research in the social sciences and humanities has largely been facilitated through independent studies, applied studies, and honours theses. This lab allows us to build on the strengths of these existing programs by further supporting our students to work collaboratively with faculty, community organizations, and each other.”

To build the same kind of shared lab space aimed at building teams and highlighting the strengths of qualitative research, Wismath and Dr. Jan Newberry (anthropology) proposed the idea of the CBL. In its first year of operation, they were joined by Drs. Jodie Asselin (anthropology), Julie Young (geography and environment) and Kaylan Schwarz (liberal education) as the core advisory group that serves as supervisors and mentors to undergraduate lab fellows working on community-engaged projects.

How it Works

Students engaged in community-oriented research through independent studies, honours projects, or research positions apply to become a lab fellow. Fellows then receive peer support through meetings with other student researchers, training through workshops and speakers, mentorship through faculty support, and lab space withing which to work and brainstorm. Fellows can also apply for CBL funding where appropriate.

“We anticipate holding an annual Community Bridge Day, meant to support creative and community-oriented discussions, where fellows will have an opportunity to publicly share their work,” says Wismath. “During this, the first summer of our collaboration, we supported five lab fellows who shared resources and met regularly to debrief about their experiences working on their independent projects.”

On Thursday, September 8, 2022, the Community Bridge Lab Showcase takes place from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Dr. Foster James Penny Building (324 5 St S), where each student fellow will give a short presentation on their project.

The projects included Lily Overacker’s (anthropology and history) study on what community-engaged research looks like across Canada and in different community contexts, while also doing a local community scan of opportunities for community-engaged research.

Amy Cran (anthropology) examined how a grassroots outreach organization, SAGE Clan Patrol, makes use of traditional Blackfoot Knowledge in their work of assisting people experiencing addiction and homelessness in Lethbridge.

Rebeca Spencer (anthropology and psychology) conducted research using immersive, participant observation with environmentalists and stewards of land in southern Alberta to understand their motivations and their relationship to hope, while Joni Smith (education) worked on the MasterCard Foundation-supported Blackfoot Women’s Empowerment Project to assist in developing a social enterprise for her fellow Blackfoot women artisans and crafters.

Alyssa White (anthropology) continued her work building an educational resource about anthropology in collaboration with both faculty and students that is meant to be inclusive, diverse, and accessible to everyone in the community.

The fellows made use of the lab space, its computers, coding software and transcription tools, but say the most important benefits of the CBL were the opportunities for collaboration with one another, faculty mentors and community organizations.

“It was a great opportunity for me to be mentored by a variety of professors from different disciplines and expand my perspective on interdisciplinary qualitative research,” says Overacker.

Smith’s greatest takeaway was how the CBL connected her to the community.

“I was able to gather data through hosting events and doing surveys to establish a thorough understanding of what is lacking in the artisan industry, using social media and our BWE website to promote our events,” she says. “I also hosted a night market where I met so many Blackfoot women who are dedicated to improving themselves through their passion of being an artisan.”

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge expands eligibility for Early Start Experience course

caroline.zentner — Tue, 07 Jun 2022 20:16:08 +0000

Students, whether they are entering their first year of studies at ULethbridge or if they’re a second-year student who’s never set foot on campus due to the Covid-19 pandemic, are eligible to take the Early Start Experience (ESE) course to help ease the transition to campus.

Dr. Shelly Wismath teaches a group of students in a Liberal Education course.

Offered through the School of Liberal Education, students enrolled in ESE earn a full three-credit course (Social Science List), meet other students, learn skills needed for studies at a university level and find out how to access support systems. Along with getting an academic introduction to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ and its various disciplines, students tour campus, take workshops on study skills, use the library for research, write essays and participate in fun group activities.

“The ESE is normally only open to students about to enter their first year, but given the disruptions of the past year, we are opening the course to students now entering their second year,” says Dr. Shelly Wismath, dean of the School of Liberal Education. “The first semester is often the hardest for first-year students and coming to campus for the first time, even if you are in your second year, can be daunting. The ESE not only helps students find their way around campus, but also helps them learn this whole new system with its own culture, rules and standards.”

Students who’ve taken ESE in the past say the course was invaluable in helping them make the transition to university life.

“I would absolutely encourage new students to take ESE,” says Noelle Kuntz, a ULethbridge fine arts student. “You’ll meet many friends who you can stay in touch with for the rest of your university experience and you’ll learn a ton from the course. Another huge benefit is getting a full course credit in just two weeks.”

“I am filled with amazement with how much more prepared I am for the year,” said one student who took the course in 2020. “Many, if not all, of my fears, worries and concerns were all addressed during the classes. I feel confident that I will be able to use the tools provided by this program and that I will be able to succeed — no, thrive — in my first year.”

The ESE course, called LBED 1500, runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. for two weeks from Monday, Aug. 22 to Friday, Sept. 2. Visit ESE for more information.

Donation provides more work-integrated learning opportunities for ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge students

caroline.zentner — Tue, 12 Apr 2022 20:35:53 +0000

A $1-million gift from Art and Mary Jane Crooks will help ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge students apply what they learn in the classroom to a paid-work setting.

The Crooks Work-Integrated Learning Program in Liberal Education will give students the opportunity to critically examine the world around them and obtain practical hands-on experiences, whether in research, volunteer or community roles, that allow them to develop their professional skills and prepare to enter the world of work after graduation.

“Today, more than ever, it is essential that graduates have skills and experience to go along with their classroom learning,” says Art Crooks. “We are pleased to be able to support this innovative and integrated approach.”

The School of Liberal Education will oversee the program, with priority given to learning opportunities in community projects in business, non-profit or other organizations. The program is open to undergraduate students from any discipline and will be run in collaboration with the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ’s Career Bridge Centre. Students undertaking these internships will be supervised by a ULethbridge professor and a business or community supervisor. Suitable projects will be eligible for Independent or Applied Study credit or Co-op designation and can be full- or part-time.

“We are so grateful to Art Crooks and his family for providing this support for students, in addition to their donation that founded the Evelyn Hamilton Chair in Liberal Education,” says Shelly Wismath, dean of the School of Liberal Education. “This program will provide students with practical hands-on experience in way that allows them to analyze and apply the knowledge they’ve gained in the classroom.”

At ULethbridge, liberal education focuses on breadth, connections across disciplines, critical thinking and citizenship. This approach exposes students to the arts, humanities and social and natural sciences and helps them develop problem-solving skills, social responsibility and become global citizens who are engaged in their communities.

“We know from years of students participating in co-op work terms or other research or job opportunities, that they’re more professional in their student work and they’ve seen the reason why they’re learning theoretical knowledge,” says Wismath. “They see where it’s used, what it’s good for and how it matters in the community.”

Community organizations with inquiries or a potential project are invited to submit an expression of interest by email to Career Bridge at career.bridge@uleth.ca by Friday, April 29. Students interested in a paid internship are invited to apply with a cover letter and resume to Wismath at wismaths@uleth.ca by Friday, April 29. For more details visit the Crooks Work-Integrated Learning Program.

About the donors

Art Crooks attended Amherst College in Massachusetts and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1961. He pursued a Masters of Business Administration at the then-��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Western Ontario, now Western ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ. Following graduation, Art took a job in sales and quickly rose through the ranks to become a regional and then national sales manager.

Mary Jane Crooks, although she was accepted at McGill ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, chose to pursue a career in advertising. She started at Eaton’s in Toronto and later worked with advertising agencies, where she won a copywriting award for her series on the carousel slide projector.

In 1971 when he was 30, Art interviewed for a Canadian Tire franchise and was approved to purchase his first store in Blenheim, Ont. As the couple worked to establish the business, Art and Mary Jane did the jobs of three people to save money on a salary. While Art placed orders, worked at the parts counter, unloaded trucks and stocked the store, Mary Jane did the books. Profits were modest in the beginning, but they persisted. A year later, they purchased the Pembroke store in the Ottawa Valley and, in 1979, they jumped at the chance to open the first store in Lethbridge. The business succeeded and grew, as did their family of three children. In recent years, Art and Mary Jane have turned their focus to giving back to the community that provided so much to them and their family over the last 40 years.

Bridge Prize contest draws entries from across Canada

caroline.zentner — Mon, 14 Feb 2022 20:27:16 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Bridge Prize, Canada’s largest literary prize for post-secondary students, has once again received an overwhelming number of entries.

When the deadline for entries closed at midnight on Jan. 24, 186 manuscripts from 49 post-secondary institutions across nine provinces had been received.

Dr. Shelly Wismath

“The Bridge Prize is meant to inspire and motivate the next generation of literary artists in Canada,” says Dr. Shelly Wismath, dean of the U of L’s School of Liberal Education. “To have received nearly 200 submissions indicates we have plenty of aspiring literary artists in our midst. We look forward to announcing our winners in early fall.”

The Bridge Prize is a biennial short-story, fiction writing competition launched in March 2019 by the School of Liberal Education. The contest is open to any student registered in a Canadian post-secondary institution at the time of the submission deadline. The prize is designed to celebrate excellence in the literary arts, nurture aspiring writers and support the transition from student writing to professional literary art.

“We are very pleased with the number of submissions we have received for this second iteration of the Bridge Prize,” says U of L alumnus Terry Whitehead (BA ’94), founder and lead donor of the competition. “It’s heartening to know we have such an enthusiastic group of budding creative writers in our post-secondary institutions.”

One thing is sure, the panel of judges have quite a task ahead. The 2022 Bridge Prize Main Jury includes some of Canada’s most beloved authors and emerging writers — Joan Thomas, Bill Richardson, Lisa Moore, Waubgeshig Rice, Francesca Ekwuyasi and Sam Wiebe.

Each submission will first be evaluated by a local jury that will select the top 10 entries to be forwarded to the main jury by May 30. The main jury will then select a winner and three finalists in August, with the winners to be announced in September.

Sponsors of the Bridge Prize include The Walrus and Munro’s Books in Victoria, B.C. The winner receives $7,500 and three finalists will be awarded $1,000. All four winners will also receive a $200 gift card courtesy of Munro’s Books.

U of L establishes Evelyn Hamilton Chair in Liberal Education

caroline.zentner — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 19:53:02 +0000

Thanks to a $2-million donation from Art and Mary Jane Crooks, the Evelyn Hamilton Chair in Liberal Education at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge will honour Art’s mother and her lifelong desire to learn.

“We are very grateful to Art and Mary Jane for this generous donation,” says Mike Mahon, U of L president and vice-chancellor. “Art’s mother, Evelyn Hamilton, is a perfect example of someone who lived the values of liberal education and we are proud to name the Chair of Liberal Education in her honour.”

Evelyn Hamilton and her husband, Hew Crooks, resided in Ontario, where Art grew up. Art and Mary Jane moved from Ontario to Lethbridge in 1979 to open the city’s first Canadian Tire Store. Since then, they have been benefactors to many organizations in the city and elsewhere.

“We wanted to establish the Evelyn Hamilton Chair in Liberal Education in dedication to her memory,” says Art. “My mother had an expansive and inquisitive worldview and her standards were exacting. She had many talents and embodied lifelong learning. Throughout her life, she was grounded by her core values of self-reliance, self-discipline and intellectual rigour.”

The Evelyn Hamilton Chair will be engaged in teaching and evidence-based research within the School of Liberal Education. The position is designed to instill among students the liberal education goals of rigorous inquiry, the pursuit of knowledge and critical thought grounded in evidence-based reasoning. The Chair will advance a culture that educates and promotes discussion among students, the public and decision makers on how to think clearly and carefully about issues and assess evidence and impact.

Mary Jane and Art Crooks.

“This Chair is a great fit for the vision we have for the School of Liberal Education and we are absolutely thrilled to have this happening,” says Dr. Shelly Wismath, dean of the School of Liberal Education. “Liberal education is our foundational teaching and learning philosophy and this Chair is going to heighten that. We’re going to be looking for someone to help in the areas of critical thinking, but within that, to look at things like media literacy, how to teach students to be thoughtful consumers of what they see and read in the media, to question the sources of things, to think about viewpoints being presented and to engage in open and careful discussion of issues.”Evelyn Hamilton is described as a relentless force, a distinctive combination of prairie thrift, grit and self-reliance fused with a lifelong desire to learn, travel, explore and expand her view of the world. Along with being a gifted artist, Hamilton was a demanding teacher, a strong feminist and a staunch defender of the environment.

Her philosophy of life is evident in her words, taken from a 1931 letter to her fiancé, Hew Crooks:

“I want to feel that we are using to the full the gifts that we have, and that we are lifting ourselves inwardly as well as outwardly above the average run. This does not mean that we will be snobbish or self-satisfied. In fact, I believe it means that we will be in a better position to be true friends to those about us and truly helpful to the world. I do feel that one can fulfill a worthwhile mission in life by being worthwhile, not being afraid to take a stand for what you consider right, and by lending a helping hand to those about you whenever possible.”

Born in Saskatchewan in 1904, Hamilton spent her early childhood in the Crowsnest Pass where her father operated Leitch Collieries. She graduated from high school in Lethbridge at age 15 and spent a year studying music at the Winnipeg School of Art before entering the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Manitoba. After graduating in 1924, she returned to Passburg, a small town in Crowsnest Pass, to become the schoolmistress at a one-room school.

As the town of Passburg was in decline, Hamilton returned to Winnipeg and became a decorative specialist and model home stylist for Eaton’s. The job allowed her to travel to major cities, including New York. The city’s energy captivated her and she obtained a position at a major department store on Fifth Avenue. When the Great Depression occurred, the loss of her work visa forced an early return to Canada.

She met her future husband, Hew, while working at Eaton’s in Toronto. The Depression spelled some hard times for Hamilton and her family, and they eventually settled in Guelph, Ontario. When the Second World War broke out, Hew enlisted and spent the next six years overseas. During this time, Hamilton taught high school and studied early childhood education. She also obtained a position as a student of and assistant to Group of Seven-member Arthur Lismer. Hamilton continued to paint throughout her life.

Following the war, Evelyn and Hew settled in London, Ontario. She was active in public service and a pioneer in advocating for working women. Her steadfast efforts were key to establishing the city’s first day-care centre. Hamilton was also at the forefront of preserving the historic character of the city. After her children were grown, she continued her education, learning Spanish and earning an MFA from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Guadalajara in Mexico. Back in London, she became an arts superintendent and taught high school French and Spanish. Hamilton passed away in London in 1990.

The investment is part of the U of L’s SHINE campaign and highlights the community’s involvement in supporting students and promoting opportunities for them to thrive while working to achieve their academic goals and become engaged citizens of the world.

UNews - Shelly Wismath

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