UNews - professor

Research project to highlight Kainai women’s activism and build historical literacy

caroline.zentner — Wed, 15 Nov 2017 21:32:42 +0000

In line with the recommendations that flowed from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015), a research project led by Dr. Carol Williams, a professor in Women and Gender Studies and History at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, will assemble diverse historical and contemporary accounts about Kainai women’s community reform work from 1968 to 1990.

“Our goal is to generate a history of southern Alberta Kainai women’s grassroots activism for social change,” says Williams. “We want to expand historical literacy to illustrate how women have positively transformed their communities.”

Researchers and collaborators in the Kainai Women's Project include (back row left to right) Erin Turner, Charlene Oka, Cherilynn Blood, Sonny Brewer, Dr. Carol Williams, Hali Heavy Shied and (front row, left to right) Lenore Hoof, Linda Weasel Head and Faye Heavy Shield.

Williams will collaborate with Hali Heavy Shield (BA, BEd ’06; MEd ’12), vice-principal at Aahsaopi Elementary School on the Blood Reserve; Linda Weasel Head, the library and learning coordinator at the Kainai Public Library, and Faye Heavy Shield, a nationally exhibited independent artist and Hali’s mother.

“The process of the project demonstrates Indigenous epistemology because it’s a coming together that will give youth, women and us, as a community of researchers, a chance to collaborate,” says Hali Heavy Shield. “In a sense, that’s the traditional way of knowing and learning for Kainai. We’re very much being authentic to the family systems of learning.”

The project, titled Kainai Women’s Activism in Treaty 7 Territory 1968 to 1990: Contemporary Histories of Social Change, has received more than $121,000 over three years from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

“This research project is very timely, given the 94 calls for action that came out of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” says Hali Heavy Shield. “We had two residential schools in Kainai, St. Paul’s and St. Mary’s, and so now is a time for the process and a call on our federal, provincial and even our community leadership to first tell the truth about our own history.”

Students will be involved in every step of the research, including creating a preliminary display consisting of historical articles, photos or government reports to be used as a starting point for conversations at community gatherings. Williams says many historical documents have not been accessible to community members and the research project is committed to repatriation of a range of relevant records.

Glenbow Archives #NA-2908-12. About the subject of this portrait, Faye Heavy Shield notes: “Kate Three Persons was married to Pete Heavy Shield, widowed, and then married to Tom Three Persons. Kate was an artist, designer and storyteller. I believe any art I’ve made was through her.”

The study will use a variety of methods to engage with community. Williams says her previous research on Indigenous women’s social and educational activism has indicated that the health and education of children has been a key motivation for action. For example, Faye (Heavy Shield), Hali (Heavy Shield) and Linda (Weasel Head) were part of the community group that was instrumental in building the partnership with Blood Tribe Chief and Council, Kainai Board of Education and Chinook Arch Regional Library System to get the public library on the reserve. The library was crucial in building literacy through access to books and the Internet.

Linda Weasel Head speaks to these ambitions: “Our goal in creating a library was to offer an essential service on the reserve as many people were unable to get to services in surrounding communities. The bigger picture is to offer an opportunity to increase literacy skills and that reading, writing and numeracy skills assist over time in lowering poverty. Our library’s motto, Okstakit (read), reflects what our people did to survive, thrive and pass on knowledge or pommotsiiysinni. Our library is a facet of all those purposes or ihpipototst and opportunities, or aksistoiypaittapiisini, while demonstrating kindness or kimmapiipitsinni, and respect or innakotsiiysinni. Most important is aasimmoiyihkanni, as we are all spiritual beings who must look out for each other through prayer and positive actions.”

Faye Heavy Shield reflects on how making art can also be part of women’s activism, as it was artists who kept traditional songs, ceremonies and beadwork alive, despite federal prohibitions against cultural and ceremonial life: “As a child, through the stories told me by Sommitsikana, I experienced an immersive adventure into the fantastic where animals spoke and a hero came to life from a blood clot. Later, I recognized the more profound impact of maintaining language, imagination, and the aspiration to values of kindness, courage and creativity and, not the least — time spent with a grandmother.”

The Kainai women’s project will include a series of cultural and historical workshops for all age groups. The workshops might take the form of using art to make graphic histories, sessions of storytelling, archival scanning of historical family photographs, talking circles or other small conversational gatherings.

“I am an educator and I hope to use my experience in the classroom to bring about and encourage and inspire members of the community to tell stories and to be inspired themselves, to tell their truth and to share,” says Hali Heavy Shield.

“One central motivation for this project is to expand historical literacy about women’s labour and social and community activism,” says Williams. “Another of the major eventual outcomes will be a sustainable website that will become a legacy for Kainai educators teaching kindergarten to Grade 12, but also for university students and other researchers.”

Dr. Carol Williams

Williams said another important goal of the project is to mentor and train Indigenous students so they can continue to build Kainai community histories and develop marketable skills for their future careers. Several research assistants have joined the project to assist in reviewing and assembling archival documents, helping with design of workshops and contributing to the thematic organization of the project.

Charlene Oka (BA ’17), Ii’ni’skin’akii (Buffalo Stone Woman), is a member of Kainai, mother to five children and grandmother to two grandsons, with a granddaughter on the way. She is working toward applying to graduate studies and is exploring and learning more about Kainai and its historical roots.

Sonny Brewer was raised with Blackfoot traditions and ceremony and brings an understanding of cultural practices and protocol to the Kainai Women’s project. As a third-year music (composition) student, Brewer offers a different perspective on the project, through a lens rooted in the aural realm.

Erin Turner, a fourth-year history major at the U of L, will lend her expertise as an archival researcher. Her travels abroad have given her a greater respect for cultural diversity in Canada and around the world.

Rachel Hoof, Sootaaki, (Rain Woman), is a fourth-year social work student studying at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary’s Lethbridge campus. Hoof wants to help youth, women and families as they work toward healing and recovery from the historical impacts of colonization.

Cherilynn Blood, Puhksikaki’ihkitsikimuhksaki, is a member of Kainai and the mother of one. She is working towards becoming a teacher of Social Studies and Native American studies. She’s an advocate for Indigenous peoples and looks forward to working on the Kainai women’s project to learn more about Blackfoot history for future use in classrooms.

“Our commitment is to collaboration, reciprocity and challenging the colonial character of the archives with alternative stories and histories,” says Williams. “We will find our path as we go.”

Honorary degree recipient has been with the U of L from the start

caroline.zentner — Mon, 15 May 2017 19:16:43 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge is pleased to announce that Dr. Dennis Connolly, a mathematics professor since 1967, will receive an honorary degree at the 2017 Spring Convocation ceremonies.

“During the U of L’s 50th anniversary year, we are doubly proud to award Dennis Connolly an honorary degree during his 50th-year career anniversary,” says U of L Chancellor Janice Varzari. “Throughout his time here, Dennis has shown outstanding commitment to this institution and its students and that makes him a perfect ambassador to the community at large.”

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ will present Connolly with the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, at the 2017 Spring Convocation II Ceremony on June 1 at 2:30 p.m. in the 1st Choice Savings Centre for Sport and Wellness.

Dr. Dennis Connolly

Dr. Dennis Connolly was one of the original professors hired by the fledgling ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge in 1967 and he is the last of that group still to be teaching 50 years later. Connolly found himself storm-stayed in Lethbridge during the blizzard of 1967. He checked out the campus, applied for a position in the mathematics department and signed on for two years.

Connolly completed an undergraduate degree in mathematics at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Sydney in his homeland of Australia. As a Commonwealth Scholar, he completed a master’s degree at Western ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in 1967 and later earned a doctorate at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of York in England.

An exemplary scholar, Connolly has published works on statistics, probability and casino gambling. He has lectured on numerous and varied topics, including sundials and projectiles and written about predicting the tides, mortgage renewals and league schedules.

He has been a keen supporter of U of L students, taking in Pronghorn games and Faculty of Fine Arts drama productions and supporting Pronghorn Athletics. He’s also fostered school spirit through his participation in the United Way campus campaign and the Supporting Our Students campaign. For all his efforts on behalf of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, Connolly received the 2009 Senate Volunteer Award.

U of L establishes School of Liberal Education

caroline.zentner — Tue, 18 Apr 2017 16:24:38 +0000

Solving complex problems facing the world today takes the expertise of professionals who can think critically and broadly. The Ebola outbreak of 2014-2015, for example, came under control with the involvement of not only doctors and nurses, but also scientists, researchers, developers, policy makers and an anthropologist who knew cultural beliefs about the dead were helping spread the virus.

The response to the Ebola outbreak illustrates a liberal education approach and the need for workers to have broad skills and knowledge and an ability to apply them to problems like Ebola and global warming, the Zika virus, feeding the world’s population, poverty and the lack of drinking water.

Liberal education can be defined as an education that provides breadth across disciplines, the ability to connect and integrate knowledge across disciplines, the opportunity to learn critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and civic engagement. Students with a grounding in liberal education, which incorporates liberal arts and the sciences, are better prepared to solve problems in the 21st century and to succeed in future careers.

Fifty years ago, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge adopted liberal education as its primary philosophy for teaching and learning. Concerned that the focus had narrowed to only requiring students to take courses from several disciplines, Dr. Andy Hakin, vice-president (Academic) and provost, called for a review of liberal education in 2014. The review has resulted in the establishment of a School of Liberal Education, a decision approved by the U of L Board of Governors on April 13.

“The School of Liberal Education will create a solid organizational structure to ensure our students and communities benefit the most from our teaching, learning and research,” says Hakin. “The development of a School celebrates our ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ’s founding philosophy for teaching and learning adopted 50 years ago.”

“It’s wonderful and I think it’s a very natural evolution of the last three or four years’ work on liberal education and of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ’s development and history,” says Dr. Shelly Wismath, a professor and leader of the Liberal Education Revitalization Team. “It’s time we came back to the more philosophical approach to liberal education. It’s very timely; we need critical thinking and evidence-based reasoning now more than ever to address complex issues in the world.”

Dr. Shelley Wismath, centre, discusses a problem-solving exercise with students as part of a Liberal Education class.

After extensive consultations, the team concluded the best way to move forward was to form a School of Liberal Education. The Liberal Education Program currently has four full-time instructors and is part of the Faculty of Arts & Science. As the number of Liberal Education courses offered has increased over the years, so too has enrolment, thus creating demand for upper level Liberal Education courses. The creation of a school provides opportunities to expand beyond the Faculty of Arts & Science and integrate liberal education programming throughout the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ.

“A big part of this is educating our students and our communities that, at university, you learn to think carefully and well about all the important issues of our time,” she says.

The School will officially come into being on July 1 and its primary responsibility will be to deliver liberal education programming and teaching. As a formal school, other opportunities can also be explored, such as promoting liberal education to faculty, students and community members, offering dual credit courses to high school students, offering critical thinking workshops and facilitating teaching and research connections across campus.

Visiting Fulbright scholar to investigate links between early stress and addiction

caroline.zentner — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 15:47:56 +0000

Dr. John Ziker, Chair of the anthropology department at Boise State ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in Idaho, will be spending the fall semester at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge as the Fulbright Canada-Palix Foundation Distinguished Visiting Research Chair in Brain Science, and Child and Family Health and Wellness.

“It’s an honour to get this award. It’s facilitating this new research direction and collaboration,” he says.

Ziker is one of three professors to receive the Fulbright Canada award. Dr. Lloyd Taylor, a psychology professor from South Carolina, will conduct research into the bullying and ostracism of adolescents with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary. Dr. Patrick Carnes, an authority on sex addiction and recovery, will conduct research to identify specific gene variants associated with sex addiction at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta. Today, the three are participating in a panel discussion at the U of C to formally launch the second year of the program.

While he’s at the U of L, Ziker will conduct research to test hypotheses about behavioural pathways for the transmission of stress responses from one generation to another. Using Statistics Canada’s National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY), Ziker will look at 100 variables across the 15 years of the study. He’ll be looking for correlations between factors like parental use of alcohol during pregnancy, low birth weight, premature birth, parental depression and family dynamics.

“I’m interested in a possible behavioural pathway to the intergenerational transmission of alcoholism, drug use and depression,” he says. “The hypothesis is that if individuals are in a harsh environment, they would tend to be more present-oriented and possibly be more likely to abuse alcohol and drugs. Also, it’s more likely they will be having children earlier in their lives so they might put the next generation under the same conditions they were put under.”

Ziker will use both life history theory and behavioural ecology approaches. Life history theory examines the timing of major life course events while behavioural ecology looks at how individuals adapt to social, physical and environmental characteristics.

“Certain periods in the lifespan are really critical for the development of healthy brains and healthy social relationships. The prenatal and early childhood environment is very important, and research shows that traumatic events in middle childhood can increase morbidity and mortality rates. When you have really harsh environments, it tends to shorten the lifespan and people adapt to that by having an earlier age of first birth,” he says.

Based on the hypothesis that social support might moderate the negative effects of harsh environments, Ziker will also examine data on support networks to see if they have a beneficial effect.

The results of Ziker’s research will add to the body of knowledge about the developmental causes of health and disease.

Ziker is hosted by Dr. Louise Barrett, a U of L psychology professor and Canada Research Chair in Cognition, Evolution and Behaviour. As part of his Fulbright award, Ziker will participate in some outreach activities for the Palix Foundation’s Alberta Family Wellness Initiative. Following today’s panel discussion in Calgary, Ziker is scheduled to give a talk about ways to improve outcomes for Lethbridge children and their families on Monday, Oct. 3 at the Lethbridge Fall Community Reception 2016 from 5 to 7 p.m. in Markin Hall.

Ziker is familiar with Alberta from previous visits; he met his wife, Shelanda Kujala (BMgt ’00), in Calgary when he was a Fulbright scholar at U of C in 2008.

Fulbright Canada is a binational, treaty-based, non-governmental, not-for-profit organization with a mandate to identify the best and brightest minds in the United States and Canada and engage them in residential academic exchange. The Palix Foundation is a proactive private foundation that established the Alberta Family Wellness Initiative in 2007 to better understand and address how intergenerational factors in children’s lives impact their health and well-being throughout life.

Dr. Artur Luczak elected to the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists

caroline.zentner — Tue, 13 Sep 2016 16:31:58 +0000

While he’s recently received media attention for his paper on choking self-treatment published in the journal Resuscitation, Dr. Artur Luczak, a ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge neuroscience professor, typically receives attention for his research into neural activity in the sensory cortex.

Luczak has been elected to the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. The College is the first national system of multidisciplinary recognition for the emerging generation of Canadian intellectual leadership. Members have demonstrated a high level of achievement at an early age in their career.

“Neuroscience is a fantastic journey of discoveries and I really enjoy taking a part in it,” says Luczak, who is currently working on an epilepsy project at Stanford ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ. “It is a great honour for me to be recognized by the RSC but I owe it to many people I have worked with.”

“Artur’s hard work has led to many worthwhile academic accomplishments and I was happy to nominate him,” says U of L President Mike Mahon. “I’m very pleased he has been elected to the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists.”

As part of the Lethbridge Brain Dynamics group at the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience, Luczak’s has determined through his research that information in the brain’s cortex is not processed continuously but in discrete packets. Some neurons, whether spontaneously or in response to a stimulus, are active early and others are active later. Taken together, their activity forms a packet filled with information. He proposes the packets allow the brain to integrate and exchange information throughout all brain areas.

Luczak is also involved in promoting brain research as president of the Lethbridge Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience. His expertise in computational neuroscience gives students the opportunity to use statistics and programming techniques in neuroscience.

Luczak’s website has more information about his research work.

Anyone who wants to know more about the College and its annual nomination process is invited to attend a workshop on Tuesday, Nov. 15 at the U of L. Dr. Alidad Amirfazli, president of the Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars, will be on hand to explain the process.

Three U of L professors elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society of Canada

caroline.zentner — Wed, 07 Sep 2016 16:03:02 +0000

A renowned neuroscientist, an accomplished anthropologist and a leading biologist from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge have been elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC). Their election acknowledges the remarkable accomplishments of Drs. Louise Barrett, Bruce McNaughton and Joe Rasmussen in advancing knowledge and scholarship.

Barrett, a U of L psychology professor, has been elected by her peers in the Anglophone division of the Academy of Social Sciences. Her innovative approaches to evolutionary anthropology and psychology have contributed to an exciting and fruitful interdisciplinary research program. Her training in ecology and anthropology led her to accept a Canada Research Chair in Evolution, Cognition, and Behaviour as well as the publication of influential books and articles on the social nature of cognition. Her research is firmly grounded in world-class empirical field study of social interaction in primate populations.

Dr. Louise Barrett poses with one of her research subjects.

“It is an enormous honour to be elected, and a great thrill to be recognized in this way by my adopted country, but I would never have been able to achieve it without the support and hard work of my collaborator, Peter Henzi, our students and our other research collaborators, so much of the credit must also go to them,” says Barrett. “It also meant a great deal to me to be nominated by Linda Fedigan, as she is without doubt Canada’s leading biological anthropologist, and someone whose work I have long admired.”

“I nominated Dr. Louise Barrett for membership in the FRSC because she is a recognized leader in the field of social cognition. She focuses mainly on social dynamics in wild, non-human primates, specifically baboons and vervets, as models of how animals conceptualize and interact adaptively in their social worlds,” says Dr. Linda Fedigan, FRSC, C.M., ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary professor emerita.

Rasmussen, a biology professor, joins the Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences division of the Academy of Science. He has contributed significantly to the development of tracer approaches to modelling energy flow in food webs, based on fractionation and kinetics of naturally occurring isotopes. These approaches have yielded fresh insights and technical inroads into important ecological problems such as the biomagnification of persistent contaminants and the impacts of heavy metals and mining practices. Rasmussen’s research has important applications to conservation problems, including invasive species, habitat modelling and fragmentation.

Dr. Joe Rasmussen's research has implications for important ecological problems.

“It feels very special to be honoured in this way by colleagues for all these years of doing something that is so much fun. I’m a lucky guy,” says Rasmussen.

“Joe is most deserving of being elected to the Royal Society of Canada. I nominated him because he is a scientist with a broad interdisciplinary scope and strong quantitative skills. He knows the potential that exists in applying theory, tools and modelling approaches from physical sciences to ecology and he’s brave enough to venture into uncharted waters,” says U of L President Mike Mahon.

McNaughton, a neuroscience professor, has been elected to the Life Sciences division of the Academy of Science. His ground-breaking discoveries in systems neuroscience have been the basis for thousands of studies and publications focused on how the world thinks about synaptic plasticity, spatial cognition and long-term memory. His research has dramatically impacted neuroscience theory and his experimental and conceptual work contributed significantly to the work upon which the shared 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine was awarded.

Dr. Bruce McNaughton is a world leader in systems neuroscience.

“Generals get medals for battles won through the courage and sacrifices of their troops. Senior scientists get elected to prestigious societies for much the same reason,” says McNaughton. “It is a pleasure and honour to have been nominated and elected, but the main credit goes to the many talented trainees and research staff who have made any achievement I have made possible.”

“Bruce is truly a world leader in systems neuroscience and he’s made major advances in several areas and pioneered new technologies and new conceptual approaches. He continues to have a huge impact on neuroscience theory, research and methods. I was pleased to nominate him and his election to the Fellowship of the Royal Society recognizes his many accomplishments,” says Mahon.

Distinguished scholars and artists are elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society of Canada every year based on their exceptional contributions to Canadian intellectual life. The Society was established through an Act of Parliament in 1883 as Canada’s National Academy for senior scholars, artists and scientists.

No easy solution to electoral reform

caroline.zentner — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 20:10:26 +0000

Changing Canada’s electoral system will mean making compromises, a point that ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge political science professor, Dr. Harold Jansen, stressed during his appearance before a recent meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on Electoral Reform.

Federal elections in Canada use the first past the post (FPTP) system where the candidate with the most votes in a riding becomes its Member of Parliament. As a result, many candidates win their seats with less than 50 per cent of votes. About a year ago when he was Liberal leader, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he would, if elected, create a committee to look at alternatives to the FPTP system. Alternatives include proportional representation, ranked ballots, mandatory voting and online voting. Jansen was one of several experts to testify before the special committee.

“I would support moving to a proportional system but there are absolutely some costs to that and some uncertainty about what that might mean. We don’t know entirely what that effect would have. You can’t anticipate all the outcomes,” he says.

In his role as a political scientist, Jansen fully grasps the complexity of political systems and he knows easy answers and simple solutions aren’t part of the picture.

“With electoral systems, there are all these competing things we’re trying to achieve at the same time and they don’t go nicely together,” says Jansen. “Canadians tell us they want a system that’s fair, where if you get 20 per cent of the vote you should get 20 per cent of the seats. At the same time, they want majority governments. We can’t have both those things so we have to make tradeoffs.”

Proportional representation (PR) is one of the alternatives to the FPTP system. In PR, the percentage of votes a party gets is the percentage of seats they get in the House of Commons. In the alternative vote (AV) system, the voter ranks the candidates in order of preference. A candidate who gains more than half the votes as the first preference among voters would be elected. If no candidate attains a majority of votes, the candidate who received the fewest first preferences would be eliminated and their votes moved to their second preferences. The process continues until one candidate has half the votes. Much like the AV system, the single transferable vote has voters rank candidates but more than one candidate can be elected.

“With the single transferable vote, you tend to get pretty good correspondence between the percentage of the vote and the percentage of the seats in that district,” he says.

Jansen did his doctoral dissertation on the use of the single transferable vote and the alternative vote in Alberta and Manitoba between 1920 and 1955. He currently researches online citizenship or how people engage in politics through the Internet. Surveys show about 38 per cent of Canadians are concerned about the safety of online voting. Even though they think it’s risky, Jansen found many are enthusiastic about online voting. People with high incomes are more likely to vote online, as are those who feel comfortable online and have good technical skills. Older people who didn’t grow up with online technology are the least likely to want to vote online.

“When it comes to paper voting, the older you are the more likely you are to vote. So the message that I wanted to get to the committee was that, if you do decide to make online voting an option, it should be something supplemental. We shouldn’t have fewer polling stations or cut back on the traditional kinds of things that we do. We don’t want to disenfranchise people,” says Jansen.

After his initial presentation, many MPs had questions about how to get citizens to buy into a new electoral system, whether a referendum should be held and the effects of various kinds of systems.

“I told them I didn’t think the alternative vote was a very good option because I don’t think it fixes the fundamental problem that we don’t get a House of Commons that looks like how people voted,” he says.

Overall, Jansen says he found the experience a positive one. MPs on the committee were curious, respectful and willing to grapple with a difficult task on a short timeline. The committee will likely have to report this fall because Elections Canada needs about two years to implement any kind of change.

“I was excited to get the invitation and honoured to have been asked,” says Jansen. “Some of the other people they had testifying are giants in the discipline. How on earth did they ask me? I am still a little baffled by that.”

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge trio present to Senate committees

caroline.zentner — Tue, 09 Aug 2016 17:47:31 +0000

Earlier this year, three ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge professors were asked to be among the experts consulted by two Standing Senate committees.

Drs. Yale Belanger, Geoffrey Hale and Chris Kukucha, all political science professors, provided their expert knowledge on important issues facing the country, including internal trade and pipelines.

Left to right are Drs. Chris Kukucha, Geoffrey Hale and Yale Belanger.

“I found it to be a great experience. I was tremendously honoured to be asked,” says Belanger. “Senators on these committees know the layers of the issues involved. They anticipated that we know the issues at a deep level so we were there to provide some clarity and some pathways to resolutions so they have a number of different strategies from which to draw in responding to their specific concerns.”

The Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce asked Kukucha to present at a meeting in Calgary. The committee was seeking information about the current state of internal trade in Canada and Kukucha is one of a small number of Canadian political scientists doing research in this area. He wrote a paper for the Internal Trade Secretariat about existing inter-provincial agreements, and was therefore able to describe the pros and cons of various approaches. Kukucha fielded questions from senators on labour mobility, trucking, alcohol, the technical language in agreements, and lack of statistics in internal trade in Canada.

“Presenting to the Senate Committee was a really interesting experience and it was nice to be asked,” says Kukucha. “The negotiations have been going on for years and will continue to do so even though Canada's provincial and territorial premiers reached a preliminary agreement in principle when they recently met in Whitehorse.”

The resulting Senate Committee paper — Tear Down These Walls: Dismantling Canada’s Internal Trade Barriers — is worth a look if only for the last page, which lists the top 10 weirdest barriers to trade.

Belanger and Hale were asked to present to the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications. Belanger says the committee wanted to hear about the barriers to resource and infrastructure development and the best way to handle such projects. While Hale spoke about the complex and convoluted processes involved in securing approvals for infrastructure projects and resource developments, Belanger talked about such developments as they pertain to Aboriginal peoples.

“Right now, media almost exclusively portrays Aboriginal people as stewards of the environment who are absolutely against any sort of industrial progress, when in fact the research that I conducted showed that they’re a little bit more open-minded in terms of the types of industry they’re willing to consider,” he says.

Some First Nations in Canada produce oil and many are interested in seeing pipelines run through their territories. They’re particularly interested in the associated jobs but want to be involved at the drawing-board stage.

“Canada can no longer treat First Nations as simply a community that they come across, throw some money at if there is resistance, and hire a few people to make folks happy in order to get the pipeline built. The First Nations, at this point in time, are quite geared into pressing for partnerships and having a voice early in project development,” says Belanger. “The idea is that Canada has to get First Nations in the room at the very beginning.”

Hale spoke to the manifold process for securing approvals. With players including resource companies, government representatives, stakeholder groups and public safety measures, the path to approval can be long and winding.

“It’s a multi-level, multi-layered process in which companies have to be proactive, patient and have their cultural learning shoes on,” says Hale. “Governments also have to have processes in place that deal with overlapping areas of jurisdiction.”

A final report is is expected sometime this fall but Belanger’s and Hale’s evidence is posted on the Parliament of Canada website.

Dr. Kimberly Mair challenges conventional scholarship in her new book, Guerrilla Aesthetics

caroline.zentner — Tue, 12 Jul 2016 22:08:56 +0000

Most scholarship on the Red Army Faction looks at the possible political strategies behind the group’s actions but Dr. Kimberly Mair, a ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge sociology professor, takes a different approach in her new book Guerrilla Aesthetics.

Mair focuses on the Red Decade, 1967 to 1977, in West German history. The decade saw widespread protest in many countries but the Red Army Faction (RAF), or Baader-Meinhof gang, is one of the best known. Urban guerrilla cells emerged out of youth and student movements at the time in protest of capitalist imperialism.

“I’m fascinated by the political and politics taking a form that I did not observe in my youth,” she says. “I was also motivated by theoretical interests and am really interested in forms of communication, particularly indirect communication. I’m much more interested in how things are said or how things are written than what the content is.”

The book grew out of Mair’s research for her doctoral dissertation and she consulted popular culture sources and grey literature, or materials authored by RAF members. The members produced a lot of writing, both before and after they were incarcerated. They followed an avant-garde style of communication designed to undermine language conventions. Urban guerrillas saw language as a form of violence and social coercion and determined they had to break the rules in order to communicate.

“What I argue is they weren’t trying to send a singular message even though the content may suggest that they were,” says Mair. “I think they were primarily concerned with subverting social norms and, in fact, undoing their own consciousness as members of their particular society.”

They were the generation born after the Second World War in Germany when the history they learned in school stopped at the 1920s and 1930s. They later learned about Auschwitz and that some people occupying official positions in West Germany had been members of Hitler’s SS. They came to distrust their parents’ generation, the establishment and the culture, and wanted to remove themselves from their own cultural learnings.

“In a sense, they tried to exit everything, such as the norms of grammar and the contours of ethics they understood to be grounded in the larger community,” says Mair.

Early on, their writings may have used language in a more instrumentally rational way but their communications began taking more unusual forms when they were incarcerated. Some of the imprisoned members experienced strange conditions, such as being in a fluorescent-lit cell for 24 hours a day or being in a cell where no sounds penetrated.

Mair uses the concept of emplacement, or the relationship between body, mind and surrounding space, to describe how urban guerrillas communicated. She makes the case that the guerrillas’ adoption of the avant-garde was a rejection of rationality and that guerrilla aesthetics was marked by communications that weren’t message driven but tried to draw new relationships or produce a different kind of consciousness.

Bonifacio named one of the most influential Filipina women in the world

caroline.zentner — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 16:29:11 +0000

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge professor Dr. Glenda Bonifacio has been selected to receive the 100 Most Influential Filipina Women in the World Award in the Innovator and Thought Leader category.

The award by the Filipina Women’s Network (FWN) recognizes women who have broken new ground in the global workplace by using emerging technology to transform the way people think, or by developing a product or service that has improved the lives of others.

“I was both surprised and humbled when I learned the Filipina Women’s Network had selected me to receive this award,” says Bonifacio. “I am proud to be honoured by an organization that is dedicated to increasing awareness of the activities, careers and status of Filipina women around the world.”

Bonifacio has been a professor in the U of L’s Department of Women and Gender Studies since 2005 and her research has focused on Filipino women’s migration in Canada and Australia, intersections of gender, development and globalization, and migration and citizenship. In addition to her teaching and research responsibilities, Bonifacio spearheaded a local book drive to help schools in Tacloban after Typhoon Yolanda struck in 2013 and she continues to work on this community project with ReadWorld Foundation. This past summer, she instructed the first ever U of L field course to Tacloban. Her students have been inspired by her teaching and leadership and describe her as an amazing and phenomenal professor.

The women selected to receive the award are entrepreneurs, rising stars, seasoned practitioners, behind-the-scene leaders, managers and executives who have moved through the ranks in large organizations, nonprofits and government agencies.

“They are inspiring examples of women doing extraordinary work who will motivate our youth and future leaders,” says Thelma Boac, Chair of the Global FWN100 Worldwide Search and Selection Committee. “They were selected based on the size and scope of their positions, influence in their industries and their communities, board affiliations and other leadership roles. Nominations were received from 18 countries.”

The award will be presented at the 12th Filipina Leadership Global Summit in San Francisco on Oct. 30.

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