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��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ mourns passing of Mrazek

trevor.kenney — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 19:19:08 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ community wishes to express its most sincere condolences to the family, many friends and colleagues of the late Dr. Richard (Rick) Mrazek, our associate dean, Faculty of Education and a veteran educator, who passed away on Sunday, Mar. 17.

He is survived by his mother, Mary-Rose, and daughter, Kristen. Rick had a personalized license plate on his car that read DAD1DR2, so it was quite evident where his priorities were.

His boundless energy and enthusiasm for life, his family and education will be sorely missed on campus and among the many groups Rick touched.

"Rick was a wonderful man, an accomplished scholar, and a strong promoter and defender of this faculty, this institution and its programs," says Dr. Craig Loewen, the dean of the Faculty of Education.

"More importantly, he was a devoted son and father, and a dear faithful friend. He will be greatly missed. Our heartfelt sympathies go out to his family at this very difficult time."

A natural teacher, Mrazek's influences in the education community extended from the grade three classes he once taught in Coaldale to being internationally recognized as a leading science, technology and environmental educator.

Mrazek's contributions over the past 30 years helped establish sustainable environmental and conservation education programs in the K-12 schools, post-secondary institutions, parks, and communities throughout Alberta and Canada.

Most recently, Mrazek was an enthusiastic champion of a cross-Atlantic Ocean trip organized by Olympian Adam Kreek who, with three colleagues, is presently rowing across the Atlantic and scheduled to arrive in Florida in late March/early April.

His work with the Canadian Wildlife Federation on the curriculum and educational components of this project were particularly meaningful to him, partly because of his love of water, but also because of the enthusiasm with which young students embraced the educational concepts he was talking about and, in turn, became excited about learning.

Mrazek was a proud U of L graduate (BASc/BEd '78), member of the U of L Alumni Honour Society and Alumnus of the Year (1993) who obtained his MEd and PhD from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta. He began his academic career at he U of L in 1986 as an assistant professor.

A memorial service is not confirmed at this time. More details will be released when that information is available.

Mrazek kept an online CV which is quite extensive and can be viewed at this website: http://richardmrazek.com/

Additional obituary information will be added as it becomes available.

Condolences may be sent to the family in care of the Faculty of Education.

Please e-mail darcy.mckenna@uleth.ca

Schori sees no limits

trevor.kenney — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 20:47:46 +0000

Peter Schori has no qualms about saying he has long coveted the head coaching position with the Pronghorns swim team. Similarly, he has no problem declaring that there are no limits to what this team can achieve.

"I am absolutely thrilled to be here," says Schori, who was born in Gainesville, Fla. but grew up primarily in Calgary. "I've wanted this job for a long time and I can't wait to see what we can do in the next few years."

New head swim coach Peter Schori is enthused about the future of the Horns swimming program.

Schori comes to the U of L having worked wonders with the Marlin Aquatic Club in Medicine Hat the last 11 years. Schori had left an assistant's role with Calgary's Cascade Swim Club to go to Medicine Hat in 2001, seeking a head coaching position and smaller community to set down roots.

Since then, he has been busy putting the Marlin club on the map, producing elite level swimmers that included both world championship and Olympic participants.

"What we were able to do in Medicine Hat is pretty unique in terms of producing the high performance swimmers we did out of a tiny club and tiny town," says Schori. "I went in there with the belief, and I told them this, "You can get there from here, you don't have to be in Calgary", and they did. "Honest to goodness, I don't see a limit in terms of what we can accomplish here in Lethbridge."

Schori coveted the Horns job because it allows him to grow professionally and move into a high performance setting. His work in Medicine Hat was primarily with pre post-secondary swimmers and he's excited about the chance to work with young men and women.

"The facilities here are great, the size of the community is awesome and there's just a different feel to a university community than a city or town that does not have a university," he says.

His wife Staci (BFA '08, BEd '10) is a U of L alumna and the couple just recently welcomed daughter Willow into their lives.

A competitive swimmer growing up, Schori is quick to downplay his talents in the pool.

"My standard line is that if I get in the water I lose credibility," he deadpans, admitting that he actually fell just shy of a national caliber level.

What he learned as a swimmer who almost made it is reflective in the way he coaches today.

"I was good enough to understand the sport very well but I had my shortcomings, and I think if I'd had a little more support in terms of coaching, it would have helped me at the time," he says. "Some people can use the experience of going to an Olympics to help teach, whereas I can bring the experience of some of the things I struggled with to help teach."

Schori isn't blind to the challenges he faces. His Canada West rivals at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary and ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of British Columbia boast National Training Centres, while American colleges and universities have come into Lethbridge and wooed some of the best young swimmers away from the Horns program. But he's willing to fight the fight and believes the Horns can win a few battles along the way.

"It's tough when an American school can come here offering $120,000 in scholarship money but at the end of the day, that's just four years of schooling, and we can provide that too," Schori says. "We have everything we need here. What we need to do is convince the best student/athlete swimmers that this will be the environment that they can achieve their true potential."

This story first appeared in the September 2012 issue of the Legend. For a look at the full issue in a flipbook format, follow this link.

Dr. Zen makes his pitch

trevor.kenney — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 21:10:20 +0000

He's got a cool name, a quirky video, is plugged into social media and is looking for your support. It might not sound like a pitch for a scientific study but
Dr. Zen Faulkes (BSc '89) is like any other researcher – he's just found a new way to grab your attention.

Faulkes, an associate professor of biology at The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Texas-Pan American, has just concluded his second SciFund Challenge fundraising project through the crowd-funding site rockethub.com. On each occasion, Faulkes earned enough donated cash to fund his projects, which involve the behavioural characteristics of crayfish and sand crabs.

"It's a concept that every charity has been using for years," says Faulkes, whose interest in aquatic species was cultivated at the U of L by Dr. Jennifer Mather (psychology). "It's pretty simple, get everybody to kick in a small amount of cash and then pool the money for a common aid."

It's a model that has been adopted with great success by artists, and one that science is just beginning to test.

"It is an ideological change in that there has been some resistance to self promotion to people outside of your professional community," says Faulkes of the public pitch concept. "It's not a change in that pretty much every scientist is going to tell you the importance of self promotion, networking and getting your work out there. The only difference is a slight shift in target."

Dr. Zen Faulkes with one of his Amazon Crayfish.

Faulkes uses an Indiana Jones-themed video in one of his pitches (Doctor Zen and the Amazon Crayfish Civilization) and admits it is offbeat.

"It's goofy, quite intentionally so, but that's just me and I'm not pretending that my approach is going to be the right approach for everyone," he says, adding that people don't necessarily have to understand your science to fund it, rather they might just follow it because it's cool.

"That's something I think we have undervalued in the past. People will support stuff just because they think it's cool," he says. "I think that has been highly underestimated, the willingness of people to support things just because."

Originally from Lethbridge, Faulkes moved around a lot as a kid before eventually returning to take his undergraduate studies at the U of L. He credits Mather for setting him on his career path, when he simply expressed an interest in the pending arrival of some octopuses for one of her studies.

"I was just talking to her about class and she mentioned she was getting some octopuses in and I made the mistake of saying, "That sounds interesting", and suddenly the door closed behind me and before I knew what was going on, she had recruited me," he laughs.

She later nominated Faulkes for a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) grant and he was on his way. That opportunity to participate in research as an undergraduate student would shape his studies years later.

"I'm in a university that has, in some ways, a similar kind of mindset to the
U of L," says Faulkes. "It has graduate studies but is still mostly an undergraduate institution, and people wondered how I could conduct studies without doctoral students at my disposal. I told them I came from a place where you can work with undergraduate students and have a research career and you can do research that's the equal of any place in the world. That's one of the things I learned from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge."

Faulkes will head to Florida in November to conduct his research funded by the SciFund Challenge. His website at doctorzen.net details his studies, while his SciFund projects can be viewed at www.rockethub.com.

This story first appeared in the June 2012 issue of the Legend. For a look at the entire issue in flipbook format, follow this link.

Steacy creates balance on and off track

trevor.kenney — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:10:48 +0000

When Heather Steacy takes the stage, it's all about technique — whether she's in a throwing circle or a recital hall.

The two-time CIS women's weight throw champion is as comfortable heaving weights around a track as she is playing clarinet to a convocation crowd. And while that might seem like a startling contrast, Steacy says the two disciplines actually feed off one another.

"I think there are a lot more similarities with hammer (and weight) throw and music than there are with other sports," the 20-year-old, third-year music major says. "In hammer, you have to have pretty much perfect

Heather Steacy won gold at the NACAC U23 Track Championship in Florida recently.

technique to be able to stay in control the whole time and be able to release in the sector, so I think it's quite similar to music."

Exercising proper breathing and executing technique at the time of performance are shared traits of musicians and athletes. Steacy says her early introduction to musical performance has aided her athletically in big competitions.

"I started playing piano when I was five and have been doing Kiwanis Music Festivals ever since, so I've never really had an opportunity to develop big issues with nervousness like some people have," she says.

"I don't really get nervous. I get jitters every once in a while but I've learned how to control it over the years and it doesn't affect me very much."

That was on display in her first appearance at CIS nationals in the spring of 2007. Just 18 years old at the time, Steacy shocked everyone by winning gold in the weight throw (indoor). A year later, she'd defend her title, throwing a still personal best distance of 17.93 metres and dominating the competition by more than a half metre.

This past week, Steacy competed at the NACAC (North American, Central American, and Caribbean Athletic Association) Under 23 Championships in Miramar, Fla. Now 21, Steacy is still showing she's the best in her class by dominating the hammer throw (outdoor) event with a meet-record throw of 67.20 metres. The mark was also a personal best for Steacy and beat the silver-medal winning American thrower by just over three metres.

"My first year in CIS was pretty surprising because I didn't expect to win at all," Steacy says. "In 2008, it was nice to be able to do it a second time. I had been training really hard and throwing well and I always find I compete well at the big meets."

Steacy is on a career path that continues to take her to bigger and bigger meets. It's a journey already traveled by another Steacy, older brother Jim. The Canadian Olympian and multiple Canadian champion and record holder casts a long shadow, but Heather has learned to reap as much as she can from Jim's experience.

"I don't think it's as bad for me as it is for Sean because I don't have to compete with him," she says of her other brother, another former Pronghorn thrower. "I love being able to train with Jim and see how well he's doing. Knowing that I have pretty much the same opportunity of doing everything he's doing is very encouraging."

Training five days a week, including twice daily Wednesday through Friday, you might think Steacy has little time for anything else. Add in the fact her entire family is into track and it sounds like throwing dominates her life. That's where music steps in to provide another outlet.

"It's kind of nice coming to school where there are people who have no idea what I do," she says. "It's neat being able to explain things (about hammer) but it's also nice not being asked all the time. It's nice to have that contrast in my life."

That disparity also seems to create a student-athlete balance that leads to excellence in both arenas.

GET THE FACTS

• Hammer throw is an outdoor sport where the women heave a 4kg ball (8.8 lbs) attached to a metal wire 119.5 cm in length (three feet, 11 inches). Weight throw is an indoor sport where the women toss a 20lb weight attached only to a handle.

• Heather Steacy is the third Steacy to win gold at NACAC, following Jim, who won gold in 2003 in Sherbrooke, Que. and Sean, who won the event two years ago (2008) in Mexico.

• Steacy started playing clarinet in Grade 5, taking lessons from U of L music professor Peggy Mezei.

For more on the Pronghorns' throwing program, visit this link.

Heather Steacy golden in Florida

trevor.kenney — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 22:17:43 +0000

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Pronghorns thrower Heather Steacy continued her strong showing this summer, winning the hammer throw event at the NACAC (North American, Central American, and Caribbean Athletic Association) under 23 Championships in Miramar, Fla. this past weekend.

Steacy won the event with an outstanding throw of 67.20 metres, setting both a personal best and a new NACAC – U23 record in the process. She won the event by more than three metres, beating the 64.17-metre effort of the silver medal winning American thrower.

The Steacy family now has three gold medals in the NACAC hammer throw with Heather joining older brothers Jim, who won gold in 2003 in Sherbrooke, Que. and Sean, who won the event two years ago in Mexico.

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