Co-operative Education Services Hire co-op students from the following programs:

B.Sc. (Technology)

Pharmaceutical

Chemistry

Physics & Technology

Environmental Sciences

Engineering

Biological

Engineering Systems &

Computing

Environmental

Water Resources

Physical Sciences

Applied Math & Statistics

Biochemistry

Biophysics

Chemical Physics

Chemistry

Computing & Information

Science (BA, B Sc,

B Camp.)

Physics

Commerce

Agricultural Business

Hotel & Food Administration

Housing & Real Estate Mgmt.

Marketing Management

Management Economics in

Industry & Finance

Biological Sciences

Biomedical Toxicology

Environmental Toxicology

Food Science

Microbiology

Social & Applied Human

Sciences

Child Studies

Economics (BA and MA)

Family & Social Relations

Gerontology

Psychology

Contact Co-operative Education Services at:

519-824-4120 ext 52323 www.coop.uoguelph.ca

fax 519-829-3965 coop@uoguelph.ca

Career Services Hire students, graduates & alumni through the following

services:

On Campus Recruiting

Post JObs on campus with resumes collected and sent to you

Schedule interviews on campus

On-line Job Postings

Post for any part-time, summer, seasonal or permanent position

Reach over 17,000 students & graduates plus alumni

Collect & screen resumes on-line

Employer Information Sessions

Showcase your company on campus to targeted groups

Access on campus venues and hospitality services

Career & Job Fairs

Attend the largest Career & Job Fairs in Canada in col laboration

with 3 other local institutions

Attend specific College and Degree Program Fairs

On-line Directory of Employer Profiles

Expand your company's exposure on & off campus

Create links to your company web site

Employer e-Newsletter

Subscribe and keep up-to-date on key events and services

Contact Career Services (Student Life & Career Services) at:

519-824-4120 ext 52305 or 52240 www.careerservices.uoguelph.ca

fax 519-763-5244 careers@uoguelph.ca

8 campaign 1{_eport

4 in and Around the University

GUELPH STUDENTS

celebrate the Univer­

sity's No. 1 status in the

annual Maclean's ranking,

a recognition that tops off

announcements of aU of

G-based centre of excel­lence in food research, a

new initiative to encour­

age girls to pursue studies

in science and engineer­ing, and a wall of honour

for Guelph's nationally

recognized teachers.

ontentSY <We <Were

38

WINTER 2004

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

EXPLORING EARTH'S MATRIX Guelph scientists who started catching frogs and collecting leaves as children are now trying to understand nature's intricacies to help

preserve the varied plant and animal life they love.

20 RESEARCH

OF MICE AND WOMEN Using the mouse as a model for studies of the immune system,

veterinary scientists break the species barrier with research results

that give us a greater understanding of reproduction in both animals and humans.

4 FACULTY PROFILE

A TEACHER, A TRAVELLER, AN AUTHOR, A CRITIC ...

Spanish professor Stephen Henighan admits he's been on

a roll since publishing his controversial book When Words Deny

the World.

11

alumni Matters

UNIVERSITY OF

Guelph Alumni

Association president Bill Summers outlines plans

for an Internet-based

alumni panel, the Hall of

Fame inducts new mem­

bers, and alumni are

invited to subscribe to a free electronic newsletter.

In addition, a large crowd of students came out to

hear Guelph grad John

Bindernagel talk about

the sasquatch.

on the Cover OVC professor Anne Croy and

post·doctoral researcher

Marianne van den Heuve\.

Photo by Dean Palmer I The Scenario

Winter 2004 1

2 GUELPH ALUMNUS

guelph alumnus Winter 2004 • VOLUME 36 IssuE I

Editor Mary Dickieson

Director Charles Cunningham

Art Direction Peter Enneson Design Inc.

Contributors Barbara Chance, BA '74

Rachelle Cooper

Stacey Curry Gunn

Karen Gallant

Lori Bona Hunt

SPARK Program Writers

Andrew Vowles, B.Sc. '84

Advertising Inquiries Scott Anderson

519-827-9169

519-654-6122

Direct all other correspondence to:

Communications and Public Affairs

University of Guelph

Guelph, Ontario N I G 2WI

Fax 519-824-7962

E-mail m.dickieson@exec.uoguelph.ca

www.uoguelph.ca/news/alumnus/

The Guelph Alumnus magazine is published

three times a year by Communications and

Public Affairs at the University of Guelph .

Its mission is to enhance the relationship

between the University and its alumni and

friends and promote pride and commit­

ment within the Un iversity community. Al l

material is copyright 2004. Ideas and opin­

ions expressed in the articles do not neces­

sarily reflect the ideas or opinions of the

University or the editors.

Canada Post Agreement# 40064673

Printed in Canada by Contact

Creative Services. ISSN 1207-780 I

To update your alumni record, contact:

Alumni Affairs and Development

Phone 519-824-4120, Ext. 56550

Fax 519-822-2670

E-mail alumnirecords@uoguelph.ca

UNIVERSITY ifGUELPH

UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH

t e President's a e ALASTAIR SUMMERLEE

We must listen to our conscience

I BELIEVE THAT UNIVERSITIES SHOULD be the

moral and social conscience of society: a society that

sadly faces many, many difficult and even dangerous

decisions over the next several years. All too often these

days, we hear of corporate and public scandals, the

threat of terrorism and intolerance, rampant con­

sumerism, the lingering economic doldrums, the dete­

rioration of our environment, and considerable ten­

sion between the developed and developing worlds. All

of these factors and more have unleashed a period of

extreme uncertainty and extraordinary change. Possi­

bly more than ever, society needs people who are armed

with knowledge and experience, people who are will­

ing to be open-minded, level-headed and concerned

about the world. It is my fervent belief that universi­

ties and colleges have a vital role to play in the health

and welfare of our society and in the care of our world.

In a recent Ipsos-Reid survey about the position that Canada

plays on the world stage, Canadians were identified as agents to be

trusted: trusted in the middle of the divide between the rich and the

poor, between the aggressor and the defenceless, and as the poten­

tial arbiters of numerous disputes and practices. Universities and

colleges must be central in the debates about these issues, and Guelph

will play its part in the moral and social debate as educators for

change, as agents for effective and socially responsible research, and

as the training ground for future minds and for the future.

The University of Guelph is built on the strongest of foun­

dations. Everyone in the University of Guelph community means

something to the community, and part of my reason for com­

mitting to Guelph is because of that considerable level of car­

ing. Over the next five years, the capacity and reputation of this

university will continue to expand on the national and interna­

tional stages, but we will not lose our commitment to the values

and attitudes that make this campus so unique.

Among all the priorities and actions that clamour for atten­

i§ tion, I would like to highlight three that I hope will set the tone

~ and guide the University in that development. First and fore­

~ most, I will be a tireless advocate for accessible and affordable

~ public education: a quality education within a system to be proud

i;; of. This university has on a number of occasions taken actions

tS directly in support of publicly funded quality higher education,

6: and I will work with the other members of the Council of

Chancellor Lincoln Alexander, left, and Board of Governors chair Michael

Walsh assist U of G president Alastair Summerlee with the presiden·

tial robe at his Oct. 10 installation ceremony.

Ontario Universities, staff, faculty and students at the Universi­

ty of Guelph, and members of the government to ensure that

students who have the intellectual capacity to benefit from a Uni­

versity of Guelph degree will be able to do so.

Second, we must take the steps to regain the position that

universities should hold as that moral, social and intellectual

centre of society and societies at both the national and interna­

tional levels. We must seize the opportunities to not just pro­

mote a liberal education, but to encourage members of our com­

munity to develop a moral compass, a generosity of spirit, a

compassionate heart, civility, respect for diversity, fortitude and

an overwhelming passion for justice. We must take the lead in

debates and in actions on a number of critical issues, including

developing and sustaining environments, the life sciences agen­

da, ethics and ethical behaviour, and cultural diversity.

Third, we have a responsibility to continue the innovation

agenda in every aspect of this university: in teaching, in research,

both pure and applied, and in service within and outside the

community and the city, to whom we so integrally are linked.

Only by continuing to innovate, whilst caring about others, can

we truly make a difference in this world.

Winter 2004 3

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• 1n an aroun

SARS RESEARCH

PATHOBIOLOGY pro­

fessor Dongwan Yoo,

who has been studying a

virus that causes respira­

tory problems in pigs, is

trying to uncover how the SARS virus and coro­

naviruses in general over­come the body's normal

immune response. Yoo's lab has per­

formed the same types of

analysis on SARS that

they'd been doing on the porcine reproductive and

respiratory syndrome (PRRS) virus C identify­

ing and isolating the

virus's proteins.

He's found that SARS

contains a capsid pro­

tein, which acts in the

same way it did in his

studies of the PRRS virus C impairing the host's

defence mechanism.

"Because of similar

phenomena and binding

capabilities, we can

hypothesize that SARS

and PRRS share a very similar strategy in impair­

ing the host in1mune sys­tem," he says.

4 GuELPH ALUMNUS

U OF G GETS A+ ACROSS THE BOARD

"Thanks for making us number one." That was the message delivered by the Central Student Associa­

tion (CSA) when it invited the campus to celebrate with coffee and cake in the newly renovated Bullring

coffee pub. From left: CSA executive members David Hornsby, Derek Husser and Quentin Sinclair.

FALL MAY SIGNAL THE BEGINNING OF

a new school year for students, but it's the

time of year when universities get their report

cards. And this year, U of G topped the class

with its across the board from four indepen­dent surveys that evaluate academic quality,

research intensity, community atmosphere and

public accountability.

• When Maclean's magazine released its annu­

al universities ranking issue Nov. 10, the Uni­

versity of Guelph was named the No. 1 com­

prehensive university in Canada for the third

time in five years. The national publication cit­ed innovative programs, accessible faculty,

unique research opportunities and a distinc­

tive commitment to students as some of the

reasons for U of G's first-place ranking.

Guelph was also named the top compre­

hensive university in 2002 and 1999. The cat­

egory is defined by Maclean's as universities with a significant amount of research activity

and a wide range of programs at the under­

graduate and graduate levels.

• Guelph was named the Canadian com-

prehensive "Research University of the Year"

in a report by Research Infosource Inc. pub­

lished in the National Post Nov. 4. Winners were

determined on the basis of criteria that includ­

ed total financial input and research output. The report also ranked Canada's top 50

research universities for research intensity, sponsored research income and number of full­time faculty. Again, U of G was first among

comprehensive universities.

• Students voted Guelph the No. 1 university

in Canada for campus atmosphere and tech­nology resources in the University Report Card,

an attitudinal survey of Canadian students

published Oct. 15 by the Globe and Mail. More than 26,000 students responded to the online

survey, including 847 from Guelph. Data from

58 schools were included in the survey results.

• U of G was named the country's top com­prehensive university and second among all

institutions in public accountability and exter­

nal reporting, according to the annual Cana­dian University Accountability Survey con­

ducted by Wilfrid Laurier University professors.

• • n1vers1 PEOPLE IN THE NEWS • CAMPUS HIGHLIGHTS • UNIVERSITY NOTES

Think Food Research, Think Guelph!

SINCE 1991, THE Cana­

dian government has

funded centres of excellence

that network researchers at

universities across the coun­

try. The goal is to turn Cana­

dian research and entrepre­

neurial talent into economic

and social benefits for the

whole country.

Many Guelph faculty are

participants in various Net­

works of Centres of Excellence

(NCE), but the first NCE to be

based at Guelph was

announced Nov. 4 by Tom

Brzustowski, president of the

KUDOS

• Biochemistry professor

Frances Sharom was named to

a Canada Research Chair this

fall, bringing to 20 the total

number of chairs U of G has

received. Sharom's research is

on membrane protein biology.

• Sorouja Williamson, an

administrative assistant at the

Natural Sciences and Engi­

neering Research Council. It is

also the only NCE in Canada

focusing on food.

Macdonald Stewart Art Centre

for 13 years, won first prize in

the Eden Mills Writers' Festival

2003 literary contest for her

short story Dandelions.

• Toronto-based du Toit All­

sopp Hillier won a 2003 region­

al honour award from the

Canadian Society of Landscape

Architects for its work on the U

of G campus master plan . The

company has designed campus

plans for more than 10 Canadi­

an universities.

• OAC held a lOth-anniversary

party this fall for the OAC Bay­

field soybean variety. Developed

at Guelph by plant scientists

Wally Beversdorf and Jack Tan­

ner, the bean has contributed

more than $750 million to

Ontario's economy since its

introduction. The University

The new NCE in Advanced

Foods and Materials will be

directed by food science pro­

fessor Rickey Yada, who was

also recently named to a Cana­

da Research Chair in Food Pro­

tein Structure. The NCE will

receive $22.3 million over an

initial five-year period, and its

90 plus collaborators will work

on projects that may give us

new manufacturing methods,

new products made from food

materials, functional foods and

nutraceuticals that promote

health, and ethical policies to

regulate food innovation.

has received about $1 million in

royalties from sales of the seed,

with the money going back into

crop research.

• The Canada Mortgage and

Housing Corporation has rec­

ognized Prof. John Auld, Mar­

keting and Consumer Studies,

with the Educators' Award for

Excellence in Sustainable Edu­

cation for the role he's played in

spreading the word about ener­

gy-conserving housing.

• Projects by U of G landscape

architecture students won sev­

en out of 10 undergraduate

awards at the annual competi­

tion held by the American Soci­

ety of Landscape Architects.

The competition attracted a

record 210 submissions from

landscape architecture pro­

grams across North America.

Guelph baker Christine

Gallant may soon add dried

fish powder to her bread.

FISH BREAD

NuTRITIONAL sci­

ences professor William

Bettger, adjunct profess­

er Julie Conquer and

graduate student Terry

McKay have found that

dried fish powder baked

into bread is absorbed by

the body as effectively as

fish oil supplements.

Fish is rich in omega-

3 fatty acids, which have

been associated with

decreased incidence of

cardiovascular disease

and mental disorders,

but many people are

turned off by the taste

and smell of fish.

The research team's

subjects said they could

not detect the presence

of the fish oil in the

bread, but they received

the same amount of fat­

ty acids as did groups

that took fish oil supple­

ments.

Winter 2004 5

-

in and around the University

English professor Daniel

Fischlin, front, and research

assistants Gord Lester, left,

and Mat Buntin .

SHAKESPEARE, EH?

THE WAY WE approach

Shakespeare helps define

us as Canadians, says Prof.

Daniel Fischlin, School of

English and Theatre Stud­

ies. Fischlin is compiling

a unique online database

that features hundreds of

Canadian Shakespeare

adaptations.

"The way Canadians

adapt Shakespeare is a

transmission of cultural

values;' he says. "We see

patterns with how peo­

ple change the stories or

the language to suit the

experiences they're fac­

ing in their own com­

munities. This theatrical

activity gives us insight

into communities across

the country."

Fischlin and his team

of more than 20 gradu­

ate students have worked

closely with computer

programmers to adapt a

science-based program­

ming language ( ColdFu­

sion) for arts-based data.

The Canadian Adapta­

tions of Shakespeare

website boasts more than

3,000 pieces of text and

multimedia materials re­

lated to the Bard's scripts.

6 GuELPH ALUMNUS

MEET GUELPH's DISTINGUISHED DOZEN

"We want students to know that we work hard to promote good teaching," said Prof. Maureen Mancu·

so, acting provost and vice·president (academic). Then she unveiled a dozen plaques lining a wall inside

the Rozanski Hall classroom facility. Each one bears the photo of a Guelph faculty member who has

received a national 3M Teaching Fellowship and includes a quote from one of their students. Nine of the

distinguished dozen were on hand for the Sept. 22 unveiling. From left are Prof. Ernie McFarland, former

English professor Constance Rooke, Prof. Terry Gillespie, retired professors Sandy Middleton and Trevor

Dickinson, Profs. Gordon Lange, Joe Cunsolo and Fred Evers, and president Alastair Summerlee . The

honour wall also recognizes former landscape architecture professor Ron Stoltz and the late John Bell,

Languages and Literatures, and Norman Gibbins, Microbiology.

BlOOD DONOR RETIRES

Audrey Bloss, left, and veterina ry

technician Karen Avent with Harry.

OVC's SMA LL- ANIMA L

Clinic m arked the ret ire­

m ent of ca nin e blood don o r

H arry w ith gifts fo r the grey­

hound and flowers for his own­

er, Audrey Bloss. OVC's in­

ho use blood bank ha s bee n

operating sin ce 1974, a nd the

eight-year-old greyhound made

12 blood donations while living

in the Guelph area. While ben­

efitin g ca nin e patients a t the

clinic, Harry received free m ed­

ical exa m s, vaccinati o ns a nd

various other services.

BUilDING ON AlFRED'S STRENGTHS

UoF G AN D TH ECo nseil

communautaire du Col­

lege d 'A lfred have launched a

strategi c planning process that

w ill build o n the co ll ege's

strengths to expand the range

of post -second ary progra m s

available in French.

The st rateg ic pl a n will

expl o re expanding ex ist in g

diplom as in agricultural tech-

nol ogy, food an d nutriti o n ,

environment and internatio n ­

al deve lo pment into th e fi eld

of bioreso urce managem ent ,

includin g the poss ibility o f

offering degree courses.

Co ll ege d 'Alfred directo r

G ilbert H ero ux says th e n ew

directions will broaden the col­

lege's appeal and in crease stu­

dent numbers. "We also have the

potential to serve an increasing

number of students thro ugh

dist ance education in th ose

fields o f study," he says.

T he University is pl anning

to serve up to 1,000 students at

Alfred in the next five to seven

years.

Th e strategic pl annin g

p rocess wi ll culmin ate in the

release of a report in the spring.

Davidson named to NSERC I HP chair

THE ScHOOL ofEngineer­

ing has long been recog­nized for its ability to encour­

age women to enter this field

of science. Now Prof. Valerie

Davidson will take that exper­

tise across Ontario as the hold­

er of a prestigious Chair for

Women in Science and Engi­

neering. Co-sponsored by the

Natural Sciences and Engi­

neering Research Council and HP (Canada), the research

chair is designed to build role

models for women interested in the sciences.

Davidson plans to use her

influence to emphasize oppor­tunities for women in com­

puting applications in science

and engineering, particularly

those that involve biosystems. Currently, women make up 30

per cent of the undergradu-

GUELPH MAKES SOUND INVESTMENT

TEN U OF G STU DE NTS

were never late for class in

the fall semester of Guelph's first-ever "Creating Music on

the Computer" course. Using a process called musical instru ­

ment digital interface (MIDI ), based on the software program

Cubase SX, course instructor

Paul Lamoureux would put a futuristic-looking wind instru ­ment to his lips and fill the

room first with piano music,

followed by guitar, harmonica

and, finally, a string ensemble.

Lamoureux says the wind con­

troller shows students that

"regardless of which instrument

you play, you can find a way to get your information into the

computer."

Once that information is

Prof. Valerie Davidson says many female students see Guelph's engi·

neering program as one that improves quality of life and makes the

world a better place.

ates in the School of Engi­

neering, well above the

national average. But in com­

puter-related engineering and

science programs, the average

is closer to 10 per cent. A Guelph faculty member

entered, MIDI enables students

to manipulate and change the nature of what plays back,

including what kind of instru­

ment plays. It all happens in Guelph's

new music technology lab.

Filled with $60,000 worth of

equipment, it gives Guelph stu­dents access to the powerful dig­ital audio applications that are so influential in today's music.

VETS LINK ONLINE

VET ER INAR IANS IN train­

ing and in practice are get­

ting together through an Inter­

net connection that allows them

to post, review and discuss ani­

mal case stud ies. It's a way for students at Canada's four veteri­

nary colleges to learn more about real-life veterinary practice, and

a chance for practising veteri-

since 1988, Davidson hopes to

build a provincial network to

develop programs for girls from elementary school through uni­

versity studies and to support women pursuing science and

engineering careers.

narians to tap into the resources

of the veterinary schools.

Called the Virtual Veterinary

Medicine Learning Community

(V2MLC), the project recently received an additional $1 million

in funding from CANARIE,

Canada's advanced Internet

development organization. In

1999, CANARIE provided $1

million for the first phase of the

project. So not only will OVC be

sharing veterinary expertise, but

it will also be sharing technolo­

gy expertise with other educators interested in online learning.

The V2MLC module will

include a database of case stud­

ies, searchable by species, breed,

diagnosis and presenting com­

plaint. It's available to all vet­erinarians through www.ovc.

uoguelph .ca/Canarie/Project/ index.htm.

U of G student and SPARK

writer Leslie Irons.

PLASTIC BOTTLES

PLASTIC JUICE bottles

that are enhanced with

an ultraviolet light­

blocking resin could help

reduce degradation of

colour and vitamin C by as much as half, say U of

G researchers.

When bottled juice is

left in the sunlight, the sun's ultraviolet (UV)

rays can rob it of its

colour and vitamin C. That's because clear plas­

tic juice containers are

made of polyethylene

terephthalate, which doesn't block UV rays

effectively. Now, food sci­

ence professor Ian Britt,

engineering professor Valerie Davidson and

graduate student Karen

Conrad say improving

these containers with a

resin called polyethylene

naphthalate can give

consumers a healthier,

longer-lasting product. "Food packaging is

central in delivering safe,

nutritious foods to Cana­

dian consumers," Britt

says. "This work is only

part of a continuing effort

at Guelph to develop a

sound understanding of

how packaging systems

can be designed to protect sensitive food products:'

Winter 2004 7

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U of G campaign raises more 1 HE CAMPA r GN for the University of Guelph ended Dec. 31, 2003, with gifts and

pledges of more than $80 million. U of G has received many private gifts to support

campaign priorities that foster student success and attract talented faculty, as well as

generous support for capital projects that will enhance the learning environment

across campus. The alumni portion of the campaign, which took place in the latter half of 2003,

helped raise the campaign total well beyond the original goal of $75 million.

Campaign results will be announced at a closing celebration in February, and a final report

to thank donors and volunteers will be distributed this summer. The generosity of donors who

responded to U of G's "Science of Life and Art of Living" theme has encouraged future planning

and promised continuing success in reaching the University's fundraising priorities.

It's full speed ahead on science complex

C ONSTRUCTION WORK on

Phase l of the new science

complex is continuing at full

speed, says Angelo Gismondi, Super­

Build senior project manager. A daily

view of the construction site shows the

status of construction work on the

five-storey section that runs from the

McLaughlin Library to Gordon Street.

This is the first of three wings that

will house research and teaching labo­

ratories and related offices. This portion

of the building will be occupied in sum­

mer 2004, allowing the demolition of the

current Chemistry and Microbiology

8 GuELPH ALUMNUS

Building and the construction of Phase

2. When completed in 2006, the science

complex will accommodate about 2,600

faculty, students and staff from the Col­

lege of Biological Science and from part

of the College of Physical and Engineer­

ing Science. Undergraduate teaching labs

and research labs for each of the depart­

ments will be located in close proximity

to encourage exchange between the two.

Both the science complex, and the

newly opened Rozanski Hall classroom

facility are being funded in part by a

$45-million grant from Ontario's

SuperBuild program. To view daily

updates of the science complex con­

struction site, visit www.uoguelph.ca

I super build/ science.sh tml.

Mclaughlin accepts research portfolio

F ORMER OAC DEAN Rob

McLaughlin, B.Sc.(Agr.) '69 and

PhD '77, was appointed associate

vice-president (research) agri-food and

partnerships Sept. l, 2003. For the previ­

ous three years, he served as vice-presi­

dent (alumni affairs and development)

and led the U of G campaign. Pamela

Healey, BA '73, assistant vice-president

(development), has assumed the fundrais- ------iii ing portfolio as acting vice-president.

McLaughlin is now managing U of

G's life sciences research portfolio, includ­

ing the partnership with the Ontario

Ministry of Agriculture and Food.

t1 $80 million Campaign leader makes gift of appreciation

NOT ONLY DID Anthony "Tony"

Arrell, B.Sc.(Agr.) '67, work diligent­

ly as vice-chair of the University's

three-year campaign, but he and his wife,

Anne, B.H.Sc. '68, also donated a $500,000

leadership gift in appreciation of the role the

University has played in their family's life.

Tony's father, Judge Hugh C. Arrell, grad­

uated from the Ontario Agricultural College

in 1938, and Tony and Anne met at Home­

coming during her first year at Guelph. The couple say they feel strongly that alumni sup­

port is crucial to the ongoing success and

vitality of the University landscape.

The Arrell donation has enabled U of G

to furnish and equip a 400-seat lecture the­

atre in its new classroom complex. Arrell Auditorium was unveiled Sept. 5 during the

official opening of Rozanski Hall.

Equipped with state-of-the-art multi­

media capabilities, the lecture room is a

much different learning environment than

the classrooms the Arrells remember as

Guelph students in the 1960s.

At that time, Tony Arrell planned to become a lawyer in the tradition of his father

and grandfather, but says it was Prof. Bill

Braithwaite, now retired from the Depart-

ment of Agricultural Economics and Busi­

ness, who inspired him to go into business.

Arrell says it's a move he has never regretted.

He has had a successful career in the invest­

ment management business and is now chair­

man and CEO of Burgundy Asset Manage­

ment, a firm that manages money for families

of high net worth, endowments and pension

funds. The firm's investments are in public

companies in Canada, the United States,

Europe and Japan, and it has one of the best

long-term investment records in Canada.

Arrell has also sat on many corporate boards.

Anne Arrell taught high school family studies for six years after graduating from

Guelph. She left teaching to work at home as "a co-ordinator for the development of

young Canadians" with their four children. Although the family's main address is

Toronto, the couple have owned two work­ing farms for more than 25 years, first in the

Shelburne area and now in Creemore.

The Arrells have a strong volunteer com­

mitment to the communities they live in. Both are deeply involved as leaders in the not-for­

profit sector- Tony with the Cystic Fibrosis

Foundation, the Canadian Opera Company,

the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, Bish­

op Strachan School, St. Michael's Hospital and

the Schulich School of Business at York Uni­versity. Anne's volw1teer commitments include

serving as a board member of the Integra

Foru1dation, chair of the Canada Blooms Gar­

deners' Fair, member of the Toronto Garden

Club and chair of the Sanctuary Guild of Tim­

othy Eaton Memorial Church. Tony Arrell is also a longtime U of G vol­

unteer. He is currently chair of the Univer­sity's investment management committee

and a member of the Board of Trustees. He

was a member of the steering committee for the University's ACCESS campaign to boost

endowments for student assistance in the

mid-1990s. He also served on Board of Gov­

ernors from 1997 to 2003, during which time he helped spearhead the "Science of

Life and Art of Living" campaign.

The University Senate has recognized

Arrell's distinguished service by naming him recipient of the 2003 Lincoln Alexander

Medal of Distinguished Service.

Unexpected gift provides scholarships

A N UN EX P EC TED LETTER received

last March from Douglas Kennedy,

BSA '39, included a cheque for

$50,000 and a note: "Would you please

place this in the endowment fund for Uni­

versity of Guelph purposes. My wife and I

met at a 'hop' here in 1937. Still together." Kathleen Kennedy also graduated in 1939,

earning a diploma from Macdonald Insti­

tute. The couple's surprise gift to the Uni­

versity was used to endow two scholarship

awards that recognize the Kennedys' time

on campus and their 66-year relationship.

Douglas Kennedy died in May 2003, but

Kathleen attended aU of G undergraduate scholarship event in October, accompanied

by her daughter and son-in-law, Sue, B.H.Sc.

'63, and Robert Rogers.

Beginning in fall2004, the Douglas and

Kathleen Kennedy scholarships will provide

annual awards of $1,000 each to students enrolled in the Ontario Agricultural Col­

lege and the College of Social and Applied

Human Sciences who demonstrate high academic excellence and financial need.

Winter 2004 9

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ts I Cl.

Artists encourage new talent

A RTISTS MARGARET PRIEST,

University professor emerita in

Guelph's School of Fine Art and

Music, and her husband, Tony Scher­man, have launched a graduate schol­

arship endowment to foster the growth

of new Canadian talent. Both are

10 GUELPH ALUMNUS

accomplished artists and strong advo­

cates of the need to create scholarship

incentives to attract the best students

to U of G's master of fine art program.

Beyond their own commitment to

the endowment fund, the couple is

seeking additional gifts in support of the Margaret Priest Graduate Scholar­

ship and its endowment fund. The

annual award will be offered for the first time in fall 2004.

Education supports career and vice versa

M OTIVATED BY HIS OWn

professional life and the desire to encourage future Guelph

graduates, Jim Dick, B.Sc.(Agr.) '71,

M.Sc. '81 and PhD '88, has joined other

members of his 1971 OAC class in sup­

porting U of G's plan to build a new crop biotechnology centre. He and his wife,

Judy, B.H.Sc. '71, say their Guelph edu­

cation has been key to their career suc­

cess and they want to recognize the val-

ue of their degrees. Their $100,000 cam­

paign gift has been designated to OAC's

priority project, the Agricultural Plant

Biotechnology and.Biocomputing Cen­tre. Judy Dick is a family studies gradu­

ate who went on to become a teacher.

Jim earned Guelph degrees in agricul­

ture, environmental biology and horti­

culture, leading to a career in agricultural

research management in the food indus­try. He is retired from Kraft Canada Inc.

Their son, Adam, is completing a B.Sc. in physical sciences at U of G.

History award announced

C OLWYN AND JEAN RICH

have established the Mordechai Rozanski History Scholarship to

honour the former president's 10-year term at U of G. A $5,000 scholarship will be awarded each fall to the undergrad­

uate student in year three of the College

of Arts honours history program with the highest cumulative average.

Through the Jean Rich Foundation, the couple are long-standing support­

ers of the University of Guelph, par­

ticularly the Ontario Veterinary Col­lege awards program.

4-Hers receive scholarships

SEVEN U OF G students received awards in October that were

funded by a $1.35-million cam­

paign gift from the estate of Angelo

and Frank Agro ofWaterdown, Ont.

The Agro endowment supports both graduate and undergraduate awards for students involved in 4-H.

The first recipients are all enrolled in

Ontario Agricultural College programs: undergraduate student Jennifer Lichty

and graduate students Kris Mahoney

and Bonnie Lacroix, Plant Agriculture; Michael Steele and Reynold Bergen, Ani­mal and Poultry Science; Richard Brain,

Environmental Biology; and Mary

Rankin, School of Environmental Design and Rural Development.

A teacher, a traveller, an author, a critic ...

U of G prof gets bored focusing on just one thing

IN ONE YEAR ALONE, Prof. Stephen

Henighan was nominated for a Gover­

nor General's Literary Award for non-

w fiction for When Words Deny the World, wrote

':l and published the widely acclaimed Lost 3i I Province: Adventures in a Moldovan Family, u :;;: was a judge for the Governor General's Lit-

t;: erary Award for fiction, organized and taught <(

:;: a semester in Guatemala for U of G and Uni­>-~ versity of Saskatchewan students, had a short

~ story published in an anthology edited by the I "- Poet Laureate of Great Britain, and started

By Rachelle Cooper

developing the first-ever Spanish textbook

for Canadian universities. He admits he's been

on a roll, but those who know him would say

what has been normal about the past year is

Henighan's rate of accomplishment.

Although he's a professor in Guelph's

School of Languages and Literatures and

head of the Spanish section, he doesn't

restrict his research and writing activities to

Latin American studies.

"It's clear that I get bored focusing on

just one thing;' he says. "I love being a Span-

ish professor, but I need to be other things

as well to survive."

Henighan realized just how strong that

need was when he landed his first faculty

position at the University of London after

completing a D.Phil. at the University of

Oxford. At London, he was discouraged

from writing outside of Hispanic studies.

So he began searching for a university that

would enable him to do scholarly work in

all his areas of interest.

Guelph has done just that. Since arriv-

Winter 2004 11

ing in January 1999, in addition to teaching

Spanish courses, he has taught creative writ­

ing and Guatemalan history and will be

teaching Anglo-Quebec literature and con­

tributing to the new MFA in creative writ­

ing program. "One of the things I'm grate­

ful to Guelph for is that it's shown it actually

values my other work as well;' he says.

College of Arts dean Jacqueline Murray

says the University is lucky to have some­

one with so many areas of expertise.

"Stephen's breadth of knowledge, interests

and talent reflects the new generation of schol­

ars who cross boundaries by nature and by

training, whether it's the boundaries of genre,

from scholarly work through literary criticism

to fiction, or the boundaries of space, from

Canada to Moldova to Latin America. His

energy and insights resonate with current stu­

dents, who see themselves as part of a multi­

dimensional global community:'

To make time for all his interests, Henighan

dedicates two or three hours every morning

to writing before coming to campus.

'1t's become a sort of patchwork life;' he

says. "I get up in the morning and write, then

I get interrupted by things and other ideas

that are born on the spur of the moment. At

first, this frustrated me, but then I began to

accept that this is just the way my life is. There

are a lot of things layered on top of each oth­

er, and I should just expect to work this waY:'

It was during his early morning writing

sessions that Henighan was able to complete

his third book in two years, a novel called

The Streets of Winter set to be published this

April. It takes place in Montreal, where he

lived for eight years completing his MA in

creative writing at Concordia University and

working as a freelance writer.

One of the "interruptions" that took

Henighan away from his work over the past

year was serving as a judge for the Governor

General's Award for fiction, a job that required

him to read 160 books over the summer.

"It was an honour, but boy, was it gru­

elling;' he says. "The moment I got back from

teaching in Guatemala, I started reading, and

I read until the end of September, when I had

to fly to Ottawa for the judges' meeting."

A regular reviewer for The Times Literary

Supplement, Henighan is used to setting aside

his own writing to critique works, such as

The Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada.

"There's quite a lot of pressure there

12 GuELPH ALUMNUS

because I feel my review really has to be

good," he says. "If it's not, they tear it to

pieces, but I like that. 1 hate it, but I like the

pressure of being on the front line all the

time to produce world-class work. I get e­

mails from all sorts of places like Turkey and

Germany, from people arguing with what I

have to say, so that's a lot of fun."

At this point in his career, Henighan is used

to criticism and has developed a reputation

for stirring the pot. He admits that his 2002

book, When Words Deny the World, probably

wouldn't be on its third printing without the

resistance it received from Toronto readers.

"The fact that I was being attacked by

columnists in the Globe and Mail meant that

all sorts of people who would never have

heard of the book went out and looked for

it. The controversy is due to somewhat of a

misunderstanding or a vulgarization of

what the book is about. It's an analysis of

the impact of globalization on Canadian

writing. It's not merely an anti-Toronto

screed. One of the traits of globalization is

that it devalues national culture and over­

values the products that are connected to

big-city markets. But a lot of people in

Toronto took that personally."

That Henighan is able to keep a sense of

humour and find time for himself is, as he

says, what's kept him from not having a

heart attack. "I've worked really, really hard

at getting a lot done and at finding little

ways of relaxing and releasing pressure, like

cross-country skiing and swimming in the

University pool. Those kinds of releases are

very important to me."

Walking 35 minutes to and from campus

gives him a break between his writing and

before he meets with students. Known for

walking into his colleagues' offices to social­

ize and gossip, he says he's teased about nev­

er getting any work done, but it's clear that

he's managed to find a balance between work

and experiencing life for himself.

A self-proclaimed "travel junkie,"

Henighan believes his obsession with trav­

elling stems from always being on the move

as a young child. "I was born in Germany,

and by the time I was nine, I had lived in

seven houses in four countries. So it feels

unnatural not to be moving."

The remainder of his childhood and

high school years were spent in the Ottawa

Valley, where his father, well-known liter-

ary critic and writer Tom Henighan, taught

English literature at Carleton University and

his mother was a social worker. Stephen

Henighan says he felt restricted during that

time and read and wrote like crazy to keep

his mind occupied.

His boredom ended when a family

friend suggested he attend a "very small,

very elite" school in Swarthmore, Pa.

"Swarthmore College was an incredible

environment to be in and was extremely stim­

ulating;' he says. "It was shocking and quite

difficult to deal with as an Ottawa Valley farm

boy because suddenly I was thrown into class­

es with all these members of the U.S. East

Coast elite who had gone to the best prep

schools in Boston and New York and Wash­

ington and just lived in a completely different

world than I did. But it was a great challenge."

Spending a semester of his undergrad­

uate program in Colombia was what began

his travelling compulsion. When the semes­

ter ended, he stayed on for a few months to

travel in South America. "It enticed me and

made me want to go back for more."

In the dozens of countries he's visited,

Henighan has strived to be more than just

a tourist. Instead, he tries to immerse him­

self in the culture by staying with families

to experience their language and way of life.

It was just such an experience that ulti­

mately led to his 2003 book Lost Province:

Adventures in a Moldovan Family. He lived

with a family in Moldova in the early 1990s

while teaching English 111 the former

U.S.S.R. country. When he returned seven

years later, he was able to see first-hand how

political changes had affected their lives,

observations he detailed in Lost Province.

The book has resulted in a flood of e-mails

from Romanian-Canadians and favourable

reviews in the Romanian press.

Henighan will continue the theme of

looking at the hopes and actual results of rev­

olutions during his sabbatical next year. He

plans to visit England and Portugal to exam­

ine how history is portrayed in books writ­

ten by those who participated in revolution­

ary governments after a revolution ended.

"I'm taking 1990 as a sort of watershed

because that's right after the Berlin Wall

came down and global free trade started and

the computer revolution started," he says.

"In a way, I'm looking at the last wave of

revolutionaries. I'm comparing mainly writ-

ers from Central America and from Por­

tuguese-speaking Africa, where left-wing

governments came to power in the 1970s. Some of the people involved in those gov­ernments have become very important writ­

ers, like Mia Couto, who was the director of

information for the Marxist government of Mozambique in his 20s and is now the country's best-known writer."

At the end of 2004, Henighan will no

doubt be adding a list of publications and awards to the CV covering his 43 years of

experiences. Although many people strive to accomplish in an entire lifetime what he has achieved in the past year, he believes he

has yet to reach his full potential. "I haven't

yet got to the achievement that would make

me really proud." ga

Winter 2004 13

and natural killer cells Using the mouse as a model for studies

of the immune system, veterinary researchers follow the science to a greater understanding of

human reproduction BY MARY DICKIESON

IF WE HAD A CAMERA LENS that COUld see

into the future, we might find ourselves

watching the activity at a fertility clinic. A young woman who's been unable to conceive

naturally is about to begin the therapy lead­ing to an embryo transplant: intensive hor­

mone treatments, the harvesting of eggs from

her ovaries, in vitro fertilization with her hus-

band's sperm and the insertion of a fertilized

egg into her uterus. But first, she waits for the

results of a simple blood test that will greatly

increase her chances of becoming pregnant. A

lab technician will look at her blood cells

under a microscope to pinpoint the day with­in her monthly cycle when her uterus is best

prepared to accept the embryo.

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Winter 2004 15

This woman will be delighted when the

pregnancy test is positive. She won't give a

second thought to that initial blood test, won't know that it was first performed in a veteri­

nary research lab, and probably won't recog­

nize that it has made in vitro fertilization

much more reliable, less stressful and more

affordable than it was just a few years earlier. A few years earlier puts us back to 2003,

when University of Guelph professor Anne

Croy and post-doctoral researcher Mari­anne van den Heuvellooked at a blood assay

under a microscope lens and predicted: "This woman is going to get pregnant!"

It was a eureka moment, says van den

Heuvel, who based her prediction on a little bit of intuition and four years of research as

a member of Croy's immunology lab at the

Ontario Veterinary College. "We're still a long

way away from any practical application of

this work;' cautions Croy, but she can't hide

her excitement about the knowledge gained through van den Heuvel's work on the role

of the immune system in human pregnancy.

I know my immune system helps me

fight off the flu, but what does that have to

do with my ability to get pregnant? And why are biomedical scientists in a veterinary col­

lege earning accolades for research that affects human medicine?

According to Croy, the answer is simple:

"We're following the science."

Some might say leading the science.

In 2002, van den Heuvel was the first recipient of an Ontario Women's Health

Scholars Post-Doctoral Fellow Award. The

$41,000 award was renewed in 2003 by the

Ontario Women's Health Council and the

Anne Croy's research has brought together the

findings of vascular biologists and immunologists.

Her work seems to say: "You're both right."

16 GuELPH ALUMNUS

Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term

Care. This new research awards program is

designed to ensure that Ontario attracts and

retains pre-eminent scholars specializing in women's health.

Trained in OVC graduate programs in the

departments of Biomedical Sciences and

Pathobiology, van den Heuvel is such a schol­

ar, but she's quick to credit her mentor's sup­

port and expertise. Croy's work in reproduc­

tive immunology has earned numerous

accolades and made her a teacher of medical

experts. In 1999, she received a prestigious

senior scientist award from the Canadian

Society of Anatomy, Cell Biology and Neu­

robiology. It was an unusual honour for a vet­

erinarian. A year later, she headed the first U

of G research team to receive support from

the Canadian Health Research Projects Pro­

gram, funded jointly by the Canadian Insti­

tutes of Health Research and the Natural Sci­ences and Engineering Research Council, for

a project in reproductive biology.

If Croy's medical colleagues are still sur­

prised by her veterinary background, they

are fewer and further between.

She served almost 10 years as a panel mem­ber for the U.S. National Institutes of Health,

the body that determines the direction ofU.S.­

funded medical research. Since 1997, she has

taught a summer course on reproduction,

mostly to medical doctors, at the Wood's Hole Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachu­

setts. She has twice been a visiting scientist at

Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo. Croy's particular interest in the immunol­

ogy of pregnancy exemplifies one of the great

strengths of veterinary medicine: the ability to look at medicine across species and gain

knowledge that improves the health and well­

being of people as well as animals.

She has followed the science from basic

immunology in mammals to the role of blood lymphocytes in pregnancy and gesta­

tion to a new focus on pre-eclampsia, a poten­

tially fatal condition in pregnant women that

leads to elevated blood pressure and prema­

ture delivery. Working with immune-defi-

cient mice, Croy and her research team devel­

oped the first animal model mimicking the

blood vessel aspects of this disease. Based on the strength of this work, she

is part of a multi-university application for

federal funding to establish a Canadian Pre­

eclampsia Network. Although it's not yet

1

funded, she hopes this centre of excellence

will support collaborative research that will

eventually lead to a true understanding of

what causes pre-eclampsia and what factors

are related to the condition.

Working with animal models Croy has been working with immune-defi­

cient mice for more than 30 years. When

she graduated from Guelph's DVM program

in 1969, she had already received a Medical

Research Council fellowship to do gradu­

ate work. Soon after graduation, she mar­

ried classmate Carl Croy, and when he

joined a veterinary practice in Toronto, her

OYC professors recommended her for a

PhD program at the University of Toron­

to's Institute of Medical Sciences. She was

the first woman and the first non-medical

doctor to graduate from the program.

Her U ofT supervisor, David Osoba, want­ed to investigate a new strain of hairless mouse

that had no thymus gland. Croy's PhD research

demonstrated that the mouse had very spe­

cific genetic defects that made it immune-defi­

cient, eliminating the need to surgically remove

the thymus from normal mice for his research. After her PhD, Croy gave up research tem­

porarily to help her husband launch a new

practice in St. Catherines. They also had two small children, so she looked closer to home at

Brock University for a chance to get back into

a research lab. Jn 1980, she began working with

developmental biologist Janet Rossant and

moved from basic immunology to a new inter­est in immune response during pregnancy.

In 1985, Croy joined OYC's Department

of Biomedical Sciences, where she continued to develop the mouse as a model for studies

involving large mammals, including pigs and

cattle. In the late 1980s, she and her Guelph

colleagues bred a new strain of severe com­bined immuno-deficient (SCID) mice as a

model for veterinary and agricultural

research. She was looking at the immune sys­

tem in livestock to determine if there was a

skewing of the immune response during

pregnancy that prevented the fetus from being

rejected like any other kind of graft would be.

One of the results of that work was the

SCID-beige mouse- an even more inunune­

deficient mouse- and a breeding program that continued for several years, with Croy's

OVC lab producing SCID-beige mice for researchers around the world.

Finding an answer leads to more questions

THERE WAS ANOTHER revela­

tion in Prof. Anne Croy's research

career that has bridged a gap of sorts

between medical scientists studying the

human condition of pre-eclampsia.

When Josee Guimond, PhD '97, was

completing her graduate research, they studied three or four strains of inunune­

deficient mice and discovered that those

that lack NK lymphocytes had smaller placentas and narrower maternal arter­

ies supplying them. These are symptoms

of pre-eclampsia, a condition affecting

about one in 20 first pregnancies. It's a

condition Croy knew about because of her involvement in the U.S. National

Institutes of Health, which required

reading numerous grant applications for

pre-eclampsia research. "I wouldn't have known about pre­

eclampsia if I hadn't sat on that study section in Washington," she says. "I

think we could have totally overlooked

this histology if I hadn't been part of that review section."

When Ali Ashkar, PhD '01, was work­

ing with Croy, they discovered he could

eliminate these symptoms by adding NK

cells back into the mouse's bloodstream.

His research showed that NK cells play

a significant role in reproduction and

defined the molecular signal involved. The small subset of lymphocytes that

normally attack tumour cells are now

known to secrete proteins that cause the

spiral arteries of the uterus to thin and

elongate, reducing the pressure of blood

flowing into the placenta. Outside the

uterus, the earliest events that occur in a

pregnant mammal are changes in the cardiovascular system, says Croy. The

mother's heart stroke volume rises sig­

nificantly and blood flow goes way up.

NK cells seem to play a key role in sen­

sitizing the arteries to allow the other

processes of pregnancy to occur prop­erly and optimize fetal development.

Croy's work in this area has attract-

ed attention from medical granting agen­

cies and some of the world's top repro­

ductive biologists. In fact, her research

has brought together the findings of vas­

cular biologists and immunologists who

have previously disagreed on the etiolo­

gy of pre-eclampsia. Her work seems to say: "You're both right."

Carrying the reproductive studies

to the next logical step, fourth-year stu­

dents Christine Sullivan and Jaana

Kastikainen are grafting human pla­

cental tissue on the alymphoid mouse.

"We've transplanted the tissue and

shown that it grows very well after the transplant;' says Croy, "and we're mea­

suring human hormones in serum from these mice."

The research group will now inject

the mice with blood plasma from a

woman with pre-eclampsia to see if they

can show whether the origin and pro­gression of the disease are from effects

of the plasma on the normal placental

tissue or if the normal placenta is resis­

tant to the plasma. The latter would sug­

gest that pre-eclampsia may be caused

by a primary defect in the immune sys­

tem of susceptible women. "There's still so much we don't

understand about the condition;' says

Croy, who is hopeful that the Canadian

Pre-eclampsia Network will eventually

receive federal funding. She is current­

ly using other mouse models to test a

hypothesis that a protein regulated by

NK cells in the uterus at the onset of

pregnancy is elevated in the mother's

circulation system, promoting the car­diovascular changes.

If this centre of excellence is success­

ful, she says, it will bring together immu­

nologists and reproductive biologists

across Canada to work on pre-eclamp­sia and, at the same time, enlarge our

understanding of the relationship

between the immune system and other critical systems in the body.

Winter 2004 17

The mouse contributes I T'S RARE FOR A university

research team to have a colony

of immune-deficient mice, says

Prof. Anne Croy. ''I'm lucky here

at OVC to have access to an iso­

lation unit and the staff who make it successful."

The containment facility is a

complete barrier isolation unit­

air is filtered until pure, food and

water are sterilized. In addition to

immune-deficient mice, it hous­

es chickens, cows, rabbits, sheep

and other animals that OVC

researchers may need to keep iso­lated from infectious agents.

The SCID-beige patent was

leased to three commercial com­

panies in 1995; all are still produc­

ing the mice for research purposes.

Croy and the University share the

royalties, with U of G revenue going back into OVC research and Croy's

share into a trust account. She's

received about $20,000 over the last

10 years and uses the money to help

cover travel expenses for graduate

students attending conferences, to

bring guest lecturers to her classes

and to support a monthly discus­sion group with students and fac­

ulty in the reproductive biology

unit at McMaster University.

A few years ago, Croy's trust

account bought lunch for 10 OVC

students and Chris Redman, a guest

lecturer from Oxford University

who's a leading expert on pre­

eclampsia. One of those students

was Angela Borzychowski, who was doing fourth-year research in Croy's

lab. Today, she's completing her PhD

at Oxford, and her research abstract

was chosen by the British Society of

Immunology as one of the top five immunology student papers in the

United Kingdom in 2003.

18 GuELPH ALUMNUS

SCID mice are missing two of three sub­

sets of lymphocytes that enable mammals to develop immunity in response to an antigen

that invades the body. A small fraction of

blood lymphocytes are known as natural killer

(NK) cells, aptly named because their role is

to recognize and kill foreign cells such as viral

or tumour cells, as part of the body's natural

immune response. In SCID-beige mice, the

function of this third subset is also blocked. Croy now works with the alymphoid

mouse, a strain created by French scientist

James Di Santo that is missing all lymphocytes.

Understanding NK cells The OVC research with mice has shown that

NK cells migrate to the uterus during preg­

nancy as if called by the female body to attack the foreign embryo, but instead they

seem to play a vital role in nurturing the developing fetus .

"That was always a puzzle from an

immunology standpoint," says van den

Heuvel. "Because the fetus is part of the

mother and also part of the father, it's actu­

ally foreign and should be rejected by the

mother's immune system."

She knows from working in Croy's lab that, in mice, NK cells adhere to the blood

vessel walls, where they secrete proteins that

cause the blood vessels to thin and elongate

and increase blood flow to the fetus. Because

mouse and human reproductive systems are

similar, the researchers believe NK cells play a similar role in women.

That's a discussion van den Heuvel says

she couldn't even envision 11 years ago when she left the family dairy farm near Stratford,

It was a eureka moment when Marianne

van den Heuvel was able to predict: "This woman

is going to get pregnant."

r !

Ont., to pursue graduate work at U of G. "I

didn't even know what immunology was."

Van den Heuvel had earned a Guelph

undergraduate degree in resources manage­

ment in 1980, spent a year working for the

Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, then

joined the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food. In 1988, she and her husband,

lngo Menzel, a high school science teacher,

moved to her family's farm so she could help

out her father. She loved working with live­

stock, but her father's failing health led to the

dairy herd being sold in 1992.

It was the farm experience, particularly

working with cows, that brought van den

Heuvel back to U of G. "We would have

high-production cows producing milk like

crazy, but we couldn't get them to calve

again," she recalls. "Our vet said he'd seen

this at other farms, too. I wondered if it was

because their reproductive systems were affected by high stress levels."

She completed a master's degree in 1995

and a PhD in 2001 and is now doing post­

doctoral research that she hopes will lead to

an academic career at a medical university.

Still, she's not too far from her initial farm insights. She and Menzel still live on the

Stratford-area farm with their two children,

and the research program that earned her

the Women's Health Council award focuses

on the intricacies of how the immune sys­tem affects a female's ability to reproduce.

"About 10 per cent of couples are infer­

tile, and it's hard to figure out why;' she says. "This work may be a way of identifying

problems affecting a woman's ability to have

children. The problem could be with the woman's immune system rather than the

reproductive system."

The first stage of her post-doctoral

research used blood samples from healthy fer­

tile women of child-bearing age who weren't

taking any hormone supplements such as birth control pills. Thanks to dozens of female

volunteers in Guelph who were willing to give

a blood sample every other day for a month,

van den Heuvel was able to map the adhesion

of NK cells to the uterus against the states of

the menstrual cycle. She found that in fertile

women, there is an influx of NK cells into the uterus on ovulation. If pregnancy doesn't

occur, the cells are shed along with the unfer­

tilized egg. The work was done in vitro using

uterine tissue harvested from pregnant mice.

Van den Heuvel's research group has part­

nered with the reproductive endocrinology

and infertility programs at the University of

Western Ontario in London, which help

women trying to bear children through in vitro fertilization. The eureka moment came

during the second phase of the project when

she compared levels ofNK adhesions in the London patients, who were taking hormone

supplements, with the NK adhesion map­

ping she created from her Guelph volunteers.

The first pregnancy appeared in study

patient 021, and her chart showed a definite pattern in the rise of NK adhesions just

before and after the successful embryo

transplant. None of the other patient sam­

ples showed an increase in NK cells. Using

the pattern established by 021, van den

Heuvel began to predict which of the oth­

er patients would get pregnant.

"We knew nothing about these women,

nothing about their fertility program, not even their ages, but I knew their blood cells, which

were identified by codes held in London. It was

very exciting when we could track a steady

increase in NK cell adhesion as they progressed

through their treatment protocol and be able

to say: 'This woman is going to get pregnant."' Exciting, yes, but still only the beginning

of a hypothesis that might develop into the

simple blood test described at the beginning

of our story. A test that would allow fertil­

ity clinics to predict reliably on which day

an embryo transplant will be successful.

That blood test would be invaluable to

patients unable to conceive naturally. In vit­ro fertilization costs about $10,000 per cycle

and is extremely invasive; the success rate is

only 25 to 30 per cent.

The next step for van den Heuvel is to frnd

out what controls the adhesion of NK cells. Is

there a hormonal influence? Can we measure

it? Do infertile women display a dysregulation

of the NK cells? And if so, can we figure out

what causes it and find a way to correct it so the woman could have a normal cycle?

This brings our story back to the future,

thinking way beyond the development of a

simple blood test for use in fertility clinics. But

like her mentor, van den Heuvel is following

the science, looking at the big picture of where

these first studies may fit into a greater under­standing of how the mammalian immune sys­

tem affects, even controls, events associated

with the reproductive cycle in females. ga

Developing Scientists I N AN AGE WHERE techno­

logical advances are expanding

medical frontiers at the cellular

and subcellular levels, the poten­

tial for a comparative approach to

research is growing exponential­

ly. The veterinary profession needs

to encourage more of its gradu­

ates to pursue research careers,

and Croy is by her own example

helping to meet that need.

Throughout her OVC career,

she has supervised 17 graduate students, six at the PhD level,

and more than 25 fourth-year

undergraduate project courses.

She has also hosted seven post­doctoral associates and five vis­

iting scientists.

Their work has been funded

by various granting agencies and foundations, including the Nat­

ural Sciences and Engineering

Research Council, Ontario Min­istry of Agriculture and Food,

Ontario Pork, Ontario Cattle­

men's Association, Canadian

Association of Animal Breeders,

Pet Trust, OVC Bull Travel Fel­

lowships, Alma Mater Fund and

other U of G research funds, as well as the Medical Research

Council, World Health Organiza­

tion, Hospital for Sick Children

and Canadian Institutes for Health Research.

Following the science has enabled Croy to complete two

research leaves at Roswell Park

Cancer Institute in Buffalo, where

she is still an adjunct professor.

She and the scientists training

with her also enjoy the co-opera­

tion of medical school faculty and

staff at McMaster, Queen's and

the universities of Toronto and Western Ontario.

Winter 2004 19

l

!I

EXPLORING '

Innate curiosity drives Guelph scientists to study the amazing network of life we call biodiversity

ZooLOGY PROFESSOR Denis Lynn, B.Sc. '69, spends much of his day poring over things unseen,

or at least things that can be seen only with the aid

of microscopes and other instruments. He and his colleagues study single-celled creatures, including

dinoflagellates whose uncontrolled blooms can cause shellfish poisoning and Plasmodium, a par­asitic protozoan that causes malaria.

But for all the scientist's singular focus on uni­cellular organisms, Lynn admits that a large part

of what drives his studies stems from the same kind of wide-eyed appreciation for nature, in all

its varied forms, that childhood instils in most of

us. Recalling camping trips with his family to Georgian Bay, catching frogs and snakes and boat­ing with his father, he chuckles: "I like to say I'm

a kid who never grew up."

These days, when he returns to Georgian Bay

with grown-up eyes, he sees distinctly more of

some things- more people, more cottages, more

boats - and correspondingly less of others, notably the shoreline and its associated plants and animals. That change in his lifetime mirrors the experience of many of us who have seen a similar paring away of plants, animals and other living things in the places we knew as youngsters or even not that long ago. There are indeed limits to the seemingly infinite variety of life on Earth.

Researchers like Lynn and fellow scientists across the U of G campus are focusing on the problem to help us understand and conserve the Earth's biodiversity.

BY ANDREW VOWLES ILLUSTRATION BY TRACY WALKER, i2i

Not far from Lynn's office in the Axel­

rod Building, zoology professor Jinzhong

Fu points to a survey of scientists done five

years ago by the American Museum of Nat­

ural History. Asked to rank the number-one

threat to the globe, they fingered species dis­

appearance triggered by habitat loss ahead

of pollution, global warming and the thin­

ning of the ozone layer. Many believe that,

at current extinction rates, half of all species

of plants and animals alive today will

become extinct sometime this century.

Thinning numbers, on the other hand,

are well-documented. Fu grew up on a farm

in eastern China where evenings were alive

with the sounds of frogs and toads. Today, the

nighttime chorus has diminished noticeably.

He blames habitat loss, as growing demand

for irrigation water has reduced the height of

the water table drastically in just 20 years.

He points to another consequence of

habitat erosion, one that led him to can­

cel a planned research trip during last

spring's outbreak of severe acute respira-

At current rates of extinction, half of

all species of plants and animals alive

today will become extinct sometime this

century - Connections between loss of

biodiversity and health threats such as

"That's why we're alarmed," says Fu.

"We're currently in a process of mass extinc­

tion;' one that's on a scale greater even than

the catastrophic events believed to have

wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

As a genealogist of sorts, he uses evolu­

tionary ecology and molecular biology to

work out lineages among species of frogs and

salamanders and where those creatures came

from in the first place. So diverse is one steep

river valley on the eastern slope of the Tibetan

Plateau in his native China that he has dis­

covered some I 0 new species of herps- rep­

tiles and amphibians in herpetologist's lingo

-since his first trip there in 1999. Explain­

ing the paradox of finding new species even

as experts sound alarms over dwindling bio­

diversity, he says best estimates of numbers

of creatures are just that: estimates.

22 GUELPH ALUMNUS

tory syndrome (SARS) In Beijing.

Although epidemiologists have yet to fill

in the dotted lines, scientists have traced

connections between loss of biodiversity

and health threats such as SARS that are

believed to arise when disease organisms

jump from animals to people. Shrink nat­

ural habitats even further, he says, and you

risk forcing wild animals and their asso­

ciated bugs into closer contact with peo­

ple, a problem magnified in a densely pop­

ulated country like China.

It's not just habitat loss and human activ­

ities that threaten biodiversity. Just as SARS

grabbed its share of headlines last year, so

did an infestation of a different sort in parts

of southern Ontario that threatened native

tree species, including ash and maple, in

cities and forests alike. Two insect species

believed to have hitched a ride to North

America- the emerald ash borer and the

Asian long-horned beetle- had federal offi­

cials imposing quarantine and considering

widespread clear-cutting to contain the pests.

One of the experts asked .to help in identi­

fYing tl1e newcomers to north Toronto and the

Windsor area was Prof. Steve Marshall,

B.Sc.(Agr.) '77 and PhD '82, Environmental

Biology. He calls invasive species "undoubt­

edly one of the most serious threats to biodi­

versity." The culprits here are the insects, of

course. But the director of Guelph's insect col­

lection says bugs themselves might just as eas­

ily become the victims. If it sounds paradoxi­

cal to hear zoologist Fu mention loss of

numbers and discoveries of new frogs in the

same breath, then it's almost impossible to

imagine that insects- estimated to include

some five million species worldwide- might

face a crisis. Turn the microscope around, says

Marshall. If one or a few animal species are

endangered by some factor, you can automat­

ically magnify the number and variety of insect

species under threat. And although insects

appear virtually everywhere on Earth, many

have become so specialized that you might find

certain species living only in a sliver of tall­

grass prairie or on a lone mountaintop.

Closer to home, he says bugs are not

immune to the kinds of internecine warfare

that affects animals and birds. In his Bovey

Building office, he sketches a graph to show

the decline of the native nine-spotted lady­

beetle since his own days as an undergrad­

uate here at Guelph. That downward line

intersects almost perfectly with the equally

precipitous rise of the introduced seven­

spotted ladybeetle, a trend reflected today in

their relative numbers in student collections.

Well before earning his own PhD, Mar­

shall began collecting insects around his

native Guelph, including the former Hanlon

Pond (since paved over) and here at U of G

("' had the Dairy Bush pretty well collected

by age seven or eight"). Keeping a weather

eye on regional insect species is part of his job

as director of the insect collection, which dates

to the mid-1800s and includes more than two

million specimens, making it the third- or

fourth-largest such collection in Canada.

"University of Guelph material is now

considered essential to anyone doing research

on North American insects or on flies any­

where in the world," says Marshall, who has

described almost 200 fly species and has writ­

ten fly species keys and catalogues. "Anyone

working on taxonomy of an insect group in

northeastern North America, as well as those

working on certain groups of flies, pretty much has to come here."

He and other U of G researchers belong to the Costa Rica "Megadiversity" Project,

the largest biodiversity inventory ever under­

taken. Involving systematists from around

the world, the project is designed to docu­

ment the biodiversity of four of the largest

groups of organisms in Costa Rica: fungi, beetles, hymenoptera (bees and wasps) and

flies. Marshall is talking about insects, but

his words echo comments about plants

made by another Guelph grad-turned-pro­

fessor. Last spring, botany professor Steven

Newmaster, B.Sc. '93, was appointed cura­

tor of the U of G herbarium, where he had

spent three years as a volunteer technician

during his undergraduate years at Guelph. "I knew I was going to be a botanist at

eight years old," says Newmaster, who first

learned to identify trees, shrubs and wild­

flowers on the family farm in Cambridge.

Although most of those plants remain on the

farm itself, parts of the adjacent forest mark­ing the northern extent of Ontario's Carolin­

ian region have been lost to a gravel quarry.

Remaining sections, including land under the

jurisdiction of the local conservation author­

ity, have lost certain relatively obscure species

of mosses- a sign to him that the authori­

ty's single-minded focus on encouraging

growth of the forest under-story has ignored the larger issue of native diversity. Further

afield, he's had more success. His surveys of

plant species in northern Ontario helped

change herbicide spraying practices to reduce

the impact on non-target species of plants.

Newmaster is an expert in moss taxon­

omy and Ontario flowering plants (he's cur­

rently writing an expanded edition of the Ontario Plant List, which he co-authored

in 1998). As with U of G's insect collection,

it's a mandate to classify and identify things

that drives his century-old botanical teach­

ing and research library. The herbarium's nearly 100,000 specimens

serve as a primary source of information

about the taxonomy, geography and biology

of plants from weeds to native varieties. Besides its use by researchers in the Depart­

ment of Botany and the Ontario Agricultur-

al College, the herbarium sees visitors from

police officers hoping to identify toxic or hal­

lucinogenic plants, weed inspectors, field

botanists, consultants and the general public.

As if to emphasize the herbarium's clas­sification roots, Newmaster picks up a wood­

en plant press used to prepare newly acquired

specimens for drying and mounting. "This

is the technique Linnaeus used;' he says.

Although Carolus Linnaeus- the 18th­

century founder of our system for classify­

ing living things - might find familiar

computer printout resembling a complicat­

ed heart monitor readout will allow the

researchers to determine which species of

crustacean that tissue came from.

For Hebert, it's been more than a few

years since the day his four-year-old self ran

home in his native Kingston to show his mother a bee he'd snared in a bottle. But the

same impulse guides his steps as a Canada

Research Chair in Molecular Biodiversity.

"We're assembling information that will

soon lead to a new approach to species iden-

SARS are believed to arise when disease

organisms jump from animals to people -

U of G material is considered essential to

anyone doing research on North American

insects or on flies anywhere in the world

ground in the herbarium, he would arguably

be a bit lost on the other side of the Axelrod Building. Here, zoology professor Paul

Hebert is nurturing a 21st-century species identification system that he calls "the rise of

a new level ofbio-literacy." In Hebert's lab, a

visiting post-doc lifts an eyedropper-shaped tube in a gloved hand to reveal a snippet of

muscle tissue from a Pacific shrimp floating

in ethanol. Through a process involving

digestive chemicals, centrifuges and DNA­

amplifying machinery, he will isolate a tell­

tale fragment of the genetic material in the

tissue. Like a checkout scanner reading the

bar code at a grocery store, other machinery

will then analyze that DNA snippet to read the sequence of base pairs within a particu­

lar stretch and compare that sequence with

a growing database maintained in the lab. A

tification," he says.

In a paper published last year, he sug­

gested scientists could bar code within 20

years all of the estimated 10 million species

of animals on Earth, of which only about

10 per cent have been identified and for­

mally described during the past 250 years.

"We're saying that we need to bring

modern technology to the task of species recognition," says Hebert, whose vision

includes the possibility of developing hand­

held bar-coding units that would allow field

researchers to identify critters easily and

quickly using nothing more than a bit of

DNA from a tissue sample or swab. His method has attracted widespread attention

from scientists worldwide, who are now

debating the relative merits of using DNA

to identify not just species of animals but

Winter 2004 23

other living things from Newmaster's plants

to Marshall's insects to Lynn's protozoans.

Studying biodiversity is about more than

probing DNA, of course. But that fledgling

technology is central to a planned grouping

of researchers eager to lead a revolution in

our understanding of life's variety. Con­

struction is expected to begin this spring on

a new two-story building (featuring a cen­

tral staircase coiled, appropriately enough,

in DNA-spiral fashion) to house a new Bio­

diversity Institute of Ontario (BIO). The

ticularly in the past five years, he's seen

reductions in diversity that he believes point

to the larger effects of global climate change.

Looking for field course sites closer to

home, Newmaster was excited this past Sep­

tember when he was tipped to a likely loca­

tion that turned out to be a Class I wetland.

Two months later, he was shocked to learn

the area had been clear-cut for a gravel quar­

ry. The tale was distressingly familiar. He's

seen the bog that he visited as an under­

graduate nearly completely taken over by

Scientists could bar code within 20

years all of the estimated 10 million

species of animals on Earth -- Reductions

in diversity point to the larger effects of

global climate change. Being able to

institute will draw in researchers from at least

three colleges across campus, including not

just botanists, zoologists and environmen­

tal biologists but also microbiologists, mol­

ecular biologists and even computing and

information scientists interested in bio-infor­

matics, the use of computers to sift through

oceans of biological and species data.

"We're on the brink of a new taxonomy;'

says Newmaster, who last year retired his

collecting notebooks in favour of a laptop

and global positioning system for logging

plant finds in the field. Last summer he took

several students to study plant populations

in so-called ''Arctic disjuncts," pockets near

the northern shore of Lake Superior whose

plant communities date back to the post­

glaciation period. He's been tracking

changes there for more than a decade. Par-

24 GuELPH ALUMNUS

weedy, invasive species, perhaps triggered

by nearby development and an accompa­

nying reduction in the level of the local

water table. He hopes the proposed BIO will

make a difference, here and further afield.

"Guelph is one of the few spots in North

America and internationally looking at the

landscape, floristically and faunistically, to

try and understand everything in these sys­

tems, collect the samples, figure out how to

identify them using the most current tech­

nology we have, and preserve their genomes."

Newmaster's botany colleague Prof. Bri­

an Husband plans to investigate use of DNA

bar-coding for identifying hybrid plants,

inducting threatened American chestnut trees.

Husband belongs to natural recovery

teams for two tree species. Red mulberry is

the most endangered tree in Canada, thanks

to hybridization with white mulberry, intro­

duced to North America in the 1600s to feed

silkworm caterpillars. American chestnut trees,

once of major economic importance to east­

ern North America, were nearly obliterated

by a fungus thought to have been imported

from Asia early in the 20th century.

"It was probably one of the biggest eco­

logical disasters of the last century," says

Husband, who is working with the Canadi­

an Chestnut Council on plans to restore the

species. His two-year inventory turned up

more than 600 specimens in southern

Ontario, and he estimates there may be that

many again growing in pockets around the

province. He hopes to use genetics, includ­

ing DNA bar-coding, to verify a theory that

hybrids between native and Asian or Euro­

pean chestnuts imported by nut growers are

naturally resistant to the fungus that caus­

es blight in the native species.

Being able to identify hybrids reliably is

key to the recovery plan, says Husband. "The

main value of the Biodiversity Institute of

Ontario will be the opportunity to identify

and distinguish biological entities we can't

otherwise identify, either because the

boundaries are fuzzy or because only mate­

rial such as pollen, roots or other hard-to­

identify parts are available."

Holder of a Canada Research Chair in

Population Biology and Ecological Genetics,

he studies threatened or endangered plants,

including the lakeside daisy, which is found

only around the Great Lakes. Surveys by one

of his graduate students found that the plant

has suffered from habitat destruction and

land-use activities, leading to its designation

as a threatened species. Habitat destruction

and encroachment resonate personally with

Husband, who has watched changes occur to

areas of the Rockies where he regularly hiked

and camped as a yow1gster. He still does field­

work in soutl1western Alberta, where "the first

thing you notice is changes in land use along

the front slopes. Development for access for

oil and gas companies is incredible."

Back on the other side of the Axelrod

Building, zoology professor Kevin McCann,

M.Sc. '93 and PhD '97, returned to Guelph

this year as a Canada Research Chair in Bio­

diversity. For him, signs of problems in the

wild increased in lockstep with the ever-ris­

ing number on the population sign posted

at the outskirts of Barrie, Ont., where he

grew up. "You think about these things as a

child and feel you can't do a thing," he says.

Now a theoretical ecologist- he com­

bined earlier math studies with ecology

degrees from Guelph- McCann models ecosystems from seagrass communities in

Barbados to the Great Lakes to tease apart

often-complicated webs of predator-prey

interactions. He is among a number of sci­

entists challenging long-held ideas about the "balance of nature." Diversity doesn't

necessarily beget stability, he says. Instead,

there are likely other forces at work to

explain how an ecosystem unfolds more or

less predictably from one year or season to the next. "What is it about nature that allows

things to be stable?" he says.

Similar questions absorb another recent

arrival in Botany. Prof. Hafiz Maherali, a

plant physiologist, studies the role of plants

and associated organisms in ecosystems.

Never an outdoors type while growing up in Calgary, he says his interest in the natur­

al world was piqued at McGill University

during a summer field course in plant ecol­

ogy. Acknowledging human effects on the

landscape, he is also interested in natural

processes that affect ecosystems. "I've been in North Carolina after a hur­

ricane. It's damage on a colossal scale; it

might as well be clear-cut. I'm interested not

so much in preserving biodiversity as in

understanding what biodiversity means."

That sentiment is echoed by Husband,

whose interest, besides his work with threat­

ened or endangered species, lies in study­ing ecosystem changes, including changes

wrought by natural processes such as forest

fires along the slopes of the Rockies.

In a unique twist, Maherali arrived at

Guelph last year as one-half of a husband­

and-wife team that bring shared interests in

plant physiology and ecology to bear through a "whole-organism perspective." His wife,

Prof. Christina Caruso, Botany, likens her

interest in the evolution of flowering plants

such as lobelia to her abiding passion for his­

tory, a subject that nearly became a double

major alongside her ecology studies.

Says Maherali: "Ecologists or evolution­

ary biologists are all in some way trying to understand how biodiversity evolved. How

did we get here?"

Beyond the BIO, Hebert is also leading

a drive to assemble a cross-Canada network

of researchers interested in using DNA bar­

coding to understand and promote biodi­

versity. Their proposal for a Microgenomics Network has also generated interest from

industry and governments in Canada and

abroad. They see possibilities for applying

bar-coding to numerous problems: curbing invasive species; identifying pests and dis­

eases; tracking regional changes in biodi­

versity; learning more about evolution and

speciation; completing habitat inventories

(including the ambitious Census of Marine

inherent in Goodall's Roots and Shoots pro­

gram that might help us understand and

preserve the diversity of life on Earth, to

borrow a phrase from Sir David Attenbor­

ough, who visited U of Gin 2003 to receive

an honorary degree .. ln an interview last spring, the British documentary filmmak­

er explained that his career spent recording

the wild- including his landmark BBC

series, Life on Earth- has been an attempt

to engage and inform an increasingly urban

audience about the world beyond the city,

identify hybrids reliably key to the . IS

recovery plan What is it about nature

that allows things to be stable? Bio-

diversity is the matrix that supports us;

it is the network in which life exists

Life, under which scientists have been cat­

aloguing the oceans for the past three years);

and managing ecosystems from the Great

Lakes to nature preserves.

"Biodiversity is the matrix in which we're

suspended," says environmental biologist Marshall. "It's the network in which life exists."

He visited Australia late last year to help devel­

op a digital identification key for insects. "We

need to understand pieces of the network."

And we need to pass on what zoologist

Lynn calls that inborn "interest and passion"

for the natural world, not just to today's uni­

versity students but earlier than that- to,

say, those wide-eyed youngsters he says

attended a recent lecture at Guelph by world-renowned chimpanzee researcher

Jane Goodall. For all the big words and big

ideas on campus, it's equally the small steps

and the threats that those cities and city

mice pose to that natural world. "If I talk to an audience in Britain;' he said,

"I can be pretty sure that 95 per cent of them

have not seen a wild living creature, other than

maybe a pigeon, for days. It's extraordinary."

It's also bordering on sacrilege for Hebert, who took time to introduce the

University's expertise in biodiversity stud­

ies to Attenborough during his Guelph vis­

it. The zoologist's work with DNA bar-cod­

ing may be earning him attention from

researchers around the world. But it's hard

not to hear in his voice something of the

excitement of that youngster rushing home

to share his insect find with his mother as he says: "A deep love of organisms is what

drives us. We're gaining insights that, as a

child, I couldn't have imagined." ga

Winter 2004 25

-

UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH

ALUMNI PROFILES

SASQUATCH TALK DRAWS A CROWD

ALONGT!M E SASQUATCH investiga­

tor who studied wildlife biology at U

of G drew a crowd of more than 350 when

he spoke on campus in October. John Bindernagel, BSA '64, presented

eyewitness drawings and plaster casts of

tracks to make the case for the hypothesis that "there seems to be a North American

great ape among us." He also discussed the

nature of scientific inquiry and the resistance

he's encountered to his ideas, dating back to

his own undergraduate days at Guelph.

Bindernagel's Guelph host was zoology

professor Jim Bogart, a U of G classmate

during the early 1960s. Bogart, whose own recent work on a species of unisexual sala­

manders has raised eyebrows among main­

stream herpetologists, said the lecture was

a good addition to the department's fall semmar senes.

"I think people should have an open

mind;' said Bogart. "I think students can lis­

ten to something and judge for themselves. That's what we train them for."

Bindernagel admitted that most scien­

tists dismiss reports of sightings of large ape-like animals as mistaken identification

of bears or as hoaxes. Others point to the

lack of bones and other remains that would

prove the existence of a North American

great ape. But there is no question that Big­

foot is a topic of great general interest. Although most sightings occur in the

Pacific northwest, people have reported see­

ing Bigfoot-like creatures or tracks across

;;e North America, including about 30 accounts Vl

!5 in Ontario. Bindernagel said reports have ~ come from northern Ontario, the Bruce

~ Peninsula and the Niagara Peninsula over a ::;: ~ span of at least 20 years. ~ In 1998, he published a book called North [5 America's Great Ape: The Sasquatch, which

6: drew on more than 150 sasquatch reports.

26 GuELPH ALUMNUS

Bindernagel's own interest was sparked

while studying at U of G. When he asked a

question in class about a sasquatch report,

he drew laughter from his classmates and a

curt reply from the professor. "He said: 'We're not going to talk about that: We went

back to wolves and moose and deer. That

got my back up."

After leaving Guelph, Bindernagel

earned a PhD at the University of Wiscon­sin in 1970. He has worked as a wildlife con­

servation adviser in East Africa, Iran and

the Caribbean. Since 1975, he has been an

environmental consultant in British Colum­bia and has studied sasquatch reports. He

belongs to the Bigfoot Field Researchers

Organization ( www.bigfootbiologist.org). "I don't go around trying to convince

people that the sasquatch exists," he said.

"What I'm looking for is a forum to explain

and tell the evidence we have and say this is worthy of scientific scrutiny."

He has never seen a sasquatch himself.

In 1988, he found 15-inch tracks in Strath­

cona Provincial Park on Vancouver Island.

In the photo, he's holding a plaster cast made from one of those tracks.

During his Ontario visit, Bindernagel

also filmed a TV interview in Toronto for

the Discovery Channel.

atters HIGHLIGHTS • GRAD NEWS • OBITUARIES • CALENDAR

GRYPHON ATHLETES JOIN HALL OF FAME

Members of the 1966/67 women's hockey team who attended the Hall of Fame dinner were, from

left: Ingrid (Wicklund) Laidlaw, BA '67; Kaye (Marsh) Hogg, DVM '70; judy (Beamish) Nave, B.H.Sc.

'67; Shirley Peterson, women's athletics director; Mary (Gilbank) McEwen, B.Sc.(Agr.) '67; Beth

(Stansell) Batty and Kathy (Hodgins) Lougheed, B.H.Sc. '68.

Individuals honoured by the Hall of Fame are, from left: Ron Foxcroft, Mike Shoemaker, Avril

(Peaker) Swanston, Steve Perkovic, Bill Weber and Stuart Miller.

THEY woN GuELPH's firstWomen's

Intercollegiate Athletic Union champi­

onship in hockey in 1967, setting the pace

for a string of six championship titles over

the next seven years. The athletes, coaches

and managers of the women's 1966/67

hockey team were inducted into the

Gryphon Club Hall of Fame Sept. 25, 2003.

Five individual athletes were also induct­

ed, and an award of merit went to OUA bas-

ketball official Ron Foxcroft, the only Cana­

dian basketball referee to have officiated in

the NCAA (1963 to 1999). Off the court, he

is president of Fluke Transport and Ware­

housing and inventor of the Fox 40 Pealess

Whistle. He was named by Profit Magazine as one of the top 10 Canadian entrepreneurs

of the decade.

The individual athletes honoured were:

Stuart Miller, B.Sc. '81. Team captain and

a leading scorer for the soccer Gryphons,

he captured conference All-Star honours,

was named to the OUAA Select Team,

chosen league MVP and selected as a

CIAU All-Canadian.

• Avril (Peaker) Swanston, BA '83. Female

Rookie of the Year in 1980, she led the

Gryphon swim team to a bronze-medal

finish at the OWIAA championships and

won individual go ld and silver OWIAA

freestyle medals in both 1980 and 1981 and

a bronze at the 1980 CIAU championships.

Steve Perkovic, B.Comm. '93. The OUAA's

hockey rookie of the year in 1989, he also

earned All-Star status in four consecutive

years. He was captain of the 1992 west

division champions and was selected as

the team's MVP, a CIAU All-Canadian and

U of G's Male Athlete of the Year.

Mike Shoemaker, B.A.Sc. '89. This two­

time OUA First Team All-Star and CIAU

All-Canadian quarterback has a long list

of accolades: recipient of U of G's Don

Cameron Award, Male Athlete of the Year

in 1988, OUA conference MVP twice,

eight school records and four OUA

records in both 1988 and 1989, and the

CIAU's highest completion percentage in .,

a season (68.5 per cent) in 1988. S Bill Weber, DVM '59. He quarterbacked &i the football Gryphons to the OQAA title "' -<

Gl in 1955 and 1958 and was known for his ~

outstanding leadership abilities and char- ~ s:

acter. He served on the athletic council for ~

four years, including a term as chair.

Winter 2004 27

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alumni Matters

Coming Events

jan. 16- 13th Annual Aggie Good Times

Banquet, a formal banquet at the end of Career Week for alumni and students,

Country Heritage Park. Contact the Stu­

dent Federation of OAC at Ext. 58321 for

tickets and details.

jan. 30 - Deadline for nominations for UGAA Alumni Awards. Categories are

Alumnus of Honour, Alumni Medal of

Achievement and Alumni Volunteer Award. To receive a brochure and nomi­

nation form, call Alumni Affairs at 519-

824-4120, Ext. 56544, or 1-888-266-3108.

March 3- U of G annual Alumni Flori­da Reunion, Maple Leaf Estates, Port

Charlotte, Fla. For details, send e-mail to

alumni@uoguelph.ca or call Ext. 56544. March 20 and 21 - College Royal.

Check out www.collegeroyal.uoguelph.ca

for details.

March 26 and 27 - OAC Alumni Asso­ciation ( OACAA) 46th annual curling

bonspiel, Guelph Curling Club and

Guelph Country Club. To register, contact Carla Bradshaw at Ext. 56657 or e-mail

cbradsha@oac.uoguelph.ca.

March 31 -Deadline for nominations

for OACAA Distinguished Faculty Awards.

Contact Carla Bradshaw at Ext. 56657 or

cbradsha@oac. uoguelph.ca.

june 25 to 27 -Alumni Weekend.

For more information about these and other alumni events, contact Alumni

Affairs at alumni@uoguelph.ca or 519-

824-4120, Ext. 56544.

STAY IN TOUCH BY E-MAIL

ALUMNI AFFAIRS AND Development

sent out its first e-newsletter to more

than 30,000 alumni last summer. The

e-newsletter will continue to go out

every two months with invitations to

alumni events, as well as news of student

achievements, athletic events and ser­

vices available to alumni. To receive the U of G alumni e-newsletter, send your

e-mail address, name and grad year to alumnirecords@uoguelph.ca.

28 GuELPH ALUMNus

OTTAWA ALUMNI/ STUDENTS CONNECT

U of G alumni and their families enjoyed dis·

counted prices at a fa ll 2003 Ottawa Rene­

gades game and tailgate party. The event

was part of the Inter-University Capital Alum­

ni Network schedule of events for universi­

ty alumni who want to stay connected to

their alma mater. Above: Elizabeth Dennisk,

left, and Janet Toole, both BA 'o2 graduates

who live in the Ottawa area, came out to

show their Gryphon spirit.

-(. )

SUMMER'S JUST AROUND THE CORNER

DURING ALUMNI Weekend 2004, we'll

celebrate the 40th anniversary of the incor­

poration of the University of Guelph. Mark

June 25 to 27 on your calendar and plan to join your classmates for a reunion event, birthday cake, campus tours, award presen­

tations and an alumni pub. Information

about how to plan a reunion for your class

is available at www.uoguelph.ca/alumni.

LIVE OUT OF TOWN?

AVARIETY OF EVENTS are being

planned for the coming year in areas

outside of Guelph, including social and net­

working events. To get involved as a local vol­

unteer, contact Alumni Affairs staff at alum­

ni@uoguelph.ca. To ensure that your name

goes on the invitation list for events in your area, keep your e-mail and mailing address­

es up to date.

Use the alumni online community to con­

tact other Guelph grads in your area, post

Incoming Guelph students and their parents

were welcomed into the U of G community

at an informal gathering in August. There

were lots of questions for the recent grads

and current Guelph students who attended,

as well as for Alumni Affairs staff, including

OAC alumni manager Carla Bradshaw, left.

Close to 400 students from Ottawa are now

enrolled at U of G, and more than 2,500

Guelph alumni live in the Ottawa area.

your business card or provide personal

information. For address changes, send

e-mail to alumnirecords@uoguelph.ca. To

join the U of G alumni online community, visit www.olcnetwork.net/uoguelph.

SOCCER STARS STILL SHINE

T H 1 s SPRING, the Gryphon men's var­sity soccer team will host its fifth invita­

tional soccer tournament in the sports dome.

Organizers hope to duplicate the nostalgia and success of last year's event when several

members of the 1990 provincial champion Gryphon squad reunited to compete in­

and win- the indoor soccer tournament. The former Gryphons went undefeated

and did not allow a single goal as they met current varsity teams from the universities

of Windsor, Western and Carleton. They

tied teams from Trent and Guelph and defeated Windsor again in the final match

to win the championship hardware.

According to one team member: "As in the old days, the victory was celebrated at

Gryphs, except this time there was more ice

strapped to our bodies than in the drinks."

"WE ARE YOUR SQUEAKY WHEEL ON CAMPUS"

THE SQUEAKY WHEEL gets the grease.

And right now Bill Summers, B.Sc.(Agr.)

'82 and M.Sc. '84, is one of the squeakiest

wheels among Guelph's 70,000 alumni.

He says that's his job.

Summers uses the professional skills

developed working at DuPont Canada Inc.

in his volunteer role as president of the Uni­

versity of Guelph Alumni Association

(UGAA). He says one of his mandates as

president is to make sure that individual

alumni voices are being heard by the Uni­

versity administration, by the UGAA board

of directors and by the staff, faculty and stu­

dents of the University.

"Our alumni base is our most valuable

asset," he says, "and we need to make sure

we're giving them every opportunity to

share their opinions and ideas. Our alum­

ni need to know we're listening."

That's why Summers and other alumni

on the UGAA executive are trying to turn

up the volume on alumni communications.

In addition to proposed changes to stream­

line the structure of the alumni association

to make it more efficient and effective,

they've also got some ideas that will ensure

there is an alumni perspective on issues that

affect the University of Guelph.

Listening to alumni Taking advantage of Internet technologies,

the UGAA plans to launch a virtual alum­

ni panel of 110 people representing what

Summers calls "the diversity" of Guelph's

alumni family.

"We want people with a variety of

degrees and diplomas, men and women,

new graduates and older alumni, some who

live close to campus and others who are

oceans away:'

They'll communicate with the UGAA

through e-mail, and panel membership will

change every two years.

Summers sees the virtual panel as a

sounding board for UGAA initiatives and a

source of support for the volunteers who

represent alumni within the alumni associ­

ation and on a variety of University com­

mittees, boards and Senate. Summers met

UGAA president Bill Summers speaks on behalf of alumni at the Oct. 10 installation of U of G

president Alastair Summerlee.

with U of G's new president, Alastair Sum­

merlee, to outline UGAA plans and sug­

gested that the association also needs greater

influence on issues that affect alumni and

their connection to the University.

"We need to ensure that alumni are rep­

resented on boards and committees, and

that these alumni representatives are hear­

ing from their constituents;' says Summers.

Getting things done The UGAA also wants to improve commu­

nication within the association itself and

increase the number of opportunities for

alumni groups to contribute. At the annu­

al general meeting during Alumni Weekend

in June 2004, UGAA members will be asked

to ratify a new three-tiered administrative

structure.

It's proposed that a UGAA council be cre­

ated to give all alumni groups an opportuni­

ty to connect with the association. Its mem­

bership will welcome existing college- and

program-based alumni associations and oth­

er "communities of interest" that may be based

on alumni connections through athletics, res­

idences, student clubs and other means.

The proposed council would meet three

times a year, providing input for the bene­

fit of the UGAA board and University staff

in Alumni Affairs and Development. But

the council would also offer information

and training opportunities to help partici­

pants organize and manage their own com­

munities of interest.

The second tier in the new UGAA struc­

ture is an advisory board with a represen­

tative from each U of G academic college,

the Central Student Association and the

Graduate Students' Association, committee

chairs and the Senate representative, as well

as the UGAA's five elected executive mem­

bers. The executive group makes up the

third tier of the new structure.

"We want input from a broad base of

alumni interest groups;' says Summers, "but

we also need smaller working groups in tiers

two and three to streamline business meet­

ings and make the association more effective:'

Although the proposed UGAA structure

would decrease the size of the board, it

would add a new position to the executive

tier with the mandate to work with students,

faculty and staff and integrate their voices ~ . h 0 mto t e UGAA. 6

For more information or to comment ~

on these proposed changes, write to Sum- ~ mers at alumni@uoguelph.ca or plan to ~ attend the UGAA annual general meeting~

-i

during Alumni Weekend, june 25 to 27. z

Winter 2004 29

GRAD NEWS

Grads meet at the 17th hole

From left: David Braun, Mark Hughes and ian Andrew.

Despite what you may think,

2 being in the business of design­

~ ing and building golf courses

§ does not help your game. The

~ Guelph graduates who spent

i last summer building an irriga­

~ tion pond at Guelph's Cutten

[S Club golf course had little time

6: to hone their own skills.

1930

Front row, from left : Helen (Dar­

ling) Rogers, B.A.Sc. '79, and

Helen and George Rogers. Back

row: Leslie (Dunbar) Miles, BA

'85, and Walter Atkinson, ADA '62.

30 GuELPH ALUMNUS

Lead architect Ian Andrew,

BLA '90, says the 4.5-million­

gallon pond will reduce the

club's dependency on water

drawn from the adjoining

Speed River. The project

involved altering the ll th hole

and building a brand new 17th

hole to accommodate the pond.

• Helen (Passmore), DHE '32,

and George Rogers, BSA '36,

celebrated their 60th wedding

anniversary July 6, 2003, at

Craigleith, Ont. Five U of G

graduates were in attendance.

1960 • Bryan Callowhill, B.Sc. '69,

retired from the RCMP in 2001

after 30 years as a civilian mem­

ber forensic scientist in Van­

couver and Regina. He is cur­

rently working as a hazardous

materials instructor for the jus­

tice Institute of B.C. Fire and

Safety in Maple Ridge. He and

his wife, Anne (Gerbrandy), BA

Andrew, who is employed by

Carrick Design Inc. in Toronto,

worked with consulting engi­

neers David and Stephen

Braun, B.Sc.(Eng.) '88, of

Guelph and site supervisor

Mark Hughes, ADA '97, who is

a project co-ordinator for

Michigan-based Turf Drain Inc.

'70, live in Surrey. Callowhill

was part of the first B.Sc. class

to enrol in Wellington College

of Arts and Science, which was

established after the University

was incorporated in 1964.

• Alex Donaldson, PhD '69,

retired from the Institute for

Animal Health, Pirbright Labo­

ratory, in Surrey, England, in

2002 after 30 years of service. He

had been head of Pirbright for

the previous 13 years. Soon after

his retirement, he received the

Pfizer Animal Health Prize for

his contribution to the advance­

ment of knowledge in the origin

and treatment of bovine diseases,

particularly his research into the

epidemiology and pathogenesis

of foot-and-mouth disease. He

also received the Dalrymple­

Champneys Cup and Medal

from the British Veterinary Asso­

ciation to recognize work that

advances veterinary science. Last

January, Donaldson received an

Alex Donaldson

OBE for services to veterinary

science and international disease

control. In July, he was awarded

an honorary fellowship by the

Royal College of Veterinary Sur­

geons and an honorary degree

from the University of Edin­

burgh. He has established a con­

sultancy company, Bio-Vet Solu­

tions Limited, with projects in

Poland, Lithuania, Ireland and

the United States. He and his

wife, Ruth, live in Gui ld ford.

• Bruce Heming, B.Sc.(Agr.) '63,

is a professor of biological sci­

ences at the University of Alber­

ta. He recently published Insect Development and Evolution with

Cornell University Press

( www.cornellpress.cornell.edu).

The book aims to put recent

progress in understanding the

molecular genetics of develop­

ment in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster into the context of

insect phylogeny and Earth his­

tory. He also received Alberta's

2003 Rutherford Award for excel­

lence in undergraduate teaching.

• Judy (Barrager), B.H.Sc. '67,

and Jim Stewart, B.Sc.(Agr.) '67,

recently celebrated their 35th

wedding anniversary. They met

at Guelph and moved to Lon­

don, Ont., after they were mar­

ried. Celebrating with them

were their children, Chris and

Susie, and two grandchildren.

They can be reached at grand­

majudya@hotmail.com.

1970 • Marilyn Armstrong-Reynolds,

BA '78, spent five years editing

the recently published two-vol­

ume history of Kingsville, Ont.,

Canada's most southern town

along the north shore of Lake

Erie. Kingsville: A Stroll Through Time documents the history of

the Kingsville-Gosfield area from

1790 to 2000 and is embellished

with hundreds of photos and

stories of early settlers and com­

munity life through the years.

Armstrong-Reynolds lives in

Harrow, Ont., with her husband,

Dan Reynolds, PhD '87, and

their daughter, Kathryn. He is a

soil scientist with Agriculture and

Agri-Food Canada.

• Tamara Beckstead, B.Sc. '88

and DVM '93, and Don Holman,

BA '85, are new parents to twin

boys, Marcus Donald and

William Arnold, born Aug. 29,

2003. They live in Guelph, where

Beckstead owns SilvercreekAni­

mal Hospital. Holman is securi­

ty manager at Mohawk Racetrack

and Slots. Friends can reach them

by e-mail at tad @sentex.net.

• George Bolton, B.Sc.(Agr.) '75,

has joined the London, England,

office of Zurich Emerging Mar­

ket Solutions as the first trade

credit insurance underwriter in

that location . He transferred

from the Washington, D.C.,

office and is responsible for

developing medium-term trade

credit insurance solutions for

exporters to emerging markets

and the financial institutions

that support these transactions.

Bolton joined Zurich in January

2001 to serve as senior under­

writer for the credit insurance

group in Washington and was

named assistant vice-president

in 2002. Previously, he worked

for Australia's Export Finance

and Insurance Corporation and

the Ban que Nationale de Paris.

• Ralph Bretzlaff, B.Sc.(Agr.) '76,

and Dorothy Haley, B.Sc.(Agr.)

'80, live in Pakenharn, Ont., with

their son, Kent. After selling their

dairy farm in Shawville, Que.,

they spent some time in British

Columbia, Australia and New

Zealand before buying the Stone­

bridge Inn about a year ago.

Check our their new location at

www.stonebridgeinn.ca.

• Cmdr. Doug Broughton,

B.Sc.(Agr.) '70, retired from the

Canadian navy in 2002 after 31

years of service. He served on

ships in Nova Scotia and British

Columbia until1988, when he

was posted to National Defence

Headquarters in Ottawa. He

worked there in a variety of staff

positions and was involved in

such naval projects as Y2K and

the relocation of Maritime

Command Headquarters from

Halifax to Ottawa. He and his

wife, Gaye, now live in Kanata,

Ont. They enjoy their cottage on

the Rideau River, follow the NHL

Ottawa Senators and spend more

time with their family: daughter

Tammy, son- in -law Sean

Cochrane and grandchildren

Charlie, Gillian and Stephen.

• Ralph Campbell, HDLA '74,

was head of the OAC Depart­

ment of Agricultural Economics

from 1951 to 1962 and says "the

fallen maple" episode of 1957 is

one of his most vivid memories.

He was honorary president of

the 1957 degree class, as well as

the diploma classes of 1959 and

1961, and writes about these

experiences in a new autobiog­

raphy called From Foxboro, Ontario. The book chronicles

Campbell's life experiences,

beginning on the Foxboro fam­

ily farm and continuing through

his wartime service as a pilot and

Athlete meets astronaut

Former Canadian astronaut Roberta Bondar, B.Sc.(Agr.) '68, left,

was the guest speaker at a luncheon hosted by Ontario Univer·

sity Athletics to honour the top female scholar-athletes in the

province. Booke Hilditch, B.Sc. '03, represented the University of

Guelph. Hilditch maintained an 85-4-per-cent average in the chal­

lenging biomedical sciences program while competing in rugby

and wrestling. She earned almost every possible honour in rug­

by, including MVP, OUA All-Star, OUA Player of the Year, CIS All­

Canadian and CIS Tournament All-Star in 2002; captured a silver

medal in wrest ling at the OUA championships and placed sixth

at the national championships. One of the prizes Hilditch received

was an autographed copy of Bondar's latest book of photographs.

his career in education at Guelph

and the universities of Toronto

and Manitoba, where he was

president from 1976 to 1981. He

also spent seven years as an eco­

nomic adviser to the govern­

ments of Jordan and Kenya. A

longtime member of the OAC

Alumni Foundation, he travels

with his wife, Ruth, between a

summer home in Ontario, a

condo in Florida and points of

interest around the globe. The

couple has six children and 11

grandchildren.

• Wayne Caston, M.Sc. '77, was

one of the first Guelph graduates

to be licensed as a professional

geoscientist in Ontario. He runs

his own consulting business in

Waterloo, Ont. In May 2003, he

was acclaimed as regional coun­

cillor for southwestern Ontario

to the first elected council of the

Association of Professional Geo­

scientists of Ontario.

• Peter Hohenadel, ADA '75,

has been hired by St. Louis­

based advertising agency

Osborn & Barr Communica­

tions to head its Canadian

operation. He has more than 20

years of experience in Canadi­

an agriculture and marketing,

Winter 2004 31

-

Peter Hohenadel

most recently with Quarry Inte­

grated Communications in

Waterloo, where he was vice­

president of integrated com­munications and team leader

for agricultural clients. As exec­utive vice-president of Osborn

& Barr Canada, he will be

responsible for developing the agency's Canadian business.

• Rob McCaig, B.Sc. '78 and M.Sc. '81, has left Molson Brew­

eries after 21 years as a researcher

and brewmaster in various loca­

tions across Canada to join the

Canadian Malting Barley Tech­nical Centre as managing direc­

tor. The centre is a private

research group established by member companies to provide

technical support to the market­

ing of Canadian malting barley

around the world. He and his

wife, Louise, and sons, Alex and Jan, are learning about their new

hometown ofWinnipeg.

• Dermot McCann, BA '70, is a

volunteer unit leader with Cana­

dian Coast Guard Auxiliary Pacif­

ic Unit 35, providing 24-hour sea

rescue along the waterfront in Victoria, B.C. He works as a resi­

dential restorations contractor

and makes international yacht

deliveries, recently enjoying a 19-

day transatlantic passage from Las

Palmas, Gran Canaria, to Rodney

Bay, St. Lucia.

• Geoffrey Parker, B.Sc.(Eng.) '77, has been working in Ireland

for seven years as an environ­

mental consultant. He established his own company in 2002 and

now employs 10 people, provid­ing environmental and geotech­

nical engineering services to the

waste management industry.

• Pamela Stagg, BA '74, is a botanical illustrator and artist who provided the watercolour

paintings for the book Roses, A Celebration. Edited by Wayne

Winterrowd and published in

October by North Point Press,

Roses is a collection of essays by

well-known rosarians and gar­den writers. Stagg also con­

tributed an essay to the book.

1980 • Irene Alderdice, B.A.Sc. '88,

is an instructional designer for

Canadian Tire, helping to

revamp the curriculum used to train dealers. After graduation,

she worked as an agent for

CAA, then earned an education degree and taught with the York

Region Board of Education. She and her husband, Michael, have

two children, Aiden and Briar. She says her inspiration for

naming her daughter Briar "came from a wonderful little

girl in the U of G lab school,

where we FACS girls worked in

our first years. That Briar would

be in her 20s now." She invites

classmates to contact her at

irene.alderdice@cantire.com.

• Laura (Wang) Arseneau, BA

'83, was recently appointed cura­

tor of education at the Burling­

ton Art Centre. She lives in Grimsby, Ont., with her husband

and son. She worked previously

at the McMichael Canadian Art

Collection, Grimsby Public Art

Gallery, Art Gallery of Peel and

Dundas Valley School of Art. She

is also a freelance curator and an arts and fiction writer.

• John De Goey, BA '87, is a

senior financial adviser at

Assante Capital Management Ltd. in Toronto. He recently

published a book, The Profes­sional Financial Advisor: Ethics, Unbundling and Other Things to Ask Your Financial Advisor About. Contact him at jdegoey@assante.com. • Luc Duchesne, PhD '88, is

al3-year veteran of the Canadi­

an Forest Service (CFS) who has

joined the management team at

DynaMotive Energy Systems Corporation as part of an agree­

ment between the company and

CPS's Great Lakes Forestry Cen­tre in Sault Ste Marie, Ont.

Internationally acclaimed for his

research and promotion of the

non-timber forest industry,

GRAD NEWS UPDATE FORM

Name

Address

Prov./State

Home Phone _______ _

Business Phone ______ _

Fax

Fax

Duchesne will be working with

DynaMotive to develop a

renewable energy technology

called Fast Pyrolysis that con­

verts biomass (waste products from the forest industry) into a

liquid fuel known as BioOil.

• Christopher Dufault, M.Sc. '82, has been appointed head of

the re-evaluation and use analy­

sis section, Efficacy and Sus­

tainability Assessment Division,

Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) in Ottawa. The

PMRA is responsible for the

evaluation and registration of

pesticides in Canada. He and his

wife, Heather, and daughter,

Sophie, live in Ottawa.

• Nancy Fish, B.Sc. '84, recent­ly received an MBA from Heri­

ot-Watt University in Edin­

burgh, Scotland. She works for

Allianz Canada as a claims

supervisor in Thunder Bay, Ont.

• Steven Hawkins, ADA '87 and MBA '99, recently moved

his family from Switzerland to Urbandale, Iowa, to accept a

new position with his employ­

er, Syngenta Crop Protection.

• Chris Horb·sz, B.Sc.(Agr.) '83

and M.Sc. '88, has joined the

tourism recovery office of the

Ontario Ministry of Tourism

and Recreation, helping to

deliver Ontario's $128-million

tourism recovery program. He worked previously for the

Ontario Ministry of Agriculture

and Food, .the Red Tape Secre­tariat (cutting the proverbial

government red tape), and the

life sciences branch of the

Ontario Ministry of Enterprise,

Opportunity and Innovation.

He and his wife, Carol, B.A.Sc.

'83, live in Milton and have two

children in high school.

• Douglas Hykle, B.Sc. '85, has relocated from Germany- his

home since 1991 - to Bangkok,

Thailand, to establish a new

regional office for the UN Con­

vention on Migratory Species.

U of G friends can reach him there at hykle@un.org.

• Giancarlo Moschini, PhD '86,

was recently named a Fellow of

the American Agricultural Eco­

nomics Association in recogni­

tion of his research contributions to the advancement of agricul­

tural economics. Moschini has

spent most of his professional career at Iowa State University,

where he is a professor of eco­

nomics and currently holds the

Pioneer Hi-Bred International

Chair in Science and Technolo-

Degree & Year _______ _

City

Postal Code _______ _

E-mail

E-mail

Occupation ----------------------------------------

Grad News Update ___________________________________ _

Send address changes and Grad News to: Alumni Records, University of Guelph, Guelph ON N1G 2W1 Phone: 519-824-4120, Ext. 56550, Fax: 519-822-2670, E-mail: alumnirecords@uoguelph.ca

Winter 2004 33

gy Policy. He is married to Bron­

wyn Frame, B.Sc.(Agr.) '84 and

M.Sc. '88, and they have a

daughter, Emily.

• Donna Munroe, M.Sc. '82, earned an education degree from Queen's University in 2001 and

is currently teaching elementary

school for the Upper Canada

District School Board. She lives

in Rideau Ferry, Ont., with her

husband, Phil Hennessy, and

children, Campbell and Kenzie.

• Andy Read, B.Sc. '80, M.Sc. '83 and PhD '90, is a professor

of biology at Duke University.

The June 2003 issue of Nation­al Geographic featured a pro­

gram he started in 1991 to save

harbour porpoises trapped in

Canadian herring weirs in the Gulf of Maine region. The pro­

gram has saved scores of por­

poises and garnered valuable

data on these marine mammals.

• Gordon Southam, B.Sc. '86

and PhD '90, is a professor at the

University of Western Ontario

and a recent recipient of a Cana­

da Research Chair (CRC). An

expert in the development of bacterial mining processes, he

will hold a CRC in geomicrobi­

ology. The science delves into the

geological and environmental

processes in which bacteria can

contribute to environmentally

friendly technologies. In addi­tion, he was recently appointed

a co-investigator at the NASA

Johnson Space Center's Astro­

biology Institute for the Study

of Biomarkers.

• Mary Jane (Ebel), B.A.Sc. '89, and Scott Ulens, ADA '86,

announce the birth of their third child, Dylan Scott, on

April1, 2003. Scott is president

of Matrix Post, an animation and post-production studio in

Toronto; Mary Jane is the pro­ject co-ordinator. They would

like to hear from friends at

sulens@matrixpost.com.

• Dave Tonetti, BA '85, is a uni­versity instructor at Kyung Hee

University in Seoul, South Korea.

He was married in September to Marie Cheong and has two step­

sons, Charlie and Paul.

1990 • Alison Allan, B.Sc. '97 and

PhD '02, has received the pres­

tigious H.L. Holmes Award for

Post-doctoral Studies for

2003/2004 from the National Research Council (NRC) of

Canada. She is at the London

Regional Cancer Centre in Lon­

don, Ont., where her research

examines the functional role of

the protein osteopontin 111

breast cancer and metastasis, the spread of cancer cells from

a primary site and the estab­

lishment of secondary tumours.

The Holmes Award was

bequeathed to the NRC by the

late chemist R.H.L. Holmes to

promote research excellence. It

will provide more than

$180,000 over two years for Allan's research program.

• Daniel Attuquayefio, PhD '95, is a senior lecturer and head

of the Department of Zoology

at the University of Ghana. He

is also project secretary for the

Volta Basin Research Project.

• Deepa Balachandran, M.Sc. '96, lives in the Boston area and

works as a software engineer. He

would like to hear from friends at dbalacha@hotmail.com.

• Jamie Baxter, B.A.Sc. '91, was

a founding member of U of G's

first co-ed cheerleading squad.

He captained the team for two years, then graduated into a job

of coaching and choreographing

for cheerleading teams across

North America. While coaching

at the University of Nebraska, he

earned a masters of education in

SHOW OFF YOUR ROYAL ROOTS

at College Royal March 20 and 21, 2004

Alumni welcome!

Square dance, compete in

the livestock show or bring

the family for a day of fun.

Contact: Beth Kent,

College Royal Director of Faculty

and Alumni Relations

519-824-4120, Ext. 58366 colroyal@uoguelph.ca

athletic administration. After

retiring from cheerleading, he

relocated to New York City and

has spent the last six years work­ing for an independent record

label. His current position is vice­

president of marketing.

• Kate Brennagh and Kyle Mack­ie, both BA '97, welcomed their

daughter, Maeve Frances, June

16, 2003. Maeve is the grand­

daughter of Jill (Southwell) Brennagh, BA '69, and the great­

granddaughter of retired engi­

neering professor Peter South­

well. She is also the niece of Erin Mackie, BA '93, and Geoff Bren­

nagh, BA '99. Kate and Kyle live

in Guelph, where he is e-learning

program manager in U of G's

Office of Open Learning. Kate is on leave from her position as

teacher-librarian at Central Pub­

lic School. They can be reached

at brenkie@golden.net.

• Amy Brown, BA '97, has

opened her own Pilates studio in Toronto. Pilates for Life Ltd.

offers group and individual mat

Pilates classes for people of all ages and fitness abilities.

• Judy DaCosta, B.Sc. '93 and DVM '98, lives in Brampton,

Ont., with her husband, Mar­

tin Pisani, and two sons, Mar­cos (born june 6, 2001) and

Ethan (born Aug. 1, 2003). She

is currently on maternity leave from the Brampton Veterinary

Hospital.

• Jon Fage, B.Comm. '94, and Maria Kryzanowski, B.Sc.(Env.)

'99, were married in 2002 and

live in Guelph. He is completing

a bachelor of education at the University of Western Ontario.

She is an occupational therapist

and team leader with NRCS Inc.,

a firm that provides rehabilita­

tion and disability management services in Kitchener, London,

Hamilton and Windsor.

• Lisa Fleischaker, BA '92, and her husband, Michael Dunbar,

celebrated their first wedding

anniversary in May 2003, as well

as the arrival of their first child.

Having worked in both sales

and marketing over the years, Lisa is now a marketing man-

Lisa Fleischaker, Michael Dunbar

ager for Robin Hood Multi­

foods on the Bicks brand and is living in Aurora Ont. Her e-mail

is thedunbars@sympatico.ca.

• Juniper Glass, BA '98, lives in Montreal, where she is manag­

ing editor of ascent magazine, a

journal of yoga and engaged

spirituality. Friends are welcome

to contact her through the mag­

azine's website: www.ascent magazine.com.

• Campbell Horn, B.Comm.

'93, is a missionary stationed at Camp La Cumbre in Costa Rica.

He and his wife, Lisa, have a

two-year-old son, Calvin, and a

six-month-old daughter, Ruth.

• Lynn (McNair) Horsey, BA '95, is a silversmith and jewelry

designer who operates her own

business called Sway Silver. She was married March 30, 2002, to

David Horsey and lives in

Cambridge, Ont.

• Becky (Miller) Madill, B.A.Sc. '95, and her husband, Dave,

relocated to the Bruce Peninsu­

la area in August 2002. She is a teacher with the Bluewater Dis­

trict School Board. They have

two children, Gabrielle and

Alexandria.

• Michelle Mann, BA '91, grad­uated from the University of

Ottawa Faculty of Law in 1994

and was called to the Ontario bar in 1996. She practised law

for various federal government

Great strides for Scottish studies

R oss SAuNDERS is retired from a career

in marketing, is cur-

rently studying history in U

of G's College of Arts and is

planning to celebrate his 70th

birthday by hiking 600 kilo­metres across Scotland. He's

decided to turn his passion

for hiking into a fundraising

venture for Guelph's Scottish

studies program.

He completed a 185-km

trek across England in 2000 and has hiked in Austria,

Alaska, Yukon and Bulgaria and along Ontario's Bruce

Trail. Saunders will cover his

bodies and worked in Cape

Town, South Africa, on human rights and democracy building

until2002, when she moved to

Toronto to become a consultant and freelance writer.

• Thomas Matthews, B.Comm. '95, received an award last sum­

mer from the American

Accounting Association for out­standing PhD dissertation in

international accounting. He is

currently an assistant professor in the School of Business at the

University of Alberta.

• Christine (Jackson) Parker, BA '97, works for State Farm Insur­

ance and lives in Barrie, Ont., with her husband, Adam, and

their son, jackson, born March

13, 2002. They can be reached at caparker@drlogick.com.

• Mark Reeves, B.Comm. '91,

is reservations manager for

InterContinental Hotels Group Canada in Toronto. In 2002, he

was nominated by the hotel in

a competition recognizing the "Best of the Best" in the hospi­

tality industry.

expenses for the Scottish trip,

but invites alumni to pledge

their support. All donations

will go directly to the Scottish studies program. For more

information, visit the website www.alumni.uoguelph.ca.

• Janin (Pugh) Robertson, BLA '95, and her husband, Don, had

their second child, Alex, in May

2003. Daughter Ainsley was

born in May 2001. Robertson has worked as an assistant devel­

opment co-ordinator for Cana­

dian Tire Real Estate Ltd. and as

a commercial planning analyst

for Stonefield Development Consultants in Vancouver, but

is currently home with the chil­

dren in Toronto. She welcomes e-mail from U of G friends at

janin.robertson@sympatico.ca.

• Anne Robinson, B.Sc. '96, is a

family physician currently living in Thunder Bay, Ont., with her

husband, Scott Bonneville. They

both graduated from the Uni­versity of Western Ontario med­

ical school in May 2000, married

the following September, then

completed a two-year residency

in rural medicine. They can be

reached at ks_bones@yahoo.ca.

• Ron Rouben, B.Comm. '94 and MBA '01, was interviewed

by the Toronto Star in Septem­

ber for an article about new

Winter 2004 35

university and college profes­

sors. He is the new co-ordina­

tor of the bachelor of applied

business program in hospitali­

ty management at George Brown College. Rouben told The Star he's been a nomad for

the past 11 years, working in the

hospitality industry in New

York, Banff and Florida. He's

now turned to a teaching career,

but said he doesn't know if he'll be able to stay put. ''I'm afraid

of becoming like some of those

horrible professors we've all

had, who are teaching outdat­ed material in plaid suits."

• Asep Saefuddin, M.Sc. '91 and PhD '96, completed his Guelph

degrees in the Department of

Animal and Poultry Science while on leave from Bogor

Agricultural University in

Indonesia, where he has worked

since 1980. In 1997, he was sec­

retary of a strategic planning committee at Bogor, and in

2000, was elected head of the

Department of Statistics. His work has included developing programs for research and

training in statistics at univer­

sity campuses across Indonesia.

He also led a research project

on oil prediction in Indonesia and currently directs the non­

government Center for Region­al Resource Development and

Community Empowerment. In

February 2003, he was appoint­

ed Bogor's vice-rector for plan­ning, development and collab­oration, with responsibility for

strengthening the role of

research and development, as well as community service and

income-generating activities.

• Kathleen (Ovens) and Aaron Todd, both B.Sc.(Env.) '97, were

married in spring 2000. Both

completed graduate degrees in water resources at Trent Uni­

versity before settling in Guelph. She now manages ben­thic ecology projects for the

36 GuELPH ALUMNUS

engineering and environmen­

tal consulting firm Stantec Con­

sulting Ltd. He is an aquatic

ecologist with Earth Tech Cana­da Inc., co-ordinating stream

monitoring networks for the

Ontario Ministry of the Envi­ronment. They invite friends

from South Residences and

environmental science to con­

tact them at aaronandkate@

sympatico.ca. • Robyn (Bezaire) Watts, B.A.Sc. '93, is a kindergarten

teacher in Kingston, Ont. She

and her husband, Rob, are the

proud parents of two sons,

Colin and Ryan.

• Lee-Anne (Hirst), BA '99, and Bruce Wilson, BA '93, were

married March 29, 2003, and live in Burlington, Ont.

• Reta Wright, BA '94, relocated

to Seattle, Wash., in January 2003

and is a member of the neuro­

physiological monitoring team

in the surgical department of the University of Washington Med­

ical Centre. She is engaged to be married this July and invites U

of G friends to contact her at retaw@u. washington.edu.

2000 • Brad Brooker, B.Sc.(H.K.) '00, graduated from New York Chi­

ropractic College in Seneca Falls,

N.Y., in July 2003. He received an award for diagnostic imag­

ing, the Phi Chi Omega Honour

Society Award for academic

excellence and the Valedictorian

Award. He recently established the Active Lifestyle Chiropractic

Clinic in Barrie, Ont.

• Bree-Anne Brooker, B.Sc. (H.K.) '02, graduated from

Brock University's College of

Education in May 2003. She is

now teaching math, science and

physical education at an ele­

mentary school in Mississauga. • Paul Hoekstra, PhD '03, has

received the Best Student Paper Award for a paper published in

Environmental Toxicology and

Remembering the past

MAC cooking class in the 1950s

Macdonald Institute's 1 ooth anniversary year is over, but the

memories linger.

1938 grads are proud of classmates who broke down bar­riers for women by using their diplomas in domestic sci­

ence to launch impressive careers.

1952 classmates still laugh about keeping the biggest secret

of their time on campus. The 1951 marriage of Dorothy

(Allan) and her aggie beau, Clay Switzer, may have been Mac's first pre-graduation wedding.

1975 was the first class to have a male graduate, family stud­ies grad Kenneth Devine.

100 years after the founding of Macdonald Institute, mod­

ern students began digging into college history to find con­

nections between their lives and those of their predecessors.

Do a little digging of your own. Copies of Macdonald Insti­

tute: Remembering the Past, Embracing the Future are avail­able from the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences,

Room 111, Macdonald Institute Building, University of Guelph, ON N1G 2Wl. The cost is $53.50, including taxes,

shipping and handling.

Chemistry, the journal of the Society of Environmental Tox­

icology and Chemistry. The

paper relates to his PhD research in the Department of

Environmental Biology under

the supervision of Prof. Keith

Solomon and adjunct professor

Derek Muir of the National Water Research Institute. This

is the second year in a row Hoekstra has won the award,

and he is the first person to win

it twice. Students in Guelph's

graduate environmental toxi­

cology program have done well in this competition over the

years. Other recipients are Pam Martin, M.Sc. '91; Dean

Thompson, PhD '93; and Mark

Hewitt, PhD '98. Their achieve­

ments give U of G a higher suc­

cess rate than any other U.S. or

European Union institution, says Solomon. "If criteria of

excellence were needed for our

program here at Guelph, this is certainly a very good one."

Gillian Clark, BA '78, was killed Aug. 19,

2003, in the bombing of UN headquar­ters in Baghdad. A children's aid worker

for 15 years, she was in Iraq on behalf of the Christian Children's Fund, but she had

also worked with Save the Children, the

International Rescue Committee and

Oxfam. An Ontario native based in Lon­

don, England, she was attending a meet­

ing at the UN compound when a truck full of explosives blew up, killing more

than 20 people.

James Elliott, DVM '41, died Aug. 5,

2003, at his home in Westminster, S.C. Born in Dundalk, Ont., he practised vet­

erinary medicine in Bangor, Maine, for

48 years and was past president of the Maine Veterinary Medical Association. He and his wife, Beatrice, bred and exhib­

ited many regional and national cham­pion Morgan horses, and he served on

the boards of both the Maine and New

England Morgan horse associations. He

is survived by his wife, three children, sev­en grandchildren and four great-grand­

children.

Amanda King, B.Sc. '03, was killed July 3,

2003, in an automobile accident. While at U of G, she was a student trainer for the

Gryphon football team during their 2000

season and an off-campus volunteer for

minor sports and Big Sisters. She is sur­vived by her father and stepmother, Rick

and Zita King; her mother, Kathy Pearce;

and two younger sisters, Kerri and Carla.

Emerson "Jeff" Meads, DVM '51 and

M.Sc. '58, died May 29, 2003. He spent

most of his career working for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food Veteri­

nary Services Laboratory in Kemptville and Guelph and is an OVC professor emeritus. He is survived by his wife, Mar­

got; three children, David, Patrick and jan­

ice; and four grandchildren.

Bruce Petti pas, B.Sc.(Agr.) '83, of Upper Nappan, N.S., died May 4, 2003. He

transferred from the Nova Scotia Agri-

OBITUARIES

cultural College (NSAC) in Truro in 1981

to complete an animal science degree at Guelph, then worked at NSAC and the

Nova Scotia Experimental Farm. He was named Nova Scotia's Outstanding Young

Agrologist in 1997 and was honoured by

NSAC in 2003. He is survived by his wife,

Michelle, and children, Lacey and Zack.

Ian Ross, B.Sc. '82, died in a plane crash

in central Kenya June 29, 2003. A wildlife biologist based in Calgary, he was radio­

tracking lions in Kenya's Laikipia district

as part of a research study aimed at

improving the conservation of large car­

nivores in Africa. He was a partner in a

consulting firm called Arc Wildlife Ser­

vices that completed a 14-year study on cougars in the mid-1990s.

Bertram Wilson, DVM '50, died Sept. 15, 2003. He operated a mixed-animal vet­

erinary practice in Gananoque, Ont., for

37 years until his retirement in 1987. Pre­deceased by his wife, Marion, he is sur­vived by his children, Lynn, Doug, Vir­

ginia and Valerie; 12 grandchildren; and

five great-grandchildren.

Lynn (Barbeau) Shumway, BA '74, died

July 23, 2003. She worked at the Mac­

donald Stewart Art Centre from 1978 to

1989 as education and extension co-ordi­nator before moving to Wisconsin. She operated Forest Rose Garden Design and

wrote for gardening and outdoor publi­cations, and worked at a natural history museum. She is survived by her husband,

Bruce.

Michael Southwell, B.Sc.(Agr.) '84, died

suddenly Oct. 15, 2003, at his home in Rockwood, Ont. He worked as a certified diesel mechanic for several farm opera­

tions, then ran his own business for sev­

eral years before moving into trans­

portation service management. He was general service manager with Freightlin­

er Mid-Ontario Inc. at the time of his death. He is survived by his wife, Liz, B.A.Sc. '87.

Frederick Allan, DVM '38,

date unknown Rae Allan, ADA '74, October 2003

Thadeus Bartkiewicz, BA '7.3,

May 9, 2001 Madelyn Bennell, DHE '48,

July 28, 2003 John Bennett, BSA '46, in 2002

Cecilia Bronston, B.Sc. '87,

August 2003 Anna Cave, M.Sc. '66, in 2002 John Chomut, BSA '38, Oct. 30, 2002 Peter Crompton, BA '01, July 13, 2003 Robert Crosbie, ADA '52, August 2002

Alwyn Dale, ODH '80, March 2001

William Dobbin, BSA '42, July 2, 2003

Arthur Dolby, DVM '51, May 6, 2003

Thomas Doyle, DVM '49, May 28,2003 Ruth Dryden, DHE '36, Dec. l, 2002

Ted Eberle, BA '86, May 1, 2003

Raja Grandhi, PhD '74, July 26, 2003 Hugh Hill, DVM '58, Oct. 2, 2003 Peter Hughes, ADA '62, Aug. 12, 2003

Alexander Kerkkamp, DVM '63,

April2003 Wai K. Lai, M.Sc. 2001, in 2002

Allyn Laursen, DVM '52, Oct. 15, 1995 Charles McMullin, ADA '49,

july 3, 2003 Daniel Mones, DVM '54, Sept. 2, 2003 James Morton, BSA '47, Sept. 27, 2003 William Nagge, DVM '43,

Aug. 30, 2003 Wallace Nicholson, DVM '42,

August 2003 Douglas Orchard, BSA '33,

July 29, 2003 Bradley Pett, BSA '30, Sept. 23, 2003 Percy Plummer, DVM '28, july 7, 2003

Donald Ross, ODH '84, Sept. 9, 2003 Ken Rowe, DVM '40, Oct. 9, 2003

Doug Schier, ADA '64, Oct. 18, 2002 Ernest Seager, ODH '63, in 2003 Barthel! Simpson, BSA '41,

May 10,2003

Marie Taylor, B.H.Sc. '69,

Sept. 25, 2003

Delos Utter, BSA '41, in 1999 Linda Thompson, BA '78, Jan. 25, 2003 John Thomson, ODH '69, in 2003

Foster Vernon, BSA '39, july 12, 2003

Winter 2004 37

' UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH

shared name comes from "Welfen;' the family; name of

the royal House of Hanover. That ancestry is recogi!ized by the white Han ovarian stallion which appears on tlie

UniversitY. of Guelph's official crest and in this 1981