Daily News

April 15, 2005

Two cups each of water and dry ice. A few spoonfuls of dirt and a dash of organic material. Mix together and shape into a snowball. Voil

April 15, 2005

A folksy reminiscence about the life of an Ontario veterinarian will be used to contribute to the fight against breast cancer. Sow's Ear to Silk Purse: Anecdotes from the Life of a Veterinarian, chronicles Blake Graham's rise from Sarnia farmboy to Great Lakes stevedore to Toronto veterinarian, offering an often humorous glimpse of life in post-war Ontario. Proceeds from the book will benefit a cancer research fund set up in 1995 by Graham in memory of his wife, Barbara, who died of breast cancer. Graham donated $200,000 each to McMaster University and the Ontario Veterinary College for collaborative cancer research.

April 14, 2005

College-trained, diploma prepared registered practical nurses will have the opportunity to fast track and upgrade to a nursing degree at McMaster University. The new program will allow registered practical nurses (RPNs) to earn their Bachelor of Science (Nursing) degree and become registered nurses (RNs) in three years rather than the traditional four years. RPNs have a two-year diploma and work with stable, predictable patients, such as at nursing homes and on many units in hospitals.

April 14, 2005

Four McMaster University professors will be honored by their peers at spring convocations throughout North America. McMaster's Henry Giroux, Karyn Kaufman and Eileen Schuller will receive an honorary degree from Memorial University, the University of British Columbia and Queen's University, respectively. Henry Schwarcz will be given a professional achievement citation from the University of Chicago.

April 13, 2005

First-year engineering students are helping people with disabilities. Students in the course, Engineering Design and Graphics, learned how to communicate their design ideas using technical sketching skills with a pencil and paper and three-dimensional modelling using the latest solid modelling computer-aided design software. As a capstone design project to the course, students were asked to propose a design for an assistive device to help people with disabilities and put their design communication skills to use.

April 13, 2005

McMaster has hired Andrew Cole as the new head coach of the McMaster swim program. He comes to McMaster with 15 years of head coaching experience including the Olympic Games, World Championships, World University Games and Canadian Interuniversity Sport.

April 13, 2005

McMaster University professor Richard Harris has been awarded a 2005 Guggenheim Fellowship. He is the only academic from a Canadian university this year to receive the distinction. As one of 186 artists, scholars and scientists to receive a 2005 award, Harris was selected from more than 3,000 applicants. Guggenheim Fellows are appointed on the basis of distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment.

April 13, 2005

Faculty and students of McMaster's Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition (IGHC), today are participating in a globalization conference which introduces high school students to global issues. The event is being held at Iroquois Ridge High School in Oakville, a public school that has organized its curriculum around the theme of "Education for a Global Perspective."

April 12, 2005

Software engineering students at McMaster once again impressed IBM Canada at its fifth annual competition. Of the 15 senior thesis teams that presented their software engineering capstone design projects to IBM, four were awarded cash prizes. Two representatives from IBM were on hand to watch the final demonstrations last week and awarded first and second place prizes. Due to the quality of this year's projects, there was a two-team tie for both first and second place.

April 12, 2005

Engineering design students at McMaster University may have solved the problem of drying your hands after washing them in a public washroom. They have developed a hands-free, roll-towel dispensing machine that presents the customer with a folded towel. The double thickness of the towel eliminates the problem of wet hands weakening the towel strength and tearing, resulting in partially dry hands.

April 12, 2005

Brian McCarry, chair of the department of chemistry and the Stephen A. Jarislowsky chair in Environment and Health, is optimistic that we can find a solution to reduce the fine particulate material, nitrogen oxides, ozone and other gaseous pollutants in the air around us. McCarry will speak about his research at Tuesday's (April 12) Science in the City lecture, titled Air Pollutants: Sources, Fates and Health Impacts.

April 11, 2005

McMaster's Manufacturing Research Institute (MMRI) and Materials and Manufacturing Ontario (MMO) will launch a Distinguished Lecturer Series beginning Wednesday, April 13 with James Lee, a chemical and biomedical engineer from Ohio State University. Lee's lecture, "Polymer Processing at the Micro/Nanoscale", will take place at 2:30 p.m. in the John Hodgins Engineering Building, Rm. 326H.

April 11, 2005

As of Monday, the Joint Job Evaluation Steering Committee (JJESC) has received Job Content Questionnaire's (JCQ) for 1,267 positions in the MUSA bargaining unit. They're still looking for JCQs from about 800 people and would like to remind employees to get their JCQ in as soon as possible as the deadline has passed.

April 11, 2005

Gamers can now take their interest in computer games to the ultimate level. The Faculty of Engineering at McMaster University is offering the first undergraduate university degree program in software engineering that focuses on game design. "Students interested in game design will develop the skills and knowledge to create the ultimate game experience," said Jacques Carette, assistant professor of Computing and Software Engineering at McMaster University. "They will naturally learn about animation, simulation and high-fidelity rendering, with special emphasis on the human aspects involved in designing such software."

April 8, 2005

Former Prime Minister of Canada Jean Chr

April 8, 2005

McMaster University celebrated a gift of $750,000 from Scotiabank to establish three endowed medical scholarship funds; the Scotiabank Medical Scholarships, Scotiabank Pediatric Scholarships, and Scotiabank Ontario Graduate Scholarships in Medical Sciences. Each of the three scholarship funds for students of the Faculty of Health Sciences will be allocated $250,000.

April 6, 2005

Graham Hill remembers Jan. 2, 1971 well. It was a blustery snowy day on McMaster's campus when he started his first day on the job as a reference librarian in the serials department. Thirty-four years later, on the verge of retiring from the library's top post, he reminisces about that day, when things were quite a bit different. "When I started at McMaster almost everything was printed on paper and we worked with punch cards and telexes," he says. "I would say the advent of digital technology is the biggest change I have seen."

April 6, 2005

Students have closed their books on the 2004-05 academic term. Classes ended Wednesday, April 6, and students will now prepare to write a total of 72,641 exams from April 8-26. Exams will be held at 8 a.m., 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. each day, excluding Sundays. For the exam schedule, click here. Due to construction activities on Main Street West and at the Ivor Wynne Centre, students are encouraged to leave early and allow extra time when traveling to campus to write exams.

April 5, 2005

David Suzuki helped McMaster celebrate the midway point of a comprehensive campus initiative to make the University's buildings and grounds more environmentally healthy and energy efficient. McMaster is the only university in Ontario to embark on such a large-scale rehabilitation project. At his lecture on "Rediscovering Our Place in the World", attended by more than 500 people, Suzuki had praise for McMaster's initiative.

April 5, 2005

A new Canadian journal is being launched to address the need for dialogue about the development, implementation and impact of health care policy. McMaster University professor Brian Hutchison has been selected as the first editor-in-chief of the new quarterly journal, Healthcare Policy, which will produce its first issue in the early fall this year.