December 18, 2002

McMaster University President Peter George welcomed Tuesday's announcement by the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities that there will be another round of projects to receive funding from the SuperBuild program. For McMaster, and other post secondary institutions like McMaster that face dramatic demographic pressures due to geographic location, the commitment to capital funding for 13,000 new student spaces targeted at high growth areas of the province is a step in the right direction. "At McMaster, we have increased our enrolment targets by a significant 20 per cent from 2001, in response to the increased demand in our catchment area that extends across the GTA and southwestern Ontario. We are acting now to ensure we are ready and able to accommodate those extra students through a comprehensive plan designed to create new student spaces in response to unprecedented enrolment increases.

December 17, 2002

Scratching your left knee with your right hand appears to be an effortless act. Not so for your brain. An international research team including David Shore, an assistant professor of psychology at McMaster University and Donna Lloyd, Charles Spence and Gemma Calvert of the University of Oxford used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to understand how the brain represents a limb placed across the body midline. The results showed profound changes in the way our brains process tactile stimulation to the right hand when it lies to the left of the body and that this is different when we can see the hand versus when we can't. The new study shows the complex process the brain works through to ensure you can perform a movement that appears effortless. "There is a complexity involved that we take for granted," said Shore, whose research specialty is multisensory temporal processing. "This is the first examination of the fMRI-related cortical consequences of placing a limb across the body midline in humans."

December 17, 2002

One of McMaster University's key academic and administrative leaders is moving on to Canada's capital university. Alan Harrison, dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, has been appointed vice-president academic and provost at Carleton University in Ottawa. Focusing on improving the student experience and developing Carleton's research profile attracted Harrison to the position. "Putting students first is something that is personally close to my heart and something I have consistently tried to do at McMaster in my time as dean," Harrison says. "It is something that I will continue to focus on at Carleton." Being situated in Ottawa was another reason he was drawn to the new post. "Carleton has the opportunity to exploit its capital advantage," he says, "and the University clearly recognizes the strategic value of this."

December 16, 2002

Senior management invites the McMaster community to drop by the third annual holiday open house at the downtown centre Dec. 18 and on campus Dec. 19. The first open house will take place Wednesday from 8:30 to 10 a.m. at the Downtown Centre, 2nd Floor, Room 216. On Thursday, an open house will take place from 8 to 11 a.m. in Convocation Hall, on the McMaster campus. Please bring a non-perishable food item for the food drive for a chance to win a door prize.

December 16, 2002

Commonwealth Games Canada has chosen Hamilton to pursue a Canadian bid for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Hamilton will now proceed to the international round of competition against New Delhi. The winner will be announced next fall. "There is tremendous excitement that Hamilton has been chosen to represent Canada in the international round of the competition," says McMaster President Peter George, who was in Ottawa today for the announcement. "This successful bid will bring tremendous international attention and benefits to Hamilton and to McMaster. This is an exciting chance not only to work closely with the City to bring the very best to Hamilton, but also to create a legacy for McMaster." Halifax was also in the race for the Canadian bid.

December 13, 2002

A second temporary classroom will be constructed at McMaster to meet demands for increased student enrolment. The facility, to be located west of the first temporary classroom and facing Mitchell Crescent, will house two 200-seat classrooms. Construction of the facility will begin in April and it is anticipated the building will be completed in July and ready for classes in September 2003, says Tony Cupido, director of Physical Plant. The pre-engineered steel stucture will be similar to the existing temporary classroom, he says. "The facilities will look virtually the same. It will be the same width only a little longer." Construction of the building was approved by the Board of Governors Thursday. Use of the structure after the new classrooms are available in the expanded Health Sciences facility must be approved by the Planning and Building Committee and the Board of Governors. "We're trying to be proactive with the double cohort situation," said Donald Green, chair of the Board's planning and building committee. "We will be short of classroom space and in order to solve that problem we will need to add another building." The cost of the facility will be at least $500,000.

December 13, 2002

The City of Hamilton's Commonwealth Games Bid Committee invites the community to the McMaster campus tomorrow (Saturday, Dec. 14) as it makes its pitch to host the 2010 games. The media conference will take place in the McMaster University Student Centre atrium at 2 p.m. The Commonwealth Games selection committee was in Halifax earlier this week and in Hamilton today and Saturday to review the two cities' bids to host the games. The committee will be on campus to hear Hamilton's presentation. A decision will be announced Monday, Dec. 16 at 11 a.m. live on CBC Newsworld. Photo caption: McMaster's 'Mactron', the University message/score board, welcomes the Commonwealth Games selection committee to the McMaster campus.

December 12, 2002

A report from McMaster's Senate Committee on Academic Dishonesty indicates there were 173 cases of academic dishonesty in the 2001-02 academic year  approximately one per cent of the University's student population. Offences ranged from plagiarism from the internet to copying of assignments. "The Senate Committee has some unease with the fact that so many of the cases are plagiarism with the internet," said committee chair John Drake to University Senate Wednesday. "It is something I think Senate should take a look at." Four faculties with large enrolments experienced an increase of cases disproportionate to enrolment increases in 2001-02.

December 11, 2002

Bikramjit Nahal, a first-year science student at McMaster University, received the 2002 Lincoln M. Alexander Award at a Queen's Park ceremony Tuesday for his leadership in promoting racial harmony and eliminating discrimination. Nahal was a member of the Anti-Racism Committee at Parkside and played a large role in implementing programs teaching students to learn about racism. He also created student interest in the annual Walk Against Male Violence Rally and began a Necessities Drive, collecting donated hygiene products and giving them to teens and adults sheltered at Wesley Urban Ministries. He organized a book drive to raise awareness about educational poverty, collecting more than 900 books for children in Poland, Russia, Africa, Lithuania and India. Nahal was recognized by the prime minister for excellence in leadership, academics and community, and has won several awards, including the YMCA Peace Medal a few months ago. Created in 1993 to honour the former Lieutenant Governor's commitment to support young people and promote racial harmony, the annual Lincoln M. Alexander Awards are presented to two Ontario youth who have worked hard to improve racial understanding, one in their school and the other in their community. Two young people, between the ages of 16 and 25, receive an award of $2,500 each and a framed scroll. The other 2002 recipient was Tamara McDonald, a student at Sir Winston Churchill High School in Thunder Bay. Click "Students prove making a difference a matter of choice" to read the story in The Hamilton Spectator.

December 10, 2002

The billowing smoke from steel mills may not only make it hard to breathe, but may also cause genetic damage, according to new research by McMaster biology researchers. Scientists have long suspected that industrial pollution poses a significant risk to the health of human and animal populations, although much of the evidence is anecdotal or confounded by factors other than air pollutants. McMaster associate professor James Quinn and colleagues previously found a high rate of heritable mutations in herring gull populations nesting near steel mills. However, it was unclear whether the observed effect was due to emissions in the air or contaminants in the water. To isolate and examine the effect of air pollution, Quinn, PhD student Chris Somers and colleagues from Health Canada housed laboratory mice in ambient air one kilometre downwind from two integrated steel mills near Lake Ontario and a rural location 30 kilometres away.

December 10, 2002

The author of Canada's current number one children's book, Hana's Suitcase, will speak at the book launch for the fifth volume of Main Street: The Anthology of the McMaster Certificate in Writing Program tonight (Tuesday, Dec. 10). Author and CBC producer Karen Levine will give a 30-minute presentation on her remarkable true story, which documents a Japanese woman's effort to find out what happened to a young Jewish girl, Hana Brady, in the Second World War. The evening will also feature Faculty of Humanities writer-in-residence Shyam Selvadurai, reading from his award-winning novel, Funny Boy. Main Street, the award-winning anthology series published by the Centre for Continuing Education, features selected short Canadian fiction and poetry from 34 students in the writing program. Several Hamilton and area authors will also receive awards handed out during the evening's festivities. Levine is a prize-winning producer with CBC Radio. She was formerly executive producer of As It Happens and currently works at This Morning as producer of the First Person Singular series. Karen has won the prestigious Peabody Award for her documentary Children of the Holocaust, and her production of Hana's Suitcase was nominated for a Governor General's Literary Award, the Ontario Library Association's Silver Birch Award, and their new adult literacy award, The Golden Oak. Selvadurai, McMaster's writer-in-residence, was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He came to Canada with his family at the age of 19. He has studied creative writing and theatre and has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from York University. Funny Boy, his first novel, was published to acclaim in 1994 and won the Canadian W.H. Smith/Books First Novel Award, and in the U.S., the Lambda Literary Award. The novel was also named a Notable Book by the American Library Association. His second novel Cinammon Gardens has been published in Canada, the U.K., the U.S. and translated into six languages - Italian, French, German, Danish, Spanish and Hebrew. It was shortlisted for Canada's Trillium Award, as well as the Aloa Literary Award in Denmark and the Permio Internazionale Riccardo Bacchelli in Italy. The Main Street book launch takes place Tuesday, Dec. 10 in the University Club from 7 to 9 p.m.

December 9, 2002

E-mail may be fast and convenient, but the historians of the future may regret the havoc wrought by the delete button on the records of contemporary social and political commentary. Researchers interested in the 20th century are more fortunate in having at their disposal the letters of one of the most intelligent and prolific writers the world has ever seen - the philosopher Bertrand Russell. Even in his 90s, Russell would commonly dictate several letters in a day on a staggeringly wide range of subjects. His correspondents included both well-known figures such as Einstein, Niels Bohr, T.S. Eliot, and Edna O'Brien, and countless ordinary people who would write to Russell requesting information or advice on topics as disparate as formal logic and marriage counselling. He was a rare private individual indeed, who could write to both Khrushchev and Kennedy at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, and expect them to read what he had to say. "Russell was ceaselessly and effortlessly fluent," comments Nicholas Griffin, McMaster philosophy professor and director of the Bertrand Russell Research Centre. "Whatever he thought of, he had the words to express it. He truly believed in the power of words to change a situation." And at times they did - as a kind of one-man precursor to 'Amnesty International', Russell met with some success in his letter-writing campaigns on behalf of eastern block political prisoners. The Russell Archives at McMaster hold more than 40,000 of Russell's letters. Faced with such an embarrassment of riches, the only problem for researchers is where to begin looking for specific information. "It can be like looking for a needle in a haystack" says Griffin, who has read more of Russell's correspondence than most.

December 6, 2002

They may be young, but the age-old adage of 'giving is better than receiving' is not a new concept for McMaster students Adam Green, Adam Spence and Sam Minniti. For cancer survivor Adam Green, volunteering is a necessity. "I don't see it as volunteering," he says. "I see it as something I have to do." Green, who was diagnosed with lymphoma cancer at the age of 15, volunteers for a number of agencies, including Shinerama, Terry Fox and at a camp for children with cancer. "When I see kids who have cancer and the hardships they go through, that's what makes me volunteer," he says. The fourth-year business student, Spence and Minniti were among 46,000 Canadians and 42 Hamiltonians to receive Queen's Jubilee Awards, given to those who have contributed up to 50 years of service to the community. The Golden Jubilee Medal of Queen Elizabeth II commemorates the 50th anniversary of Her Majesty's reign as Queen of Canada.

December 5, 2002

Crunch time's on. From a walk around campus, it's unmistakable. In the McMaster University Student Centre (MUSC), baggy-eyed students are surrounded by papers and books. In lounges, groups are huddled in serious discussion. And libraries are the busiest they've been all term. The McMaster campus is a quiet place these days, with students preparing for the 60,277 examinations that will be written between Dec. 4 and 17. But studying might be a little less stressful because of accommodations made by University services and student committees. The McMaster Students Union Student Life Committee (SLC), for example, has co-ordinated an All-Night Study Program in the MUSC, where all floors are dedicated to students studying for exams. Silent areas and discussion areas have been established 24 hours day in meeting rooms, banquet halls, lounges and the atrium. Consideration hours are in effect 24 hours a day, while no tolerance hours are between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m.

December 4, 2002

McMaster placed second in an annual survey designed to measure the public accountability of Canadian universities. Ranked first in this survey in 2000, McMaster scored 73.2 points this year, placing behind Queen's University (with 73.6 points). The survey uses an index that considers such public documents as mission statements, performance targets, detailed financial statements and research summaries. Click here for the 2001 results.

December 3, 2002

When it comes to fighting crime in the community, students have an invested interest. "McMaster is our home throughout the school year and we want to make this place safe for on-campus and off-campus students," says Cathy Hui, co-ordinator of McMaster's Student Walk Home Attendant Team (SWHAT). So when the SWHAT team was approached by Hamilton Police constable Greg Doerr about joining forces, they were all for the idea. "This was something we had already wanted to do," the fourth-year kinesiology student says. Students on Patrol is a new program where Hamilton police and McMaster Security provide SWHAT volunteers with training on how to make McMaster and its surrounding communities a healthier and safer place. Volunteers are educated on how to watch for suspicious activity and how to be aware of their surroundings. This fall, Hamilton Police and McMaster Security trained more than 150 SWHAT volunteers.

December 3, 2002

A seminar on steel will be hosted by the Michael G. DeGroote School of Business Thursday, Dec. 5. The all-day seminar will go beyond the technological world of steel and how steel competes with other materials, to take in new auto-steel strategies and uses of steel in the housing sector. "We don't usually think in economic terms, we think more in technological terms," said Gord Irons, head of McMaster's steel research centre. "This is the first time we've done something on this basis." The centre, part of the engineering faculty, is hosting the workshops along with the university's office of research and international affairs. About 50 people -- from local industry and economic development circles to provincial officials -- are expected. Click here to read the story in today's Hamilton Spectator. (The Hamilton Spectator, Dec. 3, 2002)

December 2, 2002

Today marks the last day of Term 1 classes. Final examinations begin Wednesday, Dec. 4 and continue through to Tuesday, Dec. 17. Go to the Office of the Registrar's Web site at http://registrar.mcmaster.ca/internal/examt/ for the exam schedule. Paper versions have been posted around campus.

December 2, 2002

McMaster helped kick off the holiday season Saturday. Close to 400 McMaster employees and their families gathered in the CIBC Banquet Hall of the McMaster University Student Centre Nov. 30 for the University's annual children's Christmas party. The celebration, which included a visit from Santa, entertainment, crafts, face-painters, refreshments, draw prizes and gifts, received support from the Office of the President, the McMaster University Student Centre, Hospitality Services, Physical Plant and numerous volunteers. Photo caption: Eight-year-old Marina Van Raay gets into the spirit of Christmas.

November 29, 2002

Mathematicians will have a chance to crunch numbers with one of the world's experts on number theory Dec. 3-6. John Coates, Sadleirian professor of pure . . .