Daily News

Posted on March 24: Ombuds Office busier, issues complex

McMaster University ombudsperson Shelley Lancaster wants a more uniform approach to accommodating students with chronic mental health problems and other long-term conditions. The number of students with mental health concerns is increasing, Lancaster says. The issue is how to balance McMaster's obligation to accommodate them with the need to protect the academic integrity of its courses. Lancaster touched on the topic in her annual report, which covers the 12 months ending July 31, 2002. It went to Senate this month. The Ombuds Office, which assists students, staff and faculty, dealt with 325 cases last year, including 167 academic cases, a 36 per cent jump from the previous year. Lancaster said the increase may simply mean her office is becoming better known. Some of the most difficult cases involved students with mental health issues who were trying to remove failing grades from their transcripts. The episodic and unpredictable nature of some of these illnesses makes these problems very complex, Lancaster said. She noticed variations in how they are addressed from faculty to faculty, and says the university community could benefit from more education around mental health issues. Academic issues raised most frequently overall included grade appeals (18 per cent), academic misconduct (14 per cent), examinations (8 per cent), and teaching quality (7 per cent). The most common complaint about teaching practice involves instructors who read their entire lectures from overheads. Students also complain about instructors who are perpetually late for class and who appear disorganized in presenting material. McMaster's policy on the public release of students' ratings of teaching effectiveness stipulated the policy should be reassessed in the fall of 1999. That review is now more than three years overdue, and Lancaster recommended a committee be struck to do it. Lancaster said much has been accomplished in the past year, including the appointment of an academic integrity officer and various policy improvements. (The Hamilton Spectator, March 21, 2003)

Posted on March 27: Program opens doors of opportunity for engineering students

Fifty first- and second-year engineering students will gain experience working with professors and research staff in a research-oriented environment through the 2003 Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP). Students may participate in UROP by applying for positions that professors and research staff post through Engineering Career Services or by creating research proposals for specific professors and research staff. Students will contribute to research projects in a variety of ways. Some will assist a team of research engineers in the installation, testing and operation of new pieces of semiconductor fabrication and characterization equipment in the Centre for Electrophotonic Materials and Devices; some will work with graduate students to assist with investigation of the behaviour or non-aqueous phase liquids (i.e. oil) in the subsurface (i.e. groundwater) in the Environmental Engineering Laboratory; others will assist in experiments involving novel techniques for preparing nano-crystalline materials in Materials Engineering; and all students will develop the techniques, skills and procedures required to produce quality research. Last year, dean Mo Elbestawi launched UROP 2002 by saying, "The introduction of UROP demonstrates the Faculty of Engineering's commitment to enhancing its reputation as a student-centered research intensive institution." The fact that the number of available UROP positions has almost doubled this summer indicates the strength of this commitment.

Posted on March 25: An economist’s view: beauty is a labour market matter

If you look good, will you get ahead? American economist Daniel S. Hamermesh will talk about the relationship between physical appearance and labour market success in a public lecture titled The Economics of Beauty. Hamermesh, a 2003 Hooker Visiting Professor in Economics, will deliver the lecture on Thursday, March 27, at 3 p.m. in the Michael G. DeGroote School of Business building Room 505. Hamermesh is the Edward Everett Hale Centennial Professor of Economics at the University of Texas at Austin. He has taught at Princeton and Michigan State and has held visiting professorships at universities in the United States, Europe, Australia and Asia. His research, published in more than 70 papers in scholarly journals, has concentrated on labor demand, time use, social programs and unusual applications of labor economics to suicide, sleep and beauty. A recent research article is titled Dress for Success: Does Primping Pay? Hamermesh is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, program director at the Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit (IZA), and past president of the Society of Labor Economists and of the Midwest Economics Association. His books include Labor Demand and The Economics of Work and Pay, a labour economics textbook. His latest book, published this year, is Economics Is Everywhere, a series of 400 vignettes designed to illustrate the ubiquity of economics in everyday life and how the simple tools in a microeconomics principles class can be used. Hamermesh is widely quoted in newspapers and magazines and has appeared on such television programs as Good Morning, America, and the McNeil-Lehrer Report. Go to http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Hamermesh/ for more information about Hamermesh. The lecture is co-sponsored by the McMaster Economics Society.

Posted on March 24: Researchers help develop intelligent lumber mills

McMaster is joining forces with Precarn Inc., Forintek Canada, Tembec and Comact Optimisation to develop an Intelligent Mill Wide Control System for the lumber industry. The official announcement was made Feb. 20 during the Canadian Lumbermen's Association Annual Convention in Montreal. Over the next three years the partners will contribute $2.7 million to create the Smart Mill Assistant (SMA). This advanced process control system will allow lumber manufacturers to monitor and control all independent production steps in an integrated fashion. The Smart Mill Assistant Project is being led by Forintek, which is Canada's National Wood Products Research Institute, in close collaboration with key specialists and mill staff from Tembec, Comact Optimisation and McMaster University (Dr. J. MacGregor and Dr. T. Kourti, MACC, Dept. Chem. Eng.) Theodora Kourti is an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering

Posted on March 24: CanChild researchers measure impact of research on the community

In the past decade there has been a clear move toward the development of research partnerships and alliances. It is estimated that 148 community-university research partnerships exist in Canada, accounting for approximately $340 million in research funding. Despite the millions of dollars spent on such partnerships, the impact of these research alliances has rarely been measured. CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research, located in the School of Rehabilitation Science at McMaster University, is a health-system linked research unit, funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care since 1989. Researchers at CanChild and four other community-university research partnerships have joined together to develop a reliable means of measuring the impact of these partnerships that address social or health services issues. Three other research alliances involved in the study include, The Research Alliance for Children with Special Needs, in London, Ont., Enhancement of Youth Resiliency and Reduction of Harmful Behaviours Leading to Healthy Lifestyle Choices, in St. Catharines, and Partnerships in Capacity Building, Housing, Community Economic Development and Psychiatric Survivors, also in London. The fourth partnership project, Therapeutic Relationships from Hospital to Community, is based in London, Hamilton and Whitby. CanChild's co-directors, Mary Law and Peter Rosenbaum are investigators on the study headed by Gillian King, research director at both the Research Alliance for Children with Special Needs and Thames Valley Children's Centre in London.