Daily News

Posted on Aug. 7: Students, families will be given warm welcome

Making the leap from high school to university can be challenging. To help ease the transition, Student Affairs has planned a day of activities for new students and their families. Friday, Aug. 9, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., all first-year students and their families are invited to Welcome Day at the McMaster campus to start orienting themselves with their new home. The day will include tours, information sessions, opportunities to talk with staff from various student services, displays by a number of student clubs, a barbecue lunch, and the option of staying overnight in one of the residences.

Posted on Aug. 8: Gary Schrobilgen: He’s purely a chemist for our times

McMaster chemist Gary Schrobilgen has long been recognized as a world leader in main-group fluorine chemistry. In June he received two awards that attest to his continued leadership in this area. The Canadian Society for Chemistry awarded him the 2002 Alcan Award and the 2002 Award for Pure or Applied Inorganic Chemistry at its annual meeting in June. Significantly, the Vancouver event marked the first time a Canadian researcher has won both awards in the same year. The Alcan Award is presented to a scientist residing in Canada who has made a distinguished contributions in the fields of inorganic chemistry or electrochemistry. The Award for Pure or Applied Inorganic Chemistry is given in recognition of outstanding contributions to industrial or academic inorganic chemistry, within the five calendar years preceding the year of nomination. Schrobilgen conducts fundamental research in inorganic fluorine chemistry and the polyatomic anions of the main-group elements. His research is important in helping us to better understand the structure and chemical bonding in so-called hypervalent molecules and main-group ring, cage and cluster species. He also conducts research in two areas of radiochemistry and on the noble gases krypton and xenon. Many of his compounds are now examples in textbooks.

Posted on Aug. 2: McMaster researcher leads genetics team

Genetics research has come a long way in Canada. In fact, the progress has been so fast the government has created a new Ontario Advisory Committee on Genetics to guide them on existing and new genetic services. And they've appointed McMaster's Ronald Carter to lead the way. "Genetics used to be a small niche of medicine," says the professor of pathology & molecular medicine at McMaster. "The laboratory technology was both esoteric and poorly developed, and the opportunities for effective cures very limited. "Obviously, things have changed rapidly." There is growing need for a genetics advisory committee, says Carter, the committee's key adviser. "Particularly with the advent of the Human Genome Project and the flood of developments in diagnosis and therapy," he says. "Part of this awareness stems from the anticipated price tag for these developments, but there is also a genuine concern that we need to be good at this and make sure we are doing the right thing." The need also arises from the advent of legal and political issues typified by disputes over gene patents, the ethics of predictive testing and the moral dilemmas posed by medically assisted reproduction and stem cell technologies, he says. "There is recognition that expert advice is needed to ensure that we can critically appraise the costs, benefits, risks, ethics, access, providers and administration of genetic services in Ontario," he says. "The committee will ensure there is a mandate covering all aspects of the provision of genetic services including evaluating outcomes, surveying new technologies and providing advice to the province." Carter is an expert in the field of medical genetics. The current president of the Canadian College of Medical Geneticists, became a fellow of the College in 1991, and was also a founding fellow of the American College of Medical Genetics in 1993. He has also been involved in a variety of research programs including gene therapy and diagnostic laboratory genetics research. Carter was appointed to Chedoke-McMaster Hospital (now Hamilton Health Sciences) in 1990, and directed the Regional Cytogenetics Laboratory in Hamilton from 1991 to 1999. He is currently head of Cancer Genetics for the Regional Genetics Service of South Central Ontario/Hamilton Regional Laboratory Medicine Program, and a consultant in pathology for the Hamilton Regional Cancer Centre, Cancer Care Ontario. [End of Story]

Posted on July 31: McMaster is first Canadian University to affiliate with Worker Rights Consortium

McMaster is the first university in Canada to become a member of the Worker Rights Consortium, a non-profit organization which assists universities and colleges in ensuring that the factories that produce clothing and other goods bearing university names respect the basic rights of workers. More than 100 academic bodies, including Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, Cornell and Duke universities, are affiliated with the WRC. McMaster joined the WRC in June, making it the first University in Canada to do so. Created by college and university administrations, students and labor rights experts, the WRC's purpose is to assist in the enforcement of manufacturing codes of conduct adopted by colleges and universities. The membership illustrates McMaster's commitment to ensuring an end to worker oppression and exploitation. It also reinforces the University's belief in, and commitment to, a new policy approved in June by McMaster's senior administration. A Code of Labour Practices for University Suppliers and Licensees is aimed at ensuring McMaster apparel (T-shirts for example, sold in the Bookstore or used for summer camps) and non-apparel licensed products (such as coffee mugs) are manufactured and sold by companies with ethical labour standards and practices (most of which are based on widely accepted conventions of the United Nation's International Labour Organization.) The code is a statement of minimum standards with respect to labour practices and was developed by a McMaster ad hoc committee comprised of members of the faculty, staff and student associations, various university departments and other interested groups. The code states that "McMaster is committed to conducting its business affairs in a socially responsible and ethical manner consistent with its educational, research and service missions, and to protecting and preserving the global environment." In developing the labour practice code, the McMaster committee consulted with the Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN), the Toronto-based secretariat of Canada's anti-sweatshop campaigning coalition. "McMaster has become the first university in Canada to affiliate with the Worker Rights Consortium. In the Canadian context, what McMaster is doing is trailblazing. It's only a first step, but an important one," says Ian Thomson of MSN.