MAY 2012 Inside NEWS
What’s new and notable at Laurier
Laurier appoints new university librarian Laurier has appointed Gohar Ashoughian to the role of university librarian for a five-year term commencing Aug. 1, 2012. Reporting to Deborah MacLatchy, the university’s vice-president: academic and provost, Ashoughian will be responsible for the leadership, evaluation, development and day-to-day administration of the Laurier library system in Waterloo, Brantford and Kitchener. She is responsible for managing the Library’s 55 staff members, librarians and managers, and for ensuring that the Library’s resources are aligned with the priorities of the university as a whole. The university librarian also serves as library head archivist, responsible for Laurier’s historical archives and special collections. Ashoughian has held a number of leadership positions in the United States and Canada, most recently as university librarian at the University of Northern British Columbia. She was also previously associate university librarian, collection services and assessment, at the University of Regina. “I’m very excited to be joining this flagship Ontario university at a time when both the university and library are growing and evolving,” said Ashoughian. “I’m looking forward to helping the Library develop its strategy and organization as it continues to adapt to the 21st century.” Ashoughian will be taking
Laurier embraces continued
“Laurier integrates the humanities and social sciences across all of our campuses, disciplines and professional programs,” said Deborah MacLatchy, the university’s vice-president: academic and provost. “Our goal is to promote scholarship that grapples with the most important and challenging problems of our time, and graduate students who are globally aware, critical thinkers with the skills to resolve complex issues in their lives and careers.” Laurier’s Faculty of Arts, which encompasses both humanities and social sciences, is the university’s largest, with nearly 200 full-time members. When Laurier’s Brantford campus and the university’s faculties of Music, Social Work and Education are included, these fields account for over half of all faculty. “As academic convenor of Congress 2012, I’ve had the occasion to review the people here at Laurier and the work they do, and I’ve been amazed by the depth and breadth of scholarship being done,” said Eleanor Ty, a Laurier English and film studies professor. “There’s an excellent balance between traditional scholarship and newer disciplines.” Officially launched in 1924, Arts is Laurier’s oldest faculty. For decades it defined the university’s identity as a small school with a tightknit community and a focus on teaching undergraduates. Even as it retained its small-school identity, the university steadily expanded throughout the 20th century
over from Sharon Brown, who is completing her second five-year term as university librarian. Brown will take an administrative leave before returning to work as a librarian in the Laurier Library.
Laura Crocker named Outstanding Woman of Laurier Laura Crocker has been named the 2012 Outstanding Woman of Laurier. Crocker, the skip for Laurier’s varsity women’s curling team, received the award during a luncheon at the Waterloo Inn Conference Hotel. Crocker is a fourth-year Psychology major and a two-time Academic All-Canadian. “I want to thank Laurier for giving me the opportunity to excel as an athlete, as a student and as a community volunteer,” Crocker told the crowd after accepting her award. “As female athletes, we do face challenges, but we do have very big dreams. We all want to be at the Olympics one day, but we know we will never get there without a room full of people like you supporting women’s athletics.” Crocker accepted her award in front of more than 300 people attending the awards luncheon. Eleven women competed for the prestigious award this year, including two who joined Crocker as finalists: Hanna Burnett and Caitlin Muirhead. Crocker won back-to-back OUA championships this past year. She
Laurier has won six awards at the 27th annual Educational Advertising Awards. The university’s awards were for advertising and marketing materials created for the “100 years inspiring lives of leadership and purpose” campaign,
beyond its Lutheran roots and pure focus on the arts and theology, steadily adding new programs in the social sciences, science and business. The Faculty of Social Work opened its doors in 1966, while the prestigious music school became the Faculty of Music in 1975. The university’s Brantford campus opened its doors to students in 1999, and since that date Laurier has expanded rapidly into a mid-size university with over 17,000 students. The growth in the university’s student body has come with
and other co-curricular learning opportunities. “Professors at Laurier really do give to their students,” said Michael Carroll, the university’s dean of Arts. “It’s the culture here, despite the increase in student numbers, and our graduates all mention that sense of community.” Laurier’s Brantford campus is both exemplary of this approach and distinct within the university. The campus focuses on arts and social science programs with an applied, practical component, such as criminology, journalism and health studies.
Varsity curler Laura Crocker accepts her award at a luncheon at the Waterloo Inn.
won the 2011 CIS championship, followed by a 2012 CIS championship win in March. Crocker represented Laurier and Team Canada at the Kariuzawa International Curling Championships in Japan, where she captured a gold medal. Crocker also volunteers as a Little Rock instructor and assists in the elementary school program Rocks and Rings. Outside of sport, she is actively involved in a developmental education classroom where she works with seven students with developmental delays.
Laurier on YouTube Meet Laurier alum Mike Morrice, founder of Sustainable Waterloo Region and featured in a Laurier’s Inspiring Lives ad in The Globe and Mail newspaper. www.youtube.com/LaurierVideo
Laurier wins six advertising awards
“ Society needs people with the vision to make the world a better place ... ” an enhanced focus on research and graduate studies. “We have amazing researchers here,” said Abby Goodrum, Laurier’s vicepresident: research. “When you look at SSHRC funding for instance, more than one-third of our grant proposals are successful, which puts us comfortably above the national average.” Despite these changes, teaching remains central to Laurier’s identity. The university continues to emphasize this area in keeping with its integrated and engaged model of student learning, which emphasizes the integration of traditional classroom learning with co-op, community-service learning
which marked the university’s centennial in 2011. One of the university’s gold awards, presented in the Newspaper Advertisement/Single category, was for an advertisement featuring Ayiko Solomon, a war survivor and Laurier graduate who founded a non-profit agency to
promote peace and sustainable development in his native Uganda. The second gold, presented in the Newspaper Advertisement/ Insert category, was for a nine-page newspaper insert featuring profiles of eight inspiring Laurier students and graduates. Laurier also won a silver in the Imprinted Materials category for its LAURIER100 canvas bags. It received a bronze in the Newspaper Advertisement/Series category for the series of 12 full-page newspaper advertisements that included the Ayiko Solomon piece. The judges also presented Laurier with merit awards for a newspaper advertisement featuring Laurier Chancellor Michael Lee-Chin and an advertisement in Grand Magazine featuring a portrait of Sir Wilfrid Laurier composed of maple leaves.
The Brantford curriculum is organized around a core program called Contemporary Studies, which examines contemporary issues from an interdisciplinary perspective, and is designed to provide transferable skills and instill the kind of awareness that marks engaged, informed citizens. “All of the students at our campus take this core program and then match it to a more specialized program, so they gain expertise in a particular field but have a broadbased approach to knowledge as well,” said Bruce Arai, dean of the Brantford campus. “It’s a holistic approach that recognizes the problems of the world are not going
to be solved by any one discipline.” The idea that individuals versed in the humanities and social sciences have a crucial societal role to play in the coming years is a key theme across the university as a whole. “Humanities and social sciences produce individuals with certain core skills — reflective thinking, taking the view of the other, communicating and writing effectively, for example,” said Carroll. “These are skills that society needs on a practical level, but it’s easy to lose sight of the deeper reason. Society needs people with the vision to make the world a better place, which is something this kind of education can impart. The truly thorny problems we face are going to be solved by people with this kind of education.” Laurier scholars will have a robust opportunity to share some of their ideas at Congress 2012, the annual meeting of more than 70 national associations of humanities and social sciences scholars, which runs from May 26 to June 2 at Laurier’s Waterloo campus and the University of Waterloo. Several Laurier academics will be speaking at the conference, and many more will be attending events and meeting with colleagues from across the country. “At Laurier we pride ourselves on community, and for students we place a lot of importance on participating in that community both in the classroom and beyond,” said Ty. “Congress 2012 is our opportunity to share that spirit with the wider academic world.”
Professor wins OUSA teaching award By Sandra Muir Mercedes Rowinsky-Geurts, a professor and associate dean of students in the Department of Languages and Literatures, is the recipient of a 2012 Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) Award for Teaching Excellence. This award recognizes educators who go above and beyond the textbook to inspire their students to learn. It is awarded annually to professors from each of OUSA’s member campuses as selected by students as examples of teaching excellence. Rowinsky-Geurts, who specializes in contemporary Spanish and Spanish-American literature, has won numerous awards for her teaching. In her 18 years as a professor at Laurier, Rowinsky-Geurts has influenced the lives of hundreds of students. She is also well known for her memorable workshops and presentations, and her research is recognized worldwide. “This award was a complete surprise,” said Rowinsky-Geurts. “It is very special to me because it comes from the students, who are the main partners in the learning process,” said Rowinsky-Guerts. 3