campus news
BEST MUSIC CAMPUS
CBC radio poll ranks Laurier first
In September, CBC Radio set out to identify the best music campus in Canada. When the online voting, tweeting and blogging came to an end, Wilfrid Laurier University came out on top. “The CBC contest was an opportunity to reflect on the remarkable musical life of Laurier and on the stunning successes of our students,” said Glen Carruthers, dean of Laurier’s Faculty of Music. “With the encouragement and support of the Faculty of Music, the university and the local community, our students are
inspired to dream big musically. Because of this nourishing environment, Laurier’s musical successes are diverse, innovative and abundant.” Laurier was also recognized for the number of musical events and programs staged on campus throughout the year, including open-mic nights at Wilf’s Pub, noon-hour concerts, the new singer/songwriter Residence Learning Community, and musical theatre and opera productions.
PEOPLE AT LAURIER Laura Allan, assistant professor in the School of Business & Economics, has received Laurier’s Residence Academic Partnership award. The award recognizes faculty members who support academic initiatives within the university’s residences. Allan has been involved with the Business & Economics Residence Learning Community (RLC), one of Laurier’s themed residence environments designed to extend opportunities for learning and development into residence buildings, since its creation in 2009.
Max Blouw, Laurier’s president and vice-chancellor, has been appointed chair of the Council of Ontario Universities. The membership organization represents Ontario’s 21 publicly-funded universities. Blouw says his first priority as chair will be to champion the many ways a university education enriches lives, societies and economies, both at home and globally.
Tamas Dobozy, associate professor of English and associate dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, was shortlisted for the 2013 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Dobozy’s book, Siege 13 (Thomas Allen Publishers, 2012), won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Award of Canada and was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction. The book is a collection of 13 short stories about the Siege of Budapest, when the Soviet Union’s Red Army invaded the Hungarian capital toward the end of the Second World War.
Bruce Gillespie, assistant journalism professor at Laurier’s Brantford campus, is the new editor-in-chief of J-Source: The Canadian Journalism Project. J-Source is a national online project that provides news, information, resources and commentary about events, issues and challenges in Canadian journalism.
Jorge Heine, political science professor, has been named a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. In this role, Heine will join the center’s global network of scholars and experts, and contribute to research and scholarship through research, analysis and publications. He will be part of the Center’s Latin American Program. Heine was previously a Public Policy Scholar with the Wilson Center in 2011. He has written extensively on politics, Latin America, Haiti and globalization.
Rhoda E. HowardHassmann, Canada Research Chair in International Human Rights and a professor of Global Studies at Laurier and the Balsillie School of International Affairs, is the 2013 recipient of the Sir John William Dawson Medal awarded by the Royal Society of Canada (RSC). The award recognizes important academic contributions in multiple domains or interdisciplinary
research. Howard-Hassmann is an expert in the field of international human rights, including women’s and children’s rights, gay and lesbian rights, retrospective justice, globalization and human rights, economic human rights and comparative genocide studies.
Marc Kilgour, professor of mathematics, was recently awarded the 2012 Elinor Ostrom Prize for the best paper in the Journal of Theoretical Politics. Kilgour co-wrote the paper, titled “Narrowing the Field in Elections: The Next-Two Rule,” with Steven J. Brams of New York University. The article suggests a new approach to narrowing the field in multistage or short-listing elections, based on the “deservingness” of candidates to be considered contenders, or to participate in a runoff election. Instead of specifying an arbitrary criterion for success (for example, the top two or three candidates), the article proposes that the number of contenders should depend on the distribution of votes among all candidates.
Maria Papadopoulos, an experienced government relations professional and policy advisor, has been appointed to the position of director of government relations. Papadopoulos will play a key role in continuing to raise Laurier’s profile among government decision-makers. She will also advise Laurier on legislative matters affecting the university, and identify partnership opportunities that will allow the university to continue delivering high-quality educational and research programming. She will be based in Laurier’s Toronto office.
LAURIER CAMPUS Winter 2013 9