MEM Insider 2020

Cover designed by Kai Wen Zhang Bachelor of Management and Organizational Studies Year One

TABLE OF CONTENTS

4

6

Letter from the Editor

Director's Report

12 Opportunities with MEM 13 International Students

5 Alumni and

Reflect on How They Would Like to be Described

Department Announcements

14 Lessons from the Economic History of Pandemics

22 From King’s Class to Career:

Student Entrepreneurs Ramla Naqvi and Almas Farooqi

27 31 Q & A with Anthony Li

24 Reflections on Writing in English 25 MEM Career Readiness 26 MEM Faculty and Staff Talents

Faculty Profiles

16 18 Internship Profile

21

King’s Graduating Student Recognized by Bank of Canada and Canadian Economic Association

The Value of Experiential Learning?

Priceless!

19 Alumni Profile 20 Students Develop

Marketing Plans for King’s Commons Despite Challenges of COVID-19

41 43 Research Spotlight

In Memoriam

47 A look at life on London's

unexpected COVID-19 front line – the grocery store

49 King's students enter Chicago Quantitative Alliance Investment Challenge

51 Strangers’ ‘yuck’ face may deter some smokers

53 Three professors in Conversation

56 Photo Contest

Letter from the Editors To our readers,

Dear readers,

We produced this fifth edition of the MEM Insider from the workspaces in our homes while social distancing.

This edition of the MEM Insider will make you all ‘insiders.’

We hoped to capture the hard-working, yet friendly and supportive, essence at the core of King’s while also sometimes highlighting how the entire community had to adapt and encourage each other during COVID-19.

I know I struggled with feeling connected to both my schoolwork and the Insider as I completed work from home. But, as the articles came together, in a somewhat n o n - t r a d i t i o n a l way through email and Zoom interviews, the Insider became a reminder of the wonderful community I am so grateful to be a member of. The Insider highlights many of the individuals who make the MEM program so incredible, including professors and students, as well as some of the projects and events these individuals have created that emphasize the rarity of the MEM community.

I would like to personally extend my gratitude to the professors, administrative staff, and students that have made the production of this edition possible. A special thanks to Dr. Vidya Natarajan, my co-editor Josephine Bondi, and Estelle Van Winckle, for the continual guidance and motivation to complete the Insider despite challenges in light of COVID-19.

I hope this edition enables readers to see the supportive community the MEM program has built and instills new inspiration in future, present, and past members of the King’s community.

Taryn Rollins is enrolled in the MOS and English programs. She is in her third year.

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As a King’s Writing Program student, I supposed myself to be an ‘outsider’ as I approached my work on the MEM Insider. But, hosted by the grace and warmth of all the School of MEM faculty, students, and staff with whom I connected, I promptly felt included. They honoured me with stories of their personal passions and profound commitments to King’s. This Insider gives you glimpses of their academic identities and more: You will meet athletes, artists, advocates, advisors, adventurers, entrepreneurs – even an astronomer!

I would like to thank the School of MEM for this opportunity to write for and edit the MEM Insider. The presence of an authentic audience is invaluable to a Writing student. Above all, I would like to thank my teacher and mentor, Dr. Vidya Natarajan, King’s Writing Program Coordinator, whose steadfast friendship and regard supports me in a way I have rarely experienced.

Josephine Bondi is a Special Undergraduate Student, working towards a Certificate in the Teaching and Practice of Writing.

Alumni & Department Announcements Milestones are originally published in the King’s Herald alumni magazine. Share your milestones (job, marriage, birth announcements, etc.) by emailing alumni@kings.uwo.ca or by completing the online form at: kings.uwo.ca/alumni/address-update.

Photos are welcome, space permitting.

Nicola Thomspson (nee Forde) '03 (BACS Finance & Administration) was appointed Chief Financial Officer for WeedMD in April 2019.

William Denis '12 (BMOS Global Commerce) completed Ironman 70.3 Triathlon in Muskoka in 2019, and is signed up for the full Ironman in Mont Tremblant in 2020.

Jason Wilcox '07 (BACS Finance & Administration), co-founder of Waste Solutions Canada, was awarded 2019 EY Entrepreneur of the Year in the Business-to-Business Products and Services category.

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Director's Report

By Dr. Grigori Erenburg Director, School of MEM and Associate Professor

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Courses in cognitive science and philosophy...will help students identify biases, address blind spots in reasoning, and develop into creative critical thinkers who pursue novel solutions.

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ooking back at our second academic year as the School of Management, Economics, and Mathematics (School of MEM), it makes me proud to be a member of such a vibrant, ambitious, and supportive community. Since the establishment of the School of MEM two years ago, we continue to develop our unit into a top-quality undergraduate school within a liberal arts university college. Let me highlight just a few achievements over the past year.

At the initiative and direction of Dr. Joseph Turnbull, professor of Mathematics, and Dr. Felipe Rodrigues, professor of Operations Management, in September 2020 the School of MEM is introducing an interdisciplinary minor in Analytics and Decision Sciences (ADS). The explosive growth of data and emergence of new and powerful analysis tools have transformed the world. Leaders and decision makers today must be skillful at integrating avalanches of information, as well as combining quantitative and qualitative reasoning to navigate complex problems. The goal of introducing a new minor is to teach students to use mathematical and statistical thinking to extract actionable information from data and bring insights from different domains of knowledge in order to make decisions. For example, the courses in cognitive science and philosophy included in the ADS module will help students identify biases, address blind spots in reasoning, and develop into creative critical thinkers who pursue novel solutions. Other courses build links to management in both qualitative and quantitative realms. More than 20 students have already registered for this minor to start in September 2020.

Another important development at the School this year has been furthering access to professional designations for our students. With the assistance of our Finance faculty member Dr. Josephine Gemson and our School Administrator Ms. Estelle Van Winckle, King’s received an affiliation status with the Chartered Financial Analysts (CFA) Institute. CFA designation is the most prestigious finance designation accepted internationally, and completion of CFA exams is a major asset for students planning a career in finance. King’s affiliation means that at least 70% of the CFA level I curriculum is covered in our BMOS Honors Finance & Administration stream.

Until this year, at Western University, only Ivey programs had CFA affiliation. Every year, King’s affiliation agreement with CFA will provide six students with scholarships, which waive the program enrollment fee and cover most of exam registration fees. The scholarship application procedure allows us to identify students who plan to take the CFA exams and connect them through study groups. This year 14 students applied for the scholarship.

Congratulations to our first six CFA scholarship recipients: Danielle Hackett, Dongxu Sun, Nour Alard, Shuainan Yang, Xinyu Yan and Yuting Yang!

Building on these achievements, the School of MEM continues to focus on the professional development and career success of our students. This is the second year that our Program Manager Ms. Lydia Li, with the assistance of our School Administrator Ms. Estelle Van Winckle, has organized the Career Readiness project, a series of career workshop events. This year, the events were planned a year ahead, which helped students manage their course schedules while maximizing their 7 • MEM INSIDER • June 2020

participation in these workshops. More than 100 students benefitted from Career Readiness events in this academic year.

Our School’s focus on experiential learning, however, goes well beyond the bounds of our immediate community. Throughout this year, our faculty and students hosted and participated in multiple international and cross-cultural exchanges. For example, during King’s Annual International Management and Economics Week (KAIME) in late October, our School hosted short workshops for students and faculty research presentations delivered by scholars from King’s international partner schools. The purpose of this event was to expose King’s students to global business perspectives, exchange research ideas within the international scholar community, develop and deepen

the relationships with King’s partner schools, and promote King’s University College internationally. This year KAIME boasted a particularly well-rounded panel of international scholars from five countries – Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico, and Japan. Our own faculty research presentations included those that focused on the Canadian labor market by Dr. Hui Feng, the history of money by Dr. Vincent Geloso, private equity by Dr. Josephine Gemson and queuing models in healthcare by Dr. Felipe Rodrigues.

Another successful intercultural learning experience was made possible this year thanks to Dr. Sergio Janczak, professor of Strategic and Cross-Cultural Management, and Dr. Ayoub Yousefi, professor of Economics. In February, our students had an opportunity to take part in the Cross-Cultural Colleges Seminar organized by

This was like nothing we had ever done in the classroom and for most of us, it was our first taste of what it would feel like working in the corporate sector.

Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan and hosted by the University of Toronto. Five King's students were selected to participate in that one-week event, along 46 participants from Queens University, University of Toronto, and Mount Allison University. Guided by Dr. Yousefi, King’s students worked extensively with their counterparts from other schools to complete real-case business projects reflecting and sharing the values of the Japanese culture. In addition to true working experience, the seminar provided amazing opportunities for our students to meet and network with representatives from various businesses. By one of the student-participants’ own words “…This was like nothing we had ever done in the classroom and for most of us, it was our first taste of what it would feel like working in the corporate sector…”and “…The industry analysis and company reports we wrote … made all of us aware of the negative impacts of the industry on society in a way that reading the information in textbooks never could…”

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Congratulations to Jia Wang, Karanveer Singh, Qirui Sun, Srishti Rai Chowdhury and Xiao Shi on being selected and successfully completing this course!

Yet one more exciting international learning event that our School was part of was the Chicago Quantitative Alliance (CQA) Investment Challenge. This was the first year that King’s has entered this prestigious competition, which included teams from Ivey Business School, the University of Chicago, the University of Toronto, Cal Tech, Cornell University, Duke University, etc. With support from our faculty member Jordan Kotick and industry mentor Jeff Brown, President and CEO of 18 Asset Management Inc., five School of MEM students, dubbed the KingsMEM team, made the top 10 (!), outperforming many fierce competitors including Ivey Business School team. Congratulations to Andy Caragaceanu, Kyle Keller, Jordan Lunick, Serge Muhirwa, and Mathew Vanderhoeff!

We are very proud of their achievement!

honored to have an amazing keynote speaker: King’s graduate Matt Pepe '87, President of Mandalay Investments and Real Estate and former VP of 3M Company. We had a great turnout of alumni, professors and current students.

On February 4, the School of MEM and King’s EconoMath Society (KEMS, our professional student club) co-hosted MEM Career Day. The event was a total success, hosting representatives from 16 different employers and graduate programs, presenting nine speakers and attracting more than 70 current students.

The School of MEM and our current students are grateful to our alumni who visited us either as guest speakers or firm representatives: Andrew MacNeil, Daniel Getachew, Delina Ivanova, Donald Geromette, Jason R. Peetsma, Joe MacDonald, Katarina DiFazio, Laura Wimperis, Peter W Luchak, Renfang Tian, Veronica Grunwald and Walter Melo. It is one of many examples of the amazing support we enjoy from our former students! This time, not all memories of the event were happy. With great sadness, we learned that Joe MacDonald ’80, passed away on February 12. Joe was one of our most reliable and devoted supporters over many years. He made an extra effort to visit King’s and give his last speech at the School of MEM Career Event early February. His generosity and commitment to King’s touched many members of our community and will be remembered fondly.

Our community – students, alumni, and faculty – is an essential part of our identity. Let me mention some of the examples of their involvement throughout this year.

We held the School of MEM Homecoming 2019 reception (our second such event) on October 18. Last year, it marked the formal establishment of the School of MEM. This year, the momentum carried on. We were

On January 24, MEM student clubs, in cooperation with the School of MEM, held our annual MEM Social, which became a new tradition over these past few years. The event took place on campus in the beautiful Darryl J. King Student Life Center and attracted approximately 50 attendants. The event provides an opportunity to acknowledge our students’ achievements over the year, honor friends and Alumni of MEM who support our current students with networking opportunities, and recognize all members of our community who are building a strong foundation for our future as a growing school of management. Special thanks to the organizers of the event this year, student executives from KEMS club, Chris Quadros, Danielle Michele Sequeira, Andrew Medeiros, Yingyang Wen, and our School Administrator, Estelle Van Winckle.

We also have a few updates from our faculty. In July 9 • MEM INSIDER • June 2020

2020 Dr. Sergio Janczak completes his last year in the position of Associate Director. Over his years as Management and Organizational Studies coordinator at Economics, Business and Mathematics (EBM) department (predecessor to the School of MEM) and the Associate Director of the School of MEM, Dr. Janczak made an outstanding contribution to the progress of our academic unit. Dr. Jennifer Jeffrey will start as the new Associate Director on July 1. Please, join us in thanking Dr. Janczak for all his work and welcoming Dr. Jeffrey into her new role!

I would also like to recognize two faculty members retiring this year, Dr. Glen Copplestone (Economics) and Dr. David Meredith (Mathematics). Their contribution to the department, the School and King’s over the years has been enormous. Dr. Copplestone and Dr. Meredith mentored generations of students. In fact, some of our current faculty have been their students in the past.

Both Dr. Copplestone and Dr. Meredith led the development of the EBM department as department chairs. In addition, Dr. Copplestone has been actively involved in the development of the collegial governance at the College and provincial level. For example, as a member and chair of the King’s faculty salary and benefits negotiating committee, Dr. Copplestone negotiated many workload measures that have so successfully increased King's research productivity and reputation. One of the most popular teachers (ranked among “Western’s top five professors” by Western’s Gazette), Dr. Meredith is also a strong researcher in the field of Mathematical Physics and has had his work published in prestigious Physics and Mathematics journals. We would like to thank both of our colleagues for their invaluable contribution to the School of MEM and wish them well in the new stage of their lives! As a matter of fact, we have another former EBM faculty member retiring, King’s current Vice-Principal and Academic Dean, Dr. Sauro Camiletti.

Dr. Camiletti joined King’s in in 1975 as a part-time mathematics instructor and since then served as an EBM department chair, King’s Associate Academic Dean, King’s Academic Dean, Vice-Principal and Academic Dean and Interim Principal. We would like to

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thank Dr. Camiletti for his service to the School (EBM department) and the College at large!

With so many successful projects reflecting our School’s growth and the departure of some of our valued colleagues, we made sure to find adequate additions to our full-time faculty group. With the significant disruptions caused by the COVID-19, we had to modify our plans accordingly, but I am happy to report that we will have amazing professors joining us throughout the year. Dr. Joanna Andrejkow will be joining our Accounting group in July 2020 and contribute her expertise in behavioral aspects of business science to enrich our accounting curriculum. Further, our seasoned part-time instructor Dr. Lori Murray will join the School as an Assistant Professor of Statistics in January 2021.

Dr. Murray is a very timely addition in support of our new Analytics and Decision Science program. Last, but not least, Dr. Renfang Tian will join the Economics group starting January 2021. Dr. Renfang Tian is EBM department’s 2013 graduate (!) from 2+2 joint degree program with Dongbei University of Finance and Economics. She is joining us from the University of Waterloo and bringing a wealth of expertise in functional data analysis for the benefit of our economics students.

Finally, we all feel the adversities of the COVID-19 pandemic. At Western and King’s, winter term classes had to go online, hiring decisions were revised, and the 2020 Graduation ceremony and Open House became virtual. Understandably, these changes presented stress and uncertainty to many of our students, staff and instructors, especially as we are preparing for the upcoming fall 2020 semester.

However, at the School of MEM we believe that these new challenges bring about new opportunities if we act right. Despite the duress this change has brought to students and instructors, the sudden conversion to an online format allowed all of us to test new technologies, identify weak spots and figure out ways to upgrade our methods of teaching and learning. The summer semester will allow us to fine-tune our approaches, master new learning technologies and prepare for the next academic year.

Dr. Copplestone and Dr. Meredith mentored generations of students. In fact, some of our current faculty have been their students in the past.

Embracing flexible and technology-enabled teaching, the School of MEM is offering 25 online courses across Economics, MOS, and Mathematics over the summer. This experience is instrumental as we converge on a balanced and blended method of teaching, equally accessible to our students domestically and internationally. Online or blended methods do not compromise the personalized approach in teaching, which has been integral to King’s identity. In fact, we believe that the modern methods and approaches will enhance student-instructor interactions, encourage greater engagement in classes, and extend our liberal arts brand.

We now have an opportunity to take our students’ academic experience to a new level.

The School of MEM and King’s at large have been and continue to be a place of progressive pedagogy and a community of innovative professors, alumni, students, and staff. As we launch into the new 2020-2021 academic year, stay tuned for more exciting news and developments!

Sincerely, Grigori

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Opportunities with MEM Aidan Brown’s Research Assistant Experience

By Aidan Brown Brown was a research assistant for Dr. Josephine Gemson during the summer of 2019.

I was able to secure this position due to the relationship I cultivated with Professor Gemson during my enrollment in her course, Finance 3310. From the onset of the class, I endeavored to exhibit effective communication with Professor Gemson, and show her my specific interest in mergers and acquisitions.

Furthermore, I consistently demonstrated tenacity and ambition to further my skills and capabilities in Finance, ultimately allowing me to succeed within the course and, subsequently, my position as a Research Assistant.

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uring the summer of 2019, I had the wonderful opportunity to work as a Research Assistant under the supervision of Dr. Josephine Gemson. Together we developed the foundations for the project “Private Equity Acquisitions vs. Corporate Acquisitions: Insight on Target Preferences,” which has potential for publication in the Journal of Private Equity. This position aligned with my genuine interest in mergers and acquisitions (M&A), as well as my skill set and ability to collect and manipulate data using software programs like Microsoft Excel and Stata.

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During the project, I developed and refined several skills that will, without doubt, benefit me throughout my career. Initially, I had to become comfortable with literature reviews of academic papers, which demanded critical review skills and the ability to decipher important information to be later relayed in our research project. While I developed many new skills, I was also able to practically apply concepts learned in other courses, like my econometrics and research methods classes, to test and subsequently convey various statistical properties. Moreover, I developed the ability to utilize financial software, such as the Bloomberg Terminal and S&P Capital IQ, and retrieved information to create a time series data set consisting of over 1000 different target companies.

The invaluable experience working as a Research Assistant is one that led to immense growth and possibilities. I cannot stress enough the importance of developing strong relationships with your professors, showing genuine passion for the subject matter, and being transparent about your future goals and desires.

I have a great amount of gratitude toward the King’s School of MEM and Dr. Gemson as they made my ambitions attainable.

International Students

Reflect on How They Would Like to be Described

By Yutong Du and Zichun Huang

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ver the past two decades, an increasing number of students have been choosing to study abroad. Two School of MEM students, Yutong Du and Zichun Huang, are among them. Du and Huang each left China, their country of birth, to study in Canada. Chinese is their first language, and they conduct all aspects of their King’s education - listening, reading, writing, and speaking – in English.

Du and Huang belong to a demographic which Canadian schools refer to as ‘international students.’ But, as Huang points out, “perceiving such students from different angles will result in different terminology being used.” Examples of various terms used to describe them are ‘English as a Second Language’ (ESL) students, ‘English Language Learners’ (ELLs), ‘Limited English Proficient’ (LEP) students, and ‘multilingual’ students. Of all of these, Huang believes that ‘multilingual’ is the most appropriately respectful term. “This word,” she says, “is a good way to describe a student who is willing to learn the language of other countries while they have already mastered the language of their own.”

While Huang acknowledges that the term ‘multilingual’ is adequate, she proposes a new one which, she believes, embodies the idea that “language is the reflection of culture; the essence of learning language is learning culture.” Huang’s preferred term is ‘cultural participant.’ “On the surface,” she says, “international students come to study language, but what students actually need to learn is the local culture. Schools aimed at cultivating language skills should focus on teaching the many components of culture: language, history, clothing, eating habits and so on. When students gradually understand and learn the culture, they will have a more popular understanding of the language, which will support language learning.”

wide-ranging and innovative ways. Du’s proposed term for describing international students is Priority in Language Use (PILU). PILU, she believes, emphasizes the language strengths of international students, strengths which they possess by virtue of their multilingualism.

International students deserve respect because, in Du’s opinion, they are obliged to work harder at school than native English speakers. They must adapt their own styles of thought and writing identities to conform to Canadian professors’ expectations, a process which entails considerable time and effort. The term PILU focuses upon and acknowledges international students’ excellence and thereby supports their self-confidence. Inappropriate terms, on the other hand, when used to label international students, can cause them to feel embarrassed and suffer low self-esteem, thereby hindering their academic progress.

“In a multicultural society,” Du says, “people from all over the world should be accepted no matter what language they speak or what colour their skin is. If native English speakers pay less attention to the level of immigrants’ English proficiency and more attention to their strengths, they can support international students’ confidence in adapting to a new culture.”

Du objects to the use of ESL, ELLs, and LEP when describing international students. To her mind, they are all inappropriate – even disrespectful -- terms. They highlight the fact that international students may use English less proficiently than native English speakers, while they downplay a competitive advantage which international students obviously possess: the ability to speak more than one language, a skill which enhances their ability to think in

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Lessons from the Economic History of Pandemics

By Vincent Geloso

The author is a professor of Economics specializing in the field of economic history.

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re there lessons that can be drawn from economic history concerning the current COVID-19 outbreak? Yes, there are lessons, and they give cause for

optimism.

The first lesson can be drawn by looking at the economic and demographic damages of pandemics over the course of the 20th century.

It’s not that pandemics have not occurred with an increasingly globalized and richer world. In fact, many pandemics have occurred over the course of the 20th century. For example, major pandemics (or pseudopandemics) took place in 1918, 1947, 1957, 1968 and 1977. However, when we chart the economic and demographic costs of pandemics, we can see that there are declines over time. Estimates for the 1918 Spanish flu place the economic damages equal to 6% of personal income in advanced economies. The outbreaks of the 1950s and 1960s ranged between 1% and 4% of personal income. Today, the average flu season imposes costs estimated at 0.6% of income per capita.

While not negligible, the trend suggests that there is a trend in favour of greater economic resilience in the face of pandemics. That does not even mention the demographic costs – death rates in extreme events like the one we are facing now have been plummeting over the course of the 20th century.

The second lesson is that there are few reasons to believe that economies are inherently unable to

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adjust and rebound from the shock of a pandemic.

Let us use the example of the Spanish flu of 1918.

Bear in mind that this flu caused the largest economic shock from an infectious disease over the course of modern history. The economic contraction that followed in the wake of the first and second waves of the flu was considerable. In western countries like Canada and the United States, industrial production and GDP estimates suggest an economic contraction, over a few months, of roughly 20%. Yet, by late 1919, most economies had rebounded rapidly and had returned to pre-flu levels (and even higher).

If such an extreme pandemic failed to produce a lingering depression, there are good reasons to be hopeful that the same will happen today. This is especially true given the gigantic steps taken since 1918 in terms of medical knowledge and care. More importantly, this hopefulness is well aligned with economic history research on the length and severity of downturns. Since the late 19th century, the trend is for recessions to be shorter and shallower with greater distance between them. This reinforces the possibility of the present crisis being an extreme, but transitory, event.

The third lesson is a nuance of the other two. In ongoing research with Jamie Bologna Pavlik of Texas Tech University, I tested the role of institutions in mitigating the crisis associated with the 1918 pandemic. Using the economic liberty data (which measures openness to international trade, the protection of private property, the extent of

business regulation, and the soundness of monetary policy), we found that the freest economies were those that suffered the smallest damages (and recovered fastest) from the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. Our findings are in line with that of other researchers who study the resilience of economies to crises (financial sectors, wars, environmental crisis, etc.) and find that economies with flexible institutions suffer less and recover faster.

Thus, the nuance offered by the third lesson is that the applicability of the first two lessons is conditional on the quality of institutions. Institutions that restrict entrepreneurship and trade, overregulate, and fail to protect property rights will make economies more fragile so that the cost of pandemic (i.e. the first lesson) will be greater and the shadow of a pandemic (i.e. the second lesson) will be long.

These economic history lessons are cause for optimism and for caution.

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Internship Profile:

Constructing Dreams at Magil

By Mitchell Fitzmorris

Over the course of my internship, I attended approximately thirty local sites, participating in the procurement of construction jobs valued below $5 million.

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s a BMOS student specializing in Global Commerce, my career goal is to work in the construction industry at the management level. From May-December of 2019, prior to my fourth year at King’s, I participated in the Industry Internship Program (IIP). My placement was at Magil Construction; my role was Junior Project Coordinator, Special Projects. Through this internship, I became a more committed and self-disciplined worker. I developed practical knowledge about computer software programs which are invaluable to the construction industry. I learned how to compete favourably against industry competitors. Most importantly, I discovered my true passion for working in the construction industry.

Magil uses Excel, a program I was already familiar with, for invoicing, change orders, and cash flow charts. It also uses two computer software programs which were new to me: Building Connected and ProCore. Building Connected is a pre-construction tendering program, and ProCore is a fully enhanced program that tracks and analyzes jobs in progress. With the support of Magil’s extremely accommodating office staff, I learned to use both of these programs. By the end of my internship, I was using them routinely and independently.

My hands-on experience at Magil was not limited to the office; I was also allowed on-site. When pricing new jobs, coordinators and managers need to be on-site prior to and during construction. Over the course of my internship, I attended approximately thirty local sites, participating in the procurement of construction jobs valued below $5 million. The combination of office and on-site experience gave me a comprehensive understanding of the construction industry. I learned that being aware of overall job scopes allows a company to compete favourably when pricing jobs.

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When my internship ended, Magil offered me a part-time job starting in January 2020.

I gladly accepted the job, but then had to balance it with my course load at King’s and my active participation in the Men’s Varsity Hockey Team, so developing the ability to manage my time efficiently became vital! Robin Ellis at King’s Enrolment Services supported me in the area of time management. She helped me find classes which best fit into my packed schedule. Over the past year, I have remained dedicated to my job at Magil while maintaining good grades in my King’s courses. My hockey team members and I had the good fortune to play in Halifax for a shot at the Nationals before the COVID-19 shut us down.

I can only say positive words about my internship experience. If you are a King’s student who feels they are ready to challenge themselves in the real world prior to graduating, I strongly encourage you to take advantage of the IIP. Commit yourself to a company of your choice and accept every opportunity to better yourself. King’s offers many supports to help you balance a healthy lifestyle while occupied by work, school, and sport.

Good things will come to those who set goals and focus on achieving them. Pursue your dreams! King’s University College will support you throughout your journey.

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King’s Graduating Student Recognized by Bank of Canada and Canadian Economic Association Written and designed by Chloe Balmer, Communications Intern

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shita Kumar ’20, Honours Specialization in Economics and a Minor in Mathematics, has been recognized by the Bank of Canada and the Canadian Economic Association (CEA) for her paper entitled “Forecasting Canadian Inflation Using Dynamic Model Averaging.” The paper, which forecasts Canadian inflation rates using a new statistical technique know as dynamic model averaging, was completed under the supervision of Dr. Adian McFarlane, Assistant Professor in Economics in King’s School of Management, Economics, and Mathematics (MEM) as a part of Kumar’s senior thesis for her economics module.

Kumar’s work was one of ten undergraduate research papers selected by a panel of economists at the Bank of Canada to be presented at the 54th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Economics Association (CEA). Due to the unavoidable cancellation of the CEA conference, which was to be hosted by the prestigious Economics Department at the University of Toronto, Kumar will be presenting her research in an online video-conference format.

During her time at King’s, Kumar maintained a full course load and worked as a Residence Assistant, Research Assistant, and Teaching Assistant. She was awarded the Board of Directors’ Gold Medal for graduating with the highest average in the final year of a Bachelor of Arts Four-Year Honours Degree in Social Science. Kumar was also involved with King’s International, where she provided support to international students, and was a member and Vice-President of King’s Economics and Mathematics Society.

“My experience at King’s has prepared me well for my graduate studies.”

“The flexibility of my economics module allowed me to take advanced math classes which contributed towards my quantitative preparation. Moreover, the faculty at the School of MEM provided me with excellent mentorship throughout my studies,” says Kumar, who will be starting her Masters of Science in Statistics (MSc) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in the fall after declining an offer to pursue graduate studies in Economics at Oxford University.

When asked about her favourite part of studying at King’s, Kumar responded “there are so many opportunities to get involved around campus. Honestly, there is something for everyone. It is not hard to find like-minded people that share your interests. It made my undergraduate experience that much richer.”

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Alumni Profile

Jillian Adams, Pursuing a Path Back to King’s

By Josephine Bondi

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t King’s, the Board of Directors' Gold Medal is awarded upon graduation to the student achieving the highest average in the BMOS program. Jillian Adams, CPA, won this award in 2016. She attributes her success not only to her willingness to put her best effort into everything she did throughout her undergraduate career, but also to the unwavering support she received. “Don’t be afraid to reach out for help when needed,” she advises other BMOS students. “Everyone comes across challenging concepts.

There’s no shame in that. My King’s professors were always more than happy to help.”

Adams herself aspires to become a professor of BMOS. Currently, she is pursuing a PhD in Accounting at the University of Waterloo with a view to, in the future, teaching full-time while continuing to pursue her research interests.

“I want to help shape the minds of future CPAs while sharing my passion for tax, and accounting in general, with students.” Adams discovered her interest in researching complex tax issues while employed as a Senior Accountant at EY in Kitchener, ON. “At EY, I became particularly interested in how tax affects corporate decision-making and why different taxpayers handle their tax obligations differently when they are all subject to the same tax laws.”

Among the many teachers at King’s who inspired Adams, Professor John Siambanopoulos, Dr. Shawna Weingartner, and Professor Ruth Ann Strickland were most influential.

“They all consistently go above and beyond, and genuinely care about their students. They are all fantastic at teaching and passionate about the King’s community,” Adams says.

“I hope I can one day be as great a professor as each of them is.”

at King’s. She enjoyed helping students learn concepts and apply them to different business cases. “To know that I played even a small role in helping students achieve their academic goals is rewarding,” she says, “and the feedback I received from students on how to improve my own teaching is so valuable.”

At the time of Adams’ graduation, King’s School of MEM was known as the Department of Economics, Business & Mathematics (EBM). She thinks the rebrand was “a great idea. Promoting the synergy among the different faculties is so important to enhance the student experience, especially given how important it is to have a breadth of knowledge of the business world when you enter the workforce.”

Jillian Adams envisions herself as a future professor at King’s: “King’s has done so much for me, and I’d love to give back to the place that played a huge role in my becoming who I am today.”

During her final year of undergraduate study, Adams led Business 1220 tutorials in her role as a Teaching Assistant 19 • MEM INSIDER • June 2020

Students Develop Marketing Plans for King’s Commons Despite Challenges of COVID-19

By Taryn Rollins

T

his year, Professor Jennifer Jeffrey’s winter semester Marketing class took on a relevant project: developing a plan for the new King’s Commons residence building.

She assigned the project as a competition between groups, and they were to present their idea, along with market research, to a board of King’s officials at the end of March. Due to COVID-19, the groups were not able to present their research in person to the board.

Nevertheless, the students completed their projects with professionalism and creativity. “The experience was still one that taught valuable lessons,” said Tyler Wilson, a student from the class. “We had to adapt to social distancing standards to finish the project. It was really confusing at first because we weren’t sure what was still happening and what wasn’t, but my group scheduled meetings on Facetime multiple times a week, and we stuck to a schedule to still finish the project on time.”

Through Zoom and Facetime meetings from their respective homes, all Jeffrey’s students finished their presentations and submitted them, though not without challenges. Wilson comments that “it was difficult to conduct market research with everything changing so quickly, especially because we had originally planned to host in-person focus groups for our primary research. We tried to do as much secondary market research as possible and tie that into our recommendations.”

Figure 1: A slide from a presentation highlighting the features of the new residence for the upper year segment of their target market.

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Raj Patel, another student from the class, explains the overview for his group’s project: “Our plan was to utilize market segmentation and target both incoming first year students and upper year students. We wanted to focus our efforts on strategies like developing effective pamphlets, memorable online advertising, and suggesting a grand timeline for the distribution of the different elements.”

The marketing students did not get the exact lesson intended for them when the project was assigned, but they still gained valuable experience needed for navigating real situations. Wilson observed that “in real businesses, unexpected problems and issues occur without warning. While we didn’t get to present the projects that we had hoped for, we still got to learn how to adapt and overcome unexpected issues. It was a realistic assignment to begin with, but as we overcame the new challenges, it only further prepared us for taking on business challenges post-grad.” As well, Wilson remarked that by giving them a project that would possibly impact the marketing efforts of King’s, it made the students feel like their school believed in them: “By having us develop a marketing plan for our school, it made us as students feel like our ideas and opinions are heard and valued.”

Figure 2: An overview of the King's residence experience utilized in the positioning of Wilson's group's analysis and recommendation.

The Value of Experiential Learning?

Priceless!

By Ashley Aul

Touring Airbus’s manufacturing plant in Toulouse, France, provided me with the chance to see each step of the supply chain working together and the detail that goes into building aircraft parts.

D

uring King’s University College’s February Reading Week, Dr. Sergio Janczak and Lydia Li led a group of 13 BMOS students on the MOS 3390 Experiential Learning Trip to Toulouse, France, and Barcelona, Spain. The experience provided us with an opportunity to learn business in a global setting.

the value of customization of products for international markets is important for any international business to succeed. I toured Freixenet Winery in Barcelona, Spain, to observe the production of cava, a sparkling wine. I was intrigued to see each stage of cava-making and how storage of the cava in wooden barrels is vital to its final taste.

As BMOS students, we are taught theories and concepts about how businesses become international and succeed in international markets. On our trip, we were able to apply our knowledge. Visiting companies such as Airbus, Berdoues Parfumerie, Freixenet Winery, Toulouse Business School, Parc Recerca Biomèdica, and ALBA changed my way of thinking about how international business is conducted in practice versus in theory.

We also visited sites during our trip that were educational and inspiring in ways not related to Business studies. The La Sagrada Familia Roman Catholic church in Barcelona has colours and detail in each piece that took my breath away.

No words can describe the beauty of its architecture.

Studying international business and supply chains in a classroom gives me one perspective, but my experience at Airbus was unique. Touring Airbus’s manufacturing plant in Toulouse, France, provided me with the chance to see each step of the supply chain working together and the detail that goes into building aircraft parts. Walking through the Berdoues Parfumerie, I saw that while there are many mechanical processes in making perfume, the packaging and measuring of ingredients are done by hand. While touring Berdoues Parfumerie, I recalled learning, in MOS 2220, that

When it comes to understanding business across the world, I am confident that it is important for students to learn through real life experiences alongside theoretical knowledge. The School of MEM’s experiential learning course has taught me and my fellow students how to apply our class lessons from Global Commerce courses to real life international experiences. I enjoyed learning about the history, religion, and culture of France and Spain as well as how businesses operate there. This trip opened my eyes to the importance of keeping a global perspective when going to new places.

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From King’s Class to Career: Student Entrepreneurs Ramla Naqvi and Almas Farooqi

By Taryn Rollins

K

ing’s provides many classes that allow students to practically understand the specific steps needed to run a successful business. Students Ramla Naqvi and Almas Farooqi have taken these lessons and combined them with their interests and passions to launch their business Gulistan – a platform that offers traditional clothing from a range of cultures, as well as accessories, in the same place. Their trendy website and familiarity with internet culture place them in a niche aesthetic market as they showcase nostalgic fashion to remind their customers of “fond memories of cultural festivities at home.”

In 2019, they released a spring and summer collection labelled Nomad, featuring vintage Afghani dresses, using models with slicked-back hair in rainy Toronto streets, and styled with fashionable streetwear to produce an image that was overall a “big mood.”

The initial idea for Gulistan was generated during Ramla’s and Almas’s time in Business 2257, where students are required to develop a feasibility study for a new business venture. Almas says of the project that “its nature was much more handson and tested practical skills rather than focusing on theory.

Having to actually contact suppliers for a ‘fictional’ business forced us to consider actualizing the idea seriously.”

While the feasibility study originated their business, Ramla comments that all of her classes have provided new

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perspectives into their day-to-day operations. “This past year, I was studying project management and supply chain management, which helped me further understand how to develop relations with our suppliers. Professor Fernando Naranjo was particularly helpful in explaining concepts and helping me build a template that I have been using for conducting business with our suppliers.”

As well as the interpersonal relationships with professors, Almas comments that the overall case study pedagogy approach utilized at King’s allowed them to be more “process-oriented.” She explains that “when we have a new idea for an initiative, we now have a process we can go through to evaluate its risks, implement the ideas, and perform a post-project evaluation – we use this model for almost every decision we make.” They both agree that the practical approach is what gave them the confidence they needed to leap into entrepreneurship.

While many calculated decisions and processes are involved in entrepreneurship, Ramla and Almas also know how much creativity is involved in developing and running a business.

Ramla comments that taking Marketing this past year pushed her to “look at challenges for my business critically and allowed me to come up with creative ideas on how to tackle each marketing challenge. It allowed me to ask the right questions to my customers in order to understand their demands.”

We now have a process we can go through to evaluate its risks, implement the ideas, and perform a post-project evaluation.

A richly embroidered tunic from Gulistan’s spring/summer collection “Nomad.”

Photo credit: Gabriel Di Sante.

Stylist: Almas Farooqi Lodin.

Fulfilling customer needs is the underlying value of their business, as they aim to understand how fashion can cater to the wide variety of tastes and needs of people of different diasporas, while displaying patterns and embroideries that carry history.

The future for Gulistan looks bright, as the entrepreneurial pair plans to begin expanding marketing all over North America and Europe while simultaneously developing their product lines. Almas explains that their “long-term goal is to have our own production unit. We have started designing and producing our own clothes now and want to move on to designing and producing our own jewellery line as well.”

Gulistan takes business practices, and skills learned in class and applies them to something relevant and creative. By combining their interests and passions with their education, Ramla and Almas have created a business that makes tradition appeal to the modern era. They remark that starting and running their business has only “inspired us to work harder.” Both of them see themselves being entrepreneurs full-time.Ramla’s explanation says it all: ”Being an entrepreneur inspires me to dream big and take risks.”

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Reflections on Writing in English Being at a loss for words often makes it extremely hard to structure a sentence as coherently as she wants it to be.

Jinman Du (Gemma) and Zisong Zhou (Peter), with Taryn Rollins Two English second language students from Professor Sheri Henderson’s Writing 1002 class, share their reflections on their development as English writers throughout their semester.

J

inman Du (Gemma) and Zisong Zhou (Peter), international students using their second language for academic purposes as they work towards their degrees at King’s, explain how they feel they have grown as writers, as well as the exercises they feel have helped them the most.

Gemma had many thoughts on her development as a English writer over the 2019-2020 school year. She believes that ESL students need to be “reading a lot of material in order to produce a strong response.” There are some parts of her writing that she feels still need more work, like vocabulary and logical structure. She feels that she is “always worried about how to express her points and specific thoughts in her writing, and sometimes is unable to find the words in English to express” her ideas. This being at a loss for words often makes it “extremely hard to structure a sentence” as coherently as she wants it to be. Yet, in the past months, she has “learned to write a case analysis, research topics, and … a full essay, as well as peer letters,” and she looks back on the experience feeling thankful and proud of herself. Gemma plans to read more articles and books in hopes to expand her vocabulary. She believes reading will be the gateway to her continuous personal growth as a writer.

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Reflecting on his personal development as a writer in English, Peter feels that his writing level is “continuously improving,” and that he has made significant progress through the past year. As he looked back at the first assignment he did at the beginning of the semester, Peter felt “his logical thinking and grammar were not very good.” But as more assignments were given, and as his “professor [Prof.

Henderson] encouraged him,” he completed the next set of compositions with a strong conviction that he was making progress. In addition, Peter credits The Write Place in aiding his process of improvement. “The Write Place,” he says, “gave me extra help, which made more aware of my logical structure and grammar.”

Peter that comments his overall progress was due to “using the content from lectures, help from professors, and my own practice after class.” He offers advice to other ESL and multilingual students: “if Chinese students want to write strong English, we have to read more books in English, think about sentence structure, accumulate more words for our vocabulary, and develop our English thinking to complete more writing tasks. Overall, though, the most important thing to do is practice, as practice made me able to see my mistakes and correct them to continuously strengthen my writing skills.”

MEM Career Readiness

T

he academic year of 2019-20 was a successful year for MEM Career Readiness events. This was the first year we successfully implemented and utilized OWL system to not only market events, but for students to sign in events ahead of time.

In 2019-20, 275 students signed up and attended 32 workshops hosted by MEM. We received positive feedback from students and faculty. These events helped students prepare technical skills, develop career related professional “soft” skills, and network with guest speakers and alumnus. The student clubs at MEM such as KEMS provided marketing support for these events.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank King’s Enrolment Services, King's International, Student Affairs, Alumni and Development, the Write Place, Aramark, and Communications and Media Relations for their continued support and assistance. We would also like to thank King's alumnus who committed their time to attend alumni networking events on campus. Their dedication of serving the King's community and help students prepare for future studies and the job market have played an important role in student's academic and professional life.

A new experiment for 2020-21 - a few events will be offered online which provides more flexibility for students to participate. Details of next year’s events will be posted on the School of MEM Career Readiness OWL page.

We look forward to seeing you at MEM Career Readiness events in 2020-21.

Lydia Li, MPA Program Manager School of Management, Economics, and Mathematics

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MEM Faculty and Staff Talents

Designed by Dina Ibdah, Communications Intern

Professor John Siambanopoulos enjoys singing the entire score of Rocky Horror Picture Show, self-accompanied on acoustic guitar. He aspires to reprising this performance with his band if he can fit back into his corset and leather shorts!

Dr. Felipe Rodrigues enjoys baking sourdough bread.

Dr. Shawna Weingartner enjoys competitive billiards. As president of Western Billiards Society, she and her club competed internationally in Texas on two occasions.

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Lydia Li enjoys playing volleyball with the London Chinese Volleyball Team which competes provincially. As a young girl, she was inspired when the Chinese Women’s National Volleyball Team won their first World Championship, and she trained under her father.

Dr. Jennifer Jeffrey enjoys photography in her (limited) spare time.

Dr. Joseph Turnbull enjoys gardening and weightlifting.

A Q&A with Anthony Li

Being a part of different clubs and the student council has considerably helped with my integration at Western.

By Ishita Kumar Anthony Li is a student at Western University studying Medical Sciences and Financial Economics.

Q. What led you to pursue a degree in Medical Science and Financial Economics at Western University?

When I was in high school, I was interested in the sciences because they explained how everything worked. I knew I wanted to study the sciences further. On the other hand, my parents encouraged me to study business and economics. I didn’t want to decide to study one or the other. Hence, when I started at Western, I choose to study both and enrolled in a double major in Medical Sciences and Financial Economics.

Outside of academics, what other activities have you been involved in? How have these activities shaped your university experience?

There are a couple of activities that have had a significant impact on my university experience. First, I think all students that attend Western should consider living in residence for their first year. I made a lot of friends during my time in residence, and during my second year of university, I joined the residence council as one of the presidents. I got to know everyone in the residence community, and that really helped with my integration intouniversity.

Second, I was involved with the Leadership and Academic Mentoring Program (LAMP),

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Everyone is busy, and it is always hard to fit everything in. But if you have a passion for something, then you can try to squeeze it in.

which connects first-year students to upper-year mentors.

I had experience on both sides of the program, as I received mentorship from an upper-year student during my first year. My mentor helped me with understanding what university life is, where I can go for particular things, etc. Later, as a mentor, I had the experience and got to show other incoming students how things worked.

Third, the most significant experience I have had was with the student council at Western. I have worked at many different levels within the student council, but I currently sit on the board of the University Student Council (USC), where we work together with the affiliate universities. As well, I have been involved in a lot of student clubs. There are so many clubs that range from sports and lifestyle to career development. Being a part of different clubs and the student council has considerably helped with my integration at Western.

Q. How have you been involved in the London community outside Western University?

I was involved with Leeds Employment Services, which is an employment agency that caters to Southwestern Ontario. We mainly serve vulnerable people who face a lot of barriers to employment. I currently sit on their board as the youngest director.

One thing that I would like to add is, I could not have joined Leeds without my experiences at the USC and the Residence Council at Western University. A lot of my experiences as a student have helped me build a strong profile, and Leeds welcomed me in part because I had these experiences at Western. When I was interviewing with Leeds, they told me that they needed more youth to

get engaged because a large part of the individuals that they serve are youth. I recommend that students try to get involved with initiatives outside the university as well as internal ones. It can be the local food bank, hospital, or another place, but the external experience can help build a broader perspective.

Q. How do you spend your free time?

I like to stay busy. Being able to stay busy keeps me happy and helps me meet new people. Though, during my free time, I enjoy playing music. I sometimes play music at the local hospital or in the orchestra at Western University. I also do a bit of running. But, mostly, I take my free time to relax. Sometimes university seems like a rat race, everyone is working hard, and it is easy to burn out. For me, music and running help me relax, but for others, it might be gaming or sleeping. Self-care is essential, and the longer you are in university the more you realize that.

Q. How do you manage your time between academics and extracurricular activities?

One of my favourite quotes is, “It is not about having time, it is about making time.” Everyone is busy, and it is always hard to fit everything in. But if you have a passion for something, then you can try to squeeze it in.

Q. What advice would you have for students that are just starting at university?

Everyone always says that you have to be proactive and go out of your way to find opportunities, but I think that at Western it is different. What is unique about Western is

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that there are so many opportunities out there. Sometimes, it does not take as much effort to get involved, as the student council and other clubs are always in need of volunteers and other support staff.

There is a university bubble, and getting out of your comfort zone is hard. Sometimes, I just did not want to leave my room. But if you see something that you might be interested in, then go for it because it does not hurt to get involved. Go for an interview and meet new people.

I made a lot of my close friendships when I was participating in events and activities that I thought I would never do. During my first year, I did not know exactly what I wanted to do, and I couldn’t pick between the many club activities and many student council activities, because everything seemed amazing. I would say, if you have the time, try to go to as many events and activities as possible, and then you can figure out what you actually are interested in. Western is the place for you to try to find yourself.

Q. What are your plans after university?

I plan to start medical school next year. Many people think that once you get into medical school, you are already a doctor, but the more you study, the more you realize that there are many years ahead. It may even be a decade before I get my full certification.

I have a lot of different thoughts on my long-term goals, as I am interested in a lot of different areas. I have always been interested in general well-being, so family medicine has always been an option.

Moreover, a lot of my research involves the brain, so I am interested in that aspect as well. I am hoping that in the first few years of medical school, I will get a bit more experience and narrow down my interests.

As well, I have a lot of passion for advocacy and governance. I hope that perhaps way in the future, I can use my education in the medical field to do some public policy and advocate for healthcare reforms. There are a lot of physicians that are involved at the public level, whether it is in business, economics, or politics, and they serve as my role models.

Q. What advice do you have for students that are looking to apply to medical school?

In terms of choosing courses, pick courses that are interesting to you even if your friends are not going to be in that course. Your undergraduate experience is all about figuring out what you like, and if you do what everyone else is doing, then you might not find your interests. For medical school, your grades are very important. If you are taking courses that you like, then the odds are that you are going to be putting a lot more energy into them. You will like what you are learning, and this might translate into better grades. During medical school, you study your discipline for years on end, so it is important to develop a passion for it early on. Do not let yourself fall into herd-mentality and do what everyone else is doing.

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F a cu l ty Profiles

Professor David Meredith Celebrating Mathematics Professor David Meredith Dr. David Meredith’s personal and scholarly history overlaps with that of King’s for over thirty years. He has been the anchor of the Mathematics courses and program that supports the MOS programs. On the brink of retirement, he talks memories and projects, umbral calculus and bears, graduate student success and quotidian kindness in this free-floating conversation. I have tried to capture the meditative rhythm of his eloquence as faithfully as I could; even the questions I asked him seemed irrelevant.

“We piece together the history of a place as we move from one generation to the next,” he said. You can bear that in mind when you look backwards from a time in the future and remember all the things that have gone on.” As I wrote this piece, King’s moved to becoming a virtual campus. I sincerely hope that we get back to the classroom, where we belong. But we might be going on to a new normal. For more than a month now, while I have prioritized the highbrow pursuits of teaching, research, and writing, I have also indulged in metaphorical comfort food. When I look backwards at this moment, I know that I will recognize this interview with David Meredith as one such indulgence. --Professor Josephine Gemson

Looking Backwards “In 1989, I was completing my PhD and teaching part-time at King’s when a full-time position opened up. I applied and was hired by Economist Al Koop, the Chairperson of the Department of EBM at that time. I quickly tried to finish up my doctorate. Actually, I think I defended my thesis in the first week of classes that fall!”

“When I joined King’s as a full-time faculty member, there were about 45 full-time members, maybe fewer, and most of them were men. Today, of course, the overall number of

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full-time faculty members at King’s is just over a hundred, and at least half of them are women. The only buildings that King’s owned at that time were the Wemple Building, Dante Lenardon Hall (which was, I believe, then referred to as the Silverwood building), and the Silverwood Annex. So, we’ve certainly come a long way.”

‘Best math prof, period!’ -Rate My Professors, anonymous review “Because Math is such a foreboding subject for many, I’ve always tried to make it less. So, I think that is what students can see – that I am really trying to help them. I like to think that my students do see me as their guide and their advocate in this strange mathematical realm, and I hope that they can find mathematics a little more manageable.”

Teaching Highlights “I recall one particular year, maybe 2003, when I was teaching a calculus class. We had quite a jump in enrollment because we had two years of students coming in at once after grade 13 had been eliminated. I suppose we had an exceptional group of individuals, but I recall having a wonderful rapport with that particular class. They engaged in the classroom and they did very well. I remember that being a very satisfying experience.”

people don’t know is that the language of mathematics is sufficiently rich that it can speak about itself. And it speaks to the truth. It can even speak to the existence of mathematical truths that we can neither prove nor disprove. I can think of no more compelling argument for the platonic ideal of the mathematical object.”

“I do have many other interests – I’m always reading something. I always gravitate toward something that informs me. I’m reading a book on human evolution at the moment.

It’s a fascinating subject, something I keep returning to, over “I run into students and and over. I also enjoy art former students from – I like reading about it A number of King’s graduates have taken time to time around and would like to spend on roles in administration. This is great the city and sometimes more time drawing and to see – it’s a wonderful feeling to be able even in Toronto. On one painting. I am fond of to work together with someone who was occasion, I remember astronomy – I have a once a student. leaving a restaurant rather large telescope that in London and being I got a few years ago and I am in the process of getting used to stopped by a former student who was having dinner with his that.” wife and two children. He enthusiastically introduced his family and reminisced about his times in the math class so many years ago. Little incidents like these are very enjoyable.”

Research

When Students Leave King’s “Over the years, I’ve watched with fascination as, year after year, 90% of Honours Economics graduates have gone on to Masters programs. So, we’ve had considerable success in preparing students for graduate studies. That has to continue.”

“We’ve had students complete graduate degrees and come back and work with us. Certainly, King’s has hired a number of instructors and faculty members who I can count as my former students. A number of King’s graduates have taken on roles in administration. This is great to see – it’s a wonderful feeling to be able to work together with someone who was once a student.”

A Mathematical Explorer, Avid Reader, and Artist “I suppose I would be called a mathematical platonist, small ‘p.’ Math occupies a very special place in humankind’s search for knowledge and meaning. I envision mathematical objects as inhabiting their own objective universe, independent of our own existence. I see myself as a mathematical explorer and mathematicians as discoverers of these mathematical objects.

Math is one of the oldest subjects. It has proven itself to be an invaluable tool in understanding the world around us. Math has often been called the language of science, but what many

“I’ve always been interested and engaged in some form of research; I’m pleased by the quality and scope, if not the quantity, of it. I’ve published in diverse areas: numerical analysis and approximation theory, moving boundary problems, inverse problems of mathematical physics, operational or umbral calculus, and, more recently, the mathematical study of atomic collisions. As the years have rolled by, my interest in the historical and foundational aspects of mathematics has emerged. I’ve always been interested in what I guess we would call the ‘philosophy of mathematics.’”

“I think the research element has been brought down to the undergraduate level in the form of thesis projects and things like that. What characterises King’s as a university is the fact that our faculty are engaged in research and that we can bring that element to the classroom. Even while we may not consciously attempt to bring any research into a first-year classroom, these classes are truly informed by that research.”

The Rebrand “The move from the Department of Economics, Business, and Mathematics to the School of Management, Economics, and Mathematics was not something that happened overnight.

Our department members have always gotten along very well, and the three disciplines –Economics, Math, and Business-complement one another. So, it seemed only natural that we should wish to have a greater profile at King’s to showcase

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the department’s offerings. We also hoped to embrace other disciplines when we became a School and, to some extent, we have been able to do so. For example, our new “Analytics and Decision Sciences” module is an attempt to include courses from other disciplines and, of course, that particular module is also intended to bring to the fore the contribution that Mathematics can make. We are moving along nicely in that direction, but I think it will take time. We already have a sense, I think, that as a School we are providing a new product that is a drawing card for King’s.”

“Ask Him for the Bear Story!”

-Professor Peter Ibbott “I am a big fan of the outdoors and I like to go camping, canoeing, and hiking with my family. When I was an undergraduate student, I went camping with another student into the Algonquin interior. One night we awoke to the sound of a rather angry bear trying desperately to get to the food we had put high in a tree on a rope.

What I did not know was that my friend had left some dried fruit in a knapsack which was in our makeshift tent. We were poor students who couldn’t afford an actual tent, so we had a sheet of clear plastic draped over a rope strung between two trees; probably just as well it wasn’t a real tent, given what happened next. The bear, frustrated at not being able to get the food out of the tree, could smell the fruit in our tent and came over to investigate. It went around to the open back of the tent. I peered out the back into the darkness. All I could see was this massive black shape. It was making the most terrifying noises with its heavy breathing and deep growls – I felt I was nose-to-nose with this creature. The bear then went to the side of the tent and swept his paw underneath and scooped out the knapsack containing the fruit. We were fortunate that he got it so easily. He went to the centre of the campsite, only a few feet away, and sat down and ate the fruit. He came and went from the campsite over the course of the night, but he didn’t bother us again. Being relatively new to wilderness camping at that time, I wasn’t really sure how one was supposed to deal with a black bear, but we just left it alone and eventually drifted off to sleep.”

Kindness at King’s “When I was hired, Al [Koop] took me under his wing – he provided guidance, unwavering support, and

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friendship. What I remember from those early years is the kindness that Al and others showed me. I would like to remind you of something you’ve probably heard – King’s is a very welcoming place – quite unlike any other.

The longer I stay at King’s, the more I realize that my first impression is still there. It is a kind environment to come to work to everyday. That’s something we should all keep in mind, even in the low moments: We have a wonderful workplace and we have the good fortune of being in a remarkable career.”

“We are all individuals and even as a department, we are made up of different disciplines . . .so there’s always a bit of jockeying for position in such a situation. I would have to say it’s been very well done over the years. We all respect each other enormously and while personalities have clashed, it’s been infrequent and readily repaired.

What I usually find, is that by listening to each other and letting people have their say, we can all come to some form of compromise or agreement, and I think we have been fortunate to have been able to do that in our department.”

“I am encouraged by the ideas I hold about King’s when I hear students talk about why they are here. I see a reflection of that when I look at my daughter who is currently a King’s student. She notices the same pleasant environment. King’s is very, very studentfriendly. So that’s quite positive – My daughter shows a reflection of the things we all hear about.”

Professor Glen Copplestone Have a hubcap, Maestro: Glen Copplestone—funnyman, warrior, master educator During his 33 years at King’s, Professor Glen Copplestone has worn many hats: professor of Economics, champion of numerous causes in the Faculty Association, guide and mentor to students at the university and provincial level, peer, colleague, and friend. On a quest to unravel one of the most intriguing professors at King’s, I had sent him a very formal email, requesting that he meet me for an interview. “First off, please call me Glen!” is how Professor Copplestone began his reply.

One bright afternoon, we used Zoom to get together. Nervous, but feeling prepared with my crafted questionsI ended up with an experience—a metaphoric feast for the senses, truth be told—that I was totally unprepared for.

A place to be transformed King’s @ Western Glen joined King’s on July 1, 1987. A lot has happened since then, and this piece, often written in his words, records some of his reminiscences. For my part, I will say that in the few hours I spent with Glen that afternoon, I realized that we evolve, transformed by every circumstance, conditioned by every person and thought line tripped upon, and every passing minute. We hold on to sacred spaces, untouched, but in the vast array of human emotions, expressions, language, and consistent inconsistencies – we truly become.

Glen was the fourth economist to join the erstwhile Department of Economics, Business, and Mathematics (EBM), which then consisted of six full-time members and one part-time member. Before joining King’s, Glen had worked at the Bay Street Bank of Montreal in its Economics department.

“I had been offered a job at King’s for two years back-to-back, and I turned them down both times. When I applied for the third time, (while I was on leave from Huron College and the Bank), the Chair, Lawrence Fric, called me up in Toronto and said, “What makes me think you would accept this time if we offered [the job] to you?” I told him, “I give you my word. If you offer it to me, I will accept this time.” So, fortunately, they did.

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I officially left Huron and the Bank and came to King’s for a variety of reasons: family, lifestyle, and because I missed interacting with students.”

In 1987, the King’s Department of EBM had no Honours program. It taught primarily first- and second-year core Economics courses for students, who would then continue on to Honours Economics at Western or Ivey. Glen says, “The Chair of Huron at that time and I proposed the affiliated Colleges’ Honours Economics program because neither one of us, Huron nor King’s, was large enough to run the program. But, collectively, we could convince the Department of EBM that we could run a strong program.

We started negotiations with its members.” The years that followed saw exciting and challenging transformations. “It took a while to get permission to teach Honours courses here, but when we did, it was a major breakthrough. Now we had a serious program!”

Glen served as Chair of the Department of EBM for two terms. Today, he is a senior professor at the rapidly developing School of MEM. About its evolution into a School, Glen observes, ““I did see it as a way of getting a bit more recognition, especially if you are tapping into the international market.”

His colleagues include seventeen full-time and numerous part-time faculty members. “I see a lot of individual strengths,” Glen says. “I enjoy the one-on-one and small group interactions. I’ve got a lot of respect for my colleagues, so their opinions deserve airtime equal to mine.”

A place to become engaged in advocacy As automatic members of Faculty Council and College Council, all faculty at King’s attend regular meetings to stay abreast of the happenings at the University.

“When I think of sitting at College Council and Faculty Council meetings during my first year at King’s,” Glen recalls, “a handful of senior faculty comes to mind: Paul Werstine, Gerry Killan (before he became administrator), Alan Pomfret, Hunter Brown.” Glen recollects becoming aware of the transformative potential of these influential colleagues on his own thinking: “When they spoke out at meetings, they were very much pro-faculty. Each one had an ability to put everything in context, and they offered a solution or a direction to follow. I got motivated by their contributions, and it turned out they were all active in the Faculty Association. So, it was natural that I got involved.

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I learned from their delivery and their substance – the principles they stood for were in line with mine.”

Glen has been Chair of King’s Faculty Association and has served on the Collective Bargaining Committee several times, chairing it twice. He remembers an incident from his first term as Chair of the negotiating team for salaries for the Faculty Association. “Back then, we would negotiate directly with Board members, with the Principal present to advise. We used to have something called the Book Budget; now we call it PDF. Back then, it was $400-$500 or so, a lot smaller than today. That was always the last item to be signed off on negotiations. It got ridiculous; it got down to the point where we would say ‘$500,’ or whatever the number was, and they would come back and say ‘No, $450.’ We were off by 50 bucks and there was, at the time, roughly 50 full-time faculty members at the college. You do the math – that’s not a big number. I finally got frustrated. ‘Ok fine!’ I said. ‘Tell you what, we’ll split the difference but you’re buying the drinks afterwards!’ They looked at me like, ‘What?’ ‘I’ll lighten up on the 25 bucks,’ I said, ‘but we’re going to the bar and you are paying for the drinks!’ That was the first time both sides got together after salary negotiations. It wasn’t my intent to start a new trend, I just wanted to get something more out of them!”

I’ve always wondered if Glen knows how incredibly charismatic he is, and what his secret is.

“Maybe the sense of humour part,” he ventures. “If you know me, you’d pick it up that I don’t always take myself, or life, very seriously. My students and my colleagues are regularly subjected to my humour – good or bad! But I do believe it’s important to have a sense of humour in this job, and in life in general – to be able to laugh things off.”

Glen has been heavily involved with Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA), serving on the Board of Directors for several years as the King’s representative. His years of service on OCUFA’s Executive Committee, in various roles--Vice President, Treasurer (three times), and Member-at-Large (twice)--were recognized when he received the OCUFA Service Award in 2012-13. Currently, Glen is again a Member-at-Large on the OCUFA Executive Committee and is Chair of OCUFA’s University Finance Committee. “I am very proud of what this new Committee has been able to accomplish, led by OCUFA staffer, Russell Janzen,” Glen says..

“When I first started teaching,” Glen remarks, “the students sitting side by side in my class effectively paid

the same tuition. And if I looked down the hall at the colleagues teaching in rooms adjacent to mine, while years of experience determined actual salary, we were all paid according to the same salary grid. Clearly, this is no longer the case for [international] students and [contract] faculty!

When I taught initially at King’s, the general understanding was that we would introduce extra sections, or new courses, until there was sufficient need to hire a full-time person.

That philosophy was displayed at Faculty Council. When we approved new courses, the (proposed) instructor’s name was attached to the application. We grew that way. Over time, as the College was introducing new programs and new courses, we got away from the tradition of expanding by hiring more full-time faculty as the demand for courses grew. Consequently, the number of contract faculty at King’s (and throughout Canada) exploded. I consider myself an avid supporter of the local Faculty Association, but I think my interest in arguing for, and standing up for, contract faculty moved me in the OCUFA direction.

Supporting the contract faculty has been my primary drive outside of department and course work.”

in looking like a drop sheet that was well utilised! I said to my students, ‘This is what you get.’ I’ve lived up to that ever since, I guess.”

“During my early years at King’s, I served on the Admissions and Enrollment Appeals Committee. I found this work incredibly satisfying and rewarding. This small group listened to appeals from students who, because of very difficult circumstances, didn’t have the required average to get accepted at King’s. I was blown away by the number of appeals that we received and, more so, by the hardships and the challenges that these kids faced– it was heartwrenching! I was very proud that King’s did this work (and still does).”

“I have certain reminders every year as to why I want to be at King’s,” Glen goes on. “For example, I enjoy the one-onone supervision of Economics 4405, the Senior Thesis. You really get to know the student well; you enjoy their research.

It’s educational for me as well because it’s usually in an area that I’ve been only vaguely interested in at the start. It is particularly rewarding when ‘the lightbulb comes on’ and everything comes together for my students. That’s when I get thinking that I’m happy with what I’m doing; I’ll keep doing it.”

Laughing over spilt coffee: Teaching Economics

Glen remains very optimistic for the future of our Economics graduates: “I think Economics is a great discipline in which to hone critical thinking skills and to apply them. Our graduates who wish to start their careers immediately upon graduation face several opportunities in both the public and private sector. Every bank has economists on staff; every investment house, many branches of government, and Union offices do as well. In order to be successful, students need to be able to express themselves, and explain themselves. We encourage most of our students to go on to grad school and we’ve had a very good track record of our Honours students getting accepted into them. This reflects well on the job done by everybody in the School of MEM.”

Professor Copplestone has been consistently ranked one of the best professors in Economics at King’s. “Absolutely love him!!!! …..comes in with a coffee in one hand and a piece of chalk in the other,” says one anonymous reviewer on Rate My Professors. Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker, and Zev Siegel, the founders of Starbucks all came from academia and they all loved their coffee. The cup of coffee is Glen’s morning lifeline, his trademark, the swag with which he shows up to class.

“The very first class that I taught at King’s was in the basement of the Annex building (SA060). There is a door there at the bottom of the stairs. I had a coffee in hand and went to reach for the door, and somebody pushed the door open at the same time. The coffee dumped all over me. And I was like – ‘I’ve got five minutes before class starts and I have no time to go and change, and I have nothing to change into.’ And so, my very first class, I came

At its crux, Economics is the theory of making choices between various alternatives.

“I used to tell my students – there are two ways to get an ‘A’ in the course,” Glen muses. “Either you do the traditional study and do well in the exams, or you can buy me a Mercedes sports model car. In the first term, you get to pick the options, but in the second term, I get to pick the options! One December night in the early 1990s, when classes had just ended and students were in the exam period, there was a knock at the door of my home. A few of my students were there holding a Mercedes hubcap. They had found it in a ditch somewhere and they brought it to my house claiming it was a down payment! This started a special friendship with these students that has lasted to this day. By the way, I still have that hubcap!”

Glen concludes: “Past and present, King’s has been able to attract incredibly talented and compassionate faculty and students from all areas of the globe. It has been a pleasure to be a part of it all.”

-- Josephine Gemson 37 • MEM INSIDER • June 2020

Professor Jeannette Eberhard

By Josephine Bondi

Calling Her Own Bluff Whenever Jeannette Eberhard sets a goal for herself, she will likely achieve it. There was the time she decided to amp up her swim training in anticipation of the FINA World Masters Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden, 2010. She qualified and competed in four events, swimming faster than her own qualifying times in all of them.

Then, there was the time she decided to leave retirement to return to Ivey Business School, where she had earned an MBA in 1983, to begin working on a PhD. “I had thought of doing my PhD in my late 30s,” she says. “I decided it was time to call my own bluff and do it. It was a great decision.” Eberhard easily managed to “get her head back into the academic game” after many years in the working world and completed her PhD in 2017. She was appointed an Assistant Professor of Management (BMOS) at King’s School of MEM in 2019. “Becoming a teacher at this age is a selfish pleasure! I love how energized I feel in the classroom when students are engaged in a good discussion, when that quiet student in the corner suddenly raises her hand, or when we just have a good laugh.”

Professor Eberhard’s classroom is a place where organizational theory and practice come together. “I want students to think and apply the concepts we’re learning, to move beyond memorizing facts.” Eberhard uses selected readings alongside experiential learning from case studies, current events, guest speakers, and her own career. Business leader Carol Normandeau, Executive Vice President of Advice & Service at Libro Credit Union, brought the real world to one of Eberhard’s Business 1220 classes this year. Normandeau was part of the management team that led the merger of Libro and United Credit Unions. From her talk, Eberhard’s students gained insight into the very human challenges involved in merging the cultures of two organizations; one student, Rasha Silin, commented, “now I realize that characters in case studies are real people facing real, and sometimes very messy, problems to be solved.”

Professor Eberhard clarifies the value of studying Organizational Behaviour (OB): “Organizations are designed to bring people together to accomplish common goals through group effort. Studying OB helps us to understand how we can motivate individuals to work alone or in teams to help organizations survive, thrive, and adapt to change.” She believes that OB students will become more effective problem solvers, managers, and leaders. They will be more effective agents of change.

Professor Eberhard creates space in her classroom for students to go beyond the core subject matter. They develop their own voices and learn how to engage in respectful debate with one another. “Sometimes they surprise me by being particularly insightful at 8:30 in the morning,” she says. “A good class is a lot like having a good run or swim or workout at the gym. The worse you feel when you go in, the better you feel when you come out!”

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Professor Vincent Geloso

By Josephine Bondi

Daring to be Different Montreal-born Economics professor Vincent Geloso loves teaching at King’s because he is “very free to be weird.” So, what’s weird about Professor Geloso? It’s not his Montreal Supremacism (“Ottawa and Toronto don’t count”) nor his lack of a first language (both French and English are his “second languages”). The personality traits that make Geloso weird are the same ones that make him an ingenious economic historian and an award-winning scholar.

Geloso dares to be different. He dares to experiment constantly with ideas. Like James M. Buchanan, 1986 winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, Geloso wants to be at the margin, at the limit of everything. “The margin is where you push things to the next unit of understanding, the next unit of measurement, the next unit of theory.”

Daring to be different requires hard work. A scholar must be willing to “sit down and grind away.” Geloso observes this ethic at King’s where students are driven to “sit down and work, and try it, and do it. It might suck for, like, a month,” he warns, “it’s not easy, but the more you do it the easier it becomes and the more you feel satisfied, content, and optimistic about your own path.”

Geloso lives by his words. Highly disciplined, he spends his most creatively productive hours of the morning, between 5:30 and 8:30, thinking and writing about Economics. The dissertation he wrote for his London School of Economics PhD was a finalist for the Allan Nevins Prize which is awarded annually by the Economic History Association. In 2018, he won the Gordon Tullock Award for Best Article in Public Choice (with coauthor R. Candela). Currently, Geloso publishes prolifically in Canada’s two official languages.

Many of Geloso’s papers, both published and forthcoming, are coauthored. He believes that researching and writing in collaboration with colleagues is the only way for ideas

to “have sex.” Talking with others, trading ideas with them, allows ideas to “procreate and spawn their own little subideas. More trade makes more value. Trade is a great and beautiful thing. It’s mutually beneficial to both parties. If there’s an exchange to be made it’s because there’s more value to be made for people by collaborating. Coauthoring not only creates more value but also increases output.”

Geloso claims to have a “low opinion” of his own writing, but his belief that he writes poorly does not diminish his output.

The motto of his mentor Benjamin Powell, with whom Geloso worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Texas Tech University, inspires him: “Don’t get it right, get it written.” In other words, it is important to get your ideas written up and circulating as early as possible so they can ‘procreate.’ “Even if the ideas are imperfect, other people will use them in a way that will give you more ideas. The peer review process will remove the really bad ideas and point you to where you need to look to improve them.”

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In the course of his two years as a professor, (one at King’s, and one at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine), Geloso has mentored at least 4 of his Year 4 students, having encouraged them to pursue graduate studies. “I’m especially proud,” he says, “that three of them have been young women.” One of these women is a King’s student who applied to, and has been accepted at, the London School of Economics.

Professor Geloso relishes getting Year 1 King’s students hooked on Economics. He uses simple, real-world illustrations at first, moves on to abstract mathematical forms, then returns to the real world, applying theory to practice. Here is a real-world illustration he routinely uses to teach the economic theory of efficiency which posits that humans are always trying to maximize their well-being: “People do not leave money lying on the sidewalk.” One King’s student, listening to this lesson, felt inspired to set up a ‘teachable moment.’ They dropped a five-dollar bill on the floor of the classroom! “Let me show you what efficiency is,” Professor Geloso responded. He picked up the money, put it in his pocket and said “See? Everything’s efficient!”

Vincent Geloso has a goal for King’s School of MEM: to compete favourably with schools that are more affluent and more reputationally established (such as Harvard or Queen’s). King’s cannot compete with these schools and their “endowments the size of countries” by being a “poor man’s version of them. You can’t compete with the big guys by just doing what they’re doing. The only way to compete with them is to try new ideas and push the boundaries of knowledge—to dare to be different.”

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Research Spotlight

1

Private Company Acquisitions in the Market for Corporate Control: A Comparison Between Private Equity and Corporate Acquirers Faculty: Dr. Josephine Gemson

Research Assistants: Aidan Brown and Danielle Hackett

Abstract: We explore the value created by private equity firms when they invest. The setting for this research is the private company acquisitions market where we hope to evaluate private equity acquisitions (financial acquirers) against corporate acquisitions (strategic acquirers).

While private equity acquirers are motivated purely by profiting over a short-term investing horizon, corporate acquirers hope to create synergy with the acquisition over longer periods of time. Both financial acquirers (private equity firms) and strategic acquirers (corporate firms) are limited by their target pool (private targets) and have differing motives with acquisitions binding them. Our aim is to explore, through the lens of the market for corporate control, if and how private equity firms and corporate firms create value through their acquisitions.

2

Hospital Flow Optimization Using Queuing Networks Faculty: Dr. Felipe F. Rodrigues

Research Assistant: Vanessa Sonia Ongbanouekeni

Abstract: Ontario Hospitals have become so congested that they have come to rely on ‘hallway medicine’: the practice of using surge beds in hospitals’ hallways to temporarily accommodate excess patient demand. With the use of queuing networks and optimization techniques, we are developing a capacity planning model to help hospitals find a balance between improving patients’ care and reducing ‘hallway medicine’ while keeping costs at reasonable levels.

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3

The Effect of ‘Redshirting’ on Education: Results from a Natural Experiment Faculty: Dr. Peter Ibbott and Dr. Hui Feng Co-author: Dr. Jay Allen

Abstract: In this paper, we attempt to determine if students born near the cut-off date for registration in school benefit from being held back a year (redshirted). We find that self-selection is a substantial statistical problem, but that there is some evidence that student performance is supported by redshirting.

4

Transportation and Productivity Growth in Canada Faculty: Dr. Adian McFarlane Research Assistant: Ishita Kumar

Abstract: We expound on the issues pertaining to estimating the impact of the transportation system’s growth on industrial labor productivity, conduct a related statistical exercise on the period from 1961 to 2014 in Canada, explain the meaning of the findings, and discuss their policy implications.

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In Memoriam Joseph Francis MacDonald ‘80

Joseph MacDonald was a loyal alumnus and passionate ambassador who exemplified his deep caring for King’s by giving back to it: He was a dedicated volunteer and generous donor. Joe passed away at his Mississauga home on February 12, 2020.

He will continue to support King’s students through the Joseph F. MacDonald Student Award.

Joe contributed to King’s Alumni and Development team and the Finance and Investment Committee of the King’s University College Foundation Board. Their members will miss his quick wit and financial expertise.

Joe was an inspiration to many – from current students to Foundation Board members. The tributes that follow attest to the fine example Joe set for all of us through his humility and his demonstrated passion for King’s and its students. May his memory continue to inspire future generations.

Jana Gordon, MA, CFRE Executive Director, Alumni and Development King’s University College

A Tribute to Joe MacDonald, by Jim Zucchero ‘82 Joe was a friend of mine for a very long time. He was a fine man, and I will miss his sunny presence.

We first met as students at De La Salle High School in Toronto in the 1970s. We were students together again at King's, though Joe started and finished a little before I did.

Joe was smart and energetic. He was passionate – about school, (Economics, in particular), and about hockey. While at school, he took a job refereeing local minor league games to earn a few bucks. That part-time work choice spoke volumes about his character: Joe always loved a fast-paced game, and he appreciated the crucial importance of fair play. He applied both those notions vigorously in his long, successful professional career in financial services.

Joe loved to share his knowledge and passion. To our good fortune, he was especially fond of and generous with King’s. He relished the opportunity to return for MEM Career Day events and share his keen insights and inspiration with current King's students. Joe could wax poetic about the challenges, excitement, and satisfaction he found working in the fast-paced finance sector, all the while emphasizing the importance of applying and honing the values he first developed right here at King's. He was always quick to sing the praises of his own mentors, just as he became one to many young colleagues.

Joe was a wonderful ambassador for King's. He will be sadly missed.

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There was an urgency. Joe needed to speak to King’s students once more.

A Message of Thanks to Joe MacDonald from Trevor Hunter ‘92 “Just smile.”

These two simple words were among the last words of advice Joe MacDonald gave our students at the School of MEM’s Career Day on February 4, 2020. It is hard to believe that he would pass away just over a week later.

When I first met Joe, around twenty years ago, our department had been running Career Days for many years to help students transition to the work world, and Joe had always been an enthusiastic participant. It was as though Joe felt an obligation to come back to King’s and speak to our students because of the gratitude he felt to this place.

Over the next nearly two decades, I witnessed how Joe lived the advice he gave at these events. His advice was about the work world, for sure, but it was mainly about life.

For the last ten years, I had the good fortune to get to know Joe better as we worked together on the Finance Committee of the King’s University College Foundation Board of Directors. The Finance Committee is made up of volunteers who make sure that money is always there to support those who need it to go to school. Joe would drive in from Toronto for a 1-2 hour, 7:30 a.m. meeting to make sure the funds we managed were well-managed. As a Committee member, Joe’s keen intellect and expertise helped make the lives of every member of the King’s community better; Joe was instrumental in helping safeguard the funds used to build the Darryl J. King Student Life Centre as well as those endowed to scholarships and bursaries. The rare time I saw Joe unsmiling was when he was laser-focused on tasks such as pouring over reports or investment results and holding our investment managers to the fire with questions like: “What’s the beta?” Man, I will

miss that.

On February 4, Joe didn’t drive himself in from Toronto to speak at the School of MEM’s Career Day; he hired a driver.

He didn’t have lunch because, as he said, “I can’t eat much.”

He asked if he could be the first speaker because he wasn’t sure that he could handle being here too long. He had told the driver to wait so he could leave as soon as he was done speaking. There was an urgency. Joe needed to speak to King’s students once more. He needed to be at King’s once more. As we talked before the presentations started, Joe seemed tired but not defeated. He was smiling the whole time, saying that the most difficult part of his situation was having to think of a new joke for the hospital staff each time he went for another weekly treatment. But when we discussed a concern [regarding the Foundation], Joe stopped smiling. The fire in the eyes and the laser-like focus were back. That was vintage Joe: no concern for himself, only concern for King’s.

After he spoke to our students, I walked Joe to his car. I had the chance to do privately what I would like to do publicly here: to thank Joe for his support and advocacy of King’s. I thanked him for being a role model of how to give back to a place that gave to him.

I often feared that Joe’s message would fall on deaf ears at Career Day – with every passing year, Joe’s experiences and those of our students grew farther apart. It may be hard for a 20-something student just starting their career to relate to someone who was at the end of his. However, those students who really listened got the essence of Joe’s message: Success is not really about your job or salary; success is about creating relationships, and those start with a smile.

Thanks a lot, Joe. I’ll miss you.

45 • MEM INSIDER • June 2020

A Tribute to Joe MacDonald, by Jason Peetsma ‘01 To “smile and look people in the eyes” is one of the many pieces of advice that Joe dispensed to students at King’s Career Day events. Over the course of a decade, I got to know Joe and his gentle, caring nature while we participated together in these events.

Joe always believed it was important to be authentic with people and to say what needs to be said to them because authenticity is good for the relationship and for the soul. Unfinished business causes pain, and having peace is essential for a healthy and joyful life. I always admired how he offered valuable and truthful advice. I will surely miss it.

Once, when he and I were talking about a struggle I was experiencing, he said, “Look at me.” With those three words, his message was clear. You never know in life, so make change even though it’s tough. Do the things you dream about before it’s too late. To know that people like Joe will always be with us in our hearts is so comforting.

I’ll see you again, my friend.

46 • MEM INSIDER • June 2020

A look at life on London's unexpected COVID-19 front line – the grocery store There’s no option to work from Author of the article: Megan Stacey Original Publishing date in the London Free Press: March 23, 2020

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home. Instead, they’re picking up extra shifts, working overtime, trying to address toilet paper hoarding and cleaning more feverishly than normal.

or a 19-year-old whose university courses have moved online, Justin Arcese is busier than you’d expect. He’s working shifts stocking produce at a London grocery store, one of hundreds of young people who have unwittingly become front-line workers in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Arcese also works at Costco during his holidays from school. He’s been called repeatedly – even though the winter term is technically proceeding, just online – to see if he could pick up shifts. There, product is flying off the shelves, or even directly from the skid before it can be restocked.

There’s no option to work from home. Instead, they’re picking up extra shifts, working overtime, trying to address toilet paper hoarding and cleaning more feverishly than normal.

In light of a COVID-19 pandemic and shuttering of all but the most essential stores and offices, grocery store workers – many of them young people – are at the centre of the pandemic, keeping fridges and cupboards stocked across the city.

And all of it for low pay and little protection from the virus – not to mention on-edge customers.

“I just hope people are cautious. Everybody is saying ‘stay at home, stay home’ and then they come in groups of 50 to the grocery store,” Arcese said, noting that public health advice to stay away from crowds isn’t always easy to apply while stocking shelves.

Arcese is in the produce department at Metro, and has now added every-three-hour cleaning blitzes to his usual workload, sanitizing the trucks used to ship product and any displays that people are touching, like shelves, handles, and the metal scoops in the bulk bins.

He’s also been called to fill in for cashiers on a more frequent basis. Young people working the registers are facing the brunt of customer frustration.

“People are a little more aggressive than normal (when checking out),” he said.

In some cases, it’s been chaotic.

“It got worse after they announced school closures,” Arcese said. “Before, people were taking up toilet paper, and it was like ‘OK, whatever,’ but the second those school closures hit, it got really crazy.”

In his department, orders have ballooned from 400 to 500 units – a box of fruit is considered one unit – to 600 or 700, several times a week.

As businesses across the country scramble to respond to rapidly changing realities in the midst of the pandemic, grocery stores are adjusting their normal operations.

Some have added security guards to screen customers or take temperatures to ensure those with the virus aren’t entering the store.

Sobeys, Loblaw and Metro companies announced plans

47 • MEM INSIDER • June 2020

Justin Arcese has been working extra shifts stocking produce at the Metro grocery store on the corner of Trafalgar Street and Gore Road in London. Derek Ruttan/The London Free Press/Postmedia Network. to install plexiglass barriers at the checkout to protect cashiers.

And staff at stores owned by the three major grocery giants will be getting a pay bump over the next few months, working out to about $2 an hour.

The union president representing food workers lauded the move.

“This premium is well deserved for these current frontline employees. It’s an important recognition for the essential work of our grocery and pharmacy workers during this crisis,” UFCW Local 175 President Shawn Haggerty said in a statement.

London grocery stores owned by Metro, which includes Food Basics, have reduced hours from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., when some were previously open until 10 p.m. or even around-the-clock for shoppers.

Stores under the Loblaw chain – that includes No Frills, Real Canadian Superstore, Shoppers Drug Mart and Valu-mart – are dedicating the first hour of shopping to seniors and those with disabilities or challenges getting around. Typically it’s 7 a.m. to 8 a.m., but call your nearest store to be sure.

That’s when the store will be at its cleanest, and with fewer customers through the doors, it’s likely to be a safer and calmer environment in which to shop.

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A bevy of grocery delivery options have also launched or ramped up across London in the light of the health messaging to stay at home and limit interaction with people outside your immediate family.

Q: Are you worried your job will put you at risk?

A: I’m not super worried, because corporate has made us do a lot more cleaning. Every three hours we have to sanitize all the trucks we use for our product, and any areas that are touched often by customers . . . I get more worried when I see people come in with masks. I know they’re (likely) just taking precautions but it kind of solidifies the reality of it.

Q: Is there anything else you’re doing to keep safe?

A: I wash my hands every time I go back, every 15 to 20 minutes when I bring the cart back, and I wash all the way up the forearm. I wear gloves when I’m touching the fresh stuff, we wear them as much as we can. They rip on me a lot though, because I have long fingers . . . I’m personally not doing (face masks).

Q: What are people buying?

A: People seem to be buying bags of potatoes the most, and bananas, surprisingly. . . . I’m worried that some people are just like ‘oh, I don’t have anything to do, I can’t go anywhere, everything is closed, I’ll go just to see what they have.’ I’m worried some people will go (to the grocery store) just to check.”

King's students enter Chicago Quantitative Alliance Investment Challenge

By John Milner

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ive School of MEM students, dubbed the KingsMEM team, have entered the Chicago Quantitative Alliance (CQA) Investment Challenge. No matter how this team does in the contest, they will come away winners with real-world experience in making investment decisions and then having to explain those choices to a panel.

The KingsMEM team includes: • Andy Caragaceanu – first year, Finance and Wealth Management • Kyle Keller – fourth year, Finance • Jordan Lunick – fourth year, Honours Accounting • Serge Muhirwa – third year, Economics • Mathew Vanderhoeff – second year, Finance They received assistance from faculty sponsor Jordan Kotick, School of MEM Lecturer, mentor Jeff Brown, President and CEO of 18 Asset Management, Inc., and Dr. Josephine Gemson, Assistant Professor from The School of MEM.

Managing assets is only one side of the coin in the industry, the other is being able to communicate and building relationships with your clients. selection and portfolio management skills in a simulated, real-life hedge fund experience. Each team selects a minimum of 80 stocks from a list of 1000.

The team is judged both on the portfolio’s performance and the creation of a ten-minute video, explaining their decisions to a panel of CQA reviewers.

The ten-minute video for the competition was produced

by King’s Communications Interns from Fanshawe College, Lourdes Hurtado, Zirda Kikki, and Aysenur Ece Kurt with videography assistance by Spenser Henstock, Communications Intern and a current King’s student who is studying Business Writing.

When Brown, a member of the Board of Directors of the CQA, reached out to King’s, Dr. Grigori Erenburg, Director of the School of MEM, saw it as “an invaluable opportunity for the students to learn directly from the industry experts that we could not pass up. Overall, the takeaway for all parties involved is tremendous. The student team has been extremely dedicated and their understanding of the markets has been exemplary.”

This is the first year that King’s has entered the prestigious competition which includes teams from Ivey Business School, the University of Chicago, the University of Toronto, Cal Tech, Cornell University, Brown University, Duke University, the University of South California, etc.

When putting together their investment portfolio, the KingsMEM team created a criteria and analyzed data to determine which industries are growing, which are not and what stocks from those industries to invest in.

They learned how to research stocks, read cues through economic events, and develop their presentation skills formulating stock pitches and writing analyst reports.

In its fifth year, the CQA Investment Challenge is an equity portfolio management competition, offering students the opportunity to learn and apply stock

“Managing assets is only one side of the coin in the industry, the other is being able to communicate and building relationships with your clients,” says Lunick.

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They were able to put many of the skills learned at King’s into practice. “I’ve learned to perform thorough research, develop an analytical mindset while leveraging the extra-curricular resources at King’s to mold myself into an effective communicator. The world of finance is one of constant change.

What I hope to learn is how to quickly adapt within such an environment,” says Muhirwa.

Brown says creating the video gave the students experience in telling their story in front of an audience. In creating the video, the team worked with King’s communications interns to create what Muhirwa calls “a unique, cinematic experience for our reviewers.

We’re very lucky to have such dedicated professionals working with our team who want to see students excel beyond the classroom.”

For more information on the CQA Investment Challenge, please visit https://www.cqa.org/investment_challenge.

The KingsMEM team: Mathew Vanderhoeff, Serge Muhirwa, Andy Caragaceanu, Kyle Keller, Jordan Lunick.

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Strangers’ ‘yuck’ face may deter some smokers

By Paul Mayne

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ire warnings of rotting teeth, cancer and sudden infant death are emblazoned on tobacco packaging as deterrents to smoking.

Yet, smokers continue to light up.

So, what would happen if packaging could also trigger guilt, shame or embarrassment?

A new Western-led study suggests that using negative social cues to provoke self-consciousness about smoking might be more effective for some people than graphic health warnings.

Packaging has become an important vehicle to convey anti-smoking messages, but most of them fear based health appeals.

However, new packaging prototypes that show a face looking disdainfully at the smoker are enough to trigger self-consciousness, and may discourage them from continuing the habit, or from starting it in the first place, said King’s University College professor Jennifer Jeffrey of the School of Management, Economics and Mathematics.

“Most tobacco research suggests fear-based appeals are effective at reducing smoking, especially when graphic images are included as part of the warning,” said Jeffrey who, along with Ivey Business School professor Matthew Thomson, recently released their study in the Journal of Consumer Affairs.

However, it wasn’t clear whether visualized social cues might be more effective stop signs for some people.

Jeffrey continued, “We wondered whether there were some smoking segments who might care more about the social consequences of smoking than some of the health-risks, and whether that could act as a more powerful smoking deterrent in that particular segment.”

What they found was the use of negative social cues on packaging was particularly effective with ‘isolated’ smokers – those who already don’t perceive smoking as part of their social selves.

Jeffrey and Thomson conducted an online experiment with adult smokers in which participants were randomly assigned to view one of two tobacco packages. Both 51 • MEM INSIDER • June 2020

New packaging prototypes...are enough to trigger self-consciousness, and may discourage them from continuing the habit, or from starting it in the first place.

Dr. Jennifer Jeffrey

included the same tagline – “This is how people look at smokers” – but portrayed different images.

Specifically, packages featured black-and-white photographs of the same three individuals looking at the smoker with either neutral or disgusted expressions. These facial expressions and other nonverbal communications help the receiver decode a situation – interpreting a scowl as disapproval or disdain, for example – and then guide a response, Jeffrey said.

This tactic worked particularly well with ‘isolated’ smokers, those who smoke in private rather than with a group. For them, smoking is a guilty pleasure or addiction and they may need just a bit more impetus to quit.

“Negative social cues really only worked in isolated smokers, likely because these cues reinforced the negative social aspects of smoking that isolated smokers are already well aware of,” said Jeffrey.

By contrast, ‘immersive’ smokers, who light up with friends and co-workers and who see smoking as part of their identity, were unaffected by the new packaging. “After all, if your social network is made up of actual smoking friends and colleagues, what do you care if some strangers on a tobacco package disapprove?”

Those who feel a negative self conscious emotion such as guilt are more motivated to make amends, stop the offending behavior, apologize for the wrongdoing or avoid the situation entirely.

It may seem counter-intuitive that the subtle message of 52 • MEM INSIDER • June 2020

a stranger’s disgust can be more powerful than graphic images showing how smoking increases the risk of cancer and other diseases.

“This is just human nature,” Jeffrey said. “We are prone to think in the short-term, focusing on the immediate consequences of our actions as opposed to some abstract potential long-term risk. Global warming, increasing debt levels, rising obesity – these are all a result of us as a society prioritizing our short-term wants and needs above our long-term best interests.”

She added while the results suggest incorporating negative social cues into tobacco packaging may hold promise as a means of encouraging smokers to quit, more research needs to take place into novel approaches for packaging design and messaging, particularly among young people.

Requiring printed warnings on cigarette packages since 1994, Canada became the first country to implement pictorial health warnings in June 2001. Initially required to cover 50 per cent of the front and back of the package, the warnings were made larger (required to cover 75 per cent of the package) with a new set of 16 health warnings implemented in 2012.

Last year, Parliament passed the Tobacco and Vaping Products Act which gave Health Canada the power to implement plain and standardized tobacco packaging.

Three Professors in Conversation

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lurring borders, teaching cultural survival skills: Three Writing professors in conversation Professors Patrick Morley, Emily Pez, and Sheri Henderson teach Writing 1002 and 1022 at King’s.

They talk about writing and empowerment, their passion for teaching and learning, and the joys of the multilingual classroom.

Why do you enjoy teaching Writing to multilingual students?

Prof. Morley: Teaching writing skills that help multilingual students succeed in all their other courses goes much deeper than explaining the concept of a thesis or sentence structure. It involves teaching academic and cultural survival-skills, which often transform into thriving skills. In turn, I feel privileged to read and learn about international perspectives on international events. Through writing assignments, in-class discussions, and casual chats in the cafe or the Student Life Centre, I'm exposed to a cross-section of ideas and arguments on issues as diverse as climate change, globalization, populism, and the phenomenon of K-Pop--truly inspiring! These ideas make me a better person and global citizen.

Prof. Sheri Henderson: Writing surrounds us. My purpose, honed over the decades of my teaching career, has been to convince people that to write well--for academic and professional purposes, or for personal pleasure--is an empowering life skill. I have supported young Emirati writers producing manga, short fiction, and poetry, mentored and monitored Writer of the Month displays on four continents, edited a newspaper column written by students, and guided a children’s book project between Grade 12 and Grade 1 students in Watford, Ontario.

To write well in more than one language is to be celebrated.

As a multilingual writer myself, I notice how writing conventions vary between languages, and cultures. I look at how words build paragraphs or poems, and how punctuation works, depending on the language. Every writer needs to find their own writing voice, be that in their home language or an additional one. “Use your words,” has been my refrain forever. It excites me to this day to see people discover, and start to use, their voices as writers. I love teaching people to consider what, why and how they want to express themselves, and then guiding them through the process of writing. Working together, and making good use of student supports like The Write Place at King’s, everyone can learn to write well.

Prof. Emily Pez: I love teaching Writing to multilingual students because I can help them recognize the writing skills that they have already developed in their home cultures and build critical skills for North American university culture, which they can then apply to their other courses and to their work in diverse cultural contexts. I share my own educational background and research in medieval rhetoric with my students, and when the students share their experiences with me, they diversify and enrich my understanding of logic and composition modes.

Can you talk specifically about how you approach Writing 1002 and 1022?

Sheri: The only way to become a better writer is to write. I think these recently revised courses offer students great opportunities to explore authentic forms of personal, academic and professional writing. In my classes, students produced fantastic work when writing for a multimodal product.

Patrick: A lot of care and effort went into creating writing courses that reflect the realities of our multilingual

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students. Multilingual students will have the opportunity to reflect on their personal and cultural identity and how identity informs critical thinking and approaches to academics. We've also created assignments that mirror some of the work many international students will be doing in their other courses. We discuss case studies, citation skills, finding and using academic sources and data, along with the nuances of creating convincing arguments.

Furthermore, we've updated our courses to reflect the realities of modern-day business writing, digital communications, résumé and cover letter creation, and the ins and outs of delivering powerful presentations.

I like to think we are providing students with a set of tools that will help them thrive in all of the academic projects they pursue.

express and edit their thoughts through a safe and positive medium. This has proven to be empowering: I've read responses that are often more thought-provoking and critical than if they were expressed in a live classroom discussion. Another benefit is the ability to slow down the course to meet their language needs. With uploaded lectures, students can listen, relisten, jump ahead, move back and set a pace of study that is right for them. Although it is difficult, if not impossible, to recreate the vibrancy and dynamics of a live classroom discussion, with its nuances of body language, and the challenge of comprehending fluent spoken language, I believe our move to online learning reflects the dynamic human spirit and our ability to adapt on the fly in the name of disseminating knowledge.

Emily: I think that the syllabus changes empowered students by offering them culturally relevant readings and opportunities to develop extensive, practical knowledge about writing across the disciplines in North American universities. I believe that the students have benefitted from the Writing courses’ combination of authentic texts, interactive exercises, and assignments that develop essential skills in research and composition while promoting students’ critical thinking about their education and about institutional practices.

Sheri: Blending blurs borders. I am quite thrilled about the opportunities that blended/online classes hold for King’s. First and foremost is the opportunity for ubiquitous, inclusive, and comprehensive learning.

Being able to study anywhere, anytime, and on any device has huge benefits; deadlines are still set, but life’s interruptions are less likely to disrupt learning when courses are online. Students often take more responsibility for completing their work when allowed to work at their own most productive time of day/night.

Digital course delivery also allows for multimodal forms (print, audio, video, visuals with subtitles, etc.).

Students may review content as often as necessary, rather than struggle to follow a professor’s rapidly delivered lecture, or squint at a hard-to-read presentation from the back of a lecture theatre. I stress that this is a benefit for all students, not only multilingual learners.

How did you/will you adapt to changes that may occur because of COVID-19?

Patrick: I've been lucky to test-drive our new online Writing 1002 course, and so far the results have been outstanding. For multilingual students, there are benefits to the online classroom. First, by using written forum posts to answer writing, cultural and academic questions, students who might otherwise be shy participating in a live classroom discussion can 54 • MEM INSIDER • June 2020

In my experience, technology can increase learner engagement: online discussion boards offer all students the chance to ‘speak’ without the anxiety

Professor Sheri Henderson

Professor Emily Pez Professor Patrick Morley which they may experience in class. I have seen students who are reluctant participants in face-to-face settings absolutely shine and thrive in blended activities. The chance to develop community within an online class can be a lot easier than navigating the rigid layouts of some physical classrooms which, honestly speaking, do not lend themselves to collaborative, communicative activities. With a digital device and reliable internet, students and professors who may be physically located around the world can gather together and collaboratively become better writers and scholars.

Emily: To facilitate remote learning, I have provided students with online access to lecture materials with practical, interactive guidance on completing course assignments, and I have offered students detailed, timely feedback.

Whether through a blended or online Writing course, students can expect to belong to a learning community in which they can engage with their classmates and instructor on their course site, thus enabling them to benefit from shared discussion and, in turn, further develop critical academic writing skills.

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Photo

Contest

Aashiyana Salim, fourth year Accounting.

Christopher Mortimer, first year Social Science.

56 • MEM INSIDER • June 2020

Lingxiu Chen, fourth year Accounting.

Luoyi Zhang, second year BMOS 57 • MEM INSIDER • June 2020

Tyler Wilson, third year HR specialization.

Wenxin Yin, thrd year accounting

If you have any career or personal announcements please contact us at MEMinsider@kings.uwo.ca.

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Credits Co-editors are Taryn Rollins and Josephine Bondi.

Supervising editor is Dr. Vidya Natarajan.

Cover designed by Kai Wen Zhang.

Professional photography by Steve Grimes.

Layout & design by Nikki Sasso Mitchell, King's Communications.

Project management by Estelle Van Winckle.

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A place to become. kings.uwo.ca 266 Epworth Ave. London, Ontario N6A 2M3 Canada 1-800-265-4406 kings@uwo.ca