Spring 2015 Campus Magazine

LAURIER FOR ALUMNI & FRIENDS | SPRING 2015

WILFRID LAURIER UNIVERSITY

CAMPUS

the art of business Jeff Melanson

brings new life to Canada’s top arts institutions

Bill Webb shares stories of leadership, adventure and the road less travelled Award-winning writer and performer Alison Wearing charts her journey from the page to the stage

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contents The art of business Toronto Symphony Orchestra President and CEO Jeff Melanson challenges the status quo and infuses new life into Canada’s art scene.

20

12 Research file

The Change Project works to end gendered violence on campus. Also, Laurier research shows songbirds in high-tech ‘smart aviaries’ can provide clues to social development.

12

14 The road less travelled

How Bill Webb has followed an unconventional path to the top of Canada’s investment industry.

26 From the page to the stage

14 26

Alison Wearing shares all in her deeply personal writing and performance.

32 Behind the scenes

Matt Cade travels from rink to rink, producing some of TSN’s most compelling stories.

3 Editor’s note 4 President’s message 6 Campus news 12 Research file

30 In Memoriam 35 Alumni Updates 37 Postcard to home 40 Flashback LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015 1

Shadi Varkiani, third-year student in Economics & Financial Management at the School of Business & Economics

We saved you a seat.

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EDITOR’S NOTE

Hi, I’m your new editor Waterloo | Brantford | Kitchener | Toronto Volume 54, Number 1, Spring 2015 ISSN 0700-5105

Laurier Campus is published by the Department of Communications, Public Affairs & Marketing (CPAM) Wilfrid Laurier University 75 University Avenue West Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3C5 Publisher: Joel Peters, Assistant Vice-President: External Relations Managing Editor: Kevin Crowley Editor: Justin Fauteux Writers: Erin Almeida, Carol Jankowski, Shawna Reibling, Katherine Sage Design: Emily Lowther, Tara Olheiser Justin Ogilvie, Dawn Wharnsby Photography: Tomasz Adamski, Mathew McCarthy, John Ternan, Dean Palmer Send address changes to: Email: alumaddress@wlu.ca Tel: 519.884.0710 x3176

This seems like a good opportunity to introduce myself. Hi, I’m Justin Fauteux and I’m thrilled to be the new editor of Campus.

Laurier has been a part of my life for the better part of a decade since I started my undergrad in 2008. My time at the university was defined by my involvement with The Cord. I started covering sports as a first-year student and worked my way up to editor-in-chief. That experience not only opened several doors, career-wise, it shaped who I am today; it’s amazing what you learn about yourself when you can only get about 12 hours of sleep a week.

A month after finishing my undergrad I had an internship with The Globe and Mail where, by virtue of being the intern working the late shift, I wrote The Globe’s first story on the Rob Ford crack scandal. When my internship ended, like many recent grads, I wasn’t sure what to do next and when a communications role at Laurier popped up, I jumped on it. That job was a five-month

contract but I ended up sticking around a little longer and eventually there was this great opportunity to be the editor of Campus.

I never thought my career path would lead me back to Laurier, especially not so soon. But that seems to be the way it goes; is anyone exactly where they thought they’d end up? Whose path hasn’t taken at least a turn or two?

That’s a common theme among the alumni you’ll meet in this issue, a long, winding road to where they are today. Bill Webb passed up a safe job to travel the world early in his career; Jeff Melanson went from being an opera singer to one of Canada’s leading arts and culture executives; and Alison Wearing’s curiosity and love of travel has not only helped inspire her writing, it’s led her through a fascinating life.

I hope you enjoy this issue and I’d love to hear any feedback, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch (jfauteux@wlu.ca) if you see something you like, don’t like, or if you have a story to tell.

Justin Fauteux (BA ’13)

Publications Mail Registration No. 40020414 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Wilfrid Laurier University 75 University Avenue West Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3C5 We welcome and encourage your feedback. Send letters to the editor to campusmagazine@wlu.ca. We reserve the right to edit all submissions.

Laurier Campus (circ. 65,000) is published two times a year by CPAM. Opinions expressed in Campus do not necessarily reflect those of the editor or the university’s administration.

Cover photography: Mathew McCarthy Visit us online at wlu.ca/cpam

Prefer digital? View Campus online at issuu.com/wilfridlaurieruniversity.

Questions, comments, rants or raves?

We’d love to hear from you! Email us at campusmagazine@wlu.ca or reach out to us through social media. Our Winter 2014 issue received lots of feedback on Twitter. Here’s what you said: @JoshFuji: How a haircut inspired @freshmealinajar Check out the centrefold in the Laurier Campus magazine! @LaurierNews #JarUp @valstone18: First time getting the @LaurierAlumni Magazine! #excited #graduate #laurier ‘Like’ us at facebook.com/WilfridLaurierUniversity youtube.com/LaurierVideo

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LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015 3

campus corner PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

Finding inspiration in our graduates If there is a theme running through the three alumni profiles in this issue, it is the potential for using your Laurier experience as a springboard for combining personal passions with a rewarding career.

All three graduates — Bill Webb (BBA ’86), Alison Wearing (BA ’89), and Jeff Melanson (MBA ’99) — have lived truly unique and impressive lives.

Webb combined his business education with an interest in travel and foreign cultures to build

Laurier President Max Blouw speaks with Daughters for Life Laurier student copresident Elliot Alder after signing a partnership with the Daughters for Life foundation.

an extraordinary career in finance and investment. Wearing, another intrepid traveler, used her arts degree as a foundation for writing best-selling books and creating award-winning performance art. And Melanson, a trained opera singer, enhanced his passion for music with a Laurier MBA and has gone on to become one of Canada’s most skilled and visionary arts administrators.

All three are a testament to hard work, imagination and an innovative approach to making the most of your university experience.

It is important to celebrate such inspired individuals. They show us the true worth of higher education — how to see connections and possibilities, how to think both critically and outside the box, and how to engage with the wider world in a way that is both personal and deeply rewarding.

While study after study confirms the financial rewards of a university degree, stories such as those

4 LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015

that you will find in every issue of this magazine tell us about non-financial benefits. The hallmark of a Laurier education is the well-rounded, academically rich yet community-centered experience that we provide to students. In recent years we have come to think of it as “integrated and engaged learning,” a phrase that reflects the more intentional and purposeful approach that we bring to the idea of combining academic learning with the important personal development that goes on outside the classroom.

Students who come to Laurier have a wonderful environment in which to learn, to grow, to explore new ideas, to form friendships, to fall in love, to engage in volunteerism and community service, to engage in athletic competition, all in an intimate and highly supportive environment that emphasizes community and belonging.

I believe that the student experience at Laurier is second to none, anywhere. And I hope and trust that you, having lived that experience, feel the same.

It is important that we remember this at this particular point in time. Universities everywhere are going through a period of dramatic transformation as we adjust to intense financial pressures, changing demands from students and society, and technological advances that reshape how we deliver education.

Laurier is taking a strategic approach to this change, the best example of which is the recent Integrated Planning and Resource Management (IPRM) exercise, a collegial and thorough process aimed at setting institutional priorities.

Throughout our strategy planning, the Laurier community has recognized the importance of preserving the special learning environment that distinguishes the Laurier experience.

As we move forward through these turbulent times, it is helpful to celebrate alumni like Bill Webb, Alison Wearing and Jeff Melanson in order to remind ourselves about what truly matters.

Max Blouw, President and Vice-Chancellor

campus corner MESSAGE FROM THE WLUAA PRESIDENT

Honouring the past, looking to the future The Wilfrid Laurier University Alumni Association has been part of a number of important initiatives already this year. I’m pleased to share with you an update on our activities.

Commemorating a Laurier champion Arthur Stephen, who passed away at the beginning of this year, was a dedicated and long-serving member of the Laurier community. He both graduated from Laurier and held numerous leadership posts at the university over a 35-year career. If it wasn’t for Arthur, WLUAA would not exist.

He was instrumental in establishing WLUAA as a separate legal entity from Laurier with our own revenue sources. This structure has allowed us to have a constant, singular focus on alumni and their needs. Thanks to Arthur’s vision, we work for you.

Arthur was a true Laurier champion, but much of his work happened behind the scenes. I first met Arthur when I was a student in the early 2000s. Over the years, I developed a close personal relationship with him, and I considered him a good friend and a mentor. As I got to know Arthur, I came to realize that he is the reason that many of us went to Laurier, whether we know it or not. He was a wonderful recruiter and did hundreds of little things — even going so far as to plant some of the ivy vines around the school — that made all of us want to be at Laurier.

In memory of Arthur and in recognition of his years of support, WLUAA is donating $5,000 to the Lewis and Catherine Stephen Award in History, an award established in memory of Arthur’s parents.

the Laurier campus. WLUAA has made a donation to name a seat in the university’s new Global Innovation Exchange building.

For many of us Laurier was a starting point for the rest of our lives. Having our name etched on this place that holds so many great memories is very meaningful. In fact, I’ve personally bought a seat, and I encourage you to do the same.

Planning ahead The new WLUAA strategic plan has been a topic of my previous columns. This document is an important foundation for the work that we do, and has been well-implemented. The result is a more productive board focused on our overall mission of serving Laurier alumni.

Stepping aside This is my final column as your WLUAA president. I have served in this role for three years and have been part of the WLUAA board for the past 11. It has truly been a pleasure to work with the other dedicated members of the WLUAA board to advance the cause of Laurier alumni. It is a very fulfilling personal and professional experience. I encourage you to consider joining the WLUAA board. Please send expressions of interest to alumni@wlu.ca.

A new president will be named in May, and I will assume the role of past president. Whatever my role, I will continue to work for you and for all Laurier alumni. I am proud to be a Laurier alumnus, and I love giving back to the school that’s given me so much.

Naming our seat The Alumni Association is taking advantage of a unique opportunity to leave a permanent mark on

Marc Henein ’04 President, WLUAA, LaurierAlumni.ca facebook/twitter: LaurierAlumni

WLUAA 2014–15 EXECUTIVE

Board of Directors

President Marc Henein ’04

Kate Applin ’09 Fiona Batte ’96 Marie-Helene Colaiezzi ’07, ’08 Ben Graham ’99, ’00 Chris Hiebert ’83 Craig Mellow ’97 Michelle Missere ’06 Andrew Ness ’86 Helga Recek ’00 Karen Rice ’87

Vice-President Operations Marc Richardson ’94 Secretary/Treasurer Shirley Schmidt ’86, ’09 Honorary President Dr. Max Blouw Past President Tom Berczi ’88, ’93

Board of Governors Representatives Scott Bebenek ’85 Tom Berczi ’88, ’93 John Trus ’90

Senate Representatives Ashley Cameron ’86 Benjamin Graham ’99 Megan Harris ’00

LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015 5

campus news LAURIER PARTNERS WITH DAUGHTERS FOR LIFE FOUNDATION

Students vote to fund scholarships for youth from international conflict zones During the 2015 student elections, the Laurier student body voted in favour of a levy that will enable up to 10 students per year from international conflict zones to pursue degrees at Laurier through the International Students Overcoming War Scholarship Fund (ISOW).

ISOW, which was developed by the Daughters for Life Laurier student club in conjunction with Laurier International, had already established a partnership with the Daughters for Life Foundation, which will bring two women from the Middle East to study at Laurier in the fall. Daughters for Life Foundation President Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish and Laurier President and ViceChancellor Max Blouw signed a formal agreement in January.

The levy, which represents up to $4 per Laurier student per term, will allow Daughters for Life Laurier to broaden its vision and develop partnerships with other organizations to sponsor those from conflict zones throughout the world.

“The fact that students were willing to donate has secured everything,” said

Daughters for Life President Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish (left) and Laurier President and Vice-Chancellor Max Blouw (right) sign a memorandum of understanding signifying the partnership between the Daughters for Life Foundation and Laurier. Photo by Tomasz Adamski.

Annie Serez, Daughters for Life Laurier co-president and a Laurier Global Studies student. “The Laurier community will be able to see the results of their donations and meet the students. We will all be enriched by this experience.”

Abuelaish established the Daughters for Life Foundation in memory of three of his daughters — Bessan, 21; Mayar, 15; and

Aya, 13 — who were killed by an Israeli tank shell during an attack in the Gaza strip in 2009. The foundation is built on the belief that educating young women will build the road to peace in the Middle East. The foundation offers awards and scholarships to young women of any Middle Eastern nationality, background or religion to study in Canada, the U.S. and the United Kingdom.

The Laurier community will be able to see the results of their donations and meet the students. We will all be enriched by this experience.

Annie Serez, Daughters for Life Laurier co-president

BUSINESS STUDENTS KEEP THE STREAK ALIVE

Sixth-consecutive “School of the Year” title at JDC Central A team of Laurier SBE students made it a remarkable six championships in a row this past winter, winning the “School of the Year” title to remain undefeated in the JDC – Jeux de Commerce – Central competition’s six-year history. Laurier also took home the competition’s “Academic Cup” for a fourth consecutive year.

“We couldn’t be prouder of the effort and dedication our team has put in over the past four months,” said Michelle Morin, student co-captain of Laurier’s JDC Central team. “To see it pay off with our sixth win is indescribable.”

A total of 700 undergraduate business students from

6 LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015

14 universities competed at the JDC Central competition this year, taking part in sports activities, a parliamentary-style debate, social activities, academic cases in eight subject areas, and charity.

Laurier’s 43-member student team was led by co-captains Morin and Nick Barbour, both fourth-year BBA students. Associate Professor Sofy Carayannopoulos served as faculty advisor. A group of about 20 alumni coaches, along with Carayannopoulos and assistant professors Karin Schnarr and Hae Joo Kim helped to prepare the students. Last year’s captain, David Iudiciani, and alumnus Srinidhi Srinharan returned to help coach the team as well.

campus news

LAURIER STAR NAMED OUA MVP

Running back Dillon Campbell named province’s top football player After putting together one of the best seasons in Laurier history, Dillon Campbell of the Golden Hawks football team took home the 2014 Ontario University Athletics (OUA) MVP award.

Campbell is the fourth Laurier player to be named OUA MVP and the first in 20 years, joining Bill Kubas (1994), Ken Evraire (1987) and Jim Reid (1977).

Coming off a breakout 2013 season in which he led the OUA in rushing, Campbell established himself as one of the best football players in the country in 2014, literally running away with the CIS rushing title. Helping carry the Golden Hawks from a 1-7 record in 2013 to a playoff appearance in 2014, Campbell amassed 1,458 rushing yards — 471 yards more than CIS second-leading rusher, Chris Reid from Mount Allison.

Appearing in all eight of Laurier’s regular season contests, Campbell ran for 100-plus yards every game, 200-plus yards three times (including a school-record 293 yards against Toronto), and led the OUA and CIS with 13 touchdowns and 182.2

yards per game. Campbell also recorded 206 receiving yards on 12 catches, giving him 1,664 all-purpose yards, which represents 46 per cent of Laurier’s total offence in 2014. Campbell set three school rushing records in 2014, including most carries in a season, most yards in a season and most yards in a game. He also recorded the second most rushing touchdowns in a season in Laurier history.

“Dillon definitely had a season to remember,” said head coach Michael Faulds. “It is one thing for all of us at Laurier to recognize how good he is, but for all the OUA head coaches to vote him the OUA MVP shows how much everyone respects what he has accomplished.”

CEO-IN-RESIDENCE

Business leaders inspire students The 2014-15 academic year saw Laurier welcome three alumni, Robert Strickland (BBA ’83), Aidan Tracey (BBA ’91) and Shelley Martin (BBA ’85), as the School of Business and Economics’ latest CEOs-in-residence.

Strickland, president of Fidelity Investments Canada ULC, visited the Waterloo campus in November, sharing how he got his start in the finance industry, going all the way back to following the stock listings in the Guelph Mercury as a boy growing up in Guelph. He offered students a wide variety of advice, underscoring that above all else, in the financial sector, it’s all about performance.

In January, Tracey delivered a presentation that discussed how new technology is shaping consumer habits and what that means for companies and people looking to build a career in marketing. Tracey, president of Acosta Mosaic Group, is an expert in combining experiential, digital, public relations, social media, and retail marketing to reach consumers.

Martin, president and CEO of Nestlé Canada Inc., visited Laurier in early March, sharing her experiences with students, staff and faculty. Martin has worked at Nestlé Canada since 1990, holding increasingly senior positions until being named president and CEO in 2012.

POET SERVES AS WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE

Sonnet L’Abbé offers advice to budding writers Award-winning poet and essayist Sonnet L’Abbé served as Laurier’s Edna Staebler Writer-in-Residence for the winter 2015 term. L’Abbé gave public lectures, provided one-on-one feedback to student writers and writers in the community and conducted writing workshops.

L’Abbé is the author of two collections of poetry, A Strange Relief and Killarnoe (both published by McClelland & Stewart). She is also a poetry critic and the 2014 guest editor of Best Canadian Poetry.

In 2000, she won the Bronwen Wallace Award for most promising writer under the age of 35. She is now at work on two new manuscripts, Sentient Mental Flower Book and Sonnet’s Shakespeare, her third and fourth collections of poems.

Each year, the writer-in-residence acts as a resource to the Laurier community while pursuing individual writing projects, offering a portrait of a writer at work. Award-winning non-fiction writer Andrew Westoll was Laurier’s Edna Staebler Writerin-Residence in 2013, followed by playwright and filmmaker Colleen Murphy, who held the position in winter 2014.

The Edna Staebler Laurier Writer-inResidence position was established in 2012 by a bequest from the late Edna Staebler, prolific creative non-fiction writer and author of the very popular Schmecks series of books that celebrate the culture and cuisine of Waterloo Region. A separate bequest from Staebler sponsors the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction, awarded each year to a writer’s first or second book of creative non-fiction.

LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015 7

campus news

GOLDEN HAWKS HAVE RECORD YEAR

Women’s basketball team posts best regular season in team history The 2014-15 season was one to remember for Laurier’s women’s basketball team. After losing their first game of the season, the Hawks would win their next 12 consecutive contests — a team record — and only lose two more games the rest of the year.

The team finished the regular season 17-3, setting a new team record for most wins in a season, and reached No. 5 in the Canadian Interuniversity Sport national rankings, the highest a Laurier women’s basketball team has ever been ranked.

In a season full of highlights, one that stands out is a 60-53 road win over the No. 1 ranked and four-time defending national champion Windsor Lancers, a team that hadn’t lost at home since 2010 and that the Golden Hawks hadn’t beaten since 2007.

The Hawks came into the season as an inexperienced group, having lost four key players from the previous season to graduation.

They also overcame adversity all year long, including having nearly half their roster injured for the first seven games of the season.

PEOPLE AT LAURIER Laura Brooker, a fifth-year English student and captain of Laurier’s women’s hockey team, won a silver medal with Team Canada at the 2015 Winter University Games in Granada, Spain.

Brooker, who won gold at the 2013 Games, was named captain of Canada’s women’s hockey team at the international multi-sport event.

Special Constable

Rick Cousineau has retired after more than 40 years of service to the Laurier community. He started his career at Laurier on Oct. 31, 1973 and officially retired on the same date in 2014.

Cousineau, who always had a passion for working with students, plans on spending his retirement focusing on his family and one of his other passions — fishing.

Assistant Professor Louise Dawe won Laurier’s Residence Academic Partner award for the fall 2014 semester.

The award recognizes faculty members who support academic initiatives within the university’s residences. Dawe serves as the faculty mentor for the Faculty of Science Residence Learning Community, one of Laurier’s themed residence environments designed to extend opportunities for learning and development into residence buildings. Throughout the semester, Dawe and Nikhile Moorerji, a don and a supplemental instructor in Chemistry,

8 LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015

worked together alongside 35 science students who live in Bricker Residence. Sofy Carayannopoulos, an associate professor in the School of Business and Economics, won the award in the previous term.

Tammy Lee has been appointed associate director of Laurier’s Special Constable Service on the Waterloo campus. Lee joined Laurier in 2007 as a special constable and has since served in a number of progressively senior roles, most recently as the interim manager, Special Constable Service. In her new position, she will oversee supervisors, special constables and department staff on the Waterloo campus, and be the key contact to the senior management team regarding matters of personal safety, response, security and well-being of students, faculty, staff, and visitors on campus, as well as protecting the physical assets of the university.

Deborah MacLatchy and Donna Kotsopoulos have been appointed to acting roles that will see them lead Laurier’s research efforts. MacLatchy will serve as acting vice-president: research in addition to her role as vice-president: academic and provost, while Kotsopolous, an associate professor in the Faculty of Education, has been appointed acting associate vicepresident: research. Both will serve in their respective acting roles until a search process to fill the position of vice-president: research is concluded.

Nela Petkovic has been appointed Laurier’s chief information officer (CIO). The CIO is a new position at Laurier, created as part of an approved strategy to reorganize the unit previously known as Academic Services. In this position, she will work in collaboration with senior administration, deans, unit leads, faculty, staff and students in the realization of the institutional vision for ICT services and infrastructure in support of Laurier’s strategic priorities.

Health Sciences Professor Peter Tiidus has been appointed Dean of Applied Health Sciences at Brock University. Tiidus, who also served as researcher, program coordinator, interim Dean of Science and Chair of the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education, joined Laurier in 1989 and will begin his new post at Brock July 1.

Alan Whiteside, a researcher and professor affiliated with Laurier’s School of International Policy and Governance, has been named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), a designation granted by the British Crown. Whiteside, who currently holds the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) Chair in Global Health at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, is internationally known for his work in HIV/AIDS research. The OBE recognizes service to the arts and sciences, public services and work with charitable and welfare organizations.

campus news

GOLDEN SWEEP

Laurier curling teams win OUA gold

For the second time in the university’s history, the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks men’s and women’s curling teams swept the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) Championship banners, each winning provincial gold medals.

Repeating the feat they last achieved back in the 2007-08 season, the men’s team won their seventh OUA gold medal thanks to their 4-3 win over Western while the women won their eighth OUA banner, and second consecutive, after a 5-3 win over Brock.

Following the championships, men’s team members Richard Krell and Spencer Nuttall were named OUA First Team All-Stars while the women’s team’s Evangeline Fortier was named an OUA Second Team All-Star.

STUDENT APPLICATIONS INCREASE

Laurier sees bump in high school and non-high-school applicants Despite a declining trend in the number of students applying to university, the number of students who applied to Laurier increased in 2015.

The number of high school students who applied to Laurier by the Jan. 14 deadline rose 1.8 per cent over last year compared to a system-wide decline of 0.7 per cent across Ontario. As well, the number of high school applicants who made Laurier their first choice rose 3.2 per cent over last year.

“These increases reflect Laurier’s reputation for delivering one of Canada’s best student experiences and a culture that supports high academic achievement,” said Deborah MacLatchy, vice-president: academic and provost. “A

Laurier degree has always held great value for graduates seeking strong academic programs followed by meaningful careers, and we are delighted that students continue to be attracted by Laurier’s exceptional student-centred environment and our reputation for relevant and engaged academic programming.”

Demographic trends in Ontario indicate a decline in the number of 17- and 18-year-olds over the next five years, as well as significant changes in student needs. Faced with these challenges, Laurier has worked hard to strengthen the quality of its renowned student experience and to integrate it with relevant and innovative academic programming.

BOOK OF NEGROES AUTHOR VISITS CAMPUS

Lawrence Hill shares insights, hosts special screening of CBC mini-series Acclaimed Canadian author Lawrence Hill visited Laurier’s Waterloo campus earlier this year, interacting with students and presenting a special screening of an episode from the CBC television adaptation of his 2007 novel, The Book of Negroes.

Hill, who received an honorary doctor of letters degree from Laurier in 2010, answered questions on everything from adapting his novel into a mini-series to censorship to race issues in Canadian history. He also presented an advance screening of an episode of the CBC adaptation of The Book of Negroes to a packed audience in the Bricker Academic Building.

Hill has made several appearances at Laurier prior to this most recent visit, even writing a portion of The Book of Negroes while staying in Laurier’s Lucinda House guest residence and in 2010 serving as Laurier’s writer-in-residence.

LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015 9

campus news

ALUMNA NAMED INAUGURAL ECONOMIST-IN-RESIDENCE

Bank of Canada senior deputy governor Carolyn Wilkins returns to Laurier Carolyn Wilkins (BA ’87) returned to Laurier’s Waterloo campus last November, making her first public appearance as the Bank of Canada’s senior deputy governor.

Wilkins, the No. 2 policymaker at Canada’s central bank, was named the School of Business and Economics’ inaugural economist-in-residence. She delivered an address entitled “Money in a Digital World,” discussing the unique challenges presented by digital currencies such as Bitcoin and how much change has come to the way we pay for things, before joining Associate Economics Professor Steffen Ziss to take questions from the audience.

Wilkins graduated from Laurier with an Economics degree in 1987 and has fond memories of her alma mater, including working at Wilf’s to help put herself through school and benefitting from the university’s intimate atmosphere and small class sizes.

The Laurier economist-in-residence is an appointed honour by the dean of the School of Business and Economics and has been developed to deliver a perspective to students beyond their studies and research in the classroom.

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OWL winner Lee Anna Osei (centre) with Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir. Photo by Adam Gagnon.

OUTSTANDING WOMEN OF LAURIER AWARD

Basketball veteran Lee Anna Osei recognized for work on and off the court Lee Anna Osei, a fifth year guard with the women’s basketball team, was named the winner of the 2015 Outstanding Women of Laurier (OWL) award.

Originally recruited to the NCAA, Osei joined the Golden Hawks for the 2012-13 season and quickly established herself as one of the top point guards in the province. The two-time CIS Academic All-Canadian captured the OUA nomination for the 2015 Joy Bellinger

Award, presented to the student-athlete who excels in academics, athletics, and community service. Osei’s work off the court includes eight years as a youth coach and creating a website that promotes female athletes across Canada.

This year’s 10th-anniversary OWL event, which featured a keynote speech from Olympians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, raised approximately $25,000 in support of women’s athletic initiatives.

LAUNCHPAD ENTREPRENEURS GET A ‘JUMPSTART’

Startups to benefit from FedDev funding Laurier entrepreneurs, present and future, will be getting a boost from a recent federal investment into The Accelerator Centre.

In mid-January, the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario) announced that the Accelerator Centre, an awardwinning technology startup incubator in Waterloo in which Laurier is a partner, would receive $8 million in funding over four years to establish a new program called AC JumpStart. The AC JumpStart program will help high-potential startups commercialize new products and develop new businesses by providing selected companies with mentorship and matching seed financing. The program began in January 2015 and will run through 2018.

Three companies that were formed in the Laurier LaunchPad entrepreneurship program — Alaunus, Meal in a Jar and Eventpeeks — were selected to take part in AC JumpStart’s initial cohort, while the $800,000 allocated to Laurier will also support up to 20 companies in the future.

campus news

LAURIER RECEIVES IMAGINE CANADA ACCREDITATION

University is the first in Canada to qualify under The Standards Program Laurier has become the first university in Canada to receive accreditation from Imagine Canada under The Standards Program. The accreditation signifies that the university is operating at the highest standards in board governance, financial accountability and transparency, fundraising, staff management and volunteer involvement.

“Universities are public institutions, and it is essential that we meet the highest standards of trust,” said Max Blouw, president and vice-chancellor at Laurier. “Accreditation from Imagine Canada assures our stakeholders — whether they be government, donors, employees or students — that our activities meet this expectation.”

Imagine Canada offers programs and provides resources that help strengthen charities and nonprofits, so that they can best support the communities they serve. The Standards Program builds excellence within Canada’s charities and nonprofits through common standards of practice and thereby strengthens public confidence in these organizations.

This latest accreditation builds on Laurier’s Ethical Code certification that it received from Imagine Canada in 2012. The ethical code outlined fundraising and financial accountability standards. The Standards Program extends evaluation to all the university’s operations. Accreditation through the Standards Program recognizes that Laurier operates in compliance with each of the Imagine Canada Standards of governance, financial accountability and transparency, fundraising, staff and volunteer management.

GLOBAL INNOVATION EXCHANGE UPDATE

Help Build Canada’s Best Business School “Enjoy your time at Laurier.” “Believe and you will achieve!” “Success isn’t given, it’s earned.” “Dream Big!” These statements are just some of the inspirational words donors are passing on to future Laurier students through the Building Canada’s Best Business School fundraising campaign.

The messages will be inscribed on seats in the auditorium of Laurier’s new Global Innovation Exchange building.

For a donation of $2,500, people have the opportunity to name their seat in the GIE auditorium. Donations can be spread over five years and can support any area of the School of Business and Economics. More than 80 per cent of available seats have already been named. If you are interested in naming a seat, visit canadasbestbusinessschool.ca/give/ nameyourseat/ before April 30, 2015.

Donors have put their own names on the seats or have chosen to name seats in honour or memory of loved ones.

The Name Your Seat initiative is part of Laurier’s $55-million campaign for the School of Business and Economics.

The campaign priorities include student scholarships and bursaries, international initiatives, professorships and chairs, entrepreneurship, Startup Fund, Centre for Excellence in Business Education and the GIE. The GIE will be Laurier’s most advanced building when it’s complete in early 2016. Technology will offer seamless collaboration between classrooms, study spaces, labs and centres around the world. Over the winter, crews installed windows, skylights and mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems. They have begun working on the building’s interior finishes. The building is scheduled to open in 2016.

As the magnificent building takes shape, fundraising continues. Thanks to generous alumni, corporations, staff and faculty, the university is more than 65 per cent of the way to its fundraising goal. And momentum continues to build.

Laurier graduate Bill Webb (BBA ’86) kicked off 2015 by announcing in January that he and his wife, Dr. Agnes Wong, were donating $1 million to SBE. Other recent donations include $1 million from the Marsland family to support both the GIE and the Laurier Startup Fund, $100,000 from The Co-operators to fund the study of alternative governance models and $200,000 from National Bank of Canada in support of the LaunchPad entrepreneurship program.

Some alumni are finding creative ways to support SBE. For example, members and friends of the Class of ’66 have come together to reach a goal of $500,000 to name the GIE’s prominent outside terrace. Members of this first graduating class of the School of Business and Economics have raised $300,000 to date and plan to achieve their goal in the coming months. More information on specific class initiatives can be found at canadasbestbusinessschool.ca/give/ class-giving/.

There is still time for you to be part of this exciting campaign to transform the School of Business and Economics and help Laurier offer the best business education and experience in Canada.

Recognition opportunities for yourself, your family or to honour a loved one exist at all levels — from naming a student study space or a special active learning classroom to funding a bike rack or naming a seat in the auditorium. For more information, visit CanadasBestBusinessSchool.com.

LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015 11

research file

Encouraging change Laurier research project addresses gendered violence on campus

by Kevin Crowley

A LAURIER RESEARCH TEAM recently unveiled the findings of a new evidenceinformed report into gendered violence that makes 11 recommendations for changing the culture on campus by enhancing prevention programs and support services.

Called The Change Project, the research involved quantitative and qualitative research undertaken on Laurier’s campuses over a two-year period and includes an environmental scan of promising practices at other universities. The research involved a survey of 570 students, as well as qualitative data collected from interviews, conversations and engagement with another 51 students, staff, faculty and community partners.

The Change Project was led by members of the Social Innovation Research Group in Laurier’s Lyle S. Hallman Faculty of Social Work, in partnership with the Sexual Assault Support Centre of Waterloo Region. The project received funding from Status of Women Canada, the Laurier Student Life Levy, and Mitacs.

The research explored existing efforts to address gendered violence against students on campus, as well as the gaps, barriers and challenges that need to be addressed. The goal was to provide sound evidence to inform the development of strategies to change the culture that enables gendered violence to persist, and to improve prevention programs and support services for survivors.

Small interactions, big implications

by Shawna Reibling

Songbirds in high-tech ‘smart aviaries’ provide clues to social development, Laurier research suggests

THE SMALLEST SOCIAL INTERACTION between two creatures can be very telling. But monitoring and tracking these interactions isn’t always easy.

When your research subjects are birds that stand no more than 30-centimetres tall, tracking minute social behaviour with the naked eye can be close to impossible.

Laurier researcher David J. White is working in a new research paradigm — studying birds in large, semi-natural social environments using a high-tech “social sensor web.”

White studies flocks of birds that live together in large

12 LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2014 2015

enclosures monitored by automated monitoring systems.

Using motion-activated surveillance cameras and audio recording devices, this social sensor web is designed to study how cowbirds, a type of North American songbird, develop into adults in a social environment.

While many labs all over the world are racing to implement these technologies into their research, White’s “smart aviaries” integrate automated individual recognition technology, video tracking and audio recording in a research environment unique to Canada and the world. Recognizing the importance

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“We live in a violent society,” said Principal Researcher Ginette Lafrenière.

“It is therefore important to understand that there is a context here that we must unpack: the gendered violence that we see on campuses is a microcosm of the violence perpetuated towards women within our larger community and society.”

A key finding was the importance of language, definitions and the micro- and macro-aggressions that constitute a spectrum of “gendered violence.”

“While it is hugely important to pay attention to the issue of sexual violence,” said Lafrenière, “it is equally important to pay attention to defining the idea of ‘gendered violence,’ including cat calls, derogatory name calling, homophobic statements and racial slurs. All of these practices and behaviours establish, exploit and reinforce gendered power-inequities that result in physical, sexual, emotional, economic or mental harm.”

Although the research was not designed to make general claims about the prevalence of gendered violence at Laurier, the trends in the types of gendered violence experienced by students generally reflect the findings of research on gendered violence against students in Canada and the United States. While this may be expected, the survey of Laurier students enabled the researchers to

identify important trends in the types of gendered violence students experience.

“The qualitative methods corroborate the finding that gender discrimination and sexual harassment may be some of the most frequent types of gendered violence that students experience,” said Project Coordinator Jay Harrison. “Further, the gendered violence that students experience is fairly ubiquitous in that it happens wherever students are gathering on campus, in the community and online.”

The report commends Laurier for its long-standing efforts to address issues of safety, awareness and support involving gendered violence. But it also identified areas that need improvement, making 11 recommendations grouped in four areas: prioritizing prevention; creating a coordinated, student-centred response; committed, accountable and transparent leadership; and improved collaboration between the university and the community.

Laurier Vice-President: Student Affairs David McMurray welcomed the recommendations.

“As the report states, the Laurier community has been active for many years in addressing the spectrum of issues associated with gendered violence,” said McMurray, who also serves as lead advocate for Laurier’s initiatives to end

of this novel approach, The Canadian Foundation for Innovation’s John R. Evans Leaders Fund recently granted $59,117 in funding for White’s project, which is titled “The Songbird Project: Placing learning and development into a social context.”

By preserving the flock structure, the context in which learning and development occurs for these birds can be studied. However, it is hard to observe individual bird behaviours in flocks. Therefore high-tech sensors and cameras are required to capture tiny social interactions.

“There is dramatic flexibility in characteristics that were never before considered to be influenced by social learning — aggression, mate choice and birdsong,” said White, an associate professor of psychology. “Young males with no access to adult males fail to develop normal behaviour.”

This approach challenges many long-held beliefs in both biology and psychology about how learning evolves. Social complexity has

gendered violence and chair of the Council of Ontario Universities’ Reference Group on addressing issues of sexual violence. “However, it also identifies areas where the university needs to do better. The evidence-informed nature of The Change Project recommendations provides excellent guidance for Laurier as we continue to move forward as an institutional leader in developing inclusive, equitable and compassionate campus communities.”

McMurray said Laurier’s Gendered Violence Steering Group and associated Task Force of over 200 faculty, staff, student and community volunteers, is well positioned to build on The Change Project recommendations and on existing Laurier programs and other proven best practices to shape a distinctive Laurier Gendered Violence Action Plan going forward.

The Laurier action plan is grouped into seven pillars: leadership; enhanced communications; clear policies, protocols, and practices; more education, training and prevention initiatives; enhanced support and services; continued community partnerships; and improved reporting and assessment practices.

The full Change Project report and more details on Laurier’s Gendered Violence Action plan can be found at www.sascwr. org/the-change-project. CAMPUS

long been considered a primary selection force that has favoured the evolution of intelligence.

White, who has been at Laurier since 2012, studies social development and social evolution, with a focus on the impacts of the social environment.

“Smart aviary” video and audio feeds will be made available online. Thanks to this technology, scientists across Canada, as well as the public, can access the video feeds and watch cowbirds learn in action. For more information, visit White’s research website at http://sites.google.com/ site/whitesocialbehaviourlab .

LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015 13

THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED

HOW BILL WEBB’S SENSE OF ADVENTURE LED HIM TO THE TOP OF CANADA’S INVESTMENT INDUSTRY.

story by Katherine Sage | photography by Dean Palmer

14 LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015

campus feature

AS THE EXECUTIVE VICE-PRESIDENT and chief investment officer of Gluskin Sheff + Associates, Bill Webb (BBA ’86) is part of a 140-person firm that oversees $8 billion in portfolios for high net-worth clients. One of Laurier’s strongest supporters, he and his wife, Dr. Agnes Wong, have contributed close to $1.3 million to the university, including gifts to the School of Business and Economics, the Laurier Centre for Economic Research & Policy Analysis, Laurier’s Co-op & Career Services, a BBA entrance scholarship, and a leadership-level gift of $1 million toward building the Global Innovation Exchange.

But Webb’s alumni leadership extends beyond his financial generosity. In recognition of the benefits he received as a Laurier business co-op student, Webb created an outstanding co-op program at Gluskin Sheff just three years after joining the firm. 135 Laurier students have since benefitted from the company’s comprehensive mentorship approach. Ira Gluskin, co-founder of the firm, notes that “some of our best investment people at Gluskin Sheff trained at Laurier.”

In an interview at the Gluskin Sheff offices, high up in one of Toronto’s tallest skyscrapers, Webb shares stories of leadership, teamwork and adventure, starting with his upcoming trip — an extraordinary adventure to one of the most forbidding places on the planet.

LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015 15

IN JANUARY 2016, WEBB WILL BE

flying to Antarctica with a team of 18 civillians and nine Canadian veterans to ascend Vinson Massif, the highest peak on the continent and one of the world’s Seven Summits. It’s a 21-day challenge to reach a mountain that stands 1,200 kilometres from the South Pole and rises upward for 4,890 metres.

The expedition is a high-profile effort by the True Patriot Love Foundation to raise critical funds and awareness for challenges faced by the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces following their service. It will help ensure that our veterans will receive the care they need to recover and reclaim their body and spirit.

“I’m very glad to support this cause,” says Webb. “It’s a great new adventure and a chance to get myself back into the mountain shape I had in my younger days.”

He gained that “mountain shape” from a series of adventures that began just after graduating from Laurier with a BBA in 1986. After three successful co-op terms at IBM, Webb had a promising opportunity from a Canadian consulting firm.

It seemed he was on a clear-cut path for a successful career.

When he found out there would be a two-month waiting period until the job was confirmed, Webb decided to jump on a plane and fly to London to visit a friend. He hoped to find an odd job or two to tide him over.

“I packed a suit, a tie and my rugby kit,” says Webb, a rugby player and coach. “I thought it would be a two-month vacation. I was gone four years.”

Early in the holiday, while wandering in a public library in London’s Chelsea district, Webb happened to read a small advertisement about a course in trading financial futures, mostly bonds and currencies. He hadn’t majored in finance at Laurier and it was an expensive trading course. But a scholarship was available and he decided to tackle it. Soon after he started, he got the call that a job was waiting for him back home. “So, I had a choice to make: safe job in Canada or take a chance on something that might come out of the course? I was loving the course. We were having all kinds of fun. So, I took a deep breath and turned down the job in Canada.”

Four months later, Credit Suisse, the international investment bank, offered him a position. Webb had found

16 LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015

a passion for finance, a clear career path, and an important mentor, Oswald Gruebel.

“1987 was a very volatile year in all financial markets,” says Webb. “Ossi was a man of few words, but he gave me significant responsibility in all that volatility. He showed trust in me. I learned fast, and I learned a lot from my mistakes, as you do in this business. It was a great way to learn. And I was making money. I thought I was rich. I wasn’t, but it felt like that.”

After a little more than a year, Webb began to think about taking time out of his budding career to see more of the world.

When he explained his idea to Gruebel, Webb was offered more money to stay. “When I turned him down again, he said, ‘I can see you’re serious. Well, I think you’re doing the right thing. You’re young, go and see the world. If you run out of money, go into any one of our offices. If there’s a job available, I will be a reference for you.’ That’s the kind of support he offered me.”

For the next year-and-a-half, Webb backpacked through Europe, the Middle East, China, India and Nepal. Finding himself on long train rides, he picked up a Berlitz phrase book and began to learn Mandarin Chinese. He started up conversations with people on the train, “I would teach them a bit of English and they would teach me a bit of Chinese.”

Eventually, the young traveller ended up in China. He was there during the Tiananmen Square tragedy, in a Bill Webb at Zamtang Monestary, a Tibetan Buddhist Monestary, in Aba Prefecture, Sichuan, China, August, 1989

remote area in the Guangxi province. Later that summer, he was in western Sichuan province, in an area closed to foreigners.

He was travelling to Mount Kailash, a sacred pilgrimage site in western Tibet. Although he dressed in local Tibetan clothes, he was discovered as a foreigner and arrested. “They thought I was a spy, or possibly a journalist. I was detained in a remote logging village and interrogated for three days. They let me go, but first I had to write a ‘self-criticism’ — that’s like a confession — and pay a small fine.”

AFTER THAT EXPERIENCE, WEBB HEADED TO AUSTRALIA,

economic force. You could see the enthusiasm for the kind of ‘quasi-capitalism’ that was emerging. And there was a lot development in financial markets and infrastructure.

It was incredibly dynamic. It was a lot like the Wild West.”

When it became clear that his wife would develop her career in Toronto, Webb applied to Gluskin Sheff + Associates. It was a small firm at the time, but rising quickly. Gerry Sheff had been white-water rafting in Nepal and was drawn to Webb’s application because of his travel experience.

His travel time was again paying off in ways he could never have foreseen. “I think a lot of leaders are looking for multidimensional employees. I know I am. I look for employees that show a consistent pattern of achievement, in whatever they have committed themselves to.”

Noting the example of his “non-linear” career development, Webb advises students to “try something different, to be willing to go down a blind alley, to just follow their passion and their instincts. Then your career will become something you love, not a chore to get through.”

where he thought he would return to Credit Suisse in the bank’s Sydney office. But then another advertisement caught his eye.

“An Indian gentleman was taking Aussies, Kiwis and Brits into the Himalayan range of northern Indian and Nepal. He needed someone to help guide them. They were trekking trips, sometimes with Sherpas, for three or four weeks. He pulled out some maps and tested my knowledge of the region, and then gave me the job.”

The position offered only room and board, but Webb saw a WEBB LOVES HIS WORK. “IT’S FASCINATING. THE INVESTMENT chance to spend a year in a beautiful part of the world. “I still world requires you to pull from all kinds of knowledge. I’m had no ties, no responsibilities, so I could do it,” he explains. analyzing the world from the lens of business strategy, finance, Webb continued his adventures economics, politics, sociology, until the fall of 1991, when he psychology — you name it. I’m decided he wanted to formally very glad for my well-rounded study Mandarin Chinese. He education. You have to be aware found a program at McGill of what’s happening all over LAURIER WAS MY University that offered an MBA the world. There’s so much to and a diploma in management, consider in every decision.

COMMUNITY WHEN with a focus on East Asian studies.

“Our team is responsible “I typed out my application for the savings of people and I WAS A STUDENT. on a manual typewriter in organizations, for their pension Beijing. Because the BBA funds and charities. We take that I GAINED AN EXCELLENT program at Laurier had been very seriously. I work hard but I so comprehensive, I was given love what I’m doing.”

EDUCATION, CAREER advanced placement in a number Teamwork plays a huge part of the first-year courses. And in in Webb’s life, both at work and OPPORTUNITIES AND Montreal I met Agnes, who would in his leisure time. He began eventually become my wife.” playing rugby in high school MANY FRIENDS FROM While his future wife began her and continued at Laurier and medical residency in Toronto, overseas. He now coaches at the THAT EXPERIENCE. Webb took on a one-year grassroots level and is on the contract with the Bank Credit Captain’s Council of the Toronto Analyst Research Group. Armed Inner-City Rugby Foundation, with his skill in the language an organization committed to and his understanding of East sharing the game and its values Asia, Webb became one of their first men on the ground in with young people in Toronto.

China. “At the time, the country was really opening up to “Rugby is more than a sport; it’s a whole culture,” he foreign investors. I could sense it was going to be a massive explains. “At its core, there is a set of values that mean a

LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015 17

(Middle photo) Bill Webb after announcing a $1-million donation to Laurier’s School of Business and Economics in January 2015. (L-R): Max Blouw, Laurier president and vice-chancellor; Micheál Kelly, dean: SBE; Webb; Evan Little, SBESS president; Rob Donelson, vice-president: Development and Alumni Relations.

18 LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015

lot to those of us who play. Teamwork, respect, enjoyment, discipline and sportsmanship — those are the values we play the game by. And try to live by.”

Trust and teamwork have played a big role at Gluskin Sheff, says Webb. The support, mentorship and opportunities provided by Ira Gluskin and Gerald Sheff made a huge difference in his development, he adds, and he has tried to carry that into the co-op program.

“I think teamwork and leadership are closely related. In whatever role you’re in, you have to take full responsibility for your part. If everyone is doing that, your chances of success are much higher.

“To take that even further, I think a good leader is also a good team player. It’s important that everyone makes the effort to communicate effectively. Leaders need to show others why taking a particular action will be rewarding to them, and to their team. You have to help them see what’s possible and why something is in their self-interest. Then they are engaged and motivated. Then you’re really working together.”

Webb is delighted to learn that Laurier’s School of Business and Economics has once again taken the title of “School of the Year” at the Jeux de Commerce Central Competition, for the sixth year in a row. “That’s teamwork,” he says, beaming.

“That’s what can happen. And I think it’s that spirit of teamwork and community that makes Laurier such a great university. The school is unique that way. I really believe that. It’s in the culture of the place — in the students, faculty, programs — you name it. The focus is on pulling together to accomplish something great. I love that.

“If I had one piece of advice for Laurier students, just one, I’d say take this chance to learn to become a really proud and productive team member. Be part of a team that is in pursuit of a cause that is important to you. You’ll be much happier and successful in your life. You’ll be off to a great start on your own journey.”

Webb has a few words for his fellow alumni, as well. “Laurier was my community when I was a student. I gained an excellent education, career opportunities and many friends from that experience. Laurier had a huge impact on my life. Now it’s within my circle of support.”

“Being active with Laurier gives you a chance to expand your circle,” says Webb. “You can engage in many ways.

Homecoming is great — but it can be more than that. You can be a role model. You can give back financially. Or you can get involved in the activities at the school again. Just come back and see what appeals to you.

“I’m on Team Laurier. Always will be.” CAMPUS

Thanks to a generous gift that Howard Brown made in his will, exceptional students are receiving the support and encouragement they need to advance their studies.

Photo credit: Ken Jones, University of Toronto Scarborough

Legacy donors give from the heart.

RACHEL KEUNEN CONSIDERS HERSELF one of the lucky ones. She worked hard to earn a chemistry degree from Laurier, but admits the cost of tuition and books was a burden. Then, a few months after graduation, Rachel found out she’d received the Brown Scholarship in Chemistry. The news arrived as a gift, but felt more like a miracle. It allowed her to pay off all her student debt and start a masters degree.

Now Rachel can focus on her research, working to expand our understanding of the world around us.

wlu.ca/giving

DEVE-33-FEB15

To learn how easy it is to make a legacy gift, contact Cec Joyal, at cjoyal@wlu.ca or call 519.884.0710 x3864.

story by Justin Fauteux | photography by Mathew McCarthy

THE ART OF THE BUSINESS OF ART Most chief executive officers spend so much time wearing a suit and tie, that the outfit has become a de facto uniform. It’s so ubiquitous that the term “suit” has become a synonym for the higher ups in an organization, a term that often carries some lessthan-positive connotations.

Jeff Melanson, president and CEO of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, tries to avoid wearing a suit whenever he can. He only wears a tie when he absolutely has to.

“They made me wear a suit because your photographer’s here,” he jokes as he settles into an interview in the lobby of Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall, the building’s iconic glass dome ascending overhead. “You did this to me.”

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LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015 21

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AS MELANSON

(MBA ’99) describes his job and what keeps him motivated, he sounds, at times, like your standard “suit”, discussing shifting economic models and spending his days in meetings. But he takes on a different tone when describing his favourite part of the day: “At least once a day, I get to have a beautiful conversation with someone who’s got a great idea about changing the world or creativity and its application in society.”

Melanson is a trained opera singer (the main reason he doesn’t like wearing ties: “as a singer, it’s too constricting”) who also has his MBA. Memorable moments from his career include helping the National Ballet School of Canada to a massive increase in revenues, but also starting ballet lessons as a six-foot-six 33-year-old — “I didn’t hurt anyone, or myself, so I’d say it was successful,” he quips on his time learning dance.

It is this unique combination of arts and business, a balance he honed during his time in Laurier’s MBA program, that led him to where he is today.

“I could not be doing what I’m doing without both skill sets, there’s no doubt about that,” he says. “Sometimes if you’re an arts leader without business acumen, it’s harder to raise the kind of money you need to produce the kind of ideas you’d like to see come to fruition.

“But the artistic side inspires bigger thinking and imagination and creates a connection between your inner and outer worlds.”

BIG IDEAS

are something Melanson has brought to every stop of his professional career. His habit of challenging the status quo has led to a reputation as someone who can inject new life into some of Canada’s most entrenched arts institutions.

At the age of 28, Melanson was appointed dean of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto after starting his arts administration career with Opera Ontario in 1999.

One of the first things he noticed was that the renowned Canadian music school was missing a wide range of the population.

“People would ask me, ‘What is it like to run one of the largest community music schools in the world in the world’s most ethnically diverse city,’ and the truth of it was, if you were to walk into that school you’d have no clue you were in Toronto,” says Melanson. “We did a demographic study and discovered we were training a very, very affluent and not very ethnically diverse part of Toronto.”

During Melanson’s time at the helm of the Royal Conservatory, the school significantly broadened its horizons, adding academic programs in world music, jazz, rock and pop and even a DJ technique class. He also helped launch an urban arts program that brought music into

22 LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015

underserved and less affluent communities in Toronto.

Melanson says working with Royal Conservatory President Peter Simon was what taught him the ins and outs of fundraising for an arts organization. His time with the Royal Conservatory also provided a handy lesson in dealing with push-back from people entrenched in the status quo.

“You can imagine how some people reacted to adding a DJ program to the Royal Conservatory of Music; we got a lot of fun mail on that one,” Melanson says with a chuckle.

“Change isn’t easy for everyone, but if you’re being driven by the right values and principles, it doesn’t really matter what someone says about you.”

After five years with the Royal Conservatory, Melanson was named executive director and co-CEO of Canada’s National Ballet School (NBS). At his first board meeting with the NBS, the main item on the agenda was bankruptcy.

The school had lost $2 million the year before Melanson arrived and was on track to lose another $3 million the coming year.

True to form, Melanson led an unorthodox solution to the school’s money problems.

“The ‘normal’ way to react would be to cut your expenses by $2 or $3 million, but I’m an abnormal guy, so I didn’t really respond to that. What we did was we basically just put a full-court press on every revenue we could find,” says Melanson, who was also an adult student at the NBS during his time there.

Through an aggressive push for government funding and an ambitious fundraising campaign, the NBS saw its total revenues increase from $10 million in 2006 to $22 million in 2011, a dramatic improvement in the midst of an economic downturn.

Further proof of Melanson’s willingness to go against the grain: he was the arts adviser to former Toronto mayor Rob Ford. As Ford entered office in 2010 with promises of “stopping the gravy train,” Melanson agreed to be a liaison between the mayor’s office and Toronto’s arts community on one condition — that Ford not cut the city’s arts budget.

In 2012, Melanson would leave Toronto for a new position as president of the globally renowned Banff Centre. Nestled in the Canadian Rockies, the Banff Centre is one of the world’s leading arts institutions and Melanson calls being its president a “dream job.” He didn’t waste any time getting started, announcing plans to shift the centre’s vision towards becoming an arts incubator of sorts, developing content of all types and supporting artists; and also to expand the

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institution’s facilities and funding models.

After two years in Banff, Melanson stepped down from his position. The main reason: his kids — Caelan, Madeleine and Claire — were living back in Toronto with his ex-wife. Melanson made the difficult decision to leave the Banff Centre and accepted his current position with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, which he began in November 2014, bringing along his usual grand vision.

“I love the fact that the international discourse around orchestras is that they’re dying. I’m an impossiblist so I kind of love the challenge,” he says.

MELANSON REMEMBERS

the moment he knew he would devote his life to the arts. He was in Grade 10 and during a school trip to France his class heard a choir sing in a Gothic cathedral. “This is going to sound really hokey, but it was almost like this music hit me and it just permeated my soul,” he says. “From that moment until now, my life has been about the arts and culture. That was really the moment, the turning point.”

Growing up in Winnipeg, Melanson played hockey and football and spent most of his time cheering for the Jets and Blue Bombers. He always had an interest in music, but it wasn’t until that moment in the French cathedral that

he says something inside him awoke. After high school, he played it safe, enrolling in an applied math program at the University of Manitoba. But the voice inside encouraging him to follow his passion for the arts proved too strong and he switched his degree to music, focusing on voice and choral conducting.

After graduating, he performed for a few years, even doing some post-grad studying at the renowned Oberlin College and Conservatory in Oberlin, Ohio. But soon, a few realities were starting to set in.

“I became a dad, which is a moment of pause that causes you to think about what your life contribution is actually going to be and how you’re going to pay the bills,” he says. “I also remember noticing that there were many, many people who could sing like I could sing and I started realizing I’ve really always been an ideas person.”

Around that time, a friend encouraged Melanson to consider taking his MBA. At first, he was skeptical, “I thought, ‘I can’t do an MBA, I have a music degree, you can’t go from a music degree to an MBA.’” After realizing he was indeed qualified to enrol in an MBA program, Melanson chose Laurier based on the reputation of its program and a few recommendations from people in the business field. After moving his growing

“ I love the fact that the international discourse around orchestras is that they’re dying.

I’m an impossiblist so I kind of love the challenge” LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015 23

entrepreneurship.

“You could walk down the street and bump into someone who was suddenly worth millions of dollars.

And these were people whose imagination was driven by building things that didn’t yet exist,” Melanson says. “That’s what I love to do now, take these established institutions and try to re-imagine what else we can do.”

AS THE CONVERSATION

family to Kitchener-Waterloo, he quickly realized that not only did he have a knack for things like finance and valuation, he genuinely enjoyed them.

Melanson was inspired by Laurier accounting professor Howard Teall, who passed away in 2004, remembering him as “an extraordinary man who had a way of synthesizing an incredible amount of detail into the life lessons we all took away.” As he continued to learn the nuts and bolts of business, Melanson started to realize how he could combine his newfound skill set with his artistic background.

“As I completed my MBA, I really realized that I could apply the combination of the business and the artistic skill sets and basically enact this vision that I have about everyone in society being creative and trying to awaken that creative potential.”

The late 1990s were also a particularly interesting time to live in Waterloo Region. As Research In Motion took off and BlackBerry became a household name, the region became a hub for technical innovation and

“ That’s what I love to do now, take these established institutions and try to re-imagine what else we can do.”

24 LAURIER CAMPUS

Spring 2015

at Roy Thomson Hall broadens in scope, the easy-going Melanson is emphatic when discussing something he takes very seriously: the future of the arts.

Melanson’s approach to reinvigorating arts institutions has become known as “cultural entrepreneurship.”

Fitting, considering his background straddling arts and business. He believes that in the current reality of declining government funding for arts programs and pervasive arguments over the relevance of the arts, some re-imagination of what arts institutions can be to different audiences is necessary.

While some of this re-imagination will inevitably involve new economic models to make arts organizations financially sustainable, money should never be the sole focal point, says Melanson.

“When we try to do something important in the world the first question is always, ‘How are you going to make a living at that?’ or ‘Does it break even?’ or ‘Is it profitable?’ I’m not sure that should be the case. We have to be thoughtful about sustainability, for sure, but that has to be weighed with what we’re trying to build.”

Economics are one threat to the future of arts and culture; another is the education system. Melanson worries that cuts in arts education will not only stunt the development of the next generation of musicians, sculptors and actors, but also have broader ramifications.

“Rather than accepting that we’re in a pioneering era in terms of imagination and creativity in the economy, we’re basically still training people to do the jobs of yesterday,” he says.

“The arts inspire creativity and imagination and economically we’re in a time that requires radical, entrepreneurial behaviour.”

Despite its challenges, Melanson has a firm opinion about the future of the arts. He believes that artistic expression is ingrained in everyone — to walk is to dance, to speak is to sing, to have a pulse is to have an internal metronome.

“For art to die, humanity would have to die first.” CAMPUS

ATTENTION CLASSES OF

2010 2005 1995 1990 1985 1975 1965

5th 10th 20th 25th 30th 40th 50th

Waterloo | September 25-27 Brantford | October 24 You may have graduated, but you’re still a Hawk!

WANT TO REALLY BE PART OF HOMECOMING? Help organize your reunion. Find out how you can help: laurieralumni.ca/reunions or contact Heather Bolton at hbolton@wlu.ca (Waterloo) or Penny Friesen at pfriesen@wlu.ca (Brantford).

laurieralumni.ca/homecoming

Don’t wait until homecoming to connect with classmates!

LaurierAlumni | #LaurierHomecoming

campus feature

FROM TO

Alison Wearing shares all in her deeply personal writing and performance story by Carol Jankowski photography by John Ternan

26 LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015

A

lison Wearing is a gifted and accomplished writer and actor, but if asked what she does, she tailors her response to where she is — and who is asking.

“If I’m in Stratford, where there are so many wonderful actors, directors, producers, I say I’m a writer because there are so few writers there,” she says. “If I’m around writers, I might say I’m a performer. I often feel more qualified in the other area.”

No such modesty is required. Wearing’s books, acclaimed for their lyricism, humour and humanity, and her one-woman storytelling on stage are parts of a whole, although it took actor/director Stuart Cox’s description of her animated book readings as “theatre” for her to believe it.

keeping in feature touch campus

n stage, with a prance, a cartwheel, a hunch or shrug of her shoulders or tilt of her head, her body language carries the audience from childhood to maturity as she acts out the story she tells so articulately and sensitively in book form.

Props as simple as a smock, a silk scarf, a gold lamé jacket and a screen behind her showing images of notorious police raids on Toronto’s gay bathhouses juxtaposed with happy family photos, establish the passage of time for her narrative.

For Wearing (BA ‘89), one thing tends to emerge from another. Back in 2000, what started as a series of short stories about adventures and people encountered while travelling in a foreign land grew into her first book, Honeymoon in Purdah: An Iranian Journey. And in 2013, what began as a play and a type of remembrance was ultimately published as Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter: Growing Up With a Gay Dad, a memoir she now performs as a one-woman show.

Her writing is intensely personal, and both books, published by Alfred A. Knopf Canada, were classified as nonfiction. Wearing finds all such categories “unhelpful.”

“I’ve never ‘fit’ in fiction or nonfiction; in fact I’ve never fit in any box my whole life,” she says in an interview at Wilf’s on Laurier’s Waterloo campus.

“There is so much colourful area in between.”

The foundation for Honeymoon was Wearing’s visit to Iran with a common-law partner. When they learned they would only be allowed into the country if they were married, they forged a marriage certificate and bought rings. Hence the title of the book, which was written a year after they broke up.

“I didn’t want the story to be derailed by our breakup. I had already made up characters to protect some people in Iran, and service to the narrative is a writer’s ultimate responsibility,” Wearing says. “Yet somehow it was classified as travel/nonfiction.”

She feels the same way about Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter although it is firmly rooted in her family history. “The tough thing about a memoir is what to leave out — how to find a path through the wilderness of your life,” she explains. “I knew the book had to focus on the relationship between me and my father.”

Wearing was 12 when her mother revealed that her somewhat flamboyant, deeply loved father was continued next page>

LAURIER LAURIERCAMPUS CAMPUSWinter Spring 2013 2015 27

“ I’ve never ‘fit’ in fiction or nonfiction; in fact I’ve never fit in any box my whole life...

There is so much colourful area in between” gay. It was the late 1970s, before there were role models for gay men who were also caring husbands and fathers.

In writing the memoir, Wearing worried that by focusing on her dad she wouldn’t do justice to her mother, a piano teacher enthralled by music, who was “there virtually always” as her children grew up.

“It was not an easy book for my mother to read,” Wearing says.

Her mother comes to the fore later in the book when Wearing, 29 and broken-hearted after the collapse of her common-law relationship, retreats to her mother’s home on a small farm in Cavan Township, southwest of Peterborough, where her mother was grieving the death of her second husband.

The women mourned together, her mother at the piano, Wearing through writing. Yoga, tea by the fire, long walks through fields and hardwood forests became their therapy, as Wearing describes in the memoir: “Daily and in every weather we padded the same path; past the garden, alongside the pond, across acres of old pasture, over the shoulder of the wetland and into the forest. Day after day we circled its same loop, breathing in its geography until it swept into me and became part of my own.”

Finally Wearing could ask her mother what she did after learning from a letter that her husband was gay. Her mother replied that she’d called her sister to look after the children, packed a tent and sleeping bag, a loaf of bread and tins of tuna into the car, and headed north: “‘So what did you do — just lie in your tent and cry?’

28 LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015

‘No, I hiked up to the top of this big granite cliff overlooking the lake. It was so beautiful. I just couldn’t believe how peaceful it was....Then at night, I went swimming.

I’d never done that before, in the dark, no one else around....Then I came home, hired a lawyer, filed for divorce on the grounds of homosexuality, and had the papers delivered to your dad’s office at the university.’

We listened to Bach that night, and then my mother went to bed. I was brittle with exhaustion, but couldn’t sleep. Eventually I got up and lit a fire in the back room, settled into the rocking chair and stared out the long windows, imagining her swimming in that quiet, dark lake.” t 17, still unsettled by her father’s sexual orientation, Wearing went on a student language exchange to France where she fell in love with exploring. At the end of the course, she bought a train pass and travelled for three months, sleeping in hostels, seeing free concerts and museums, and sharing food with transient friends. It was the start of her love affair with travel.

She entered university at Western, but transferred to Laurier for her second year after hearing her brother Peter (BA ’88) speak highly of his time at university. She was majoring in political science when she spotted a poster about studying at one of Europe’s oldest universities. It led to “a marvellous watershed year” at Germany’s University of Marburg, a year in which she visited the Middle East for the first time during a break between semesters.

When she returned for her final year at Laurier, Wearing found new purpose

in organizing Green Week, held in the Laurier Concourse in March 1989. It could have been called Activism Week, given elements ranging from information tables on environmental and political issues, an Amnesty International petition and a Greenpeace lecture, to exiled Chileans painting a mural on canvas, and a debate between a Laurier professor and a Torontobased representative of the African National Congress.

Green Week made The Cord’s March 16, 1989 cover and, like any campus activity, it found believers and critics. The following week in The Cord, Wearing fired back at people who labelled her a “hypocritical lesbian Marxist” and called Green Week “a euphemism for a deceptive Communist plot.”

“It doesn’t take much to agitate the lingering paranoid cold warriors,” she wrote. If the Music Association’s Nicaraguan Benefit Concert booth raising money to buy sheet music for an impoverished orchestra “constitutes being a communist pig, then I guess I am guilty as charged.”

Acknowledging that she’s “just not a classroom learner,” Wearing did most of her learning through experience. So it’s little surprise she lived a peripatetic lifestyle for over a decade following university, exploring Germany, Israel, the Soviet Union, China and the Middle East, taking any day job that was available.

“I started travelling because I didn’t have a sense of home,” she says. “I felt I didn’t belong. Then I got the bug: I just loved learning about new places and languages.”

Alison Wearing in the Maureen Forrester Recital Hall on Laurier’s Waterloo campus.

Wearing was back on campus for a performance in early February.

It was while living in Prague shortly after the Velvet Revolution in what was then called Czechoslovakia that she began to write, mostly journal entries or letters, although she also published an essay about Prague’s government and a prize-winning short story.

“I travelled for 13 or 14 years before coming back to Canada to live. Then it was time to make peace with my home. In scorning where I was from, it was a type of self-loathing.” hree years ago, after nearly a decade in Mexico, Wearing, her partner Jarmo Jalava and their son Noah settled in Stratford. Now 47, she’s slightly amazed to find herself a first-time homeowner, but loves the location of their house around the corner from the Festival Theatre. “I didn’t want to live in a big city,” she says. “I was looking for a European-style town, somewhere where we could walk or bike everywhere, and we can do that in Stratford. It’s a small town with a big mind.”

It also suits Jalava, an ecological consultant whose work for clients including First Nations currently ranges from the Bruce Peninsula to the Carolinian forest.

The couple met 17 years ago when Jalava was doing an ecological survey of her mother’s

land and Wearing answered his knock at the door.

Noah, now 15, was eager to attend high school in English, and spent two seasons performing with the Stratford Festival in Waiting for Godot and King John.

Noah has “developed a love of the language of Shakespeare quite independently of me; it’s kind of a music to him,” Wearing says.

Wearing estimates she is halfway through writing a novel. She started it eight years ago and doesn’t know when it will be finished.

Writers’ lives are busier than they once were, “We’re now expected to promote our writing, be on social media, blogging,” Wearing says.

Regularly invited to perform her one-act play based on Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter, she still gets involved, though to a lesser degree now, in booking venues and hiring technicians for it. The actual performance accounts for about 10 per cent of the time she devotes to getting her play on stage.

Wearing came to acting hesitantly. “I guess I’m a writer first, but I was resistant to working with a script because I like speaking extemporaneously — I can feel a dialogue even if the audience is not speaking.”

She began performing at theatre festivals, and something clicked when she read a

review of a performance in Hamilton that called her a singer, actor and dancer. “I love dance and I sing, but I’m not wedded to the structure of theatre,” she says. “I’m still interested in exploring non-traditional presentations — that really lights me up.”

Frequently finding audiences on university campuses and, particularly with Confessions, in Pride groups — last summer she had a five-day run at WorldPride in Toronto — Wearing sometimes packages a performance with a book signing and a writing workshop the following day. “Then the show folds up so I can pack it into my car.”

At the same time, perhaps because her shows depend entirely on her, she finds it hard to move between acting and writing.

She’s become more guarded with her time and more selective about what she does.

Ultimately, Wearing says, “What I’m most interested in is the territory between acting, writing and music.” CAMPUS

LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015 29

IN MEMORIAM

Laurier mourns the loss of a family man and community leader

by Erin Almeida

Mentor, relationship-builder, leader, award-winner and devoted family man are just a few of the words that describe the late Arthur Stephen.

ARTHUR (BA ’73), who passed away on Jan. 10 at the age of 68, was a dedicated and long-serving member of the Laurier community who made many contributions to the university and was a leader in the university advancement field in Canada and internationally.

Arthur enrolled as a student in 1969, after meeting a friend who was studying at what was then called Waterloo Lutheran University, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1973. A year later, he returned to campus as an admissions officer and would go on to hold numerous leadership posts in student recruitment, public affairs, alumni relations and development. After accomplishing significant success in these areas, Arthur was promoted to vice-president: advancement in 1997, a post he held for 10 years.

Along the way, Arthur used his keen eye for nurturing talent, mentoring many people who are still at Laurier today.

“I’ve had the gift of learning from Arthur for the past 25 and half years when he hired me in 1989 to work as a liaison

officer after having graduated from Laurier,” said Jennifer Casey, acting assistant vice president: enrolment services at Laurier. “Without question Arthur was the ultimate ambassador of Laurier and so woven into the fabric of who we have become as an institution. His relationships connected the university with partners far-reaching and created many new and exciting opportunities.”

Over the years, Arthur’s reputation and strong sense of relationship-building earned him numerous accolades. He was known as a visionary for his approach to student recruitment and university advancement. He earned the Outstanding Achievement in Advancement Award from the Canadian Council for the Advancement of Education and the prestigious Steuben Apple Award from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education in the United States.

Along with his many contributions to Laurier, Arthur will be fondly remembered for many things: decorating Laurier’s Waterloo campus with ivy,

Without question, Arthur was the ultimate ambassador of Laurier – Jennifer Casey, acting assistant vice-president: enrolment services, on Arthur’s deep relationship with the institution.

30 LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015

Arthur Stephen stands in the quad on the Waterloo campus, surrounded by ivy (2008). his driving skills and his habit of losing his car keys, and his passion for statistics.

One way Arthur put his statistical know-how to work was by improving Laurier’s position in the MacLean’s university rankings. When the first issue was released in 1990, the magazine ranked Canadian universities from one to 44. Predictably, universities like Laurier and Brock didn’t rank very well, and Arthur was incensed.

What perturbed him was that small, emerging liberal arts institutions were being compared with large universities with established medical and law schools.

He went to work, as he always did, with pen and paper, working out what he felt was a more fair comparison, ranking Canadian universities in three groupings.

He went to the Maclean’s offices in person and met with then editor Anne Dowsett Johnson, and in his usual charming, insightful, way showed her the unfairness of Maclean’s initial approach. The magazine agreed, and reformatted subsequent comparisons, using Arthur’s hand-written model. For years after, Arthur was an unpaid advisor to Maclean’s, making suggestions on how they handled their data.

“His impact was legendary and even after retiring from Laurier he still continued next page>

Gary Lambert: one of Laurier’s unsung heroes

by Justin Fauteux

Finance and administration people rarely get headlines.

And that’s just how Gary Lambert liked it.

A LAURIER ALUMNUS and longtime employee of the university, Gary passed away Jan. 10 at the age of 70. He is remembered as one of the unsung heroes who helped Laurier become the institution it is today.

“He was never one to self-promote, he was not a headline grabber, he just wanted to do what was right,” said Jim Butler, Laurier vice-president: finance and administration. “He’s going to be tremendously missed. ” FOLLOWING HIS GRADUATION from Waterloo Lutheran University, Gary (BBA ’67) earned his CA and CMA designations, before starting his career at Coopers & Lybrand. In 1973, he took a job at his alma mater, which had been renamed Wilfrid Laurier University, and what followed was a successful 40-year career in Laurier’s finance department.

Known for his quiet leadership and non-stop work ethic, Gary played a key role in Laurier’s development from a small, primarily undergraduate university to the comprehensive multi-campus university it is today. He retired as the

continued from previous page >

poured over the newly released Maclean’s university issues and continued to make statistical breakdowns of their data with his pen and blank pages in his everpresent DayTimer,” said Doug Geddie, president of Geddie Advertising and a long-time friend and colleague of Arthur.

IN 2008, recognizing it was time he passed the torch to the next generation, Arthur retired from Laurier and focused on his two other loves: his family and

university’s assistant vice-president: Finance in 2013.

“When Gary started here it was such a small school,” said Butler, who worked closely with Gary from 2002-14. “He was part of some periods of extraordinary growth. And with that growth comes huge demands on the administrative side that I think most people wouldn’t normally appreciate.”

GARY GREW UP in Waterloo Region and he and his wife Marion stayed in the area to raise their sons, Kevin and Kyle, who also remained in the region. Gary was also a grandfather of three. A love of his job and the university, and the family roots he put down in the region, were large parts of why Gary remained such a loyal member of the Laurier community.

“Once he set down roots, it was hard to move him,” said Butler.

Gary Lambert at his retirement party in 2013.

“He always loved his job and loved Laurier and I think he just really liked the community.”

Though Gary officially retired in December 2013, he continued to work in a part-time capacity, applying his knowledge to special projects, until shortly before his passing.

After his retirement, Gary received Laurier’s 40-year service award. Upon presenting Gary with the award, Pam Cant, assistant vice-president of human resources, spoke of his extraordinary contributions to the university.

“Gary’s work has been quietly and not so quietly appreciated by all who have had the pleasure of working for and with him over a span of four decades,” said Cant.

“His dedication to Laurier is unmatched. His contributions have been unparalleled.” CAMPUS

He was part of some periods of extraordinary growth. – Jim Butler, vice-president:

finance and administration, on Gary’s ability to meet the demands of his role through quiet leadership and a non-stop work ethic.

sports. Arthur was one of the Golden Hawks’ biggest fans, always making his presence known at football games and golf tournaments. An avid golfer himself, he travelled to courses across Canada, the United States, and his native Scotland.

Geddie recalls travelling to Scotland with Arthur a few years ago and playing on Gleneagles. “We were standing on the 16th tee, and I said, ‘Arthur, look at this hole. It’s a classic with those huge bunkers guarding a pushed-up green.’

Arthur lifted his eyes from the scorecard and squinted at the hole like it was something he’d never seen before. ‘Yeah, it’s pretty,’ he said, ‘but you’re two down and we’ve got three to go.’”

Arthur, and all he accomplished at Laurier, has left a strong imprint that will remain an important piece of the university’s history. Though his absence is deeply felt by colleagues and community members alike, his legend and legacy will live on in the culture he helped establish. CAMPUS

LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015 31

keeping in touch

Q&A

Matt Cade: Working behind the scenes at TSN After graduating from Laurier, Matt Cade (BA ’02) went on to study journalism at Ryerson, hoping for a career as a newspaper reporter. But a chance encounter with Elliotte Friedman, one of hockey’s most prominent TV personalities, changed his course towards a career in broadcasting. Today, Cade is a feature producer for TSN, working behind the scenes on some of the network’s most fascinating stories.

What does a feature producer do and what kinds of stories do you work on?

Our aim is to tell compelling stories.

Feature producers coordinate and conduct interviews, shoot elements that help tell the story visually, structure stories, write scripts, sometimes alongside a reporter or host, and put it all together with the immense help of an editor. For me, that’s meant a lot of hockey, including prospect profiles on Nathan MacKinnon and Connor McDavid, among many others; [Montreal goalie] Carey Price competing in rodeos in the off-season; [L.A. Kings head coach] Darryl Sutter’s unique post-game press conferences; and Taro Tsujimoto, a fictional player created and then drafted by the Buffalo Sabres in 1974.

How many hours of work go into the average feature we’d see on TSN? It depends on the story. If the interviews are local and the story’s straightforward, it’s maybe a few days of work. But things are often more complicated than that, and it’s not unusual for a producer to work several weeks on a story doing things like researching, pre-interviews, shooting, writing and editing. I’ve been doing this for six years now and it often still hits me: “All this work for only five minutes of television?”

32 LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015

What are some memorable destinations your job has brought you to?

Twice I travelled to the Ivan Hlinka Memorial Cup, a hockey tournament played every August in two towns: Piestany, Slovakia and Breclav, Czech Republic. Beautiful towns and a unique experience for me: the only times I’ve been outside of North America for work.

The Ivan Hlinka is an annual tournament for under-18s, and nearly all the top prospects play. The games in Piestany are played in the same Soviet-era arena where the infamous Canada/USSR World Junior brawl happened in 1987.

Are there any features you’ve produced that you’re particularly proud of?

You never really finish a feature and think, “perfect.” Second-guessing is an infinite state. But last fall we told Bryan Murray’s story. Murray is the general manager of the Ottawa Senators and is living with Stage-4 cancer. If he’d been properly screened, his cancer could have been avoided. The story motivated several people that we know of to schedule a colonoscopy and at least one of them discovered he had precancerous polyps, which means they caught it in time. No other stories I’ve produced have had that kind of impact.

Who’s the most compelling person you’ve interviewed?

Murray. It’s rare that a person is open and honest about personal and intimate things, about sickness and death and regret. Rarer still to be so open and honest on camera.

Through your career you’ve seen your share of hockey arenas. What rink had the best atmosphere?

I was fortunate to be able to work three Stanley Cups: ‘06, ’07 and ’08. I don’t know if the [Carolina] Hurricanes’ arena — which was at that time called the RBC Center — was the best, but it was incredible, and it stands out in my mind I think because it was the first Cup Final game I’d ever been to. And, quite frankly, I was stunned to see how passionate the fans in North Carolina were about their hockey team.

You’ve covered a lot of junior hockey and NHL prospects. What’s it like getting to see the next generation of stars?

I enjoy producing features on the

keeping in touch

Cade working on a shoot for TSN’s version of the hit viral video “Out for a Rip” prospects. They’re young and they haven’t necessarily lived particularly interesting lives yet (eat, play hockey, work out, sleep, repeat), but they have this incredible skill and this equally incredible focus and dedication. It’s fascinating to get to know someone — even if it’s only for a few days — on the verge of money and fame and this titanic shift in their lives.

Why did you want to get into broadcast sports journalism?

I didn’t. After writing and editing at The Cord for three years, the goal was to work as a newspaper reporter. But a chance meeting with Elliotte Friedman while I was studying journalism at Ryerson — I was a bartender at his sister’s wedding — pointed me toward television. Friedman’s advice was simple: there were a lot more jobs in broadcast than in print. It’s absolutely the right place for me. Thank you, Elliotte.

How did you break into the industry?

While I was at Ryerson, I started working

at the FAN, a sports radio station in Toronto. I cold-called the morning show producer one day and, for some reason, he gave me a job clipping audio from Maple Leafs games on Saturday nights that the on-air guys and girls would use for their updates. It wasn’t a paying gig, but it turned into a job a few months later. The next year, I got an internship at TSN in the SportsCentre newsroom. I’ve been with TSN ever since.

What do you remember most about your time at Laurier?

The people. Lifelong friendships, many of which began in the Cord office. Plus the co-ed intramural soccer championship. We were total underdogs.

Would you say your time at Laurier helped get you where you are today?

Of course. My time at Student Publications in particular connected me with the world really for the first time in my life, and it led me to my career. Though the stakes may have been lower, a year as editor-in-chief

at The Cord was as demanding and intense as anything I’ve done since.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

The creativity, the flexibility, the movement and travel. Meeting new people with new and different stories each month, each year. Senior producers who give me great opportunities. A chance to work with some of the best sports journalists in the country, like James Duthie and Michael Farber.

What advice do you have for people looking to get into the field?

I’m never sure how to answer this question. It’s not for everyone. Be patient.

Work hard. Watch sports. Read about sports. Seek out interesting and compelling stories. Do not hope for a Bay Street salary. Get experience however you can, write for your student publication, work at your local TV station. Prove yourself, then prove yourself invaluable.

Follow Matt on twitter at: @TSNMattCade

LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015 33

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wlu.ca/career

keeping in touch

ALUMNI UPDATES Andy Macaulay (BBA ’80) was inducted into the Marketing Hall of Legends. For more than 30 years, Macaulay has worked to refine the smartest, most effective way to build brands in Canada. He also helped launch and build two of the most innovative and celebrated advertising agencies in the industry.

1960s

Stacey Mowbray (MBA ’84) was appointed president of Weight Watchers Canada.

John Varley (BA ’69) received the Etobicoke Outstanding Community Volunteer Service Award for his years of dedicated service to the Out of the Cold program.

1970s

Lisa LaFlamme (LLD ’06) was named to the Women’s Executive Network 2014 Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women.

Cheryl Regehr (BA ’78) was re-appointed as vice-president and provost at the University of Toronto.

1980s Dave Addison (BA ’86, BusDip ’87) has joined Toronto City Mission as Executive Director. TCM is the oldest and longest running mission in Toronto and is celebrating its 135th anniversary this year. TCM serves families impacted by poverty in five priority neighbourhoods across the GTA. Dave lives in Toronto with his wife, Tracey and their sons, Jason and Michael.

Charmeli Naraine (BA ’89) was named to the Women’s Executive Network 2014 Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women.

Berry Vrbanovic (BA ’88, BusDip ’89) was elected mayor of the City of Kitchener. Prior to running for mayor, Vrbanovic served six consecutive terms (1994-2014) on Kitchener City Council.

1990s

Ed Devlin (BBA ’88), head of Canadian portfolio management for investment firm PIMCO, received a prestigious Lipper Fund Award. This award honours investment funds that have excelled in consistently delivering risk-adjusted performance.

Kelly Murumets (MSW ’96), president and CEO of Tennis Canada, was featured in the Financial Post Magazine’s article “Leveling the Playing Field” where she was celebrated for her continued work in support of sport and physical activity in Canada.

Frank Erschen (BBA ’81) was named the Golden Triangle Angel Network’s 2014 David Borges’ Community Builder of the Year. A not-for-profit corporation, Golden Triangle Angel Network members provide financial support and mentorship to dynamic and innovative local early-stage companies.

2000s

Walter Hachborn (OC, LLD ’85), co-founder of Home Hardware, was inducted into the Canadian Business Hall of Fame. Hachborn’s work in the Waterloo region and his commitment to Laurier is longstanding.

Jack Jackowetz (BBA ’81) displayed 21 of his art pieces at Brantford’s Yellow Brick Wall exhibition in February. Jackowetz’s photographic style is known for capturing history and reflecting emotions. The exhibit featured many Brantford landmarks.

Shadrach “Shad” Kabango (BBA ’05) has been named the full-time host of CBC Radio show Q. The Juno Award-winning rapper was named to the high-profile position in March after a week-long guest hosting stint in January.

Greg Dean (BA ’08), Brandon Snow (BA ’03) and Stephen Groff (BA ’07) of CI Investments Inc. received a prestigious Lipper Fund Award. This award honours investment funds that have excelled in consistently delivering risk-adjusted performance.

Paul Maxwell (BBA ’07) celebrated the grand opening of Maxwell’s Concerts and Events at 35 University Ave. East, Waterloo.

Maxwell grew up loving music — both playing and going to shows. He credits his success in this new venture to his entrepreneurial training and support at Laurier.

Kelly Merrifield (B. Ed. ’08) received the prestigious Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario’s 2014 New Member Award. As a kindergarten teacher at Dundalk and Proton Community School in Dundalk, Ontario, Merrifield was instrumental in implementing and facilitating a summer literacy camp for at-risk students.

IN MEMORIAM Rev. Dr. E. Earl Anderson (BA ’50, DIPL ’53), Jan. 18. A respected pastor and community leader, Earl is remembered for teaching in positive, nurturing and often humorous ways.

Margaret A. Evans (nee MacLaren), Dec. 20. Respected and valued member of the Laurier community, Margaret was a past lecturer, librarian and dean of women.

Based on her significant contributions, she was made an honorary member of Laurier’s Alumni Association.

Gordon McDougall, professor emeritus, Jan. 23. Recipient of the first School of Business and Economics’ Outstanding Teacher Award, Gordon first began teaching at Laurier in 1977. For more than 30 years, Gordon could be seen teaching and enjoying a variety of sports at Laurier. In lieu of flowers, the family requested donations be made to Laurier in his memory.

LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015 35

Travelling through life together.

BROADEN YOUR HORIZONS and enjoy exclusive intellectual opportunities as you travel around the

world with Laurier alumni. We work with carefully selected travel partners to take you on some of the most remarkable journeys the world has to offer. Join your fellow alumni, family and friends on one of our incredible trips, enhanced by a top-notch educational experience.

laurieralumni.ca/travel

postcard to home

Greetings from

FRANCE

By Andrea Lacerte-Morin (BA ’97) It was 20 years ago this winter that I visited Laurier’s International Office feeling the need to improve my French.

Both my grandparents had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and were rapidly losing their capacity to speak English. With a French last name and very little connection to my French heritage, I knew I needed to go to a Frenchspeaking environment.

I was expecting to go to Quebec for a semester but I ended up accepting a spot in the Ontario-Rhone Alpes exchange program. Within weeks I was preparing for a year abroad in Lyon, France, where I would continue working towards my degree in Religion and Culture at the Catholic University of Lyon.

Within weeks of being in France, I felt at home, and in three months in Lyon I fell in love with the man I now call my husband. This of course helped my language skills improve rapidly because his spoken English was as bad as my spoken French at the time!

The year flew by and it was time to make some decisions.

My future husband had his army duty in Metz, and I had to return to Waterloo to finish my studies. When I returned home, I was finally able to have conversations with my ailing grandparents in their native language before they

passed. Meanwhile, keeping up a long-distance relationship was not cheap! Thanks to a job at Laurier’s dining hall, I was able to pay my incredible phone bills — this was before the time of Skype — until graduation came and I was free to go back.

After obtaining a three-month student work/travel visa, I was on my way to France with little money in my pocket, not quite knowing how I was going to make this work.

I moved in with my future in-laws and worked at an American-style restaurant. But I needed to remain a student to stay in France, so I obtained my master’s degree while working part time. Eventually, I got married and had a wonderful son. After working as a translator for many years, I decided to study again and become a Shiatsu practitioner, which I continue to do from a home office part time.

About 10 years ago, I started teaching at the very university that hosted my exchange and for the past few years I’ve been an advisor to French students who go abroad to Canada. It’s so fun being on the other end, helping my students with their exchanges. On some small level, I feel like an ambassador for Canada. Now as a French citizen, I feel very much at home here, but Canada will always be in my heart.

Are you a Laurier alumna/us living abroad and interested in sharing your story? Email campusmagazine@wlu.ca.

LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015 37

Laurier for life.

The Laurier alumni network gives you access to fellow alumni, contests, events, discounts and more. Make sure to update your contact information.

Stay connected, for life.

laurieralumni.ca/connect

MARK YOUR CALENDAR For a complete list of events, tickets or more information, visit laurieralumni.ca/events

K-W Alumni Chapter Networking Event April 15, 2015 Communitech Hub, Laurier LaunchPad Sand Box, Kitchener, ON Join Tyler Calder (BA ’07), vice-president: client strategy at Search Engine People Inc., and hear how he broke into the digital communications industry. Learn about current trends and what companies are looking for when hiring. Networking reception to follow.

The course starts and finishes at the University Stadium track and takes you through beautiful Waterloo Park. Laurier Loop is a fun and welcoming event for runners of all ages and abilities, offering a 2.5 km, 5 km or 10 km run or the opportunity to participate in three relay options. Register today at RunWaterloo.com.

Toronto Alumni Chapter Networking Event May 13, 2015 Laurier Toronto Office, Toronto, ON Join Jennifer Osborne (MBA ’97), president at Search Engine People Inc., and hear about her entrepreneurial adventures – an inspiring story of women in leadership. Networking reception to follow.

Congratulations New Alumni: Spring Convocation June 8-12, Waterloo June 16-17, Brantford Celebrate as new graduates are officially welcomed as Laurier alumni. Details of faculties and degrees posted online. Can’t make it in person? Be sure to check out #Laurier2015 for pictures, quotes and more.

Alumni Wine Tour June 20, 2015 Join the Kitchener-Waterloo Alumni Chapter for the 11th annual Niagara-on-the-Lake Wine Tour.

The tour features visits to Hernder Winery, Ravine Vineyards and Rancourt Winery. The day includes lunch at Bistro-Six-One and dinner at Rancourt Winery.

Laurier Loop Sept. 27, 2015 Registration is now open for the 8th annual Laurier Loop run. Join your fellow Hawks in support of the Sun Life Financial Movement Disorders Research and Rehabilitation Centre.

Hotel Laurier If you are attending an event on Laurier’s Waterloo campus or the surrounding area, or if you want to meet up with fellow alumni for a fun weekend of reminiscing, why not book overnight accommodation right on campus? From May through August, Laurier offers affordable accommodations, including private rooms and apartments, in several of its residence buildings for individuals, families and groups. Laurier alumni, faculty and staff receive a discount on their stay in the King Street Residence— experience campus and all it has to offer! For more information, visit laurierconferences.ca/index-summer.htm.

HOMECOMING 2015

Retro Photo Contest Submit photos from past Homecomings for your chance to WIN a VIP Homecoming 2015 package valued at $500.

Visit facebook.com/LaurierAlumni for contest details.

2014 Winning photo Submitted by Michelle Langille Zaluski (BA ’11)

LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015 39

flashback

Laurier kicker Brian Devlin (18) celebrates with teammate Dan McBride (36). Devlin kicked the game-winning field goal with 19 seconds left in the 2005 Vanier Cup to clinch the second national football championship in the Golden Hawks’ history.

Golden Hawks win 2005 Vanier Cup This fall, Laurier will celebrate the 10-year anniversary of one of its greatest sporting triumphs — the 2005 Vanier Cup win.

The Golden Hawks won a thrilling contest 24-23 over the Saskatchewan Huskies at Hamilton’s Ivor Wynne Stadium. Brian Devlin (BA ‘07) kicked a game-winning 32-yard field goal with 19 seconds on the clock to seal the second Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) football championship in Laurier history.

Quarterback Ryan Pyear (B.Sc. ’06) had a storybook ending to his playing career, being named the game’s MVP, throwing for 254 yards and three touchdowns, just a week removed from an MVP performance in the national semifinal. Pyear was one of 13 Golden Hawks who finished their careers as national champions

40 LAURIER CAMPUS Spring 2015

in 2005, a core group that fought through a 1-7 season just three years prior.

The Hawks came within a game of the Vanier Cup in the 2004 season, losing to the Laval Rouge et Or in the national semifinal. But in 2005, the team broke through. Led by head coach Gary Jeffries, the Golden Hawks went a 12-0 in 2005, becoming the 10th team in CIS history to complete a perfect season.

Do you have a photo of your Laurier days? Email a high-resolution image to campusmagazine@wlu.ca and it could appear in Flashback.

Build

dreams

ALUMNI

INSURANCE PLANS

We are all bound by familiar milestones in life — and the financial responsibilities that come with them. Whether you’re raising a family or a roof over your head, make sure you’ve got the right insurance plan in place for your family.

Find out how Alumni Insurance Plans can help.

Term Life Insurance • Income Protection Disability Insurance • Health & Dental Insurance • Major Accident Protection

To learn more visit manulife.com/alumnimilestones or call toll-free 1-888-913-6333

Underwritten by The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company.

Manulife and the Block Design are trademarks of The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company and are used by it, and by its affiliates under license. © 2015 The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company (Manulife). All rights reserved. Manulife, PO Box 4213, Stn A, Toronto, ON M5W 5M3.

GRADVANTAGES Get the services you need— like insurance, credit cards and more—and you’ll be helping Laurier students.

Sign up with our GradVantages partners, and you’ll receive valuable discounts, just for being a Laurier graduate. As well, a portion of revenues from GradVantages partners comes back to the university helping to fund programs for alumni and students.

GradVantages: You’ve earned it, use it!

laurieralumni.ca/gradvantages