The following Non Union Administration position is available to all applicants through Human Resources.

The following posting closes on Monday, March 26, at 4 p.m.

#2012-NU-02 Distance Education Course Development Coordinator, Odette School of Business, part-time less than 24 hours per week (for approximately 12 months)

The Distance Education Course Development Coordinator is responsible for supporting and advising faculty members within the Odette School of Business through the design and implementation of online distance education versions of courses. This includes designing online versions of existing courses; consulting on the use of distance education learning platforms; mentoring faculty one-on-one through the online course redesign process; troubleshooting online courses through implementation; and ensuring best industry standards and practices are being followed.

Persons interested are encouraged to review the full job advertisement at www.uwindsor.ca/hr/employment-services-prospective-employees. Your resume and cover letter can be submitted to employment@uwindsor.ca, quoting posting reference 2012-NU-02 on or before 4 p.m. on Monday, March 26, 2012. Please note: The University of Windsor accepts resumes for current postings only.

A UWindsor history professor says that a staged reading of his new play, The Metropolitan, combines his own area of research with nursing, drama and social justice.

“It’s a great University of Windsor story where you can get these inter-disciplinary collaborations that are products of a close-knit campus,” says Steven Palmer, who holds the Canada Research Chair in History of International Health.

Students in the School of Dramatic Art, under the direction of professor Lionel Walsh, invite the public to the free reading, Tuesday, March 20, at 7 p.m. in the Jackman Dramatic Art Centre’s Studio Theatre. The event is co-sponsored by the Centre for Studies in Social Justice and the Department of History.

Dr. Palmer says his play was inspired by his research into the local history of medicine. In the 1940s, a nursing school associated with Metropolitan Hospital (now Windsor Regional Hospital) tried to revolutionize training for the profession.

“Up to that time, most nurses were graduates of a tedious system of hospital-controlled apprenticeship,” Palmer says. “The Metropolitan school was a pilot project by the leaders of the profession to show that nurse-run academic schools could train better nurses faster.”

The experimental school was shaken by a 1949 Royal Commission of Inquiry that rocked the city -- and the country -- with its disclosure of a scandal involving Windsor’s mayor (a strong backer of the school), young nurses from Met Hospital and a party at a glamorous Detroit hotel.

The more he looked the history, the more excited Palmer got about turning it into a play.

“It’s an exciting story and an exciting time,” he says. “The characters were so fascinating, and it involves everything from a courtroom drama to more serious issues of sexual harassment and feminist attempts to reform nursing education.”

Creating a dramatic work was not a leap for Palmer, who spent years writing entertainments before pursuing an academic career. He has written 15 works of radio drama and a number of radio documentaries. He created, wrote and co-produced the CBC Radio comedy series The Great Eastern, which aired from 1994 to 1999. His stage play, Uncivil Servants, toured Newfoundland in 1998.

After he had written an early version of The Metropolitan, Palmer approached Walsh, director of the drama school. A workshop with acting students led to the current iteration, which Palmer feels is one of the best-structured works he has ever written.

Walsh says he is excited about the play.

“The Met is an engaging, humorous and revealing story of the backroom shenanigans that tainted a ground-breaking school of nursing right here in Windsor,” he says.

Tuesday’s cast includes drama students Tamlynn Bryson, Erin Burley, Julius Cho, Andrew Iles, Vanessa Lancione, Mauro Meo, Maggie Parkhill and Cole Reid. Following the reading, nursing professors Dale Rajacich and Debbie Kane will lead a discussion; Palmer and Walsh will participate in a question-and-answer session.

Given that Tom Gideon’s reason for existing is to protect NASCAR drivers, you’d think he might bristle a little more when he hears about stock car fans who say they only watch the races for the crashes. Oddly enough, it doesn’t prompt the kind of reaction you’d expect.

“We know that crashes are a constant,” NASCAR R&D’s safety director calmly replies in a phone interview from his North Carolina office. “Statistically we know that there are going to be a certain number of wrecks every year, and the number really doesn’t vary all that much from year to year. The accidents have remained constant over the years, but our outcomes are a lot better.”

Gideon – who will be the keynote speaker when the Faculty of Human Kinetics hosts its sixth annual Kinesiology Research Day on March 21 – joined NASCAR in his present role after a long career with General Motors. As manager of GM Racing, he developed driver’s restraints, reinforced racing seats and the inboard net required in the Grand-Am and SCCA Pro series. He was instrumental in building prototype safety vehicles for racing and contributing to NASCAR’s present car.

A professional engineer who graduated from Ohio State University, Gideon’s primary role with NASCAR these days is in crash analysis and improving driver safety. On Wednesday, he’ll speak to students about his career.

“The focus will be on showing students where research can lead them, and how it can prepare them for, or even become their careers,” said Faculty of Human Kinetics research leadership chair Dave Andrews.

Gideon will also disucss how far the sport of racing has developed in terms of safety over the last century. Considering the number of races that are held every year, NASCAR’s record has been good, he said. There were a number of fatal accidents around the end of the 1990s and early 2000s – most notably the one in Daytona that claimed the life of Dale Earnhardt in 2001 – which prompted NASCAR to reach out to other areas of expertise to help make the sport safer. There haven’t been any fatalities since then, he said.

“I love what I do because the results are on the track,” he said. “If someone does get hurt, we look into it in great detail.”

Besides Gideon’s address, the event will include a student panel on kinesiology research, as well as a poster session for student researchers to display and discuss their work. More than 60 posters will be on display.

For more information, contact Dave Andrews at 519-253-3000, ext. 2433, or at dandrews@uwindsor.ca

The Lancer women’s basketball team will defend its Canadian Interuniversity Sport title Monday, playing the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds for the Bronze Baby trophy.

Windsor advanced with an 81-71 win Sunday over the host Calgary Dinos. The Lancers’ 48-point margin of victory in a 94-46 drubbing of Acadia on Saturday to open the Final 8 was the second-most lopsided game in the tournament’s history.

Tonight’s game starts at 9 p.m. Eastern Time and will be webcast at http://www.ssncanada.ca/games/. More information available at goLancers.ca.

Windsor forward Bojana Kovacevic (right) drives past Calgary’s Tamara Jarrett. The Lancers defeated the Dinos 81-71 Sunday to qualify for the CIS title game for the third straight year.

Lancer honoured as women’s basketball defensive MVP

Canadian Interuniversity Sport named point guard Miah-Marie Langlois of the Lancer women’s basketball team its defensive player of the year Friday during celebration of its Final 8 tournament.

Langlois, one of three Windsor players honoured, was also named to the second all-star team. Forward Jessica Clemençon was named a first-team all-star and Laura Mullins received the Tracy MacLeod Award in recognition of her determination and perseverance.

MVP of last year’s CIS championship team, Langlois led the country with 3.5 steals per game and finished first in the nation at her position with 5.2 defensive rebounds per contest. Thanks in large part to her fierce defending, the Lancers ranked second in CIS allowing only 51.7 points on average in conference play.

The business economics student also chipped in offensively this season with a provincial-best 4.9 assists per game and an 11.6-point average, good for second on her team. Her all-around play helped the defending national champions take first place in the OUA West for the fourth straight campaign with a 20-2 mark and achieve No. 2 status in 12 of 14 weekly coaches’ polls.

Langlois represented Canada at the 2011 Summer Universiade in Shenzhen, China.

“I am extremely proud of Miah’s development this year because of the commitment she made to become a top defensive player in the OUA,” said Windsor head coach Chantal Vallée. “We always knew what a tremendous offensive player she was but this year she grew into a force in all facets of the game. Her defensive stats in CIS speak for themselves and I believe her play this year was a big factor in our team’s overall success.”

Mullins, a Windsor native, is the first Lancer to receive the Tracy MacLeod Award.

After being named to the Ontario University Athletics west division all-rookie team in 2008, the five-foot-10 guard continued to help the Lancers in her sophomore season until tearing her ACL and MCL in January of 2009. She had to observe from the bench while her team won its first OUA championship and finished fourth at nationals.

The human kinetics student was determined to return to the roster for the following campaign after fully rehabilitating her knee during the summer. Showing no signs of injury, she averaged 50 per cent shooting from the field that season until she partially tore the same ACL again in January of 2010. She still battled to play with a deficient knee and helped the Lancers win their second OUA title and claim the silver medal at the CIS championship in Hamilton.

However, in July of 2010, Mullins suffered a full ACL and Meniscus tear and ended up missing the entire 2010-11 schedule as she had to get a second surgery on the same knee, one again forcing her to watch from the sidelines last winter as the Lancers claimed their first Bronze Baby Trophy. After more rehab, she intended to play this season, but had another setback in the summer when she was diagnosed with a blood clot behind that same knee and had to remain inactive for months with a possibility of not being able to return to play. In mid-September, she received the green light to start training again and has ended up making an impact on the court all season for the Lancers.

“It’s been hard to see Laura battle back-to-back injuries but also rewarding as she has shown her determination and has been an example of relentless hard work to her teammate,” said Vallée. “We feel privileged she is still playing with us!”

Clemençon was also a first-team member a year ago, when she claimed the Nan Copp Award as the top university player in her sport. This season, she averaged 17.6 points and 7.2 points per game.

“Can love potions be used to control an invasive fish?” is the title of the next Science Café at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 21, at Canada South Science City. Biologist and author Lynda Corkum will describe her research efforts to control round goby and keep it from destroying native fish populations in the Great Lakes.

The success of the invasive fish, the round goby (Neogobius melanostomus), in the Great Lakes may be due to its sexual communication between males and females during reproduction. Dr. Corkum and her team hypothesize that reproductive males release pheromones (“love potions”) into the water that attract females to nests.

Lynda Corkum.

Lab experiments show that reproductive females exposed to male washings spend more time near the odour source and swim directly to odours when compared with responses to control water. Males breed in colonies. Each male occupies a nest and uses its tail to pump water out of the nest to attract females. Up to 15 females deposit eggs into a single nest that is guarded and maintained by the male. Round gobies feed on the eggs of native fishes. By using traps with synthesized sex odours, female round gobies could be removed from sites where the fish would otherwise feed on eggs of native species.

Corkum is a professor of biological sciences at the University of Windsor. Her research interests include the ecology and behaviour of fishes and aquatic insects. She has written a field guide, Fishes of Essex County and Surrounding Water, which includes a detailed account of fishes in Lake St. Clair, the Detroit River and Lake Erie.

As usual at Science Cafés, light refreshments will be served and there is no admission charge. The evening is part of a series of Science Cafés – free discussions of important science research for the general public – sponsored by the Faculty of Science. Canada South Science City is located at 930 Marion Avenue.

The School of Music’s Take 4 series will showcase students in recital, Monday, March 19, at 4 p.m. in room 139, Music Building.

The program features:

• Soprano Marlyse Bergstra performing “L’ho perduta, me meschina” from Le Nozze di Figaro by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as well as “All the Things You Are” from Very Warm for May by Jerome Kern, accompanied by pianist Elsie Inselman.
• Violinist Victoria Turner performing the Andante Cantabile movement from “Concerto No. 4 in D Major, K.218” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, accompanied by pianist Lorna Cameron-Price.
• Baritone Michael Liu performing “A Vucchella” by Francesco Paolo Tosti and “Lydia” by Gabriel Faure, accompanied by pianist Ben Goldstein.
• Saxophonist Alanna Burke performing “Légende” by André Caplet, accompanied by pianist Ben Goldstein.
• Horn player Christopher DeGuire performing “The Russian Song”.
• Trumpeter Anthony Giglio performing the Largo and Allegro movements from “Trumpet Concerto in D Major” by Johann Friedrich Fasch, accompanied by pianist Ben Goldstein.
• Trumpeter Ari Skulko performing “Prayer of Saint Gregory” by Alan Hovhaness, accompanied by pianist Ben Goldstein.
• Iosif Mateiu performing Movement II- Adagio Cantabile from “Sonata in C Minor, op. 13” by Ludwig van Beethoven.

Events in the Take 4 series are free and open to the public.

Creating course curricula and teaching methods that effectively promote student learning can be a challenging task for higher education instructors.

A research study funded by the University of Windsor Centred on Learning Innovation Fund is developing a Checklist for Evaluating Course Curriculum and Teaching. This checklist will describe aspects of course curricula associated with effective learning in higher education courses. It will also provide a self-evaluation tool for new and experienced instructors who are reviewing current courses or planning new courses.

Social work professors Jim Coyle and Irene Carter, the principal investigators, are seeking participants for focus groups that will brainstorm answers to the question, “In addition to an instructor’s personal characteristics, what elements of a course are associated with successful learning?”

Participants will be asked to generate ideas about course elements such as course goals, learning outcomes, content, teaching methods, assignments and other items suggested by teaching and learning literature.

In order to develop a checklist that is widely useful, the focus groups will include faculty, instructors, teaching and learning staff, undergraduate and graduate students from a range of disciplines. Each focus group will last 60 to 90 minutes and dietary-sensitive snacks and beverages will be served.

The sessions are scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday, March 28; 4:15 p.m. Tuesday, April 3; and 10 a.m. Wednesday, April 4.

Interested participants should contact Dr. Coyle at jcoyle@uwindsor.ca, ext. 3077, or Dr. Carter at icarter@uwindsor.ca, ext. 3079, for information about the study and consent to participate in research. This study has received clearance from the University of Windsor Research Ethics Board.

After giving out more than 1,000 pieces of candy, plus bottled water and literature, organizers of Friday’s “I Clover Sober” event pronounced themselves satisfied with the effort.

“A lot of the students are really enjoying the tips we are giving them,” said Donja Trivers, a residence assistant – academic in Laurier Hall. “We are getting a good response.”

The annual campaign encourages students to enjoy St. Patrick’s Day responsibly. The holiday is often an occasion for alcohol abuse.

“We’re reminding them to know their limits – and stay within them,” Trivers said.

A number of residence students and staff patrolled the Wyandotte Street entrances to campus Friday afternoon, bearing banners with messages about safe drinking and the virtues of moderation.

Jacqueline Mellish, residence life coordinator in Macdonald and Electa halls, said that approach is more effective than demanding complete abstinence.

“We understand that both residence and off-campus students might choose to drink,” she said. “We want to make sure that if they make that choice, they have the knowledge on how to be safe.”

UWindsor anthropology professor Lynne Phillips will take up a five-year post as dean of the Faculty of Arts at Memorial University, effective July 1.

Dr. Phillips has been at the University of Windsor since 1989 and served as head of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminology from 2000 to 2007. She said she is “thrilled” to be heading to Memorial, located in St. Johns, Newfoundland and Labrador.

“I look forward to meeting new colleagues and making new friends,” she said. “And it will be an honour to have the chance to showcase the wonderful things going on in the Faculty of Arts at Memorial.”

Her current research involves engagement with Canadian communities to develop more localized, sustainable and healthy food systems. In support of food security initiatives in Windsor-Essex County, Phillips has served as a member of the Food Matters Working Group with the United Way.

The most important work you do this week just might involve rolling up your sleeves and lying down on the job. Canadian Blood Services will hold a full blood donor clinic on Monday, March 19, in Ambassador Auditorium in the CAW Student Centre from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

For this clinic, the Canadian Blood Service will use its appointment system. It encourages donors to book appointments by calling 1-888-2DONATE (1-888-236-6283). Walk-in donors are still welcome but appointments will better accommodate donors' working schedules.

As with previous clinics, the Department of Human Resources encourages all eligible employees to participate in this worthwhile process and asks any employees who wish to donate to make the necessary arrangements with their supervisors regarding the possibility of extended lunch or break periods.