The Human Kinetics Building has undergone a major upgrade featuring a new front entrance designed to be welcoming and accessible.

The new entrance, which had its grand opening Monday, was constructed using universal design principles, prioritizing equity and human diversity, ensuring the space meets the needs of as many people as possible.

“When you make your spaces accessible for everyone, it communicates that you’re welcome here, we were expecting you, and we want you here,” said Cherie Gagnon, accessibility manager in the Office of Human Rights, Equity and Accessibility, who helped lead the project.

“It is the first way that we communicate to people that they belong on our campus.”

The new space, which had its grand opening Monday, boasts a long ramp built with a gentle slope, resting areas with benches, recessed lighting, light posts, and a snow-melting system to keep it safe in the winter. It also includes stairs running through the middle of the entrance, offering autonomy and choice.

This new entrance has been years in the making, said kinesiology department head Jess Dixon.

It was brought to fruition with the help of a $722,800 grant from the Employment and Social Development Department of the Government of Canada through the Enabling Accessibility Fund, for which only a handful of projects across the country were selected. OHREA, Facilities Services, the Accessible Built Environment Committee, and human kinetics faculty helped get the project across the finish line with support from the community.

The total cost of the project was about $2 million.

“I'm very thankful that we were successful with that application, and the University came on board to pick up the balance of the cost of the project,” Dr. Dixon said. “And here we are, with this fancy new entrance to our facilities.”

Before the new entryway, the building had two accessible routes, but neither allowed for independence. People had to use a lift, navigate through an elevator and office space, or rely on someone with key access to use the elevator from the lower level.

“We have to think about how bodies move through space,” Gagnon noted. “When people meet or connect, it’s important they’re visible to others, so we emphasized using shared common areas. Even in the entryway, when people come and go, these casual interactions and ‘water cooler’ conversations are important.”

The new entrance aims to break down these types of barriers and unify the space, upgrading and enhancing the building’s aesthetics in the process.

“People are excited,” said Dixon. “I’ve been associated with the University of Windsor for nearly 25 years, first as a student and now faculty member, and I think it’s given the front of our building a facelift that brought us into the 21st century. I think it makes us a more welcoming place for all people to come and enjoy the activities and the programming that we have available to them.”

When Lara Watanabe (PhD 2022) was an undergraduate at a small Canadian university, she dreamed of getting access to high quality equipment like X-ray diffractometers for crystallography. Pursuing her doctoral degree in the UWindsor Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry not only turned that dream into reality but quickly led to a fulfilling role in a highly specialized field.

In May of 2024, Dr. Watanabe started her position as crystallographer and teaching lecturer in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Guelph.

“It is Because of Science at UWindsor that I’m prepared for this role,” she says.

“Without being at Windsor and without having that exposure to using the X-ray crystallography instrument, I wouldn’t know half of what I need to know for this role. It was super instrumental in what they were able to provide.”

The inorganic chemist says it all started when she began her degree in the Faculty of Science. Along with her co-supervisors Jeremy Rawson and Chuck Macdonald she used materials chemistry to explore applications for specific compounds.

“It was great to be given the freedom to explore what I wanted,” she says.

“Depending on the molecule, they could be used as sensors, for lubricants, or non-linear optic molecules, which are good for solar cells. There were a variety of different applications because I looked at a variety of different molecules.”

Early in her time at the University of Windsor, she asked both supervisors for training on the single crystal X-Ray diffractometer.

“They were very supportive and sent me to a workshop as part of a major chemistry conference,” she said.

“They provided hands-on-training to collect the data and showed me how to process the data through from solving and refining of crystals and that support was invaluable.”

She says the faculty’s former technician, Joe Lichaa, also helped her learn the maintenance aspects of caring for the instrument, aspects that students normally do not get to learn. The instrument takes a focused beam of X-rays and shoots it at a single crystal or powder sample. It produces a piece of data where you can get the connectivity of atoms based on the electron density in the molecule.

“It is one of the most powerful tools to a chemist when making new molecules in synthesis because it tells you definitively the connectivity of the atoms of the molecule you’re actually making — it tells you what it looks like,” says Watanabe.

“For example, it is used by the pharmaceutical industry to test their products because drugs can have specific forms of the active ingredient and this instrument will definitively tell you what form you have.”

While completing her degree, Watanabe was involved in the Women in Chemistry group. She helped organize the annual chemistry conference ChemiConn and led WinChem, a group that conducts tours and hands on experiments for visiting high school students to promote the chemistry and biochemistry department.

“I think that UWindsor had a lot of opportunities to showcase my love of chemistry and to try and be a role model for women in STEM, which has always been important to me. I like to be an advocate and show that there are women in these fields, and you can be successful at it.”

After graduating, Watanabe started a post-doctoral position at Carleton University. The industrial collaboration opened her eyes to a different view of research.

“It solidified my love of academia and the freedom it affords you to explore and publish.”

The Leddy Library was built in two stages: the first, now known as the West Building, was designed by Windsor architects Pennington & Carter and officially opened in 1958. The larger, main building was designed by the firm Bland, Lemoyne, Shine, Lacroix Architects and opened in 1971. The two wings are connected by a two-storey walkway.

The complex was named to honour then-UWindsor president J. Francis Leddy in 1977.

Dr. Leddy was a scholar of classics and donated hundreds of volumes to the library during and after his tenure as president, which ran 1964 to 1978 – the longest in the institution’s history.

Leddy was born in Ottawa in 1911, but grew up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Saskatchewan, and did graduate work in Latin and Greek at the University of Chicago. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, where he received a D.Phil. in ancient history.

He taught classics at the University of Saskatchewan from 1936 to 1961, serving as dean of its College of Arts and Science from 1949 to 1964 and vice-president academic from 1961 to 1964. When he took up his appointment in Windsor, he was the first Roman Catholic layman to serve as president of a Canadian university.

A charter member of the Humanities Research Council, the Humanities Association of Canada, Classical Association of Canada, and the Canada Council for the Arts, Leddy demonstrated an interest in world affairs as president of the Canadian Service for Overseas Students, chair and later honorary president of the Canadian University Service Overseas, and president of the World Federalists of Canada and chair of the World Association of World Federalists.

He died in 1998 in Windsor and is buried in Saskatoon.

Lancer football fans can purchase season tickets at an early-bird discount until Tuesday, July 23.

Tickets to the team’s four home games cost $50 until that date; afterward, they will cost $60.

The Lancers will open their season on Saturday, Aug. 24, hosting the Queen’s Gaels at Alumni Stadium. Other home games include Sept. 21 against the Ottawa Gee-Gees, Sept. 28, against the Toronto Varsity Blues, and Oct. 11 against the Laurier Golden Hawks.

Find more information and purchase season tickets at goLancers.ca.