Classes haven’t even started yet, and already Itunu Adekoya is learning a lot.

A first-year student of biochemistry and biotechnology, she was one of almost 300 participants in International Student Orientation. She said Sunday’s opening session was very informative.

“I learned that culture shock happens to everybody, that it’s good to stay safe on campus. I learned about visas and the study permit. I learned about Lancer sports,” said Adekoya, a native of Lagos, Nigeria.

She said she chose to study in Canada for its diversity.

“You can meet all kinds of people,” she said. “And there are so many different kinds of activities!”

Her mother, Abimbola Adekoya, attended the orientation as well, and said she was happy she did.

“People are very friendly and helpful,” she said. “I’m pretty sure that she is in safe hands.”

Windsor Welcome Week continues today with Adrenaline Rush, a fun fair in front of Dillon Hall, from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Students Offering Support will host a free barbecue to feed hungry participants starting at noon and Volunteer International Students' Assistance is running a campus version of the Amazing Race, starting at 1 p.m. in front of Dillon Hall.

The River’s Edge Beach Party offers a chance to play some volleyball with members of the Lancer men’s varsity team, enjoy inflatable bowling, or just hang out. It starts at 4 p.m. in the riverfront park by the foot of the Ambassador Bridge; the first 100 students will get a UWindsor beach blanket compliments of Student Ancillary Services.

Windsor InterResidence Council is hosting several events in the Vanier dining halls this evening: Vanier Bingo starts at 5 p.m.; the Culinary Olympics starts at 5:45 p.m.; and a Mock Casino, with mocktails and open-mic performances, starts at 8 p.m.

Other events this week include:

• Wednesday, September 7. Program orientation for all faculties and programs takes place in the morning and is compulsory for first-years students. New this year is Turf Talk on the lawn outside Dillon Hall, three 40-minute sessions offering wisdom from upper-year students: “41 Things All First Year Students Should Know” at 9:45 a.m. “Make Your Money Work For You” at 10:30 a.m. and “Decode Your Professors” at 11:15 a.m. Welcoming Celebration follows at 3 p.m. in the St. Denis Centre. All new students will receive a pair of UWindsor sunglasses and one lucky winner will receive a semester’s free tuition from the Alumni Association.
• Thursday, September 8. First day of classes. Grab some freebies at the all-day Vendor Fair in the CAW Student Centre courtyard, and check out the play Single & Sexy hosted by the Campus Safety Audit Committee, the School of Dramatic Art, and the Educational Development Centre, at 7 p.m. in the St. Denis Centre.
• Friday, September 9. Join the Campus Community Clean-up, tour some nearby eateries to get a Taste of Windsor, and Bring Your Own Toga to an all-ages party in the Thirsty Scholar.
• Saturday, September 10. Shinerama Shine Day. From 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., UWindsor students will participate in the largest post-secondary fundraiser in Canada, taking their shoe-shining skills to the streets of Windsor to benefit cystic fibrosis charities.

Visit www.windsorwelcomeweek.ca for a full list of events, locations and times.

When she arrived at the University of Windsor three years ago to begin her post-secondary career, she was grateful for assistance in getting settled, recalls chemistry student Samantha Scalia.

“It was really hectic,” she said. “I was so glad to have so many people helping new students.”

That’s why she decided to get involved as a volunteer with Windsor Welcome Week. Scalia was one of dozens of students who pitched in to help about new arrivals haul their belongings into residence Sunday.

Among them was Matthew Iannuzzi, a new business student from Oakville taking up residence in Macdonald Hall. His mother, Andrea Peres, said she was having a hard time holding back the tears.

“I’m half jealous and half sad,” she said. “But mostly I am excited for Matthew. This is his time to shine.”

First-year social work student Emilie Bastien also moved into Residence Hall West. She said her stack of boxes and bags held her “entire life.”

“Clothes, pictures, books, computer, shoes—it’s everything,” said the Woodstock native.

Adamo Barbieri’s family drove out of Vaughn at 6:30 a.m. for his move into Laurier Hall, but were awake at 5 a.m.

“We only went to bed at 3 a.m.,” said his mother, Enza Barbieri. “We were too excited to sleep much, anyway.”

Luckily, she said, the day was going smoothly: “This is my first time in the city, but the directions were fantastic.”

About 1,300 students will take up residence in one of six campus halls this semester; over 1,000 did so on Move-in Day.

An electronic application tool currently in development will simplify the process of applying under the Tuition Remission Benefit Program for faculty and staff, says Cheryl Paglione, associate director of pensions, benefits and HR systems in the Department of Human Resources.

She calls the eTuitionWaiver part of the department’s ongoing commitment to provide the highest quality and most effective levels of service delivery. While the electronic application will not be available until later in the school year, applicants will already see one benefit.

“Rather than applying every semester, applicants will now submit one application that will cover the entire academic school year, from September to August,” Paglione said. “Besides improving record keeping for us, it will represent a time savings for everyone.”

Elimination of the paper application also supports the University's commitment to environmental responsibility.  

For this year, once the 2011 paper forms are approved, the tuition waiver will be automatically renewed through to August 2012. Details are available on the Human Resources Web site.

As a reminder, tuition waiver applications are to be submitted prior to tuition fee payment due dates. Please submit any outstanding applications to Human Resources without delay.

Mike Glendenning and his colleagues were prospecting for gold in the far reaches of northern Manitoba this summer, but may have inadvertently picked up some new knowledge in the field of entomology.

“There’s mosquitoes there, blackflies, horseflies, moose flies and new breeds of flies I’ve never even heard of,” the geology major and graduate student in Earth and Environmental Sciences said of the bugs he encountered during one of several two-week work rotations he’s done in the remote mining town of Lynn Lake.

Along with fellow graduate student Evan Hastie and recent graduate Ben Lane, Glendenning has been working with junior exploration company Carlisle Goldfields, “tromping through the bush” trying to find enough gold to justify re-opening an abandoned mine in the once thriving town. Lynn Lake was home to the Farley Nickel Mine and at its peak, had a population of more than 3,000 people. After the mine was exhausted in the mid-1980s and a subsequent unsuccessful attempt to mine gold, the population dropped to 300.

“It’s a single industry town without an industry,” said Joel Gagnon, an associate professor who along with colleague Ali Polat co-supervises Glendenning. “It’s basically the end of the road in northwest Manitoba.”

“It’s kind of grim there,” Glendenning admits. “There are rows and rows of boarded up houses. The fire department actually sets them on fire and burns them to practice fighting fires. It sounds depressing, but there’s lots of wildlife and some of the best fishing in the country.”

Dr. Gagnon said there’s good reason to believe there are ample deposits of gold in the region. The mining operation, which remains on site today, produced about 150,000 ounces of gold and 400,000 ounces of silver over three years in the late 1980s, but Gagnon said the company failed because their operating costs outweighed their revenue.

“They were a nickel mining company,” said Gagnon, who did his master’s degree work at the same mine in 1987. “Gold mining requires a different type of operation. They just weren’t the right kind of company to do that kind of mining.”

Glendenning said he and the other students spend a fair bit of their time searching for clues that tell them where gold might be found. One is the rusty colourization of surface rocks, an indication that ancient underground hot water systems might have transported and left behind pieces gold there almost two billion years ago, altering the chemistry of the rock in the process.

If they suspect gold might be found there, they work with company employees to site boring locations for drill rigs, which drill down 400 to 700 metres deep to bring out sample cores, cylindrical pieces of rock that are taken to the “core shack” where they’re described and sampled for their contents.

“There’s a huge societal and economic impact if we can find something,” said Glendenning, who will spend the next year making the 2,000-kilometer trip to Lynn Lake every two weeks to continue the search. “Everyone wants to know what you’re looking for and whether you’ve found anything because they all want to work.”

Glendenning, who grew up in the Essex County town of Belle River, said he hopes to stay on with the company when he completes his degree.

Editor's note: this is one of a series of articles about students from across campus who were engaged in cool research projects and other activities during the summer.

A new “early warning” system will help electronically identify struggling students in such departments as psychology, history, languages and philosophy and get them the help they need before it’s too late, according to Tanja Collet-Najem.

“A lot of first-year students don’t know what to do if they’re struggling academically,” said the acting associate dean of student and academic affairs in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. “We’re a university that takes care of our students and tries to help them succeed. We’re here to help them if they’re having difficulties.”

Designed to help first-year students in FASS, the program will require instructors to log on to the system, download a class list and flag the name of any students who obtained a grade in the D or F range on an assignment worth 10 percent or more of their final grade.

The system will identify students with two or more failing grades in separate courses, which would automatically trigger an e-mail alert to the head of the department, who would then contact a departmental academic advisor so they could call in the students to provide them with the counselling they need to get back on track.

“The hope is that by providing advice before the voluntary withdrawal deadline, students will perform better and have a more successful first year,” said Dr. Collet-Najem, an associate professor in Languages, Literature and Culture. “More first-year students will be obtaining the grade point average they need in order to remain in good standing.”

Collet-Najem said the system will be secure and ready to go this fall in FASS, but she hopes it will eventually be used in other faculties across campus.

Lancer Shea Pierre ran back the opening kickoff 104 yards for a touchdown and set the tone for a 38-5 Windsor rout of the Toronto Varsity Blues in football action Monday at the south campus stadium.

Interim head coach Joe D'Amore shared quarterbacking duties between Sam Malian and Austin Kennedy. Malian completed 12 of 19 passes for 107 yards while Kennedy passed for 31 yards on five completions of nine attempts and ran for a touchdown.

Shomari Grant, in his first Ontario University Athletics contest, led the ground attack for the Lancers with 112 rushing yards and a three-yard touchdown. Mitch Dender’s 73-yard punt return and Paul Lefaive’s 43-yard touchdown run accounted for the other Lancer majors.

Read the full game recap, “Lancer football dominates Toronto 38-5 in Labour Day Classic opener,” on goLancers.ca.

The team’s next action comes Saturday as it heads to Waterloo for a showdown with the Laurier Golden Hawks.

The Lancer women's soccer team were shut out 2-0 by the McMaster Marauders in Hamilton Saturday and bounced back Sunday in St. Catharines to shut out the Brock Badgers 4-0. Goalkeeper Rebecca Singer registered Sunday's shutout; goalscorers were Candace Garrod, Sara Kox, Cassandra Quayson and Marianne Wright.

The men's soccer squad dropped a pair on the weekend, losing to McMaster 2-1 on Saturday and to Brock 2-0 on Sunday. Mike Pio scored the lone Lancer goal on Saturday.

The University Bookstore will extend its hours of operation to better serve its customers for the first few weeks of September.

“We know this is a busy time for students and faculty and hope to make the start of school a little less hectic,” says marketing manager Martin Deck. “We’ll also be running back-to-school specials on supplies and clothes during this time.”

The store will open:

• Tuesday to Thursday, September 6 to 8 — 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
• Friday, September 9 — 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Saturday and Sunday, September 10 and 11 — noon to 5 p.m.
• Monday to Thursday, September 12 to 15 — 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
• Friday, September 16 — 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Saturday and Sunday, September 17 and 18 — noon to 5 p.m.

returning thereafter to its regular hours, Mondays to Thursdays 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Fridays 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; closed weekends.

The wheels on the bus go round and round, and if you get around, you should be able to answer the questions in today’s DailyNews quiz.

Up for grabs is a swanky mini-portfolio provided by the Alumni Office. Covered in faux leather embossed with the Alumni logo, it features a zippered closure and internal organizer with business card pockets, clear ID window, pen loop and a 5.5" x 8" lined writing pad.

The winner will be randomly selected from all correct responses received by 4 p.m. Tuesday, September 6. To be eligible, select the most correct answer to each of the following questions:

1. Windsor was home to Canada’s first electric street railway, with streetcars on tracks powered by overhead wires. In what year did it begin operation?
   a) 1886
   b) 1896
   c) 1906
   d) 1916
2. Transit Windsor adopted that name in 1977. What had been the name of Windsor’s public transit company up to that point?
   a) Border Cities Bus Line
   b) Sandwich, Windsor & Amherstburg Railway
   c) Windsor Bus Services
   d) Windsor Passenger & Freight Conveyance
3. Which of these Transit Windsor bus lines stop adjacent to the UWindsor main campus?
   a) Transway 1C
   b) Crosstown 2
   c) South Windsor 7
   d) Walkerville 8

Contest is open to all readers of the DailyNews. Send an e-mail with your responses to uofwnews@uwindsor.ca. One entry per contestant, please. Note: the decision of the judge in determining the most correct response is inviolable. 

The University Club will open for the semester with a two-for-one buffet special on Thursday and Friday, September 8 and 9.

Executive chef Drew Verdam says the club’s menu this year will focus on the buffet, which will remain at the 2010 price of $10.95 including coffee and tea.

“We will offer the high-quality, flavourful food that appeals to our clientele,” he says. “Members will continue to receive the discount privileges they appreciate.”

A place of respite for faculty and staff, the club serves lunch Monday to Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., with cloth napkins and tablecloths on each table, proper china and flatware, and professional waitstaff.

The University Club is located on the ground floor of Vanier Hall. Membership is provided free of charge to faculty members and librarians; membership is open to other UWindsor employees for a fee of $40 per year.

Learn more on the University Club Web site, or contact president Mary Louise Drake, 519-253-3000, ext. 2273.

Catering Services is offering offices across campus a way to cope with the hustle and bustle of Windsor Welcome Week activities.

Its convenient and economical lunch menus simplify event planning, and are centred on a choice of hotdogs, pasta, sandwiches, or pizza, all delivered hot and fresh to your specific location, complete with paper plates and napkins.

Check out the menu on the catering Web site.

The following Union position is available to internal bargaining unit members only. Bargaining unit members interested in this position are requested to apply in writing by completing an 'Application for Transfer' form and forwarding it to: Department of Human Resources on or before 4 p.m. on the posting closing date. Please note: Union positions are covered by the union collective agreement, therefore, please be aware that we must allow our qualified unionized staff the first opportunity for transfer or promotion to these positions. This opportunity is not available to external applicants.

CUPE 1393
#2011-13-25 Clinical Methods Assistant, classification tentative ‘II’, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry – Windsor Program
The following posting closes on Monday, September 12, 2011.

Reporting to the Program Manager, the incumbent will have responsibility for supporting, planning and organizing both the Clinical Methods Course (PCCM- Patient Centered Clinical Methods) and the Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCE) of the Schulich School of Medicine curriculum in the Windsor Program. The incumbent will work in a team environment in close communication with Windsor faculty/physicians, medical students, hospital personnel, London-based Schulich Education staff and other Windsor-based Schulich Education staff. The incumbent will be a prime resource to faculty and other individuals regarding information pertaining to the Undergraduate Medical Education (UME) curriculum, as well as keep abreast of issues arising due to curriculum changes and advise appropriate people with regards to material course deadlines, finding information on WEBCT, attendance policy, etc.

The candidate will possess a Community College Diploma in Medical Administration or Undergraduate Degree in Business and/or three (3) to five (5) years related experience in an academic and/or medical environment. The candidate will have an understanding of the Schulich four-year Undergraduate Medical Education (UME) curriculum, as well as knowledge and/or experience in distributed medical education programs. The candidate must possess a knowledge of Windsor Hospitals and facilities, experience working with faculty, physicians and medical students, and experience and understanding in working with physicians clinical schedules to implement a clinical academic schedule. The candidate will have the ability to work independently and prioritize multiple projects, tasks and deadlines in a fast-paced environment. The candidate will be well organized, accurate and conscientious, meet deadlines and have excellent communication skills (written and verbal). The candidate must maintain strict confidentiality regarding student, staff and faculty personal information and academic marks. The candidate is capable of independently handling stressful situations with a mature attitude and effectively deal with a wide variety of customers at varying levels of authority. Thorough knowledge of computer software (MS Office), database applications and electronic scheduling (LotusNotes, e-mail and internet) are required. The Clinical Methods Assistant may be required to travel between Windsor hospital sites and the University of Windsor. The incumbent must have the ability and willingness to work beyond the traditional workday and infrequently provide event coverage on weekends.