Karly-Jo Kreitzer found that a two-week expedition to the tropics gave her insights she could never have had in a classroom.

“It's an entirely different world and it was an amazing learning experience,” said Kreitzer, one of 14 students who participated in a University of Windsor field course on the ecology of Costa Rica.

Studying plants and animals in ecosystems ranging from ocean-side mangrove forests to mountaintop cloud forests, the biology students gained a unique firsthand understanding of tropical ecology.

Biology professor Dan Mennill, one of the leaders of the fourth-year course, said that most of the world’s biological diversity is concentrated in the tropics.

“For example, there are almost 900 species of birds in the small country of Costa Rica compared to 450 in all of Ontario,” Dr. Mennill said. “Training students in the ecology of these biodiverse regions of Earth is critically important for their careers as biologists.”

He said that many students have expanded their career paths after taking field courses.

“This is the seventh year the University of Windsor has offered the tropical ecology field course, and the course has helped many students gain knowledge and skills that have opened up new career possibilities,” said Mennill. “For example, a student from a prior year’s field course now works as a researcher studying the biology of monkeys in Costa Rica. She delivered a guest seminar to our students this year, and it was exciting to see the educational process come full circle.”

Talia Masse, a third-year biology major, said the field course has helped put her on a career path: “I have never learned as much as I have in the last two weeks.”

The Department of Biological Sciences offers the Tropical Ecology of Costa Rica field course each year in coordination with the Ontario Universities Program in Field Biology. The program provides undergraduate students across Ontario unique hands-on learning experiences through intensive, fourth-year undergraduate classes.

Find more photos of the students’ experiences on Mennill’s Web site.

Several campus events on the theme of “Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures” will celebrate International Women’s Day on Thursday, March 8.

The Womyn’s Centre is sponsoring a series of activities in the CAW Student Centre, including a showcase of community groups in the Commons from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

During this time, the Feminist Research Group will host a photo booth for those wishing to participate in the Feminist Photo Blog Project. Take a self-portrait and post your photo to show the world what a feminist looks like.

From 4 to 7 p.m. in the Ambassador Auditorium, the evening celebration will include presentations by Walkerville Collegiate teacher and UWindsor alumna Shantelle Browning-Morgan (BA 2000, B.Ed 2001, M.Ed 2008), winner of a Governor General’s award for her innovative history course on the regional history of peoples of African descent; the Crosstown Players; Windsor Feminist Theatre and groups from local high schools.

Read more on the Womyn’s Centre Web site.

Exhibition offers a glimpse behind the mask

The SoVA Projects Gallery in the LeBel Building presents an exhibition on the relationship of men to feminism, entitled “Behind the Mask: Women, Men, & Masculinities.”

The artists explore the diverse ways in which images, concepts, and views of masculinity have been investigated by both women and men. The show places an emphasis on creative work that interrogates gender as a socially constructed, relational category and deconstructs the male/female binary.

The juried exhibition is a collaborative project of the UWindsor Visual Arts and the Built Environment program at the School of Visual Arts and the University of Detroit's School of Architecture. It enjoyed a one-week display on the University of Detroit Mercy campus.

A free public reception will celebrate the exhibit’s opening, Thursday, March 8, at 5 p.m. Learn more on the Web site of the women’s studies program.

Ontario University Athletics named sprinter Nicole Sassine its outstanding female performer at the provincial track and field championship meet, one of five Lancers announced Tuesday as major award winners.

Sassine ran to four medals at the OUA tournament, including gold in the 300m and 4x200m relay, and silver in the 60m dash and 4x400m relay. The fourth-year human kinetics major earned 22.5 points for the Lancers, leading Windsor’s women to their third straight provincial title.

Matt Walters and Andrew Dandie are the most valuable male performers in track events and field events, respectively. Walters anchored the gold-medal winning 4x800m relay team and earned a pair of silver medals in the men’s 1500m and 3000m. Dandie took home gold in the long jump and silver in the high jump. Their combined 36.5 points helped the Lancer men secure their 21st OUA title in the past 22 years.

Sarah Swain was named female rookie of the year after earning a bronze medal in the 60m hurdles and finishing fifth in the women’s pole vault.

Head coach Dennis Fairall won his 18th Bob Vigars Award as men’s coach of the year.

The team now prepares for the Canadian Interuniversity Sport national championship tournament, this weekend at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.

Other members of the Blue and Gold are also readying for a busy week on the road with national championship implications at stake.

The Lancer women’s basketball team, coming off a silver medal at the OUA Final Four, will travel back to Ottawa for the CIS regionals with a berth to the national championship tournament in Calgary on the line. Windsor will face off against Cape Breton on Friday night.

The men’s hockey team will travel to Quebec to face the UQTR Patriotes in a one-game playoff for a spot in the national championship tournament in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Puck drop is set for Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m.

All these events will be webcast by SSN Canada.

The School of Music Take 4 series presents five student performances, Wednesday, March 7, at 4 p.m. in room 139, Music Building.

• Trombonist Adam Gittleman will perform “Cavatine” by Camille Saint-Saëns, accompanied by pianist Benjamin Goldtsein.
• Mezzo-soprano Kelsey Sim will perform “One hundred easy ways to lose a man” from Wonderful Town,  by Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Leonard Bernstein, and “The Alto’s lament” by Marcy Heisley and Zina Godrich, accompanied by pianist Yvonne Quinn.
• Horn player Drew Robertson will perform “Cantecor” by Henri Busser, accompanied by pianist Yvonne Quinn. 
• Pianist Rebecca Wright will perform “La cathédrale engloutie” from Preludes, 1er livre, by Achille-Claude Debussy.
• Pianist Vee Shin will perform “Mallorca, Op.202” by Isaac Albeniz.

Set in the Recital Hall, the Take 4 series is free and open to the public.

A degree completion program allowing engineering students from Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to finish their educations in Windsor represents a great collaborative partnership, says Saint Mary’s dean of science, Steven Smith.

“It will give our students a much broader range of options than they already have,” he said Tuesday. “Windsor has incredible programs with fantastic faculty and facilities.”

Dr. Smith and Saint Mary’s director of admissions and recruitment, Marie Braswell, were on the UWindsor campus yesterday to speak with professors and administrators while touring labs and workspaces.

“It has been extremely impressive,” said Smith.

Under the agreement reached by the two institutions, students completing the two-year diploma at Saint Mary’s can study for another two years at Windsor and graduate with a BASc in civil or mechanical engineering.

Professor Majid Ahmadi of electrical and computer engineering said the program will be attractive to international students, Nova Scotians seeking more varied career options, and Ontarians who want to study in a smaller school before completing their degrees closer to home.

“Their students get personalized instruction in small classes,” he said. “It is good for those who may need some individual attention when they are starting out.”

Braswell agreed, saying their campus offers a “more intimate experience,” while Windsor has a greater number of programs: “Students can think of it as a pathways option.”

In November 2010, Johanna Skibsrud’s novel The Sentimentalists was announced as the winner of the Giller Prize, which promptly embroiled the work, its author, and its publishers in a clash between different modes of book publishing.

“The novel’s publication as a limited-run book from a small press, then as an e-book, then as a mass-market paperback sparked public interest in the kinds of questions usually asked by bibliographers,” says Alan Galey.

The University of Toronto professor will use the controversy as a case study to explore the digital humanities in his free public lecture, “E-books in the Bibliographical Imagination: The Case of The Sentimentalists and the Giller Prize,” Thursday, March 8, at 7 p.m. in Assumption University’s Freed-Orman Centre.

Galey is an assistant professor in Toronto’s Faculty of Information, where he also teaches in the collaborative program in book history and print culture. His lecture is part of the Humanities Research Group’s Distinguished Speakers Series.

With the first blooms of 2012 already appearing on campus, grounds crews are eager to get into flower beds, says supervisor Garry Moore. However, the spring-like temperatures can’t fool the professional gardener, who knows the soil isn’t ready for working yet.

“What can come up are spring bulbs, which we have planted earlier,” like the snowdrops that have blossomed outside Memorial Hall, Moore says. He says Facility Services plans to plant more trees on campus this season, including some varieties that “push the boundaries” a little in terms of range.

“I’m looking to plant some types we haven’t had around before,” Moore says.

He adds that the mild winter has been a boon to groundskeepers’ efforts to keep the campus snow-free.

The Centre for Teaching and Learning invites applications for travel grants to participate in teaching and learning conferences. The centre particularly invites applications for travel to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Academy and the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) annual conferences.

SoTL Academy will be held in Grand Rapids, Michigan, May 20 to 22, with the theme Collaborative Engagement. For more information, visit the conference Web site.

The annual conference of the STLHE will be held in Montreal, June 19 to 22, hosted by a consortium of Montreal institutions of higher education. The conference, themed, Learning Without Boundaries? Apprentissage sans limites? invites participants to expand their boundaries and bridges in areas related to research, teaching practices, learning environments, language, culture and disciplines, and learning support services such as libraries, student services, service learning and internships. For more information, visit the STLHE 2012 Web site.

Travel grant applications due March 30

Travel grant applications are due on March 30. Late submissions will be considered if funds are available. For copies of the travel grant application form, please contact Marilyn Powley at 519-253-3000, ext. 3090, or e-mail mpowley@uwindsor.ca.

The International Wednesdays documentary series presents Me and the Mosque on Wednesday, March 7, at noon in the International Student Centre on the second floor of Laurier Hall.

Using original animation, archival footage and personal interviews, journalist and filmmaker Zarqa Nawaz explores the multiple relationships Canadian Muslim women entertain with Islam’s place of worship, the mosque.

While the religion emphasizes social justice and spiritual equality between the sexes, many mosques force women to pray behind barriers, separate from men, and some do not even permit women to enter the building.

Me and the Mosque examines the space – both physical and social – granted to women in mosques across the country. It was produced by the National Film Board of Canada as part of the Reel Diversity Competition for emerging filmmakers of colour.

International Wednesdays screenings are free and open to the public.

Nominations for the Mary Lou Dietz Equity Leadership Award from the Windsor University Faculty Association's Status of Women, Diversity, and Equity Action Committee are open until Friday, March 16, 2012.

The award is named to honour Mary Lou Dietz—a late UWindsor faculty member and head of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology—and her contributions to the advancement of women in Canadian universities and colleges.

Nominations, for either current or former association members, must include the nominee's name and credentials and outline the nominee’s accomplishments and contributions. More information, including the award criteria, is available on the Faculty Association Web site at wufa.ca.