Historical records and stories of Windsor’s St. John’s Anglican Church community have found renewed life online in the St. John’s Anglican Exhibit, a student project created in a newly offered course, Public History 497.

Fourth-year history students examined genealogical records of parishioners who were connected to the west-end church in the mid-nineteenth century and digitized the research to make the history publically available.

History professor Adam Pole, who taught the course, says the students researched the church’s marriage, baptismal and burial records held in the Leddy Library’s archives. They looked at demographic trends within the broader church community, as well as the lineage of particular parishioners, including tracing the Jessop family all the way back to England.

“You can get a great insight into the social life of people when you have records showing what age they got married, what age they died and what they died from,” he says. “These students did an amazing job and I’m proud they were honoured for their work by UWindsor’s own Humanities Research Group at the Celebration of Student Research and Engagement.”

The project was created by history students Salma Abumeeiz, Sean Antaya, Kayla Dettinger, Kyle Lariviere and Tyler Pickel. Dr. Pole says he was “blown away” by the project, especially considering it was the first time the course was taught.

“They used the archives as a starting point and from there, did some great detective work,” says Pole. “They talked to the current priest, visited the church, walked through the graveyard and took photos.”

The group learned how to digitize with cameras and use software to include geospatial mapping. The project was highlighted in the online magazine Canada’s History as an example of online teaching.

Pole says the course is meant to strengthen connections between the history department and the community.

“Public history is history outside of academia and is about connecting the public with their past,” he says. “It’s about getting people involved in the history of their own community with things like museums, heritage sites, even historical films, and these online exhibits are part of that.”

Other student projects from the course include the history of a high-profile Windsor murder trial and a scrapbook of an Ontario nurse’s personal life. All of the digital exhibitions can be viewed on the  Public History 497 course website.

Public History 497 is a collaboration between the Department of History and the Leddy Library’s Centre for Digital Scholarship. The course was developed with a UWindsor Open and Online Learning Strategic Development Grant.

Residence Services provides some of the most visible and integral foundations for campus life, says Billy Chandler, president of the drama student society Club SODA. He led a delegation last week presenting complimentary theatre tickets to its staff.

“Communities and friendships have been built almost entirely upon their hard work and dedication,” he says. “Between providing a communal space, offering academic help, and creating fun, community building activities, residence is an experience which no student will soon forget.”

Chandler says that even though he lived off-campus in his first year at university, he has many memories of experiences organized by residence staff. Club members presented the office with tickets to the current University Players production, Dancing at Lughnasa.

The play relates the story of the Mundy family in the rural Ireland of 1936. Its run continues through March 13 in the Hatch Studio Theatre. Find tickets at www.UniversityPlayers.com or by calling the box office at 519-253-3000, ext. 2808.

What do plastics, pharmaceuticals, foodstuffs and biomaterials all have in common? They are all soft matter, says physics professor An-Chang Shi of McMaster University.

Dr. Shi will discuss the intriguing properties of these materials in a free public lecture, entitled “Where Physics Meets Chemistry and Biology,” Thursday, March 10, at 3 p.m. in McPherson Lounge, Alumni Hall.

“Traditionally, soft matter is a research area populated by chemists and biologists, emphasizing the synthesis and characterization of these materials,” he says, but since the 1970s, physicists have contributed their insights to the field.

He will outline some recent studies in the area during his presentation, part of the Canadian Association of Physicists’ undergraduate lecture tour.

The move of media and educational technologies from the Centre for Teaching and Learning to Information Technology Services will help the University to streamline the delivery of support for the academic mission across all programs and units, provost Douglas Kneale said Monday in announcing the re-organization.

“As our instructors, researchers, scholars, performers, and students incorporate more and more technology into their teaching, research, and learning, we are constantly seeking new and effective ways to support them,” Dr. Kneale wrote in an e-mail message to the campus. “This reorganization is also intended to enable CTL to concentrate fully on the teaching and learning mission of the University.”

The change will take effect March 14.

UWindsor Food Services was an early adopter of a ketchup produced using local tomatoes.

Switching to French’s for its ketchup was “the right thing to do,” says executive chef Paolo Vasapolli.

The brand has won a great deal of goodwill for sourcing its tomato paste from the Leamington Highbury Canco plant that formerly processed ketchup for Heinz. According to Vasapolli, the company supports about 700 jobs in the area.

Recent news reports have detailed consumers and institutions changing over from Heinz to French’s ketchup, and Vasapolli says the University got on board early.

“We switched in January, probably the first university in Canada to switch,” he says. “We are all about supporting local as much as possible.”

Rayna Lamond, a first-year student drama in education and community, says she noticed the change in the condiment served at the Marketplace food court.

“I like this ketchup. It’s really good!” she said as she topped her burger Tuesday.

Faculty and staff hoping to learn about a questionnaire reporting on the international student experience at the University of Windsor must RSVP by Thursday, March 10, with Clementa Stan at cstan@uwindsor.ca, 519-253-3000, ext. 3563.

Representatives of the consultancy service I-graduate will discuss the results of the International Student Barometer, their November survey asking international students about their experiences, decision-making and expectations related to a number of items including arrival, learning, living and support, measuring how they perform against benchmarks.

The event is set for Monday, March 21, at 2:30 p.m. in the International Student Centre, room 204, Laurier Hall.

The Burger Bar station in the CAW Student Centre’s Marketplace will feature a new sandwich this month that adds pork to its homemade beef patty.

The Southern Pulled Pork Burger will top the hamburger with slow-roasted pork with hickory barbecue sauce, says executive chef Paolo Vasapolli.

“It’s a great addition we’re trying out for March,” he says. “Hopefully it catches on with our customers.”

The burger sells solo for $6.99; a combo adding French fries and a drink costs $9.99.

“There is no thinking outside language,” says Marcia Morgan. “Language is always in transit, exile, and dispossession.”

Professor of philosophy at Muhlenberg College, she will explore the interaction between affect and language as articulated in the works of Theodor W. Adorno and Julia Kristeva in her free public lecture, “The Affect of Dissident Language and Aesthetic Emancipation at the Margins,” Thursday, March 10, at 5:30 p.m. in room 2173, Chrysler Hall North.

Dr. Morgan says the two philosophers are united in their belief in emancipation through art.

“I aim to show a common ground between Kristeva and Adorno through the position of exile, realized by both philosophers by means of the social situation of the art work, which enacts an undoing of social norms and makes possible aesthetic emancipation,” she says.

Her talk is part of the Visiting Speakers Series of the Department of Philosophy.

In recognition of next week’s March Break for local schoolchildren, the Campus Bookstore is offering 20 percent off all children’s books as its True Savings Thursday special for March 10.

The store is open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the lower level of the CAW Student Centre.