A new program at the University of Windsor will provide music education for youths ages 4 to 17.

The Lab School is offering the Summer Music Program in July for beginner or intermediate level students wishing to study the violin, viola, cello, or flute.

The two-week program will take place in the School of Creative Art’s Armoury facilities and provide a day-long array of musical and artistic activities that include: group class instruction, choir, master classes, performance opportunities, improvisation and composition, and visual art instruction from university faculty members. Participants will also connect with current UWindsor music students assisting faculty. This lab is a hub for musicians of all skills levels.

Students will be taught by professors Vanessa Mio-Quiring on strings, flute instruction by Jonathan Bayley, choir direction by Bruce Kotowich, and Catherine Heard will oversee students’ visual art projects.

Jacob, a 10-year-old Lab School student, says, “This is a spectacular program and it’s great fun. I'm learning a lot!”

The program runs July 10 to 14 and 17 to 21. Learners may register for Week 1 and 2, or Week 1 only. Participation in both weeks is encouraged; students must complete Week 1 to register for Week 2. Registration is now open on the UWindsor Continuing Education website.

—Susan McKee

A multi-person recitation of his punk rock poem The Rogue Remembers is the subject of a short film by Lorenzo Buj, an instructor in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures.

The film will enjoy a launch Saturday, May 6, at the Meteor Lounge, 138 University Ave. West.

A two-time UWindsor graduate, Dr. Buj (BA 1984, MA 1986) returned to the University to teach in 1993 after earning his PhD at the University of Michigan.

The 2021 launch of his first book of poetry, Earlybloom Bombs, included friends of the poet taking turns at the mic to give voice to a selection. It inspired Buj to imagine some of those readers and other old punks from the local scene reciting the longest poem from the book.

Spoken by a fictional persona looking back at the Windsor-Detroit punk scene of the early 1980s, The Rogue Remembers references punk mayhem in Detroit, Windsor’s infamous Coronation Tavern, British and American punk bands and albums, glam rock figures, and many other subcultural groupings, along with a steady supply of literary allusions and topical grumblings on life and society.

Buj enlisted his brother Otto, a filmmaker, in the project. The completed film will be screened during Saturday’s launch event at 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. and find a permanent home thereafter on YouTube. All are welcome to attend. Watch a clip here.

Kinesiology students in both movement science and sport management have been working hard during a study-abroad course in Costa Rica.

Led by instructor Chantal Vallee and professor Sarah Woodruff, the class has focused on cultural integration and experiences while connecting with students and faculty at Tecnológico de Costa Rica.

The university prioritizes sport and culture among its students and offers a multitude of classes in those areas. UWindsor students had the opportunity to participate in salsa and Costa-Rican swing dancing, baseball, swimming, and guitar lessons, all of which were instructed in Spanish.

First-year students Ryan Wawrow and Merrae Sanford had the opportunity to coach the TEC baseball team on proper warm-up movements, technical skills and drills, and game play.

Throughout the week, HK students worked on a project to present to faculty and students on injury prevention and prehabilitation practices to reach optimal performance. The presentation emphasized proper nutrition and hydration, how to test for red flags between quad/hamstring symmetry, knee landing mechanics and strengthening, components of a dynamic warm-up, and yoga.

Next up, the UWindsor students will spend a week at the National University of Costa Rica on the campus designated for kinesiology and health sciences, before heading to the Texas A&M Soltis Centre for research and tourist activities.

Although there have been advances in diabetes care since insulin was discovered 100 years ago, youth with diabetes continue to have a higher risk of other health problems, a lower quality of life, and a shorter life span.

UWindsor psychology professor Jessica Kichler, a core member of WE Spark Health Institute, is part of a group of researchers awarded a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Titled “Building CAPACIty for Pediatric Diabetes Research and Quality Improvement Across Canada,” the project will study trends in pediatric diabetes and how families can successfully navigate the comorbidities that often come with the disease such as depression or anxiety.

The team plans a central registry that will allow clinics across Canada to submit data specific to pediatric diabetes to guide care recommendations nationally.

Dr. Kichler’s research focuses on pediatric health psychology, especially type 1 diabetes and young adult transition to adulthood.

“My area in diabetes is to understand the psychological adjustment, coping, and self-management around having diabetes, but all especially in youth and families,” she says. “What are the family factors that help kids thrive with diabetes?”

The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) Canada is a nonprofit organization that developed a curriculum to train mental health practitioners. The foundation will host a directory of those professionals, allowing families to search for clinicians who have this specific training to help those with diabetes develop coping and self-care management skills.

Previously, Kichler led a team that completed an in-depth needs analysis of students with diabetes transitioning to post-secondary education. It was supported by the internal “Research Grants for Women” program and its findings will guide the University in developing programs to address these needs.

“Managing the emotional and physical aspects of diabetes goes hand-in-hand with understanding insurance, choosing food plans, advocating for academic accommodations, and more as they move out of their family homes,” she says.

Kichler acknowledges key collaborators from McGill University and the University of Manitoba as she continues to work on newly-funded projects with children and young adults who have this chronic health condition.

In the first half of the 20th century, Windsor was home to a dynamic Black community located in the metropolitan core. Situated east of the downtown commercial district, the McDougall Street Corridor was a mostly self-sufficient African Canadian community bounded loosely by Riverside Drive, Goyeau Street, Giles Street, and Howard Avenue.

This historic neighbourhood emerged during the mid-19th century as African American freedom seekers and free people of colour crossed the Detroit River in search of refuge from enslavement and oppression.

Its residents founded churches, businesses, social clubs, halls, and a credit union, but urban renewal policies destroyed these places in the name of progress and modernization.

A walking tour reclaiming this lost history combines research into its heritage, memories of its residents, and vintage photographs into video vignettes.

The McDougall Corridor Tour builds on a research project by Willow Key, a Master’s student in history. She worked with Heidi Jacobs and Sarah Glassford of the Leddy Library and Irene Moore Davis of the Essex County Black Historical Research Society to collect the stories. The resulting collection of essays, images, maps, artifacts, and documents is housed here.

That archive forms the basis of the tour, developed as a collaboration of the Centre for Cities at the Faculty of Law, the Essex County Black Historical Research Society, Parallel 42 Systems, the Leddy Library, and the School of Creative Arts.

Building on this archive, the tour is available here as a self-directed walk. Key will lead a guided tour Friday, May 5, as part of the 2023 Windsor-Essex Jane’s Walk Festival. It will leave from the parking lot outside Water World, 400 Wyandotte St. East., at 5 p.m.

The festival offers free neighbourhood walking tours and draws its name and inspiration from the late urbanist Jane Jacobs.

Other events in the series with a UWindsor connection include:

• Sarah Morris (BA 2012) leading a walk through River West on Saturday, May 6, leaving from the CBC Windsor parking lot at the corner of Riverside Drive and Crawford Avenue at 5 p.m.
• The Healthy Headwaters Lab in the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research and the Friends of Ojibway Prairie guiding exploration of the Spring Garden Natural Area on Sunday, May 7, setting out at 10:15 a.m. from Seven Sisters Park, 2720 Grand Marais Rd. West.

See the full schedule of walks on the festival website.

Members of the Brightspace implementation team took a few moments on Friday, April 28, to celebrate the completion of the work to provide a smooth transition to the new learning management system. They shared reflections on the challenges and acknowledged the collaboration within the team of the Centre for Teaching and Learning, Office of Open Learning, and Information Technology Services, and the vendor, D2L.

“We often do not stop and take a breath after a gruelling project has been completed or an impossible timeline met and simply continue on to the next thing,” said Erika Kustra, director of the Centre for Teaching and Learning. “We felt it was important to celebrate the contributions of the LMS team to the successful launch of Brightspace on the day the Blackboard contract ended.”

Almost 10,000 courses and more than 18,750 users have migrated to the new platform, with 1,598 course sites active in Brightspace during the Winter semester.

Brightspace is the University of Windsor’s learning management system (LMS). The University’s contract with Blackboard ended April 28 and Blackboard is now no longer available. The team is completing the final Brightspace implementation project tasks. To learn more about the transition to Brightspace or learn how to use Brightspace, visit uwindsor.ca/brightspace.

“Fitness is about taking time to connect to yourself and something bigger than yourself,” says health and wellness champion Giovanna Abraham.

She is one of the instructors for classes for UWindsor faculty and staff run by Lancer Recreation during weekday lunch periods in the Education Gym.

“Fitness is about creating harmony between your mind, your body, and your heart so that you may feel whole and truly healthy,” Abraham says. “It’s also about equipping yourself with the tools necessary for healing and for knowing it’s OK to fall.”

She says she loves to create a safe space for people to feel like they belong, by her students’ side supporting them all the way.

One-hour classes begin at noon in the gym, located between the University Computer Centre and the CAW Student Centre:

• Tuesdays — Fab, Fit, and Fun with Abraham
  Target your entire body with yoga and Pilates fusion movements that will leave you toned, sculpted, and strong.
• Thursdays — Full Body Fit with Abraham
  Grab your weights and come get stronger, more toned, and more confident during our sculpt class.
• Wednesdays and Fridays — Yoga Mid-day Release with Nicole Daignault
  Enjoy a moderate-to-low-intensity session, including breathing exercises to relax and balance the nervous system, meditation to still the mind, and deep relaxation to rest the body.

“The best way to get involved is to purchase our All-Class Pass priced at $99 for the semester,” says Mike McMahon, assistant fitness co-ordinator for Lancer Rec.

The All-Class Pass also provides full access to Lancer Recreation classes held in the Toldo Lancer Centre. Click here to purchase online. Once you have your pass, register for classes through the GoLancers app.

John Cappucci, Stephen Jarislowsky Chair in Religion and Conflict at Assumption University, is conducting a study into how Iranian Canadians perceive the treatment of adherents of the Baha’i faith in Iran.

To that end, he is seeking respondents to an anonymous online survey which should take 10 to 15 minutes to complete.

All individuals who:

• are at least 18 years of age,
• were born in Iran or have at least one parent from Iran,
• reside in the province of Ontario or have at least once residence here, and
• have a basic familiarity with the treatment of the Baha’i in Iran,

are invited to take part. Participants who complete the survey may enter into a draw to win one of 20 e-gifts valued at $20 each.

Dr. Cappucci’s project, entitled “A Minority Affair: the Baha’i Question and Iranian Canadians,” has received clearance from the UWindsor Research Ethics Board.

Click here to access the survey and enter the password: bahai2023.