The student whose design will help prevent birds from flying into a student centre window is excited to see the mural completed.

Titled The Feathery Friends of Windsor, the illustration by integrative biology major Manpreet Bhachu incorporates various species including butterflies, fish, indigenous plants, and a variety of birds. Seven bird species are depicted in the panels in letters that spell “Windsor.”

“I am truly honoured to hear that my design will contribute to help birds through bird safety,” Bhachu says. “I’m genuinely really excited about this project.”

The UWindsor Sustainability Office had launched a contest soliciting designs for a window overlooking the balcony on the second floor of the CAW Student Centre to discourage birds from injury flying into the glass. The project is part of campus bird friendly efforts, BirdSafeUWin. Learn more on the University’s environmental sustainability website.

“We received several wonderful and creative design proposals,” says sustainability officer Nadia Harduar. “The evaluation committee had a difficult time deciding on a winner.”

Bhachu’s design will be printed as a large decal to be applied by summer’s end. She will receive $250 in UWinCASH sponsored by the K.M. Hunter Charitable Foundation, which also contributed to the cost of creating and installing the decal.

“I’m glad everyone found my design creative, as that is exactly what I was going for,” Bhachu says.

Harduar notes that other designs may yet find use.

“We are hoping to leverage some of these on other large window spaces across campus in an effort to prevent future collisions resulting in bird trauma,” she says.

She encourages members of the campus community to report bird-window collisions and expresses thanks to the Pelee Island Bird Observatory for its assistance with the project and ongoing partnership.

The School of Computer Science is about to expand its ability to crunch big data. Its acquisition of highly specialized computing equipment will allow researchers to better tackle problems revolving around information retrieval, social network analysis, and drug design.

Hossein Fani and co-applicants Ziad Kobti and Alioune Ngom received $150,000 from the Canada Foundation for Innovation John R. Evans Leaders Fund (CFI-JELF) and the Ontario Research Fund, along with $51,000 from the School of Computer Science, for their project, “Computing Infrastructure for Deep Learning on Graph-Structured Data.”

The three researchers will help establish a Graph Neural Network Lab (GNN-Lab), the first deep learning laboratory at the University of Windsor with a special interest in applying neural networks on graph-structured data.

Graphs are the cornerstone of modelling mutual relationships between discrete entities. Dr. Fani will focus on information retrieval, Dr. Ngom investigates drug design, and Dr. Kobti and Fani perform social network analysis.

Fani says information retrieval, search engine, and recommender systems currently do not take into consideration the person doing the search or making the request.

“When you use Google or Amazon and they are recommending products or bringing up web pages, they just look at the content of the query, but they don’t look at the user info in social networks.”

For example, Ngom says, by finding similarities between the protein networks of two drugs, researchers might find that an existing drug could possibly be repurposed to treat a new disease.

“This way we can avoid designing a new drug which can take a lot of time and is extremely expensive,” says Ngom.

“For instance, in COVID when they wanted to design a new treatment drug, instead of designing one from scratch, they just looked at the similarities of COVID to other diseases and then tried to re-use the drugs for those diseases — it is cost effective and fast.”

Fani says that because disparate problems are based on graph-structured data, it allows for them to be explored in the same computer science lab.

“If we find an algorithm that can find similarities between drugs, we can find similar algorithm that could find similarities between people or users,” he says.

Previously, the researchers worked independently in their own labs. Now, as a team, they can work together to find the best algorithms.

“This will provide the first steps towards realizing new cross-discipline linkages that come with new machine learning methods or AI,” says Kobti.

“With the GNN-Lab, UWindsor will serve as a hub for developing advanced techniques for all types of graph-structured data — from social and collaborative networks of people to protein-protein networks.”

The GNN-Lab will consist of a Graphics Processing Unit server that provides fast and flexible computing. In addition, a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Research Tools and Instruments grant of $32,010 rounded out the lab with nine small-scale GPU-enabled computers.

“On the new computers, students can prototype their artificial neural network models to see if they’re viable. Normal computers don’t have this capability,” says Fani.

“Once they want to run these models with huge data, they’ll need the GPU server as the central computation server of the proposed lab.”

The GNN-Lab will provide opportunities for new interdisciplinary collaborations, both nationally and internationally, ultimately increasing the capacity and quality of student training opportunities.

“With a significant increase in research partnerships, with the proposed equipment, we will meet the growing industry demand for GNN expertise,” Fani says.

He adds the team is grateful to Nicole Noel, research funding officer in the Office of Research and Innovation Services, for her supplying helpful comments on their application and assisting in the submission process.

For more info, visit https://fani-lab.github.io/.

Moneeza Sami, a recent graduate of the University of Windsor business program, was looking for opportunities to get involved in the community and gain relevant skills and experiences related to her specialization in marketing. In her second year of study, she enrolled in VIP-Community Service Learning (VIP-CSL), an experiential learning program designed to help students simultaneously gain work experience, volunteer in the community, and improve their career-related knowledge.

“When I heard VIP had arranged for students to do volunteer placements, I knew it was my chance to get involved in my community. I was also looking for additional experience to put on my resumé, as I was about to enter the co-op job competition that year,” says Sami.

Sami completed the program three times over three semesters and was matched with Pozitive Pathways Community Services, Canadian Mental Health Association Windsor-Essex, and Arts Council Windsor and Region as an outreach and marketing assistant, a role that led to paid employment after she completed the program.

In her role at the arts council, she supported marketing initiatives including social media, donor outreach, volunteer engagement, community events, and fundraising, giving her the opportunity to apply concepts and theories from the classroom to real life settings.

When the organization received a grant to help with fundraising, Sami’s volunteer placement had just concluded, and she was offered a part-time job due to her experience and connections with the organization.

“When the ACWR received a grant to hire someone, they offered me the position of fundraising and marketing specialist in my final semester of university,” says Sami. “The transition to my first job out of school was very smooth because I had already developed a great working relationship with the team and was familiar with the organization through my experience in the VIP program.”

Pursuing volunteer experiences through the VIP-CSL program proved to be a vital investment in Sami’s future, helping her to develop professionally in areas related to her degree, explore her interests, and make connections that helped her secure employment after graduation. By the end of her degree, she had accumulated more than 120 volunteer hours and earned a notation of completion on her academic transcript.

“I got the most value out of the VIP-CSL program by viewing it as an investment in my future,” says Sami. “The program had a tremendous impact on my professional development, helping me to perfect my resume, cover letter, and interview skills, and gain skills relevant to my degree. I was able to learn about my own career aspirations and explore my interest in the non-profit sector in a meaningful way.”

Sami also describes how her volunteer experience instilled a deeper connection with the community and helped reignite her passion for the arts.

“Volunteering at the arts council made me fall back in love with the arts and helped me learn that it is a great way to bring people together through self-expression and storytelling,” she says. “Volunteering also made me feel connected to Windsor in a new way. I feel encouraged to be creative again and am a lot more open to trying new things even if I’m not an expert at it.”

VIP-CSL is an experiential learning program through the office of Career Development and Experiential Learning. Students who participate in the program engage in career development and reflection activities to improve their career-readiness skills, explore potential career paths, and engage in the community through partnerships with local non-profit organizations.

The program is accepting applications until July 15 for the Fall 2024 semester. For more information, visit www.uwindsor.ca/vip.

Contributing a chapter to a book was a labour of love for Teresa Holden, a PhD candidate in educational studies.

She co-authored with education professor Clayton Smith the chapter “A Systematized Review of Anti-Racist Pedagogical Strategies” in Interrogating Race and Racism in Postsecondary Language Classrooms, published earlier this year by IGI Global.

“The process required persistence and discipline,” Holden recalls. “Understanding that there are multiple rounds of revision — it took almost one full year.”

In addition, there were very few sources specifically addressing higher education. But in the end, she says, she got the satisfaction of having a goal and seeing it come to fruition.

The publication sets out an approach to teaching that aims to create inclusive and equitable learning spaces.

“There are racist and colonial underpinnings not just in Canada, but globally,” Holden says. “How do we as educators attack these power structures so students feel comfortable in their learning?”

She notes that teachers may not even be aware that they are perpetuating patterns of white privilege.

“I found it intriguing that maybe some teachers do it unconsciously. They may not understand the intricacies of the power dynamic,” says Holden. “You have to ask yourself: am I conveying a dominant cultural perspective? Am I undermining my students?”

Fortunately, she concludes, there are ways to address these challenges.

“You can combat it by having open dialogue with your students. We really can change it if we want to,” Holden says. “A lot of people don’t like talking about the subject, but teachers are the key people who can facilitate honest discussion.”

And she believes the project will make her a better educator.

“This process allowed me to open my eyes to what I’m doing in the classroom. I have become more sensitive to how I am conveying information,” she says.

Integrative biology’s Isabelle H. Barrette-Ng has been awarded the 2024 Faculty of Science Roger Thibert Teaching Excellence Award in recognition of her exceptional contributions towards engaging students and educational leadership.

Since joining the Faculty of Science as head of integrative biology in 2020, Dr. Barrette-Ng has excelled as an educator. A highlight being bringing the SAGES program to the University of Windsor. Designed for graduate students in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), the program combines a theory course as well as a teaching practicum.

“It was a great honour and privilege to be recognized through the Roger Thibert Teaching Excellence Award and to join an amazing group of awardees who have all made positive contributions to teaching and learning in the Faculty of Science at UWindsor,” says Barrette-Ng.

“Professor Thibert’s dedication to teaching and learning provides lasting inspiration for the great community of scholars, educators and learners, who co-create rich and meaningful teaching and learning experiences throughout the Faculty of Science.”

Since its inception in 2011, the Roger Thibert Teaching Excellence Award has recognized the stellar quality of teaching in the Faculty of Science, as well as commemorating its namesake.

Eighteen recipients have received the award in the past 13 years.

Named in honour of the late Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry professor Roger Thibert, the award is presented to science faculty who develop a positive, learning-centred environment.

During his time a UWindsor from 1957 until 1994, Thibert is credited with establishing the graduate program in clinical chemistry, the only pre-doctoral program of its kind in Canada at the time. He is also credited with the development of the chemistry and biochemistry undergraduate and graduate programs that exist today.

Thibert has received numerous awards in recognition of his teaching excellence. Among them are the University of Windsor Alumni Award for Distinguished Contributions to University Teaching, the University Alumni Award of Merit, the Education Excellence Award of the Canadian Society of Clinical Chemists, and the SmithKline Clinical Laboratories of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry Award for Outstanding Efforts in Education and Training.

In 2003 he received the Alumni Excellence in Mentoring award in recognition of his continued commitment to his students well after graduation. Thibert died on May 30, 2024.

“Dr. Thibert served as a tremendous leader in his field and a great educator and mentor to many students and faculty”, says Dora Cavallo-Medved, interim dean of science and a previous recipient of the Roger Thibert award.

“Through this award, we continue to recognize Dr. Thibert’s contributions to teaching and mentorship each year. We are honoured to preserve his legacy through this award and to celebrate our excellent faculty recipients.”

Thibert’s son, Robert Thibert, recalls his father’s dedication to his students and the University.

“He treasured his students as though they were part of his own family. He treated them with respect and admiration for their own accomplishments. His nurturing methods of teaching were never overbearing, and he enjoyed standing back and watching his students succeed while providing the necessary input for them to do so.”

Even in his own experiences, Robert remembers his father wanting him to learn how to solve problems on his own.

“I was never one of his chemistry students, but I was one of his life students, which gave me the same drive and dedication in my career and life as he had in his. Congratulations to all of the winners of the Roger J. Thibert Teaching Excellence Award past, present, and future. You are being chosen because you have that same indescribable drive to help others.”

Award recipients receive a $2,000 research grant, a certificate, and are highlighted at the Annual Celebration of Teaching Excellence hosted by the Centre for Teaching and Learning as well as the Faculty of Science’s annual awards reception.

A new website has been created to share information about the University of Windsor’s budget approach for 2024-25.

As previously communicated, the University is addressing significant financial challenges to ensure long-term sustainability. Despite achieving a balanced budget for 2024-25, a $2.8 million base deficit remains, necessitating a multi-year strategic approach.

The financial strain, largely due to a 2019 tuition cut and a six-year freeze on domestic tuition, has resulted in more than $35 million in annual revenue losses. To manage this, the University has identified the need for $5.6 million in savings for the 2024-25 fiscal year. This includes a 1.5 per cent budget reduction for departments and faculties, following a one per cent reduction in 2023-24.

Efforts have been made to minimize the impact on staff. The Budget Balancing Committee, with members from across the UWindsor community, worked diligently to find solutions for financial sustainability. Their recommendations, approved by the Provost Budget Committee, are incorporated into the 2024-25 Operating Budget.

These decisions, though difficult, are made with a commitment to the University’s mission, vision, and values. The University of Windsor remains optimistic about the future and confident in navigating these financial challenges.

For more details, including employee wellness resources and frequently asked questions related to the budget realignment strategy, visit the new website.

Organizers of UWindsor Welcome Week are calling on faculties to submit by July 17 their plans for undergraduate program orientation sessions on Wednesday, Sept. 4.

That will enable them to be included in promotional materials sent to new students, as well as to be assigned spaces reserved by the Student Success and Leadership Centre.

Fill out the form here to register details of an academic program orientation.