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Monday, June 24, 2013
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U of L Calgary Campus Flood Closure -- Updated information
U of L Calgary Campus Summer Session I is now complete
In consideration of the recent and severe flooding of downtown Calgary, and because the University of Lethbridge’s Calgary Campus remains inaccessible, Summer Session I courses at the Calgary Campus are now complete.
Instructors will evaluate completed course work and will subsequently assign a final course grade. Final exams for Summer Session I have been cancelled.
Students who would like the opportunity to retake the course will be able to do so at no cost to them. Those wishing to withdraw from the course will be able to, without the withdrawal appearing on their official transcript. Final grade submission for Summer Session I will remain July 3, 2013.
We are currently working with other Calgary post-secondary institutions in an effort to offer courses during the Summer Session II and III semesters. Further information regarding these arrangements will be posted shortly.
The U of L’s Calgary Campus remains closed until further notice. U of L officials will continue to monitor the situation and will advise on the reopening of the Calgary Campus when details become clear. In the interim, students, staff and faculty are asked not to access the U of L’s Calgary Campus at Bow Valley College.
We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused and appreciate your understanding as we continue to work through the impacts caused by this significant event.
Instructors seeking additional information regarding the completion of Summer Session I should contact Calgary Campus Manager Dana Corbin at dana.corbin@uleth.ca.
Sincerely,
Andrew Hakin
Provost and Vice-President (Academic)
Additional information can be found here .
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How to report property loss claims resulting from the June 5 flood
The University sustained significant damage arising from the flood that was experienced on June 5, 2013. The following communication is to provide direction as to how to proceed if your area was impacted and there is property loss.
A project has been set up to address all claims for damages arising from this incident and the project No. 801095 should be noted on any estimates and/or invoices for repair or replacement of any damaged items. Financial Services has also created a specific FOAP under Necho for expenses as follows: 11005-6545-801095.
Any expenses related to staff time that have been allocated because of this loss should be approved and processed through each individual department. Documentation should be submitted on a monthly basis to Risk and Safety Services (RSS) for reimbursement under the University's insurance program.
Additional information is available here.
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Flood Related information for students: classroom reassignments
Due to the June 5 flood, classes in the Library and UCA have been moved to new classrooms. As a general reminder, people either teaching or attending classes which may have been scheduled for either the Library or the University Centre for the Arts are asked to check the Bridge to confirm the classroom location.
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Latest pension and benefits news now available
Check out the latest news from the Pension and Benefits team, here.
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Grad studies applications go online
Calling the introduction of the online graduate studies application process a win-win scenario undersells just how many wins will be realized once the new system is launched.
Scheduled to be operational at the end of June, the new online application system will see the end of a process whereby paper application forms, colour-coded by program, had been submitted for the past 30 years.
Initiated through the Recruitment and Retention Integrated Planning project, the online application system will not only be of significant improvement for students looking to enter graduate programs at the U of L, but it will greatly enhance the efficiency of University staff and faculty who must accept and review the applications and supporting documents submitted. Get more information here.
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St Petersburg-bound computer programming team shifts to Russian time
As they prepare to leave this week for St. Petersburg Russia, the U of L's Inter-Collegiate Programming Contest team is not only operating on Russian time -- a 10 hour difference -- but continuing to practice until the last possible moment before they leave.
After months of training and wins at regional competitions, they will enter the prestigious ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) World Finals for the first time, seeded in sixth place overall.
The international event is hosted by St. Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics (ITMO). Only 115 of the top teams world-wide make it to the World Finals.
The events leading up to, and including, the St.Petersburg events are a gruelling series of problem-solving boot camps, competitions and drills designed to enhance the students’ ability to work as a team under relentless pressure, the watchful eyes of the world’s best judges and extremely strict working conditions.
The group, pictured above includes Hugh Ramp: 4th year Physics, left; Dr. Howard Cheng (Mathematics and Computer Science), team coach, front; Chris Martin: 3rd year Computer Science back row, centre; Darcy Best: 2nd year MSc Mathematics, back row, right.
Learn more about their success here
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First-time undergrad participant Camara Lerner takes 2nd place at international programming challenge
In addition to sending a team to Russia, Mathematics and Computer Science prof Howard Cheng is developing the next group of programming challenge participants.
In conjunction with the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) World Finals, an online programming challenge took place this past week among 14 teams or individuals.
U of L undergrad student Camara Lerner staged a remarkable comeback to take second place overall in the open category, following the St. Petersburg State University of IT, Mechanics and Optics.
She defeated Finland's Aalto University and the University of British Columbia "Purple Puppy' team. Lerner's 3rd year colleague Kai Fender made it through three rounds, winning against the National Institute of Technology (Warangal, India) and Turkey's Yasar University before falling to the UBC Purple Puppy team. Full details here.
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Synbiologica team wins 2013 Chinook Entrepreneur Challenge for biomedical device development
It’s win number two for the University of Lethbridge student researcher/entrepreneurs who form the Synbiologica Ltd. team.
CEO Isaac Ward (3rd year, Neuroscience), first-year Biochemistry student Erin Kelly and Chemistry and Biochemistry masters students Mackenzie Coatham and Harland Brandon have developed a new method of detecting hormones, and are in the process of patenting their idea.
Their proposed biomedical device technology -- called “Biologically Enhanced Assay in Real-Time” -- is expected to bring next-generation hormone detection to the research, agriculture and medical markets.
In addition to winning $10,000 in the SouthVenture Business Plan Competition in March, the group recently took first place in the Tech Stream side of the Chinook Entrepreneurial Challenge, an annual business planning competition hosted by Community Futures Lethbridge Region.
They received another $10,000 in cash, a one-year lease on space in the tecconnect -- An Alberta centre for New Commerce -- a high-tech business incubator operated by Economic Development Lethbridge -- plus a host of other in-kind prizes including business consulting from MNP and ActionCOACH, and several thousand dollars worth of media services. Details here
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French language scholarship enables opportunity
Maggie Kogut, a third-year modern languages and English major, has received a highly competitive national scholarship to attend a French language university of her choice in Canada for a year of study.
Kogut, originally from Sylvan Lake, Alta., transferred to the U of L from Red Deer College. She will receive $7,000 and travel expenses as the recipient of a Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Endowment Fund for Study in a Second Official Language award, administered by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC).
“The competition for this award is fierce as there are only a maximum of three awarded every year,” says Dr. Tabitha Spagnolo Sadr, an assistant professor of French and one of Kogut’s nominators. “Each university in Canada can put forth only their best candidate."
Kogut is taking majors in both English and French, and is already refining her bilingual writing skills as the Entertainment editor and as a French-language columnist for the Meliorist. Details here.
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Getting a current perspective on a past conflict leads Megan Moore to Korea
A trip by her grandfather a lifetime ago – into a war zone in 1950s Korea – is resulting in the trip of a lifetime for U of L student Megan Moore.
Moore, a 3rd Biological Sciences student from Picture Butte, AB, is now in Seoul, South Korea as part of an international program that will educate young people about the Korean War on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the armistice that ended the conflict.
She is the only Albertan and one of few Canadians on the scholarship trip, which was open to people who are currently post-secondary family members of Korean War veterans. More than 100 international students, as well as 100 from Korea, are expected to join Moore on the one-week tour.
Moore said she was excited to have the experience because she has the highest respect for the military and its veterans, and wishes to learn more about an activity that had such an effect on her family. Details here
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Dr. Ben Clark takes a new direction in neuroscience research
Dr. Ben Clark focuses on a part of the brain responsible for spatial orientation and object recognition as an early indicator of dementia
Every time you turn your head one way or another, the nerve cells in your brain, called neurons, keep you oriented in space.
Scientists have clues about how this brain-based compass works. But the nuts and bolts of the system, and its possible role in the way memories form and fade, are still a puzzle that researchers such as Dr. Ben Clark,(BSc '05) are trying to solve.
In particular, the University of Lethbridge postdoctoral researcher and Alberta Innovates -- Health Solutions postgraduate fellowship recipient is working to understand if and how the brain circuits that deal with directional information may also impact both memory formation and dementia.
Dauphin, Manitoba-born Clark began looking at the brain’s direction-sensing systems as a graduate student in Jeffrey Taube’s lab at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.
Now back in Canada and working as a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Bruce McNaughton’s Lethbridge Brain Dynamics lab at the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience (CCBN), Clark, who also holds an Honours Bachelor of Science degree in neuroscience from the University of Lethbridge (2005), is interested in figuring out whether the same sorts of brain maps are also used to commit new information or situations to memory.
If so, he and others speculate that the breakdown of these maps could also contribute to memory-related conditions, such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. More details here
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Board of Governors Policy Changes
On June 13, 2013 at the Open Session Meeting of the Board of Governors of the University of Lethbridge, updates to the following policies were approved:
* Surveillance of Public Areas Policy
* Managing Unacceptable Behaviour by External Users of University Facilities Policy
* Impartiality and University Facility Utilization Policy
* Hospitality Expense Policy
Learn more about these policy updates here.
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Get the Facts: New Fact Book data available online
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Share your expertise! University of Lethbridge Experts Database connects expertise with University stakeholders
The University of Lethbridge has launched a new experts database that will link the U of L’s world-class expertise with journalists, academia, government, industry, students and members of the general public from around the world.
An increasing number of faculty experts are signing up each week, but there is room for more people to join the list.
The U of L Experts Database allows users to find researchers through a number of search criteria including research expertise, name, faculty, department and spoken language.
Further, it allows users to browse for experts by specific topics. The database provides contact information for the expert and in many cases provides a link to the researcher’s website. Learn more, and sign up, here
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Next Uweekly -- Monday, July 8
If you have a notice or information to submit for the next two weeks beginning July 8 and beyond, please contact robert.cooney@uleth.ca
Please note that over the summer, Uweekly will be published every second Monday until the end of August. Dates are listed below.
July: 8, 22; August: 6, 19.
August 26 -- Regular weekly editions resume.
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