I won an award.

So many things to update on. I've been meaning to post this all weekend, but every time I come here I end up thinking of other posts I want to make and just adding draft posts to my list. Anyway, now that I'm actually here at school, working on my writing, I need something to do whenever I get stuck. I started out today by making one the corrections that Uta had suggested. I need to good short descriptive titles for my treatments and use them throughout the entire thesis. I started doing that, and then got stuck in the wording of my hypotheses. At least I made it through the introduction.

Back on topic, what I've been trying to say, is that last Friday I won an award. The award consisted of a little bit of money and a good am out of honour. I presented some of my research at the Latornell Research Forum and my talk was judged to be the best. This Forum is one of the programs the Latornell Endowment Fund runs annually through the U of G. It was a small gathering of grad students, undergrads, faculty, and people from the conservation sector in Ontario. Arthur Latornell was very interested in supporting the development of young people in conservation careers and he gave his entire estate to the University to set up these programs. I have a really neat little biography about him that I have been intending to read for the past while. Once the April showers (and snowstorms) have passed maybe I'll get to spend some time outback working my way through the dangerous stack of books on my bedside table.



Doug just called me away from my computer to show me this:



Yes, this is a sun visor made out of the skin of Cane Toad which is a highly invasive species in Australia. Doug has been obsessed with Cane Toads for much much longer than I have know him. Every course he teaches includes a class on invasive species biology where he shows a film made in the early 1980's about the movement of Cane Toads across Australia. He even has a preserved Cane Toad sitting on the hearth of his fireplace at home. Somehow, he found this and deems it to be the ideal gift for a invasion biologist. I said he could give, "a toadally serious lecture wearing that disgusting thing". At least then everyone would know he really is crazy.

I have many other items to cover today, but I feel the need to return to my thesis for a bit. I might be back later. Knitting Group is almost over for the summer semester, so I won't be going there tonight. We're having a special session on Thursday this week. I am planning on knitting at home tonight, of course. These little guys will be on the agenda:



More muffin buns! These will be Easter treats for the little puppies that live at my parent's house. They love knitting and they will love throwing these around, for sure. The ears will probably be ripped off the first night. I also need to finish off another accessory for the spring challenge. Luckily my mitred square bag is flying off the needles.

Tomorrow I'm judging the regional highschool science fair, so I'm sure I'll be back with some observations on scientific communication,
Cass

Big Picture Stuff.

I just returned from the annual College of Biological Science (CBS) Financial meeting. Here, the President of the University, Alastair Summerlee, and the Vice-President (Academic), Maureen Mancuso, presented the current financial situation of the University and the College.

I have to admit that I felt my heartbeat increase rapidly when they started explaining the fact that the University of Guelph may be forced to declare bankruptcy in 2010. This will follow the filing of Laurier and the University of Toronto both in the same position. Imagine Ontario without most of its major institutions of higher education. We're in tough economic times, but this is going to do nothing to improve the situation. Both the Federal and Provincial Governments must respond to this and support the educational system either in the form of grant money or by extending the dates for declaring financial status.



To overcome this situation, the University needs to deal with a $47.7 million dollar deficit over the next five years. The two major areas that will be seeing change are the pension programme and the structure of degrees. The Provincial Government is leaning towards creating a province-wide pension standard. This would work the way the Teacher's Pension works. Safety in numbers and consistency across the board. I'm nowhere near retirement, so I haven't put much thought into all of this, but savings and investments will definitely be on my mind now. As for the degree structure, majors will be realigned to use resources efficiently and minors will be removed from the entire University. Recently, Doug has led the committee to completely restructure the Faculty of Environmental Sciences (FES). This process was difficult at times, but an overall success. I talked to him about this today because I was wondering why they were so on-the-ball with making these changes before this idea was strongly suggested across the rest of the school. He mentioned that the restructuring of FES was not driven by the financial situation, but by the way students are attracted to the University and what they require from major programmes. I thought this was interesting because these changes were seen as positive, forward-moving ideas. I hope the rest of the University will be as successful is pulling together as FES was.

Anyway, since working at the Athletic Centre (AC) for years in the midst of a financial scandel and crisis, I realized just how distant from one another various sectors of the University had been. Noone even noticed that thousands of dollars were being skimmed off the top of the AC funds until it literally fell in on top of itself due to lack of upkeep. I have always hoped that a cohesive, efficient system could be designed to bring us all together. People will be happier in their jobs and the entire place will work together more smoothly.

I'm thinking big picture here and that's the way it's gonna be for me from now on.
Cass

Happy Darwin Day!

Earlier today the webmaster at school sent everyone an e-mail that contained an emoticon wink and a recommended link. Of course, I clicked on the link and it connected to today's press release. Every day they (the webmaster and friends) feature an interesting article about the latest goingons at the U of G on the main page. Today's article started out with the line:

"Hoping for a little romance this Valentine's Day? Then avoid logging onto Facebook."

And it continues on to explain a pretty funny study by two Guelph PhD students. I didn't totally relate to their findings; the study cohort was from a younger age group than I and I think that I've worked through some of the issues that these people are currently dealing with. That being said it sort of made me feel better about disconnecting for awhile. Doug always teases me about being from the plugged-in generation and to be honest, I'm starting to feel the pressure. Looking at my computer makes me feel a bit nauseated and as I click along my regular websites I'm starting to feel a little bit bored :( These are bad ways to feel when you need to write about 100 more pages on your thesis.

Anyway, I'm constantly amazed by the opportunities for this sort of study to be carried out. If you can find a gap in the literature or notice some sort of controversy you'll be able to work out a project. I'm glad this type of social phenomenon (facebook) is gaining so much attention because it really lets us look inside the collective psyche and understand how society is shaping up these days.

Later, Cass

p.s. Andrew just told me that he is quitting school to focus on his rap career (sorta like Joaquin Phoenix).