Campus News Briefs

Collegiate students in national writing contest

Two students from the University of Winnipeg Collegiate’s Model School program have landed as finalists in a national writing contest. Chelsea Bannatyne and Marik Beraki are finalists in the national Polar Expressions Publishing Annual Student Writing Contest. Bannatyne penned a science fiction story called Almost Trapped, while Beraki wrote a comeback story called My First NBA Playoff Game. Both are Grade 9 students at U of W’s Model School. The stories will be published in the Polar Expressions 2012 Student Anthology and they also will advance to the final round of competition held in June. In its sixth year, the contest receives thousands of entries from across Canada.

Saudi prof at U of W to study children’s texts

The University of Winnipeg has landed an international scholar. Until June, Dr. Sabah Aisawi will serve as a Visiting Research Fellow at U of W’s Centre for Research in Young People’s Texts and Cultures. Aisawi will “research the representation of disability in children’s literature from a cross-cultural perspective and cultural diversity in children’s literature.” An assistant professor at the College of Arts, University of Dammam, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Aisawi will be teaching a new children’s literature course at U of D in 2013. Aisawi was the first woman to gain a Ph.D in Saudi Arabia in the field of children’s literature.

Wesmen end season with a pair of losses in Calgary

The Wesmen basketball teams both fell short in their final games of the season against the Calgary Dinos on Saturday, Feb. 11. The Wesmen women ended their regular season schedule with an 88-62 loss, finishing the regular season with a 9-11 record, good for fifth place in the Prairie division. Fifth-year guard Amy Ogidan led the Wesmen with 22 points and nine rebounds in her final regular season game. The Wesmen men, meanwhile, fell 94-78 to the Dinos, ending their season with a 4-16 record. Winnipeg was led by Eric Zimmerman’s 25 points, including four three-pointers. Mark McNee finished with 14 and Andrew Cunningham added 11. The women’s team will be looking for the wild card spot in the Canada West Conference Playoff round which begins in two weeks.

Anthropologist on campus for environmental lectures

World-renowned anthropologist and advocate Dr. Wade Davis will be on campus to deliver a series of two lectures at the university Thursday, Feb. 16. Davis is an explorer-in-residence for the National Geographic Society. His work has taken him to East Africa, Borneo, Nepal, Peru, Australia, Mongolia and beyond. The first lecture, The Sacred Headwaters, deals with three of Canada’s most important salmon rivers - the Stikine, the Skeena, and the Nass - and the importance for Canadians to protect them. The lecture takes place from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. in Convocation Hall. The second will be a public forum on tar sands and the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline at 7 p.m. in the Richardson College of the Environment and Science. The forum will feature, along with Davis, Gerald Amos, Chief Councillor for the Haisla First Nation, economist Lynne Fernandez, economist, Anne Lindsey, former executive director of the Canadian Centre of Policy Alternatives, and the Manitoba Eco-Network.

Published in Volume 66, Number 20 of The Uniter (February 22, 2012)

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