2008 News
News Title summary for 2008Dr. Peter Mahaffy referenced in Chemical & Engineering news article, "2011 Will Be International Year of Chemistry"
Globe & Mail Gives King's an A+ for the second year in a row!
Dr. David Long featured on TV's Access program
Dr. Heather Looy & Dr. John Wood are featured in Maclean's Magazine article entitled, "Have Some Chocolate Chirp Cookies."
Dr. Jacobus Kloppers named as a City of Edmonton Arts & Culture Hall of Fame award winner in the Builder category
Daniel VanHeyst's set designs noted in Saskatoon Star Phoenix
Dr. Cal DeWitt speaks at King's, "My Climate, Your Climate, Our Change"
Dr. Peter Mahaffy is awarded prestigious 3M Canada Teaching Fellowship
King's professors breach the culinary frontier with "Bug Banquets"
Spring Concert at Winspear
Dr. Kloppers Honorary Music Scholarship
Derrick Timmermans Memorial Award
King's Chef Has Recipe for Top Marks In Globe & Mail Survey
2011 Will Be International Year of Chemistry
Sparking interest in science and enthusiasm for the creative future of chemistry, the United Nations General Assembly has passed the resolution the 2011 will the International Year of Chemistry. Read the article here, where Dr. Peter Mahaffy of King's was referenced. Chemical & Engineering News, December 31, 2008.
Globe & Mail Gives King's an A+ for the second year in a row!
October 23, 2008
Does Size Matter on Campus? Canadian University Report finds students score smallest universities higher.
TORONTO, ON (October 23, 2008) – Canada’s undergraduate university students have made their voices heard and given the country’s smallest universities higher ratings than the large institutions for overall satisfaction and quality of education. This is one of the findings of The Globe and Mail’s Canadian University Report available in today’s newspaper and online at www.globecampus.ca. The Report is presented in association with The Strategic Counsel and the Educational Policy Institute
Now in its seventh year, this annual survey of undergrads captures their opinions on different aspects of their university experience from quality of teaching, course availability, and academic reputation to campus pubs and bars, food services, and facilities. This year’s Report reflects ratings on 19 different topics, provided by 43,000 students from 55 Canadian universities. In total, students considered more than 77 different factors in the survey. All ratings are available at www.globecampus.ca with the Campus Navigator tool.
The Canadian University Report also includes articles and interviews on topics related to the current university experience including:
- the pressure from students to improve universities’ environmental policies and practices and examples of how universities have responded;
- the revolutionary impact and potential of iPod technology for teaching; and,
- the push for commercialization of university research and the resulting creeping influence of the private sector on campus.
“The Canadian University Report is a primer for any university-bound high school student and their parents,” explains Simon Beck, Editor of the Canadian University Report. “The best way to understand the university experience is to hear about it directly from the students that are currently attending.”
Most Satisfied Students
The following universities earned the highest marks for overall student satisfaction:
- University of Western Ontario earned the only A grade for large universities (enrollment over 22,000);
- University of Guelph scored the top mark (A+) for medium-sized universities (enrollment 12,000-22,000);
- Nipissing University, St. Francis Xavier and University of the Fraser Valley all earned A grades in the small universities category (4,000 – 12,000);
- The King’s University College (Edmonton) and Trinity Western University both earned A+ scores for overall satisfaction among the very small universities (less than 4,000 enrolment.)
Small is Cool
“There are definite trends and patterns in the results,” comments Tim Woolstencroft, Managing Partner, The Strategic Counsel, which managed the survey and data analysis.
“Across many categories you see the smaller universities scoring higher for the overall experience, ability to access faculty and courses, class size, and atmosphere, whereas the large universities struggle in these areas.”
Among the top scores earned by the smallest universities (enrollment of less than 4,000):
- The King’s University College (Edmonton), and Trinity Western University both earned A+ scores for overall satisfaction;
- The King’s University College (Edmonton), Mount Allison University, Redeemer University College, and Trinity Western University all scored A+ for quality of education;
- Concordia University College of Alberta, and Trinity Western University won A+ grades for quality of teaching;
- Six very small universities and one small university (enrollment 4,000- 12,000) were given A+ marks for student faculty interaction. No large universities received that grade and the highest mark awarded the large universities (enrollment 22,000+) was B+ to Concordia University;
- 12 of 14 of the smallest universities scored A+ for class size, whereas no large or medium-sized university earned an A+ in the category.
Leaving a Bad Taste
Food services remain an area of common dissatisfaction. Most universities received C or D grades for their food services. The top performing universities in this area scored A-: University of Guelph and The King’s University College (Edmonton.)
To read the rest of the report, click here.
Professor David Long Featured on TV's Access
Dr. Long introduces Degrassi: the Next Generation and Road to Avonlea
When we think of television seldom do we think of its connection with education. Yet for a number of years Access TV has been working in cooperation with several education institutions, including King's, to do just that - educate.
Dr. David Long first became involved with ACCESS television five years ago as a guest panelist/social commentator on a number of Help! tv shows addressing a variety of social issues. He was subsequently given the opportunity to engage viewers by providing brief introductions for movies shown on "ACCESS Saturday Night at the Movies." Since that time, Dr. Long has provided thought provoking introductions for over 30 different movies, including an entire series of Canadian movies.
Dr. Long has also introduced four different television series including: 7th Heaven, Kyle XY, Road to Avonlea and Degrassi, the next generation. The latter two are currently broadcast respectively at 7 pm on Saturday and 8 pm each Monday on ACCESS.
You can read about Dr. Long's work and sociology at King's by visiting the mediasense.ca website and clicking on the personalities link. You can also click on the movies or television links and then scroll down the menus to hear what Dr. Long has to say from a critical, hopeful sociological perspective about many of the social aspects of our lives involving birth, love, heroes, sex, family, men's relationships, tribalism in the modern world, death and even why Hollywood makes comedies about Christmas.
Professors Looy & Wood featured in Maclean's
"Have Some Chocolate Chirp Cookies"
by Anne Kingston - August 18, 2008
Maclean's Magazine
(read the .pdf version here)
The dawning realization we've eaten our way through the food chain has put insect eating onto the epicurean radar
The Vancouver Indian fusion restaurant Vij's is a top-of-the-food-chain kind of place - cool decor, stellar reviews, discerning patrons willing to wait hours for a table. So, in June, when proprietors Vickram Vij and Meeru Dhalwala introduced cricket paratha, a flatbread made from a creature so lowly it's often crushed underfoot, media outlets as far afield as France were abuzz.
Publicity was never the intent, says Vij. Rather, he and Dhalwala, his wife and Vij's chef, were inspired by the environmental and nutritional benefits of insect eating. The crickets, roasted and ground, are unidentifiable in the flatbread; they're mixed in with chapati flour and seasoned with jalapeno, cilantro, salt and ground cumin. "It tastes like whole wheat bread," says Vij, who says reception has been generally positive. They're considering adding other insect dishes, perhaps grasshoppers. "I'm not interested in a Fear Factor menu," Vij explains. "I want a menu that's well-balanced and versatile that everyone can enjoy."
Consuming insects knowingly - and enjoyably - in a celebrated Canadian restaurant would have been unfathomable a decade ago. Downing the creepy and crawly was the purview of Survivor gross-out challenges. Gastronomically, it was limited to the ballsy derring-do escapades of chefs like Anthony Bourdain and Bizarre Food's Andrew Zimmern. Exposure to what are dietary staples and delicacies in two-thirds of the world meant a visit to the Insectarium de Montréal with its displays of mopane worms in canned chili from South Africa, canned silkworm chrysalises from Korea, and queen ant wine from China. Or attending insect-noshing events at natural history museums, staged to garner media attention, which they did, with press treating the event like a page from Ripley's Believe It Or Not.
But the dawning realization that we've eaten our way through the food chain is forcing a rethink of the Western palate. And with that, insect-eating, or entomophagy to use its loftier identifier, is inching onto the epicurean radar. The North American pioneer is Typhoon, a Pan-Asian fusion restaurant in the Santa Monica airport that has served insects - Taiwanese stir-fried crickets, Singapore-style scorpions with shrimp toast, and "Chambi Ants," potato strings sprinkled with the tiny black picnic pests - since it opened in 1991. Adventurous Mexican restaurants have also brought indigenous delicacies like escamoles, ant larvae, into the culinary mainstream. When Espitas in Dresden, Germany, put maggots, which are fly larvae, on the menu in 2005 - in ice cream, salads and cocktails - customers flocked for a taste. Toloache, a midtown Manhattan Mexican restaurant, opened last year with a house speciality - a chapuline taco, filled with whole dried grasshoppers.
Now, though, insects are no longer exotic novelties like the Colombian queen ants hand-dipped in Belgian chocolate sold at Harrods, or the scorpion lollipops available at the candy store chain Sugar Mountain. In June, Blue Elephant, a bistro in Providence, R.I., added silkworm chowder, cricket kabobs and a crème brûlée made with Thai water bug essence to the menu. "Everybody who has tried them, loves them," says owner and chef Joshua Selle. Chris Schaefer, Typhoon's director of operations, says interest in insect eating has exploded over the past few months. They've been deluged with media inquiries, and film crews from London and Paris have visited, he says.
Bug-eating adherents have been skulking on the fringes since Vincent Holt wrote his 1885 manifesto, Why Not Eat Insects? Now, with oil above US$120 a barrel and dire predictions about The End of Food, to echo the title of Paul Roberts' new book, they're seen as prophetic, not eccentric. David George Gordon, the Seattle-based science writer and author of The Eat-a-Bug Cookbook, has been a tireless proponent of entomophagy for more than a decade. "Insects are the most valuable, underused and delicious animals in the world," says Gordon, who consulted with Vij's. "It reminded me of a drug deal," he says of the process. "Because I was passing along baggies with dried crickets to give them an idea of what's available."
Lowly insects, once the enemies of agriculture, are the imperilled food supply's new heroes, according to a symposium held in Taiwan in February, convened by the United Nations to promote insect eating in developing countries as a solution to the global food crisis. Bugs' new status hinges on their eco-cred: their carbon footprint is teensy; of all species, they're the most energy-efficient converters of food to protein. "Cows and pigs are the SUVs, bugs are the bicycles," says David Gracer, a Providence-based English teacher whose second career as a high-profile entomophagy advocate landed him on The Colbert Report in February. Zachary Lemann, staff entomologist at the Audubon Insectarium in New Orleans, does the math: "You've got to feed about 10 lb. of grain to a cow to get one lb. of edible beef. Insects are much better at that conversion, almost one to one," he says. Crickets deliver twice as much edible tissue as pigs and almost six times as much as steers based on the same food input, says Gracer. They also reproduce at a far faster rate. Their end-of-the-food-chain status means many are herbivores, consuming healthy, low-fat diets.
Nutritionally, insects often outperform traditional livestock. Grasshoppers contain about 60 per cent protein and six per cent fat when cooked; the same serving of hamburger contains 18 per cent protein and 18 per cent fat. The lowly cricket has awesome nutritional value: each 100 g of dehydrated tissue has 1,550 mg of iron (three provide daily requirements), 340 mg of calcium, and 25 mg of zinc. "Two hundred and fifty adult crickets equal 250 calories and only six grams of fat," says Gordon. "A cup of crickets mixed with other things is a meal." Insects provide balanced nutrition, says Lemann, though this content varies. (With their wooden diet, termites tend to be carb-heavy, he says. Though that wasn't a problem for Theo Rosmulder, who survived four days in the Australian outback last month feasting on insects before being rescued by local Aborigines. "Termites don't taste too bad," the 52-year-old former exterminator told reporters.)
Clearly the survival instinct can trump revulsion over consuming bugs knowingly. (Unknowingly, we swallow about a pound a year, in packaged food and airborne, says Gordon.) But this reflex is culturally conditioned, says psychologist Heather Looy, who, with entomologist John Wood, a fellow professor at the King's University College in Edmonton, has been studying our aversion to eating bugs since 1995. "We incorrectly lump all bugs together," she says. "We see all as contaminants; we associate them with bad hygiene, feces and disease with no contradictory imagery." There's also the exoskeleton, the appendages, the weird eyes, even though we covet other animals with these characteristics: crustaceans - shrimp, crabs, lobsters, all arthropods, just like crickets. Vij claims insects can be superior: "Prawns from Thailand are far worse for you than crickets grown in a controlled environment."
Food aversions can be overcome, Looy observes. Sushi was once repellent to many, until Japan's role as an economic superpower made it fashionable in the 1980s. Cultural snobbery influences what we eat, she notes. "The cultures that eat insects are not cultures we emulate," Looy says. The arrival of crickets at Vij's is a milestone: "Food preferences shift when people of status or tastemakers enjoy that food," she says.
Entomophagists agree there's much to learn about insects, though all concur eating bugs live, à la Survivor, is a no-no. Gracer is judicious about which bugs he'll eat, sourcing them from known suppliers. "You go by their food supply, their role in the ecosystem and what entomologists know about them," he says. Nor is anyone suggesting all insects be eaten. A culinary pantheon is emerging: at the top, crickets, said to taste like sunflower seeds or shrimp, hence their nickname "land shrimp." (Euphemisms such as "mini-livestock," "micro-livestock" and "land shrimp" blur "bug" associations, in the same way the term "sweetbreads" eased acceptance of the thymus glands of animals.) Gracer likes water or "stink" bugs, named for their chemical defence systems: "They taste herby and slightly bitter, a cross between kale and cilantro." Gordon favours wax worms, honey-fed caterpillars, which he uses frozen to make cookies. His signature dish is orthopteran orzo, a warm pasta salad made with crickets. "One kid told me, 'This is way better than anything my mom makes,' " he says.
Acceptance will come with exposure, says Lemann, whose "chocolate chirp cookies" made with crickets mask the insects' texture and taste. And resistance is bound to weaken with the fantastical claims surrounding some bugs; giant queen ants from Colombia, for example, are said to contain a natural form of Viagra and a protein-rich defence against cancer.
Artificial farming too will lessen insects' associations with filth. Dutch researchers are using biotechnology to mass-produce isolated ovary cells of a medley of insects, which will deliver insect protein minus the icky eyes and legs. The goal, Marjoleine Verkerk of Wageningen University told Science News earlier this year, is to produce a sanitized source of bug proteins that can be dried and added to breads or moulded into pseudo-burgers. Shudder if you want. But the arrival of President's Choice Grasshopper Kebabs and Land Shrimp and Orzo Stir-fry is only a matter of time.
Kloppers Arts & Culture Hall of Fame Award Winner
Dr. Jacobus (Kobie) Kloppers named as a City of Edmonton Arts & Culture Hall of Fame award winner in the Builder category
June 11, 2008
Our city is strengthened by the personal efforts of many individuals and groups. Their dedication, talents and achievements provide leadership, vision and a reason to celebrate our city and its citizens. In 1951, the City of Edmonton began a tradition of recognizing outstanding accomplishments of Edmontonians by hosting a celebration.
Today, the tradition lives on through an elegant ceremony at the Francis Winspear Centre for Music. The Winspear played host to the City of Edmonton Salute to Excellence Awards on Wednesday June 11, 2008.
Each year, deserving individuals and groups are inducted into one of the City of Edmonton's Halls of Fame. This year Dr. Jacobus J. K. Kloppers, was inducted under the Builder Category. Kobie, as he is affectionately known, is retiring after 28 years of service as professor of music at King's.
Through its Salute to Excellence Committee, the City of Edmonton gathers nominations to recognize and honour Edmonton's most outstanding citizens who, through their participation in arts and culture, community service and sports, have made exemplary contributions to the quality of life in Edmonton.
"The King's community has long recognized the amazing achievements of Dr. Kloppers," said King's President, Dr. Harry Fernhout. "His contributions to the music community in Edmonton and beyond are well known, and we are pleased to celebrate this award with him."
Dr. Kloppers served on the Organ Advisory Committee of the Francis Winspear Centre for Music (1994-2002) and oversaw the final voicing and tuning of the Davis Concert Hall Organ. The Friends of the Winspear commissioned Dr. Kloppers to write "Canticle of the Sun," which was based on All Creatures of our God and King by St. Francis of Assisi. This very difficult piece for organ, mixed chorus, and brass was performed at the gala for the inauguration of the Davis Organ on September 14, 2002, and was performed once again during King's spring concert at the Winspear.
"Dr. Kloppers built the music department from the ground up here at King's," noted Vice President Academic, Dr. Harry Spaling. "At King's and in the community, he is truly one of our 'Builders,' and there is simply no way to overstate his importance to us, to his many students over the years, and to the music community."
Dr. Kloppers has been part of the academic community at King's since 1979, and after 28 years of service is the last of King's original six faculty members to retire. During his tenure at King's, Dr. Kloppers' musical accomplishments and contributions have been significant. He has taught organ privately in Edmonton since 1976, has been the Organist/Choir Director at St. John the Evangelist (Anglican Church)in Edmonton from 1976 to the present, and has been the Adjunct Professor in Keyboard at the University of Alberta since 1997.
Strong Persephone play has bright future
Cam Fuller, The StarPhoenix
Published: Monday, March 31, 2008
One suspects this is just the beginning for At the End of Her Rope.
The new play by Saskatoon actor-writer Cheryl Jack is certainly strong enough to see another production. And if it draws the attention of eastern Canadian theatres, where the facts of the story originate, it could get big, fast.
Jack starts with the last woman executed in Canada, Marguerite Pitre (Catherine Marie Harrison), and builds a partly true, partly fictional story around her. The first half recreates events surrounding the actual bombing of a commercial airliner over Quebec in 1949 -- a scheme by Albert Guay (Rick Hughes) to kill his wife and collect the insurance money. He draws in watchmaker Genereux (Bruce McKay) and his sister Marguerite.
This is far from nuts-and-bolts, literal storytelling. The dead interact with the living; characters snap out of their personas and recite salty limericks choral-style; the set is impressionistic. The first thing you notice is the prosecutor (Robert Benz) wearing both the formal robes of the court and a tool belt -- he's busy building a coffin (and later does incredible work with a stencil and paint).
Overall, the tone is -- amazingly -- lighthearted. There's more black comedy than tragedy here, shades of the TV drama-comedy Dead Like Me, if anyone remembers it.
On the other hand, it's slightly uncomfortable when the names of the victims of the mass murder are read (twice). Can you have it both ways? Documentary when you need the reverence, fiction when you want to have fun?
Jack's singular achievement is creating the wonderfully complex character of Marguerite. She's devoutly religious (to an odd, perverse degree), incredibly naive and seemingly incapable of remorse. You're never sure whether she's oblivious to her perfidy and, therefore, innocent, or just a really good liar. It's this uncertainty that obsesses Albert's murdered wife Rita, played by none other than Jack herself. The play dwells on this particular issue too much, however -- one of those things that fascinates the writer more than the audience.
The play is very much about moving on, stemming from Rita's regret in being sucked in by the silver-tongued Albert. You can't blame her; he's a consummate lout.
In Jack's elegant and precise writing, Rita talks about her mixed feelings getting on the plane: "A shiver and a tingle are so much alike. I go back to that faded memory and wonder which it was."
Her journey won't be complete until she finds out.
If subsequent productions do come, it's hard to imagine anyone topping Harrison's work in Saturday's show as Marguerite, so vivid, poised and, in a way, infuriating was her portrayal of the murderer's accomplice. For unsung hero, look to Joshua Beaudry, who has half-a-dozen small parts and made each distinct, memorable and amusing. The whole cast was solid, though, well chosen and well prepared by director Stephen Heatley.
Daniel vanHeyst's set is dominated by an A-frame ladder that reaches the rafters and evokes both a gallows and a stairway to heaven (remarkably undaunted by the height was child actor Ona Bantjes-Rafols).
Real and unreal, interesting, imaginative and well-written, At the End of Her Rope is a welcome addition to the Canadian theatre scene.
Dr. Cal DeWitt at King's, "My Climate, Your Climate, Our Change"
Dr. Cal DeWitt, President Emeritus of The Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies (www.ausable.org), Fellow of the Nelson Institute, and Professor at The University of Wisconsin, Madison gave a public lecture at King’s on March 5, 2008 on the subject, “My Climate, Your Climate, Our Change.” The lecture was put on by the Environmental Studies graduating class, in association with MASS and The King’s University College. It was part of a day-long forum on climate change issues from a Christian perspective.
Biography
Dr. Calvin DeWitt is the founder and President Emeritus of the Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies, co-founder of the International Evangelical Environmental Network, and a Fellow of the Nelson Institute, and graduate faculty, University of Wisconsin. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished Teaching, Friends of the United Nations FUNEP-500 award, and the Capitol Community citizens award for Land Use Planning. He was Chairman of The Town of Dunn, which received the Renew America Award (1995).
He has given major addresses at more than 70 colleges and universities worldwide, lecturing in China, Korea, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and the United Kingdom, and most recently at the Michael Faraday Institute for Science and Religion at Cambridge University.
He originated the Au Sable Forum Series, including Forum 2002: Global Climate Change at St. Anne’s College in Oxford. The Forum was sponsored by the John Ray Initiative (U.K.) and the Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies (U.S.). It was co-organized with Sir John Houghton, co-chair of Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Dr. DeWitt is a physiological ecologist and wetland ecosystem ecologist. He has published papers in physiological ecology, wetland ecology, ecosystem modeling, and significant work on environmental stewardship. He is the author/editor of Earthkeeping in the Nineties (Eerdmans, 1991), The Environment and the Christian (Baker Books, 1991), Earth-Wise: A Biblical Response to Environmental Issues (CRC Publications, 1994), and Caring for Creation: Responsible Stewardship of God’s Handiwork (Baker Books, 1997).
Sponsors
A Rocha Canada, Mission Sustainable, Micah Center – The King’s University, MAAS – Micah Action and Awareness Society, The King’s University College.
For more information, please contact ftnEdmonton@gmail.com
3M Canada Teaching Fellowship Awarded to Dr. Peter Mahaffy
The 3M Fellowship is regarded as Canada’s top teaching award. His nomination included letters of support from Nobel laureate Roald Hoffmann and from Oxford’s Peter Atkins, author of the world’s bestselling chemistry text.
(as published in Macleans magazine - February 18, 2008 issue)
King’s University College chemistry professor, Dr. Peter Mahaffy, has been awarded the prestigious 3M Canada Teaching Fellowship. The award honours educational leadership and excellence in undergraduate teaching. The 3M Fellowship is regarded as Canada’s top teaching award.
Dr. Mahaffy was recognized both for his contributions to the learning community at King’s University College and for his leadership in international science education.
"It is gratifying to see Dr. Mahaffy’s teaching excellence recognized with such a celebrated award,” said King’s President, Dr. Harry Fernhout. “His contributions at both the national and international level are a reflection of the amazing work he does right here at King’s. His approach to teaching both inspires our students and serves as a model for university professors far and wide. We are privileged to have him as part of our team.”
“Professor Mahaffy’s passion for chemistry has made him a visionary science educator,” noted King’s Vice-President Academic, Dr. Harry Spaling. “Mahaffy uses a wide range of teaching techniques to connect with learners. Even more importantly, he is such a gifted teacher because he authentically values his relationship with students. He has an unsurpassed ability to inspire all students, including non-science majors, to articulate an understanding of the scientific world.”
Mahaffy works both with chemistry majors in the nationally accredited chemistry program at King’s, and has developed innovative approaches to teaching chemistry to arts and science students. As one of the early adaptors of molecular modeling for teaching purposes, he continues to collaborate with colleagues at the King’s Centre for Visualization in Science to develop eye-catching visualizations and other teaching aids now used around the world.
One of Mahaffy’s significant contributions is a new metaphor for chemistry education. His tetrahedral model incorporates the existing triangle metaphor that learners encounter in their chemistry textbooks, but extends the triangle in a third dimension, representing the human contexts for chemistry. Chemical educators have embraced this new metaphor, and organizers of major international conferences have invited Dr. Mahaffy to describe this new approach to chemistry education.
Dr. Mahaffy’s roles as chair of the International Union of Pure & Applied Chemistry’s Committee on Chemistry Education, and membership on the International Council on Science’s Committee on Freedom and Responsibility in the Conduct of Science, place him in global leadership roles in science education and science policy. During his 28 year career as a chemistry professor, Dr. Mahaffy has been described as “Mister Chemical Educator” of the world.
“ If there is any area of professional success that is by definition never an individual achievement, it is in the rewarding world of teaching and learning,” says Dr. Mahaffy. “It is such a privilege to work with inspirational students and colleagues in our supportive learning community at King’s, and with international collaborators to use the tools of science and science education to help make the world a better place.”
(for a .pdf of the article click here)
King’s Professors Breach The Culinary Frontier With 'Bug Banquets'
read how Dr. John Wood and Dr. Heather Looy work to convince the public of the value of eating bugs - as reported in the Edmonton Journal. (Click here for link to Edmonton Journal article or here for a Word document of the story.)
Spring Concert takes place at Francis Winspear Centre for Music.
This past year the King's community has shared in some exciting news and some inspiring events. Most recently we held our Spring Concert at the Francis Winspear Centre for Music. This beautiful facility is home to the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and hosts numerous concerts throughout the year. In the past the King's spring concert has been held at a local church, but this year we knew it was time to take a step forward. And what a step it was.
The evening began with a catered reception for about 150 people. We ask a lot from our supporters and this was our opportunity to say "thank you." Many in attendance have stood by us for a long time, but this event also introduced some new faces to the King's community. Our hope is to nurture these relationships. We want those who invest in the future of King's to know they are appreciated. We also want them to recognize that they do makes a real difference in the lives of our students and in turn everyone they touch around the world.
The highlight of the evening was, of course, the concert. Our Concert, Chamber, and Community Choirs, under the direction of Dr. Melanie Turgeon, along with a host of musicians and soloists, treated everyone in attendance to an unforgettable night of music and inspiration.
The conclusion to the night's program was a special tribute to the career of Dr. Jacobus Kloppers. Kobie, as he is affectionately know to everyone at King's, is one of the original six faculty and the last one to retire. Dr. Kloppers built the music department from the ground up and the evening recognized this amazing achievement.
In addition it was also announced that Dr. Kloppers has been been named as a City of Edmonton Arts & Culture Hall of Fame award winner in the Builder category. This award recognizes and honours Edmonton’s most outstanding citizens who, through their participation in arts and culture, community service and sports, have made exemplary contributions to the quality of life in Edmonton. Dr. Kloppers will be inducted into the Edmonton Arts & Culture Hall of Fame at a gala event at the Francis Winspear Center for Music on June 11th.
Dr. Kloppers Honorary Music Scholarship
The establishment of a scholarship in honour of Dr. Jabobus Kloppers was formally announced on April 8, 2008. This scholarship is an open scholarship supported by friends, colleagues, alumni and the King's community and is to benefit music students at King's. If you would like to make a gift as a tribute to Dr. Kloppers, please contact Debbie Buchynski at 780-465-3500 ext. 8096. Gifts may be also sent directly to King's, Attn: Kloppers' Scholarship. Gifts will be acknowledged and a tax deductible receipt issued.
Dr. Jacobus (Kobie) Kloppers is Professor of Organ and Musicology, and Chair of the Music Department at The King’s University College in Edmonton, and has been since its founding in 1979. Dr. Kloppers is one of King’s original six faculty members, and is the last of the six to retire (Spring 2008) after 28 years of service. He is also Adjunct Professor in Keyboard at the University of Alberta since 1997, and Organist/Choir Director at St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church in Edmonton, from 1976 to present.
Derrick Timmermans Memorial Award
Student-led initiative in memory of Derrick Timmermans
On Monday, September 29, 2008 at 12 Noon in the Student-Alumni Lounge the establishment of the Derrick Timmermans Memorial Award was officially announced. The establishment of this award is a student-led initiative in memory of Derrick who passed away February 21, 2008 of complications after a car accident. Derrick’s degree was awarded posthumously at Convocation on May 3, 2008.
The establishment of this award will ensure Derrick’s legacy of service, involvement in the King’s Community, and the example he set as a disciple of Christ, is long remembered by the students at King’s.
For more information or to find out how you can support this imitative, please contact: Josh Noble (780) 465-3500 ext 9551 or joshnoble_22@hotmail.com or Debbie Buchynski, Director of Development (780) 465-3500 ext 8096 or debbie.buchynski@kingsu.ca
King's Chef Has Recipe for Top Marks In Globe & Mail Survey
On Wednesday November 5th, the Food Services staff at King's was recognized for a remarkable achievement. In one year's time Chef Michel Lamontagne and the staff of Choices Catering transformed the quality and choice of the food served at King's. So much so that the Globe and Mail University Report awarded King's an -A grade - the highest grade for a university in Canada. Only the University of Guelph scored as well as King's.
In last year's Globe and Mail University Report, King's food services received a grade that was very typical of most Canadian universities, a "D." After several months of consultation with students, administration made the decision to try a different approach. Enter Michel Lamontagne and Choices Catering.
In just a few short months, Michel's team moved to a menu that offered more variety and healthier, better tasting food. The results were immediate and are now recognized across the country.
Since it is no secret that good food makes for happy students (and staff and faculty!), the entire King's community gathered to celebrate another great reason why King's is a special place to earn a university degree.
Thank you Michel and the staff of Choices Catering! Well done!