University of Alberta - Faculty of Arts

: Congratulations to Katie O’Connor, ‘24 BA (Hon), who will convocate with a Governor General Silver Medal (which is given to the top three students graduating from almost all of the university’s faculties), a Dr. John McDonald Medal in Arts (given to the top Honors program graduate), and a Rutherford Medal in English (given to the top student in English)!

As honoured as she is to receive these accolades, Katie is proudest of her decision to let her love of learning shape her university experience. “I was passionate about all of my classes,” she says. “It was super hard, but it was work I really enjoyed and believed in.”

Learn more about her journey (and what's next) here:

Academic exploration earns Arts grad top awards Katie O’Connor, ‘24 BA (Hon), will convocate with a Governor General Silver Medal, Dr. John McDonald Medal in Arts, and Rutherford Medal in English

⭐ A stellar honour! In recognition of his work for The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, an asteroid has been named for Chris Gainor, who received his PhD in the history of technology at in 2011. The orbit of 20041 Gainor — a 5 km diameter asteroid — can be seen here: go.nasa.gov/3RqbRrT

See all 20 new asteroid names honouring prominent Canadians and find out the rules for naming here: https://bit.ly/4c0zJKE

In the first of our Convocation spotlight series, meet Stephanie Rossi, who was certain she wanted to work at the intersection of industrial design and human health and wellness after completing her Bachelor of Design in 2021.

Now, as she prepares to cross the stage to receive her Master of Design, Rossi has been working as an industrial designer for ChromaCare Labs — an Edmonton-based biotech startup that's developing novel at-home lab testing kits — and will also be working as a U of A sessional instructor in the fall.

Read Stephanie's story here: https://bit.ly/3VEprdE

Art & Design, UAlberta

A -led consortium of researchers from around the world has received a 2023 New Frontiers in Research Fund grant of just over $5M. The funds will be used to support a multi-year research project to engage Indigenous and people in vulnerable conditions to develop climate mitigation strategies.

The project, entitled “Relational Accountability of Mother Earth: Revitalizing and Restoring the Land and Water,” is led by Paulina Johnson, Sîpihkokîsikowiskwêw (Blue Sky Woman), assistant professor of sociology and an adjunct professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the U of A.

Learn more:

International, Indigenous-led consortium receives $5M in New Frontiers in Research Funding for climate research A University of Alberta-led consortium of researchers from around the world has received a 2023 New Frontiers in Research Fund grant of just over $5M. The funds will be used to support a multi-year research project to engage Indigenous and people in vulnerable conditions to develop climate mitigatio...

Check out COMM 553: Real World Evaluation offered in Fall 2024! This online course teaches applied methods that are applicable across different organizations and will be open to all graduate students after August 2, 2024.

Learn more: https://ow.ly/xSAj50S9TJC

Summer has arrived! Keep your playing up over the summer with the Summer Band, alongside conductors Dale Chapman, Michael Clark, Dan Kindopp, Graeme Peppink and Dr. Angela Schroeder.

Everyone is welcome! Register here: https://bit.ly/3KzkBYA

Join Art & Design, UAlberta from June 8 - July 6 at FAB Gallery for the exhibit, "Listening to the Land", by Treaty 6 based artists Christina Battle & Lara Felsing. The exhibition is rooted in collaboration, conversation and knowledge-sharing. Learn more here: https://bit.ly/4dbA7XI

It’s time, 🎓🎉 !

Throughout the upcoming celebrations for our new graduates, we’ll share grad stories and moments to help mark this year’s convocation.

Check out COMM 554: Risk Communication and COMM 597: An Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI) Systems & Ethics offered in Summer 2024! Both online courses focus on communications and technology and are open to all graduate students.

Learn more: https://ow.ly/L5xf50S9TFr

Celebrating National Indigenous History Month 2024 Honouring the heart work led by Indigenous colleagues and allies, past and present.

Congratulations to PhD student in the Department of History, Classics, and Religion Nakita Valerio! She received a Graduate Scholarship for her project, Keepers of the Qur'an: Women's Religious Literacy & Leadership in Morocco, supervised by Joe Hill.

See the full list of 2023-24 SSHRC Vanier Scholars here: https://bit.ly/3R5sb0Q

Photo credit: Capture Keeps Photography

In an announcement this week, Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) revealed the winning recipients of the 2023-24 Partnership Development Grant and Partnership Grant competitions. The Faculty of Arts is pleased to learn that 12 of its faculty members are involved in four projects that received funding!

Congratulations to all, including: Howard Nye, Chloë Taylor, Crystal Fraser, Sarah Nickel, Corey Snelgrove, Kisha Supernant, Andy Knight, Temitope Oriola, Shirley Anne Tate, Helen Vallianatos, and Jorge Sanchez Perez!

Read more:

Recognizing our 2023-24 partnership funding recipients In an announcement this week, Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) revealed the winning recipients of the 2023-24 Partnership Development Grant and Partnership Grant competitions. The College of Social Sciences and Humanities is pleased to learn that 14 of its faculty m...

At the end of May, the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, and the Honourable Mark Holland, Minister of Health, announced the recipients of 166 Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships and 70 Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships.

Congratulations to 's Hajar Ghorbani, Ph.D Student of UofA Anthropology, for being named a 2023-2024 Vanier Scholar and ranking 1st out of 193 SSHRC applicants in Canada. Her research proposal is titled, Dead Bodies' Agency in Iran and Western Politics: The Woman, Life, Freedom Movement in Iran and its International Political Impacts and her supervisor is Marko Zivkovic.

Named after Major-General Georges P. Vanier, the first francophone Governor General of Canada, the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships (Vanier CGS) program helps Canadian institutions attract highly qualified doctoral students. Valued at $50,000 per year for three years during doctoral studies, they consider three equally weighted selection criteria: Academic Excellence, Research Potential, and Leadership (potential and demonstrated ability).

Learn more here: https://bit.ly/3VlOCl5

Have you seen the Alumni Impact Report? On May 1, the results from a 2023 survey by Ernst & Young that reviewed the economic, social and cultural impact of the U of A’s alumni community was released. U of A grads are both Alberta’s job creators and Alberta’s workforce! Read more:

Alumni Impact | Alumni For more than a century, University of Alberta alumni have had an impact in Alberta, Canada and the world. The university has produced a former prime minister and a chief justice of the supreme court, has been part of groundbreaking research, and has launched businesses — and even industries — t...

The last day to purchase tickets to the Fyrefly Institute for Gender and Sexual Diversity's Mayor’s Pride Brunch is June 3! Don't miss this wonderful event.

There's two weeks left to purchase tickets to Fyrefly's Mayor's Pride Brunch! Celebrate our 20 years of dedicated advocacy for the 2SLGBTQ+ community and support our essential life saving programs and services! Tickets are available at the link in our bio or our Eventbrite page at bit.ly/fyrefly20 until June 3!

If you can't attend the event, you can donate a ticket, donate to the Fyrefly Institute fund at uab.ca/donateFI, or sponsor our event, please email us at [email protected] for more information!

A new movement of “stuttering pride” is on the rise, says Joshua St. Pierre, a Canada Research Chair in Critical Disability Studies and professor of political science the University of Alberta.

It proclaims without reservation that, “given a choice, I wouldn’t change this. I want to speak like this — there’s something inherently valuable in it.”

Read more about the new project in disfluency studies that casts the speech disorder in a new light: https://www.ualberta.ca/folio/2024/05/reimagine-stuttering.html

University of Alberta Political Science

Reimagine stuttering Partly to challenge assumptions of normative communication, Canada Research Chair in Critical Disability Studies Joshua St. Pierre — and a team of disabled and disability-allied scholars, clinicians, dysfluent artists and community members — are launching a project called the Stuttering Commons.

The recipients of the ninth annual Governor General Innovation Award (GGIA) include The Canadian Archaeological Association Working Group on Unmarked Graves (CAAWGUG), chaired by Dr. Kisha Supernant — director of the Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archaeology (IPIA) and professor in the Department of UofA Anthropology at the University of Alberta. Congratulations on this recognition!

The Canadian Archaeological Association Working Group on Unmarked Graves receives Governor General's Innovation Award The announcement came from the Rideau Hall Foundation (RHF) at the end of April: The recipients of the ninth annual Governor General Innovation Award (GGIA) include The Canadian Archaeological Association Working Group on Unmarked Graves (CAAWGUG), chaired by Dr. Kisha Supernant — director of the ...

Thanks to all who gathered at the University Club last week for the book launch of For the Public Good with authors Loleen Berdahl, Jonathan Malloy and Lisa Young!

Special thanks to Robert Wood (Dean of Arts), Tracy Raivio (Vice-Provost and Dean, Faculty of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies), Maren Wood (Beyond the Professoriate) and Jared Wesley (Professor and Associate Dean, Faculty of Arts) for their participation in the panel discussion.

Learn more about reimagining Arts graduate programs in Canadian universities: https://bit.ly/3QOHCue

University of Alberta Press

Congratulations to Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies' Dr. Iman Mersal who was awarded the James Tait Black biography prize, in conjunction with translator Robin Moger, for Dr. Mersal's Traces of Enayat!

We are excited to reveal a trio of captivating books are the winners of the James Tait Black Prizes. Fiction winner Alexis Wright and biography winners Ian Penman, Iman Mersal and translator Robin Moger join the stellar line-up of awardees of the UK's oldest book awards. Read more ➡️ https://edin.ac/3V2ykxm 📚


And Other Stories
Fitzcarraldo Editions
إيمان مرسال - Iman Mersal

Open now until June 1: Buddy at the Banff Park Zoo by Daniel Evans, Ludmila Lima De Morais + Lianne McTavish. This virtual reality artwork allows participants to become a polar bear named Buddy using a virtual reality headset and controllers.

Learn more about this Art & Design, UAlberta exhibit here: https://bit.ly/3V0pAI1

Join us on Thursday, May 23 from 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM in Telus Centre, Room 134 for “Brazil and the XXI Century Cooperation Agenda - Food Security, Renewable Energy and Environmental Conservation”, a talk by the Consul General of Brazil in Vancouver, Ambassador Nestor Forster Jr.

Brazil is one of the world’s top food producers and exporters, has one of the cleanest energy matrix and some of the strictest environmental laws in the world, which allows for the protection of the Amazon and the other diverse biomes of the country. In these three aspects of the international agenda, Brazil has comparative advantages that allow the country to contribute to current global challenges. Ambassador Forster will highlight relevant and little known facts about Brazil’s policies that enabled the country to contribute to international
cooperation in these areas.

RSVP by May 21: https://ow.ly/iZHT50RGm0z

Progress towards gender parity can be slow in any industry, but new research from the University of Alberta shows it could take almost 200 years to reach that goal in Canada’s film industry.

Deb Verhoeven and her collaborators Elizabeth Prommer, Skadi Loist and Doris Ruth Eikhof examined 12,000 films made between 2005 and 2020, primarily in Canada, the U.K. and Germany. They focused on key creative positions — producers, writers and directors, says Verhoeven, who is Canada 150 Research Chair in Gender and Cultural Informatics, jointly appointed to the Department of Digital Humanities and Women’s and Gender Studies.

Learn more about the findings here:

Women are poised for equality in Canadian film — in 200 years Progress towards gender parity can be slow in any industry, but new research from the U of A shows it could take almost 200 years to reach that goal in Canada’s film industry.

🎶Alberta friends! Our exciting Mahler in the Mountains free concert series is coming up next week! 🎶

🗻Edmonton - May 16
5:00 pm - Open Rehearsal
Convocation Hall
University of Alberta
116 St. & 85 Ave

🗻Canmore - May 18
6:00 pm - Reception
7:00 pm - Concert
Arts Place
950 8 Ave

🗻Calgary - May 19
5:00 pm - Concert
Eckhardt-Gramatté Hall
Rosza Centre
University of Calgary
206 University Ct NW

➡️About Mahler in the Mountains⬅️
Perhaps more than any other composer, Gustav Mahler sought inspiration in nature, spending his summers in the Austrian Alps where he crafted his monumental symphonies and songs. These works are profound philosophical musings in sound that explore the very essence of the human experience as part of the eternal order of the natural world. The Wirth Institute's Mahler in the Mountains project begins with Mahler's music and the power of nature, but relocates this music in the Canadian Rockies, a very different geographical and cultural context. Mahler in the Mountains asks composers from Austria, Alberta and British Columbia not only to reimagine Mahler's music, but also to rethink the complex relationships between music, people and place.

This multi-day concert event for chamber ensemble and vocal soloists--with performances in Edmonton, Canmore and Calgary--will consist of newly arranged versions of Mahler's orchestral songs, and the new work States of Matter by Stefan Hakenberg, based on Mahler's Third Symphony and setting texts by the Cree/Métis poet Marilyn Dumont. These concerts will mark the premier of the Wirth Sinfonietta Edmonton under the baton of conductor Petar Dundjerski, with soprano Amelia Watkins and mezzo-soprano Justine Ledoux.

Running May 15 - June 1 | FAB Gallery Main Floor

The True Cost of Oil: Canada’s Oil Sands and the Last Great Forest
By editorial and fine art photographer Garth Lenz

The True Cost of Oil exhibit by editorial and fine art photographer Garth Lenz, contrasts Alberta’s oil sands - one of the biggest industrial projects in the world - and the surrounding Boreal Forest, an essential carbon storehouse and home to countless, unique species. The oil sands, including the tailings “ponds” that hold toxic wastewater, a byproduct of production, are a growing environmental threat. They harm Alberta’s landscape, wildlife, and waterways. They endanger local communities’ health and way of life.

Garth’s aerial images capture the vast tar mines, tailings ponds, and refineries that lie in the middle of some of the world’s largest wetlands and remaining tracts of forest, serving as a visual metaphor for the cost of the world’s ongoing dependence on fossil fuels.

The True Cost of Oil invites viewers to consider the cost of this dependence and the damage already done – the scarred land, the boreal forest and peatlands ripped up, the compromised waterways – as well as the value of what’s left to safeguard and the importance of honouring the treaties, close relationship to the land and stewardship of local Indigenous Nations.

https://www.ualberta.ca/arts/shows/gallery-listings/2023-24/the-true-cost-of-oil-canadas-oil-sands-and-the-last-great-forest.html

Presented by: Environmental Defence Canada and keepersofthewaters
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Panel Info: On May 16, 6 pm in FAB 2-20 join us for an artist talk and presentation featuring photographer Garth Lenz and special guests, get a look out the passenger seat window, as he shares his airborne experience capturing images of the oil sands and the forest ecosystem from above the treeline.

Hear a firsthand account of what it’s like to live downstream of the oil industry and its damaging impacts from Cleo Reece, Keeper of the Water Elders Wisdom Council, Fort McMurray First Nation, and Jean L’Hommecourt, Keepers of the Water co-chair, traditional land user, and a member of Fort McKay First Nation, Treaty 8 territory.

Sign up to attend the panel at: https://act.environmentaldefence.ca/page/146566/event/1

Dr. Lana Whiskeyjack is the recipient of a 2024 Community Scholar Award, one of three Community Connections Awards. Learn more about her work, including supporting Two-Spirit Indigenous youth and imprisoned women, and RSVP to the public ceremony here:

Visual storyteller reconnects community to wisdom and kinship In honour of Lana Whiskeyjack's collaborative, community-engaged approach to research Whiskeyjack is the recipient of a 2024 Community Scholar Award, one of three U of A Community Connections Awards.

University of Alberta criminology student Emma Edney (BA ’24) is one of 20 Canadians who will join the fourth cohort of McCall MacBain Scholars at McGill University! Congratulations, Emma!

The McCall MacBain Scholarships are Canada’s largest leadership-based scholarships for master’s and professional studies. They are the result of a landmark $200 million gift in 2019 by John and Marcy McCall MacBain, the then-largest single donation in the country’s history. Designed to encourage purposeful leadership, the scholarships enable students to pursue a fully funded master’s or professional degree while participating in mentorship, coaching, and a leadership development program.

More than 700 Canadians applied for the scholarships. Of those, 159 participated in a first round of regional interviews in November and December, and 55 attended final interviews in Montreal. Every scholar participated in six different interviews over the course of seven months.

Recipients were chosen based on exceptional character, community engagement, leadership potential, entrepreneurial spirit, academic strength, and intellectual curiosity. The new cohort consists of 20 Canadians and 10 international students.

Learn more about Emma here: https://bit.ly/3JUo7MY

Criminology - UofA