Of Note

Call for nominations

Faculty of Engineering & Computer Science 7th Annual Teaching Excellence Awards

Recognizing excellence in teaching, sustained commitment to the improvement of teaching, and creativity in the development of teaching materials and approach.

Full-time and part-time faculty members teaching in the Faculty for at least five years are eligible for nomination. Students and faculty members may pick up a nomination form from any of the academic units of the Faculty or from the Dean’s Office, (LB 1001).

Deadline for nominations: Feb. 27.

Call for nominations

Senate is calling for nominations for a Deputy Speaker of Senate. The current Speaker, Dr. John O’Brien, is not stepping down, but Senate Steering Committee is looking to ensure a smooth transition.

This is an elected position, unpaid, for a one-year renewable term. The vote is expected to take place at the March 19 meeting. Students, faculty and staff, are eligible to nominate anyone who is serving or has served on Senate.

For nomination details and a list of current Senate members, please go to call for nominations.

In memoriam

R. Bella Rabinovitch

R. Bella Rabinovitch, Concordia graduate, part-time art history instructor and PhD student, died at home on Jan. 8 of cancer at the age of 51. Bella taught at Concordia and Mariano-polis College from 1984 to 2003, specializing in contemporary art, and philosophical and theoretical approaches to the art object.

She designed the foundation course Principles and Practices of Art History, the interdisciplinary Visual and Performing Arts in Canada in the 80s, and the cross-cultural Western Perspectives on Non-Western Art. She was developing an internet-based course at the time of her death. Bella’s love of art transformed the lives of thousands of students, drawing many into careers in art and art history.

Her all-embracing outlook, unprejudiced by convention or fad, took in high art and popular culture with equal seriousness. She excelled in making complex art and theories comprehensible and relevant to all audiences. Lecturing to community groups who knew little about art was as important to her as delivering conference papers.

Bella also contributed significantly to the Canadian art scene as a critic – notably with Vanguard magazine – and as an author of essays and exhibition catalogues on such contemporary artists as Landon Mackenzie, Bill Vazan, Susan Scott, and Liliana Berezowsky.

She insisted upon the centrality of the work of art and the importance of viewers engaging actively with it. The last time she left the house, a week before she died, it was to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to say goodbye to paintings she loved so well.

A memorial scholarship in creative arts is being established at Marianopolis College. Donations may be made to the Bella Rabinovitch Fund, Marianopolis Millennium Foundation (3880 Côte des Neiges Rd, Montreal H3H 1W1, 931-8792).

This tribute to Bella was written by Professor Brian Foss and Bella’s husband, photographer Aurèle Parisien, to whom we extend our sympathies.

Donald A. Fraser

Professor Emeritus Donald Fraser, a former chair of the Geography Department, died in his 86th year on Nov. 29 at the Perley Rideau Veterans’ Health Centre in Ottawa.

A graduate of the University of Toronto, his education was interrupted by war service with the RCAF. He started his career with the federal civil service, where he pioneered the use of radioisotopes in forestry research.

He became professor and chair of the Department of Geography at Sir George Williams University in 1970, and continued his research on spruce with fieldwork at James Bay. He published more than 100 scholarly papers, and retired from Concordia in 1983.

He also wrote a book, Live to Look Again (1982), on the deployment of the Leigh-Light Wellington bomber, and established a scholarship in the memory of two members of his crew who perished when his Welling- ton bomber ditched off the Shetlands on Nov. 8, 1942.

His son Steven Fraser writes in an e-mail, “Don always had a twinkle in his deep blue eyes and an exceptional sense of humour.” Our sympathies are extended to him and the rest of the family, including Erika Gaertner-Fraser, Dr. Fraser’s wife and colleague of more than 50 years.

Contributions in his memory may be made to the PRVHC Foundation, 1750 Russell Road, Ottawa, K1G 5Z6. Friends are invited to share their memories of him at DAFmemories@yahoo.com.

Nancy Raymond

Those of you who remember Nancy Raymond when she was an employee will be sad to hear of her death in New York City on December 21. Nancy thought she had beaten breast cancer successfully two years ago but was hospitalized on Dec. 7 and died peacefully with her children at her side.

She was employed at Concordia for a short period in 1977, then returned to work from 1980 to1985 in Counselling and Development. From 1988 to 1996 she worked in the Political Science Department on the Loyola Campus, after which she moved to New York to be closer to her daughter, Deirdre.

Those of us who have kept in contact with her either by visits or through e-mails will miss her amusing stories of her escapades in the Big Apple. Our sympathies are extended to her family. A memorial service will be held at the Loyola Chapel sometime this spring, when her family will come to Montreal.

- Connie Shibley and Gail Trottier

Conference here on Diniacopoulos’ ancient artifacts

Classics professor Jane Francis is the chief organizer of a scholarly conference to be held Feb. 4 and 5 at the university.

The 75 Greek and Roman antiquities that will be explored in the conference represent only a portion in the original Diniacopoulos collection, but they nonetheless show wide geographical and chronological spans, according to Professor Francis.

“Material from ancient cultures of the central and western Mediterranean — Egypt and Syria to Greece, Italy, and Cyprus — date from the Late Bronze Age through the Late Roman period of the third to fourth centuries CE.

“The artifact types include Greek vases and iconography, Greek, Roman, and Egyptian sculpture, Greek epigraphy, and the minor arts, such as terracotta figurines, small-scale bronzes and glass. A selection of the artifacts will be exhibited, in conjunction with the conference, alongside the permanent holdings of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, beginning Feb. 4.

For more information on the conference, consult: mccml.concordia.ca/diniacopoulos/index.html. For more on the Diniacopoulos collection, see the Jan. 15 issue of CTR. Go to ctr.concordia.ca, and look for the link to Archives.

IITS blocks computers for exceeding bandwidth limits

Over the past few months, IITS has made significant progress in reducing the number of computers infected with viruses and worms in the university.

As the number of services offered over the university computer network continues to escalate, it is becoming increasingly important to ensure the integrity of the network infrastructure.

In order to guarantee reliability of the campus network for the Concordia community, all computers placing significant, sustained net traffic from desktops and/or departmental servers onto the campus network will be closely monitored and may be blocked from the university network.

Any machine with a data rate greater than 100 kilobytes per second, sustained over multiple monitoring intervals, will be blocked (exempt from this policy are those host computers that, due to the nature of the services provided, have valid high bandwidth requirements).

Excessive bandwidth is often caused by the presence of a worm, or may be the result of a variety of activities (i.e., video streaming, hard-disk backups).

If a system exceeding the above-mentioned bandwidth limits is blocked, the owner of the system may request, via a special application, to have these limits waived. The form, which must be approved by the applicant’s department head, can be accessed at iits.concordia.ca. All requests will be reviewed by the IITS Resource Allocation team.

These measures will help protect the network from loss of bandwidth and performance, as well as protect other computers from infection. If your computer has been disconnected from the network, please contact the Helpline at ext. 7613 or send an e-mail to Mike.Babin@Concordia.ca.

- Anne-Marie Curatollo, IITS

Open House on Saturday

There will be a lot going on Jan. 31 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., as prospective students and interested citizens are welcomed to both campuses to see what Concordia has to offer.

On the Sir George Williams Campus, activities are based in the J.W. McConnell Building atrium. They include representatives from the four Faculties and the School of Graduate Studies, admissions counsellors and representatives from Student Services, including counsellors from Financial Aid and Awards.

For the first time, professors from the Faculty of Fine Arts will be on hand to give Portfolio Clinics as a means of critiquing the work of young artists. Clinics will be held for Studio Arts, Design Art, Digital Image/Sound and the Fine Arts, Art Education, Design for the Theatre and Film Animation.

General information sessions will be given throughout the day on academic programs, the admission process and housing options for out-of-town students. They will take place at 11:20 a.m., 12:20, 1:20, 2:20 and 3:20 p.m.

Tours will be given of both campuses on the hour from 11a.m. to 4 p.m. If you’re interested in the sciences, you can go directly to the Richard J. Renaud Building and join a tour there.

On the Loyola Campus, the Richard J. Renaud Building (also known as the Science Pavilion) will be where prospective students can talk with representatives of the Departments of Biology, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Communication Studies, Exercise Science, Loyola International College, Psychology, and the Science College.

Live webcast: If you can’t make it to the Open House and would like to enjoy it or extract information, please go to Concordia’s home page, at www.concordia.ca, and follow the links to the webcast.