At a Glance

This column welcomes the submissions of all Concordia faculty and staff to promote and encourage individual and group activities in teaching and research, and to encourage work-related achievements.

Ion Stiharu, treasurer of the ASME International (American Society of Mechanical Engineering), Quebec Section, was an organizer of the ASME Region I Administrative Conference, held over two days, May 5-6, at the Delta Hotel. As part of the conference, a short course on the finite element method was given to participants from industry by Stiharu and by Professor Rama Bhat, who, with several colleagues in the Mechanical Engineering Department, is a founder of the Quebec section of ASME.

Harold Entwistle (Professor Emeritus, Education) gave the keynote address, "Liberal Education and the Global Citizen," at an international conference in Jinan, China, in April. It was sponsored by the British Council and organized jointly by Shandong Teachers' University and University College Worcester. The theme of the conference was Local Education and the Global Citizen.

A number of Concordians participated in the 68th conference of Acfas, the learned societies of Quebec, held May 15 to 19 at the Université de Montréal. A session was held May 16 on new modes of graduate education, under the auspices of the Quebec Association of Deans of Graduate Studies, of which Dean Claude Bédard is the chair, and CNCS, the Quebec-wide association of graduate students.

Congratulations to Tho Le-Ngoc (Electrical and Computer Engineering), who was named a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada. His certificate was presented at the EIC Annual Awards Banquet on March 6 at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. Dr. Le-Ngoc's research interests are in broadband communications, with an emphasis on modulation, coding, and multiple-access techniques.

Congratulations to Bala Ashtakala (Building/Civil/Environmental Engineering), who was honoured at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., for his career achievements. The OPAL (Outstanding Projects and Leaders) Awards Ceremony was held April 29 by ASCE, the American Society of Civil Engineers. He was named a Fellow of ASCE in 1999.

Congratulations to Zenon A. Zielinski (Building/Civil/Environmental Engineering), who has been named a Fellow of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers. This year, he celebrates his 50th anniversary of teaching, research and professional practice. As well as Sir George Williams and Concordia, he has been affiliated with the Universities of Warsaw, Illinois, California (Berkeley), Detroit, and North Carolina. Professionally, he has developed new structural systems using mainly precast, prestressed concrete, with projects implemented in Poland, the U.S., Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, India, Nepal, Barbados, Grenada and Canada.

Steven Appelbaum (Management) recently spoke about "High-Performance Organization" to the annual planning meeting of the Groupe des produits forestiers/Forest Products Group of Tembec.

Congratulations to Chantal Belliveau, Suet Fan Wong, Christopher Kader, Laurent Madore, Julie-Anne Arsenault and Bernard Cormier. They are the members of a team, led by Marketing Professor Harold Simpkins, who won the Coq d'Or at the Relève Publicitaire, the 'Oscar' for French-language advertising. This is the second time in the past four years that Concordia has come out on top. The competition, organized by the Publicité-Club de Montreal, required teams to develop a marketing communications campaign for the Dairy Bureau of Canada to increase yogurt consumption among Canadians. The team enjoyed being centre stage at the recent gala at the Théâtre St. Denis, with 1,500 advertising people in attendance.

Clarence S. Bayne (DIA/DSA and Decision Sciences/MIS) chaired a session on Multiple Identities and Social Values: A Case for Rethinking Goals of Cultural Access and Cultural Equity at the Canadian Cultural Research Network (CCRN) Colloquium 2000, held in Edmonton, May 28 and 29, on the general theme of Diversity and Culture: Beyond the Rhetoric. Bayne, who is vice-president of the CCRN, also participated in their Circle/Round Table 2000, Making Connections: Culture and Social Cohesion in the New Millennium, held May 25-27.

Graeme Decarie (History), who has a parallel career as a broadcaster, is the Eastern Canadian winner for best editorial of the year in a competition sponsored by the Radio and Television News Directors Association, a national organization. His outstanding editorial on CJAD was a biting criticism of his fellow journalists for overdoing coverage of such celebrity events as the plane crash death of John F. Kennedy, Jr. compared to the disasters that befall ordinary folks.