UCalgary Alumni Magazine - Spring 2011

Spring 2011

tdroden — Mon, 16 May 2011 01:00:00 +0000

Propelled to power

tdroden — Mon, 16 May 2011 00:10:00 +0000

It was more than 20 years ago when Reform Party leader Preston Manning came to the University of Calgary campus, promoting his fledgling federal party to a cramped little room in MacEwan Hall.

Power of the sun

tdroden — Mon, 16 May 2011 00:05:00 +0000

The pungent smell of smouldering sweetgrass filled the gallery as, one-by-one, students took turns standing before the Blackfoot elder who wafted the grey tendril of smoke from his smudge over their heads.

Resplendent in his feather headdress, Chief Reg Crowshoe of the Piikani Nation then took Teagon Murray by the arm and methodically wrapped a rainbow-coloured wool blanket around his chest and over one shoulder in the manner of a traditional Blood Indian brave.

Power programs

tdroden — Mon, 16 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

As soon as you meet Shantel Beach, you know she’s destined for great things. Personable and animated, she exudes confidence and competence.

Power of time

tdroden — Sun, 15 May 2011 23:10:00 +0000

Keeping time, timelessly. That’s industrial designer Mark Griffiths’ vision for his latest design venture—Barrington Griffiths Watch Company.

Launched in January, Barrington Griffiths designs, restores and manufactures mechanical watches. Griffiths, BSc’89, MEDes’03, who works full-time for a Calgary engineering and architecture firm, is coupling his love of design with a well-balanced nod to modern taste and classic style in his “second job.”

Power play

tdroden — Sun, 15 May 2011 23:05:00 +0000

If you want to be a referee in the National Basketball Association’s development league, you’d better have skin as tough as a basketball. And if you want to be a Canadian ref in the D-League, you’d better ask Michael Weiland, BA’03, because he’s the first and only one.

Horsepower

tdroden — Sun, 15 May 2011 23:00:00 +0000

For cowgirl Casey Crandall, horses and rodeo are a way of life.

“That’s part of being raised on a farm,” says Crandall, BKin’09, who grew up near Ponoka in central Alberta and has been riding since she was five years old and competing since eight.

Low-key about her accomplishments, the 25-year-old began really focusing on rodeo after university. In 2010, her rookie year with the Canadian Professional Rodeo Association, she won just over $17,000 to make it into the Canadian Finals Rodeo, held last November at Rexall Place in Edmonton.

Preventing the misuse of power

tdroden — Sun, 15 May 2011 22:15:00 +0000

Zimbabwe and Sudan are countries that political science professor Dr. Maureen Hiebert has had her eye on for a long time. The ruling governments there are displaying what many scholars consider to be worrisome symptoms that could result in human rights violations of their own citizens.

Hiebert studies atrocity crimes—brutal violations of human rights such as genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing—and the international community’s ability to intervene.

Generating power in the backyard

tdroden — Sun, 15 May 2011 22:10:00 +0000

Dr. David Wood is looking to turn our backyards into mini power stations. As the NSERC/ENMAX Research Chair in Renewable Energy at the Schulich School of Engineering, his research could make it possible for Calgary residents to generate their own electricity with small wind turbines.

Small-scale wind power is part of the bigger picture of creating distributed generation systems, a concept that’s catching on around the world.

Fuel cells to power new research facility

tdroden — Sun, 15 May 2011 22:05:00 +0000

The fuel cell is not only a clean and efficient energy source; Dr. Viola Birss has another way the technology can combat global warming.

Birss and her University of Calgary colleagues plan to tap the carbon dioxide (CO2) gas produced as a byproduct from solid oxide fuel cells. At the university’s proposed new geoscience research site near Calgary, the CO2 from one or more fuel cells operating onsite would be collected and pumped underground.