Homecoming Weekend 2008

Homecoming Weekend was a great success with the official opening of the new Student Centre, the 1978 men's soccer championship team's 30th reunion, men and women's soccer games, and of course, the Mounties football team winning their homecoming game in overtime!

Check out the festivities in photos!

New MTA Fight Song!

Check out the new MTA Fight Song, which is going to be performed at the official opening of the new Student Centre this Saturday, September 27, 2008.



Check here for more info.

Listening to Trees

Life Changers, a five-episode documentary series of half hour programs, recently partnered with Mount Allison University to produce a television program about research at Mount A.

Traveling to universities across the region, this series highlights extraordinary work, groundbreaking research and Atlantic Canada’s most innovative thinkers who are committed to solving the greatest challenges of this new century.

Mount Allison’s feature is entitled “Listening to Trees” and chronicles the work of Dr. Colin Laroque and his student researchers in the Dendrochronology Lab. This research involves tree ring analysis – the dating of trees and heritage buildings.

Their cutting edge work is leading to breakthroughs in better understanding the affects of attendant climate change on our environment.

This new episode will air on ASN on Sunday, September 21 from 12:30 until 1 p.m. (AST). The AAU will be running 30-second spots on the CTV network promoting the show beginning on Monday, September 15.

Life Changers is produced by the Association of Atlantic Universities (AAU) on behalf of its 17 member institutions.

Read more about the show and view past episodes (Mount Allison’s episode will be there soon) detailing research at other universities.

Celebrate exhibition

Silver Ghost Exhibition at Acadia University Art Gallery – Beveridge Arts Centre Silver Ghost is a collaborative creative project of photographs by Thaddeus Holownia and text written by Harry Thurston.

The project explores Atlantic Salmon and its rivers through the use of photography and literary prose.

The exhibition is on view from Monday Sept 8 – Sunday Sept 14th.

Please join us to celebrate the exhibition on Friday Sept.12 at 7:30pm.

Thaddeus Holownia and Harry Thurston will be present for a book signing. Opening Remarks by Alex Colville ('42).

The exhibition is presented jointly by the Acadia University Art Gallery and the Arthur Irving Academy of the Environment.

Student research

Here is a link to an e-newsletter on student research in the Social Sciences.

The variety and quality of the research evident in the vignettes give witness that student research is alive and well in the Social Sciences at Mount Allison!

These and other students doing research are to be congratulated on their selection of topics; the energy, focus, and determination that they have brought to bear on their data-gathering; and the level of conceptual sophistication revealed in their analyses.

Planting seeds of hope

Roy White ('58) is a man of faith, compassion and understanding. The son of a Cape Breton coal miner who had a Grade 2 education but instilled values in his nine children, Roy graduated from Mount A and was ordained as a United Church minister in 1960.

Last year, Roy worked with friends to renovate a rundown horseshoe pit near the ball fields at the Springfield Lake Recreation Centre in Middle Sackville. He helped get materials donated, coerced a group of men into lending a hand, and today they gather at least weekly to compete with each other. They’ve visited and hosted other horseshoe tossers.

This year, this same group, led by Roy, took on a new project. They decided to plant a 90-foot by 30-foot garden behind the horseshoe pit to provide some potatoes for Feed Nova Scotia. The garden was created with donated materials, volunteer labour and dedication.

He told the naysayers the garden project was good for meditation, an opportunity for exercise to get rid of any feelings of sadness, and it enabled each and every person to help change the world, and of course to be altruistic, to show an unselfish interest in others.

Volunteers have tended the garden all summer and within a week or so will harvest the crop.

Read full story: Roy's planting seeds of hope (The Chronicle Herald)

NB Printmaker in Maine

The Tides Institute and Museum of Art (TIMA) opened its third exhibition of the season featuring a one-person show of work by one of eastern Canada’s foremost printmakers, Dan Steeves ('81). The exhibition will be on view through September 21, 2008. A letter in support of the exhibition by New Brunswick’s Premier Shawn Graham was read at the opening.

Dan Steeves was born in 1959 in Moncton, New Brunswick. He received his B.F.A. from Mount Allison University in 1981. He currently lives in Sackville where he is Printmaking Instructor and Lecturer in the Fine Arts Department. In 2007, Dan won the prestigious Sheila Hugh McKay Foundation's Strathbutler Award, which honors exceptional artistry in the province.

His work has been exhibited in galleries in Canada, the United States, Holland, Italy, Japan, Poland, Taiwan and the Ukraine. His prints are represented internationally in both public and private collections including Canadian House, (Nagoya, Japan), Royal Bank, Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Regent College, Istituto Per La Cultura E L'Arte, (Catania, Italy), Chernobyl Disaster Museum, (Kharkov, Ukraine, USSR), Canada Council Art Bank, Permanent Collection, University of New Brunswick Art Centre and New Brunswick Art Bank, among others. He is represented by the Abbozzo Gallery of Oakville, Ontario, and the Peter Buckland Gallery of Saint John, New Brunswick. The prints included in this exhibition are on loan from the Peter Buckland Gallery.

The Tides Institute and Museum of Art (TIMA) is located in Eastport, Maine.

Read more: Work by New Brunswick Printmaker Dan Steeves on Exhibit at Tides Institute (artdaily.org)

Wild Plants of Eastern Canada

Dr. Marilyn Walker has written an indispensable guide to the plants of Eastern Canada and their many culinary, medicinal and ecological uses. Wild Plants of Eastern Canada is a comprehensive guide to the region’s plants, including their culinary, medicinal, folk, and ecological uses. The book also explores the cultural history of wild plant use among Aboriginal-Mi'kmaq, Maliseet, and Passamaquoddy-and non-Aboriginal-Black, Acadian, and Celtic-peoples.

Marilyn Walker holds a PhD in anthropology and is the author of Harvesting the Northern Wild, a guide to the edible wild plants of the north. She has served as the curator and acting director of the Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife and as the Assistant Head of Exhibit Design Services at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. She is currently an associate professor in the department of anthropology at Mount A.

Mount A and Tidewater Books are proud to host an afternoon author event with Marilyn Walker on Friday, Sept. 19th at 5:00 pm at the President’s Cottage, Mount Allison University.

Everyone is welcome.

Tom Forrestall: Paintings, Drawings, Writing

In the book Tom Forrestall: Paintings, Drawings, Writing, Tom Smart tells the story of Tom Forrestall’s (’58) art in a book that is the first major critical writing about the renowned Canadian realist painter. This retrospective of the famed Canadian painter Tom Forrestall traces the story of the development of his art from the time he entered Mount A in the late 1950s up to the present. Forming part of a coterie of “magical realist” east-coast painters that includes Alex Colville (’42), Christopher Pratt (’57), and Mary Pratt (’57). This attractive volume presents the range, depth, and poetry of Tom’s work.

Tom recently donated an orginal watercolour to Mount Allison University in memory of his late wife, Natalie Forrestall ('58). By reserving the limited edition print, "PIC-NIC SITE", you will be contributing to the NATALIE FORRESTALL FINE ARTS BURSARY.

Sharing an award

Congrats to Mount A and St. Thomas University for working together! Two of the smallest universities in Canada are sharing an award this month.

Mount A and STU recently won the national second prize for quality and productivity from the Canadian Association of Business Officers for our shared virtual server project that improves our technological services and reduces our environmental footprint.

This annual award recognizes universities for original and innovative projects. Together with STU, we are operating a single server room.

It's located at Mount A and is designed to reduce the number of computers and storage capacity required by the institutions.

As a result, we have saved money; reduced the university's energy consumption and space requirements; made the creation and repair of servers much ore efficient; and increased the quality of their services.

President's Newsletter

The third President’s Newsletter of the year is now available. This document highlights many accomplishments and activities on campus from the summer months and looks forward to an exciting fall.