Allisonians named Top 20 under 30

Congratulations to Mount A student Laura Stymiest (‘11), President of Global Medical Brigades Mount Allison, and alumna Sarah Craig (‘07), employment co-ordinator and chair of the FUSION networking group in Saint John, for being named to Here NB’s Top 20 under 30 list. Read their profiles and see the entire list at Here NB (Jan. 20, 2011).

Fine Arts professor featured on CTV

Photographer, typographer, and Mount Allison Fine Arts department head Thaddeus Holownia was featured on CTV’s Live at 5, the Maritimes' #1 news magazine show on January 24, 2011. Watch his story here.

Colville student drawings at National Gallery of Canada

The student drawings of renowned Canadian artist and Allisonian Alex Colville ('42) from his time at Mount Allison are the focus of a new exhibition at the National Art Gallery in Ottawa.

Entitled Alex Colville: The Formative Years 1938-1942, the exhibit contains 18 drawings in various mediums, many which have not been seen publicly since Colville was a Mount Allison student in the 30s and 40s.

Alex Colville graduated from Mount A with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1942 and returned to teach in the Fine Arts department from 1946-1963, when he took up painting full time. Read more about the exhibition in the Telegraph Journal (Jan 22, 2011).

Interim Vice-President appointed

Professor Berkeley Fleming, Dean of Social Sciences and sociology professor, has been appointed as interim Vice-President, Academic and Research at Mount Allison for a one-year term.

His appointment will begin on July 1, 2011, replacing current Vice-President Stephen McClatchie who has accepted the position of Principal at Huron University College of the University of Western Ontario.

Berkeley Fleming brings a wealth of experience and insight to this role, having worked at Mount Allison for 33 years. He has served as Dean of Social Sciences, department head of sociology, secretary of University Senate, and member of the Board of Regents. He has also held key and consequential positions on numerous collegial committees and many local, provincial, and national organizations. His leadership will help maintain the momentum that has been established in the Provost and Vice-President, Academic and Research’s portfolio under Stephen McClatchie.

A national search for a new Provost and Vice-President, Academic and Research will begin this year. An internal search for a new Dean of Social Sciences will commence shortly. Updates on both search processes will be shared with the University community regularly.

Allisonian's Art on Calgary Bridges

Seven bridges in and around Calgary's core will be splashed with new colours over the next couple weeks as a new series of banners is installed. The series will showcase the work of Canadian artist Dianne Bos ('78) and celebrates the theme of “place”.

The new banners are part of the Down town Banner Program that began in 2008. Banners are now replaced biannually with a new look and story to welcome people to the downtown.

For this series of banner images, Dianne used black and white film and a medium format camera to create overlapping sequential images of the Alberta landscape. These were later converted to vibrant colours using digital techniques.

The many ways ‘place’ can be defined and imagined is a significant theme in Dianne’s art work. The structural format of these works relates strongly to the Technopaegnia (concrete poetry) works of Banff poet Jon Whyte, where clusters of words form images related to Rocky Mountain landscapes.

New banners have already been installed on the Macdonald and Inglewood bridges. The remaining bridges will have banners installed over the next few weeks. These bridges include 14 Street Bridge, Louise Bridge (10 Street), Centre Street Bridge, Langevin Bridge (Edmonton Trail) and the Zoo Bridge.

Dianne Bos was born in Hamilton, Ontario, received her B.F.A. from Mount Allison, and currently divides her time between the foothills of the Rockies and the Pyrénées.

For the full story: New banners installed on the seven gateway bridges to Calgary's downtown (Calgary Beacon)

Young Alumni: Down Under

David Byrne (’04) made his first trip to Mount Allison when he was 11 to watch Mounties Football — making two to three trips to watch his favourite team each Fall after that with his father. In 2000 he chose to attend Mount Allison and graduated with an Honours Commerce degree in economics. After completing his Master’s and PhD in economics at Queen’s, he headed to Australia in September with his wife Marisia to start his “first real job” as an assistant professor at the University of Melbourne.

After defending his PhD thesis in December on the causes and consequences of mergers in the Canadian cable television industry, he is now officially Dr. Byrne. A self-proclaimed data nerd, research may just be his favourite part of the job. He spends his days collecting and analyzing data, trying to uncover interesting patterns or see whether predictions from economic theory are exhibited in the data.

Read full story: David Byrne embarks on new adventure down under

Rhodes Scholar in the Globe and Mail

Mount A student Kelly O’Connor ('11) of Kelowna, BC is one of 11 Canadian students to receive the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship from the University of Oxford this year, the 49th from Mount Allison. This week, she was featured in the Globe and Mail.