Accolades
The winner of this year’s JMSB Distinguished Junior Research Award is Assistant Professor Imants Paeglis, in the Department of Finance. He has been at Concordia since 2002. A graduate of the University of Latvia, Claremont Graduate School (California) and Boston College, his research interests are in initial public offerings (IPOs), mergers and acquisitions, and various forms of corporate restructuring. He will receive a plaque and a $5,000 research grant at JMSB’s Convocation on June 19.
Eight Cree women from northern Quebec celebrated the completion of the Certificate in Family Life Education at a graduation ceremony in Val D’Or in January. Their valedictorian, Daisy House, wrote an article for Destinations, a publication of Air Creebec. The women started the program, given by the Department of Applied Human Sciences, in April 2002, and most of them completed it in December 2005. In her article, Daisy talks about the life events, course work and community workshops that brought them closer over those years, and thanked their teacher, Shirley Walker.
David Pariser (Art Education) was delighted to hear that a former student, Liqin Tan, got tenure as an associate professor at Rutgers University in New York. “His is a true immigrant success story,” Pariser told the Journal. “A survivor of the Cultural Revolution, he came to Canada with nothing, and through incredible hard work, a hugely positive attitude and innate intelligence, within a few years had brought over his family, started a small business in art supplies, and finished his MA thesis in art education.”
Jean-Sébastien Guy, who teaches the sociology of globalization, has just published a book on the subject. In L’idée de mondialisation: Portrait de la société par elle-même (Liber), he regards globalization not as an objective phenomenon but as society's self-description, a framework we use to make sense of the world. He came to his approach through the systems theory of German sociologist Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998).
File Photo
In 1986, while going through the papers of the late Charles Mingus, musicologist Andrew Homzy (at right) discovered the manuscript of a major composition by the jazz virtuoso called Epitaph. It was performed by a 31-piece band on April 27 in Homzy’s hometown, Cleveland. Homzy told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that finding Epitaph was “the biggest thrill of his career, like discovering Beethoven’s tenth symphony.”
Susan Durkee, Office Technology Analyst in the Registrar’s Office, has been elected to the Board of Directors for the North American Association of Commencement Officers (NAACO) as a Member at Large. Concordia is one of only two Canadian universities involved in this association at the board level. The Registrar’s Office hosted a regional conference last year and is looking forward to more active participation in the future.
Boréal, the annual conference on science fiction and fantasy literature in French, was held this year at Concordia, on April 27, 28 and 29. Études françaises graduate student Mirella Vadean presented a paper on Tolkien’s classic, The Lord of the Rings.
Jane Stewart (Psychology), a founding researcher in the Centre for Studies in Behavioral Neurobiology, was interviewed on CBC Radio’s All in a Weekend on April 28 about the Centre’s success in the field of appetitive motivation, and its recent recognition as a FRSQ Groupe de recherche en neurobiology comportementale.