President Alan Wildeman invites faculty and staff to an Open House on Thursday, May 24 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the Alumni Auditorium.  Refreshments will be served at this event which will provide the campus community an opportunity to share well wishes with the President before he leaves his office on June 30.   

Dr. Wildeman will deliver farewell thank you remarks at 3 p.m.  The Department of Human Resources requests that, where possible, supervisors be flexible in accommodating employees who wish to attend this open house.  

Windsor Law, in partnership with Sunchild Law, will host the World Indigenous Law Conference this November.  

The title and theme of the conference is: “Wawiiatanong Ziibi: Where the River Bends, The Application of Indigenous Laws in Indigenous Communities and in the Courts,” and will be held on Windsor’s waterfront at the St. Clair Centre for the Arts.

Conference co-chairs are Windsor Law Professor Beverley Jacobs (Kanienkehaka – Mohawk Nation) and Lawyer Eleanore Sunchild (Nehiyaw – Cree Nation) who both practice their respective Indigenous legal traditions within their territories and nations and teach/practice law within the western contemporary legal systems and institutions.

The event will bring together lawyers, judges, academics, Knowledge Keepers, policy experts, community leadership, community advocates, students and all interested parties to embark on and share in conversation and discourse about the implementation of Indigenous Law into western contemporary legal systems and highlighting Indigenous Laws that already exist in Indigenous communities and Nations.  This is the fourth bi-annual global conference represented by the North on Turtle Island and held on the traditional territory of the Three Fires Confederacy which is comprised of the Ojibway, the Odawa and the Potawatomi. 

The conference will create a platform for dynamic change and is focused on concentrating on Indigenous Law in a holistic and collective manner in order to address critical issues facing Indigenous Peoples and communities in an international context.

The Planning Committee is seeking submissions of conference papers and concurrent sessions that address the theme of this year’s conference while also providing innovative and forward-thinking strategies to apply and implement Indigenous Laws. Submissions are due June 30.

To register or submit a conference paper visit: uwindsor.ca/law/WILC

UWindsor’s Cheryl Collier has crafted the ultimate guide for the upcoming Ontario election.

The associate professor and acting head of the political science department led a team of 15 contributors for The Politics of Ontario, an in-depth analysis of all aspects of the Ontario political landscape.

“The book was about trying to understand what makes Ontario tick,” Dr. Collier said.

“You want to think about all the changes over time, how remarkably stable the province has been and how important the provincial government is in peoples’ daily lives.”

Collier and her co-editor Jonathan Malloy from Carleton University examined issues like the economy, the media and racial diversity in the province.

While change is the undercurrent that typically runs through every election, Collier said the theme of change is particularly powerful in this current election.

“I would think that the Liberals’ time is up as long as Doug Ford doesn’t mess up,” Collier said, who was recently appointed UWindsor’s Acting Associate Vice-President, Academic.

“But others have messed it up during the campaign before him so that is a distinct possibility.”

And while change is at the forefront of the conversation, Collier said Ontarians historically have been politically indifferent with a limited appetite for profound alterations.

She points to Bob Rae’s New Democratic Party in 1990 that attempted to introduce sweeping reform to provincial policy, just as the province was on the precipice of a deep recession.

“Even the NDP were surprised when they got elected,” Collier said.

“They were not ready to govern and flirted with things like public auto insurance which proved much more difficult to implement than they were prepared for.

“The spectre of that experiment of the first and only NDP government still haunts the province.”

Ontario has among the lowest voter turnout in Canada for provincial elections and has been ruled by the same three political parties for nearly 100 years.

Collier said despite the growing racial diversity of the province and the “firsts” of Kathleen Wynne as an openly gay woman premier, “the core of what makes Ontario and how it sees itself has not fundamentally changed.”

The Politics of Ontario was shortlisted for the Legislative Assembly of Ontario’s 2017 Speaker’s Book Award.

Collier said the book doesn’t pretend to predict the results of the upcoming election, but rather sets the stage for what issues the Premier will face.

Through a comprehensive analysis of the political history of Ontario and its current state of affairs, readers will be presented with the facts they need to untangle the complexities of the election campaign.

The book is published by the University of Toronto Press and is available to purchase at Chapters or online at www.amazon.ca.

Odette School of Business students placed among the top finishers in Canada during the Enactus National Exhibition, which took place recently in Toronto.

The exhibition -- intended to promote conscious capitalism on behalf of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau -- was opened by Peter Schiefke, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister (Youth), and consisted of three days of competition among thousands of business students.

The Windsor teams placed second in the Capital One Financial Education Challenge and third in the Scotiabank Youth Empowerment Challenge.

Enactus Windsor uses entrepreneurial and commercial strategies to improve Windsor’s social and environmental well-being.  For example, The Liberty Project provides one-on-one financial consulting and a living wage to survivors of human trafficking, addiction and trauma, paying them to manufacture reusable sanitary pads that are distributed to women in developing countries.

Another project, Youthrive, is a 10-week primary and secondary school entrepreneurship mentoring and financial literacy education program for students in 25 high school and 19 grade school classrooms in the Windsor/Essex area. The project also operates a summer camp for at-risk youth, creating student-run businesses.

“Windsor is the inspiration behind our team and their projects”, says Enactus co-president Ian Virtue.

 “It’s a community that looks after each other and gives to the less fortunate whenever possible.  Our social enterprise projects embody the best of our home city.”

Enactus Canada’s mission is to shape generations of entrepreneurial leaders, helping them become passionate about advancing the economic, social and environmental health of Canada and developing countries around the world.

Enactus Windsor, supported and funded by the Odette School of Business and private sponsors including WFCU and Libro Credit Unions, has been one of the most successful teams in Canada, winning several regional and national competitions.

Teams are advised by Odette School of Business professor Trevor McFadyen, and coached by Meahgan Quinn of the School of Dramatic Art.

“We’re very proud of Enactus Windsor, not only because of their success at the national competition, but because they’ve used what they have learned at the Odette School of Business to make their community and the world a better place,” said Dr. Mitchell Fields, Dean of the Odette School of Business.

“Enactus is one of the flagship experiential learning opportunities at Odette.  Members gain experiences that propel them into dynamic careers here in Windsor and beyond.”

For more information on exhibition results visit: http://enactus.ca/events/national-exposition/

The Office of Open Learning is offering a free online course to explore the boundaries of online teaching.

The course, Exploring the Edges of Online Teaching, will run for six weeks beginning May 28, and is structured around the impact, importance, and interest in innovative pedagogies and emerging pedagogies such as virtual and augmented reality, learning analytics, constructivist and connectionist learning, and open education. 

“I want instructors to expand their thinking around online teaching to motivate students,” says Learning Specialist Nobuko Fujita.

“We will try some non-traditional pedagogical approaches and tools in a supportive online learning community.”

Dr. Fujita says the course is designed for busy faculty members and grad students who need flexibility, and will be delivered online in Blackboard with asynchronous components and one synchronous session a week.

The course also counts towards the new Certificate in Open and Online Learning offered by the Office of Open Learning for faculty and grad students interested in online, open, and technology-enhanced learning and teaching, and is available to all UWindsor faculty and graduate students. To register visit: https://ctl2.uwindsor.ca/openlearning/workshops/20/#wkshp-93  

For more information about the course or certificate get in touch with Fujita at nfujita@uwindsor.ca or ext. 2105.