When the curtain opens on the Windsor International Film Festival on Friday, Nov. 1, the University of Windsor will be there.

In fact, UWindsor has been there all along, says executive director Vincent Georgie: “It’s a special relationship.”

Students at the Odette School of Business earn course credit for helping to put on the annual festival. Georgie, director of UWindsor’s School of Creative Arts (SoCA), teaches the event marketing course, commonly referred to as “the WIFF course.”

Students conduct market research for the festival, work as promoters, handle logistics during the festival, and do analytics to make the festival better from year to year.

“WIFF is a tremendous learning opportunity,” said Georgie.

Students in the MBA program also work at WIFF. With UWindsor’s focus on experiential learning — giving students the chance to learn through doing — the festival is a perfect fit, Georgie said.

Through the years, nearly 3,000 students have had a role in WIFF’s success. Now that they’re no longer behind the scenes organizing the event, many of those former students maintain ties to the festival, buying tickets as patrons or working as volunteers.

Coursework is but one way in which the festival and the university are inextricably intertwined.

SoCA students in the arts management course intern with the festival, as do students in other programs. The festival hires music students to perform at events.

And this year, in a completely new endeavour, students in the Visual Arts in the Built Environment program have turned the alley near the Capitol Theatre that runs from University Avenue to Chatham Street into a whimsical homage to the festival. There will be lights strung between the buildings and the walls feature colourful murals that visitors can pose with.

“It’s going to be an amazing alley,” Georgie enthused.

A team of 30 people works year-round to make the festival happen. Most, including Georgie (MBA 2014) and managing director Hayden Freker (BComm 2015, MBA 2018), are UWindsor alumni. Georgie said he has polled that corps of volunteers and found that among them, they hold 45 UWindsor degrees from a range of disciplines.

During the festival itself, it takes another 200 volunteers to put on the show. That’s where the University of Windsor Alumni Association comes in.

“Many alumni volunteer with WIFF during the festival, and throughout the year as members of the board,” said Patti Lauzon, acting director of alumni relations and advancement. “WIFF also regularly features films written, produced, directed, or starring UWindsor graduates.”

Celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, WIFF began as a 3½-day event. In 2019, for the first time, it will run 10 days. Find more information, including a complete schedule of screenings, on the festival website.

The Humanities Research Group is a sponsor of a series of free workshops through the festival, with presentations covering documentary filmmaking, cinematography, directing, independent distribution, and entering the business. Find a list of speakers, times, and locations on the event website.

—Sarah Sacheli

Sensitive information — intellectual property, financial records, personal material — is transmitted and stored on computers, phones, and other digital devices. Unauthorized access can have a negative impact on individuals and businesses.

A free workshop Tuesday, Nov. 5, will introduce best practices and techniques to protect your data from cyberattack.

Presented by the Entrepreneurship Practice and Innovation Centre (EPICentre), “Cybersecurity and Protecting Your Data: What You Need to Know” is aimed at students and small business owners. It will begin at 5 p.m. in the EPICentre offices on the second floor of the Joyce Entrepreneurship Centre.

Instructor Sam Ghasan has more than 15 years’ experience in information technology. Find more details and online registration on the event website.

A team from the University of Windsor received top marks from the judges in the design review portion of the Canadian Satellite Design Challenge, in October in Quebec City.

The competition requires students to develop a satellite that can take a photo from space when commanded to do so by amateur radio operators around the world. It is intended to advance space education in Canada, inspiring students to pursue science and engineering educations and careers.

The satellites will undergo full launch and space environmental qualification testing, with the goal of launching the winning satellite into orbit.

In Quebec, teams conducted 2.5-hour presentations to a panel of industry experts.

Cole Nadalin, vice-president and business lead of the University of Windsor Space and Aeronautics Team (WinSAT), says the early results bode well for the school’s first-ever entry.

“Placing first in Canada for our CubeSat design is an incredible achievement for the University of Windsor,” he says. “Having collected valuable information from the competition judges, the team now needs to fabricate and test a functioning satellite.”

Team president Atilla Saadat says the multidisciplinary pursuit requires students from many disciplines, including engineering, computer science, physics, chemistry, biology, business, and earth sciences.

“If you are a UWindsor undergraduate or graduate student interested in joining WinSAT — especially for your capstone project — check out https://winsat.ca/apply to read the requirements and submit your application,” says Saadat.

Faculty advisor Afshin Rahimi says he has enjoyed helping the students with an extraordinary experiential learning experience outside of the classroom, but they will need backing to complete their journey.

“The WinSAT team has come a long way with the limited amount of funding it has secured to date,” says Dr. Rahimi. “What has achieved so far is great, but to win the competition and truly put the University of Windsor on the map for aerospace studies, a lot more support is required from both academic and industrial institutions.”

Nadalin says members hope to bring local expertise in advanced manufacturing to national attention, and will seek in-kind donations of materials and services.

Find details of WinSAT’s needs at www.winsat.ca/sponsorship.

At the 40th anniversary of the Canadian Greenhouse Conference, Great Lakes Institute for the Environmental Research (GLIER) professor Christopher Weisener presented on the co-operative research program between the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers and the University of Windsor.

The conference took place on Oct. 9 and 10 at the Scotiabank Convention Centre in Niagara Falls. The annual event offers opportunities for agriculture leaders and developers to meet, discuss, and plan ways for future growth of the industry.

“I was invited to participate and share details of our ongoing projects within the research engagement forum,” says Dr. Weisener. “This opportunity allowed us to highlight our ongoing collaboration with the greenhouse sector in Essex County, and discuss our role in identifying how retention ponds behave with respect to nutrients. In other words, are they problematic and if so, how do we work with the growers to help manage them.”

His presentation was titled “Investigating Nutrient & Trace Element Dynamics in Greenhouse Water Retention Ponds.”

Weisener and his colleague on the project, GLIER professor Scott Mundle, were asked to engage with the growers’ association and assess and investigate their range of stormwater retention ponds in 2018. One of their goals is to discover whether there are any special chemical or biological conditions for releasing nutrients.

“We are still working with preliminary information,” says Weisener. “But our preliminary information is already providing key insight for management strategies. We’ve already characterized biological and chemical indicators that can identify which environmental practices are better and how they can benefit individual operators.”

The information from the project is being used to better inform the greenhouse operators of the best management practices and working strategies they can employ to manage their stormwater retention ponds.

“This collaboration has academic and greenhouse growers fully engaged at a round table,” says Weisener. “Operators are keen to continue studies which have a positive impact on the environment and this work will provide them with the tools needed to both assess and manage their retention ponds. We consider this to be the most important aspect and was a point I aimed to get across during my presentation.”

—Darko Milenkovic

After a successful pilot of the UWindsor Job Shadow Experience during the October reading week, Career Development and Experiential Learning plans to offer it again in the winter term.

Gagneet Kaur, who shadowed provost Douglas Kneale, says she would recommend the program to any students unsure about their career paths.

“My job shadow experience opened a whole new world of opportunities for me,” says Kaur.  “I culminated the experience with enhanced knowledge in the field of education and policy-making and got a first-hand look at what it takes to run an organization.”

The program gave students a chance to observe a professional at the host’s place of work, learning about the career, sector, workplace, and how to be competitive in the labour market. Every placement included observation time, a tour of the workplace, and an information interview, allowing students to see the career and industry in action and ask pertinent questions.

The pilot placed 33 students with host professionals, who also reported enjoying the experience.

“Even though we are all busy at work, taking a few hours out of my day to support and educate students is extremely rewarding,” says Kyle Shafer, senior process improvement specialist at TransForm Shared Services Organization, which supports five hospitals in the tri-county region.  “The students asked great questions and prompted me to consider again how I do things.”

Jamie Kramer, human resources assistant with the City of Windsor, agrees.

“Job shadows are a way to promote the pursuit of careers in our business and invest in the knowledge and education of our future workforce, which helps to develop potential employees,” she says. “It was nice to sit down and discuss not just the what and the how, but the why behind what we do.”

Career Development and Experiential Learning is part of the Office of Experiential Learning. Read more about the pilot on the project’s website.

DailyNews reminds readers that they can gain an extra hour of sleep this weekend, as Daylight Saving Time ends at 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 3.

To resume standard time, turn back clocks to relive the hour between 1 and 2 a.m. Or just set your clocks back an hour before you turn in for the evening Saturday.