Paralympic gold medallist Danielle Campo McLeod, a 2004 graduate of the University of Windsor’s Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, will receive an honorary doctorate during the institution’s spring Convocation ceremonies, the University announced Monday.

Campo McLeod, a world-record holding swimmer, was on campus to celebrate the release of her memoir, Resurrections: My Will to Survive is Olympian, which chronicles her life overcoming the debilitating effects of muscular dystrophy through competitive swimming, to rising to the height of her sport, marriage and family, and triumphing over a near fatal medical ordeal with the support of family, friends, and faith.

“Danielle is a natural choice to receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Windsor,” says Vincent Georgie, acting vice-president external.

“As a UWindsor alumna she demonstrates the type of indominable spirit and determination that have shown her to be an inspiration to everyone she touches — in sport, in her community, and within her family. It will be our honour to honour her.”

Campo McLeod calls the book a love letter to the many people in the Windsor-Essex County community who offered support to her and her family during her health crisis and the long road to recovery.

In nominating her for the honorary degree, the book’s co-author and former Windsor Star publisher Marty Beneteau said the decorated champion and MD advocate tells an inspiring story of determination in the face of adversity.

“In her role with Muscular Dystrophy Canada, Ms. Campo McLeod worked tirelessly to improve the lives of children suffering from this catastrophic neuromuscular disorder, raising countless thousands of dollars for research and advocacy,” he said. “Despite her medical ordeal, she aspires to launch a foundation which supports families encountering unexpected health crises.”

She is a mother, social worker, child and family consultant, motivational speaker, and director of culture and engagement with Muscular Dystrophy Canada. Beneteau calls her road to wellness a story of faith, love, survival, and triumph, told with a unique blend of candour, ethos, and humour.

A team based at the University of Windsor was awarded a gold medal for its research into improving the reliability and safety of helicopter engines at the Seoul International Invention Fair.

Farshid Bazmi, a postdoctoral fellow in mechanical engineering, professor Afshin Rahimi, and industry partner Moein Foroud of AviationTech Solutions, proposed a new method of diagnosing fouling faults in turboshaft engines.

“Fouling is caused by the adhesion of fine materials to the compressor blades, which changes the shape and function of the airfoil,” Dr. Bazmi said. “Our model-based method aims to increase accuracy and speed at the simulation of compressor performance in off-design situations.

“Our method promises more reliability, higher precision, power assurance, higher efficiency, and reduced risk.”

The project, funded in part by a Mitacs Accelerate grant on Fault Diagnosis for Gas Turbine Engine Systems Using Model-Based Techniques, earned top honours in the aerospace category at the fair, held Nov. 16 to 19 in the capital of South Korea.

Law professor Danardo Jones is not just a lawyer and academic, says Gabrielle Gibbs; he is a fierce and dedicated advocate for social justice and human rights. A second-year law student, Gibbs successfully nominated Jones for the Human Rights and Social Justice Award from the Office of Human Rights, Equity, and Accessibility.

In a letter of support, Gibbs wrote that Jones embodies the true spirit the award was created to recognize: “He uses this passion and voice to share his knowledge and lived experience with others through his lectures, research, speaking engagements, and one-on-one interactions with students, in hopes of creating a community that can bring real change for all marginalized groups.”

For his part, Jones said he considers himself blessed to be part of an institution that takes seriously people’s right to be treated with dignity.

“My work aims to put those uncomfortable issues squarely in the public discourse in hopes that we will discuss it and that discussion may lead to transformation,” he said. “At the very least, the voices of those at the margin, the voices of those at the bottom, will be heard.”

Watch a video on his award:

This is the third in a five-part series recognizing recipients of the 2022 OHREA awards.

With the transition to D2L’s Brightspace learning management system for the Winter semester, test your knowledge for a chance to win a D2L, Centre for Teaching and Learning, and Office of Open Learning prize pack.

To enter today’s contest, send your answers for the following trivia questions to Daily News. It is open to UWindsor students, faculty, and staff. A winner will be randomly selected from all correct responses received by noon on Dec. 15.

1. 1 D2L Brightspace headquarters is located in which Ontario city?
   a) Kitchener
   b) Ottawa
   c) Toronto
   d) Windsor
2. When will the University switch from Blackboard to Brightspace for all but a handful of two-term courses?
   a) Winter 2023
   b) Summer 2023
   c) Fall 2023
3. What virtual classroom is replacing Blackboard Collaborate?
   a) Virtual Classroom in Brightspace
   b) Zoom
   c) Microsoft Teams
4. True or false? Brightspace data will be stored through a cloud.
5. True or false? Instructors will be able to transfer material from Blackboard to Brightspace.
6. True or false? There is documentation and helpful resources at uwindsor.ca/brightspace.

Send an e-mail with your responses to dailynews@uwindsor.ca. One entry per contestant, please.

Note: the winner is responsible for picking up the prize from the Centre for Teaching and Learning at 700 California Ave.

Local talent Jacqueline Pento has committed to join the roster of the Lancer softball club, head coach Paul Scott announced Tuesday.

“Jacqueline is a premier catcher with an exceptional ball IQ, who has demonstrated that she can play almost any position on the field,” Scott said. “Jacqueline is a versatile impact player who is expected to be a big piece of the Blue and Gold for many years to come.”

Pento currently attends St. Thomas of Villanova Catholic High School and will begin studies in the UWindsor Faculty of Human Kinetics this fall. Read more at goLancers.ca.

With the Nov. 30 launch of the artificial intelligence bot ChatGPT, the conversation about cheating in higher education has reached a new phase, inviting renewed critical consideration of how higher education can adjust to the ever-changing landscape of freely and sometimes-freely available online resources.

While it is newly released to the broader public, the OpenAI tool has garnered attention across academia and industry as a game changer for how we view, consume, and trust information, says learning specialist Dave Cormier of the UWindsor Office of Open Learning.

“While the technology certainly isn’t perfect,” he says, “initial tests have fooled peer reviewers at journals and faculty considering work done by their students.”

Cormier and Thompson Rivers University’s Brenna Clarke Gray are offering an interactive Zoom webinar on Friday, Dec. 16, at 2 p.m. They will review some of the tools that are impacting student assignments with the goal of establishing ways forward for getting students “to do the work” in classes in January and beyond. Cormier will be incorporating the usage of these natural language processing tools in the course he is teaching in the winter term addressing critical digital literacy needed by graduates.

Websites and software like Chegg and Photomath have garnered a lot of attention in recent years for being used by students to augment completing their assignments as intended. Written responses, whether in short answer or essay format, have been seen as a way of ensuring that students have done the work. ChatGPT offers a way to create plausible text responses to even complicated questions in a manner of seconds.

Interest has been high in the topic since Cormier and Dr. Clarke Gray started a public conversation about it a week ago on Twitter, with well over 100 registrants from around the world now signed up to join in the conversation.

Registration for the Zoom interactive webinar is open to all. Any questions about the event can be sent to openlearning@uwindsor.ca or to Cormier at dave.cormier@uwindsor.ca.

The University’s firewall hardware will be upgraded on Tuesday, Jan. 3, from 5 to 8:30 a.m. This will cause University systems, including external interdependent systems and internet access, to be unavailable.

Examples of affected systems include:

• All UWinsite Applications (Oracle)
• Brightspace Learning Management System
• Single sign-on for cloud-hosted applications (systems where you use your UWin ID credentials)
• VPN
• Food Services
• UWinCard access
• Wired and wireless network

The maintenance period should not extend beyond 8:30 a.m. However, in the event that unexpected issues arise, extended outages may occur for some systems. Communication will be shared with the affected system users if necessary, and updates will be posted on the Information Technology Services webpage for System Status and Notification.

The firewall hardware upgrade is necessary for IT Services to continue maintaining UWindsor’s technology infrastructure and data security.

DailyNews, the University of Windsor e-newsletter, will publish just twice next week: Monday and Wednesday, Dec. 19 and 21.

Editor Kevin Johnson reminds correspondents to keep this in mind when planning submissions.

DailyNews will resume daily publication on Jan. 4.