Department of Theatre professor Brian Richmond returns to Saskatoon’s Persephone Theatre this month to open his fifth production of Hank Williams: The Show He Never Gave, which he directed for his Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre last year. Richmond co-founded Persephone back in 1975 and served as its inaugural artistic director, but this marks his first return as director in 25 years. “Persephone was the first major theatre initiative I undertook,” says Richmond. “[It] was conceived in what I would describe as the ‘angry young man’ phase of my life . . . whereas Blue Bridge has arisen in my more ‘mellow’ years. For me, this will be an opportunity to tie these two periods of my life and career together.”

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Drs. Colin Macleod (law, philosophy), James Tully (political science, law, Indigenous governance, philosophy) and Hari Srivastava (math and statistics, emeritus) were listed in the March 27 edition of The Globe and Mail in a list of Canada’s top researchers in terms of productivity and impact, based on the “h-index,” a measure of citations to their published works. Srivastava received second ranking in the area of mathematics and statistics and Macleod and Tully received third ranking in the areas of philosophy and law, respectively.

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Richmond

Department of Theatre professor Brian Richmond returns to Saskatoon’s Persephone Theatre this month to open his fifth production of Hank Williams: The Show He Never Gave, which he directed for his Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre last year. Richmond co-founded Persephone back in 1975 and served as its inaugural artistic director, but this marks his first return as director in 25 years. “Persephone was the first major theatre initiative I undertook,” says Richmond. “[It] was conceived in what I would describe as the ‘angry young man’ phase of my life . . . whereas Blue Bridge has arisen in my more ‘mellow’ years. For me, this will be an opportunity to tie these two periods of my life and career together.”

McDougall

School of Music professor emeritus and Order of Canada recipient Ian McDougall has launched a new CD to support Fine Arts students in financial need. The Very Thought of You, a collection of ballads from the ’30s and ’40s, features McDougall on trombone backed by a string orchestra; $10 from each $20 CD goes directly to a new emergency fund to benefit Fine Arts students. Made possible by the generous support of donors to the Ten Mile Limited Partnership—a dedicated team of UVic alumni and supporters—The Very Thought of You is available at the School of Music, Larsen’s Music, Lyle’s Place and Munro’s Books.

Jessica Ball (child and youth care) is one of 15 world experts asked to join the Brookings Institute research task force to create a research agenda in support of the Global Compact on Learning (GLC). The GLC is a multi-donor initiative focused on closing the gap in education equity for over 75 million children of primary school age who are not enrolled in school, including 88 per cent of children in Africa and Asia, and children whose learning is disrupted by political conflict or emergencies.

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Vikes guard Ryan MacKinnon was named as a second-team CIS All-Canadian March 8, becoming the first Vikes men’s basketball player since Chris Trumpy (2005/6) to earn All-Canadian recognition and the 21st winner in the program’s history. A fifth-year education student from Comox, BC, MacKinnon had a stellar final season, leading UVic to the Canada West Final Four. With plans to explore options as a professional player, MacKinnon finishes his career with 204 career three-pointers, good for fifth all-time in Canada West play.

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Dr. Fraser Hof (chemistry), Canada Research Chair in Supramolecular and Medicinal Chemistry, has been selected to receive one of four 2012 travel awards bestowed by the Canadian National Committee for the International Union of Pure & Applied Chemistry (CNC/IUPAC). The travel awards program is highly competitive amongst the most outstanding young faculty members across Canada. The award will fund Hof’s costs to attend the International Conference on Physical Organic Chemistry in Durham, UK, in September 2012.

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Craig Beaucamp, Vikes men's basketball head coach, was recently named the 2011–12 Canada West Coach of the Year. This is the third time in his career tat he has been so honoured. He was Canada West Coach of the Year in 2003-04 and 2004-05.

Dr. Jonathan Goldman (music) recently won the Opus Prize in the category “Book of the Year” for his book The Musical Language of Pierre Boulez (Cambridge University Press) http://bit.ly/vDju5g. Awarded annually by the Quebec Music Council, the Opus Prize is (in Goldman’s words) “kind of like the Quebec classical music Grammys.”

L-R: Ausio, Sprigg, Choy

Lyndsay Sprigg (BSc 2009 Biochemistry and Microbiology) in November received the prestigious International North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) research award, presented to an undergraduate who was first author in an important publication during the previous year. She was primary author of “Interaction of daunomycin with acetylated chromatin,” published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry—the most cited and highest-impact journal in medicinal chemistry—and co-authored by UVic’s Dr. Juan Ausio (her honours thesis supervisor) and Francis Choy. Sprigg received the highest ratings from the adjudicating committee in her category and was given the top award. After graduation, Sprigg continued her research with the BC Cancer Agency in Vancouver for a year and is currently studying medicine at the UBC Kelowna campus. The NRW Research Schools, which bestow the award, were founded as an initiative of the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. International networks of renowned scientists, world leading supervisors and excellent scientific environments, the NRW Research Schools provide a forum for pre-doctoral candidates with superior academic track records.