It may seem a bit idiosyncratic for a Canadian university to build a special experimental facility for making ice (and hockey is not involved), but this research laboratory may be the key to helping scientists better understand climate change.

The Sea-ice Environmental Research Facility (SERF) is the first of its kind in Canada: a large, outdoor, saltwater pond equipped with a suite of state-of-the-art analytical instruments. Researchers will watch and monitor the formation of sea ice on the water for comparison with what occurs in the high Arctic. By “growing” sea ice under controlled conditions, scientists will better understand how sea ice forms and melts on polar oceans, and gain insight into the processes that regulate the exchange of molecules between the ocean and atmosphere.

With a total funding of $1.38 million, the SERF facility is of fundamental importance to the research mission of the University, which has identified climate change and northern studies as a major thrust for research and research training.

“By creating sea ice at a land-locked prairie research facility to study the impact of climate change, we are turning innovative ideas into reality at the University of Manitoba,” said president David Barnard. “I congratulate our visionary researchers for finding solutions to real-world problems and our partners for their support and commitment.”

The main feature of the SERF facility is an outdoor pool, 60 feet long, 30 feet wide and 8 feet deep. It is equipped with a movable roof to control snow cover, and various sensors and instruments to allow real-time monitoring. The SERF facility also includes a trailer laboratory and a storage building.

Along with concurrent field studies onboard the Canadian Research Icebreaker CCGS Amundsen in the Arctic Ocean, experimental studies at SERF are expected to improve our ability to predict the impact of the rapid sea-ice loss on the marine ecosystem, on Arctic and global climates, on transport and biogeochemical cycles of greenhouse gases and contaminants and on the human use of sea ice.

“This state-of-the-art facility will help researchers advance our understanding of the complex dynamics of sea ice and its impact on climate,” said Gilles G. Patry, president and CEO of the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI). “SERF will draw on the talents of top investigators from around the world whose work will have a real and positive impact on Northern communities and ecosystems.”

“This is an example of the innovative and cutting-edge projects the Manitoba Research and Innovation Fund supports,” said Innovation, Energy and Mines Minister Dave Chomiak. “Understanding the effects of climate change has never been more important and I wish the University of Manitoba continued success on this initiative.”

Søren Rysgaard, Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Arctic Geomicrobiology and Climate Change, received funding in January from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), some of which will be put to work in this facility. What will be learned will have broad economic and environmental impact and will be applied to environmental assessment and resource development in the Arctic and its resultant impact on Indigenous peoples of the region. Rysgaard was appointed CERC in 2010 and studies the geomicrobiological aspects of this critical habitat, how it will alter amid a changing climate and how it affects global CO2 balance and carbon sequestration.

The SERF is funded by CFI, the Manitoba Research and Innovation Fund, and the University of Manitoba. The project is led by Drs. Feiyue Wang, Tim Papakyriakou, David Barber (Canada Research Chair in Arctic System Science) and Søren Rysgaard of the Centre for Earth Observation Science in the Clayton H. Riddell Faculty of Environment, Earth and Resources at the University of Manitoba.

For further information, please contact Feiyue Wang at: 204-474-6250 or email: wangf@ms.umanitoba.ca

A mobile exhibit designed to raise awareness about the history and legacy of Residential Schools in Canada is arriving to the University of Manitoba’s Bannatyne Campus tomorrow.

The exhibit, “100 Years of Loss – The Residential School System in Canada”, is a project of the Legacy of Hope Foundation, a national Aboriginal charitable organization.

The bilingual exhibit, which is free and open to the public, will be opened tomorrow at 2 p.m. It will run until Feb. 16.

This exhibit will not only sensitize and educate Canadians, but it will also challenge stereotypes and fosters a dialogue between people.

The Legacy of Hope Foundation’s mandate is to educate, and raise awareness and understanding of the legacy of Residential Schools, including the effects and intergenerational impacts on First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples, and to support the ongoing healing process of Residential School Survivors.

What: 100 Years of Loss exhibit (www.legacyofhope.ca/projects)
When: Thursday, February 9, 2012, 2:00 p.m., until February 16, 2012.
Where: Brodie Atrium, 727 McDermot Ave., Bannatyne Campus

For more information contact Sean Moore, Marketing Communications Office, University of Manitoba, 204-474-7963 (sean_moore@umanitoba.ca).

On Feb. 10 students in the University of Manitoba’s Women’s and Gender Studies program will host their annual launch of “FAQ: The University of Manitoba Feminist and Queer Undergraduate Review”.

This book is part of the highly interdisciplinary program and is published annually by an editorial collective of Women’s and Gender Studies students.

This book launch is made possible through the generous support of the Margaret Laurence Endowment Fund.

What: launch of Feminist and Queer Undergraduate Review
When: Feb. 10, 2012, 7-9:30 p.m.
Where: Marshall McLuahn Hall, Room 204 University Centre, Fort Garry Campus

Please note that child care will be provided, but please contact Dana Austman at 204-792-8192 if you plan to use it.

The University of Manitoba will transform the Southwood Lands into a landscape that epitomizes the ideal live-work-learn-play place for Winnipeggers and it took the inaugural step last night by meeting with neighbours, interest groups, and government officials.

The University of Manitoba is working with stakeholders in developing an understanding for how the 120 acres should evolve. Using these ideas the U of M will develop a framework. This framework will form the basis of an international competition: urban planners, architects and landscape architects from around the world will base their visionary design proposals on this community-based blueprint.

“We envision a community that is the model for green, sustainable living,” said President David Barnard. “We want people to look back a decade from now and say the University of Manitoba developed the Southwood Lands the right way for the right reasons and, as a result, Winnipeg is a much better city.”

Over 50 people participated in this first important step in the comprehensive planning process that will lead to the development of an area master plan. Representatives included people from the University’s administration and executive branch, deans and students, and members of the three levels of government. There were also groups representing environmental, architectural, transport and business interests, as well as local residents.

“This is just the beginning of an exciting process that will culminate with a large area master plan. The master plan will guide the redevelopment of the site over several years. The area master plan will be a critical broad based document setting out important elements including urban form, design, land use, infrastructure, transportation, phasing and implementation,” said Michelle Richard, Director of Campus Planning at the University of Manitoba.

In November 2011 the University acquired the former Southwood Golf Course. This land holds enormous potential for the University of Manitoba to build on a tradition of excellence, innovation and global influence.

For over 130 years, as the province’s premier university, the University of Manitoba enjoyed close connections to the people and communities of Manitoba and it is committed to preserving, nurturing and growing these bonds into the future.

For more information visit the Southwood Lands website,

Or contact Sean Moore, Marketing Communications Office, University of Manitoba, 204-474-7963 (sean_moore@umanitoba.ca)

University president and vice-chancellor David Barnard was one of five people, all members of the broader University of Manitoba community, who received a special Diamond Jubilee Medal from Lt.-Gov. Philip Lee on Monday.

“I would like to congratulate all those from the University of Manitoba community including President Barnard who received this prestigious honour,” said Janice Lederman, chair of the University of Manitoba’s board of governors. “This speaks to the University’s outstanding contribution to education and our society, not only in Manitoba but throughout Canada.”

Lt.-Gov. Lee bestowed the medals during a private ceremony in the Lieutenant Governor’s office at the Manitoba Legislative Building. In addition to President Barnard, recipients were: University of Manitoba scholars Harry Duckworth and Gordon Goldsborough, former Asper Associates chair Barry Rempel, and alumnus Lieutenant Colonel A.S. (Sandy) Will (BSc/61), aide-de-camp to five Lieutenant Governors.

The medals are being presented to 60,000 Canadians and 900 Manitobans to celebrate the 60^th anniversary of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. They are given to individuals who have made valuable contributions to the country, province or community.

The new People’s Citizenship Guide, edited by two University of Manitoba professors, won’t help anyone pass the test to become a Canadian, but it might help make all of us more critical and thus better citizens.

In 2009, the contents of the official Canada citizenship guide that is given to all recent immigrants was changed to include more military history and information about the British monarchy.

University of Manitoba history professors Esyllt Jones and Adele Perry are co-editors of an alternative People’s Citizenship Guide, which will be launched next week. They believe the official guide outlines an exceptionally narrow, conservative view of Canadian politics and society, and that the government’s recent revisions do not highlight valued public programs or Canada’s rich history of social justice movements. By ignoring the work and democratic struggles of generations of newcomers, the professors say the official guide presumes that new immigrants need to be taught how to “take responsibility” for their families.

In The People’s Citizenship Guide, a group of progressive scholars, including historians, an economist and a law professor from the University of Manitoba, offer an alternative citizenship guide that they claim is more lively, political, humane-and more honest-than the official one.

Here are a few questions you should be able to answer after reading the new guide:

• Which Canadian rebels were banished to Australia?
• What does poutine tell us as a national symbol?

Co-editors Esyllt Jones and Adele Perry, and contributor Debra Parkes (Faculty of Law), will launch the new guide Monday, February 13, 2012 at 7:00 pm in the McNally Robinson Booksellers atrium at 1120 Grant Avenue in Winnipeg.

All royalties from this project are being donated to the Canadian Council for Refugees.

Esyllt Jones studies the history of health, disease, and social movements, and is an associate professor of history at the University of Manitoba. She is the author of Influenza 1918: Disease, Death and Struggle in Winnipeg.

Adele Perry is associate professor and Canada Research Chair in the department of history, University of Manitoba. She is the author of On the Edge of Empire, a co-editor of Rethinking Canada: The Promise of Women’s History, and is working on a book length study of an elite Creole/Metis family and circuits of migration and rule in the nineteenth-century British empire.

Other contributors include: University of Manitoba economics professor Ian Hudson and history professor David Churchill; Queen’s University history professor Karen Dubinsky and lecturer Steven Maynard; Simon Fraser University history professors Mary-Ellen Kelm and Mark Leier; University of Toronto history professor Sean Mills; and University of Alberta sociologist Dominique Clément.

The book launch is co-sponsored by Arbeiter Ring Publishing and the Centre for Human Rights Research Initiative (chrr.info) at the University of Manitoba.

For more information, contact Esyllt Jones at: 204-474-8522 or email: jonese@cc.umanitoba.ca or Adele Perry at perrya@cc.umanitoba.ca

The University of Manitoba’s Transport Institute is hosting a free public seminar on hybrid air vehicles and their potential to replace Canada’s current reliance on winter roads, which are increasingly unreliable in our changing climate.

The issue of winter resupply is of critical importance to remote communities and governments tasked with the logistics of reapplying these communities and this seminar will examine how large cargo airships can assist.

The guest speaker is Stephen Newton, Director of business development at Discovery Air Innovations (DAI), a Canadian specialty aviation company.

At this event the U of M’s Transport Institute and Mr. Newton will also launch a graduate student competition which will require students to write a paper on how these vehicles can be used for humanitarian logistics.

What: Hybrid Air Vehicle seminar
When: Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012, 3:30 p.m.
Where: Room 343 of the Drake Centre, Asper School of Business, Fort Garry Campus

For more information please contact Barry Prentice, Professor, Dept. of Supply China Management, at 204-474-9766 (barry_prentice@umanitoba.ca)