Centre for Global Public Health opens, receives major funding

Posted in:  Medicine

Robson Hall Students are amongst the best in the world

Two third year law students at Robson Hall, Ms. Katie Hall and Ms. Alison Cathcart, are off to Paris, France to represent Canada in the world mediation advocacy competition, run by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), in February 2010.  For the complete story please visit the Robson Hall website at: http://www.umanitoba.ca/law/newsite/index.php 

We have long known that Robson Hall students are excellent and competitive on the world stage, and this is just further proof.  We are committed to building on this distinction and ensuring the success of our students.  

 “To date, participating in the trial advocacy moots and the mediation competitions has been the most significant aspect of my law school experience.” - Alison Cathcart

“Our success is a testament to the calibre of education that we have received at Robson Hall. We look forward to competing at the international level, proving to the world that an education at the University of Manitoba is first class.” - Katie Hall

Posted in:  Law

Prof. Popsicle demonstrates how to escape a submerged vehicle

Dr. Gordon Giesbrecht (right) and colleague Michael Clark emerge from the rear window of a Mercury Sable as it sinks into the Red River. He’s no stranger to cold water – or cramped, confined spaces. So it wasn’t much of a stretch for the University of Manitoba’s Dr. Gordon Giesbrecht – a world-renowned expert on cold water physiology and survival techniques – to take to the frigid waters of the Red River yesterday, where he demonstrated how best to escape from a vehicle that’s sinking or submerged. The morning demo, in which Giesbrecht and colleague Michael Clark (host of CJOB’s The Road Trip) freed themselves from a water-logged Mercury Sable that had been rolled down the boat launch at St. Vital Park, was staged to debunk certain widely-circulated myths surrounding the best course of action in such an event. “The common misconception is that you need to allow the vehicle to fill up with water before you try to get through the door, as opposed to just getting out through the window as fast as you can,” says Giesbrecht, whose past experiences with cold water research have earned him the nickname Professor Popsicle.  “But with every second that goes by, your chance of surviving decreases.” So while it’s true that a submerged vehicle must first be filled with water in order for pressure to be equalized (and for doors to be opened), Giesbrecht ­– a professor with the U of M’s Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management – says it’s a much safer bet to simply go through the window. “What people don’t realize is that the vehicle will float for up to one minute before the water gets to the bottom of the side window,” he explains. “So if you can get the window open or break it before that time, you’re literally just going out and down into the water – escape is that simple.” Since most car windows can’t be easily kicked out (as evinced by one volunteer’s inability to do so at yesterday’s demo), Giesbrecht instead recommends carrying a keychain-sized centre-punch in your vehicle at all times. Once an escape route has been cleared, Giesbrecht recommends adhering to the following four-point-strategy. “Remember: seatbelts, children, windows and out,” says Giesbrecht. “Undo your seatbelts immediately. If there are children in the car, get them free of their restraints and beside you. Get the window open or break it, whatever it takes. And then get out as fast as you can.” Giesbrecht also says it’s imperative that those trapped in sinking vehicles don’t waste time reaching for their cell phones. “Your best period of opportunity for escape is a one-minute window at the beginning of the incident,” he says. “If you make a phone call, two things happen. One is that you use up that minute, and even then, what you’re calling for can’t naturally happen, since there’s no response system anywhere that can get to you in a minute.” Giesbrecht’s advice is especially timely in light of a recent tragedy involving three university students (one of them from Brandon), who drowned after becoming trapped in a Jeep that plunged into a pond in North Dakota. Each year in Canada, 6% to 10% of all drowning deaths take place in vehicles (an estimated 30 to 40 people annually) take place in vehicles, Giesbrecht says, making it especially important that people are aware of procedures that could save their lives. “I just did a survey of 150 of my students, and 60% of them said they would do something that would probably kill them,” he says. “Fully 40% said (they would) let the vehicle fill with water. Of course, by the time that happens, you’re already underwater, too.” Made possible with help from the Winnipeg Parks and Open Spaces, Police Service, Winnipeg Fire and Paramedic Service, and support divers from the Civilian Aquatic Search Team, Giesbrecht’s demonstration will be part of a pending instructional DVD that falls under the umbrella of Operation ALIVE (Automobile submersion: Lessons In Vehicle Escape). For more information on the project, see http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/kinrec/media/VehicleSubmersionCARSP06.pdf

For more information, contact: David Schmeichel Communication, Promotion & Alumni Officer Faculty of Kinesiology & Recreation Management schmeich@cc.umanitoba.ca Phone: (204) 474-8629

Posted in:  Kinesiology and Recreation Management

Residential school survivor shares wisdom with FKRM students

For more than a century, it was Canada’s dirty little secret.

But now, thanks to the bravery of residential school system survivors like Mary Courchene, a nation’s secret shame can be spun into something positive.

“The whole notion of knowing why our young Aboriginal population still struggles stems from our history, and must be told to truly understand what ‘Aboriginal perspective’ is,” said Courchene.

“This, to me, is what ‘reconciliation’ means.”

Courchene – who’s the Elder-in-Residence at Seven Oaks School Division in Winnipeg, and who previously served as principal of Children of the Earth School and as Dean of Aboriginal Education at Red River College – visited the University of Manitoba this week to speak to students in Dr. Joannie Halas’s Culturally Relevant Physical Education and Health class.

She spoke of her childhood happiness while growing up on what’s now the Sagkeeng First Nation north of Winnipeg – a happiness that was shattered when she was removed from her family home and forced to attend a Roman Catholic residential school at the age of five.

“My mother looked at me, gave me a hug, and away she went,” said Courchene, recalling her first day of school.

“The next time I saw the inside of my house – which was five minutes away (from the school) – was 10 months later. Can you imagine being a five-year-old child, to have all that bonding, all those attachments, just abruptly taken away? It was the most horrible, traumatic experience for me – and I had 10 long years of that.”

Courchene was denied contact with her brother while at school, and only saw her parents for one hour each week.

Even worse, Courchene says, she and her classmates were stripped of their Ojibwa language and culture – part of an indoctrination process she now recognizes as stemming from “a system designed to destroy.”

“I learned to read and write (in English), but at what cost?” she said. “We were told that our way of life, our religion, was pagan, and that we didn’t have anything. (Our) ancestors, we were told, were the ones that almost killed us all. And we believed that.

“When you’re indoctrinated and you’re brainwashed, you begin to believe what’s told to you. I believed that my ancestors didn’t have religion, that my ancestors didn’t have laws – that they lived like animals. And I hated that. But most of all, I hated myself.”

Courchene  was especially embarrassed of her parents, whom she now credits with insisting that she maintain ties to her culture, even as she continued her education at a residential school in Saskatchewan (after being denied admittance to high school in Pine Falls based entirely on her race).

In fact, her memories of the injustice remained buried until the early 1980s, when she happened on a television interview with former classmate Phil Fontaine (who’d go on to become National Chief of Canada’s Assembly of First Nations).

“He was talking about the residential schools, and both my husband and I were mesmerized by what he was saying,” said Courchene. “He was saying he was abused. My husband said, ‘What is he talking about?’”

The denial was so deeply ingrained that Courchene even phoned her parish priest to assure him “things hadn’t been that bad.” But it wasn’t long before her husband ­– with whom she’d never before discussed details of their shared experiences – confided he’d spent much of his childhood locked in a closet, or forced to straighten rusty nails when teachers couldn’t accommodate his learning disability.

These days, Courchene appears to have made peace with her past: a practicing Catholic, she still maintains contact with some of the nuns who served as her teachers, though she also makes room in her life for the customs and wisdom of her ancestors.

She was recently invited by Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean to be a guest of honour at the ceremony to launch Canada’s Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Ottawa, and was present when Prime Minster Stephen Harper issued a public apology to residential school survivors in June 2008.

“I remember (his) words: ‘Never again will we do this, and we are truly sorry,’” she said.

She describes the present state of race relations in Canada as a period of reconciliation, and says it’s up to the current crop of Aboriginal youth to lead the charge while reconnecting with their culture.

“Young people today, they’re the ones that have the tools,” she explained.

“If I can borrow what Barack Obama says, they’re the agents of change. They’re the ones who will pick up the reconciliation wand … and once again have pride in who they are.”

As for the future generation of educators – like the FKRM students she met with on Thursday – Courchene says they have an integral role to play in ensuring the mistakes of the past are never repeated.

“Underneath it all, it’s about building relationships, not just going through an assembly-line education,” she said.

“(Students) are not just faces, they’re actual people – each and every one of them.”

Posted in:  Kinesiology and Recreation Management