Gameday London • 17th February 2023

Getting into the swing of softball - Gameday London

The school gym echoes with a syncopated thud-thud-thud as half a dozen girls toss spongey balls against the wall and then scramble for the rebounds. Soft arcs and errant bounces make it obvious this could best be described as a starting point.

United Way Elgin Middlesex • 10th February 2023

Calls to 2-1-1 info line surge by double digits

Local queries to Canada’s 2-1-1 information hotline have soared so far in 2023 – with call volume 24-per-cent higher than this time last year, and more callers than ever with multiple needs. Housing, health and mental health/addiction needs together account for almost half the inquiries. Across Canada, the picture is similar, with double-digit increases year-over-year in the number of people seeking guidance to find basics such as food, housing and help with government assistance programs. Some

YouTube - United Way Elgin Middlesex • 16th December 2022

Love for Dinner, with artist Andrés Garzon

Andrés Garzon's art shows what it means to be reunited for the holidays. Story here: https://unitedwayem.ca/holiday-local-love/

United Way Elgin Middlesex • 19th October 2022

Pay-it-forward meals bring street-level caring

One lunch guest at the London Coffee House remarked that this was the best food he’d had in a week – and his first hot meal in three days. Through the generosity of United Way supporters this fall, more than 2,400 neighbours in need got access to nutritious locally sourced meals.

Western News • 9th September 2022

Melanie Peacock 'purple-and-proud' alumni president

Human resources professional Melanie Peacock, MBA’90, has become an international expert on finding and keeping the right people in the workplace.

But she also knows first-hand how important it is to make that a priority in her personal life.

Western News • 21st June 2022

Learning bundles a gift of Indigenous knowledge

Indigenous peoples affiliated with Western have created six teaching modules instructors can use to share Indigenous knowledge and worldviews in their classrooms. “We carry these gifts of knowledge, and we want to share them so instructors can share Indigenous perspectives in an ethical way,” said teaching

Western News • 30th May 2022

Western's bee garden hums with volunteers

The short strip of rich earth that's newly cradling 1,300 plants – including hyssop, aster and three species of milkweed – is an ambitious beginning for Western's pollinator garden.

Western News • 25th May 2022

$10M gift gives rise to entrepreneurs, innovation

A new entrepreneurship centre, with a $10-million gift is built on a bold idea, says donor Ron Schmeichel: "When you invite ideas, enthusiasm and skills to come together you create and build innovation.” The 100,000-square-foot building is located at the heart of campus and will be named the Ronald D. Schmeichel Building for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

Western News • 26th April 2022

Hearing-aid tech wins Governor General medal

A team of researchers at Western’s National Centre for Audiology (NCA), led by director Susan Scollie, has won a Governor General’s Innovation Award (GGIA) for developing the world’s first paediatric hearing aid prescription software.

Western News • 6th October 2021

Community campaign ‘united in local love’

Each additional supporter, and each additional dollar, brings the community one step closer to pandemic recovery. As Western began its annual campaign Oct. 7 in support of United Way Elgin Middlesex, the university is working to strengthen its generous role as the agency’s largest employee-led contributor. More importantly, said Western campaign co-chair Erika Chamberlain and Faculty of Law dean, the campus community is committed to showing its support for city and county neighbours.

Western News • 10th May 2022

Downtown campus site builds core connections

Western’s new downtown space at 450 Talbot St. in London, Ont. will soon become a hub of activity, with community-focused programs and events ranging from Indigenous art exhibits to free legal aid to medical outreach and mental health counselling for children.

Western News • 2nd May 2022

Western’s new provost shares first impressions

Florentine Strzelczyk, a seasoned administrator, acclaimed scholar and avid kayaker, is already expertly navigating the waters of her new role as Western’s new provost and vice-president (academic).

Western News • 20th April 2022

Prof helping save planet from plastic pollution

When she was a kid, Patricia Corcoran would examine interesting little stones that lined the gravel road near her home. “I always wanted to become a geologist,” she recalled. These days, the Western professor of sedimentary petrology is focused less on pebbles and more on plastics. But she was dismayed to discover these two materials are often fused together into technofossils, a rock-hard legacy of profligate consumerism.

Western News • 16th February 2022

Bell-Western 5G network enables real-world solutions

Imagine a rush-hour intersection where a cellular network analyzes vehicles’ motion, speed and direction and, in real time, helps drivers avoid collisions.
Or, picture yourself beaming into an online lecture, with a 360-degree interactive view of the classroom and lab that’s so real you almost forget it’s virtual.

Western News • 13th April 2022

Western power plant marks 100 years

One hundred years after Western fired up its first two boilers, the university’s power plant remains at the heart of new and planned innovations to support Western’s shift towards net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Its operators are so committed to being green, they even travel campus on toolbox-equipped bicycles.

Western News • 11th May 2022

New Gray chair aims to solve chronic pain

Few people enjoy talking about, or even thinking about, chronic pain. But Siobhan Schabrun has made it her life’s work to study this pressing challenge in health care. “Chronic pain is a massive global health burden. It also has an economic burden that is second only to cancer,” Schabrun noted.
And in human cost, it is one of the most pervasive – and limiting – of medical issues. It hampers mobility and impedes daily activity, disrupts mental health and affects quality of life.

Western News • 8th October 2021

Students to swim with basking sharks

With a body as long as a school bus and an open mouth that could swallow a washing machine, basking sharks are really, really big. And for environmental sustainability students in professor Paul Mensink’s class, learning can hardly get more immersive than a deep dive into the world of a vulnerable species that is the planet’s second-largest shark.

Western News • 7th January 2022

Mummy mystery unwrapped

The secrets of King Amenhotep I had been buried and reburied for three millennia beneath layers of linen and a stunningly lifelike mask. He was the only one of Egypt’s royal mummies whose body was unviewed by modern eyes. Unviewed, that is, until Cairo University professor Sahar Saleem virtually unwrapped and reconstructed his life with 3D, computerized tomography (CT) images.

Western News • 12th April 2022

England’s ‘little ice age’ mapped for first time

It produced floods deep enough to carry away cattle, and winds powerful enough to sink flotillas. It generated heart-stopping deep freezes and weeks-long snowstorms. Weather extremes were no picnic for Britons from the 1500s to the 1700s, a period historians have dubbed the “little ice age.”

Western News • 21st March 2022

New specialization links AI, health research

While artificial intelligence now guides everything from transportation to our music choices, the promise of harnessing data to inform and transform our health has more often been a matter of hope than reality.
This may soon change as Western launches Ontario’s first interdisciplinary graduate field dedicated to machine learning in health and medicine.