Hanna Daniel has made it her business to foster diversity by empowering others
Like an itch that needs scratching, when Hanna Daniel sees something that cries out to be done, she doesn’t regard it as optional. So when the business student arrived at the University of Alberta and realized there was no campus group for black students, she got down to the business of starting one. After a…
Volunteering on the close-knit rural campus helped him conquer loneliness by helping others
Josiah Afriyie’s days followed a stark pattern when he began his studies at the University of Alberta’s Augustana Campus. “It was a simple triangular routine,” he recalls. “From my residence room to classes to the library and back to my room. I wasn’t even going to the cafeteria. I knew nobody and wasn’t talking to…
How one student found her voice as an advocate for patients and other nurses
Cool air blew from above, nearly as bracing as the antiseptic smell of chlorhexidine that wafted through the operating room. The surgeon bent over a completely still older man, carefully inserting a small wire into an artery in the patient’s groin, searching for the path to repair an aneurysm. It was the first time Hanna…
Crossings is the first to bridge undergrad research across all arts programs
A new student-led academic journal – peer-reviewed by students – has launched in the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Arts to showcase some of the finest undergraduate work in the social sciences, humanities and fine arts. Called Crossings, the annual publication contains perspectives as varied as a Marxist critique of capitalist trends in the theatre, an…
For Tom Ndekezi, university was a chance to gain practical skills not only for a variety of jobs but a variety of careers
Tom Ndekezi remembers hearing a statistic during his second year at university that would drive every decision about his academic future from then on: members of his generation can expect to have six to eight careers in their lifetime. “Not even just jobs, but careers,” said the graduating University of Alberta Faculty of Science student.…
The support of volunteer mentors helps students built their confidence
Abigail Brodhead considers herself a quiet person, shy about striking up conversations and asking questions. So when the COVID-19 pandemic shelved the University of Alberta student’s in-person practicum in the spring of 2020, she was concerned about making a go of it online. “I worried about how I would take control of my own learning,” said Brodhead,…
Canadian Nightjar Survey recruits volunteer citizen scientists for the study of nocturnal birds
Ten years ago, University of Alberta PhD candidate Elly Knight started a volunteer citizen science program. Since then, the Canadian Nightjar Survey has grown from a single volunteer in southern British Columbia to several hundred citizen scientists across the country – and more volunteers are needed. Their mission? To monitor the nightjars that breed in Canada. These fascinating,…
Kevin Zentner turned his academic career around by getting involved, working with the less fortunate
In the weeks before his first University of Alberta classes in 2016, Kevin Zentner nervously paced the campus, trying to keep the acronyms straight. “I had no idea what everyone was saying when they said SUB or HUB or CAB or whatever else,” said Zentner. “It sounds funny but that anxiety was massive for me.”…
Wherever you travel, you will have a more meaningful trip by connecting with locals
Volunteer vacations are becoming so popular that the travel industry has coined a word for this kind of tourism. Now you can search the web for voluntourism and find hundreds of sites that provide travel with a heavy focus on volunteering. Many of those programs have you signing up for a week or two, or…
Give yourself some time to evaluate options. Be honest with your ego and let your imagination troll through deep waters
A lot of my friends are retiring. And there are many retirement models being thought about, reviewed, argued and applied or avoided. But it doesn’t really appear to me that any of them were exhaustively analyzed before selection. In fact, many seem to be derived from previous family practice (i.e. what parents did), simply made…