I started my day under a clear blue sky... the building across the street from where I got my coffee was not yet referred to as Ground Zero.
We asked our New York alumni to share their personal reflections of the impact of 9/11, on the 10th anniversary of the attack.
I was working in the World Financial Center that was actually connected to the World Trade Center by a concourse over the highway. At the time, I was running Merrill-Lynch’s government business down in New York.
The following is reprinted with permission from the website in honour of Western alumnus Ralph Gerhardt, BA’92 (Economics), who lost his life in Tower 1 of the World Trade Center 10 years ago on Sept. 11, 2001.
Western houses the first boundary layer wind tunnel in the world to test human-made structures, such as buildings and bridges. Built in 1965, the first wind tunnel (BLWT 1) can test wind speeds up to 55 miles per hour.
Recognized as a world leader in cognitive neuroscience research, the Centre for Brain and Mind at The University of Western Ontario will begin training postdoctoral fellows from three of the top institutions in the United Kingdom next year.
Bocking family members have been energetic students, faculty, administrators, volunteers and philanthropists at their alma mater.
What if the Bucke-Seaborn-Moss clan had not been a factor in some of Western’s early defining moments? What might Western be today?
Talk about building a dynasty! In 1962 Jerry Gonser, a University of Michigan grad, crossed the border with wife Pat to teach and coach at Western. In short order they fell in love with the quality of life…
Like mother, like sons. Mother of four, Maria Odumodu, BA'81, MA'86 (Political Science), and two of her sons – Richard, BA’95, and Michael, BA’95 – have accumulated four Western political science degrees.
When double alumna and best-selling business author Beverly Behan, HBA’81, LL B’84, thinks ‘War of 1812,’ she thinks ‘sexy.’
No one's roots stretch deeper or wider at Western than those of A.S. (Peter) Kingsmill, HBA'50.
The extraordinary relationship between The University of Western Ontario and Jessie Murdoch and her descendants is more than 110 years old.
Alan Thicke, BA’67, had no idea what he was doing. Having skipped Grades 4 and 6, he arrived at The University of Western Ontario at age 16.
The seeds of alumna Vandana Shiva’s future were planted four decades ago in the thinning forests of the Garhwal Himalayas in Uttarakhand, India.
On November 10, 2010, Stephen Poloz, MA’82, PhD’82 (Economics), was visiting the Pueblo Viejo, a gold mine in the jungles of the Dominican Republic co-owned by Canadian mining firms Barrick Gold and Goldcorp.
I was working as managing editor for one of the American Heart Association (AHA) medical journals, Stroke, when I first heard the news of the 9/11 attacks.
I have just read your Editor’s Notebook and would like to point out another graduate of Western that did well at IBM and other institutions. I strongly agree with your comments about respect and support of individuals.
I just received my copy of the Alumni Gazette and was very interested in your stories on IBM Canada and the Western grads who contributed so much to that company.
Regarding the article on page 38 of the Spring-Summer Alumni Gazette (“Five ways to make your footprint smaller”) there is a statement that cannot go unchallenged.
Although I graduated two years ahead of Joe Fricker, I remember a very active and friendly young man. His memories in the last issue were quite a revelation and his life has obviously been well lived.
Every morning since 1976 I have slipped a Western ring onto my baby finger. Recently I left it behind in a hotel and was highly distressed because my mother gave me that ring when I graduated from Western.
I recently read your story ‘One Love’ on Stephanie Marley having attended Western. I couldn’t resist seeing the full version on the website and have linked to it from my site. The graduation photo is fantastic.
Protest. It's a word that makes people cringe, and tends to force them to one side of the fence, or the other.
As I was walking from my apartment on 57th Street to my office at 46th, I noticed groups of people standing out on 6th Avenue watching what appeared to be a building on fire in the distance.
A modern definition of a prank is ‘a practical joke or mischievous act.’ Whenever alumni gather for reunions, class parties or homecoming celebrations invariably the topic of pranks-practical jokes surfaces and most alumni are able to recall at least one incident or personality that stands out.
With what will certainly become the cornerstone of its archive collection, The University of Western Ontario recently welcomed the documented history of the Labatt Brewing Company, bringing together more than 160 years of one of Canada’s most significant collections of historic corporate materials.
It is common knowledge that bats and dolphins echolocate, emitting bursts of sounds and then listening to the echoes that bounce back to detect objects. What is less well known is that people can echolocate, too. In fact, there are blind people who have learned to make clicks with their mouths and to use the returning echoes from those clicks to sense their surroundings.
In Spring 2011, Amazon announced that sales of e-books through its Kindle service had surpassed sales of print books on Amazon.com.
While not from the world of academe, W. Iain Scott knows leadership is about appointing good people around you. Preparing for a five-year term the school year begins, he is confident such guidance is already a part of the university structure.
For the last year, Western has been engaged in a bit of self-reflection; a rebranding process for the entire institution.
The University of Western Ontario welcomes its biggest first-year class ever, as approximately 5,100 students arrive on campus this month.
The most important years in a child’s development are between “the womb and six years old” says a woman whose children’s literature is among the most beloved in the country.
Maybe you’re an avid reader with a penchant for gadgets, a chef with over 50 cookbooks. With eReaders you can ditch the weight of carrying around all those books while gaining the ability to search them for whatever character or recipe you want. To help you make a decision, we’ve brought together a bit of information on some of the more popular eReaders on the market.
Alumni Western is pleased to announce this year’s distinguished recipients of the 2011 Alumni Awards of Merit. While each of them had their start here at Western, their four unique journeys have taken them around the world and back again.
If you didn’t know there was method to his madness, you might think Jordan Goldstein,, BA’08, MA’10 (History), was starring in his own episode of A & E’s ‘Hoarders’.
Some have visions and plans to employ that are shouted from the hilltops, serving to inspire the masses. Others are quiet, finding needs and filling them while not expecting anything in return.
Western has partnered with Google to offer all alumni a new Email for Life service. Only Western alumni can create their own @alumni.uwo.ca email address, showing their connection to their alma mater. This professional email address will be useful for résumés and networking with other Western alumni.
Markets bounce around and I have no idea how this will have evolved by the time you read this, but when I wrote this column the hot parlour game for market geeks was guessing when Apple would pass Exxon to become the world’s most valuable company for market capitalization. Apple now has more liquid assets than the U.S. Treasury. Apple’s really freaking big.
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