Tareq Ismael: Iraqi University
A U of C political scientist has joined other exiled Iraqi academics in an international effort to create a secular university in Baghdad. Tareq Ismael was recently in Ottawa enlisting federal support for the project, which is aimed at building academic freedom in Iraq as well as classrooms, labs and libraries. Top Middle Eastern academics in the U.S. and Britain are spearheading the $500-million international project and Ismael is playing a lead role in this country. “Canada has a unique opportunity through this project to export the values of cultural tolerance and a civil society to other countries,” he recently told The Ottawa Citizen.

Young Archaeologist: Old Viking
“ The highlight of Tim Giannuzzi’s summer in Sweden was the woman he met there. She was five foot two … and about 1,000 years old,” writes Calgary Herald columnist David Bly about a U of C undergraduate researcher. The 22-year-old U of C archaeology student spent five months on the Swedish Island of Gotland digging up new clues about the daily lives of Vikings. He was part of a team that excavated the grave of a woman. “She was a Viking, probably a native Gotlander,” said Gianuzzi. “She was very poor. Her grave goods consisted of 10 beads, some were glass, some were bone, some were ceramic. The way they were scattered on her chest and underneath indicated they were part of her clothing. ”

Richard Ramsay: Saving Lives
Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among Canadians aged 15 to 24. This is one reason why the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention (CASP) is working on a national suicide prevention strategy. “A lot of people (in Canada), I think, want to believe suicide is not preventable,” U of C social work professor Richard Ramsay told the CanWest newspaper chain. Ramsay is the co-founder of the U of C start-up company LivingWorks Education. The company has provided suicide prevention training programs for 300,000 frontline caregivers around the globe. Ramsay is also a director of CASP. The group is frustrated with the federal government’s lack of a national strategy, so it’s drafting its own plan, which should be ready in a year.

Hugh Williams: Safety in Numbers
The U of C’s new Centre for Information Security and Cryptography has already generated great numbers in terms of media coverage, including CBC Newsworld, QR77, Global TV and many others. “We want to be a catalyst for research and collaboration,” said the centre’s director, Hugh Williams of the Faculty of Science, to the Calgary Herald.