New OVC Dean announced
Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) has appointed its newest dean. A June 12 news release welcomed Prof. Jeff Wichtel, alumnus of Atlantic Veterinary College (AVC) in P.E.I. The mixed animal veterinarian and board-certified theriogenologist brings a wealth of experience to the position, including a residency at Iowa State University, teaching stints at New Zealand’s Massey University, and North Carolina’s College of Veterinary Medicine, and an associate deanship of graduate studies and research at AVC.
Wichtel earned both his BVSc and PhD at Massey, and specializes in trace element and vitamin nutrition in ruminants and horses. An associate editor of the Canadian Journal of Veterinary Research, Wichtel himself has published over 150 papers, and has played a role in the attraction of over $2.5 million in grant and contract funding, according to the news release.
Describing himself as humble and excited, Wichtel says, “I am looking forward to working alongside the outstanding students, staff and faculty at OVC—a new dean could not ask for a better base on which to build.”
He replaces Dr. Elizabeth Stone, who has served as dean for the past ten years.
-Compiled by Carleigh Cathcart
Liberal party leader Justin Trudeau unveils new platform
Liberal party leader Justin Trudeau held a conference on Tuesday, June 16, 2015, outlining his new political platform. Under the slogan of “Real Change,” Trudeau announced a series of widespread revisions to existing Conservative policy, while also including a plan to do away with Canada’s first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system.
Commonly referred to as “Winner-takes-all,” the FPTP system essentially guarantees political victory to the party or candidate that successfully captures the majority of the votes in an election. Critics of the system have raised issue with FPTP, because it essentially guarantees that the victor of a political race is not representative of the entire population’s desires.
For instance, if only 61.1 per cent of the total voting population cast a ballot – like in the 2011 Federal Election – and the victor claims 51 per cent of the vote, the winner of the election has actually only succeeding in winning the favour of 23.0 per cent of the population.
-Compiled by Sameer Chhabra