News

CIRCLE would like to thank all of the students who visited our table at the University of Guelph’s Club Days on January 18–19. It was our first time participating in the event and we loved meeting each of you. We received great questions about what we do and saw keen interest in opportunities with CIRCLE as a networking and development resource.

We look forward to getting to know students and faculty through our weekly Chai drop-ins on Thursdays at 10 a.m. (9th floor, MacKinnon Building).

In the 1990s, while other agricultural scientists in Ontario were mostly planting crops in their research plots, agroforestry pioneers Andy Gordon and Naresh Thevathasan were instead planting trees—and turning heads.

Naresh and Andy at the Ontario Agricultural College were working to give producers a long-term income prospect and environmentally friendly alternative to monocultures, by intercropping lucrative hardwoods among rows of cash crops.

What do you get when you combine electrical and computer engineering with soil science? In my case, you get a MITACS Globalink Research Internship.

Through this program, I joined the University of Guelph in June 2022, to work with soil scientist Prof. Asim Biswas. My semester exams at Jadavpur University had just ended, and I was both eager and nervous about my first international journey to the other side of the globe.

Ashna Jassi successfully defended her PhD dissertation, "Caring for Elderly Canadian Punjabis: Understandings and Contributions of Adult Sons and Daughters" on 08 September 2022. She convocated from the Applied Social Psychology program on 11 October 2022. Her PhD dissertation advisory committee included Saba Safdar, Sharada Srinivasan and Paula Barata. Ashna's dissertation included two studies, which add to growing evidence of the involvement of Punjabi adult daughters in caring for their own elderly parents and parents-in-law in Canada.

We are seeking SIX curious, engaged undergraduate students at the University of Guelph to participate in a pilot virtual connection activity with students at Indian universities in 2022–23.

You can register here. The deadline to register is Friday, 30 September 2022.

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From 1842, indentured labourers (including half of my ancestors) were sent to the Caribbean, with large Indian populations moving to Trinidad, Jamaica, and British Guiana. The system endured until 1917. British-made famines were common during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, making indentureship schemes attractive. Certainly, indentureship was better than the slave trade it replaced, but it was grueling all the same.

Bina Agarwal, Professor of Development Economics and Environment, University of Manchester, received an honorary degree from the University of Guelph, and delivered the convocation address on June 14th, 2022. Here's the video of the ceremony and address:

Dilshan Fernando (PhD candidate in Sociology; CIRCLE Student Writer) and Dr. Sharada Srinivasan (Associate Professor; Director CIRCLE) spoke to Vikas Swarup on the occasion of the awarding of the Doctor of Letters, honoris causa by the University of Guelph on 16 June 2022.

Listen to the podcast interview with Vikas Swarup on a wide range of questions.

In many Canadian workplaces, South Asian women are a distinct and thriving minority. But what do their paths to success look like?

They don’t have it easy. Anju Philip, a PhD candidate in the Department of Management at U of G’s Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics says they often navigate complex and arduous parallel cultures.

In the post-pandemic world, international engagement and research collaboration may look quite different than in the past. We’ve learned how easy it can be to communicate with colleagues around the world in real time, without needing to travel. Well-attended international webinars, guest lectures by non-Canadian speakers, and virtual annual lectureships have prevailed.

So, can CIRCLE be a hub for such future research endeavours at Guelph?