Queen’s students have a bright and welcoming new space on campus to innovate, collaborate and bring their ideas to life.

SparQ Studios, previously located in the Integrated Learning Centre and known as SparQ Labs, officially opened its doors in Carruthers Hall in December. As Queen’s Innovation Connector’s makerspace and design studio, SparQ Studios gives students from all disciplines access to the space and many of the tools they need to develop their projects and prototypes.

Francis Campbell (Artsci’17), director of SparQ Studios, says more space is the greatest benefit of the new location, which occupies the former Gordon Vogt Studio Theatre. The School of Drama and Music no longer required the theatre with the opening of the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts.

“We’ve kept the core of the makerspace, which is what SparQ Labs really started out as,” he says. “But now we have the capacity to nurture a community that is interested in innovation and entrepreneurship.”

The main area of SparQ Studios houses a wide array of tools and equipment such as 3D printers, CNC milling machines and laser cutters as well as a co-working space with tables and chairs where students can gather and work together on their projects.

SparQ Studios is equipping a room where students can work on software development. There’s also a conference room where project teams can hold more formal meetings and a lounge that can accommodate guest speakers and other public events.

The makerspace and design studio has been open for just a couple of months, but already students and campus groups are exploring the possibilities of the space. Innovate Queen’s has held meetings there and computer science students have hosted coding nights as well. SparQ Studios has expanded its program offerings to include more workshops and pitch competitions.

“We want to bring in all of these groups and people and foster a really creative atmosphere,” Mr. Campbell says. “Now that we are located right in the middle of campus, students can happen upon the space and get exposed to the ideas of entrepreneurship and innovation.”

SparQ began in 2014 when several Queen’s students pitched the idea to QIC, who agreed to partner with the students and create the first makerspace on a Canadian university campus. QIC has supported the purchase of equipment thanks to the funding it has received from the Government of Ontario’s Campus-Linked Accelerator program.

Growing entrepreneurship on-campus and in the community is a key pillar of Queen’s strategic mandate. QIC builds on existing strengths to give students access to the resources, networks and mentors they need to transform their ideas into products and services.  QIC’s core strength is its interdisciplinary nature, providing students from across the university with the opportunity to work in diverse teams to address important problems and identify the solutions that will yield benefits not only for the region, but nationally and globally too.

For Carissa Gordon (ConEd’16), a member of the Kingston Black History Month organinzing committee and president of Queen’s University’s African Caribbean Student Association (ACSA), it would be great if Canada got to the point where Black History Month was no longer needed.

However, the reality is that the month of recognizing the achievements and history, both good and bad, of the black experience in Canada remains a necessity.

“I know there are people who ask why is there a Black History Month or what is the point, but to be honest Black History Month should be every month,” she says. “But until we can actually reach that stage it’s going to be necessary to have that month because it gives a platform to talk about it. That falls on people of the black community and people not of the black community to talk about issues. So I should be talking about issues outside of February and not just wait for February to start raising issues that I may have.”

For Ms. Gordon the importance of Black History Month became clearer once she arrived in Kingston and at Queen’s. Having grown up in Mississauga, she found that there was not nearly the same emphasis or learning opportunities for black history.

It quickly brought a focus for her and she became involved in ACSA and in supporting and organizing local events for Black History Month. 

Along with the Queen’s Black Academic Society, ACSA is one of two Alma Mater Society clubs represented in the organizing committee for Kingston Black History Month. As ACSA president, Ms. Gordon is directly involved with planning and organizing.

Throughout the month a series of events are being held at Queen’s and in Kingston to highlight the key moments and people in black history as well as to provide platforms for discussion on where we stand today and where we need to be in the future. One such event is the panel discussion “Unity Within the Black Community” on Feb. 29. The open event is being held at Robert Sutherland Hall, Room 202, starting at 6 pm.

Through her participation, Ms. Gordon has seen a mutually beneficial relationship develop between the Kingston and Queen’s communities over the years. It has been a key connection that has resulted in greater outreach, participation and awareness.

“I think the students bring in maybe the newer side – we do a lot of the graphics and utilize the social media platforms to reach more of the student population,” she says. “I think the community members bring in a lot of things we didn’t think about, such as helping us get a grant from the City of Kingston. I feel like if we didn’t have community members that wouldn’t have been something that came to our mind, applying for a grant, as well as finding more events that are going on in the community.”

Through her role on the organizing committee she says she has gained some very valuable experience, such as time management and public speaking, while she has also had the opportunity to meet a wide range of people, like Queen’s alumnus Desmond Cole, a journalist and social commentator who was the keynote speaker at the Jan. 31 opening ceremony. 

One of the things that Ms. Gordon says needs to improve for progress to be made is the inclusion of more black history at all levels of education, and not just in history class. As a Concurrent Education student it is something that she feels is very important.

“I’ve said this multiple times, but black history can be included outside of history class. So you don’t have to be taking the history course code in order to study (black history), you can incorporate that into all other courses. You can bring in key figures or prominent black figures in mathematics or science. Or even touching upon a lot of the incidents that have been going on, especially in 2015-16,” she says.

For further information about Kingston Black History Month, including the schedule of events, visit the group’s Facebook page.

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Stay up-to-date with what’s happening with IT at Queen’s! This edition features some great new ITS developments including:

• Office 2016 is now available - for free!
• Learn about the recipients of the Educational Technology Awards
• Wireless improvements in Douglas and Stauffer Libraries

The second issue of ITS News can be found on the Information Technology Services (ITS) website.

With the growing emphasis on student mental health at post-secondary education institutions, Queen’s University recently hosted the first conference for Peer Health Educators and professional staff which allowed participants to share their experiences as well as the strategies they have developed on their campuses.

The conference provided attendees the opportunity to learn about existing evidence-based programs and services as well as to gain valuable presentation and networking experience.

Olivia Smith, Health Promotion Student Assistant at Student Wellness Services, attended the conference and says she first got involved as a Peer Health Educator because she was interested in health and was looking to collaborate with others while learning more about health promotion.

As a Peer Health Educator she has facilitated workshops at the university’s residences dealing with such topics as safe drinking strategies, mental health and making healthy and creative food choices in the dining halls. Her role also entails taking part in events on campus to promote healthy lifestyles and to develop outreach strategies such as writing articles or blogs and other promotional material.

Her work has allowed her to develop her leadership skills while also being able to contribute as part of a team. As a result, she now knows that she wants to pursue a career in health promotion.

For her, the conference was a great opportunity to meet with other Peer Health Educators and share her experiences.

“I found the conference to be very knowledgeable and overall a great experience. It was really interesting to meet students and staff from different postsecondary institutions across Ontario and to learn more about their peer health programs and mental health initiatives on their campuses,” she says. “I had some great conversations with students from other universities and was able to walk away from the conference with some new ideas for our Peer Health Educator program at Queen's and new connections in peer health around Ontario.”

Along with presentations throughout the day, breakout sessions focused on such topics as stress management, mental health and healthy lifestyles, stigma, and mental health messaging.

Beth Blackett, Health Promotion Coordinator with Student Wellness Services, says the conference was extremely valuable as participants were able to make connections and widen their knowledge to better help those they support.

“I believe this event is so important to both recognize the great work being done by Peer Health Educator volunteers at post-secondary institutions and to motivate and inspire future collaborations and initiatives among these students who are passionate about health,” she says. “It was such a delight to see peers from various institutions connecting with each other over the course of the conference.”

For more visit the Student Wellness Services website.

The water shutdown originally planned for the LaSalle Building on Wednesday, Feb. 17 has been rescheduled to Thursday, Feb. 18 between 4:30-9:30 pm to permit Thomas Lemmon & Sons Ltd., working in conjunction with Physical Plant Services and Utilities Kingston, to replace the building’s water isolation valve and finalize work associated with the installation of a backflow preventer.

During the shutdown period, no domestic hot or cold water will be available for hand washing, flushing toilets, showers, eye wash stations or kitchen use.

Any questions regarding this project work should be directed to Fixit by phone at ext. 77301 or by e-mail.

If you want to see the future face of trade law from across two continents, Queen’s University will be the place to do it this spring.

Students from across North and South America will be bringing their ‘A’ game to Kingston in early March to do exactly that. The All-American Regional Round of the 2016 European Law Students’ Association (ELSA) Moot on international trade law is being hosted by Queen’s Law, attracting dozens of students from competing schools from Canada to Colombia.

“We’re proud to be hosting both current and future leaders in trade law here in Kingston,” says Professor Nicolas Lamp, who is organizing the American round. “These students represent the future trade law elite of their countries. I know from personal experience that virtually every junior lawyer who is hired by the World Trade Organization or by law firms working on WTO law has participated in the ELSA Moot Court Competition on WTO Law.”

From March 2-6, teams from six countries will be presenting at the ELSA Moot Court Competition (EMC²) at Queen’s Law. Panelists – judging the competitions – will be leading experts in international trade law from Canada, the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean.

The event is also supported by organizations with strong international trade law ties. The EMC2 receives technical support from the World Trade Organization, and closer to home, the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) is a major sponsor of the event.

“The level of support from both the WTO and CIGI shows how important this event is for the international trading system,” Dr. Lamp says. “It’s a unique tool to build capacity in international trade law in developing countries and to attract some of the brightest up-and-coming legal minds to the world of international trade. The best teams will go on to the final rounds in Geneva, where they will get a real feel for how it would be to have a career in international trade law.”

Sixteen teams will engage in two full days of team-versus-team competition, pleading in front of panels who will decide victors for each match. From there, the moots move on to a third-day of semifinals and a final, head-to-head match between the two best trade mooting teams on two continents. Prizes include not only the prestige of victory, but also a prize for best overall individual mooter.

“The EMC² provides students with a chance to prove themselves in front of an international audience of their peers and leading minds in law,” Dr. Lamp, who participated in the moot as a student in 2007-08, says. “But it’s also a chance for these students to meet, exchange ideas, forge friendships and leave with new perspectives, new connections and new ideas.”