Scripting success
Prof Deep Saini achieved academic success in Canada. Varinder Walia traces his gunny bags-to-mortarboard journey.
SCHOOLING was often interrupted by shifting from one town to another, yet Hargurdeep (Deep) Singh Saini today occupies a top chair at one of Canada’s major academic institutions, and is a role model for many NRIs. Hailing from Bhathwala, a non-descript village of Punjab, near Banga, Prof Saini, is the new Vice-President and Principal of the University of Toronto, Mississauga.

Prof Deep Saini, the first Indo-Canadian who became Vice-President of the University of Toronto, at the installation ceremony. Photo: Stephen Uhraney

Author inspires kids with creative writing centre
Karen Foster
BRITISH author Nick Hornby has helped to start a creative writing centre for children in east London behind the facade of a novelty shop for kids. Just beyond a row of old-fashioned shelves bearing jars of Human Snot, Zombie Mints and other much-needed supplies for feeding active imaginations at Hoxton Street Monster Supplies, lies the real purpose of the shop: a place dedicated to helping children discover the magic of writing for themselves.

Campus Notes
Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar
Varsity signs MoU with BARC
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed between the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai, and Guru Nanak Dev University to set up a nodal calibration centre at the Department of Physics of the university. This MoU would help strengthen the radon studies in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. Dr A.K. Ghosh, Director, Health Safety and Environmental Group, BARC, signed the MoU on behalf of BARC, while Dr Inderjit Singh, Registrar, signed on behalf of the GND University. Dr Surinder Singh, Dean, Academic Affairs, was also present on the occasion.

ADMISSION DEADLINE

Scripting success
Prof Deep Saini achieved academic success in Canada. Varinder Walia traces his gunny bags-to-mortarboard journey.

SCHOOLING was often interrupted by shifting from one town to another, yet Hargurdeep (Deep) Singh Saini today occupies a top chair at one of Canada’s major academic institutions, and is a role model for many NRIs.

Hailing from Bhathwala, a non-descript village of Punjab, near Banga, Prof Saini, is the new Vice-President and Principal of the University of Toronto, Mississauga.

He embodies Thomes Alva Edison’s saying: “There is no substitute for hard work”. He is perhaps the first Indo-Canadian to get the coveted post at one of the largest universities of the world. With his new assignment, Prof Saini will nurture the shining stars of Canada’s largest university, a pre-eminent research institution. He is fluent in English, French, Hindi and Punjabi.

Having near-complete autonomy, the huge UTM (formerly Erindale College) is one of the three Universities of Toronto campuses, having 14 departments, 149 academic programmes and as many as 90 areas of study. It is home to about 11,000 undergraduate students, 430 graduate students and 700 faculty and staff. Its campus lies along the Credit River at Mississauga Road and Dundas.

Talking to The Tribune in Toronto, Prof Saini said it was a tribute to the multi-cultural social fabric and the secular Constitution of his adopted country Canada that he could excel in academics and administration.

He began his Canadian career in 1982 at the University of Alberta as a post-doctoral fellow. Initially, he faced verbal racial attacks on the campus. Some of the Canadian students even shouted at him saying that he should go back to his country since the Asians had “grabbed” their jobs.

Though not quarrelsome by nature, he told them that he was ready to go back to India provided they also return to their original country. Secondly, he said in a firm voice: “If we have taken away your jobs by travelling thousands of miles, then you are brainless”. This was a befitting reply.

In reply to a question, he rued political interference in the working of Indian universities. “It is shocking that academicians garland politicians during their visits to universities.” He said there was dire need to streamline the Indian universities by giving them autonomy.

It may sound strange, but it is true that during his primary schooling, Prof Saini had never seen benches or desks and he used to sit on mats or gunny bags along with other school kids in the classroom.

Born on October 25, 1954, at Pathankot, Prof Saini had studied in various schools of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh due to frequent transfers of his father Chanan Singh Saini (now 90) who had a long stint in the Forest Department. He could not take his Pre-Medical Test due to the untimely death of one of his three brothers. However, he got admission to B.Sc in 1972 at Punjab Agricultural University, which heralded the Green Revolution in India.

He fell in love with Ranbir Kaur Kang, or Rani, a home science student of the same university and married her before moving to Australia in 1977. However, destiny took him to Canada in 1982, a move that he considers as “the right step taken in right direction”.

Before joining the University of Waterloo, Prof Saini taught at the Plant Biology Research Institute of the University of Montreal. He served as Director-General of the institute from 1996 to 2001. He holds a Doctorate in Plant Physiology from the University of Adelaide, Waite Agricultural Research Institute (1982); an MSc (Honours) in Botany (1977); and a BSc (Honours) in Botany (1975) from Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana. He began his Canadian academic career in 1982 at the University of Alberta as postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Plant Science. 

Prof Saini maintains that any battle can be won with brilliant brains instead of gun.

Prof Saini has also served as President of the Canadian Society of Plant Physiologists from 2003-05, and President of the Federation of Canadian Plant Science Societies from 2005-07. In 2009, he was appointed to the Export Development Canada’s Advisory Council on Corporate Social Responsibility and recently represented the University of Waterloo as member of the Ontario Premier’s “2009 Clean Tech Mission to India.” 

Press releases, simultaneously issued by University of Waterloo and University of Toronto at the time of the appointment of Prof Saini, had high praise for him.

Following his appointment, President David Naylor stated: “I’m delighted that he is joining us as Vice-President and Principal of the University of Toronto Mississauga,” He had described Prof Saini as “a fine scholar and generous mentor” with “a very strong record of innovative leadership at the University of Montreal and more recently the University of Waterloo”.

“I got a job in Albert when I did not know even a single word of French, ” he says, although after his 18-year stint at Albert University, he can speak fluent French.

His mantra is: “Stay focused and never give up”.

Author inspires kids with creative writing centre
Karen Foster

BRITISH author Nick Hornby has helped to start a creative writing centre for children in east London behind the facade of a novelty shop for kids. Just beyond a row of old-fashioned shelves bearing jars of Human Snot, Zombie Mints and other much-needed supplies for feeding active imaginations at Hoxton Street Monster Supplies, lies the real purpose of the shop: a place dedicated to helping children discover the magic of writing for themselves.

The centre, called the Ministry of Stories, was inspired by the success of American novelist Dave Egger’s 826 Valencia creative writing school for kids in San Francisco, which masqueraded as a supply shop for pirates when it opened because zoning restrictions limited the space to retail use. Ministry co-founders Lucy Macnab and Ben Payne, were so taken with the Eggers idea that they applied for permission to convert what had been an office space in London’s Hoxton neighbourhood into a writing centre for 11 to 18 year-olds using the same concept as a guideline.

Hornby has written about how grim and dull the experience of writing can be, but the excitement of the children on a visit to the Ministry from St Monica’s primary school just down the road was palpable at the opening.

The author of Fever Pitch, High Fidelity and most recently Juliet, Naked, said he wished there had been centres like this when he started writing to help remove the self-doubt that plagues writers when they are on their own. “I’d love the kids who come here to get some sense of confidence and feedback and encouragement and the stuff that certainly wasn’t around when I was starting out,” he said. Hornby was introduced to Macnab, who has a background in arts education, and Payne, a playwright, by a mutual friend in the spring. Together, they gathered volunteers to help raise funds and build the centre.

Hornby did not write as a child, calling his school “incredibly” uncreative. The one thing Hornby wasn’t was a reluctant reader and it is reading that he credits with his becoming a writer. But he said that he read out of necessity more than anything else. “I read and enjoyed reading, but it’s because there was nothing else to do—almost literally. If I wasn’t playing football and I wasn’t watching TV, then I was reading. And the TV was an hour a day. Not because my mum said so, but because that was all that was on,” he explained.

The centre will offer one-to-one experiences for kids and the chance to try different kinds of writing, whether it be a film script or a hip-hop song, he said.

Hornby has written in a wide a range of forms. He has produced novels, essays and film scripts. He was nominated for an Academy Award for An Education. He said he really enjoyed the experience, calling it a technical exercise in which he had certain rules to follow. “It was writing. I mean, it didn’t feel incredibly different from any other form of writing. You’ve still got the blank piece of paper that you’ve got to fill,” he said.

The writer said he was not focused on producing the next generation of writers as much as he was on improving literacy. “This is because 80 per cent of the prisoners in this country have the writing skills of an 11-year-old. If you’re unemployed at the age of 30, it’s likely because you have very low literacy skills. And we have to challenge that,” he said. The idea of the project is that everyone is capable of writing at some level and the centre would open up the possibility to children of making writing a career, he said. At the same time, Hornby said not everyone reached their goal of writing a novel or memoir. “Writing, music, anything at all, lots of people have the capability (to do them),” he said. “But how many people start a novel, but don’t finish it?”

— The Independent

Campus Notes
Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar
Varsity signs MoU with BARC

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed between the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai, and Guru Nanak Dev University to set up a nodal calibration centre at the Department of Physics of the university. This MoU would help strengthen the radon studies in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. Dr A.K. Ghosh, Director, Health Safety and Environmental Group, BARC, signed the MoU on behalf of BARC, while Dr Inderjit Singh, Registrar, signed on behalf of the GND University. Dr Surinder Singh, Dean, Academic Affairs, was also present on the occasion.

Dr Surinder Singh, Senior Professor of the Department of Physics and an eminent scientist in the field of nuclear geophyics and pioneer in reporting the presence of uranium values in the south-west Malwa region of Punjab, will be the overall in charge of this project. Professor B. S. Bajwa of the Department of Physics of the university will be the convener, while Dr Rosaline Mishra of BARC will be the co-convener of the project.

Dr Surinder Singh said the project worth Rs 50 lakh had been sanctioned for five years. He said radon-thoron calibration facilities would be set up in the Department of Physics under this project. He said that these facilities would be useful in research investigations relating with the health aspects of the people of the Haryana, Rajasthan and Punjab states.

SMS service launched

The university launched a short message service (SMS) for students recently. While inaugurating the service, Prof A.S. Brar, Vice-Chancellor, said now onwards, the students appearing in various undergraduate and postgraduate examinations would be able to get their result and exam-related queries answered through SMS on their mobile numbers registered by them with the university. The service would help the students in getting their result and other information instantly from the university and would also help save their time and money, he said.

Refresher courses

The Academic Staff College of the university will oraganise three refresher courses in December for the teachers of the University Grants Commission (UGC)-approved universities and their affiliated Colleges. Dr Adarshpal Vig, Reader, said the refresher course in English subject would be held from December 3 to 23, while the refresher course in environmental studies would be held from December 17 to January 6, 2011. Similarly, the refresher course in chemistry would be held from December 24 to January 13, 2011. Interested teachers can download the application form from the university website www.gndu.ac.in, he said.

— Contributed by G. S. Paul

ADMISSION DEADLINE 
Armed Forces

Art & Design

Engineering

Medicine

Scholarships