A catastrophic ice storm descended upon central Ontario during the final week of classes at Lakehead—forcing the City of Orillia, the County of Simcoe, and surrounding municipalities to declare a state of emergency. What happened next was a testament to the resilience and ingenuity of Lakehead students, faculty, and staff.

"One morning, I drove past closed roads covered with trees and power lines looking for gas for my home generator," Dr. Chris Glover says. "The devastation was shocking, and so was the eerie quietness. It was like a scene from an apocalyptic show like The Walking Dead." Video Courtesy of Shinomedia

"Everything was fine on March 28 and then things started to fall apart," says Lakehead Orillia Principal Dr. Linda Rodenburg. "I activated our emergency response group as soon as I realized that it would present a serious academic challenge as well as a major weather event. Our approach was to communicate as much as possible and recognize that people were experiencing diverse situations."

Freezing rain rapidly encrusted trees with ice, causing them to crack and fall on power lines. Electricity was cut to the Orillia campus, homes, schools, and businesses across the region—leaving people without heat, power, and water.

"Our priority was keeping students safe, secure, and fed," Dr. Chris Glover says. Orillia Security Services manager T-Bird Prisciak was one of many who stepped up, even finding time to bring a laptop and Tim Horton's coffee and doughnuts to a faculty member trapped in their home by a downed power line in their yard. Photo Credit: Shinomedia

"There were a lot of hardships at once," Dr. Rodenburg says, whose own home lost power. "Damage to property and cars, and food going bad at a time of high grocery costs. The sewage plant also caught fire."

Despite the unfolding crisis, Dr. Rodenburg says that "people immediately came together to help each other. I knew that our community would be amazing, and they were."

"There was a chat group where people offered assistance and things like hot showers," adds Orillia Associate Vice-President Dr. Chris Glover. "Faculty and staff were doing wellness checks to see if people were okay, and LUSU students kept the campus food bank open."

Dr. Glover's greatest concern was for students in residence, even though he was contending with his house being flooded.

"How do we feed students when we can't use the kitchen to cook hot meals?" he says. "The campus had generators that kept refrigerators and freezers running, but not generators to operate the hood fans necessary for cooking on our gas stoves."

His worry was soon eased by Lakehead's food-services provider, who quickly began serving cold breakfasts and lunches. "Dana Hospitality and our cafeteria staff went above and beyond," Dr. Rodenburg says.

And without Lakehead's stellar security and residence life teams, the situation would have been much worse.

"Security immediately rushed to Home Depot and bought charging cords and devices for their office in Simcoe Hall, which has a back-up power system. The staff on campus worked together to ensure that students could power their electronic and medical devices and stay in touch with loved ones," Dr. Glover says.

"I want to thank our Thunder Bay team members who checked in with the Orillia team, offered support, and helped with their workloads," Dr. Rodenburg says. Photo Credit: Shinomedia

Fortunately, power was restored to campus after 32 hours, turning it into a haven where faculty, staff, and their families could have a meal and warm up. "The morning the power came back on at my house, I baked 50 cookies and handed them out to people on campus, and I got 50 different stories about the storm," Dr. Rodenburg says.

The campus was a stark contrast to the city and region itself, much of which remained without power for 13 days. "As Simcoe County continues to clean up after the storm," Dr. Rodenburg says, "I want to thank everyone for responding with grace, patience, and gratitude." Dr. Glover is in total agreement. "I'm incredibly thankful to be part of the Lakehead Orillia community."

The video and photos in this story were taken by Shinowa Okumura, a fourth-year Honours Bachelor of Arts and Science in Media Studies student who is graduating this June.

Before he became a university professor and author, Dr. Kunle Akingbola had a successful career as a Human Resources (HR) professional. He was the HR manager for the Canadian Red Cross in Toronto while working on the second of his three Master’s degrees. As he grappled with choosing a thesis topic, his research advisor made a suggestion that would change the course of Akingbola’s work and his life.

At the time, the Red Cross had just taken over managing a homeless shelter over the winter for the City of Toronto, which was downsizing services to the non-profit sector. On top of their regular programs, Red Cross employees had to create and staff a completely new program that they would give up in six months time, only to bring back another six months after that.

Akingbola took his advisor’s advice and used the Red Cross case study as the basis for his Master’s thesis on non-profit HR management. That line of study eventually led to his Ph.D. dissertation, which examined the entire strategy of non-profit organizations across Canada and the impact of government funding and the environment.

Akingbola’s growing expertise led to part-time university teaching. He eventually left his HR career to become a full-time professor. Today he is Associate Professor of Human Resource Management and Organizational Behaviour in the Faculty of Business Administration at Lakehead University’s Orillia campus.

With numerous publications including books, chapters in edited books, and articles in leading journals, research continues to be a large part of Akingbola’s work, which looks at ways to optimize the effectiveness of non-profit organizations while increasing employee satisfaction and improving outcomes for the communities they serve. He encourages his students to get research experience by helping him do surveys and data sorting.

“Prior to my study, no one had ever looked at HR management in non-profit organizations, says Akingbola. “There had been research on volunteers, but not employees of non-profit organizations that make up a major part of the Canadian social sector and account for about nine per cent of Canada’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).”

His vast personal experience in HR in non-profit and healthcare sectors combined with his extensive ground-breaking research give Akingbola rare insight and expertise into social purpose enterprises. He understands the fine line organizations are forced to walk to secure the funding that is essential to support their services. It’s especially frustrating in the face of what Akingbola calls “mission drift.”

“How do you manage people who joined your organization because they believe in your mission, but now you have to go in a different direction because that’s where the funding is dictating you go?” says Akingbola.

One thing he is certain of is the importance of the human component in non-profit activities.

“The nature of service is emotional and it is human based,” says Akingbola. “You can install an ATM on Jarvis Street in Toronto that gives out blankets and coffee to the homeless on a cold winter’s night. But it can’t dispense compassion. In that regard you can’t replace human capital.”

Dr. Kunle Akingbola is the lead author of the book "Change Management in Nonprofit Organizations: Theory and Practice" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) and the author of "Managing Human Resources for Nonprofits" (Routledge, 2015).

As the negative climate effects of fossil fuel-based energy sources become more apparent, governments, scientists and industries around the globe are putting more resources into developing sustainable and environmentally friendly alternatives.

Locally, Dr. Mohammad Nasir Uddin is contributing to the effort with his research, funded through Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grants, on optimizing the efficiency of wind energy and electric motor drives.

A professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Lakehead University, Uddin and his graduate students are working on wind energy conversion systems to achieve maximum power extraction from the wind and maximum output from wind generators. They do this by creating intelligent algorithms that mimic the human brain by telling the system what to do in any given circumstance.

To illustrate what an algorithm is, Uddin gives the example of a commuter on the way to work in Toronto. “As she heads down the highway, her brain has planned out the shortest and fastest route. That’s an algorithm. Then she hears on the radio that there is an accident up ahead. Her brain takes that new information and creates an alternate route. That’s another algorithm.”

Uddin’s team has also developed control algorithms that improve the power quality and dynamic performance of wind generators by responding appropriately and quickly to unpredictable abnormal variations of wind speeds or power system fault conditions. Thanks to this kind of research the creation of a cost effective and sustainable wind energy system can be achieved.

Another area of Uddin’s research involves loss minimization in electric motors. “Fifty-five per cent of the total electric energy produced in the world is consumed by electric motors,” says Uddin. “If we use the algorithms to force the motor to follow certain conditions so that voltage and current give the minimum loss, then we can improve the overall efficiency of the system and achieve the best motor performance.”

Uddin has shared his findings in 228 papers that have published or accepted in refereed journals and conferences including 53 papers in IEEE Transactions which is considered the top ranking journal in his area of research. In 2010 he won the Lakehead University’s Distinguished Researcher Award.

Uddin’s impact in the field of Electrical Engineering goes beyond his own research. After more than 25 years of teaching and research experience at various universities in Canada, the United States, Bangladesh, Japan and Malaysia he has mentored and inspired many students. They include 50 highly qualified engineers (nine Ph.D., 24 Master’s, 14 Research Associates and three Postdoctoral fellows) and 82 undergraduate students. Most have gone on to work for companies like General Motors, Mercedes Benz, Rockwell Automation, AMEC, Caterpillar and Schneider Electric where they continue to develop optimization algorithms that improve efficiencies in motor drives used in transportation, robotics, automotive and oil industries.

Dr. Mohammed Nasir Uddin is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Lakehead University; Coordinator of the Electrical Engineering program under the Lakehead-Georgian Partnership; and the Director of the Renewable Energy, Power Systems and Drive Research Lab located in Barrie.

If you haven’t heard of Henry Aldrich, the famous 17th century composer, architect and Oxford dean, you’re likely not alone.

But Lakehead University music professor and Orillia campus principal Dr. Dean Jobin-Bevans wants to convince you to tune in.

“I was immediately drawn to his work as it’s the music I love to hear and perform myself,” says Jobin-Bevans, who came across Aldrich’s archived manuscripts in 2013 during a sabbatical researching in the Christ Church Library, Oxford. “There is also a modern appeal to his music – it’s still accessible and relevant all these centuries later.”

Aldrich’s music, most of which are anthems composed for the cathedral at Christ Church, was written for both unaccompanied choirs or those singing with an organ accompaniment. Typically thought of as an English style of church music, choral anthems have a long history of performance in the Anglican tradition and are almost exclusively sung in English.

Henry Aldrich collected, transcribed and composed as many as 8,000 scores of choral music for cathedral performances during his career at the University of Oxford’s Christ Church college, as a way to inspire his own creative work and religious musical expression. A prolific 17^th century English writer, theologian, philosopher, composer, and architect, he also served as Dean of Christ Church and as the University of Oxford’s Vice-Chancellor.

Intrigued by Aldrich’s unique approach to choral music, Jobin-Bevans set out to transcribe select pieces from the 300-year old collection, editing and creating musical scores for contemporary church choirs, instrumentalists, and music scholars. Working his way through original leather-bound, handwritten manuscripts, Jobin-Bevans spent six years editing and digitizing 20 different scores, updating elements such as time signatures and adding musical bars and vocal clefs.

A CD of the new editions was released in November of 2019 and some of Aldrich’s original manuscripts are also captured on the project website. Jobin-Bevans says that hearing the music performed for the first time by the Cathedral Singers of Christ Church, who also recorded the music for the CD, was hugely rewarding and speaks to the lasting quality of Aldrich’s work.

Viewing history through the late composer’s musical lens is another takeaway of the project, says Jobin-Bevans. “Aldrich grew up, was educated and appointed Dean during the period of the English Restoration, a time of great upheaval, politically and socially. His work reflects that history and tells us a lot about what his creative mind was thinking concerning the role and function of Restoration church music and liturgy.”

Jobin-Bevans also agrees a parallel can be drawn between himself and Aldrich that goes beyond the music.

“He was passionate about connecting architecture, logic, and math through music to both teach and inspire,” reflects Jobin-Bevans. “His work has been an inspiration to me and has kept me engaged in new ways to teach, lead as a principal, and continue building this lasting digital archive of his legacy.”

Dr. Dean Jobin-Bevans’ research is a partnership with the Christ Church Library, Oxford. Samples of the music are available at:https://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/library-and-archives/henry-aldrich-project. The full album, Henry Aldrich: Sacred Choral Music, can be purchased on iTunes or borrowed from the NAXOS Music Library through your local library.