Pursuit / spring 2011 - Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education ...

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24 Pursuit / spring 2011
Photo: Daniel ehrenworth a neW vIeW ReThInkIng Women’S healTh ReSeaRch two heAdS Are Better thAn one. This age-old idiom is the cornerstone of the growing trend towards collaborative interdisciplinary research, and Margaret MacNeill insists it’s the key to better understanding women’s health. As a founding member of the executive committee that established U of T’s Collaborative Graduate Program in Women’s Health, MacNeill is a big believer in the power of reaching across disciplines to tackle an issue. The threeyear-old program, a partnership with the Women’s College Research Institute, is the first of its kind in Canada – and possibly the world. It brings together scholars from nearly 20 faculties and departments at U of T with interests as wide-ranging as religion, reproductive health, pharmacology, dentistry, exercise sciences, English, nursing and anthropology. Aside from establishing multi-disciplinary thesis committees, students must find a mentor in an area of study that is completely different from their own. Monthly seminars also allow students to present papers and get feedback from across the disciplines. “The program forces sociologists to hear about what’s going on biologically, and it forces people working in labs to look from cell to society,” says MacNeill. The result is a constantly evolving dialogue that brings about new questions and new approaches to problems. “I think it’s transforming research.” An expert in broad-based health communication and media studies, MacNeill brings her own socio-cultural slant to the table – and she marvels at what she learns in return. “I mentor one doctoral student who does nutrition and folic acid research at Sick Kids, and I sit on the PhD thesis committee of a breast cancer surgeon interested in understanding the role of the media in how and when patients decide whether to have mastectomies.” Drawing from a variety of disciplines comes naturally to MacNeill, who was a gymnastics coach in the 1970s and early 80s with a passion for biomechanics, and later a fitness trainer and magazine editor before delving into the social sciences. “Our Faculty truly has all the areas of health science percolating, so I have always enjoyed borrowing terminology, methods and ideas from my colleagues in order to come up with an original twist on cultural studies of women’s and girls’ health.” MacNeill maintains that this type of outside-the-box (and lab) thinking is crucial to advancing our knowledge about women’s health, which in many ways is still based on research done on men. “We need to keep rethinking the tools we’re using and the questions we’re asking – and even how we’re asking them. That will help us foster new and better questions for the next round of research and interventions.” thAt’S not All this is just a snapshot of the mark our students, faculty and grads are making on many fronts. See our timeline of important moments and accomplished women at www.physical.utoronto.ca/women.aspx. elsewhere in this issue: gretchen Kerr’s latest accolades (p. 3), helen gurney’s lasting legacy (p. 32), maggie macdonnell’s northern exposure (p. 36) and Abby hoffman’s olympic moment (p. 44). Pursuit / spring 2011 25
Page 1 and 2: PURSUIT Spring 2011 / Vol. 14, no.
Page 3 and 4: PURSUIT Spring 2011, Vol. 14, no. 1
Page 5 and 6: FACULTY nOTES Kerr’S inFluenCe ho
Page 7 and 8: Jing-Ling Kao-Beserve faculty conti
Page 9 and 10: FACULTY nOTES mappIng a fuTuRe STud
Page 11 and 12: Jamie MacDonald Women’S fIeld hoc
Page 13 and 14: D. Moll BLUES BRING HOME 13 MEDALS
Page 15 and 16: gAme miSConduCt: Violence, Abuse an
Page 17 and 18: don’t pAniC! “It’s actually n
Page 19 and 20: This past March the world marked 10
Page 21 and 22: and helping nurses like Myeni get
Page 23 and 24: Photo: Daniel ehrenworth “i don
Page 25: TRIple ThReaT Student-AthleteS Are
Page 29 and 30: indiViduAlS Susan E. Pridham-Abbott
Page 31 and 32: John F. Mann Richard Marchese Norma
Page 33 and 34: Take Your HealTH To THe nexT level!
Page 35 and 36: opposite: gurney front row centre,
Page 37 and 38: CRUSADER Celestino DeCastro makes n
Page 39 and 40: ALUMni UpDATES maggie MacDonnell (M
Page 41 and 42: uniVerSity oF toronto SportS hAll o
Page 43 and 44: Proud Sponsor of the Varsity Blues
Page 45 and 46: KirK wipper Bphe 4t8, BSw 5t0, BA 5
Page 47 and 48: AlUmnI newS Tell us about you, a fr

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