Sue was a wonderful soul who touched many lives with her gentle spirit. She held a special fondness for St. Paul’s and was a dedicated presence at our events until her illness.

Sue will be deeply missed by Chris, her children, her extended family, and all of us at St. Paul’s. In this sad time, we ask that you keep Chris and his family in your thoughts and prayers.

May she rest in peace.

Watch the interview on CTV Winnipeg

He added the new pope has high-level, Vatican-related administrative experience as he was elevated by Pope Francis to a higher role at the Vatican.

“[He’s] got a very close connection to Latin America, but also he grew up in the United States,” Adams said.

“He studied in the United States. He’s originally from Chicago. So, there’s many people who are expecting him to carry on from where Pope Francis left off.”

To read the entire article or to watch the interview, please follow the link to CTV News Winnipeg. 

Adams said, “The Liberals have been behind the Conservatives by 20 points for much of the year and a half, but things all changed in January with Trump’s tariffs, with Carney seen as a new face.”

Find out what else he had to say on Channel News Asia.

Read the full article on CBC Manitoba.

A Celebration of Faith and Community

Held in the Christ the King Chapel, the Mass was presided over by His Grace, Archbishop Richard Gagnon, alongside Fr. Mark Filips and Fr. Wajira Nampet, with Deacon Rev. Richard Ludwick assisting. The day started with a warm welcome from Dr. Christopher J. Adams, Rector of St. Paul’s College, followed by a special prayer for the chapel led by Fr. Mark Filips. The congregation joined in singing the gathering hymn Gather Us In, setting a reflective tone for the liturgy.

The readings of the day reinforced the themes of unity, mission, and the transformative power of faith. The First Reading, taken from Nehemiah 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10, was followed by the Responsorial Psalm (Psalm 19). The Second Reading from 1 Corinthians 12:12-30 emphasized the interconnectedness of the body of Christ, aligning with the college’s values of community and shared faith. The Gospel reading, from Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21, was proclaimed before Archbishop Gagnon delivered a thought-provoking homily, encouraging reflection on St. Paul’s teachings and their relevance today.

Blessing of the New Processional Cross at Christ the King Chapel

A beautiful processional cross was generously gifted to Christ the King Chapel by the Garlinski family and blessed by His Grace, Archbishop Richard Gagnon.

“This processional cross embodies the vision Fr Micheal Koryluk, who was the Priest and Chaplain here from 2009 – 2019, had as he received the metal sculpture attached to the wood cross as a gift from the Song family of proclaiming and reminding Christ message of hope and freedom to all who attend Mass here in this Chapel every time the cross process in at the beginning of Mass and out at the end of Mass,” explains Eliude Cavalcante, Director of Campus Ministry at St. Paul’s College.

Sr. Michelle Garlinski, Michael Garlinski and his wife Susan Garlinski were thanked by the St. Paul’s College community for helping to turn Fr. Michael’s vision into a reality. Joseph Cannizzaro was also acknowledged for his beautiful work and craftmanship of the wood cross and base. 

Honouring Excellence: St. Paul’s College Academic Awards Ceremony

Mass was followed by Academic Awards Ceremony where our community recognized the outstanding achievements of students at St. Paul’s College. The following awards were presented at St. Paul’s College:

• The Brian Patrick O’Connell Memorial Scholarship: Conner Routledge
• The Dr. Adam Giesinger Scholarship: Hans Alday, Chimdindu Iwuchukwu, Luan (Ken) Nguyen and Thane Tomy
• & Mrs. Michael Trainor Scholarship: Hans Alday and Gabrielle Denis
• Dr Oleh W Gerus and Mrs. Yvonne M. Gerus Scholarship: Emma Caronte and Mason (Patrick) McEvoy
• The Honourable Philip S. Lee C.M., O.M. and Family Scholarship: Kelvin Joseph and Daniella Okedairo
• The Jesuit Scholarship: Bruce Barrientos, Bara Bashir, Izabella Borys and Nathaniel Casiano
• The Matthew, Elizabeth, Marjorie, Charles and Ilene Meder Scholarship: Ebunoluwa Akinbo, Emmanuel Bezabeh and Fardowsa Hassan
• Susan Deane International Paulinian Award: Kelvin Joseph
• The Bob and Marnie Puchniak Family Graduate Scholarship: Tawfiq Rahman Hamad
• The John E. Robbie Prize in Computer Science: Nathan Hoehne
• Kenneth Kustra Scholarship: Daniel Eng
• William Briskie Memorial Scholarship: Natasha Diachun
• The Wyrzykowski Family Scholarship: Nicholas Faucher, Boris Leung, Patricia Masika and Sion Yi
• The Mauro Institute Academic Awards for Peace and Conflict Studies Graduate Students: Fardowsa Hassan, Ka Chun Lai, Maria Londono-Hurtado, Jesse Matas, Chidera Olusola, Arshdeep Singh and Umme Khair Tarin

“I wish to say to all of you who are receiving awards, that we are honoured that you continue to conduct your university studies as members of St. Paul’s College,” said Dr. Christopher Adams, Rector of St. Paul’s College. “We look forward to boasting to others about your continuing accomplishments in future years. …Today we are celebrating our students and their academic achievements. Our donors want you to succeed, and have shown their commitment to you in a very real way by supporting the funds for these awards. And we at St. Paul’s College want to thank you, our students, for making the College, and the broader University community, look so good.”

Dr. Adams concluded the ceremony by expressing gratitude to all who contributed to the success of the event and congratulating the award and scholarship winners. St. Paul’s College continues to remain committed to supporting its students’ academic pursuits through scholarships, bursaries, and awards, thereby ensuring that financial barriers do not hinder their educational journey.

For photos of the event, see St. Paul’s Day Mass and Academic Awards Ceremony on Facebook.

For information about scholarship opportunities available at St. Paul’s College, see St. Paul’s College’s Prizes, Fellowship, Scholarships, Bursaries and Awards.

The University of Manitoba, as it exists now, was established in 1877 through an act of provincial legislation to allow various colleges in Manitoba to confer degrees to their students. These colleges, operating in various neighbourhoods and municipalities, worked together through an affiliation with the UM to increase their programming and adopt the degree programs present in Eastern Canada at the time. The original founding colleges were the Catholic St. Boniface College in St. Boniface, Manitoba; the Presbyterian Manitoba College in Winnipeg, Manitoba; and the Anglican St. John’s College in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Old St. John’s College at the turn of the century, courtesy of Archives and Special Collections

At its inception, UM was more like a network of affiliated institutions collaborating on educational matters such as mandatory courses and graduation criteria- but operating in a diverse way according to the linguistic and denominational needs of the communities they served.

The UM continued to expand, with more colleges joining the university such as the Manitoba Medical College in 1882, the Methodist Wesley College (later United College) in 1888, the Manitoba College of Pharmacy in 1901, and the Manitoba Agriculture College (the current administration building) in 1906. The latter was the beginning of the Fort Garry Campus.

Astute students may make two observations. Wesley College? Doesn’t that share a name with the Wesley Hall at the University of Winnipeg? That is correct! In fact, Wesley College and Manitoba College merged to become United College which, in 1967, became the University of Winnipeg. Another college, Brandon College, which joined in 1938, also became its own institution in 1967 as Brandon University. More recently, the Université de Saint-Boniface (USB) became its own institution in 2011. Throughout its history, different institutions have joined or left UM depending on their educational needs. St. Andrew’s College, for example, is one of the newest additions to UM network, while USB remains affiliated with UM. In some instances, the affiliation process isn’t as simple as just joining. The Catholic St. Paul’s College, for example, joined UM in 1931 when the Catholic Church bought the former Manitoba College building, before eventually relocating to the Fort Garry Campus. As illustrated, UM is much, much more than just the Fort Garry Campus.

Another observation astute students may have made related to the Fort Garry Campus. Despite the Agricultural College joining in 1906, the UM has operated since 1877. Where, then, was the UM? Until the 1960s the UM actually had a downtown campus on Broadway. Its centrality made it a stone’s throw from many of the colleges affiliated with the university. The building sadly no longer exists, and Memorial Park is where the campus once was. All that remains are some of the stones from the foundation which are outside of the Armes Building. See if you can spot them by the date inscribed on the stone next time you have classes there. In addition to the Broadway campus, the UM also made use of the former Law Courts as the university grew.

Today, UM has four colleges with their own student associations and student services: St. Andrew’s College, St. John’s College, St. Paul’s College, and University College. Consider joining one of the colleges to find your community on campus. UM also has numerous campuses and programs providing education and research opportunities across the city of Winnipeg and the province of Manitoba.

This has been but one quick dive into the history of UM. The Archives and Special Collections has compiled a list of web resources with information on UM’s past. For students wanting to engage with UM’s past, the Archives and Special Collections are located on the third floor of Elizabeth Dafoe Library and can be contacted at archives[at]umanitoba[dot]ca. Thanks to the dedicated work of archivists and researchers, students in the present can better understand what it was like for students in the past, and to connect the programs and education of UM in a larger chain of post-secondary education in the province and Western Canada.

The Faculty Recognition Reception honoured recipients of Teaching and Community Engagement Awards, Merit Awards and those granted Tenure. Hosted by the Office of the Provost and Vice-President (Academic), the event marked an occasion to celebrate the achievements of some of UM’s dedicated faculty members.

Congratulations to all the honorees:

Dr. and Mrs. H. H. Saunderson Award for Excellence in Teaching (2023)

• Bruno Dyck (I.H. Asper School of Business)

University of Manitoba Graduate Students’ Association (UMGSA) Teaching Award (2023)

• Youngjin Cha (Price Faculty of Engineering)

Dr. and Mrs. Ralph Campbell Outreach Award 

• 2022 – Hee Jung Serenity Joo (Faculty of Arts)
• 2023 – Randy Herrmann (Price Faculty of Engineering)

Annual Community Engagement Award (2024)

• Polina Anang (Max Rady College of Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Science)
• Julien Arino (Faculty of Science)
• Jacquie Dawson (Desautels Faculty of Music)
• Adam Muller (Faculty of Graduate Studies)
• Janine Newton Montgomery (Faculty of Arts)
• Brandi Smith (Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management)
• Katinka Stecina (Max Rady College of Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Science)
• Mario Tenuta (Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences)
• Shirley Thompson (Clayton H. Riddell Faculty of Environment, Earth and Resources)
• Heather Watson (Max Rady College of Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Science)
• Andrew Woolford (Faculty of Arts)
• Carla Zelmer (Faculty of Science)

Community Engagement Fund Award (2023)

• Shawna Ferris (Faculty of Arts)
• Zana Lutfiyya (Arthur V. Mauro Institute for Peace & Justice, St. Paul’s College)
• Emily McKinnon (Access & Aboriginal Focus Program, Extended Education)
• Victoria Sparks (Desautels Faculty of Music)

Merit Award (2022)

Each year, Merit Awards are awarded to faculty members for their outstanding achievements in teaching, research, scholarly work and creative activities, and service in three different categories. View the 2022 recipient list here.

Tenure (2024)

• Kjell Anderson (Faculty of Law)
• Devi Atukorallaya (Dr. Gerald Niznick College of Dentistry, Rady Faculty of Health Science)
• Yik Au (I. H. Asper School of Business) 
• Nandika Bandara (Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences)
• Denice Bay (Max Rady College of Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Science)
• Lori Blondeau (School of Art)
• Cara Brown (College of Rehabilitation Sciences, Rady Faculty of Health Science)
• Leo Butler (Faculty of Science)
• Amine Choukou (College of Rehabilitation Sciences, Rady Faculty of Health Science)
• Susan Cooper (Faculty of Science)
• Andrew Deruchie (Desautels Faculty of Music)
• Philip Ferguson (Price Faculty of Engineering)
• Julia Gamble (Faculty of Arts)
• Aleeza Gerstein (Faculty of Science)
• Jason Gibbs (Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences)
• Colin Gilmore (Price Faculty of Engineering)
• Jesse Hajer (Faculty of Arts)
• Sarah Hannan (Faculty of Arts)
• Cameron Hauseman (Faculty of Education)
• Mohammad Khan (Faculty of Social Work)
• Bradley Klus (Dr. Gerald Niznick College of Dentistry, Rady Faculty of Health Science)
• Christian Kuss (Faculty of Science)
• RJ Leland (Faculty of Arts)
• Xihui (Larry) Liang (Price Faculty of Engineering)
• Robert Martin (Faculty of Science)
• Neil Minuk (Faculty of Architecture)
• Hee Mok Park (I. H. Asper School of Business)
• Jeremy Patzer (Faculty of Arts)
• Leslie Roos (Faculty of Arts)
• Soodeh Saberian (Faculty of Arts)
• Ben Schellenberg (Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management)
• Jillian Seniuk Cicek (Price Faculty of Engineering)
• Tanveer Sharif (Max Rady College of Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Science)
• Olivia Wilkins (Faculty of Science)

The year associated with each award differs due to the timeframe of program. Learn more about the awards on the Faculty Awards webpage.

He does this and other work at ancient archaeological sites located in modern Israel. While many of these cities were likely destroyed by fire in a battle, they are still packed with clues of how everyday people lived—and ate—in typical neighbourhoods almost 5,000 years ago.

As May is Jewish Heritage Month, UM Today wanted to share the work and insights of Greenfield, and so we took a page from his book and dug up an old story from our past. Below is an article originally published in UM’s publication TeachingLife back in 2016 and it tells about Greenfield’s work in Israel, his views on history, and his own (fascinating) personal history. Here it is with some new updates, including this one: in May 2024 he was awarded membership in the Academia Europea, a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences.

The Making of an Archeologist

He was born into and grew up within the orthodox Jewish world until he was 12 years old. In his early years, he moved a lot across the USA. With a Jewish rabbi and U.S air force chaplain for a father and an artist, filmmaker and educator for a mother, young Haskel Greenfield lived in five cities by age six—from San Antonio to Pittsburgh—before arriving in New York’s Greenwich Village as a teen after his parent’s divorce.

In his apartment, you’d find his mom Rita Fecher (by then a single parent), his two brothers, five monkeys, and a collection of pythons and snakes (including boa constrictors). Fecher shared with her kids the neighbourhood’s avant-garde art, music and theatre scene of the 1960s and 70s. Famous actors and musicians regularly passed through their home. By the time Greenfield was 15, he was fetching drinks for Janis Joplin and other stars backstage at concerts. From a childhood peppered with eclectic characters—army brats, his orthodox Jewish grandparents, famous folks like Doors frontman Jim Morrison—grew a curiosity about who we are and where we come from.

For the past 45 years, Greenfield has been exploring subjects ranging from the beginnings of humans in Europe and the Americas to the earliest farming cultures and civilizations in Europe, Middle East and Africa. He helps us better understand the development of societies from the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages of thousands of years ago and champions the relevance of ancient cultures in modern times. Greenfield insists: We need to know where we come from in order to know where we’re going.

For many years (2011-2017), he led the University of Manitoba’s archaeological excavations of the Early Bronze Age layers at the famous site of Tell es-Safi/Gath in Israel (in partnership with Prof. Aren Maeir of Bar Ilan University). An international team of more than 100 professors and students was uncovering architecture and artefacts—animal bones, plant remains and pottery shards—that allowed them to piece together what life was like for the early Canaanite residents. In a later period (Iron Age), this site is believed to be the hometown of the famous Philistine giant, Goliath. He has also worked on material from many other famous biblical sites, including Jericho, Beth Shemesh, and Shiloh in his Near Eastern and Biblical Archaeology Laboratory (NEBAL) in St. Paul’s College. The site of el-Hammam in Jordan is now being investigated as forming the foundation for the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

His lab is full of animal bones. As a zooarchaeologist, he is most interested in the relationship between animal remains and the people in archaeological sites. By figuring out what people are eating, it is possible to reconstruct the ancient food economy and ecology of the region and sites. He can tell where the animals are bone, were raised, how they were raised, and where they ended up. He can tell if they were sacrificed for ritual purposes, or simply eaten as normal foods. For example, at Tell es-Safi/Gath, buried beneath the floors of houses from 4,700 years ago in the Early Bronze Age, people sacrificed and buried early domestic donkeys as part of urban renewal – to sanctify and protect their homes.

In his own words

• As a kid, I found it stressful [to move a lot]. You make friends, then lose them. Some people respond by pining away for their lost worlds, so to speak. Our frequent moves helped build part of my character and gave me the ability to be flexible and happy wherever I live.
• My mom would take me and my two younger brothers, even as children, to rock concerts and avant-garde theatre performances. Sometimes, we would hang out until three in the morning at places like Max’s Kansas City in Manhattan. We would all go to the performances put on that evening, then we would party late into the night. Finally, she would have to go to work, as an art teacher in New York City high schools, and we would drag ourselves off to school. Can you imagine what state we were in? How will I ever explain this to my children who have grown up in middle-class Winnipeg?
• We as children had access to worlds that included many famous people, such as Janice Joplin. At 15, I was bartending backstage, serving her drinks. We would see Grace Slick or Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and many others—but I was a child moving through those worlds. I was like background noise to them. It was a great, exotic, exciting and vibrant time but it took a terrific toll on people. Many that I knew from that generation died of AIDS or drugs overdoses. At times, I feel like a survivor, with all the questions that come with it.
• We had five monkeys—two squirrel, two capuchins and one spider. Filthy animals, they are. My two brothers and I would sleep on a loft bed that was built over their cage. If we did not keep it clean, it stunk to high heaven. And we also had a number of snakes, such as boa constrictors and pythons, and of course we were raising rats in the basement of the apartment complex to feed them. You can imagine the fright when one day we came home and found that the snakes had escaped. My mother found one in the bathtub as she was sitting on the toilet. I never saw her run so fast. The upstairs neighbour had a heart attack when she found one of our missing snakes in her bed. Our life was never boring.
• My mother brought the family to Woodstock in 1969. We didn’t have to wait to get into the event; we went in with musician groups. We had a Hell’s Angel motorcycle escort, going down the back lane. We drove in my mother’s VW Beetle that was painted in psychedelic colours with naked women. The large headlights were their breasts. The police used to regularly pull us over to search for drugs. Needless to say, they never found any.
• My earliest memories are living on US Air Force bases as my father was the Rabbi chaplain for the Strategic Air Command. It was really special being the son of an officer in the U.S. air force. You get treated very differently. You get taken everywhere, get taken to see airplanes—I remember being brought on fighter jets, as a small child.
• In those days, at the height of the Cold War, they would put a chaplain often on B-52 squadrons if they were going to the Soviet border. My father had to learn to parachute at 10,000 feet. It was understood that if the squadron had the go-ahead to penetrate Soviet airspace, a chaplain should go with the squadron because it was expected that nobody would come back. He was there for the men. There was a wonderful part of [having a chaplain for a dad] and also terrifying because you understood that he was at the forefront of what could be a nuclear war.
• The religious, Jewish world—we grew up in that world—where there is timelessness and the lessons of antiquities, the patriarchs and matriarchs, Moses and King David, and the Bible and the people of the Bible and their messages still transmit down to modern times. You have a sense that antiquity and the ancient world is real, it’s tangible, it’s relevant. It’s not ancient history. It is part of the present. Our ancestors are real people and they are talking to you from the past and if you open your ears and open your eyes, the messages they transmit, you can absorb and are still relevant today.
• In the first year of university, I didn’t have a plan. I was going into business at that point. I was poor; I had been working since I was 14 and was out of the family home by 16. Since then, I was living on my own. I needed to make a living. I thought business—math—would be good, but I hated it. I took an ancient history course as a lark and just fell in love with it. I decided that’s what I wanted to do. The professor was magnificent (Tom Logan, an Egyptologist). He understood it wasn’t just about dry texts, it wasn’t about just reading ancient manuscripts, but going to the field and making exciting discoveries and finding ancient artefacts—the entire package of excitement and of discovery.
• The best way to define archaeology is the study of ancient peoples and cultures through their material remains or their garbage—the destroyed remnants of their house or stuff they’ve thrown out. We’re trying to define and understand ancient behaviours from those tiny things that are left over. Imagine what it would be like reconstructing your behaviour at home from the garbage that you throw out.
• My mom said that as a child I was always digging up my backyard. I hoped to find dinosaur bones. She never discouraged me. She said that if you follow your dreams, you will be happiest. I try to do the same thing with my children (Rachael, Channah, Noah and Boaz). My wife (U of W zooarchaeologist Tina Jongsma-Greenfield) and I would bring them along on our excavations [to places like] Serbia, Bosnia, South Africa and Israel.
• My colleagues, and my youngest son Boaz, helped find the Philistine gateway of ancient Gath (Tell es-Safi/Gath) [in 2015]—this is the gate that Goliath walked out of. He would have walked out of this gate, turned right, walked up the valley and about 10 kilometres in the valley to where David and Goliath did their famous battle. My other son (Noah) participated in the excavation of the largest intact Philistine temple and altar at the site in 2012.
• I’m excited about what I’m studying. And I bring that excitement into the classroom, but I’m not trying to be a teacher—they’re for grade schools, high schools. I’m a professor; I do my research all the time. Being a professor is a 24-hour-a-day lifestyle, not a job. I try to bring that sense of dedication and enthusiasm into the classroom and use it to provide knowledge and the excitement of learning to my students. Part of being a professor is that I have to be an effective teacher as well, but if I just had to be a teacher, I would end up as a boring, bitter person looking forward to retirement. Instead, I remain active professionally with no intention of retiring soon and am deeply involved with new field projects. Archaeology lets me enjoy both being in the classroom and out in the sun, and sometimes rain.

The 35th annual Public Way of the Cross — a two-kilometre procession hosted by a different parish in the Catholic archdiocese of Winnipeg each year — was held at St. Paul’s College. It’s the first time the event has been held at a university campus, one of its organizers said.

“It’s our chance to show to the Manitoba community that we’re here,” said Christopher Adams, the rector of St. Paul’s College, a Catholic higher educational institution located at the U of M, on Thursday.

For the full story, please visit CBC Manitoba.