Plaque unveiled to mark original site of The Ontario Veterinary College (OVC)

Dr. Alan Meek, left, and Dr. John Reeve-Newson worked with
Heritage Toronto to commission a plaque marking
the original site of the OVC on Temperance Street in Toronto.

GUELPH Ontario - September 10, 2012 - University of Guelph News - The Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) celebrated its Toronto roots on Sunday with the unveiling of a heritage plaque to mark the original site of the college on Temperance Street.

About 70 people, including 35 descendants of OVC founder Andrew Smith, attended the event organized by Dr. Alan Meek, former OVC dean, and Dr. John Reeve-Newson, an OVC ’64 graduate who has practiced in the Toronto area for more than 40 years.

Ross Fair, a Ryerson history professor and member of the Heritage Toronto board, thanked Meek and Reeve-Newson for the countless hours of volunteer effort involved in initiating and fundraising for the project.

“Without them, we would not be here today celebrating this important part of Toronto’s history,” Fair said.

Smith established the Upper Canada Veterinary School in 1862. The name changed to Ontario Veterinary College in 1869 and after years of expansion on Temperance Street, OVC moved to University Avenue in 1915. It was relocated to Guelph in 1922. OVC was affiliated with the University of Toronto from 1897 to 1964, when it became one of the founding colleges of the University of Guelph.

“For some time, I’ve thought it odd that there was nothing on Temperance Street to mark the spot where OVC was established,” Meek said. “The college’s 150th anniversary gave Dr. Reeve-Newson and I the incentive to remedy the situation with a lot of help from our friends.”

On the site of what is now an underground parking garage next to a tiny green oasis called Cloud Gardens, in the shadows of the 68-storey Scotia Plaza and 70-storey Trump International Hotel and Tower, Fair asked the crowd to imagine the sites and sounds and smells of the city 150 years ago.

Back then, Toronto’s economy relied on the health of horses that were “vital to people’s ability to work and travel in the old city,” he said.

Reeve-Newson thanked Heritage Toronto and sponsors of the project including Veterinary Purchasing Ltd., Lifelearn, Scotiabank, the Ontario Veterinary Medical Association as well as many individual donors. He also acknowledged the descendants of Smith at the unveiling, including great-great-granddaughter Dr. Angela Whelan OVC ’90 and her family.

“You have an ancestor to be very proud of, and we’re proud to honour him,” Reeve-Newson said.

Other guests at the event included Stephen Samaroo of Scotiabank, University of Guelph vice-president (research) Kevin Hall, and Grant Crack, parliamentary secretary to Ontario Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. On behalf of the minister, Crack presented a special certificate to Dr. Elizabeth Stone, OVC dean, in honour of the college’s 150th anniversary.

Meek said there was much more to the project than fundraising and working with Heritage Toronto to design a plaque. The Ontario Genealogical Society helped track down additional Smith descendants, including great-great-grandson Jeff Smith, who is working with OVC’s Dr. Peter Conlon to complete the Smith family tree. The group has also combed through city and provincial archives in search of photographs and artifacts from OVC’s first 60 years. The hunt is still on for a quality photograph of the original Temperance Street building, which was demolished in 1924.

Smith and the OVC played a vital role in professionalizing veterinary medicine in North America. By the time the Ontario government took over in 1908, the college had graduated more than 3,000 veterinarians.

Smith had a lifelong love of horses and was recognized as an expert on equine diseases, according to a citation from the archives of Mount Pleasant Cemetery, where he was buried in 1910. He was a founding member of the Ontario Jockey Club, now known as the Woodbine Entertainment Group, and he established the Industrial Exhibition in Toronto, renamed the Canadian National Exhibition in 1912.

Art Exhibition Flaunts ‘Nature of the Beast’ at the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre

GUELPH, Ontario May 14, 2012 University of Guelph Release Animal imagery from the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre (MSAC) and the University of Guelph art collections will be featured in an MSAC exhibition, “Nature of the Beast,” May 17 to July 8. The event coincides with the 150th anniversary of U of G’s Ontario Veterinary College.

From 19th-century romanticized views of animals to more challenging contemporary perspectives, the exhibition includes painting, sculpture and works on paper showing how artists help shape our assumptions about connections between animals and humans.

“This exhibition reveals the breadth of the collections, which form a wonderful resource for the campus and the community,” said MSAC director Judith Nasby, who curated the exhibition. “It’s an opportunity for us to show off the treasures in both collections, ranging from rare 16th-century European etchings to transformation subjects by Aboriginal artists, as well as works by regional artists such as Robert Howson and Ken Danby.”

The MSAC collection focuses on contemporary Canadian art, especially outdoor sculpture, Inuit art and Canadian silver. The U of G collection, established in the 1870s, surveys Canadian art over three centuries with examples of European historical prints. Together, the two collections comprise more than 7,000 works by regional, national and international artists.

Aidan Ware, MSAC co-ordinator of education and development, said:

“The catalyst for this show was to examine how animals are depicted in art. “It is truly amazing to think about how animals have impacted many of our social, environmental, and personal histories. The exhibition addresses a really diverse set of topics ranging from agriculture to gender, and presents some of our finest pieces to the public in a completely new context. ‘Nature of the Beast’ is truly a celebration of this legacy.”

The collections continue to grow through national and international donations and bequests of artworks, and through purchases and commissions supported by individual donors, federal grants and funds raised by MSAC volunteers.

The opening reception will take place May 17, at 7 p.m. The exhibition will be opened by OVC Dean Elizabeth Stone and there will be a gallery talk May 22 at noon.

New University of Guelph CIO and Chief Librarian Named

GUELPH, Ontario March 22, 2012 - University of Guelph Campus Bulletin - Rebecca Graham has been named the University of Guelph’s new chief information officer (CIO) and chief librarian. Her five-year term begins May 23.

The announcement was made today by provost and vice-president (academic) Maureen Mancuso, who chaired the search committee.

"Rebecca possesses the knowledge, skills and qualities that we were looking for in our next CIO and chief librarian,” Mancuso said. “She is a strategic thinker and an exceptional leader whose experience, vision and passion will help us further build our reputation as a forerunner in information technology and library systems."

In making the announcement, Mancuso expressed gratitude to Catherine Steeves, the University’s associate chief librarian, who has been acting in the role since Mike Ridley completed his second term in January.

Mancuso also thanked members of the search committee, which included faculty, students and staff members, for their hard work and commitment, and the University community for its participation.

Most recently, Graham was the associate librarian for preservation, digitization and administrative services at Harvard College Library (HCL) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She oversaw all administrative services and managed a $90-million budget and 12 library buildings, and was responsible for HCL’s preservation and digitization program. She also led the effort to expand the library’s digitization of special collections, particularly in support of teaching and learning.

She was also the co-director at Harvard Medical School’s Countway Library of Medicine and headed computing services and the digital library program at Johns Hopkins University. Graham also served in various capacities at the Digital Library Federation in Washington, DC, and managed integrated systems at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

"Given the continuing influence and impact of technology in higher education, the opportunity to serve in a strategic role with oversight of both IT and the library is unparalleled," Graham said. "To do so at an innovative institution like the University of Guelph is all the more compelling. I look forward to joining the Guelph community."

At U of G, Graham will be responsible for the overall strategy and policy administration of the University’s information technology, information services and information resources. She will also oversee the administration of the library as chief librarian and of Computing and Communications Services (CCS).

She earned a bachelor's degree in organizational management from Wilberforce University in Ohio and a master of library and information science from the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign. She was a member of the inaugural cohort of the Association of Research Libraries Research Library Leadership Fellows in 2004.