Dr. Ronald Craig
Retired January 1, 2013 from SBE.
Dr. Craig was a member of the Operations and Decision Sciences Area and has been with the School of Business and Economics since 1979. Before joining Laurier he was co-founder of a Canadian high-tech manufacturing firm (Volker-Craig Limited). In addition to his academic appointment, he has held many administrative positions at the area, department, faculty and university level. Ron has published his research results in conference proceedings, book chapters, and journal articles. He has also published many cases, mainly dealing with information system development and management. Ron teaches both BBA and MBA courses in Management Information Systems, Managerial Statistics, Business Decision Modeling, and Operations Management. Active in the local community, he has served on a local venture capital Board and chaired a not-for-profit Board. His research interests include Management of Information Technology and Small Business Management.
Dr. Bob Litke, Professor
Retired January 1, 2013 from the Faculty of Arts, Philosophy Department. He was hired in 1974.
His academic interests are in the area of Philosophy and transpersonal psychology, conceptions of the self and others, altered states of consciousness. His primary research interests are on such matters as domination, power and violence.
Diane Peters
Retired officially on January 1st, although left WLU in early November.
She worked in the Laurier library for over 38 years. She was promoted to Librarian IV in 1997 and in March 2013 she became Laurier’s first Librarian Emeritus. She has served on a wide variety of library and university committees. She has been active in WLUFA for many years, serving on the Executive from 1990-93 and 1995-2003; Association secretary from 1991-93 and 1995-2000; participated in negotiations during consideration of librarian articles for the first collective agreement and was a full member of the negotiating team during the 1996 and 1999 contract negotiations; also served on the subcommittee to draft pension proposals in 1998-99. She was a WLUFA representative on the Board of Directors of OCUFA in 2001/02. She was actively involved with CAUT from 1993 to 2005; WLUFA Councillor at CAUT Council from 1993-98; Business Coordinator of the CAUT Librarians’ Committee from 1993-98; Chair of the Librarians’ Committee from 1998-2000; member of the CAUT Executive from 1998-2000; member of planning committees for the 1994, 1996, 1997, and 1999 Librarians’ Conferences; member of the jury for the CAUT Academic Librarians’ Distinguished Service Award in 1995, 1997, and 1999. A WLUFA Trustee on the CAUT Defence Fund from 1989-2005; member of the Fund’s Policy and Planning Committee from 1990-98 and 2002-05, serving as committee chair in 1991-92, 1996-97, and 1997-98.
Diane is a founding member of the Grand River Chapter of the Ontario Archivists Association in 1993; secretary/treasurer from 1994-97. She was a board member of the Canadian Association of Music Libraries from 1997-2006; Membership Secretary from 1997-2002, Vice-President 2002-03, President 2003-05, and Past President 2005-06; served three times on juries for the Association’s Helmut Kallmann Award for Distinguished Service to Music Libraries; program chair for the 2006 conference, which was held at York University as part of the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. She was the editorial board of the Canadian University Music Review from 1999 to 2003, representative of the Canadian section and abstractor for the international music index RILM (Répertoire Internationale de Litterature Musicale) from 1995-2004.
She has done presentations at a number of professional conferences, including those of the American Theological Library Association, the Canadian Association of Music Libraries, and CAUT.
Her publication record includes scholarly articles in the fields of theology or music, published conference papers, and four books, with a fifth book forthcoming.
A career highlight was the opportunity to go to Germany in 2003 under the auspices of Laurier International and spend three weeks as a visiting librarian at Philipps University in Marburg. She is a three-time WLU Alumna – B.Mus., 1973 (last graduating class of Waterloo Lutheran!); B.A. (World Literature), 1979; M.A. (Religion and Culture), 1990.
Dr. Arthur Szabo
Hired by Laurier as a full professor in 2000, retired January 1, 2013.
Professor, Chemistry
Former Dean
Arthur G. Szabo was a Professor of Chemistry and former Dean of the Faculty of Science (2000 – 2007) at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. Prior to that, he was at the University of Windsor, beginning in 1994. While at Windsor he served as Director of the School of Physical Sciences, Director of the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, Head of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Professor of Biochemistry. From 1967 to 1993 he was a research officer at the National Research Council in Ottawa. When he left to move to Windsor in 1993, he was a Senior Research Officer in the Institute for Biological Sciences.
Dr. Szabo has published more than 140 research articles and has earned an international reputation for his work on fluorescence studies of protein structure and function. He was awarded the John Labatt Lecture Award in 1993, for outstanding achievement in biochemistry. During the course of his career he has been awarded research grants totalling more than $1.5 million. He has been a visiting scientist or visiting professor in numerous countries. He has served as a member and chair of NSERC grant selection committee 32, Cell Biology, and is a member of the College of Reviewers in the Canada Research Chair program.
Dr. Szabo is an associate editor of the journal Biochemistry and Cell Biology, and was a founding associate editor of the Journal of Fluorescence. He has supervised the research work of many students. He has had numerous productive collaborations with other scientists and with industrial research groups. He is frequently called upon to review manuscripts from scientific journals and research grant proposals submitted to national and international agencies.
Dr. Ed Jewinski
Professor, will be retiring July 1, 2013 from the English Department.
Ed Jewinski began his life at Laurier as a sessional lecturer in 1979, becoming full time in 1981 upon completion of his PhD. Afterwards he moved up the ranks, book publication by publication, until attaining the rank of professor of English in 1994. Milestones at Laurier include appointments as writing co-ordinator, head of Canadian studies, and WLUFA grievance officer. A committed researcher, writer, and educator, Dr. J, as he is known to his students, is a true city boy. His retirement plans thus include plenty of reading and writing as he travels between his two favourite places to go jogging: Toronto and Paris.
Dr. Houston Saunderson
Professor, and Undergraduate Officer/ Advisor
Will be retiring July 1, 2013 from the Geography and Environmental Studies department.
After 39 years Houstie is hanging up his spurs.
Research: initially his background in geomorphology and mathematics was directed at understanding the dynamics of sediment transport in river systems. His interests focused on modeling these processes. His research on this subject ranged from conducting lab work in flumes to in situ studies in river systems. In a real sense Houston was a paleogeomorphologist in that he interpreted past fluvial processes and sedimentary sequences in glacial deposits around southern Ontario and beyond. His interest in processes involving fluids eventually evolved into an interest in modeling ocean currents and most recently studying and modeling the physics of volcanic eruptions and the patterns of movement of volcanic debris in the atmosphere. This become quite topical as recent volcanic eruptions in Iceland and atmospheric patterns of volcanic ejecta played havoc with air traffic over the north Atlantic and throughout Europe. He has published many strong research papers in top notch journals and served as a referee for numerous scientific journals.
Over 39 years Houston has served on almost every committee the university has had. ..which include many University Senate committees, the University Board of Governors, served on the executive of WLUFA and served as its President in the early 90s. He has been Dept Chair of GES, Graduate and Undergraduate officer and has sat in on far too many faculty meetings!
He has always been a strong proponent of bringing his research into the classroom. His explanations of quadratic equations were always made less painful by the fact that he used examples from his research to explain why they were being used.
Houston and Barry Boots served as co-editors of the Canadian Geographer from 1993 to 1999.
He is a valued member of GES and can always be relied upon for clear honest logic when difficult decisions have to be made.