About 25,000 cups of coffee are sold each day on campus, mostly in disposable cups.

“This is problematic due to the resources required to manufacture and transport these single-use products, and their significant contribution to landfill waste,” says Alison Tindall, a student co-leader of the campaign.

Tindall, along with students Tasia Wong, Monique Chan and Marion Davies, partnered with the Feeding 9 Billion program started by Evan Fraser, a U of G geography professor. The program aims to improve environmental sustainability and food security locally and globally.

The campaign includes:

• A new stamp-card program rewarding purchases of hot drinks in reusable mugs;
• Convenient public sinks for washing mugs;
• Posters explaining the environmental effects of consumers’ choices and savings from reusable mugs (Hospitality Services charges any hot drink as a “small” if purchased in a reusable mug, which saves $150 a year for the average customer); and
• Cashiers’ verbal recognition of reusable mugs.

Hospitality Services plans to integrate mugs into U of G’s existing “iamreusable” program, which allows patrons to borrow reusable dishes for to-go meals.

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Patrick Cruz, a master of fine art (MFA) student, won the 2015 RBC Canadian Painting Competition. The $25,000-prize celebrates promising new Canadian visual artists. It’s the second year in a row that the winner has had a U of G connection.

Cruz’s painting, Time allergy, was selected from more than 600 Canadian entries by a judging panel.

The jury, made up of some of Canada’s top artists, art directors, curators and art critics, commended Cruz on his “brave approach, maximalist esthetic and wild graphic sensibility.”

Cruz immigrated to Canada 10 years ago from the Philippines, and has said that the process inspired him to examine notions of diaspora, displacement and cultural identity.

His painting will become part of RBC’s corporate art collection, which also includes a painting by U of G graduate Tiziana La Melia, the 2014 RBC winner.

Photo: Dana Bellamy, The Ontarion

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“People are nice here,” she says with a slight Arabic accent. “People treat you differently than in Lebanon.”

By mid-February she had her bearings, but she was still missing her parents and siblings scattered between Lebanon and Europe.

Kuwatly arrived at U of G as a specially sponsored student under the Student Refugee Program run by the local chapter of the World University Service of Canada, an international development organization based in Ottawa. A second student is expected to start at Guelph in the fall semester.

Since the Syrian conflict began in 2011, and especially since the militant Islamic State took over parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014, millions of Syrian refugees have arrived in camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.

Kuwatly never endured the camps. Along with her mother and brother, she travelled in spring 2013 from her home in Damascus, Syria, to Beirut, Lebanon, where they found an apartment.

She had never heard of “Gelf,” as she pronounced the name while Googling U of G. And she knew practically nothing of Canada, except that “it was so cold here and far away.” Her online investigation turned up something even more important: Guelph was a safe place.

Her joy at being accepted was tempered by the notion of leaving her family. The worst moment was bidding farewell to her mother, a recollection that sparks tears.

She flew overnight on a chartered plane full of Syrian refugees travelling from Beirut to Canada. After staying overnight in Toronto, she was picked up by a University of Guelph team.

Kuwatly is taking a full course load this semester in a general science degree program. She’s thinking about medical studies and plans to return to Syria one day.

Referring to her generation’s responsibilities to that divided nation, Kuwatly says, “We have a country to build.”

She says she’s still lonely in Canada, but she’s grateful for a chance to live and study in a safe place where basic rights such as education are respected. “It’s a huge transition for me, everything is different, the people, the weather, the time difference. I sometimes feel like I’m not totally settled in here. There’s still a lot to know and do.

“I thought I couldn’t stay without my mom and here I am.”

–ANDREW VOWLES

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