Have you met Tim, Educational Program Coordinator with Student Services? Spend the next few minutes getting to know him a little better.
Where is your favorite place on campus?
I like Quad in the fall. It’s kind of symbolic when you’re moving through it going from one place to another. It’s very refreshing just to watch people walk by.
Tablet or paper?
Paper. Paper. Paper. You cannot do math on a tablet.
Name one thing you’ve brought to work from home.
Books. I bring my books.
What is the one thing you can’t live without?
Coffee. Good coffee. It’s the crack of the new millennium. My wife and I have a little espresso machine with the aluminum pods. So good!
If you won airfare to anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Right now I would say the Aegean Sea — The Greek Islands. History and beautiful blue waters, and the lack of the things that will bite you and kill you.
You can invite anyone — alive or dead, real or fictional — to dinner. Who would it be?
Richard Feynman because he’s a bit of a rascal and an extremely intelligent one. He’s a noted American physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project. He was the man who actually figured out the space shuttle Challenger disaster. If he hadn’t have figured out that the frozen O-rings on the solid rocket boosters were the cause of the disaster, it probably would have been buried and never mentioned. He was a man who was willing to speak truth to power.
If you could switch jobs with someone else on campus for a week, what would you do?
There are some really interesting and shiny toys in the physics department. I would love to play with an electron microscope or anything remotely related to it. And failing that, I wouldn’t mind spending a week or so indulging in really high end math. So there’re a number of professors on campus I would like to trade places with, even though I’m probably not qualified.
What does “uplifting the whole people” mean to you?
It’s analogous to another old saying — that rising tides lift all boats. Or if you want to come at it from the other direction — if you keep putting people down, you’re going to have a pretty grim society.
If you could solve any problem in the world, what would it be?
I would solve the inequity of social structures in Canada. By that I mean complete access to health facilities, clean water, habitable homes, etc. We have unmet obligations to some of our citizens.
What 3 words best describe your U of A experience?
Energizing. Illuminating. Surprising.
Tim is originally from Saskatchewan, having moved here in the 1980s, like half the people in Edmonton attending a Rough Riders vs. Eskimos football game. He is an outdoor gear fanatic and is fascinated by clever items or shiny bits-and-pieces that can attach to a backpack.