So you’ve read our profile on the Teeny Weeny MBA we’ve piqued your interest and you want to learn more. Below we have some of the different mini-MBA style programs offered in Canada.

Unfortunately, most of the programs these hallowed halls of learning haven’t gone and called their mini-MBA programs mini-MBAs. This, despite the fact that this would make it easier for everyone involved. So while it might Management Essentials on your completion certificate, we’ll know better.

• McGill Executive Development Course

1. $4395
2. Three months

• University of Windsor – Mini-MBA

1. Either three  or nine months
2. Estimated to be $3200

• University of Toronto – MBA Essentials

1. $3000
2. One month, two nights a week

• University of Calgary – Business Essentials

1. 6,850
2. 6 months

• University of Alberta – Management Essentials

1. $6,600
2. Seven months

• York University – Management and Leadership Programs

1. More tightly focused programs across a range of disciplines
2. Costs vary

If you want something with a bit more educational heft behind there’s always an Executive MBA.  All programs are designed for people with full-time jobs and are offered on evenings and weekends.

• Alberta Haskayne EMBA program

1. Calgary/Edmonton
2. A joint program offered through both the U of C and the U of A
3. Costs $58,000 and lasts 20 months

• Athabasca EMBA program

1. Online
2. Cost: $43,000
3. 20 to 36 months

• Rotman EMBA program, University of Toronto

1. Cost: $89,000
2. 12 months

• McGill – HEC Montreal EMBA program

1. Cost: $72,000
2. 15 months

• Simon Fraser EMBA program

1. Cost: $47,000
2. 19 months

• Kellogg/Schullich EMBA program

1. Toronto/Chicago
2. Costs: $110,000
3. 18 months

So you’ve gone through all of this and you still want to learn more? I’d recommend you read these related features from our sister magazine, Alberta Venture;

For What It’s Worth: Time-consuming and expensive, are MBA degrees really worth it?

Virtual Advantage: Online programs allow busy executives to get an MBA without going MIA, but how do they compare with the classroom experience?

Business School Directory 2010

The financial rewards of obtaining an MBA are high.  MBA graduates earn more over their lifetime and typically ascend higher and faster within organizations. But MBAs aren’t always the best fit. They’re expensive, they’re time consuming and they come after you’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on your undergraduate degree.

If you’re not interested in the whole MBA process but still want to understand the principles behind it, there are options out there. Unofficially called mini-MBAs, there are a variety of workshops, programs and continuing education classes that help people working full-time jobs embiggen their business brain with MBA principles. Click here for a directory of mini-MBA programs in Canada.

While you won’t be able to put “MBA” on your business cards, you’ll have an inside track on the knowledge and principles that people with MBAs use to solve business problems.

Rick Harcourt is the president of executive placement firm Harcourt Recruiting Specialists. Harcourt , 39, has been the president of the family owned staffing firm for the past 18 months.

He grew up listening to job and recruiting discussions around the dinner table. He started his career filing and when he was old enough to drive, his parents sent him out to the nastiest, temporary industrial jobs. “I think to encourage me to go to school,” says Harcourt.

With a background in broadcast communications and an honours degree in English, Harcourt figured that while he knew the operations side of the equation he needed to brush up on the business administration side of things in order to credibly run a 12-employee business. He completed his mini-MBA, officially called Management Essentials, through the University of Alberta about three years ago.

Classes were held once or twice a month, taking up a full business day, over a nine-month period. Harcourt didn’t mind the schedule.

“The busiest, most involved people I know are those who most recognize you have to take a day to develop,” says Harcourt. “I can’t actually think of anyone who has such a crunch on their time that there’s no way they couldn’t take a day a month for professional development.”

Harcout believes that that these types of programs can be useful for people looking to transition from worker to manager.

“It’s a really strong fit for emerging managers; people who are moving from production roles into management or leadership roles. It gives you an understanding of concepts you might not be familiar with,” says Harcourt.

After all, it’s unlikely you’ll know where EBITDA might be useful if you’ve never taken an accounting class.

Alex Brown approached the mini-MBA from a different angle. As a media consultant, she’s worked for everyone from Facebook and Ebay to Canwest and Alliance Atlantis.

Brown does not have one but the she is surrounded by MBAs. She has family members with MBAs, her husband has one and she works with people who have the degree on a daily basis.  She took her mini-MBA program through the University of Toronto last fall. Her particular program was called MBA Essentials for Managers.

“I think it gave me an appreciation of the depth of knowledge that they have acquired. It also made me doubly even triply realize what I’ve learned through street smarts and the school of hard knocks. It validated the value of the MBA but it also made me realize how incredibly valuable my experience was in the business world,” says Alex Brown.

That is an incredibly important point to make. Click that link above, it will take you to Brown’s LinkedIn profile. She has an incredible breadth of experience that an MBA will never be able to replicate.

The mini-MBA is an interesting piece of the pie as you advance in your business career. It might not always be the best fit but for mid-career professionals but it would be unwise to discount the option.

While the two I interviewed were extremely positive and enthusiastic about their experiences, there was one major downside, learning the accounting side of things.

If you want to find out what participating in a mini-MBA is like, Janice McDonald is blogging after each of her sessions in Rotman’s MBA Essentials for Managers Scholarship program. The serial entrepreneur is the president of mymusic.com and she’s already started some great discussions with her posts.

“Study until 25, investigate until 40, profession until 60, at which age I would have him retired on a double allowance.” – William Osler

We can’t say whether you should follow William Osler’s dictum. But whether you study at 25 or 35, doing it smartly makes all the difference. You can attend class all semester, write down every bit of information your professor teaches and finish all the books on the reading. But so much of the outcome depends on how well you study. Some pointers:

Focus.

Easier said than done. Make a dedicate workspace at home or find a quiet place on campus where you can focus. The local Starbucks might have good coffee, but it can be a distracting place to study.

Establish a routine.

Probably the most difficult habit to adopt, establishing a routine will help your focus.

Study smart.

Reading a lot isn’t necessarily the way to go. Some people recommend following the three Rs: recall, recite, review. Think about what profs have said, write or leave yourself voice notes about key points (some people will write and rewrite information, like back in the day when the bad kids had to stand at the blackboard and write “I will not pull Suzie’s hair” over and over). And finally, review the major ideas and information.

Don’t over-study.

Our external hard drives might have limitless capacity, but our internal hard drives can only fit so much information. Identify the main areas you’ll need to cover in the exam and bone up on those.

Talk with your instructor.

Not only will talking with instructors about the exam deepen your understanding of the subject, but it may provide clues on how to focus your studying. U

At the Strathcona Farmers’ Market off Edmonton’s Whyte Avenue, I meet two volunteers from CJSR 88.5 FM, which is the University of Alberta’s campus radio station. After a mere 24 hours in Edmonton, I’ve heard a few people praise the station for its diverse programming and alternative news coverage. I was sure there was a brain running the show, and it turns out to belong to news director Samantha Power. Volunteers at the farmers’ market slip me her card.

VITALS: Samantha Power, news director, CJSR Radio, Edmonton

What does a radio news director do?
The station has a mandate to report on alternative, under-represented, marginalized and local communities. I train the news volunteers to do all the reporting, editing and production work themselves. I ensure that we’re covering a wide variety of issues: environmental, queer, feminist, arts, culture and politics. I also work with campus stations across the country and exchange local stories with them. On Fridays, I co-host a heavy metal music program and a news round up.

Do newbies expect to just grab a mic and start talking?
People sometimes come through the door and don’t understand that our volunteers create the whole story from beginning to end. They listen to the CBC and think “Yeah, I can do that,” but don’t realize that there may be five people working on one piece. A bigger challenge is training people in proper research skills and story collection. I feel a lot of responsibility to the community to report stories that represent what’s happening. And I feel responsibility to the volunteers, too. I want them to feel empowered covering that story.

How did you snag the only paying job at CJSR?
I’ll graduate next April with a BA. in political science and creative writing. I’ve always had a full-time job while I was getting my degree, so I can only do one course per semester. That’s put a real delay on my studies; I started in 2001. I volunteered for CJSR for five years and, during that time, I was also the vice-president, external relations and then the president for the student union. I got to know a lot of union organizers and political groups in the community; now I can direct volunteer reporters to the right reps.

What do you want to accomplish before you leave the CJSR’s World Domination Headquarters (aka the  Students’ Union Building) for good?
One goal is to set research guidelines for the news department. Community radio stations are often the last bastion of independent reporting, and 2010 is going to be an important year for Canada with the G8 Summit and the Winter Olympics. I don’t think community stations should ever try to compete with mainstream media – they should stick with their communities – but there will be huge opportunities for alternative reporting in the coming year. U

Laura Trethewey is riding the train from Toronto to Vancouver and meeting regular Canadians along the way for our Job Training series. Every city she stops in she’ll ask one regular person about what they do for a living. Unlimited is posting the conversations on our interactive map.

This looks like it could be bible camp. Young people, mostly in their late teens, are making the cheerful, tinkling sounds of breakfast. Even the groggy kids are smiling, talking about the hows and whys of their grogginess.

In a room beside the dining area, the sun shines through a stained glass Jesus and someone plays a piano in the way people at parties absentmindedly strum guitars – half to stumble on a potential hook, half to get attention. The event, what with all the bright religious paraphernalia on the walls, sounds like a hymn written by Rufus Wainwright. Maybe. Only this isn’t Bible Camp. It’s Gay Camp. At least, that’s what one of the founders calls it.

Photograph by Curtis Comeau

Kristopher Wells stands in the middle of the morning hubbub. Breakfast is over for the most part, and the campers are starting to look busy, entering the lobby, exiting, returning, grouping up. Wells talks to the campers who come up to him, like the big, copper-haired kid in a neon blue Obama shirt. But mostly, Wells, who is well built, head shaved, and wears the eternally unfashionable uniform of a camp counselor – khaki shorts, socks rising out of outdoorsy shoes – is playing host to a group of media. He selects a few articulate, camera-friendly kids to tell their stories to a local news reporter. After he ushers the interviewer and interviewee outside to talk in the morning sun and then sits off to the side watching the younger generation spread the good news of Camp Fyrefly. He looks proud. This, just as much as what will go on at the camp itself, is what the camp is about.

Wells started Camp Fyrefly as a place for Canada’s “lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-identified, two-spirited, intersexed, queer, questioning, and allied youth,” (or LGBTTQ&A) in 2004. That broad definition is how Fyrefly is described on the website, and it’s a big tent. (The “y” in Fyrefly is not a typo – it stands for youth.) Embedded in that misspelled jumble is the goal to foster leadership in teens. The camp doesn’t exactly have sessions on how to give, say, Obama-style, hope-infused speeches or to create the next generation of LGBT CEOs; the leadership training is more internalized. Which makes sense, considering that a lot of the problems LGBT youth face are internalized, too.

Before he started Camp Fyrefly, Wells was a teacher in St. Albert, a suburb of Edmonton. After a student from the school killed himself, Wells felt responsible. “That was a significant turning point in my own life,” he says. “We had never been able to talk about our identities in the school environment. I saw how the school dealt with it, with complete denial and silence, and decided that I couldn’t be in that kind of environment as a gay teacher who had to be closeted to work.”

He left teaching and joined a youth group called Youth Understanding Youth, which became Camp Fyrefly. Now Wells runs workshops in four provinces and has worked with more than 150 teens (the average age of attendees is 18, who can attend for a subsidized cost of $25). This is possible because the camp is more about community than bricks and mortar. It can go anywhere, even to this church in St. Albert.

As kids mill around, the local media are talking with one such kid who just ran for city council in Surrey, B.C. He is confident and eloquent, a born leader. “Our unofficial motto is ‘take what you need and give to others,’” Wells explains. “Someone has created the opportunity for you to be here, and it is investing in you as a leader. How are you going to repay that investment? We let the young people define the kind of leadership role they are going to take, and recognize for many of them, they need to spend the time being leaders to themselves first.”

After the campers have their time on camera, Wells is up. He speaks effortlessly and manages to make his sound bite material sound sincere. He’s like the cool teacher who had that remarkable, yet elusive ability to connect with students. Watching him, you can see just where the campers who had their moment on camera might be in a few years. U

It might seem as if distance learning was invented for the internet. Not so. Correspondence education dates back to the mid-19th century. Upgrading your education is one of the most effective ways to get ahead in your career. Online courses are often more affordable than traditional post-secondary courses and you can access them anywhere there is an internet connection. Who wouldn’t like taking a sociology course while nursing a latte at Starbucks? Plus, distance course let you keep your job, and stay close to family – challenges that might deter you from seeking more education. Before you sign up, study up with these pointers on how to make online learning work for you.

BE CHOOSY
Pick a program of study that’s conducive to online learning. Maybe a research intensive PhD program isn’t your best bet. On the other hand, graduate programs might be ideal, especially if you’re holding down a job while you study. Also choose a style of study that’s matches how you learn. If you crave in-person interaction and like working in teams, it doesn’t mean that online learning is out, but look for programs that foster community. Students can also meet with classmates over Skype, IM, email or this fancy thing called a telephone.

BE STRATEGIC
Find an online course or program that will most benefit both your personal and working selves. Will a non-accredited program get you ahead in your career? Maybe not (and it might not matter if you have a personal goal. If you want to get a promotion, however, find out what people in your field think. Get recommendations. And look for programs that use a third-party quality assurance group – often a government organization – to evaluate their accreditations.

CONSIDER THE TIMING
Is this the right time to go back to school? Evaluate your goals and your other commitments. Distance learning takes discipline, and if you know you’re the kind of student who needs someone checking up on you to finish assignments, all the alone time might be a roadblock to your success.

Download the graphic novel (330Kb PDF) 

Watch Christian Bök on YouTube 

Christian Bok 6
Christian Bök: The Xenotext Experiment (I)
Christian Bök Reads From Eunoia

Read excerpts 

http://www.chbooks.com/archives/online_books/eunoia/text.html

U

issue 7

For nearly two decades, I was that annoying kid in the front row dislocating my arm trying to get the teacher’s attention. Then, after donning the cap and gown in 2005, I traded my backpack full of textbooks and worn-out jeans for a red leather briefcase and a business suit. Sure, I’ve never looked more upstanding, but I’m in a desperate state of academic withdrawal.

Now that I’m a self-employed professional with clients and bills to pay, there’s no professor to write A+ on my assignments. Instead, I send my work out into the internet ethos and my “grades” arrive a few weeks later: cheques in my mailbox.

Admittedly, my affinity for the front row hasn’t always, how shall I put this, strengthened my personal brand. A keener among keeners, I was dubbed a teacher’s pet by my entire Chemistry 20 summer-school class. I was also an easy target for a statistics prof once; the short skirt/tall boots combo was a dubious choice. Yet these memories have failed to curb my cravings for the heady rush of an all-nighter and new textbooks come September. Still, I resigned myself to working for a living. After all, I’ve got a partner, a mortgage and cats to feed. Having just put down roots, I wasn’t about to rip them up to enroll in a graduate program halfway across the country.

Then, one Sunday morning while surfing the web, I practically snorted coffee out of my nose when I spotted the site – Ryerson University’s Chang School of Continuing Education. An actual, respected university offering a program – a certificate in publishing – that was relevant to me. I emailed the coordinator right away, hoping I could sneak into the next semester, which started in a month. His reply arrived after dinner that day. I squealed with joy.

Had I connected the dots, I might have considered distance learning earlier. My aunt in Victoria, a nursing instructor and career counsellor who has taught several online courses, had recommended it as a tonic for my peculiar pedagogical addiction. Another aunt, in Calgary, earned her social work master’s online from an Australian university. (She and her teenaged daughter flew to Florida and completed their studies beachside with laptops.)

Learning at home isn’t a new concept. Correspondence education dates back to the mid-19th century, and has long been a common way to upgrade your high-school status or complete hated courses. (Career and Life Management 20, anyone?) It’s particularly popular in remote settings, hours or days from the nearest city. The evolution of distance learning is intertwined with the emergence of new technologies, and the internet has led to an explosion of offerings. But now that I’ve decided to take a stab at laptop learning, I can’t help but wonder how well it works. And will it work for me?

Sir Isaac Pitman, an educator in England, reportedly taught shorthand by mail in the 1840s. But most academics cite Anna Eliot Ticknor as the mother of the field. In the 1870s, the bright-eyed, rather plump 50-year-old Bostonian established the first formal distance education program in the United States. At the time, women’s colleges were popping up across the country, but Ticknor – the well-educated daughter of a Harvard professor – felt that opportunities should be available to students who lived far from such institutions. So she created the Society to Encourage Studies at Home.

While never advertised, women flocked to Ticknor’s society; it served about 10,000 students during its 24-year lifespan. A $2 annual fee gave people access to courses on topics ranging from history and politics to physics and anatomy. They communicated with instructors and received course materials (including books, maps and photographs) through the mail.

The first big technological leap happened in 1910, when educational films emerged – an invention that was expected to revolutionize learning. Another method, instructional radio, proved less effective. The U.S. government granted broadcasting licenses to more than 200 post-secondary institutions and school boards, but by the 1940s the approach had lost its appeal. Instruction by video, however, endured – and is now ingrained. Carleton University is one of many schools that records and televises classes; 47 credit courses are on CUTV in 2007-08. Moreover, many contemporary distance learning programs rely on internet videoconferencing, which can be easier to navigate than post-office lineups.

Last summer, the National Aboriginal Health Organization dispatched a dozen role models to travel to aboriginal communities and schools across Canada to talk about their lives. The group’s spokesperson, James Makokis, 25, is a second-year medical student at the University of Ottawa who is from the Saddle Lake Cree Nation near St. Paul in eastern Alberta. He likes to make an impact when he speaks to large groups. Once, he wore his sister’s traditional Cree dress on stage while talking about being “two-spirited,” an aboriginal term for people who have the gift of seeing the world from both female and male perspectives. Then he took off the dress to reveal the lab coat and stethoscope underneath. _Dan Rubinstein

FIRST YOU MUST LEARN TO WALK
In my first year and a half of med school, we had one lecture on native health and it was presented by a non-native person. The very first thing he said was that native people came here 2,000 years ago across the Bering land bridge. So he started out with something that’s contrary to our own creation stories. Then he proceeded to go into all of these statistics – we have the highest suicide rate, the highest rate of diabetes – without providing the necessary historical and social context.

I was sitting with another indigenous classmate. She got up and left. I stayed, only because I was recording the lecture and couldn’t leave without causing a scene. Because of incidents like this, some classmates and I created the Medical Diversity Awareness Group to address issues that are under-recognized within our curriculum. We had an Algonquin lawyer – because Ottawa is situated on Algonquin territory – come and talk about the effects of colonization on indigenous people in terms of health, and we’re having a Cree physician come to talk about traditional medicine and ceremonies. A lot of the time, when our people go to hospitals, they don’t follow the care plans prescribed to them or take their medicine due to issues of trust. For so many years, authorities told them to do things that were incongruent with our own belief systems, resulting in adverse outcomes. If doctors aren’t aware of this, it’s harder to help their patients.

When I graduate, I want to go back to our community and work in health. Whether it’s a direct primary healthcare role as a physician or as a community medicine specialist working with larger populations, I’m not sure. But I do know that when I was at the hospital in St. Paul doing a practicum, whenever people from Saddle Lake came in, their faces just lit up when they saw me. “I’m just a med student,” I’d tell them. “I can’t do anything except listen to your heart.” But I saw the impact one person can make.

THEN YOU CAN RUN
I started running marathons four years ago. In 2006, when I was doing my master’s degree in public health at the University of Toronto, I went home for a practicum and created a running club called the Saddle Lake Health Warriors. We based it on the Running Room approach to delivering “clinics” and did three group runs every week. I gave talks on nutrition, bio-mechanics and the proper clothing to wear. Maybe 40 people came out the first time.

On the reserve, there aren’t many paved roads or sidewalks. Cars drive by and there’s a whole bunch of dust in your face; stray dogs follow you. Two people had been hit by a car and were killed a couple weeks before we started because they were walking on a dark road at night. There are a lot of barriers to doing physical activity. That’s one of the reasons we have high rates of obesity and diabetes. So we needed to create something that was cheap and accessible. Some people didn’t have proper clothing or shoes, so we fundraised. I wrote letters and got the Running Room to give us discounts. We got shoes and reflective gear. About 20 to 25 of us ended up completing the Vancouver marathon in 2006. The youngest was 10 and the oldest was 65.

With four months of training, people went from being sedentary to doing a marathon. Scientists often say we’re predisposed to diabetes because it’s in our genetics. But our ancestors were endurance athletes; they ran for miles and miles, chasing buffalo. So it’s also in our genes to be athletes.

We named the club the Saddle Lake Heath Warriors because we used to have warriors who protected the tribe. It was a very important role. Now we need to think about taking on leadership roles in other areas, like being warriors of our own health.
After I left, the group continued. They went to the Las Vegas Marathon and some of them did the Ottawa Marathon. They’re planning to do the Vancouver Marathon again in May. Our ultimate goal, when I graduate, is to do the Great Wall Marathon in China.

AND THEN YOU WILL SOAR
I came out when I was 18 and going to college in Edmonton. The first person I told was my mom, who is a professor. She was flying out to Victoria the next day and I told her that I needed to talk to her. We went to the Old Spaghetti Factory. It was getting towards the end of the meal and she knew that something was up, so I just came out with it. “I still love you, my son,” she said. “Nothing’s changed.” So off she went to Victoria, and she came back a week later with a huge stack of books: What To Do When Your Son Tells You He’s Gay, How To Cope With A Gay Child. My mom always tries to learn everything she can.

My dad’s reaction was different. Even though he always took me out trapping and fishing, he thought it was his fault because he didn’t spend enough time with me. He was very upset – and then he went and told all of his extended family, his brothers and sisters, to help him through the process. That made it easy for me, because I didn’t have to tell everyone myself. And their reaction helped him: “So what? He’s still just James.”

A lot of my dad’s reaction had to do with the fact that he went to residential school, where being “different” was not a good thing. Children were taught that “good little Indians” didn’t cause trouble, so they didn’t try to be individuals. They conformed so they could survive.

One of my dad’s brothers, the chief of Saddle Lake, told him that two-spirited people used to have an important role in our culture: they were healers, leaders, warriors, visionaries and medicine people. They had many layers, and everyone was respected for the gifts that the Creator had given them. That was one of the things that was lost when the church came here. We need to get back to those teachings.

My mom, dad, sister and kokom (grandmother) came to visit me during Pride week when I was studying at the University of Toronto. We went to the parade. There were a million people there and we were right in the front row. My kokom kept picking up the condoms and other “goodies” they were throwing and putting them in her purse – maybe she didn’t realize what they were, or maybe she did! I think she took three rolls of pictures of totally naked men. She just loved it! You don’t see that on the rez.

We took a family portrait with one of the drag queens. It symbolizes how fortunate I am. In our culture, we believe that children choose which family they are born into. My mom always reminds me, “You knew which family to go into. You knew that you would be loved, no matter what.” And I am. U

It’s an unusually hot and humid July evening in Calgary, the kind of weather that causes even winter-weary Albertans to complain. Most undergrads wouldn’t be caught anywhere close to campus on a day like this. But near the University of Calgary’s northern boundary, in an old brick maintenance building that used to house rusty gas-powered lawnmowers, eight students are focused on a series of small yet significant tasks. They can take the heat. The success of their project, in fact, depends on the searing sun above, and besides, they’re minutes away from a milestone.

Suspension assemblies and shocks are attached to a steel frame that looks more like an elaborate bicycle than the skeleton of a car. Wheels are bolted on and joints are wrenched tight. Elsewhere in the workshop, components are soldered onto electrical circuit boards and the Styrofoam “plug” that will be used to make a mould for the carbon fibre and Kevlar shell is sealed with epoxy resin. It’s still just a prototype – the driver’s seat is made of wood, wires seem precariously exposed – but this is the first time the U of C’s second-generation solar car has looked more like a roadworthy vehicle than a DIY go-kart kit gone wild.

Three years ago, university officials were asked to help organize logistics for the 2005 North American Solar Challenge, an exercise in extreme engineering and one of the world’s premier demonstrations of solar-power possibilities. The 4,000-kilometre race would start in Texas and cross the border into Canada for the first time; the finish line was in Calgary. The U of C, however, had no team. “I had a vision of 12,000 students from universities like McGill and the University of Toronto pulling in,” professor Joshua Leon, head of the electrical and computer engineering department at the time, said to the Herald, “and our students telling them where to park.”

A hometown crew was hastily cobbled together. They built a car, dubbed Soleon, in nine months, compared to the 24-month turnaround of most schools. It cost roughly $350,000, less than one-third the budget of powerhouses such as the University of Michigan. Despite the late start, Soleon finished 13th out of 18 entries, arriving home to cheering crowds on rural roads and city streets. At the World Solar Challenge in Australia that fall, Soleon reached speeds of 85 kilometres per hour, improving to a 10th place finish and, impressively, first in the production-class category (a Dutch team driving a $20 million car incorporating technologies developed by NASA was the overall winner).

Another North American Solar Challenge was scheduled for this past July, but it was cancelled after a major supporter, the U.S. Department of Energy, withdrew its funding. So the U of C set its sights on the World Solar Challenge in late October, a seven-day, 3,021-kilometre marathon across the Australian outback from Darwin to Adelaide. It’s the 20th anniversary of the inaugural WSC, and the U of C is ready this time.

Well, almost.

A jumble of students with backgrounds as diverse as engineering, business, psychology, kinesiology, communications and fine arts have been working since January 2006 to fund, design, build, test, tweak, promote and prepare to race a new and improved car. (It doesn’t have a name yet, but early mock-ups were affectionately called Bertha.) There’s a core group of about 15 team members, including a handful who were part of the first adventure. Another 50 or 60 students have dropped in to help out when they could. They’re all getting hands-on experience in cross-disciplinary collaboration and learning how to apply what they’ve learned at school to real-world problems.

They’re also proving, with somewhat alarming frequency, that Murphy’s law is true: whatever can go wrong, will.

The plan on this hot July evening is to give the car its inaugural road test, to see how it rolls. It’s scheduled to be driven under power in about two weeks. The shell should be ready by the end of August and the car completed by the first week of September, leaving just two weeks for fine tuning before the whole setup must be shipped Down Under. Tonight’s road show will remind crew members why they’ve voluntarily slaved away their summers, juggling work on the car with paying jobs. It’s a reason to celebrate a small step forward in their long journey. But before the car can be pushed out of the shop, chief engineer Shawn Zwierzchowski flashes a red light.