{"id":597,"date":"2016-12-05T12:00:38","date_gmt":"2016-12-05T12:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/?p=597"},"modified":"2016-12-09T23:40:59","modified_gmt":"2016-12-09T23:40:59","slug":"the-original-dr-dennis-connolly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/2016\/12\/05\/the-original-dr-dennis-connolly\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Dennis Connolly"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default”][heading]Dr. Dennis Connolly; The Original[\/heading][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default”][vc_column_text]April 27, 1967, was a day that some may remember, but none more than mathematics and computer science professor, Dr. Dennis Connolly. As the University of Lethbridge\u2019s longest-serving faculty member, Dennis shares the story of how he came to the U of L and why after five decades, he\u2019s as excited as ever to get to class\u00a0and teach his students.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/p>\n

“For those living in Lethbridge at the time, late April of 1967, saw a three-day snowstorm that shut the city\u00a0down like never before. People were transported to the hospital by snow mobiles, livestock were fed via\u00a0helicopter and even snow ploughs struggled to move under the weight of the heavy downfall. I\u2019d never\u00a0experienced anything like it before.<\/p>\n

“I was travelling across North America with a friend to Vancouver to fly home to Australia, having been on\u00a0scholarship at the University of Western Ontario. I was an avid skier, a member of the London Ski Patrol,\u00a0and Banff was on the itinerary. Lethbridge was a natural stop-off point for us, having just left Yellowstone\u00a0National Park. When we woke-up the next morning to head out to Banff, we stepped outside and could\u00a0barely see the car! There was this thick, white blanket of snow which had shut down the city and surrounding\u00a0areas.<\/p>\n

“I had just finished my studies at UWO and was well on my way back to Australia. While waiting for the\u00a0snow storm to clear, I picked up a copy of the Lethbridge Herald and there was an advertisement for the\u00a0University of Lethbridge looking for faculty. I thought, this looks interesting and could be an adventure, so I\u00a0met with the head of the mathematics department, Laurence Hoye, about a possible teaching position. I\u00a0remember saying to Laurence, ‘If I get the job, I\u2019ll only be here for one year, or two years at the very most.’<\/p>\n

\"Dr.“Well, the first few years have turned into a few decades! I have so enjoyed living and working in Lethbridge.\u00a0I can see a lot of similarities between my hometown, Wagga Wagga in New South Wales, Australia. Small\u00a0country cities with very strong agricultural industries and where the biggest things in them are the hospital\u00a0and the university, and no traffic jams.<\/p>\n

“While the location of where you build a life may be important, for me, it\u2019s really the work and the students\u00a0that keep me coming back every semester. I enjoy seeing students progress through their studies and then\u00a0where they end up after they\u2019ve crossed the convocation stage. I take a photo of each student on their first day\u00a0in class and ask them to write a little summary about themselves. It helps me to learn more about them and\u00a0that way it\u2019s easier when I\u2019m marking papers because I think: \u2018David has done much better this time around or\u00a0Emma is well on her way to graduate school with these marks!\u2019 It\u2019s much easier and more interesting to\u00a0mark papers if you know a bit about the student.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ve seen so much over the past 50 years at the U of L. I\u2019ve cheered along at some of the greatest sporting\u00a0highlights in Pronghorn Athletics history like the 1994 Men\u2019s Hockey team\u2019s National Championship run and\u00a0Women\u2019s Rugby to three National Titles. I\u2019ve been a proud parent, witnessing my own children graduate\u00a0and gain employment at my workplace too. The U of L has played a huge part in my life and I\u2019m excited to see what\u00a0the future will bring.”[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default”][heading]Dr. Dennis Connolly; The Original[\/heading][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default”…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103,"featured_media":587,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4,40],"tags":[38,39,27,30],"class_list":{"0":"post-597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-faculty-staff","8":"category-inspiring-lights","9":"tag-dennis-connolly","10":"tag-inspiring-lights","11":"tag-uleth","12":"tag-university-of-lethbridge"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/103"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":664,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions\/664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}