|
Denis Rancourt is a former professor of physics at the University of Ottawa. Rancourt is a recognized scientist but is more widely known for his confrontations with his former employer, the University of Ottawa, over issues involving his dissidence and his approach to pedagogy.〔 His conflicts with the university started in 2005 when, in what was termed "academic squatting," he changed a course to focus "not just () how science impacts everyday life, but how it relates to greater power structures".〔Trew, Stuart, (Understanding power ), ''Ottawa Xpress'', January 5, 2006.〕〔Tam, Pauline, (Students rally around controversial professor ), ''The Ottawa Citizen'', February 15, 2006.〕〔 In June 2008 a labor law arbitrator sided with Rancourt and ruled that "teaching science through social activism is protected by academic freedom."〔 Rancourt was removed from all teaching duties in the fall of 2008 because the dean of the faculty of science did not agree with his granting A+ grades to 23 students in one course of the winter 2008 semester.〔 In December, the Allan Rock administration of the University of Ottawa began dismissal proceedings against him and he was banned from campus. This generated a province-wide (Ontario) and national (Canada) public debate on grading in university courses.〔〔(TV-Ontario, ''The Agenda'', with Steve Paikin ), April 10, 2009〕〔Anderssen, Erin, (The Provocative Professor ), ''Globe and Mail'', February 11, 2009.〕〔Pinchin, Karen, (In this class, everyone gets A+ ), ''Macleans Magazine'', March 13, 2009.〕〔(CBC Radio (National) - ''The Current'' ), March 18, 2009 (Part-3).〕〔McKiernan, Michael, (Flunking out over an A+ ), ''National Post'', April 6, 2009.〕 The university's (Executive Committee of the Board of Governors ) voted unanimously to fire Rancourt on March 31, 2009.〔Ottawa Citizen. (). Accessed April 4, 2009〕 Rancourt has expressed the opinion that the grading issue was a pretext for his dismissal.〔 Canadian media reports have echoed that Rancourt's dismissal was political.〔〔 Rancourt has grieved the dismissal and the Canadian Association of University Teachers is running an (Independent Committee of Inquiry ) into the matter.〔 The dismissal case went to binding arbitration where Rancourt's union took the position that the grading issue was a pretext to remove Rancourt and that the termination was done in bad faith.〔 (Alternative-links )〕 Arbitrator Claude Foisy ruled in a decision dated January 27, 2014,〔(In the Matter of an Arbitration ), Foisy Arbitration Award, January 27, 2014, APUO web site.〕 to uphold the university's dismissal of Rancourt.〔Butler, Don, "Arbitrator upholds University of Ottawa's firing of tenured professor", ''Ottawa Citizen'', January 28, 2014.〕 On March 10, 2014, Rancourt's union announced that it would appeal the Arbitrator's award.〔(Denis Rancourt arbitration ), APUO announcement, March 10, 2014, APUO web site.〕〔Butler, Don, (Decision on Denis Rancourt’s firing undermines academic freedom, professors say ), ''Ottawa Citizen'', March 14, 2014.〕 ==Scientific research== Rancourt has published over 100 articles in peer reviewed scientific journals. As a professor of physics, he was a member of the Ottawa-Carleton Institute for Physics and member of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre〔(Department of Physics website ). University of Ottawa. Accessed February 22, 2009.〕 His most cited works are in the area of Mössbauer spectroscopy where he developed a spectral lineshape analysis algorithm.〔Rancourt D. G., and Ping, J. Y., "Voigt-based methods for arbitrary-shape static hyperfine parameter distributions in Mössbauer spectroscopy", ''Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B'', Volume 58, Issue 1, p. 85-97 ()〕 This formed a basis for a now commercial spectral analysis software developed in his laboratory.〔(Recoil software page )〕 His laboratory has worked on the iron oxide hematite〔Rancourt D. G. et al., "Interplay of surface conditions, particle size, stoichiometry, cell parameters, and magnetism in synthetic hematite-like materials", ''Hyperfine Interactions'', Volume 117, Numbers 1-4, December 1998, p. 271–319 ()〕 and has been cited in recent works on the remote measurements of the soil mineralogy on Mars.〔Klingelhöfer G. et al., ("Jarosite and Hematite at Meridiani Planum from Opportunity's Mössbauer Spectrometer" ), ''Science'', 3 December 2004, Volume 306, Number 5702, p. 1740 - 1745〕 He worked on the physics of Invar for twenty years and in his last papers on the subject he claims to have solved the 100-year-old Invar problem of identifying the mechanistic origin of the alloy’s thermal expansion anomaly.〔Rancourt D. G., "Invar Behavior in Fe-Ni Alloys is Predominantly a Local Moment Effect Arising from the Magnetic Exchange Interactions Between High Moments", Phase Transitions, Volume 75, Issue 1 & 2 2002 , pages 201–209 ()〕 Rancourt first described the phenomenon of polarized superparamagnetic fluctuations 〔Rancourt D. G. et al., “The superparamagnetism of very small particles supported by zeolite-Y”, ''Hyperfine Interactions'', Volume 16, Numbers 1-4 / December, 1983, 653–656 ()〕 which he named superferromagnetism.〔Rancourt D. G. and Daniels, J. M., “Influence of unequal magnetization direction probabilities on the Mössbauer spectra of superparamagnetic particles”, ''Physical Review Rev B, Vol. 29, Iss. 5 (1984), 2410–2414 ()〕 Scientific author Steen Morup introduced the same name for a similar phenomenon. His work on small magnetic particles was reviewed in the monograph series Reviews in Mineralogy〔Rancourt, D. G., “Magnetism of earth, planetary, and environmental nanomaterials”, ''Reviews in mineralogy and geochemistry'', 2001, vol. 44, pp. 217–292 ()〕 Starting in 2001, Rancourt led a research group in lake sediment early diagenesis and co-authored works in biogeochemistry about nutrient and metal cycling in aqueous environments.〔van der Zee, C., Roberts, D., Rancourt, D.G., Slomp, C.P. Nanogoethite is the dominant reactive oxyhydroxide phase in lake and marine sediments. ''Geology'' 2003, vol. 31, pp. 993-996.()〕〔Katsev, S., Rancourt, D.G., L’Heureux, I. dSED: A database tool for modeling sediment early diagenesis. ''Computers & Geosciences'' 2004, vol. 30, pp. 959-967.()〕〔Rancourt, D.G., Thibault, P.-J., Mavrocordatos, D., Lamarche, G. Hydrous ferric oxide precipitation in the presence of nonmetabolizing bacteria: Constraints on the mechanism of a biotic effect. ''Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta'' 2005, vol. 69, pp. 553-577.()〕〔Thompson, A., Chadwick, O.A., Rancourt, D.G., Chorover, J. Iron-oxide crystallinity increases during soil redox oscillations. ''Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta'' 2006, vol.70, pp. 1710-1727.()〕〔Katsev, S., Tsandev, I., L'Heureux, I., Rancourt, D.G. Factors controlling long term phosphorus efflux from lake sediments: Exploratory reactive-transport modeling. ''Chemical Geology'' 2006, vol.234, pp. 127-147.()〕〔Génin, A., Grenèche, J.-M., Tournassat, C., Brendlé, J., Rancourt, D.G., Charlet, L. Reversible surface-sorption-induced electron-transfer oxidation of Fe(II) at reactive sites on a synthetic clay mineral. ''Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta'' 2007, vol. 71, pp. 863-876.()〕 This allowed him to review cycling and recent historical changes in boreal forest lake sediments; which led him to write his essay about global warming and to post his views in public fora (see "Climate change essay" section). In recent years, he has worked on reactive environmental Fe-oxyhydroxide nanoparticles and on iron cycling (see iron cycle) in soils. In 2008, his laboratory found evidence that the structure of ferrihydrite, which was first published in Science, is incorrect.〔Rancourt, D. G., and Meunier, J-F, “Constraints on structural models of ferrihydrite as a nanocrystalline material”, ''American Mineralogist'', August 2008, v. 93, no. 8-9, p. 1412–1417 ()〕 In recent articles about soil formation, he helped explain how iron is fixed and mobilized.〔〔Thompson, A., Rancourt, D.G., Chadwick, O.A., Chorover, J. Iron solid-phase differentiation along a redox gradient in basaltic soils. ''Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta'' 2011, vol.75, pp. 119-133.()〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Denis Rancourt」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|