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WEDNESDAY
JULY 2 2014 www.burnabynewsleader.com
The Burnaby Open tennis tournament is serving up lots of action this week. Page A9
Sentenced reduced in Amanda Zhao murder Wanda Chow
wchow@burnabynewsleader.com
MARIO BARTEL/NEWSLEADER
Thelma Finlayson is a retired biology instructor from Simon Fraser University who still likes to keep up to date on developments in her field even as she turns 100 years old. She was honoured with a special birthday party at the university on Sunday.
Beloved SFU prof, advisor turns 100 Thelma Finlayson’s empathy set thousands of students on right path Mario Bartel
photo@burnabynewsleader.com
Thelma Finlayson’s failing grade in scientific German was the best thing that could have happened to thousands of students. Finlayson didn’t let that setback deter her from becoming a distinguished biologist and instructor at Simon Fraser University. But it did colour her job as an academic advisor to troubled GRAND OPENING CELEBRATION
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students after she retired from the classroom. On Sunday, friends, family and former colleagues celebrated Finlayson’s 100th birthday at a special party held at the Diamond Alumni Centre. It seemed like a lot of fuss for someone who just wanted to be a biologist, said Finlayson. Which is pretty much the same argument she used with the professor of her scientific German class when she appealed her substandard grade. “I’m not interested in German,”
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she said. “I’m a biologist.” The prof let Finlayson carry on with her studies. In 1937, Finlayson became one of the first female scientists at the federal Department of Agriculture’s Belleville Research Institute. Thirty years later she blazed a new trail as the first female faculty member in SFU’s Department of Biological Sciences. But she never forgot her humbling brush with academic failure, and when she became an academic advisor four years after she retired from the classroom, her empathy set
thousands of students on the right path. “That definitely influenced me,” said Finlayson. “Most of the students I saw were in trouble, but I enjoyed their ideas. I tried to find something good in their transcripts to give them encouragement.” She also listened. Often students’ academic woes are just the symptom of bigger issues elsewhere in their lives, said Finlayson. Like the male student who told her the next time he’d see her, he’d be a she. Please see ‘GRATEFUL’ A3
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A man convicted of murdering his girlfriend in Burnaby a dozen years ago has had his sentence reduced by China’s highest court. Amanda Zhao, 20, was an exchange student from China living in a North Burnaby basement suite with her boyfriend Ang Li when she was killed in October 2002. Li, who has since changed his name to Jia-ming Li, fled to China two days after her body was found stuffed in a suitcase near Mission. It wasn’t until 2009 that he was arrested and September 2012 that a Chinese court found him guilty of murder and sentenced him to life in prison. But Li appealed and this week the conviction was reduced to manslaughter and the sentence cut to seven years. As he’s been in prison since 2009, he would be freed in two years. While the first court ruling made Zhao’s family feel the law was “fair and just,” the latest judgment by the Beijing High Peoples Court is “unacceptable,” said Bao-ying Yang, Zhao’s mother, in a statement Monday. Please see PARENTS, A4