Jing Xinhai
Founding Chairman and CEO of CVIC Software Engineering Co. Ltd. (CVIC SE), Jing Xinhai has been a friend of the University
of Regina for many years. Born in Beijing in 1949, Jing earned a BSc from the Shandong Chemistry Machinery Institute in
1976. Following graduation, he joined the Shandong Academy of Sciences where he held successively more responsible
positions, serving finally as director of the computing centre. From 1982-84 he was a visiting scholar in the University of
Regina’s Computer Science Department – one of the first visiting scholars under an agreement between the
University of Regina and Shandong University, which was the first such relationship established between a North American
and a Chinese university.
In 1991, Jing and a group of associates founded CVIC SE, now one of the top-ranked software companies in China. CVIC SE is located in Jinan, Shandong Province, the city twinned with the City of Regina, and has offices in Beijing, Shanghai, and several other cities. CVIC SE specializes in software development, information system integration, and IT solutions. Annual sales now exceed US$120M.
Jing has maintained his close association with the University of Regina and continues to promote and support cultural and scientific exchanges. This was formalized three years ago with an agreement between the University and CVIC SE which covered co-operative education; visiting scholarship and research collaboration; graduate students; and a joint venture company. The first three components of the agreement have been ongoing. Plans to open CVIC Software Service Canada (CVIC SSC) in the Regina Research Park were announced Aug. 29, 2003, giving CVIC SE an international business presence in Canada as well as in Los Angeles, USA, and Sydney, Australia.
Jing sits as an expert on the committee of China’s national high tech development plan. His management team was elected best management team in China’s software industry for 2002. He actively ensures that University of Regina co-operative education students are full and valued members of the CVIC SE team while in China.
Jing is an elected vice-president of the China Software Industry Association, has been named one of the top 10 Shandong experts coming back from abroad, placed first for the Shandong provincial science and technology advances prize, and has been named among the top 10 leaders of China’s software industry.
Jing is instrumental in helping the University of Regina integrate an international perspective into its three-fold mission of teaching, research and service.
William Perehudoff
William Perehudoff, a pre-eminent Canadian abstract colour field painter and a modernist, finds inspiration in the
Saskatchewan landscape, in music, and in his Doukhobor heritage.
Born in Saskatoon in 1918 and raised in a Doukhobor community near Langham, Saskatchewan, Perehudoff and landscape painter Dorothy Knowles – his wife of more than 50 years – divide their time between Saskatoon and the family farm, which presides over a magnificent view of the North Saskatchewan River.
Perehudoff’s first venture into the art world was at the Saskatoon Art Centre in 1945 where he says he went to see “if artists looked any different from other people.” Here he developed friendships with several local artists including Robert Hurley, a mentor, as well as with Ernest Lindner and Winona Mulcaster. He became part of an innovative group of painters known briefly as The Prospectors.
His formal education as an artist began in the late 1940s when he studied art and mural painting with French muralist Jean Charlot at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Centre. His interest in mural painting began with a book about the Mexican muralists sent to him by the Open Shelf Library service for rural areas. In 1949-50 he studied with French painter Amedee Ozenfant, co-founder of the Purist movement, in New York City. In 1951 he went to England where Knowles was studying. They were married in Paris in December of that year, and stayed until the summer to study the art in the museums of France and Italy. He also studied at the Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh in the summer of 1968.
Perehudoff participated some of the landmark Emma Lake workshops co-ordinated by Regina College’s School of Art. Here he worked with such luminaries as Will Barnet, Clement Greenberg and Kenneth Noland. In 1988, he was the workshop leader.
A prolific painter Perehudoff also farms and freelances as a muralist, photographer and illustrator. He worked as the art director for Modern Press in Saskatoon for 25 years.
Perehudoff has had a remarkable number of exhibits. He has exhibited across Canada, in London, England, and in New York, Chicago and Portland in the United States. In total, his work has been in 64 solo exhibitions and 67 group exhibitions. He has been recognized locally, provincially, nationally and internationally for his remarkable contributions to art in Canada, and is a member of the Order of Canada and of the Saskatchewan Order of Merit.