York University Professor and psychologist Debra Pepler, one of Canada’s foremost experts on bullying, has been appointed by the Nova Scotia government to review how the Halifax Regional School Board responded to the case of Rehtaeh Parsons….“Schools absolutely have a responsibility,” said Pepler in The Globe and Mail April 18. “When I was on the Safe Schools Action team for Ontario, we dealt with issues of cyberbullying and it was very clear to us that even if cyberbullying occurred outside the geographical boundaries of the school, if it impacted a student’s ability to learn and the learning environment for a student, the principal was responsible for dealing with it.” Read full story.
MBA students find giant pandas on the curriculum
Classes on negotiations usually revolve around acquisitions or distribution deals. Not so at the Schulich school of business at York University in Toronto, where giant pandas are the theme of the day, reported the Financial Times April 19. Schulich researcher Stephen Weiss, professor of policy and international business, believes that there is a lot to be learned from the way negotiations have been conducted between the Chinese government and zoos around the world for the loan of pandas. Read full story.
York U student shows ‘Why Chartered Accountants Rule the World of Business’
York University student Kristi Sallaku is one of two winners of a Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario video competition, reported the North York Mirror April 18. Sallaku and a Markham high school student were named winners of the third annual Rule the Tube CA video competition, each receiving $1,500 from the organization for their winning entries. Read full story.
RBC’s real mistake in the outsourcing uproar was embarrassing the Harper Tories
“There is nothing new about outsourcing jobs to lower cost countries. There is also nothing new about using temporary foreign ‘guest’ workers as a way to avoid paying wages that the law of supply and demand would otherwise set for Canadian labour. However, by bringing these two trends together in the operation of a part of RBC’s sprawling information-and-technology empire, the bank inadvertently made the worst mistake a financial institution can ever make: It has embarrassed the government that licenses and regulates it,” wrote Daniel Cohn, director of York University’s School of Public Policy and Administration, in the Toronto Star April 19. Read full story.
Canadians are fixing their Internet one step at a time
Canadians realized we’re being price-gouged by Big Telecom. As York University Professor David Ellis rightly griped in the Huffington Post April 18, “in addition to some of the world’s highest prices, we put up with unacceptably slow speeds, shitty customer service, off the graph latency, way too little fiber, and marketing that deliberately confuses and misleads.” Read full story.
Universities, the media and a war on knowledge?
Earlier this week, a panel discussion billed as “The War on Knowledge?” and held in advance of June’s Worldviews 2013 conference on global trends in media and higher education resulted in a lively debate. The gist of it was whether higher education is under attack and what role, if any, the media plays in that, reported University Affairs April 18….York University PhD candidate Melonie Fullick, who also participated in the debate, noted that here at home the closure of federal libraries and archives, the continuing cutbacks at Statistics Canada, and the government’s unabashed attempts to muzzle its scientists have contributed to the attacks on academia. Read full story.
Purple martin migration secrets
Last summer, the Ellis Bird Farm embarked on a purple martin research project in conjunction with York University, the Purple Martin Conservancy of Pigeon Lake and the Camrose Wildlife and Stewardship Society, reported the Red Deer Advocate April 18. Twenty-two farm birds were “outfitted” with small geolocator backpacks to detect and record maximum light intensities at set intervals, data from which researchers can reconstruct migration routes and identify wintering locations. Read full story.
How to live forever
Doctors from York University in Toronto have found that speaking another language boosts brain power and significantly slows the onset of dementia, as well as strengthening an important brain function, cognitive control, reported the London Evening Standard April 19. Read full story.