A mania for manners


Major papers continued to take an interest in a widely run story about York’s new etiquette program. The Canadian Press story begins: What do you do at a dinner party if you drop your cutlery on the floor or spill a glass of wine? These are a few of the questions posed by students who have embraced a new etiquette program at Toronto’s York University. “These days, there are more employer-hosted recruitment activities than ever before,” says Farheen Rashid, the career programs coordinator for the popular Etiquette Series launched last fall by York’s Career Centre. The story was published April 21 in the mass-circulation Toronto Sun and also appeared in The Record in Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo, adding to a host of papers across Canada (see the April 20 YFile for a fuller version).


Latin percussionist plays at Marenger concert


One of the top Latin percussionists in North America will accompany the Ron Marenger Big Band Saturday at the Academy Theatre in Lindsay, reported The Peterborough Examiner April 21. Rodrigo Chavez, Chilean-born musician, has specialized in classical guitar and Afro-Latin percussion for 15 years. He studied sociology at York University in the late 1980s and has travelled extensibly through Peru, Venezuela and Cuba studying traditional rhythms and musical styles of those countries. He has performed in Chile, Argentina, USA, Canada and South Korea.


Cities bid to host soccer’s 2007 World Youth Championship


Courier packages arrived with regularity at the Canadian Soccer Association headquarters in Ottawa on Wednesday, the deadline for cities to submit official bids to play a role in the 2007 World Youth Championship, reported Canadian Press April 20. Bidders are vying for four host city berths. Toronto and Edmonton have already been designated to play major hosting roles in the tournament. With 24 teams, the world under-20 soccer tournament is second only to the men’s World Cup. Commonwealth Stadium will serve as home for the tournament in Edmonton while the planned new outdoor stadium at York University will be the focal point in Toronto, where the tournament will be headquartered. Both cities will host a first-round group, plus round-of-16, quarter-final and semifinal games.


On air



  • Brendan Quine, professor of space and planetary physics in York’s Faculty of Science & Engineering, commented on the Kyoto Protocol, on ROB TV’s “AM Business” April 20.
  • Gordon Flett, a psychology professor in York’s Faculty of Arts, was interviewed about procrastination and a new study showing that two out of three Canadian university students start studying for exams no more than a week in advance, on an item aired on CBC Radio’s “Northwest” in Thunder Bay April 20.