Emerson naive not to expect backlash

Bernie Wolf, director of the international MBA program at York’s Schulich School of Business, says David Emerson, a Liberal who joined the Conservatives days after the federal election, should have expected the backlash, reported The Globe and Mail Feb. 10. “The fact that Emerson is surprised surprises me,” Wolf said. “He has to be awfully naive to think that isn’t going to upset a lot of people.” Broadcast News picked up the Globe story with Wolf’s comment.

In related news:

• Perhaps the Conservatives would not look quite so hypocritical if they had not promised so much to so many hopeful souls, suggested The Globe and Mail Feb. 10. It all began so well. The Conservatives turned accountability into a theme song, one of their five pivotal priorities. As York’s Institute for Social Research concluded after more than 4,000 interviews, a significant number of voters did move to the Tories because of perceived Liberal corruption.

Leagues will ignore bodychecking study, says Howie Meeker

To those wonderful researchers from York University and the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto: Don’t expect anyone in hockey power anywhere to pay any attention to the facts. There is a huge shortage of skill teachers in their organizations, so to cover up they tossed in bodychecking, wrote Howie Meeker, former Toronto Maple Leaf and a hockey broadcaster for 40 years, in an op-ed piece in the Ottawa Citizen.

Editorials in newspapers like the Aldergrove Star continue to cite the study in a call to nip bodychecking in the bud. Letting youngsters bodycheck is sheer folly, said the newspaper’s sports editorial Feb. 9. Bodychecking in minor hockey could jeopardize our national sport by turning it into our most dangerous game.

“Unless you spend your life being a researcher, you have to trust the knowledge of professionals,” says Zelda Abramson, who teaches research methodology in York’s Faculty of Arts, “and the knowledge keeps changing every two years.” She was commenting in a Toronto Star story Feb. 10 after Canadian gynecologists gave the green light to hormone replacement therapy, recently a huge no-no.

The symbol that captures our national character may be the bland, smiley face of a global nice guy, according to a 33-country poll commissioned by the BBC, reported the Toronto Star in a Feb. 10 story also published in The Record of Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo. “We don’t have the same kind of brand recognition as the US,” says Daniel Drache, a political science professor at York and author of Borders Matter: Homeland Security and the Search for North America. “But the recognition factor fits who we are. A softer, gentler society is just common sense.”

If and when Toronto Transit Commission expansion comes, it won’t be financed by fare increases, says TTC general secretary Vince Rodo, reported the Toronto Star Feb. 10. The TTC and city council are mulling a range of expensive projects. They include a $1.4 billion subway extension to York University, with a commuter hub across the border in York Region or an eastward extension of the Sheppard subway.

What do MBA students think of the business school rankings? asked Richard Bloom Feb. 10 in his Globe and Mail column about studying for an MBA at York. The general consensus on campus is that the rankings do serve one key purpose: they help us find jobs, he concluded in the wake of the good news that York’s Schulich School of Business had been ranked No. 18 in the world and No. 1 in Canada in the annual Financial Times rankings of global business schools. The rankings give recruiters an independent study to help make decisions about which schools to visit, he added. And improved scores make alumni feel proud to affiliate themselves with the school, increasing participation in mentorship programs and financial donations – all of which help attract top-notch faculty who develop successful graduates and further help the school’s score in the rankings, he wrote. What’s more, he continued, the competition among schools for that top spot in the rankings ensures business programs stay innovative and strive to deliver the best education possible.

Surveillance cameras around Northwood Community Centre, where 19-year-old Chantel Dunn was gunned down, have not worked for months despite repeated requests to have them repaired, the centre’s maintenance foreman said, reported The Globe and Mail Feb. 10 in a story that continued to make newspaper headlines. Dunn, a York University business student who dreamed of being a lawyer and juggled full-time studies with a full-time job, was shot to death Feb. 6.