Osgoode alumnus makes a golden executive decision

Fourteen months ago, York alumnus Tye Winston Burt (LLB ‘83) took the CEO’s job at Kinross Gold Corp. and didn’t like what he saw, reported The Globe and Mail in a Report on Business “Executive Decision” feature June 24. Production had been falling, the exploration budget was meagre, costs were unusually high and the accounting was an absolute mess. He could have fixed it or flogged it. The latter option would have been easier. Burt, the onetime head of Deutsche Bank Canada, is an M&A expert by training; the man knows how to buy and sell companies. With gold prices rising, even selling a tarnished producer like Kinross would not have been especially hard work. He chose the fix-it route. Listing his biodata, the Globe noted  that Burt is a graduate of York’s Osgoode Hall Law School.

It’s amazing how quickly some people rush to condemn anything new, before stopping to even think about how the proposition in question may work, wrote columnist Geoff Matthews in The Ottawa Sun June 26. Take the federal legislation introduced just before the House of Commons rose for the summer dealing with the age at which teenagers can legally consent to having sexual relations. The bill raised the age from 14 (where it was set roughly a century ago) to 16. Alan Young, a professor at York’s Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, called the legislation the latest example of “symbolic politics” – the addition of redundant law to score partisan points. “They’re manufacturing problems that don’t really exist and responding to them to appear as if they’re very responsive to the needs of Canadians.” Wow. Problems that don’t really exist? You have to wonder if these people have children, wrote Matthews. Or if they have ever been children themselves.

York University walk-on Ricky Foley has signed with the Canadian Football League’s BC Lions after a tryout with the National Football League’s Baltimore Ravens, but the quiet word is the Ravens were so impressed with Foley they’re bringing him back to take a place on their practice roster later, reported Sun Media June 25.

I broke one of my unwritten rules – again – when I hired the newest addition to our sports department this spring, wrote Phil Andrews, managing editor of the Guelph Mercury June 24. I hired sports reporter intern Daniel Dale sight unseen. Daniel is a Thornhill kid and a student at York University. Daniel wrote perhaps the most compelling cover letter I’ve read. The newspaper clippings attached to his application were rich in variety and thick with the voice of a talented writer.

I figure Daniel will either look back on this gig as the best summer job he ever had before he decided to go off and swim with corporate sharks for a career or this will be the experience that gives him a full-blown addiction to journalism. Daniel’s parents will either loathe me or love me at the end of the summer. He’s entering his fourth year at the Schulich School of Business, on a rolling scholarship and as a dean’s list regular. That’s the breeding ground of chief administrative officers but Daniel’s not yet fixed to that route and has managed to land and deliver on a slew of engaging student newspaper assignments.

Citizen science writer Tom Spears (BA Glendon ‘77) has won a national science journalism award, reported The Ottawa Citizen June 24. Spears will be awarded the L’Oreal Canada Excellence in Science Journalism honour for his article “Now They Can See Exactly What’s On My Mind,” published June 4, 2005, about a functional MRI, a type of magnetic resonance imaging scan that shows which parts of a brain are in use during the scan. The Canadian Science Writers’ Association administers the prize, which was announced in St. John’s, Nfld., at the association’s annual gala.

“Tom shows us continually that he’s one of the top science journalists in the country,” said Citizen managing editor Derek Shelly. Spears has been writing for the Citizen for 15 years. With a degree from York University in French and history, he took a winding road to arrive as a science reporter.

Bean Bar Zambuka is the latest innovative dance piece choreographed by West Vancouver resident and York alumna Jennifer Mascall (BFA ‘74) and is scheduled to debut at the Kay Meek Centre, known as West Vancouver’s new cultural jewel, June 28 to July 15, reported North Shore News June 23. Mascall and her dance company Mascall Dance create a new dance about every three years. Bean Bar came from the coffee shops and bars where they danced.

For more than 30 years, Mascall has physically felt every move that she has created and experimented with her contemporary ideas of movement. She was a late bloomer in the dancing world so to speak. It wasn’t until she was 15 that she began performing modern dance. Back in Ontario, she attended York University’s Faculty of Fine Arts and was one of the first graduates of the dance department in 1974.

• Paul James, coach of York’s men’s and women’s soccer teams, continued his analysis of this year’s World Cup on CBC Newsworld June 23.