At the Schulich School of Business at York University, which currently has 1,400 full-time, part-time and executive master of business administration (MBA) students registered, Dean Dezsö J. Horváth agrees that increasing specialization is a byproduct of globalization, wrote the Toronto Star July 25 in a story about MBA degree programs. “The world is becoming too complex,” says Horváth. “If you want to become manager of a hospital, it’s an advantage to have an MBA/MD.”
Schulich MBA programs offer a total of 18 specializations. An MBA degree partnership between Schulich and the Faculté des Sciences de l’Administration de l’Université Laval in Quebec City promises to “graduate bilingual and bicultural managers with a superior understanding of the realities and conditions of the Canadian business environment.”
Donor needed to save man’s life
Steve Pho is fighting for his life at Princess Margaret Hospital, wrote The Toronto Sun July 25.
The 23-year-old York University student, who has been suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) for three years, now has an infection to worry about. Pho is currently undergoing chemotherapy but his only chance of survival is to find a bone marrow match.
“He’s really sick right now. He’s in a lot of pain from an infection. His whole left side is swollen and bruised because his platelets are so low,” said Pho’s sister, Maureen.
Neighbourhood comes together when an NBA star pays a visit
Raptors star Chris Bosh ate a burger and threw a few balls during an appearance in Vaughan yesterday, wrote The Toronto Sun July 25. What he didn’t do was go one-on-one with contest winner and Naji Naeemzada.
Fans, however, didn’t seem disappointed as the 6-foot-10 forward signed autographs and posed for photos.
Naeemzada’s Starling Boulevard home became a big-league basketball court – complete with mascot and cheerleaders – as Bosh showed up to play against the 21-year-old York University student, who won the Direct Energy Driveway Challenge online contest.
The street was blocked off as 100 of Naeemzada’s friends and neighbours took in the exhibition. “It is nice to be here for the fans,” Bosh said. “We are here for our fans, who mean so much to the team.”
Looking for motivation in all the right places
The cultural shock of moving from Quesnel to Toronto and from Correlieu Secondary School to York University was enough to get Amrita Kauldher back into the world of pageants, wrote BC’s Quesnel Cariboo Observer July 23.
Three years ago, she was a Quesnel princess. But this year’s BC Ambassador’s pageant is the first she will have competed in since then. “Right after I was done Miss Quesnel, I kind of felt like I was done with it," Kauldher said. “I was encouraged to keep going, but I thought, ‘I’ll just put this behind me’.”
She moved right to Toronto after graduating and says she was hit with a wake of cultural shock that she had never experienced before. “You’re coming from a small town in Quesnel, first of all York’s [Keele] campus has more people than Quesnel and you’re just seeing all these new people every day, “ she said.
Kauldher’s speech is on one of the most intrinsically Canadian topics there is: multiculturalism. “What I find is that when people look at the East Indian people and say ‘They’re hard-working people, they came here to work in forestry,’ but when you look at that picture, you’re not really exposed to the deeper issues,” she said.
Ajax wants families to sign up for fitness challenge
The deSa family [is]…literally Ajax’s poster family for fitness with their picture on the fitness challenge flyer, wrote the Ajax News Advertiser July 24.
But it wasn’t always so. Dwayne deSa, now 20, was the first one to hit the gym at the McLean’s Community Centre about four years ago after finding out he enjoyed working out while in high school.
DeSa will be studying kinesiology at York University and often helps other people new to the gym. “It’s good for my family,” he said. “I like to see them be the best they can be.”
Doing Shakespeare is a dream job for aspiring actors
For Mitch Nasheim, this marks his last production for Bottle Tree Productions, before leaving to study at York University in the Fall, wrote the Kingston Whig-Standard July 25 in a story about the theatre company’s production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Kingston’s Wellington Street Theatre until Aug. 1.
He said the greatest satisfaction any performer can get is the laughter of the audience. “It’s the feeling that I get when I make people laugh, that’s what I like the most about acting.”
Nasheim was quick to add that there are exceptions to that rule. “That said, if you’re doing Hamlet and people are laughing in the final death scene, you’ve done something completely, horribly wrong.”
Pioneering hockey broadcaster helped launch Coach’s Corner
Al Stewart (LLB ’54) was “the idea man” who changed the "Hockey Night In Canada" (HNIC) intermission and later unleashed Don Cherry on Canadian hockey fans coast to coast, wrote the Toronto Star July 27 in an obituary.
“Al was the one who named Coach’s Corner,” recalls Ralph Mellanby, the HNIC executive producer who hired Stewart for intermission features in 1969. “He was a creative genius. I wanted HNIC to instruct.”
Allan Stewart, 73, died in hospital last Wednesday of complications from recent surgery.
“He was a classy guy,” Cherry said. “He was the one who gave me the call to fly east. It was 1980, Colorado Rockies had fired me as their coach and that was my biggest break.
“The very first Coach’s Corner segment was done in Al’s home,” Cherry added. “He had a recreation room and it was all set up. I was alone. They were taped segments then…partially scripted with game highlights. We did the first 16 segments like that.”
Mellanby recalled a 1968 pilot feature Stewart produced for him on hockey safety pioneer Dr. Tom Pashby. “It was brilliant,” Mellanby said.
On air
- Michiel Horn, University historian and professor emeritus at Glendon, spoke about his latest book, York University – The Way Must Be Tried, on CP24-TV July 26.
- Paul Delaney, professor of physics & astronomy in York’s Faculty of Science & Engineering, spoke about communicating with astronauts at the International Space Station on CTV News July 26.