AGYU launches its new exhibit Sept. 13 with a free public reception
Share
Reimagining cross-cultural movement and migration, two important installations with connections to the Department of Visual Arts and Art History are on display at the Art Gallery of York University (AGYU) from now until Dec. 3. Mexican artist Betsabeé Romero’s monumental collaboration with the Mississaugas of the New Credit First NationBraided Roots / Trenzando raíces is comprised of five commissioned works produced this past summer with York undergraduate students in the L.L. Odette Artist-in-Residency Program. Concurrently, Visual Arts MFA candidate Nima Arabi (BFA ’18) introduces Persian orosi to the vitrines in the covered walkway outside the gallery in his new work Talking Windows.
From Betsabeé Romero’s ‘Braided Roots / Trenzando raíces’ Image courtesy Art Gallery of York University
There will be a free public reception Thursday, Sept. 13, from 6 to 9 p.m. featuring performance by members of the Mississaugas of the New Credit Drum Circle. A tour of Braided Roots / Trenzando raíces with co-curators Emelie Chhangur (AGYU Interim Director/Curator) and Cathie Jamieson (artist, Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation Band Council Member) takes place on Sunday, Oct. 21 at 2 p.m.
From Betsabeé Romero’s ‘Braided Roots / Trenzando raíces’ Image courtesy Art Gallery of York University
For Romero, culture is always in movement. Perhaps this is why the vehicle and, in particular, the tire—with its socio-economic and material traces—plays such a key metaphorical role in her practice. Traces are the evidence of errantry: of movement making manifest culture’s trajectory as a force of shared knowledge across time and space. This shared knowledge is a form of kinship, and this exhibition is a kind of force that gathers traces: the shared symbols, materials, and traditions that overlap and persist in Indigenous cultures across the Americas.
From Betsabeé Romero’s ‘Braided Roots / Trenzando raíces’ Image courtesy Art Gallery of York University
Featuring work in cast-bronze, carved-wood, cut-vinyl, tractor-tire rubber, deer-hide, feathers, video, and mural Braided Roots / Trenzando raíces is shaped by the experiences, encounters, and exchanges of Romero during her initial research visit to Toronto and New Credit in May 2017 as well as further research developed over the past year and a half—particularly in the aftermath of the Mexico City earthquake—into Canada and its mining practices in the Americas. Bookended by a post-apocalyptic landscape of “lost” marker trees pointing in all directions and an invitation to commune under a Quetzalcoatl (feathered serpent) reinterpreted as a series of inter-connected plumes, Braided Roots / Trenzando raíces weaves together a sophisticated story of strength, solidarity, and wisdom.
From Betsabeé Romero’s ‘Braided Roots / Trenzando raíces’ Image courtesy Art Gallery of York University
For Arabi, migration of form is a wayfinding means that bridges the cultural barriers between his Persian background and the Canadian context of his adopted home. Talking Windows uses the geometrical patterns of orosi (stained-glass sash windows used in Persian architecture) to turn AGYU’s three exterior vitrines into lightboxes. Instead of being a tool for presentation of its contents, the vitrines themselves become an object of art, containing merely the light that makes the windows themselves visible.
Nima Arabi’s ‘Talking Windows’ Image Courtesy of Art Gallery of York University
Also this fall at the AGYU Listening Bench, Halifax-based artist Lou Sheppard’s Birdsongs of North America translates spectrograms produced by analyzing bird calls into music. In the midst of an unprecedented loss of songbirds, this reflection on our relationships to our environment turns the AGYU Listening Bench into a memorial-in-waiting.
For more information on public programming presented in conjunction with AGYU’s fall exhibition, visit: http://AGYU.art
The AGYU is located in the Accolade East Building, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto. Gallery hours are: Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.; Wednesday, 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.; Sunday, noon – 5 p.m.; and Saturday, closed.
AGYU promotes 2SLGBTQIAP positive spaces & experiences and is barrier free.
Everything is FREE
Visionary project leverages theatre to raise climate change awareness
Share
Climate change takes centre stage at York University. Professor Ian Garrett of the School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design has created a thoroughly original way to approach the subject and raise awareness: Climate Change Theatre Action (CCTA), funded by Canada 150, the Arctic Cycle and the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts.
Luciole International Theatre Company performing climate change play, part of CCTA 2017
CCTA is an ambitious, multi-year project. In 2016-17, it commissioned 50 playwrights to produce short pieces about climate change. This resulted in a series of worldwide readings and performances that ran from Oct. 1 to Nov. 17, 2017, to support the 23rd Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP23).
CCTA has not lost momentum since then. In May, it produced an anthology of the 50 plays: Where Is The Hope: An Anthology of Short Climate Change Plays. This fall, the group is commissioning the next set of plays for 2019.
Ian Garrett
“Climate change is an important issue right now because it is perhaps the greatest existential crisis that we face as a civilization, as a species. There is no person who is not touched by climate change,” said Garrett.
Designer, producer, educator and researcher, Garrett is one of North America’s most esteemed experts on sustainability in the performing arts. He is the co-founder and director of the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts. He has spoken on arts and the environment at conferences hosted by Brown University, Dance/USA, the Association of Performing Arts Presenters and Americans for the Arts.
Garrett has been active with the UN conference for quite some time: In 2009 and 2010, he travelled to COP15 in Copenhagen, Denmark and COP16 in Cancun, Mexico to document artistic responses to global climate talks.
Cast of one CCTA climate change play that was staged in 2017 at Brandeis University in Massachusetts
Last year’s CCTA contribution to the UN conference was a major endeavour. “In 2017, for COP23, we organized over 200 events. Seven out of 10 provinces in Canada, all 50 American states in the U.S. and many other countries had events hosted through theatre groups, through universities presenting readings to stimulate conversation through theatre,” said Garrett.
Knowledge translation and engagement at heart of effort
CCTA is built around one central question: “How can we inspire people and turn the challenges of climate change into opportunities?” It is all about knowledge translation, ensuring that the messages about climate change are accessible to the public.
“While many people might know something about climate change, often times looking at climate models or the data that’s associated with it may not always be the clearest thing, unless you’re a climate scientist,” Garrett said. “Theatre becomes a much more accessible place to have these conversations. It makes it human; it makes it something that’s relatable.”
Danielle Baudrand, environmental artist in CCTA, ensures that the messages about climate change are accessible to the public
York University has key role to play
This project engages both York alumni as well as current students. For example, at the launch event held at York in the fall of 2017, most of the people who were reading were current students, while the playwrights were recent alumni.
As the CCTA project continues to unfold, York will continue to serve as a hub for events, performances and symposia, as well as a forum to develop the educational and research foundation for CCTA.
In this way, Garrett’s international work will further enrich York’s theatre program and ensure that this university is leading the charge on climate change. “York is unique in that its theatre program is perhaps the only one in the world that has a sustainable focus and has wrapped it around its entire theatre training curriculum,” Garrett explained.
Project is part of Canada 150 @ York
CCTA was one of 40 projects that won funding from the Office of the President and the Office of the Vice-President Academic and Provost in 2016 to celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary. The call for applications invited faculty, staff and students to submit proposals for innovative projects that would explore Canada’s past and look to its future, while highlighting York and Canada 150 themes relating to the environment, diversity and inclusivity, Indigenous people and youth. A total of $400,000 was awarded to 40 projects.
For more on CCTA 2017, visit the website. Where Is The Hope: An Anthology of Short Climate Change Plays, edited by Bilodeau Chantal, is available at the York University Bookstore. To learn more about Garrett, visit his faculty profile page. To read more about Canada 150 @ York, see the related article.
By Megan Mueller, manager, research communications, Office of the Vice-President Research and Innovation, York University, muellerm@yorku.ca
SSHRC research on global LGBT rights culminates in book
Share
A book launch event marking the release of an anthology co-edited by York University Professor Emerita Nancy Nicol will take place on Thursday, Sept. 13.
Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights: (Neo)colonialism, Neoliberalism, Resistance and Hope is the outcome of five years of collaboration and research by an international research and participatory documentary project titled Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
The project – based in Africa, the Caribbean, India and Canada – was led by Nicol, professor emerita in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design, as well as researchers Adrian Jjuuko, Richard Lusimbo, Nick J. Mulé, Susan Ursel, Amar Wahab and Phyllis Waugh. The project was unique, combining research and writing with participatory documentary filmmaking.
The book is the final outcome of the project, and is for activists as well as academics, researchers, and those interested in advancing social justice and rights for LGBTQI+ people. It includes first-hand insights from leading activists at the forefront of some of the most fiercely fought battlegrounds of contemporary sexual politics in India, the Caribbean and Africa.
The book launch takes place at Glad Day Books, 499 Church St., Toronto, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 13. Nicol will be a speaker at the event, which is sponsored by the Centre for Feminist Research at York University.
Six York University professors receive SSHRC Connection grants
Share
Featured image for the postdoc research story shows the word research in black type on a white background
The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) has awarded Connection Grants to York University Professors Jamie Cameron, Joseph DeSouza, Philip Girard, Susan McGrath, Richard Saunders and Marlis Schweitzer.
The grants, which are valued up to $25,000 each, support events and outreach activities geared toward short-term, targeted knowledge mobilization initiatives related to the professors’ research. The total funding for this year amounts to $143,554.
“York University is delighted with the success of our researchers,” said Robert Haché, vice-president research and innovation at York University. “I want to congratulate the Connection Grant recipients – Professors Cameron, DeSouza, Girard, McGrath, Saunders and Schweitzer – and wish them every success as they move forward with their research projects.
The following are the details for upcoming Connection Grant events. The summaries are presented in order of the dates for each event:
Susan McGrath, professor, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies – Connecting Emerging Scholars and Practitioners to Foster Critical Reflections and Innovation on Migration Research, ongoing to March 31, 2019
Susan McGrath
McGrath, a professor of social work and the resident scholar in the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University, is using her Connection Grant to support a series of outreach activities in refugee and migration studies. Her project involves the development of knowledge clusters, formed through in-person conference round tables and online working groups, to bring together a global network of emerging and established scholars and practitioners on forced migration. The clusters will produce new opportunities for emerging scholars and practitioners to interrogate current research methodologies, dissemination practices and policy, and will facilitate new connections.
The intent is to develop international communities of practice for researchers and practitioners to share literature and ideas, learn about migration issues in different contexts, cultivate connections for collaborations and support new and innovative ideas in migration research.
Leveraging two large migration conferences, the cluster leads will hold in-person round tables in Ottawa and Thessaloniki, Greece. (The Ottawa round tables took place in May at the Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies Conference. The round tables in Greece will take place in July.) Knowledge gained will be mobilized through round-table summaries and briefs, an online discussion article series and a mini podcast series. Papers on the cluster thematics will be submitted to the Refugee Review, an open access online e-journal for emerging scholars and other journals.
Richard Saunders, professor, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies – Resource Nationalism in Southern Africa: Emerging Challenges and New Opportunities, September 22 to 26
Richard Saunders
In recent years, demands for greater national control over and benefit from foreign-owned mining operations have escalated in mineral rich countries in Southern Africa. A resurgent “resource nationalism” has been at the heart of social and economic debates aimed at re-imagining development efforts by local governments. There has been little comparative assessment of objectives, mechanisms and outcomes. Most research has remained focused at the national level and the development consequences of different approaches have not received comprehensive analysis. Saunders, who is a professor of political science, received a Connection Grant to support two linked events that will begin to address this gap in knowledge.
The events will take place in Harare, Zimbabwe this September. The first is a research workshop running from Sept. 22 to 24 that will bring together leading mineral policy researchers from Canada and three Southern African countries (Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe) at the forefront of resource nationalist debates. The second is a policy forum taking place Sept. 25 and 26 at which evidence-based research on the current state of mining policy reform will be presented and serve as the basis for engagement with mining sector stakeholders. The resulting knowledge will be disseminated through the publication of workshop papers, policy briefs and summaries of findings aimed at mining stakeholders, policy makers and the public.
Marlis Schweitzer (with co-applicant Banting postdoctoral Fellow Heather Fitzsimmons Frey), professor, School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design – Playing with History: A Performance-Based Historiography Symposium, October 11 and 12
Marlis Schweitzer
Working with her co-applicant Heather Fitzsimmons Frey, who is a a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at York University, Schweitzer, a professor of theatre, will use her Connection Grant to support a two-day event that will bring together 16 emerging and established scholars from across Canada for Playing with History: A Performance-Based Historiography Symposium.
The event will examine the socio-political, pedagogical and community outreach potential of an emerging research methodology known as performance-based historiography, which bridges theatre, performance studies, cultural history, dance studies and anthropology. Performance-based historiography uses living 21st-century people to embody aspects of past performances to reveal information and questions and to probe a past moment or practice differently than archival or text-based analysis allows.
Heather Fitzsimmons Frey
There have been relatively few opportunities for Canadian scholars to share their projects and discuss the advantages and limitations of performance-based historiography. The symposium will present a needed opportunity for exchange and collaboration through presentations, a workshop and keynote lecture/performance. The knowledge will be shared through a publicly available website with materials generated from the symposium, a co-edited section of the journal Theatre Research in Canada, a video-recording of the keynote that will be posted to the website, podcast interviews with presenters, a co-authored chapter for the Cambridge Handbook for Material Culture Studies, and an annotated bibliography that will be posted to the website.
The following are summaries of the Connection Grant events that have taken place:
Jamie Cameron, professor, Osgoode Hall Law School – Defamation Law and the Internet, May 3
Jamie Cameron
Cameron’s Connection Grant funded a one-day conference in partnership with the Law Commission of Ontario (LCO) titled, Defamation Law and the Internet. The conference took place on Thursday, May 3 at the Donald Lamont Learning Centre in Law Society of Ontario building in downtown Toronto.
The conference featured an international cohort of scholars and practitioners. Topics discussed at the conference were: defamation, online speech and reputation; the relationship between freedom of expression and privacy; whether or how Internet intermediaries (such as Facebook or Google) should be responsible for online defamation; Internet content moderation; dispute resolution; and access to justice.
The conference papers and proceedings will be published in a peer-reviewed special issue of the Osgoode Hall Law School Journal along with outreach and profile on the LCO website. The conference is part of the LCO’s Defamation Law in the Internet Age project.
Joseph DeSouza, professor, Faculty of Health – First International Symposium for Dance and Well-Being: Advancing Research, Policy and Practice, May 24 to 26
Joseph DeSouza
DeSouza is a professor of psychology in the Faculty of Health. His Connection Grant funded a three-day symposium co-presented with Les Grands Ballet Canadiens at the new Édifice Wilder Espace Danse in Montreal.
The symposium featured workshops and learning opportunities for researchers, students, performers and practitioners from dance and other fields. In addition to the workshops, attendees took part in poster presentations, experiential education activities and knowledge exchange sessions to gain insight into how to approach and understand the danced body differently.
The symposium provided a new platform where the dance for well-being practices were presented side by side with academic research. Dance scholars, kinesiologists, choreographers and practitioners shared knowledge and opportunities for future interdisciplinary collaboration.
Philip Girard, professor, Osgoode Hall Law School – Beyond Harvard; Transplanting Legal Education International Conference, June 5 and 6
Philip Girard
A professor of law at Osgoode, Girard’s Connection Grant supported a two-day conference at the Law Society of Ontario. The conference explored the role that U.S. legal education has played historically in the development of the law and law schools globally during the 20th century.
The U.S. has a well-established tradition of critical writing about legal education, including its history. This work has underscored the relationship between legal education, lawyering, law, legal consciousness and local and national politics. It has also challenged rationalizations of the present state of legal education and encouraged law professors to view their situation differently.
Beyond the U.S. it is rare to find a similarly large body of work that maps the origins, contours and changing state of the discipline of law within a particular region. An international cohort of legal scholars attended the event. The conference focused on creative and innovative thinking about legal education reform.
Proceedings from the symposium include a synthetic report, a video archive of presentations and the academic publication of conference proceedings.
YFile’s favourite photos from Spring Convocation 2018
Share
Spring Convocation 2018
York University celebrated its most recent graduates during Spring Convocation 2018, with 12 ceremonies taking place from June 15 to 22.
The convocation ceremony is a memorable occasion for graduating students, faculty and staff. It’s an opportunity for everyone to recognize the accomplishments of York University’s newest alumni.
YFile‘s editors have selected some memorable images from each of the 12 ceremonies and compiled them into a gallery (see below).
Music Professor Stephanie Martin writes opera based on Llandovery Castle tragedy
Share
Llandovery Castle opera
An important story of Canadian history and tragedy will be told through an opera written by Stephanie Martin, associate professor of music at York University’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design.
Stephanie Martin
Llandovery Castle, which premieres June 26 and 27 in Toronto, highlights the journey of the Canadian hospital ship Llandovery Castle that was torpedoed in the North Atlantic Ocean in June 1918. The story focuses on 14 nurses from across Canada who served in harrowing circumstances around the First World War.
The opera features music written by Martin and libretto by Paul Ciufo, and will be staged at the Calvin Presbyterian Church in Toronto.
The music of opera is scored for a sonorous classical chamber orchestra and nine singers, and has been described as “a modern flirtation between baroque, classical, traditional and popular genres.” Martin describes this operatic style as “21st century bel canto”, focused on the narrative and expressive power of the human voice.
Martin’s interest in the story began in 2015, when during a rehearsal for another project she noticed a dedication plaque for a Llandovery Castle nurse on the wall of Calvin Presbyterian Church.
Martin was director of Schola Magdalena (a women’s ensemble for chant, medieval and modern polyphony,) conductor emeritus of Pax Christi Chorale; and past director of music at the historic church of Saint Mary Magdalene in Toronto.
‘Seek out the unfamiliar’ honorary degree recipient Deepa Mehta tells graduands
Share
Chancellor Greg Sorbara, Deepa Mehta and President and Vice-Chancellor Rhonda Lenton
“Seek out experiences which are unfamiliar and seemingly disquieting.”
This was the powerful message that honorary degree recipient Deepa Mehta delivered to graduands at the afternoon Spring Convocation ceremony held at York University on June 18.
Deepa Mehta
Mehta, a filmmaker whose work is described as courageous and inspiring, received an honorary doctor of letters degree and delivered an address to those graduating from the School of Arts, Media, Performance and Design, as well as a cohort of graduands from the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies.
Introduced by Chancellor Greg Sorbara as “one of the great storytellers in Canada, and in North America, and indeed around the world,” Mehta is an artistic leader whose accomplishments in the film industry push boundaries, address controversy and strive to battle cultural intolerance.
Mehta was born in India and studied philosophy at the University of Delhi before starting a career as a filmmaker, and began producing her own documentaries before moving to Canada. Since then, she has created numerous television series, and directed and produced many critically acclaimed documentaries and feature films.
Much of her career has reflected the duality of her cultural identity, as well as her tendency to cast light on more proscribed or taboo topics. This is noted in her celebrated Elements Trilogy: Fire (1996); Earth (1998); and Water (2005).
She has received both a Genie Award and an Oscar nomination, and in 2012, she received Canada’s highest honour in the performing arts, the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards for Lifetime Artistic Achievement, and was made a Member of the Order of Ontario in 2013. She has received 16 honorary degrees and in 2013 was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada.
Mehta opened her remarks by reminding graduating students of the dedication, sacrifices and efforts it took to reach this day, and offering a congratulations on their achievements. She remarked that education prepares one for critical thought, rational analysis and considered debate – and that accepting differing opinions may be uncomfortable, but is necessary to succeed in life.
This requires accepting and even embracing the notion that there will be opinions which differ from one’s own, she said.
From left: Chancellor Greg Sorbara, honorary degree recipient Deepa Mehta and President and Vice-Chancellor Rhonda L. Lenton
In contemplation of the possibility of another opinion perhaps being correct, she advised to “observe your own discomfort and use your conclusions to gain greater self-knowledge, great self-control and a greater ability to discern the truth.”
Divergent opinions will happen, she said, and will be uncomfortable at times, but those opinions should be heard.
“The idea of creating comfortable spaces and comfortable contexts is a noble and indeed a necessary one, but if it ends up being used as a tool to divide us into isolated communities whose views become hardened and uncompromising then ultimately we will become a culture of warring factions,” Mehta said.
A comfortable space, she suggested, is one where everyone is listening with openness and without personal bias.
As a film director, Mehta said she has come across varying creative views that have challenged her direction. She admits to feeling uncomfortable and even insecure in those instances, but learned through those experiences to listen to, and respect, opposing views.
She urged graduands to embrace potential valuable experiences by engaging with others of difference.
“Be open to opposing viewpoints,” she said. “Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate. You will build richer life experiences and a richer and more healthy society.”
Top graduate students receive Governor General’s gold medals
Share
Three York University grads are this year’s recipients of a Governor General’s Gold Medal, awarded for achieving the highest academic standing. The medals are the most prestigious recognition presented to graduate students. This year’s recipients are Miranda DiLorenzo, Rebecca Hall and Tamas Nagypal.
“The Governor General’s Gold Medals are an academic distinction that celebrates the very highest level of scholarly excellence in Canada,” said Rhonda L. Lenton, York University president and vice-chancellor. “On behalf of all of us at the University, I am delighted to congratulate Miranda, Rebecca and Tamas on their achievement, which truly is a testament to their hard work, dedication and passion, as well as the impact they have made during their time at York.”
Miranda DiLorenzo
Miranda DiLorenzo
DiLorenzo recently completed her master’s degree in Clinical-Developmental Psychology at York University in Faculty of Health Professor Rebecca Pillai Riddell’s Opportunities to Understand Childhood Hurt (OUCH) Laboratory. DiLorenzo is now a PhD student working in the OUCH lab and conducting her research in the same program. She is focused on examining how the substrates of emotion regulation – a process essential for maintaining psychological wellbeing – develop early in life.
During infancy, children learn how to calm down through coordinating their stress reactivity and regulation states with their caregiver. However, there is a lack a basic understanding of how the process of caregiver-infant co-regulation develops early in development. The goal of DiLorenzo’s doctoral research is to provide a better understanding of the development of caregiver-infant co-regulation (across age and distressing contexts) and to determine the relationships between co-regulation and broad infant mental health indicators.
Rebecca Hall
Rebecca Hall
Hall holds a PhD in Political Science from York University. She takes a feminist political economy approach to questions related to Indigenous/Canadian state relations, resource extraction and gender-based violence. Hall’s scholarly publications have examined multiple sites of contemporary de/colonizing struggle in Canada, including resource extraction, property relations, caring labours and interpersonal violence.
She is the recipient of the prestigious Mary McEwan Memorial Award for feminist research for her dissertation titled, Diamonds are Forever: a decolonizing, feminist approach to diamond mining in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, which takes a feminist political economy approach to the impact of the northern diamond mining industry on Indigenous women. It reveals the ways in which Dene, Métis, and Inuit women’s labours that contribute to the social reproduction of their kin and communities have been both a site of colonial restructuring towards the demands of extractive capital, and of decolonizing resistance.
In July, Hall will take up an appointment as assistant professor in the Department of Global Development Studies at Queen’s University.
Tamas Nagypal
Tamas Nagypal
A newly minted postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Writing, Literature, and Film at Oregon State University, Nagypal’s scholarship examines the biopolitics of neoliberal capitalism in film and media through the optics of historicity, affect, aesthetics, race and gender. His dissertation, Film Noir as the Sovereign-Image of Empire: Cynicism, White Male Biopolitics, and the Neoliberal Cinematic Apparatus, offered a historical account of American film noir from the Second World War to the era of globalization. It tracked the transformation of the genre through the changing images of the sovereign white male body it put forward in different periods.
Nagypal is now working on a book manuscript titled “Illiberal Cinema in Post-Socialist Eastern Europe” that looks at the cinema of disillusionment that emerged during the region’s failed transition to liberal democracy. His research has been published in journals such as Mediations, Film International and the Journal of Religion and Film, as well in the edited volume Žižek and Media Studies: A Reader.
More about the Governor General’s Academic Medals
Lord Dufferin, Canada’s third governor general after Confederation, created the academic medals in 1873 to encourage academic excellence across the nation. Over the years, they have become the most prestigious award that students in Canadian schools can receive.
The Governor General’s Academic Medals are awarded at four distinct levels: Bronze at the secondary school level; Collegiate Bronze at the post-secondary, diploma level; Silver at the undergraduate level; and Gold at the graduate level. Medals are presented on behalf of the governor general by participating educational institutions, along with personalized certificates signed by the governor general. There is no monetary award associated with the medal. (Source: the official website of the Governor General of Canada.)
Two York University researchers earn major SSHRC Partnership Grants
Share
Professors Tamara Daly, Faculty of Health, and Janine Marchessault, School of Art, Media, Performance & Design, have been successful in their applications for Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Grants. Both projects are groundbreaking and highly collaborative with partners spanning across the globe.
“York University is delighted to see Professors Daly and Marchessault receive Partnership Grants. Their projects will advance knowledge and understanding on critical issues of intellectual, social, economic and cultural significance,” said Vice-President Research & Innovation Robert Haché.
“Winning these two grants signal York University’s strong research leadership in this area,” he added.
Daly’s project will transform fears about an aging population
Tamara Daly
Daly is an associate professor in the School of Health Policy and Management and director of the York University Centre for Aging Research and Education (YU-CARE), which promotes innovative research, education and advocacy on aging issues, and contributes to improving health outcomes for seniors in Canada and around the world. She is a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Research Chair in Gender, Care Work and Health.
Daly’s winning project, “Imagining Age-Friendly ‘Communities within Communities:’ International Promising Practices,” was awarded $2.5 million dollars over seven years. It will unfold over this time in urban communities in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway and Taiwan.
A very large and highly collaborative project, it draws together international scholars and partners from a variety of disciplinary and sectoral perspectives to address the complexities of aging practices and policies to support it. It has 28 co-applicants and collaborators, including four from York. It also has 16 partner organizations from across Canada and globally. Canadian academic partners include the York University Centre for Aging Research and Education, Carleton University; Trent University; the Trent Centre for Aging and Society; the University of Lethbridge, the University of Montreal International Centre for Comparative Criminology, and St. Paul’s University.
This project is built around a central question: How can age-friendliness support conditions in which all senior citizens not only maintain healthy active lives, but can participate and create meaning in later life? It will transform fears about an aging population into conversations and practices that address both the complexities and possibilities inherent in a world that welcomes the meaning that old age brings to life.
The team will pay special attention to gender as it looks at how inequalities and differences between and among women, men and non-binary people play out in seniors’ lives and policy assumptions.
Furthermore, the researchers will investigate what makes age-friendly communities promising places with “promising practices” for women, men and non-binary people; those living in poverty; LGBTIQ2S, ethno-racial, indigenous, disability and Dementia communities; families who require specific supports and services; and those who support seniors, especially migrants and domestic careers, who are aging on the job.
The partnership is committed to advancing the World Health Organization’s call for new research and understanding about age-friendly cities. This focus aligns with two of York’s compelling areas for strategic research development: Healthy Individuals, Healthy Communities and Global Health and Scholarship of Socially Engaged Research (Strategic Research Plan, 2013-2018).
Marchessault’s project promises to redress the unevenness of Canadian preservation efforts
Janine Marchessault
Marchessault was the co-founder of the Future Cinema Lab and the inaugural director of Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts and Technology Research at York.
Marchessault’s winning project, “Archive/Counter-Archive: Activating Canada’s Moving Image Heritage,” was awarded $2.499 million over six years. It involved 43 co-applicants and collaborators from across Canada and globally, nine from York across a wide variety of Faculties. It also involved 24 partner organizations from across Canada.
This partnership will focus on the new theoretical questions, and the methodological challenges, that attend the changing nature and political realities of visual media archives. It seeks to redress the unevenness of Canadian preservation efforts thus far by emphasizing Canada’s most vulnerable moving image heritage – women’s media; Indigenous media arts; films and media from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, two-spirited and queer (LGBT2Q) community; and archives from Canada’s immigrant communities.
Working collaboratively, four universities (York, Ryerson, Queen’s, Concordia), numerous archival organizations and policy advocates will advance counter-archival approaches to achieve four objectives:
Create new, practice-based knowledge and methodologies through seven case studies of community and/or independent archives in Canada;
Train and mentor the next generation of curators, archivists, cultural activists, scholars, digital humanists, artists, highly qualified personnel, cultural policy and intellectual property (IP) specialists to advance Canadian moving image heritage preservation, accessibility, and presentation;
Build a sustainable multilingual digital archive, an open access, 3D digital platform, where visitors can encounter, interact with and travel through different archival case studies; and
Foster an audiovisual archive network in Canada, linking community archives to citizens, researchers and policy-makers.
Importantly, this partnership project will be buoyed by its affiliation with Sensorium: the Centre for Digital Arts & Technology. It will also draw from the expertise of IP Osgoode, which is the law school’s IP and technology clinic, as well as the library, which has extensive experience in the areas of digital platform development, digital asset management and related IP policy issues.
The partnership advances York’s historical strengths in Analyzing Cultures and Mobilizing Creativity and contributes to the expansion of Digital Cultures research (Strategic Research Plan, 2013-2018).
2018 President’s University-Wide Teaching Award recipients announced
Share
Five outstanding faculty members who have demonstrated innovative approaches to teaching will be honoured during the 2018 Spring Convocation Ceremonies with President’s University-Wide Teaching Awards.
This year’s recipients are: Professor Dan Palermo in the Lassonde School of Engineering; Professor Ruth Koleszar-Green in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS); Bridget Cauthery, a contract faculty member in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD); Minha Ha, a teaching assistant in the Lassonde School of Engineering; and Reena Shadaan, a teaching assistant in LA&PS. They were selected by the Senate Committee on Awards for their imaginative and significant contributions to enhancing the quality of learning for students enrolled at York University.
“We are delighted to recognize this year’s recipients for the innovative teaching practices, creativity and commitment they bring to providing the best possible learning experiences for our students,” said York University President and Vice-Chancellor Rhonda Lenton. “We are grateful to these academic leaders in our community not only for their dedication to our students, but also for their vital contributions to creating a culture of teaching and learning excellence that makes York one of Canada’s leading progressive and engaged universities.”
Each of the recipients will receive $3,000. Their names will be engraved on the President’s University-Wide Teaching Awards plaque in Vari Hall.
Dan Palermo
Dan Palermo, a professor in the Civil Engineering Program in the Lassonde School of Engineering, will receive the President’s University-Wide Teaching Award in the Full-Time Senior Faculty category. Palermo was the first faculty member to join Lassonde’s Civil Engineering program when it was established in 2013. He was instrumental in setting up both the undergraduate and graduate programs.
In their letters of support for Palermo’s nomination, students commented on his enthusiasm, clarity and approachability, his ability to connect theoretical with practical knowledge, and his ability to consistently offer real-world examples of theoretical practices in action. “Dr. Palermo looked for any chance to present real-world examples of lecture material… giving a deeper connection between the concepts and their role in my future career,” wrote one of his undergraduate student nominators. A proponent of experiential learning, Palermo is an avid supporter of involving undergraduate students in research and actively seeks research opportunities for them. His service extends beyond the University and he has hosted and trained MITACS Globalink Research interns in his laboratory. In 2009, Palermo received the Dean’s Teaching Commendation for his graduate course in seismic analysis and design for reinforced concrete structures.
Ruth Koleszar-Green
Professor Ruth Koleszar-Green in the School of Social Work in LA&PS is the University’s inaugural Special Adviser on Indigenous Initiatives to the Office of the President. She is also the co-chair of the York University Indigenous Council, an advisory body on Indigenous education. Koleszar-Green will receive the President’s University-Wide Teaching award in the Full-Time Faculty category. Koleszar-Green, who identifies as an urban Indigenous person, is a citizen of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. She is from the Mohawk Nation and is a member of the Turtle Clan. Koleszar-Green is an expert in Indigenous education and social issues that impact Indigenous communities, as well as anti-racist education and income security reform.
In their letters of support, Koleszar-Green’s nominators consistently praised her teaching and knowledge of Indigenous peoples in Canada and for her approach to creating an inclusive environment. “Professor Koleszar-Green always motivated the ongoing development of learning processes inside and outside the classroom through disruptive, creative and Indigenous ways of knowledge production,” writes one of her nominators. She has led the way in Indigenizing institutional research and teaching structures at York University, receiving accolades from one nominator, who writes: “Her incredible skill as a knowledge keeper for our community continues to inspire and encourage us to believe that change is not only possible but, under her leadership, it is inevitable.”
Bridget Cauthery
As a contract faculty member in AMPD since 2008, Bridget Cauthery teaches in the Department of Dance. She is being recognized with a President’s University-Wide Teaching Award in the Contract and Adjunct Faculty category. Her nominators praised Cauthery for her imaginative use and command of technology enhanced learning and creative course development. She is a proponent for the use of video both as a teaching aid and as a method for students to submit videos of their original choreography. She has been an invited speaker on effective blended learning strategies to members of AMPD through the school’s lunch and learn sessions and focus groups.
Her investment in evaluating effective e-Learning strategies led her to complete the Teaching Commons’ EduCATE! Education, Curriculum and Teaching Excellence one-year program in 2015-16. She has researched the impact of innovative teaching methods on undergraduate students and will use her findings to inform future iterations of her courses. Her nominators referred to her outstanding ability to engage undergraduate students in their learning (for example, she addresses 250 students in one class each by name). She is a respected mentor and actively promotes the work of her graduate students. Under her leadership, one student writes: “I had the opportunity to benefit from her caring and attentive manner, her skillful maneuvering through a variety of different learning platforms and information sources, and her ability to draw all of these together as a coherent whole in a way which resonated with students’ immediate experiences.”
Minha Ha
Minha Ha is a mechanical engineering doctoral student in the Lassonde School of Engineering. She will receive a President’s University-Wide Teaching Award in the Teaching Assistant category. Her nominators refer to her demonstrated leadership and contributions to the scholarship of teaching. “Students highlight the compassion, empathy, enthusiasm and engagement that Minha demonstrates in her teaching,” writes her primary nominator. “Ms. Ha is a teaching assistant who truly cares about her students and will go above and beyond normal expectations in order to see her students succeed.”
Ha received praise for her work as a teaching assistant coordinator and is described as someone who cares about her colleagues and mentors, and promotes their success in teaching. In her courses, she strives to include the historical narrative of concepts so as to situate students’ learning, she also invests in a genuine relational experience of mutual recognition and incorporates a firsthand experience of success. Inquiry learning is a large part of her teaching approach and Ha endeavours to make students’ learning visible as an important part of responding to their needs.
Reena Shadaan
Reena Shadaan is a doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Environmental Studies. Shadaan is a teaching assistant in the Business & Society Program in the Department of Social Science in LA&PS. She will receive the President’s University-Wide Teaching Award in the Teaching Assistant category. Shadaan is an interdisciplinary researcher and the recipient of the 2017 Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship established to honour Nelson Mandela. “Reena is in a league of her own when it comes to TAing because she goes beyond what is expected and she strives to give her students the very best academic experience,” writes one of her nominators.
As a TA for SOSC 1341, Shadaan works with more than 200 students, (35 of them are taking the course remotely in Kenya). The course is in partnership with the Borderless Higher Education for Refugees (BHER) program, which provides online access to postsecondary education for refugees in the Dadaab and Kakuma camps in Kenya. (The course is challenging as it is delivered remotely to the students in Kenya.) Shadaan is praised by students in Canada and Kenya for her use of technologies such as email, Skype, Camtasia, Moodle discussion forums and WhatsApp, to make the pedagogy work for the African students. She uses a Freirean inspired, problem-posing method in her tutorials. She is described as being especially good at teaching students how to think critically about what they are reading and to think creatively about how to formulate and express their own ideas in class discussions and in written assignments.
The purpose of the President’s University-Wide Teaching Awards is to provide significant recognition for excellence in teaching, to encourage its pursuit, to publicize such excellence when achieved across the University and in the wider community, and to promote informed discussion of teaching and its improvement. The awards demonstrate the value York University attaches to teaching.
Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights: (Neo)colonialism, Neoliberalism, Resistance and Hope is the outcome of five years of collaboration and research by an international research and participatory documentary project titled Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
