YUeats introduces value menu to address food insecurity
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York University’s campus food services provider, YUeats, has created a new $6.99 value meal meant to provide the York community with access to meals that are filling, nutritious and affordable.
The new on-campus value meal program will launch in Central Square in Summer 2023, Winters and Stong Colleges in Fall 2023, and be available throughout the year at the University’s Glendon Campus.
Menus will rotate daily and offer a wide range of options that cater to different dietary requirements and preferences. “This initiative was launched to increase the availability of nutritious, culturally diverse and well-balanced hot meals to our York community,” says Dahlia Abou El Hassan, York’s in-house dietitian.
“Many students identified food insecurity in York’s recent 2022 Canadian Campus Well-being Survey as a significant challenge, and this concerns all of us. I’m delighted the Food Services team worked quickly to provide students and the community with a selection of cost-effective and nutritious meal options. It’s progress towards supporting our community,” said Nona Robinson, vice-provost, students. “We are continuing to work with partners across the University to provide additional food supports for students.”
York launches production accounting micro-credential program
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York University and Cinespace Studios have partnered to create a production accounting micro-credential program in response to growing demand from the film and television industry.
York Motion Media Studio
The new six-week program will launch June 2023 and be taught in person at the York University Motion Media Studio – an interdisciplinary space for learning, teaching and production located on Cinespace Studios Toronto’s Kipling campus in Etobicoke. The curriculum will teach students the important role production accounting plays in the film and television industry, as well as common systems, tools and techniques used in the profession. The course is also managed by Schulich ExecEd.
“Schulich ExecEd is excited to partner with the York University Motion Media Studio and Cinespace Studios for the Foundations of Production Accounting program,” said Rami Mayer, executive director, Schulich ExecEd. “Accelerated reskilling is the way of the future for mid-career professionals, and micro-credentials have become the way of acknowledging to employers that the new skill has been learned. This program is a wonderful example of its practical use for a real need in an important industry for Ontario and the GTA.”
This latest collaborative venture is part of an ongoing strategic partnership between the University and Cinespace, which renewed its commitment to York in 2022 with $3.12 million in support.
“York University is proud to extend our partnership with Cinespace Studios to deliver this innovative micro-credential in production accounting that fills a need for highly skilled professionals in a growing industry like film and television,” said Sarah Bay-Cheng, dean of York’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design. “The production accounting micro-credential is testament to York University’s commitment to making quality education accessible to diverse learners while preparing the industry leaders to create positive change.”
“Film and television production accountants are in critically short supply globally and this micro-credential program will allow the industry to quickly fill a much-needed role as production volumes continue in the region,” says Ashley Rice, president and co-managing partner at Cinespace Studios.
Those interested in further information can review the micro-credential program’s details and curriculum here.
Harry Jerome Leadership Award goes to York alum Rosemarie Powell
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York University alum Rosemarie Powell (MES ’15) will be honoured at the 2023 Harry Jerome Awards for her long-serving work in advancing social, economic and environmental justice.
Rosemarie Powell
The Harry Jerome Awards recognize excellence in the African Canadian community. Powell will be presented with the Leadership Award on April 29 during the 41st Black Business and Professional Association (BBPA) Annual Harry Jerome Awards Gala.
Powell is executive director of the Toronto Community Benefits Network, a non-profit community-labour coalition where she advocates for disadvantaged communities and equity-seeking groups in the City of Toronto. In this role, she has grown the community benefits movement and strengthened the coalition to create good jobs and opportunities through government investment in infrastructure and urban development for Black, Indigenous and racialized peoples with a focus on those who are youth, women and newcomers.
With more than 20 years of service to grassroots communities and organizations, Powell has led numerous community-based programs and services that support marginalized and under-represented groups and their access to the labour market. Throughout her career, she has advanced equitable approaches to policy development and implementation at various levels of government as it relates to land use planning, infrastructure investment and urban development.
She is the recipient of several awards for her leadership and imagination in community engagement and environmental advocacy, and has previously held roles at the Jamaican Canadian Association, the Jane-Finch Community and Family Centre, and Skills for Change.
Established in the memory of Harry Jerome, an outstanding African Canadian Olympic athlete, scholar and social advocate, the BBPA Harry Jerome Awards celebrates African Canadian achievement that pays tribute to outstanding and inspirational African Canadians who are role models of excellence.
The Harry Jerome Awards focus on a number of different categories, including athletics, leadership, young entrepreneurs, business, professional excellence, leadership, arts/media entertainment, health sciences. These awards are done through a nomination process by individuals and organizations across the country.
The Board of Directors additionally selects the president’s, lifetime achievement and diversity awards.
LA&PS writer-in-residence hosts conversation with author Miriam Toews
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The Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS) and the Department of English will host Writer-in-Residence Karen Solie in conversation with internationally revered author Miriam Toews on April 17 from 7 to 9 p.m.
Miriam Toews
As part of the conversation, Toews will read selections from her work which includes best-selling novels such as New York Times editors’ choice Fight Night (2021), Women Talking (2018), All My Puny Sorrows (2014), Irma Voth (2011), The Flying Troutmans (2008), A Complicated Kindness (2004), A Boy of Good Breeding (1998) and Summer of My Amazing Luck (1996). Toews has also published one non-fiction book, Swing Low: A Life (2000).
In recognition of her literary accomplishments, Toews has been inducted into the Order of Manitoba and throughout her career has won: the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction, the Libris Fiction Book of the Year Award, the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Writers’ Trust Engel Findley Award. Toews’ work has been translated into many languages and is read in countries around the world.
Karen Solie
After a discussion focused on “writing, reading, fighting and talking,” Toews will take questions from the audience in a Q-and-A moderated by Solie, and will conclude with a book signing. This event is open to all members of the York community and beyond.
The LA&PS writer-in-residence program and its featured guest events are designed to supplement existing creative writing courses by providing students with access to working, professional writers for inspiration, feedback and support. Additionally, the program is dedicated to engaging the broader community by developing partnerships with local authors, North York libraries, schools and community organizations to connect the writer-in-residence with off-campus populations.
For more information and to register for the event, click here.
About Writer-in-Residence Karen Solie
Solie is the author of five collections of poetry. Her third, Pigeon (Anansi, 2009), won the Griffin Poetry Prize, Trillium Poetry Prize and the Pat Lowther Award. A volume of selected and new poems, The Living Option, was published in the U.K. in 2013, and was a Poetry Book Society recommendation. The Road In Is Not the Same Road Out (Anansi, FSG, 2015) was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award, and her most recent collection, The Caiplie Caves (Anansi, FSG, Picador, 2019), was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize and Derek Walcott Prize. Her work has been translated into seven languages and has appeared in journals and anthologies across Canada, the U.S., U.K., Europe, and Australia, including the sixth edition of TheNorton Anthology of Poetry. Solie has taught writing for universities and writing programs across Canada and in the U.K. and was the 2022 Holloway Visiting Poet and Lecturer for the University of California at Berkeley. She is currently on the creative writing faculty with the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
Register for Keele Campus summer basketball camps
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The York University Lions men’s and women’s varsity basketball teams will lead a variety of youth basketball camps this summer over the course of six weeks. Three separate camps, organized by age and difficulty, are now open for registration.
Mighty Lions (age eight to 13)
The Mighty Lions will have the chance to develop and enhance their fundamental movements through basketball specific skills training, drills, and games.
Participants will have the opportunity to apply their skills throughout the camp and have fun through game scenarios and competitions.
The camp is instructed by the York Lions players and coaching staff.
Registration for the camp includes a t-shirt, recreational swims, and WOW Factor Fridays.
Junior Lions (age 10 to 15)
The Junior Lions will have the chance to develop and enhance their fundamental movements through basketball specific skills training, drills, and games.
Participants will have the opportunity to apply their skills throughout the camp and have fun through game scenarios and competitions.
The camp is instructed by the York Lions players and coaching staff.
Registration for the camp includes a t-shirt, recreational swims, and WOW Factor Fridays.
Elite Camp (age 14 to 17)
This is the most advanced of all camps, and offers the most challenging skills and drills, while concentrating on various aspects of the game.
Led by the Lions players and coaching staff, this camp is designed for players looking to take their game to the next level.
In addition to all of this, registration includes a t-shirt, recreational swims, and off-court video sessions.
Watch Keele, Glendon Community Conversations online
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York University President and Vice-Chancellor Rhonda Lenton welcomed staff, students and faculty to join her in the York University Community Conversation: Keele Campus on Tuesday, April 4.
Key topics of interest included York’s continued commitment to increasing access to high-quality education, in accordance with United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 (UN SDGs); the sustainable growth of the local and global communities in which York operates; and advancing the institutional goals outlined in the University Academic Plan 2020-2025: Building a Better Future. The Community Conversation also included a live Q-and-A with questions from the in-person and virtual audience.
A full recording of the Keele Campus Community Conversation is available online.
This event followed last month’s Glendon Campus Community Conversation on March 14, both of which focused on the University’s short- and long-term plans to continue to drive positive change and right the future. Watch the Glendon recording here.
NJSC contestants, who are the first-prize winners in each category of the year’s respective provincial Japanese speech contests, travelled from all across the country to compete together. This year, 25 contestants in four levels of proficiency faced off at the national contest, which took place at the Toronto branch of the Japan Foundation on March 26. The three York students who finished in prize-winning positions were:
Grand prize (advanced first): Risha Pelchat (AP/JP2010)
Intermediate first: Ava-karie Hislop (AP/JP2000)
Beginners third: Arman Ahmed (AP/JP1000)
Pelchat – a translation student who also won the grand prize at the Ontario Japanese Speech Contest (OJSC) at the University of Toronto on March 4 – flawlessly delivered her speech entitled “Me? ‘Mademoiselle’? ‘Xiao Jie’?” in which she emphasized the importance of small gestures that could evoke feelings of “gender euphoria” among transgender people.
Hislop, a School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design student, presented her speech “Current Artists and Social Media.” She spoke about the negative influence of online reactions to, and evaluations of, art works, arguing that artists should – above all else – strive to maintain their integrity, originality and creativity.
Ahmed, a computer science student, delivered his speech titled “Break the Shell!” in which he used the metaphor of turtles and dragons to illustrate the experience of coming out of his shell following a long-COVID hiatus and discovering new friendships by taking up competitive dragon boating.
From left: Ava-karie Hislop, Noriko Yabuki-Soh, Risha Pelchat, Arman Ahmed and Eri Takahashi
“York students in the Japanese Studies Program have won many top prizes at both the provincial and national speech contests in the past. This year is no exception,” said DLLL Associate Professor Noriko Yabuki-Soh.
Yabuki-Soh, along with department colleague Associate Professor Norio Ota and faculty members Kumiko Inutsuka, Akiko Mitsui and Eri Takahashi, coached the students leading up to the national contest. Yabuki-Soh also served on the 2023 NJSC’s organizing committee.
“We are so proud of those students who worked so hard for this competition,” she added. “I am sure they will endeavour to become ‘ambassadors’ of Canada to Japan in the future.”
E-cargo cycle rides offer closer look at sustainability at Congress 2023
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By Elaine Smith
Those coming to Congress will have a chance to experience a special group trishaw ride through York University between May 29 to June 1. Rolling Toward Collective Change: Our Greenway’s E-Cargo Cycle Ride invites participants to consider how current social and ecological events have impacted northwest Toronto and how Greenway e-cargo cycles can be used to bring sustainable change to their communities.
Darnel Harris, a York University alumnus (BA ’12, MES ’15), visiting scholar at York’s CITY Institute and founder of Our Greenway, believes that cycling can serve both practical and recreational purposes, especially through electric cycles.
Our Greenway’s trishaw
Its two-seater, three-wheel vehicles are powered by an electricity-assisted cycle and driven by a pilot who pedals and steers from behind. Passengers and pilots are both fully able to experience the benefits of being outdoors together – from the sights and sounds to sunshine.
The e-assist trishaws are essential features of Our Greenway’s Cycling Without Age program – an initiative that offers outdoor experiences to seniors, individuals with various physical abilities and the general public.
While the program is found in 37 countries, the North Toronto Chapter operates in Toronto’s Downsview Park. For Congress 2023, the local chapter will bring four of its trishaws to York. Registration will be required due to limited seats, but anyone with a bike is welcome to ride along.
“It is meant to be a slow experience that allows the riders to chat with the driver,” says Harris. “You can only do that at a slow speed. Usually, people picture cycling being all about young men and speed. It’s an entirely different reality than what we see in action here. We’re trying to show what is possible.”
Harris notes that Europe is far ahead of North America in lowering greenhouse gas emissions through the use of cargo cycles. “If you move goods and people by cargo cycle, a lot of training and education is required and there may be cycle and part supply issues, but, fundamentally, there’s a lot of potential here,” he says.
A trishaw at Downsview Park in Toronto
Harris works with researchers, including Assistant Professor Kevin Gingerich from York’s Lassonde School of Engineering and uses an action-based research approach to examining future opportunities for the use of e-cycles.
Harris is open to new research partnerships from across all disciplines. “We’re trying to plant a seed,” Harris says. “Cycling supports 11 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), providing fertile ground for transdisciplinary research.”
York University and the Federation for Humanities and Social Sciences will host Congress 2023 from May 27 to June 2. Register here to attend and as a reminder, term dates have been adjusted to align with timelines for this year’s event.
York University announces its 2023 Top 30 Alumni Under 30
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La version française suit la version anglaise.
York University has announced its Top 30 Alumni Under 30 for 2023. This distinguished group of York University alumni, under the age of 30, is recognized for exemplary leadership and volunteerism to address deep and complex social challenges both locally and globally.
“The York University Top 30 Alumni Under 30 program recognizes the significant accomplishments that York’s young alumni have achieved to right the future,” says Julie Lafford, assistant vice-president, alumni engagement. “This year’s cohort includes equity, diversity and inclusion advocates, social entrepreneurs, artists and community leaders who create significant positive change in their communities and beyond.”
The 2023 recipients represent each Faculty at the University and have applied the skills, knowledge and learning experiences gained at York towards community service that benefits the public good.
Maseh Hadaf
“To be acknowledged with this honour is a gift,” says Maseh Hadaf (BSc ’18), entrepreneur and co-founder of Sinbad, a stablecoin payments app aimed at promoting financial stability in the Middle East and North Africa region. “I feel a sense of shared direction with this cohort, that in a trying time we are all working in earnest to make the world a better place. In our own courageous ways, we are taking what York gave us and sharing it to create positive change.”
L’Université York annonce ses 30 meilleurs diplômés de moins de 30 ans pour 2023
L’Université York annonce ses 30 meilleurs diplômés de moins de 30 ans pour 2023. Ce groupe distingué de diplômés de l’Université York âgés de moins de 30 ans est reconnu pour son leadership et son bénévolat exemplaires pour relever des défis sociaux profonds et complexes, tant au niveau local que mondial.
« Le programme 30 meilleurs diplômés de moins de 30 ans de l’Université York reconnaît les réalisations importantes des jeunes diplômés de York pour préparer l’avenir », a déclaré Julie Lafford, vice-présidente adjointe, engagement des diplômés. « La cohorte de cette année comprend des défenseurs de l’équité, de la diversité et de l’inclusion, des entrepreneurs sociaux, des artistes et des leaders communautaires, qui suscitent des changements positifs importants dans leurs communautés et au-delà. »
Les lauréats de 2023 représente chaque faculté de l’Université et applique les compétences, les connaissances et les expériences d’apprentissage acquises à York à des services communautaires qui profitent au bien public.
Maseh Hadaf
« C’est un véritable cadeau que de recevoir cet honneur », déclare Maseh Hadaf (B.Sc. 2018), entrepreneur et cofondateur de Sinbad, une application de paiement en cryptomonnaie stable visant à promouvoir la stabilité financière au Moyen-Orient et en Afrique du Nord. « Je ressens un sentiment de communauté avec cette cohorte, ce qui démontre qu’en ces temps difficiles, nous travaillons à améliorer le monde. Avec courage, en prenant ce que York nous a donné et en le partageant pour créer des changements positifs. »
Lancé en 2021, le programme des 30 meilleurs diplômés de moins de 30 ans de York vise à mettre en évidence le succès et la diversité de la communauté des jeunes diplômés de l’Université, tout en inspirant la prochaine génération de leaders.
Averting ecological ruin topic of upcoming EUC book launch
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York University’s Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change (EUC) will celebrate the launch of Professor Emeritus Peter A. Victor’s latest book, Escape from Overshoot: Economics for a Planet in Peril (2023), on Wednesday, April 12.
Faculty members and students are welcome to attend the book launch event from 5 to 7 p.m., either in person at the Centre for Social Innovation located at 192 Spadina Ave., or virtually via livestream. To attend, register for the event here.
As a precursor to the event, Victor met with graduate student researcher Danielle Legault to answer questions about the new book.
Peter A. Victor
Q: Can you speak to how the longer trajectory of your academic work inspired you to write Escape from Overshoot?
A: I began exploring the dependency of the economy on the environment for all its materials and energy requirements as a student at the University of British Columbia in the late 1960s and have continued with that theme ever since then. My work on alternative economic futures during the past two decades suggests that an intentional escape from overshoot will be a lot more attractive than continuing to over stress nature and suffer the consequences.
Q: What is “Earth overshoot,” and how does your book tackle the challenges associated with it?
A: When any organism, including humans, exceeds the capacity of its environment to sustain it, it is in overshoot. The accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that could be irreversibly changing the climate means we are in overshoot. If more fish are caught than are reproduced by the remaining stock, we have overshot. Overshoot can happen to ecosystems at all scales from a single pond to the entire planet and to any species. Humans are no exception.
To tackle the challenges associated with Earth overshoot, my book summarizes the evidence for overshoot, gives an approach to thinking about the future, draws from relevant insights by leading economists, explains how the current economic system works, describes trends that are leading us into an uncertain future, explains why “green growth” is a dangerous distraction, looks at post-growth possibilities, presents an escape scenario for the Canadian economy over the next 50 years and closes with ideas and examples for planning an escape from overshoot.
Q: Why is your book a must-read for York students and faculty?
A: This is a book for the general reader. It is highly illustrated and avoids technical language. We are all threatened by overshoot, and we all contribute to it. If we are to escape from overshoot, everyone has a part to play.
Q: What do you hope readers will take away from your book in terms of actionable steps for promoting a more sustainable and equitable future on Earth?
Escape from Earth Overshoot (2023) by Peter A. Victor
A: I hope that readers find the book useful for understanding overshoot and its implications for all species including humans; that they appreciate the seriousness of the risks we are facing, and that they discover useful ideas about what can be done to escape from overshot that recognizes differences in culpability and vulnerability. I would also like them to come away with a sense of hope and a commitment to help.
Q: Having completed this book, how do you see your work moving forward in the future?
A: My immediate focus will be a resumption of my work on modelling alternative economic/environmental futures, collaborating with the excellent team at York that produces the annual National Ecological Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts for more than 200 countries, and working with as many people as I can on finding an escape from overshoot.
About Peter A. Victor
Victor is a professor emeritus and senior scholar at York University with 50 years of experience in ecological economics, alternatives to economic growth. He served as dean of the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University from 1996 to 2001. He has authored six books, including Managing without Growth, and is a member of the Honorary Board of the David Suzuki Foundation and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He has been the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Molson Prize in Social Sciences and the Boulding Memorial Prize.
