York University’s Centre for Human Rights, Equity & Inclusion (CHREI) is kicking off its Rights, Equity, Decolonization, Diversity & Inclusion (REDDI) Series summer sessions on June 3 with one of its most popular events, Creating and Maintaining Positive Space, just in time for Pride Month.
The REDDI Series offers students, staff and faculty opportunities to learn through interactive sessions that emphasize engagement and skill building.
Participants can earn a core REDDI Series Certificate and a REDDI Mini-series Certificate by signing up for sessions on YU Learn. If not enough sessions are not completed during the summer, additional sessions will be held in the Fall and Winter terms.
For more information on the REDDI Series, visit the CHREI website.
York community invited to Pride 2024 Opening Ceremony on June 4
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Join the Centre for Human Rights, Equity & Inclusion for the York University Pride 2024 Opening Ceremony on Tuesday, June 4 from 1 to 2:30 p.m. at the Vari Hall Rotunda.
The ceremony will feature opening remarks followed by the unfurling of the Pride flag. Attendees can enjoy free treats – provided by the Office of the Vice-Provost Students – snap a selfie with York’s mascot, Yeo, and learn about 2SLGBTQIA+ resources and services available at York. Engage in the conversation on social media using #YUPride and share what a campus free of homophobia and transphobia looks like, feels like and sounds like to you.
All York community members are welcome.
Event details
Date: Tuesday, June 4 Time: 1 to 2:30 p.m. Location: Vari Hall Rotunda
AMPD design students learn to overcome fear of coding, algorithm biases
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By Elaine Smith
School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD) Professor Gabi Schaffzin has a goal: eradicate the fear that design students feel when they hear the word “coding,” while teaching them that they have alternatives to the biases built into the algorithms that govern the standard digital design programs used in the industry.
When it comes to those in his third-year generative design course, Schaffzin has noticed something. “One of the challenges of the class is that only about one of 10 students is comfortable with coding,” he says.
Gabriel Schaffzin
Schaffzin wants his students to lose their fear of basic coding, with its loops, variables, functions and if statements, but he also wants “to challenge their assumptions about code being unbiased. For example, who decided that something should be in English or to always place a certain button in a specific spot on the page?”
Schaffzin does a lot of work with user interfaces and data-generated visualization, which can be lucrative, but he wants his students to know that, as artists and design professionals, they have options besides the programs that are automatically assumed to be the only choice for generating designs online.
“I want to to challenge many of the assumptions that are often baked into the design process,” he said. “A class like this provides students with marketable skills, while also being introspective and canon-challenging.
“By exploring user interfaces using code, rather than pixels, designers start to understand how the choices they make about their users’ experiences are strongly related to the digital technologies used to build them.”
In other words, there are people behind the algorithms that design programs use and these people are making choices designers simply take for granted.
Schaffzin asks students take on the task of learning p5.js, a creative coding library and platform that has the goal of making coding accessible to a wide variety of people. Their text Aesthetic Programming combines theory and practice and provides weekly exercises for them to complete as they familiarize themselves with the code and learn to use it to create designs.
Once they have become conversant with p5.js, they are asked to print their final design project using a Risograph, an automated version of screen printing that produces images that are less precise than those created with digital printing.
“They are used to doing highly curated design using pixels and this [the Risograph] is an imprecise technique – it produces fuzzy edges, not the crisp ones made by a digital printer – that creates a lovely sense of the artist being present,” Schaffzin says. “In a world of artificial intelligence, anything reminiscent of this is something in its favour.”
By understanding that they have choices, rather than blindly using the most common technology, Schaffzin says students “are encouraged to bring a critical eye to each project they undertake going forward, both in the design program and beyond.”
April Dang, a third-year graphic design student who enrolled in the generative design course in Fall 2023, has felt that impact. “Using p5.js, I can make things with data manipulation that I normally couldn’t as a designer … It broadens my scope.”
She was thrilled to learn how to create dynamic type and images using code rather than a mouse or a trackpad. However, debugging her programs took time.
“I needed to go through 100 lines of code to see what I’d typed wrong,” Dang said. “It was frustrating, but the end result was very satisfying, and it taught me to embrace mistakes. It’s important to treat them as a learning experience, because failures may look cooler than expected.”
Dang has a summer internship lined up with a local graphic design firm and is hoping to put her new skills to use there.
It’s an attitude that Schaffzin heartily embraces as part of AMPD’s mission that “infuses every level of practice with critical thinking and social critique.”
“Although my students won’t turn into programmers in 12 weeks, I want them to recognize the inherent bias in our technologically-determined lives,” he said. “And from a professional standpoint, I want them to feel comfortable interfacing with tech people.”
If Dang is typical of the students who finish the course, mission accomplished.
Professional opportunity engages AMPD students
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By Elaine Smith
When a group of researchers approached Professor Angela Norwood to ask about hiring a few of her York University design students to provide data visualization for the results of one of their studies, Norwood saw an opportunity to provide the students with a career-enhancing experience.
In anticipation of Congress 2023, the annual meeting of the Federation for the Social Sciences & Humanities hosted by York, a research team led by York’s Laina Bay-Cheng and Sarah Flicker, along with Jen Gilbert, needed some visual help.
Their mixed-methods study looked at the risks to which LGBTQ and racialized young women ages 16 to 22 were exposed during COVID-19 in three cities: Melbourne, New York and Toronto. The researchers sent out surveys, conducted interviews and had the participants maintain timelines of their risk-taking behaviours. They wanted the resulting data to be translated into a pop-up display for Congress.
Angela Norwood
The team approached Norwood, who applied for an Academic Innovation Fund grant and created a special topics course, Representing Risk: A Physical and Virtual Pop-Up Gallery, which would turn students into consultants for the research team.
Twenty-three students registered for the course, which was designed as a vertical studio – meaning that design students from second to fourth years could enrol.
“It allowed students to mix with others from different years and offered an opportunity for everyone to contribute,” Norwood said.
“It was the perfect bridge between the worlds of design and education,” said Helen Han, a York master of fine arts graduate working toward a PhD in education, who Norwood hired as her research assistant for the project.
The researchers visited the class to present the data and discuss ways it could be shared with the study participants, other researchers and the public. They collaboratively decided on a website with interactive visuals from the data set and a pop-up gallery that could travel.
Norwood’s students presenting their progress to the research team via Zoom during class.
The students formed teams to work on various aspects of the project, often resulting in a fruitful mix of perspectives and collaboration.
“The youth in the class saw things differently than the older principal investigators, and they had to be open to new ways of seeing the data,” Norwood noted as an example.
The project resulted in a significant experiential education opportunity. “Professor Norwood made it possible for students to bring theory to life in class,” said Han.
“We allowed them space to reach their goal, and the work mirrored real life as professional designers,” said Norwood.
As for the end result? “They came up with totally dynamic, fantastic ideas, and any failures (problems) were just as interesting as the successes, because we learned a lot about collaborating with designers and about the data itself,” praised Gilbert. “The students amplified the voices of the young people in our research through their design choices.”
The pop-up exhibit was featured at Congress 2023 and will be viewed in the other cities involved in the study, too. The researchers held a launch for the exhibit, attended by their design partners, who are grateful for the collaboration.
“We’ll definitely always build a design element into future research projects,” said Gilbert. “We also learned that it would be valuable to collaborate with designers from the beginning, because their design thinking can help us hone our research questions.”
Norwood, too, is open to overseeing future collaborations between her students and researchers.
“It was very much about the process of getting to the final product,” Norwood said. “The students brought all their advanced technical skills to the project and left understanding more about teamwork, peer mentorship and social science methodology.
“They know more about themselves as designers and what design can contribute to projects like this.”
Professor creates performances that reclaim women’s history
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By Elaine Smith
Thanks to York University’s Profesor Erika Batdorf, attendees at the Bergama Theatre Festival in Asclepieion, Turkey, have a treat in store for them this August: a large, site-specific, immersive event with multiple performers placed on location throughout the grounds, known as an ancient healing site. Its aim: bringing the stories of contemporary women to ancient sites where women’s history has often been disregarded and forgotten.
Batdorf is the creator of the Batdorf Technique, an embodied physical theatre practice with which she likes to explore a means of bringing women’s stories back to a site where they have been ignored.
Erika Batdorf
“In visiting ancient sites, I find there is almost no mention of women,” Batdorf said. “The perception is that they are nothing. How do we prevent losing more stories of women?”
Batdorf, together with master of fine arts graduate Gulce Oral, tested a model of this approach in the summer of 2023 in Troy, an ancient archeological site in Turkey made famous in Greek mythology. For a performance project, they asked students from Çannakale Onsekiz Mart University in Turkey to study their grandmothers to learn about the dreams they had as young women, their understanding of freedom and what symbolizes power to them.
In the process, students soon began to see themselves in their grandmothers and – with guidance from Batdorf and Oral – turned these findings into three-minute pieces that they performed live at Troy.
A similar process will unfold in Asclepieion this fall, made possible with funding from the festival and the Canada Council for the Arts, as well as actors, musicians, and puppeteers from Istanbul and areas around Bergama, including local female Romany musicians and Kozak women.
Asclepieion, Turkey.
“Our work is devised theatre, rather than text-based,” Batdorf said. “I’m not a historian myself; I’m a contemporary theatre artist, so I know how to devise and create actual, physical theatre that animates a space.”
Among their projects, one will include a piece at Zeus’s temple, which will incorporate stick games played by local women and music by Romany drummers, as a way of reclaiming that space as their own.
Parchment making is being revived locally, too, and one of the sculptural pieces at the festival will be a giant book that holds Turkish stories, recipes and wisdom shared by women with whom they have been meeting.
While ancient sites are less accessible in Canada, Batdorf has involved York students in her performance creation class in a similar project.
In the classroom, for example, she asked her students to each research their mothers and grandmothers before choreographing a piece inspired by their findings – much like the Troy project.
Similarily, next year Batdorf will be leading a group of students in a site-specific project called Haunted Honeywood, working with tales of paranormal occurrences that have occurred in a small town north of Toronto. Batdorf is mentoring them, not only in creation but in grant writing and outreach, skills that will be useful to them in funding their personal performance work in the future.
Kayla Silvestre
Kayla Silvestre, an upper-year theatre student, is one of the participants in the Haunted Honeywood project, because she has been influenced by Batdorf’s movement classes and is eager to continue learning from her.
“Her movement class has been the most beneficial acting course of my career,” Silvestre said. “I use 95 per cent of what I learned in my theatre work.”
She says the Haunted Honeywood project will incorporate some of the same principles that Batdorf is using in her work in Asclepieion, allowing people to wander an outdoor path running through the woods, where they’ll encounter guides and ghosts. A writing team is working on stories based on local history and culture, in addition to creating some new stories. The group is also planning to bring workshops to the schools in the area to promote the arts.
The 2025 debut of Haunted Honeywood is still more than a year away, but each of Batdorf’s site-specific works requires time to put all the pieces in place. She has been working toward Asclepieion for three years, yet it will be performed for only three days during this highly respected festival.
“We’ll do the best we can to document the piece,” Batdorf said, “and we hope to have a website to host conversations among local women and others.”
Although the performances are fleeting, for those who participate, either as actors or as visitors, she hopes the experience will be enduring and impactful.
York University announces Black Research Seed Grant winners
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Six York researchers in five Faculties are the latest recipients of York University’s Black Research Seed Grants, totalling more than $150,000 in combined funding.
Created by the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation and the Office of the Vice-President Equity, People & Culture in 2022, the grants support Black scholars at York, particularly emerging and early-career researchers, including postdoctoral fellows.
The newly funded projects range from an investigation into the accessibility and inclusiveness of ride-hailing services for visually impaired, Black passengers to studying a mining conflict in Jamaica to examining the biopsychosocial differences of back pain in low-, middle- and high-income countries, among others.
“Knowledge generated by Black scholars is integral to York University’s research excellence and continuing to grow our inclusive and equitable research environments,” said Amir Asif, vice-president research and innovation. “These seed grants support Black researchers as they pursue innovative work in a variety of fields, strengthening their capacity to create positive change and thrive within York’s research community.”
“York University is committed to taking concrete action on dismantling systemic barriers for Black scholars, allocating funds and resources to support their success,” said Laina Bay-Cheng, interim vice-president equity, people and culture. “This seed grant is just one of many important initiatives that allow York to demonstrate our commitments to equity, to an inclusive and diverse intellectual community, and to recognizing the expertise and contributions of Black scholars at York.”
The six recipients are:
Alvine Boaye Belle, assistant professor, Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Lassonde School of Engineering Building human trust in ML-enabled autonomous driving systems $25,000
Stephanie Fearon, assistant professor, Faculty of Education My Sister’s Keeper: Black Girls as Resistance Leaders $25,000
Mahtot Gebresselassie, assistant professor, Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change Race, Disability, and Uber and Lyft Usage $24,625
Michael Kalu, assistant professor, School of Kinesiology & Health Science, Faculty of Health Exploring Challenges in Identifying Homebound Black Older Adults and Understanding What Strategies Work: A Comprehensive Scoping Review and Descriptive Qualitative Study in the Greater Toronto Area $25,000
Aliyu Lawan, postdoctoral fellow, School of Kinesiology & Health Science, Faculty of Health Biopsychosocial Identity and Back Pain Disability, Access to Care and Return to Work: A longitudinal Analysis of Low-,Middle-, and High-Income Countries $25,000
Tameka Samuels-Jones, assistant professor, School of Administrative Studies, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies Raising Afro-Voices: Black Indigeneity, Bauxite Mining and Community Empowerment in Jamaica $25,000
Find out more about the Black Research Seed Grants and their creation.
Autism prevalence in Canada has surged in recent years, with approximately one in every 50 individuals aged one to 17 receiving a diagnosis, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada. This increase has led to a growing need for universities to adequately support students with autism as they pursue higher education.
In response, York has emerged as a leader in offering solutions with its ASD program, one of the most comprehensive initiatives in Canada.
Raymond Peart
Led by Raymond Peart, the co-ordinator of York’s ASD program, with support from intake manager Angela Lecompte, the initiative provides a wide array of services aimed at helping students with autism succeed academically and socially. Starting with early engagement opportunities such as ASD Transition Days and workshops for high-school educators, the program aims to equip incoming students with essential skills for university life, while also fostering a sense of belonging and confidence.
Other key features include personalized sessions addressing individual needs and fostering crucial social connections. Driven by an adaptive, feedback-driven approach, the program aims to ensure responsiveness and anticipate challenges, enhancing both academic and social skills development.
“By focusing on individual strengths,” Peart says, “the program counters societal misconceptions, advocating for a future where neurodiversity is acknowledged and supported.”
Angela Lecompte
In their evolving approach to supporting students, families, faculty and staff, Peart and Lecompte acknowledge the contributions of the Autism Mental Health Literacy Project and the Autism Mentorship Program (AMP), which have helped shape their services, while the dedicated mentors of the AMP have provided invaluable support to students with autism, fostering a sense of belonging and recognition.
While York’s program is an example of comprehensive support, reports by organizations such as the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (CAHS) and the Canadian cross-disability charity National Educational Association of Disabled Students (NEADS) highlight the broader challenges faced by students with autism in Canadian universities.
According to CAHS, there is a notable lack of autism-specific assistance at post-secondary schools across the country. Similarly, a 2021 study in the United States revealed that only 2.2 per cent of public and not-for-profit universities and colleges have autism-specific college support programs.
This scarcity of dedicated support programs is further highlighted by NEADS’ findings of frequent ineffective accommodations for students with disabilities at universities, along with an over-reliance on teaching those students to self-advocate, creating additional challenges for them.
In its efforts to provide comprehensive support and proactive engagement, York’s ASD program collaborates with institutions nationwide to foster a stronger support network for students with autism. Looking ahead, it plans to further refine its support services and strengthen ties with career counselling to prepare students for life after graduation.
Initiatives such as the Conversations Create Change podcast series, designed by adults with autism at York, foster understanding and connection within the neurodivergent community on campus.
“Through our program, we’re striving to help autistic students establish a sense of belonging and work towards self-actualization,” Peart says. “Our goal is to give them the confidence to move forward and succeed in both academic and social aspects of university life.”
Student-led group tackles Indigenous food sovereignty
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After personally experiencing food insecurity, and witnessing its effects first-hand, a group of York University Faculty of Health students decided to do something about it.
The Learning Spirit Alliance is an Indigenous student-led group, open to all York students, committed to educating the community about food sovereignty and helping to prevent poverty and food insecurity on campus. Led by current students Leo Manning and Rainingbird Daniels, and former student Shanice Perrot, the initiative was established as a result of discussions with Indigenous students about access to food – particularly healthy and traditional food, and especially for students who had moved away from home.
Leo ManningShanice PerrotRainingbird Daniels
“Members of our leadership team have personally experienced the effects of food insecurity and lack of food access throughout their time in post-secondary education,” explains Daniels. “There are many Indigenous students facing the increasingly high cost of housing both on and off campus; required meal plans at institutions and/or inflation of food costs; transportation costs associated with travelling home; and a lack of sufficient funding while completing post-secondary education.”
Launched last year with funding from a national organization called Indigenous Youth Roots, the Learning Spirit Alliance held three Food is Medicine workshops this semester, where both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students were welcomed at Skennen’kó:wa Gamig – the gathering space for York’s Indigenous community – and taught how to make traditional Indigenous foods such as elk stew, bannock, three sisters salad and various soups. Each participant was also given an honorarium towards groceries.
According to Daniels, the feedback received from the community has been overwhelmingly positive.
“The different dishes we learned to make gave me the knowledge to make affordable and healthy meals while in residence and away from my traditional territory,” said workshop participant and York student Doreen Scow.
“The workshop helped me feel more culturally involved and connected,” said another participant, student Miigwan Mainville. “This initiative allows us to share stories and laughter with others while sharing cultural food; food is truly medicine.”
In addition to the workshops, the Alliance held weekly free lunch events for the community, to help bring more traditional and nutritious meals to students in need.
With no plans currently in place for the next academic year, the group’s leadership is using its resources to apply for more grants in hopes that they can continue to host events and workshops on culturally relevant food and food sovereignty, giving Indigenous students the tools they need to cook at home at a low cost.
“We are striving to make a difference in ways that strengthen community and provide relief,” said Manning.
Filmmaker, activist and York University alumnus Ryan Conrad has launched a new book, Radical VIHsion: Canadian AIDS Film & Video, marking the latest accomplishment in two decades of artistic and academic work – parts of it completed at York – examining the impact of AIDS on Canadian society and culture.
Comprising interviews and critical essays, including some by other York scholars, Conrad’s edited anthology explores the history of Canadian AIDS film and video, with a particular focus on the significance of the public access cable television program Toronto Living With AIDS from 1990 to ’91.
Ryan Conrad
Created and co-ordinated by the late video maker and AIDS activist Michael Balser with York film Professor John Greyson, the program played a crucial role in addressing the HIV-AIDS crisis through community-driven media collaborations. The series paired artists with community organizations to create much-needed educational tapes – that were also culturally appropriate and engaging – about living with and preventing the spread of HIV.
As the book’s principal researcher and editor, Conrad conducted detailed historical work on the Toronto Living With AIDS series, including its creators, public reception, circulation and censorship by Rogers Cable, uncovering previously untold stories.
The project began at York where, as a recent Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellow in Cinema and Media Studies, Conrad worked closely with Janine Marchessault, a Tier One Research Chair in Media Arts and Community Engagement who recently received the prestigious Killam Prize, to preserve AIDS activism and history in media.
Conrad’s work forms an integral component of Marchessault’s Archive/Counter-Archive initiative, which seeks to safeguard the audiovisual cultural heritage of marginalized communities.
Conrad’s presentation, “AIDS Activist Media: Toronto Living with AIDS & Second Decade,” presented last July at York University’s Congress 2023 event, further spotlighted ongoing efforts for representation and advocacy within 2SLGBTQIA+ communities.
Conrad, 41, has been participating in activism, researching, writing and making films about HIV-AIDS for nearly two decades. A cultural studies scholar whose work also encompasses queer theory and identity, he is co-founder of the U.S.-based collective Against Equality, which challenges “assimilationist tendencies” in mainstream 2SLGBTQIA+ movements – the subject of his 2011 book Against Equality: Queer Revolution, Not Mere Inclusion.
“Against Equality is not an organization, nor is it a movement. We are merely an archive, and I try to be really humble about what we are doing as a collective and what role we play in the broader social and economic justice movements,” Conrad said in a previously published interview.
“That being said, I think our archive has been influential to some degree in opening up space for more people to have discussions about what kind of political work can and should be prioritized to benefit the greatest number of queer and trans people,” he said. “A vanguardist professional political elite from the gay and lesbian non-profit industrial complex dictating the priorities of a group of people is something we rally against and is a top-down model we aren’t looking to recreate.”
In that way, he has something in common with the archive: through works like Radical VIHsion: Canadian AIDS Film & Video he is opening up overlooked parts of history, and important discussions, around the experiences of 2SLGBTQIA+ people.
Researchers receive grants to advance Indigenous scholarship
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Six Indigenous scholars at York University have been awarded a combined $204,298 in new funding from the latest round of Indigenous Research Seed Fund Grants to explore language revitalization, Indigenous-led land restoration, decolonizing physical education curriculum and more.
The York Indigenous Seed Fund was established in 2021 by the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation in collaboration with the Office of the Vice-President Equity, People & Culture, the Centre for Indigenous Knowledges & Languages (CIKL) and the Indigenous Council, an internal committee at York that works to improve access, input and opportunities for Indigenous peoples in higher education. The fund aims to build on the University’s ongoing commitment to support Indigenous early career researchers, their knowledge creation and the Indigenous communities they are working with.
“York University is wholly invested in advancing Indigenous research excellence, recognizing the critical importance Indigenous perspectives have in the pursuit of new knowledge and learning capable of creating positive change,” said Amir Asif, vice-president research and innovation. “The seed fund grants contribute to an emerging area of research expertise at York focused on Indigenous futurities, which emphasizes scholarship that can directly benefit Indigenous communities and imagines a brighter future for nations, communities and individuals.”
Recipients of these grants, supported through CIKL and the Office of the Associate Vice-President Indigenous Initiatives, include:
Rebecca Beaulne-Stuebing, assistant professor, Faculty of Education “Gekinoomaadijig Mashkiki Gitigaaning Endazhi-Baakwaanaatigikaag: Restoring Urban Land Relations through Indigenous Leadership, Towards Establishing a Land Education Collaboratory”
Kiera Brant-Birioukov, assistant professor, Faculty of Education “Research Support to Conduct Literature Review for 2024 SSHRC Insight Application”
Ashley Day, assistant professor, School of Kinesiology & Health Science “Wiisokotaatiwin – Gathering to Discuss & Re-Imagine Health & Physical Education”
Jeremy Green, assistant professor, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies “Tehontenhnhonterontáhkwa ‘That by which they are connected’ – Co-creating supportive learning environments for second language learner teachers of Kanien’kéha ‘Mohawk’, an indigenous language”
John Hupfield, assistant professor, Faculty of Education “The miikaans: movement lab”
“These projects cultivate positive relationships between university-based researchers and Indigenous communities,” said Susan Dion, associate vice-president Indigenous initiatives, who served as co-chair of the committee that reviewed the applications alongside Sean Hillier, interim director of CIKL.
“The institutional commitment to supporting these scholars through the Indigenous seed grant will have impacts beyond their own work and will reverberate throughout the Indigenous communities and peoples they engage with, as well as the wider York community,” said Hillier, as institutional grants for early career researchers provide not only support for foundational and pilot projects but often lead to larger grant proposals.
“The seed fund program is not only about supporting these specific researchers and research programs; it represents a longer-term and wider-ranging commitment to creating conditions in which Indigenous students, colleagues and communities can thrive at York,” said Laina Y. Bay-Cheng, interim vice-president equity, people and culture.
York’s University Academic Plan 2020-2025 affirmed its commitment to the Indigenous Framework and identified six priorities for action for building a better future, including stronger relationships with Indigenous communities.
Additionally, York’s Strategic Research Plan 2023-2028 (SRP) identifies Indigenous futurities as an opportunity to help research make a positive impact on Indigenous communities and advance social, cultural, artistic, legal, policy, economic and justice areas that holistically shape Indigenous experience.
The Indigenous Research Seed Fund supports the goals of York’s Academic Plan and SRP. The pilot round of the fund awarded a total of $204,298 to 10 scholars in May 2022.
