Event celebrates the poetry and writings of French-Canadian writer Nicole Brossard, Feb. 25
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Glendon Campus
Myra Bloom, assistant professor of English at the Glendon Campus, is hosting a bilingual night of poetry to honour the Québécois cultural icon Nicole Brossard. The event will take place on Thursday, Feb. 25, from 7:30 to 9 p.m. EST.
Nicole Brossard. Image: Simon Villeneuve
The event will feature readings and conversations about Brossard’s writing. Brossard is a leading French-Canadian formalist poet and novelist. Her work is known for exploration of feminist themes and for challenging masculine-oriented language and points of view in French literature.
Brossard will be in attendance for the readings, as will the editors of the recent anthology Avant Desire: A Nicole Brossard Reader (2020).
The event is supported by the Groupe de recherche sur le Canada francophone, francophile et en français.
University community members interested in attending this bilingual celebration of exceptional poetry should email mbloom@yorku.ca for the Zoom link and information about how to attend this online celebration.
French-speaking high school students invited to Glendon workshop on social change
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Calling all French-speaking student leaders and social justice advocates.
On Feb. 27, York University’s Glendon Campus will offer an intensive one-day virtual workshop, delivered in French, to French-speaking high school students (grades 9 to 12), during which they will learn to use art as a tool for social change.
Facilitators and students from Glendon’s African Network will provide a safe and welcoming environment for students to feel at ease engaging with each other, all while using French in a fun and immersive manner.
Catherine Lamaison
The contents of this empowering and innovative workshop are based on the doctoral research of Catherine Lamaison, assistant professor of French as a second language at the Language Training Centre for French Studies at Glendon. Lamaison received her PhD in the Department of Social Justice in Education at OISE, University of Toronto, in 2016. As part of Glendon’s commitment to experiential learning, she worked with one of her students to create this workshop, which offers a practical introduction to the use of music as a vehicle for social change. Participants will have the opportunity to create their own song to advocate for the social justice cause of their choosing and become actors of social change.
The following provides an overview of the day’s activities:
11 a.m.: Introduction
11:15 a.m.: Activity – An interactive exploration of the role of Black music in the civil rights movement in the United States
12 p.m.: Activity – Critical analysis of an emblematic song of the civil rights movement (A Change Is Gonna Come, Sam Cooke)
12:30 p.m.: Lunch break
1:30 p.m.: Review of morning activities and lyrical guessing game
1:40 p.m.: Socially engaged song writing workshop:
Presentation of song writing techniques
Brainstorming session: choice of social cause and music
Group song writing session
2:55 p.m.: Break
3:10 p.m.: Workshop – Creating a socially engaged visual document (poster or infographic)
3:55 p.m.: Presentation of song and visual document
John W. Holmes lecture examines intersection of racial inequality, a global pandemic and climate change
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A talk on the intersection of racial inequality, a global pandemic and climate change will be the focus of this year’s John W. Holmes Memorial Lecture, which takes place Feb. 23 from 12 to 1 p.m. online.
The lecture is in French and English and is free to attend.
Celina Caesar-Chavannes
This year’s guest speaker, Celina Caesar-Chavannes, will take a deeper dive into what these topics have in common – our democracy. Caesar-Chavannes is a business consultant, coach and international speaker. She currently serves as the senior advisor, EDI Initiatives and adjunct lecturer at Queen’s University. She is the former member of parliament for Whitby, parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and parliamentary secretary for International Development.
During her term as a member of parliament, she was awarded:
Champion of Mental Health Parliamentarian Award by the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health
Ontario Black History Society, Daniel G. Hill Award for Community Services (2017)
Black Parliamentarian of the Year
Featured in the April 2018 edition of O (Oprah Winfrey) Magazine entitled, “What would you stand up for?”
Named Chatelaine Magazine’s Woman of the Year (2019)
Before entering politics, Caesar-Chavannes was a successful entrepreneur, and recipient of both the:
Toronto Board of Trade’s Business Entrepreneur of the Year
Black Business and Professional Association’s Harry Jerome Young Entrepreneur Award.
Caesar-Chavannes has a bachelor of science from the University of Toronto, an MBA in Healthcare Management and an Executive MBA from the Rotman School of Management. She has just published a book, which launched on Feb. 2, titled Can You Hear Me Now?.
The annual John W. Holmes Memorial Lecture at Glendon honours the late John W. Holmes, officer of the Order of Canada, Canadian diplomat, writer, administrator and professor of international relations at Glendon from 1971-81. Holmes was a tireless promoter of Canada at home and abroad, in political, diplomatic and educational circles. He also participated in the founding of the United Nations and attended its first General Assembly in 1945.
For more information on Holmes, visit this website; for more on the upcoming lecture, visit the event page.
Book suggests reinventing past cultural practices could repair damaged world
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Levine profiles the Purim Extravaganza, which gathers queer, leftist and ‘Yiddish-ist’ New Yorkers. Photo depicts the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, Purim 2012. Photo credit: John Bell
York is an exceptionally diverse community working together to tackle complex societal challenges. One academic in the Drama Studies department at Glendon is proving this in spades. Professor Gabriel Levine released a book from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Press earlier this year, which argues that, in a time of political reaction and mass uprisings, we could all benefit from experimenting with the past. Cultural practices of the past could, in fact, galvanize artists, activists, musicians and people in everyday life.
Gabriel Levine
Art and Tradition in a Time of Uprisings, based on research from Levine’s dissertation, seems perfectly timed, given world events. The publication is not, however, rooted in today’s upheavals, nor is it limited to one or two disciplines; it draws on a myriad of diverse situations and practices.
“My new book examines radical reinventions of traditional practices, ranging from a queer reclamation of the Jewish festival of Purim to an Indigenous remixing of musical traditions,” Levine explains.
This sweeping approach is at the heart of Levine’s scholarly and creative enquiries. “I’m interested in projects that are off the beaten track, multidisciplinary and formally inventive,” Levine, who teaches theatre and performance theory, practice, and history, as well as courses across the humanities, explains.
Levine is also an arts writer, performance-maker and singer-songwriter. He is co-curator of the Concrete Cabaret performance series, Toronto’s experimental puppetry and performing objects cabaret, and his theatre projects have toured festivals in Europe, North America and the Middle East. He co-edited Practice, part of an MIT Press series on contemporary art, the first anthology of artists writings dealing with the concept of “practice” in contemporary art.
Art and Tradition in a Time of Uprisings (MIT, 2020) Credit: The MIT Press
He has also written for publications including the Journal of Curatorial Studies, Performance Research, PUBLIC: Art/Culture/Ideas, TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies and Canadian Theatre Review. As a musician, he has released numerous recordings on Constellation Records and other labels.
Clearly, the rigid lines among various branches of learning and creativity are wonderfully blurred for Levine, and this has led to many fruitful creative ventures.
Book focuses on three cultural practices that reinvent traditions
As noted, Levine’s new book investigates the recovery and reclamation of cultural practices that supposedly belong to the past. More specifically, his publication profiles three, collective projects or experiments that, at first glance, seem markedly unrelated.
Project A: A queer, festive and politicized reclamation of Jewish ritual. Here, Levine profiles the annual Purim Extravaganza, which gathers queer, leftist and ‘Yiddish-ist’ New Yorkers in a profane re-appropriation of the springtime Jewish festival.
Purim is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the saving of the Jewish people from Haman, a Persian Empire official who was planning to kill all the Jews, as recounted in the Book of Esther.
Levine profiles the Purim Extravaganza, which gathers queer, leftist and ‘Yiddish-ist’ New Yorkers. Photo depicts the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, Purim 2012. Photo credit: John Bell
Project B: An Indigenous remixing of several musical traditions. In this section of the book, the author studies the Ottawa-based Indigenous DJ collective A Tribe Called Red, who combine powwow drumming and singing with electronic dance music.
“Focusing on performance in present-day settler-colonial North America, the book offers alternatives to the dominant modes of appropriating ‘tradition’ as heritage or property,” Levine says.
Project C: A food movement that revives traditional techniques of home fermentation. Here, the author considers the revival of home fermentation practices from microbiological, philosophical, aesthetic and political angles.
By grappling with the traditional, these projects work through complex histories
Levine explains the galvanizing thesis that unites these seemingly disparate practices: “In their various ways, these experiments grapple with tradition across profound gaps in historical and cultural continuity. In so doing, they work through complex histories of colonization, shame, discontinuity and damage, while moving toward spaces of shared capacity and collective action.”
Importantly, he notes that in all three experiments or projects, “strange encounters take place across the lines of class, Indigeneity, race and generations. These encounters spark alliance and appropriation, desire and misunderstanding, creative (mis)translation and radical revisionism.”
Projects work toward collectively reclaiming, remaking and repairing a damaged world
Levine has really hit on something that will resonate with many audiences. In the digital age, and perhaps even more so with the pandemic, supposedly outmoded ways of doing things are flourishing. People are cooking and crafting, making music and returning to religious rituals.
“Experimenting with practices that have been abandoned or suppressed can offer powerful resources for creation and struggle in the present,” he says. “These projects not only develop innovative forms of practice for a time of uprisings; they can also work toward collectively reclaiming, remaking, and repairing a damaged world.”
The book has garnered international praise.
To read more about Levine, visit his website. To learn more about the book, visit the website. To listen to some of Levine’s music, see his music website.
To learn more about Research & Innovation at York, follow us at @YUResearch; watch our new animated video, which profiles current research strengths and areas of opportunity, such as Artificial Intelligence and Indigenous futurities; and see the snapshot infographic, a glimpse of the year’s successes.
By Megan Mueller, senior manager, Research Communications, Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation, York University, muellerm@yorku.ca
Welcome to the January 2021 issue of ‘Innovatus’
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Welcome to the January 2021 issue of ‘Innovatus,’ a special issue of YFile that is devoted to teaching and learning innovation at York University.
Happy New Year!
Will Gage
This issue of ‘Innovatus’ focuses on the unique approach that the Glendon Campus takes to experiential education and enriching the student experience in a bilingual environment. There are days as I write this note to you, where I wish I could turn back time. Imagine learning about Indigenous languages, ceremonies and culture through a video game offered in a university course! It is an exciting and innovative project underway at Glendon and it is led by Professor Maya Chacaby.
As well, as we are into another province-wide lockdown due to the pandemic, the work by Glendon staff and faculty to engage students online and in their homes is remarkable and heroic. You can read about the many innovative approaches taken by Glendon to build meaningful connections between students, complex subjects and the community in this issue.
Thank you again for the many wonderful comments about our 2020 issues. I would like to take the opportunity to wish each one of you a happy and healthy 2021. Please continue to reach out to me with your comments as I value each of your responses.
Gaming offers deeper understanding of Anishinaabe language and culture Protecting Indigenous language and culture is at the heart of a new instructional video game developed for students by Glendon Assistant Professor of Sociology Maya Chacaby. The game “Biskaabiiyaang: the Quest for the Language” is a massively multi-player online role-playing game.
Glendon students turn their backyards into labs Biology students need to learn fieldwork techniques, pandemic, or no pandemic, so Laura McKinnon, an associate professor in Glendon’s bilingual biology program decided to send them out into their backyards to practise and the results of this unique experiential education initiative were outstanding.
Exploring the European Union through a Dutch Lens The Netherlands and Europeanization course offered by Glendon Professor Willem Maas gives students a good understanding of the Netherlands and the European Union (EU). Maas, who is a Jean Monnet Chair, pivoted the course to an online format that offered students an opportunity to interact with an impressive list of speakers with real-world experience in the EU.
Glendon’s community-based initiatives improve language skills while breaking isolation To lessen the social isolation caused by the pandemic, faculty and staff at the Glendon Campus have sought ways to build connections among students and the community. Three programs have decreased social isolation, fostered a strong sense of community, while giving students a chance to practise their non-dominant official language (English or French) in unique experiential education settings.
‘Innovatus’ is produced by the Office of the Associate Vice-President Teaching & Learning in partnership with Communications & Public Affairs.
I extend a personal invitation to you to share your experiences in teaching, learning, internationalization and the student experience through the ‘Innovatus’ story form, which is available at tl.apps01.yorku.ca/machform/view.php?id=16573.
Will Gage Associate Vice-President, Teaching & Learning
Principal’s letter: Glendon’s commitment to language diversity is embedded in our campus’ DNA
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Glendon Campus
Glendon, is a future-enabling, bilingual campus committed to teaching excellence, inclusion, accessibility and diversity.
Marco Fiola
While various attributes can define the Glendon Campus and set it apart from other liberal arts institutions, it is worth highlighting its bilingual status. The deliberate inclusion of bilingualism at the very heart of our programs makes Glendon a unique institution in Canada. But Glendon’s commitment to language diversity does not stop at official languages – far from it. Linguistic and cultural plurality is embedded in our faculty’s DNA, and we believe it to be a key distinctive feature for post-secondary education in the 21st century; a time where the notion of borders is challenged, and where success belongs to those who can see and function beyond the confines of one’s language and culture. To embark on the path of plurilingualism is an act of recognition of the value of cultural empathy and mutual enrichment. Values that are close to the heart of our teaching staff, like Karen Devonish-Mazzotta, a graduate and now an instructor in the popular BEd for teachers of French as a Second Language program. Last fall, she received the prestigious Canadian Parents for French (Ontario) McGillivray Awardin recognition of her leadership and commitment in promoting the development of French Second Language (FSL) learning in Ontario.
Inclusion, accessibility and diversity are core priorities we aim to further at Glendon. In 2020, our Principal’s Teaching Excellence Awards recognized Course Director Victoria Freeman and Professor Philippe Theophanidis. Freeman is celebrated for her interdisciplinary approach to breaking through “settler unconsciousness” and her focus on fostering students’ appreciation for the importance of decolonization and reconciliation in Canada. Theophanidis dedicates entire classes to non-western perspectives, and inclusivity is rooted in his pedagogical approach. We embrace the opportunity to meet these priorities to bring inclusion, accessibility and diversity to our teaching pedagogy and curriculum.
The challenge of pivoting to online courses in 2020 was embraced by our colleagues and made possible by the support provided by many to create a community of practice. Professor Henriette Gezundhajtis an example of that engagement towards online teaching; her expertise in Moodle and her willingness to develop resources in French and support her colleagues led her to win the Minister of Colleges and Universities’ Award of Excellence. Thanks to her work, and to all Glendon faculty members and students, we will continue to innovate, be agile, enterprising and to be pedagogical agents of change in the post-COVID era.
Each and every day, I take great pride in the work that our faculty members continue to accomplish, their commitment to student and faculty priorities, as exemplified by Lee Frew, who won a President’s University-Wide Teaching Award. Building on a long-standing tradition of cutting-edge pedagogy, Glendon is ready to embrace all opportunities to innovate, whatever the future may hold for post-secondary teaching and learning.
Marco Fiola Principal, Glendon Campus
L’engagement de Glendon envers la diversité linguistique est ancré dans l’ADN de notre campus
Glendon est un campus bilingue tourné vers l’avenir et engagé envers l’excellence de l’enseignement, l’inclusion, l’accessibilité et la diversité.
Marco Fiola
Divers attributs définissent le campus Glendon et le font se démarquer d’autres établissements d’arts libéraux, mais il convient de souligner son statut bilingue. L’inclusion délibérée du bilinguisme au cœur même de nos programmes fait de Glendon un établissement unique en son genre au Canada. L’engagement de Glendon en faveur de la diversité linguistique ne s’arrête pas aux langues officielles, loin de là. La pluralité linguistique et culturelle est inscrite dans l’ADN de notre corps professoral. Nous pensons que c’est une caractéristique clé de l’enseignement supérieur du 21e siècle, époque où la notion de frontières est remise en question et où le succès récompense ceux qui sont capables de voir et de fonctionner au-delà des limites de leur langue et de leur culture. S’engager sur la voie du plurilinguisme revient à reconnaître la valeur de l’empathie culturelle et de l’enrichissement mutuel. Ces valeurs sont au cœur de notre personnel enseignant, comme Karen Devonish-Mazzotta, diplômée et maintenant formatrice du populaire programme B. Éd. pour les professeurs de français langue seconde. En automne dernier, Canadian Parents for French (Ontario) lui a décerné le prestigieux McGillivray Award pour son leadership et son engagement envers le développement de l’apprentissage du français langue seconde (FLS) en Ontario.
L’inclusion, l’accessibilité et la diversité sont des priorités fondamentales que nous voulons faire progresser à Glendon. En 2020, le Prix d’excellence en enseignement du principal de Glendon a récompensé la professeure Victoria Freeman et le professeur Philippe Theophanidis. La professeure Freeman est reconnue pour son approche interdisciplinaire visant à briser « l’inconscient des colons » et pour son souci de faire comprendre aux étudiants l’importance de la décolonisation et de la réconciliation au Canada. Le professeur Theophanidis consacre des classes entières à des perspectives non occidentales, et l’inclusivité est ancrée dans son approche pédagogique. Nous saisissons l’occasion de concrétiser ces priorités pour intégrer inclusion, accessibilité et diversité à notre pédagogie et à nos programmes d’enseignement.
Le défi de passer à des cours en ligne en 2020 a été relevé par nos collègues et rendu possible grâce au soutien apporté par de nombreuses personnes pour créer une communauté de pratique. La professeure Henriette Gezundhajt est un bel exemple de cet engagement envers l’enseignement en ligne; son expertise avec Moodle et sa volonté de développer des ressources en français et d’appuyer ses collègues l’ont amenée à remporter le Prix d’excellence du ministre des Collèges et Universités. Grâce à son travail et à tous les membres du corps professoral et du corps étudiant de Glendon, nous continuerons à être innovateurs, flexibles et audacieux et à faire figure d’artisans pédagogiques du changement dans l’ère post-COVID.
Chaque jour, le travail que nos professeurs — comme Lee Frew qui a remporté le Prix d’enseignement de la présidente de l’Université — ne cessent d’accomplir et leur engagement envers les priorités des étudiants et des professeurs me remplissent de fierté. Fort d’une longue tradition de pédagogie de pointe, le campus Glendon est prêt à saisir toutes les occasions d’innover que l’avenir réserve à l’enseignement et à l’apprentissage postsecondaires.
Marco Fiola Principal du campus Glendon
Glendon’s community-based initiatives improve language skills while breaking isolation
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Featured image for Glendon Innovatus story on building connections in a pandemic Photo by Edward Jenner from Pexels
The Glendon Centre of Excellence for French-language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education
To lessen the social isolation caused by the pandemic, faculty and staff at York University’s Glendon Campus have sought ways to build connections among students and the community. Much of this work has been done remotely and Glendon has some notable successes.
Thanks to the efforts of Sabrina Sirois, an experiential education coordinator at Glendon, and Usha Viswanathan, an assistant professor of French with the Language Training Centre for Studies in French, three programs have decreased social isolation and fostered a strong sense of community, while giving students a chance to practice their non-dominant official language (English or French):
Project Connections: Glendon pairs students with a member of the Glendon community (faculty, staff, or alumni) for virtual conversations.
Projet Connexions: Volet Aîné matches French as a Second Language (FSL) students with francophone seniors for weekly or bi-weekly phone conversations.
Salon francophone is an online drop-in space run by and for Glendon students, brings together FSL and francophone students to chat, play games and share their experiences (Viswanathan’s endeavour).
Project Connections: Glendon
A new voluntary program created during the pandemic, Project Connections: Glendon has really taken off. Both FSL and English as a Second Language (ESL) students have jumped at the opportunity to practice their non-dominant language and get to know someone in the Glendon community other than fellow students. Faculty, staff and alumni have also expressed their delight in getting to know students better one-to-one.
For example, Mae Shibasaki, a third-year international studies student, was paired with Stéphanie Marion, assistant professor of psychology at Glendon.
“I decided to participate in the Project Glendon Connections because I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to get used to speaking French in a comfortable manner,” said Shibasaki. “My biggest struggle in learning French is not to be nervous while speaking French, and as an FSL student, I know that building confidence in speaking a non-native language is important for its fluency.
“Weekly conversation with Dr. Marion has been highly beneficial for me … I am now more confident to speak French and I think it has a good influence on my performance in class as well. It has also helped me build my vocabulary.”
Alumna Alison Smith (BA, ’98) has been delighted to support an ESL student with her English skills while getting to know her.
“Talking with Joelle through the Connections Glendon is a privilege,” said Smith. “I’m so grateful to know her, share our history and cultures, and hear what’s going on through her eyes as a student at Glendon. Even some of my own French came back – I don’t get to practice much in Victoria.”
Projet Connexions: Volet Aîné
Projet Connexions pairs FSL students with francophone seniors at the Centre d’accueil héritage, an institution that runs a seniors’ home in Toronto and a day program in Oshawa. The Centre d’accueil héritage is one of the sites where Glendon students usually do for-credit work placements, but due to the pandemic, such placements were not possible. However, Sirois and Viswanathan wanted to find a way for seniors to remain connected to the Glendon community, so Projet Connexions was born. This contributes to reducing the feelings of isolation of both seniors and students, build an intergenerational understanding, all the while allowing students to practice their French.
“I thought of my grandma who had been so sad throughout quarantine because she couldn’t see her grandchildren as often,” said Anna Noumtinis, a Glendon student who decided to participate, although she was initially anxious about doing so. Not anymore.
“We talk every week, for about an hour and a half, and believe me when I tell you I have no more doubts in my mind about my decision,” said Noumtinis. “It was by far the best decision I’ve ever made. Hearing how happy he gets when we speak on the phone and listening to all his stories and great health advice absolutely melts my heart. As much as our phone exchanges are helping me to improve my French, they are also making me a better person. I feel my soul growing and maturing.”
“Both projects provide an opportunity to bring the community together under the circumstances and to create a sense of belonging,” said Viswanathan. “It’s a chance to bring the community together under these unusual circumstances; we have a lot of first-year students participating.”
Viswanathan says it’s not only an opportunity for students to practice the language, but to learn more about the diversity of la francophonie.
Participation in both programs is voluntary and conversations are taking place based on each participant’s schedule. In some cases, students can earn bonus credit for taking part. Sirois and Viswanathan are in regular contact with participants to provide support and ensure that everything is going smoothly. They have also created guides for all the participants. For example, when communicating with seniors, students may need some guidance about potential intergenerational gaps and challenges with hearing difficulties.
Due to the overwhelming interest in these programs, Sirois and Viswanathan hope to continue them post-pandemic, with the option of online and in-person chats.
Le Salon Francophone
Another of Viswanathan’s efforts, Le Salon Francophone has also migrated online. Le Salon Francophone is usually a drop-in space at Glendon Campus where students of all levels of French can come to practice the language in a fun, safe and relaxed environment. It is also a place to play games, to meet up with friends, and commiserate about life in the times of COVID.
It is staffed by work-study students with diverse backgrounds and experiences who have an appreciation for what it is to learn and progress in a new language. “The salon allows FSL students to develop confidence in French as well as to develop precious intercultural understanding and appreciation,” says Viswanathan. It is open via Zoom during lunch hour, Monday to Friday, and in the afternoon from 2 to 5 p.m., Monday to Thursday.
The salon often holds events, such as panel discussions and debates, centered around various aspects of la francophonie. In September, there was a celebration of Franco-Ontarians, in November, a panel focused on the experiences of francophones with Asian roots and in December, there was a celebration of Francophone Africa.
“It can just be a place to get support or share the challenges of life online,” said Viswanathan. “It’s a good way to make connections that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. People can make friends among the two solitudes; we mix anglophones, allophones and francophones.
“It helps break down stereotypes and allows students to question their prejudices and biases. It’s a validation and celebration for all.”
Whether students wish to practice their English or French, Glendon offers students opportunities to improve their language skills in a way that also builds community.
By Elaine Smith, special contributing writer, Innovatus
Exploring the European Union through a Dutch Lens
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Professor Willem Maas Featured image for story on European Union course
“Most courses about the European Union (EU) focus on Brussels and tend to miss the member states,” said Professor Willem Maas, but that’s not the case for his Glendon summer course, “The Netherlands and Europeanization.”
The summer seminar course offers an in-depth look at the political, social and economic transformations the EU has wrought and the ways the member states have been affected through an in-depth study of one particular state, the Netherlands. It also fits well with one of the goals of the Building a Better Future:2020-2025 University Academic Plan, advancing global engagement.
Although it was originally designed as an intensive study abroad course, it took place virtually in 2020 due to the pandemic.
Willem Maas
“Even though we had to pivot quickly to an online format, which was difficult, I was nevertheless pleasantly surprised at how well the course ran,” said Maas. “It was also great that we had such strong guest speakers to supplement our readings and discussions.”
Maas is one of York University’s two Jean Monnet Chairs, positions funded by the European Union to promote excellence in teaching and research in the field of European Union studies. His field of study is European politics with a focus on migration and citizenship, and the course syllabus is chock full of readings on those topics, along with others pertinent to an understanding of Dutch political issues past and present: EU and Dutch history; border controls; colonial legacies; race; the environment; populism; war and foreign policy; inequality; law, and more.
In fact, the course wasn’t lecture-based; it was reading-focused, with Maas making himself available regularly online to discuss the topics or answer questions students had.
“Professor Maas was very reachable and responsive and the readings were very structured, so it helped keep me on track,” said Elyana Dakwar, a fourth-year political science major at Glendon.
Although the students couldn’t travel to Europe, Maas brought Europe to them in the form of guest speakers:
Jeremy Bierbach, an EU immigration lawyer who spoke about Dutch and EU immigration policies;
Michael O. Sharpe, a professor who spoke about the Caribbean Netherlands and issues of race and ethnicity;
Salima Belhaj, a member of parliament, who spoke about freedom, the idea of a European army, and other subjects;
Laurel Baig, a Canadian litigator at the United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague who spoke about her work and impressions of the Netherlands;
Samira Rafaela, a member of the European parliament, who spoke about women’s rights, international trade, employment and social affairs, overseas countries and territories, and related subjects.
The course was originally designed to combine readings in June and July with an intensive travel component in August as a way to make the travel more affordable. Given the need to offer it remotely again in 2021, Maas plans to lengthen it to a standard, 12-week summer course. The expanded time period will allow for more discussion, additional speakers and a more relaxed reading schedule.
The course gives students a good understanding of the Netherlands and the EU and provides them with a chance to compare what they’re learning to Canadian institutions and policies; it also gives them a framework for evaluating any country’s systems.
“I explicitly ask them to compare the Netherlands to Canada in many cases to ensure they understand that there are other ways to design policies or look at the world,” Maas said.
Maas also wants them to get a sense of not-so-ancient history, exploring how the EU was formed to prevent another large-scale war on the European continent.
“This has been the biggest achievement of the EU,” he said. “It has been a massive change, a world historical change.”
He is currently recruiting students for the longer version of the course, which will be offered in summer 2021 (http://www.yorku.ca/maas/4400summer2021.pdf). There is a March 1 application deadline and the course is open to students in any faculty. Previous political science courses or knowledge of the EU is not required, although commitment to doing the reading analysis papers and final reflection paper is necessary.
“This course ran so well virtually last summer that I’m looking forward to offering it again this coming summer and then adding the travel component starting in summer 2022,” said Maas.
Students from the class seem to agree, if feedback is any indication.
Reid Springstead, a Glendon political science student graduating this spring, said he was disappointed not to be able to travel abroad, but learned a lot from the course nonetheless. “Professor Maas did an amazing job of moving the course online,” Springstead said. “For me, the coolest part was talking to EU politicians and others who were very involved with policy. They helped give me a good outside perspective on North America.”
Although Dakwar was also disappointed to find that the course would be held online, rather than overseas, she finds she benefited from the decision, given the lockdown and the fact that the entire university pivoted to online learning in fall 2020. “It was a surprise to be studying online at the time, but it prepared me well for other online courses,” she said. “It’s just you and your own initiative to get the work done.”
In addition to expanding her knowledge of the Netherlands and the EU, Dakwar found that it was an opportunity to build her reading comprehension skills and hone her writing to make it more precise.
“This was an awesome way to gain an international perspective of politics abroad and a great way to have new experiences,” she said. “This class was a great experience, and I learned a lot about the EU. Professor Maas did a great job. It was awesome to be able to stay safe and still take the course.”
By Elaine Smith, special contributing writer, Innovatus
Gaming offers deeper understanding of Anishinaabe language and culture
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Featured image for story on the MMORP game developed by Glendon professor Maya Chacaby
Students by the dozens have joined the fight to protect Anishinaabemowin (the Ojibwe language) from the Linguicidals as part of Maya Chacaby’s Glendon Campus language classes.
How could any student, brought up in a world that takes gaming culture and activities for granted, resist this informal course description:
“Once, Anishinaabe lived in beautiful homelands, connected to the life source of all Beings. Through the magical powers of Anishinaabemowin they were able to connect to their life source and truly thrive.
But then, LINGUICIDALS came and destroyed the language, shattering Anishinaabeg connection to the life source and destroying their homelands.
But not all is lost …
You have been carefully chosen to travel the wasteland and reclaim the magic of Anishinaabemowin to help build a better future for all Wasteland Dwellers and Anishinaabe Remnants.”
Chacaby, an assistant professor of sociology who is Ojibwe from the Thunder Bay region, is passionate about her language and culture and intent on reclaiming Anishinaabemowin from its status as an endangered language.
“My mother was a fluent speaker,” Chacaby said, “but there is a lot of guilt, shame and pain associated with the language, and there is a low percentage of in-home intergenerational transmission due to the trauma (e.g. residential schools, the Sixties Scoop) associated with it.”
Maya Chacaby in her virtual forest classroom. Image courtesy of Maya Chacaby
In teaching Anishinaabemowin herself, Chacaby realized that trauma was a factor for many Indigenous students; when they came to class feeling shame or upset about the language, they were in no state to absorb the necessary information.
“I realized that I would have to create a safe, accessible, fun environment in which they could learn – a place where they could acknowledge their shame and develop pride beyond that, so the experience wasn’t so painful,” Chacaby said.
Thus, Biskaabiiyaang: the Quest for the Language was born. Chacaby, an avid gamer herself, realized students, too, would enjoy a taking part in a role-playing game where they could build a better world, one where there was a safe territory for her Anishinaabe Intergalactic Mentoring Station.
“I turned learning grammar and vocabulary into a big quest, a challenge that students go on the adventure with me,” she said. “There are four basic parts to the language structure, so the quest is to restore the circle [a symbolic shape in Indigenous culture].”
Chacaby initiated the new course design using a card-based live action game that students played in class. Soon, she noticed a “huge positive impact. Students were retaining so much more information. In 12 weeks, they were learning what it took me three years to learn in traditional classes, and they were having fun.”
She moved the course online using a commercial platform, but it had limitations, due to security issues. This fall, Chacaby will introduce the game through a platform specially designed in partnership with the virtual learning platform developer CDNG, allowing her to have complete control of the design, the content and the site’s security. To view a trailer for the game, click here.
A still image from Maya Chacaby’s game Biskaabiiyaang: the Quest for the Language
The reimagined Biskaabiiyaang: the Quest for the Language is a massively multi-player online role-playing game (MMORPG, for gaming regulars) that invites each student to create an avatar and travel through the territory, meeting other players in real time. They travel through a post-apocalyptic landscape that includes cross-cut deforestation, lakes full of plastic refuse and abandoned radioactive uranium mines. It is a landscape many Indigenous students may recognize.
As they complete their grammar-based quests, they must find spirit helpers, learn to fend for themselves by finding water, shelter and food and show respect for those with whom they share the land. Chacaby has incorporated many traditional stories into the quests.
“The students learn about Anishinaabe language and culture in a caring, online community,” Chacaby said.
She plans to involve a partnership with First Nations communities around the Lake Nipigon region in the game to provide students interactions with Elders and others from reserves that offer support and insights into their own lived experiences. Her fall classes will serve the beta testers for the game, since Chacaby eventually hopes to expand it to include students of Anishinaabemowin elsewhere.
“Not only does this game teach students the language, but it provides an understanding of my peoples’ world view,” Chacaby said. “We’re all inside, trying to understand the world from that perspective. It challenges everyone’s own way of thinking.
“We have a rich culture, and the game is a way for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to come together, deal with troublesome issues and create a new future.”
She envisions that, eventually, other Indigenous groups will add to the game, inserting their own traditional territories and using it to teach their own languages.
“The United Nations has declared 2022 the start of the Decade of Indigenous Languages, so we’re providing a platform at Glendon, starting with Anishinaabemowin,” Chacaby said. “It’s part of a bigger Truth & Reconciliation picture.
“My goal is to be a force for reconciliation. The cultural transmission of knowledge – including language – is good for everyone.”
By Elaine Smith, special contributing writer, Innovatus
Glendon students turn their backyards into labs
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Featured image for story on Glendon professor and students engaged in backyard biology labs Photo by Tina Nord from Pexels
Glendon Campus biology students need to learn fieldwork techniques, pandemic, or no pandemic, so Laura McKinnon decided to send them out into their backyards to practice.
Usually, McKinnon teaches this mandatory course, “Ecological Monitoring in an Urban Environment,” as a 12-day intensive course as part of the Ontario Universities Program in Field Biology. Students normally band birds, search for killdeer nests and visit a turtle marking program, along with other activities conducted throughout the extensive Toronto ravine system.
“For most, it’s their first introduction to research and they get a taste of what it’s all about,” said McKinnon, an associate professor in the bilingual biology program. “Afterward, many of the students decide to pursue it.”
An example of the bird bioacoustics recorder deployment in one student’s backyard. Photo credit: S. Nichols
Given the pandemic lockdown, McKinnon moved the course to the spring, but soon discovered that it would still need to be conducted remotely. Determined to ensure that the students would be able to acquire the field skills necessary for any biologist, McKinnon quickly pivoted and created an online course where research took place in each individual student’s backyard. (The photos here were first published in the journal, Academic Practice in Ecology and Evolution, along with McKinnon’s paper on this pivot.)
To lend the equipment necessary for fieldwork to each student in the course, McKinnon restricted the course to 10 students, rather than the usual 20; ensured that each student had a safe greenspace to use; and had the students come to collect their field kits, which included binoculars, a field notebook, field guides, a Burlese funnel, a dissecting scope and bioacoustic monitors.
The course took place over two weeks, with a research paper submitted afterward. McKinnon devoted the first week of the course to teaching the students the techniques they would need to conduct research in their own backyards – tasks such a learning to take proper field notes, identifying birds and conducting a point count of birds in the yard. She also held separate sessions on scientific writing, bioacoustics monitoring (for bird calls/songs and bats), and statistics. The second week of the course was devoted to the research itself. In addition to the investigations the students carried out, pairs of students worked on a research project together.
The course kept students busy. They were up at dawn to conduct backyard point counts of their birds seen or heard and did so again at dusk. At 8 a.m., the class met online to share their morning findings and discuss other issues and activities; in fact, they usually were on Zoom together a few times daily.
An example Burlese [insect] funnel set-up in a student’s garage. Photo credit: M. JurjDuring the day, the students also dug pitfall traps for insects and collected a turf sample to use in the Burlese funnels, identifying these insects afterward. In addition, they set up camera traps in an attempt to photograph wildlife wandering the property. They were required to do habitat sampling, describing their individual urban habitat in detail, which required them to measure tree height and estimate and describe ground cover.
“Having mastered sampling techniques in the fields of ornithology, mammalogy, entomology and botany, each student became the principal investigator of their own field site, individually collecting data according to standard ecological protocols, and contributing these data to the larger network of eight field sites across Toronto,” McKinnon said. “That these field sites were the students’ backyards, did not detract from their ability to conduct scientific research projects on fundamental ecological questions in urban ecology.”
The students were also responsible for entering their data into a joint folder so that everyone in the class had access to the overall data to use for their research projects. Each group decided upon a research project and wrote a research proposal, consisting of the introduction and methods section that journal articles require, based on the data they had at their disposal. Once McKinnon provided feedback, each group prepared the outline of a research paper, including a results section. Finally, every individual student was required to submit the actual research paper, incorporating McKinnon’s comments, and adding a discussion section.
“In discussing their results, the students can draw upon the theories they’ve learned about in their ecology courses,” McKinnon said. “Although their findings are on a small scale and can’t actually be published, there were some good ideas to pursue.”
For example, one team of students measured minimum and maximum call frequencies (Hz) of American Robins at sunrise and sunset using bioacoustics recorders deployed in the backyard sites over the 10-day period of data collection. Using the same recorders, they simultaneously measured ambient levels of anthropogenic noise. They then tested whether the birds changed the frequency of their calls to compensate for increased anthropogenic noise in busier urban areas.
McKinnon received positive feedback from her students and is confident they had a well-rounded field experience and acquired the necessary field research skills used by biologists.
“An online field course that incorporates direct experience with the natural environment is possible and should no longer be considered an oxymoron,” said McKinnon.
By Elaine Smith, special contributing writer, Innovatus
Welcome to the January 2021 issue of ‘Innovatus,’ a special issue of YFile that is devoted to teaching and learning innovation at York University.
![An example Burlese [insect] funnel set-up in a student’s garage. Photo credit: M. Jurj](https://yfile.news.yorku.ca/files/2021/01/Glendon_FieldBiology_BugFunnel-225x300.jpg)