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Teaching Commons offers fresh content, new perspectives 

Artificial intelligence giphy

By Elaine Smith

The team of teaching and learning experts at York University’s Teaching Commons (TC) has a full slate of offerings to unveil as the new academic year gets underway, including some new opportunities. Each year, the Teaching Commons team assists faculty and graduate students in pursuing engaged teaching practices centred on the student learning experience, helping them to stay up to date on the latest pedagogical innovations. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) will continue to be a focus for TC in 2023-24, says Geneviève Maheux-Pelletier, director of the Teaching Commons.

Geneviève Maheux-Pelletier
Geneviève Maheux-Pelletier

“We’re building on the work from last year, because faculty are interested in AI and continue to grapple with academic integration,” Maheux-Pelletier said. “We held an event in February on the York experience with AI and its implications for education that was broadly attended. Since then, our educational developers have launched a course addressing AI and education that ran in the spring and summer and will be back again in October. It’s a sought-after topic and is top of mind for many educators.” 

Robin Sutherland-Harris, a TC educational developer, has collected ideas and strategies from participants in various York AI sessions on how to adapt to AI in the teaching and learning space. She will turn them into a series of tip sheet-style resources that will be developed and housed on the TC website. 

In addition, TC is hosting an online summit Oct. 18 to 20, in collaboration with the Institute for Research on Digital Literacies, on AI and academic integrity in higher education. It will include a faculty showcase on ways to integrate AI into the teaching practice; a panel of experts from both within the University and elsewhere discussing critical perspectives on generative AI; and student voices about how generative AI affects their learning journey. 

“It’s a matter of understanding the role of AI in education and bringing everyone on board with how to ethically use it,” Maheux-Pelletier said. 

Bringing decolonization, equity, diversity and inclusion strategies to life, the Teaching Commons, in partnership with the Centre for Human Rights, Equity & Inclusion, will introduce a new online workshop series about trauma-informed pedagogies, led by Ameera Ali, a TC educational developer. It’s a 10-part series with five sessions scheduled for the fall term and five for the winter. Participants who complete seven sessions are eligible for a letter of completion. 

The series will introduce participants to the topic of trauma-informed teaching and offer practical strategies for supporting students and themselves while developing a trauma-informed classroom. Sessions will focus on topics such as racial and cultural justice and dis/ableism, access and accommodations.  

A new initiative for 2023-24 is supporting faculty in applying for teaching awards. 

“Part of our role is to elevate teaching and learning,” said Maheux-Pelletier, “and one way to do that is to nurture a culture where effective instructors feel comfortable applying for awards. 

“I know there are many faculty members who are eligible for external awards, but unless they have a plan, applications don’t always happen. We can support them in thinking through the narrative of what they do as instructors, where their innovation lies and how to describe innovations.”

TC will host a series of events focused on informing and encouraging York faculty to apply for awards, drawing on the support of educational developers, including a Sept. 26 workshop about teaching application dossiers. 

“When we’ve had the capacity to support nominees in the past, we’ve experienced some success, such as faculty winning 3M Teaching Awards,” Maheux-Pelletier said. “There is so much extraordinary work happening in the classroom, but to be recognized takes intention and that’s what we’re trying to encourage.” 

The Teaching Commons is also preparing to use a space redesigned and upgraded to include HyFlex capability, which translates to the ability to provide an equitable experience for people in the classroom and those accessing the class remotely. 

“We’re looking forward to seeing what is possible,” said Maheux-Pelletier. “When we hold workshops there, they’ll be available to others outside the classroom. It will be a new chapter for us learning to use the classroom and its digital technology.” 

This year, TC is shining a light on graduate students – teaching assistants and others – and working with them to develop sound teaching skills.  

“We’ve seen that those who engage with us early in their graduate careers get the most return on investment in terms of acquiring new skills and becoming effective teachers.” 

An ongoing program, Reading for Teaching, returns this fall in a slightly different shape. Reading for Teaching is an informal, collegial opportunity to engage with colleagues from across campus interested in reading and talking about teaching; it is a collaborative program between the Teaching Commons and York University Libraries. Participants meet a few times each term to discuss specific reading material. This fall, York’s participants will be collaborating with those at the University of Guelph who have a similar reading program.

Lisa Endersby
Lisa Endersby

“They reached out to us after we chatted about Reading for Teaching at a conference,” said Lisa Endersby, an educational developer and one of the program’s organizers. “We’re exploring new ways of collaborating with colleagues outside York on professional development activities. We’ll all read the same book this fall and converse asynchronously in September. In December, we’ll meet synchronously to share our reflections. 

“With teaching, some conversations are very contextual, but others are broader, so it seems like a natural next step. It’s always so interesting to get new perspectives on something you’ve done for a long time.” 

TC has its usual full calendar of workshops and events to support all aspects of teaching, and its educational developers are always available for consultation. 

York Libraries prototypes curricular offerings for Markham Campus

person holding poster board with the word innovation and related sketches

By Elaine Smith 

With the opening of York University’s Markham Campus less than a year away, the team at York University Libraries is busy bringing to life carefully crafted plans for this hub of innovation. The preparation includes being attuned to the needs of students and faculty, who will be seeking assistance and embarking on experiential learning opportunities. 

“We have been involved since the early days, connecting the common threads on this innovation-oriented campus and collaborating with the teaching faculty,” said Kris Joseph, director of digital scholarship infrastructure for York University Libraries. Those common threads include building the framework to support digital literacy and designing experiential learning opportunities in the library, which requires having the infrastructure and the programs to support them.  

“We are partnering with faculty early to co-design assignments and learning objectives, and to ensure that we have the resources, equipment and tools that students will need to successfully complete their assignments,” said Joseph. “It’s essential that we design assignments so that students can think critically about the technology they are using. We’re prepared to help students achieve a broad and nuanced understanding. In our planning, we also consider the kinds of accommodations that may be needed by students to ensure that our tools and resources are as accessible as possible to all.”  

A large portion of the library space at Markham will be flexible learning space, but there will also be a gaming, extended reality (XR) and data visualization space, media editing suites and a makerspace, building upon the offerings of the Media Creation Lab on the Keele Campus. The spaces allow opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration, something that appeals to faculty members like Andrew Sarta. 

Sarta, an assistant professor of strategy in the School of Administrative Studies, is an expert in organizational adaptation and behavioural strategy within environments undergoing social or technological change, who will be teaching a course about technological creativity and innovation at the Markham Campus. He is one of the future Markham professors who is testing his course design at the Keele Campus to ensure the curriculum will work well. He toured the existing Media Creation Lab spaces at the Scott Library to get a better feel for how to integrate the library facilities and experience into the course. 

York University Libraries has hired a new librarian to oversee the Markham Campus library, and he’ll have the coming year to prepare. Ted Belke joined York University from the Toronto Public Library (TPL) system, where he worked as senior service specialist, innovation.  

“Ted was instrumental in the creation of the TPL Digital Innovation Hubs, so we’re fortunate to have a librarian with experience in setting up leading-edge digital spaces,” said Joseph. “TPL is also a leader in community partnerships, so he’ll bring a lot of that knowledge to the table.” 

Another new addition to the York University Libraries faculty is an experiential education (EE) librarian, Jenna Stidwill, PhD, who has experience with developing experiential education and using innovative and cutting-edge technologies. She will support library-based EE across all campuses, developing a program to ensure students have EE placements across the various York libraries. Many of the Markham courses will be tied to industry partners, and she and Belke will also further the library’s role in supporting industry-sponsored placements.  

“The libraries are at the heart of research and knowledge production at York,” said Joseph. “We help people think critically about information and different forms of media so they can determine what is valuable and how to synthesize it. This is important no matter how many types of technology are involved.” 

C4 students turn gaze toward York University Libraries, SDGs

tablet united nations sustainability goals unsdgs

By Elaine Smith 

Summer 2023 saw the C4 (Cross-Campus Capstone Course) team turn its gaze to a challenge issued by York University Libraries (YUL). 

The C4 course, inaugurated in 2019 by co-founding faculty members Franz Newland (Lassonde) and Danielle Robinson (School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design), provides students with an opportunity to work effectively in interdisciplinary teams on real-world challenges with social impact. Since C4’s inception, YUL faculty have collaborated on the design and development of this initiative, offering important interdisciplinary wisdom and insights along the way.

Dana Craig
Dana Craig

The relationship changed this summer as YUL became a C4 project partner for an entire class of C4 students, searching for insights into how its own programs could more directly support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). After four years of contributing to the C4 initiative, Dana Craig, director of student learning and academic success for YUL, was seconded to the C4 leadership team in 2022-23. In this new role, she began to explore new and deeper ways that C4 and YUL could collaborate. She pitched a challenge to C4 students that focused on SDG 17 (partnerships for the goals): how can a university library be reimagined as a platform for local and global community engagement, knowledge mobility and sharing economies? 

“The question was perfectly aligned with both our Keele Campus and our Casita Azul library project on the Las Nubes Campus in Costa Rica,” said Craig, “but that’s the beauty of C4. The students take a look and break the question down into what they think it’s all about. These students – five groups of 10 – wanted to apply the question in a variety of spaces. 

Casita Azul
Casita Azul

“It became a beautiful opportunity to get students to shake us up a bit by telling us what they need and how they want us to operate. The library should not just be viewed as a support – we are constantly innovating in different ways, too. What else can we do to benefit students and our communities?” 

Each of the groups decided on a topic to explore. They were also required to establish a budget, do research, determine how to promote their idea and think about how to make it sustainable. Craig connected them to the library personnel and resources most suited to their research. She also introduced them to the Media Creation Lab, where they could work with digital technology to create a podcast, borrow a 360-degree camera or learn how to edit a video, among other possibilities.  

The student teams presented their solutions to the leadership team. One group suggested connecting with the community by offering skills workshops that focused on topics that would appeal to 18-to-25-year-olds, such as financial literacy or how to assess the validity of online information. A second team reimagined the library’s website, designing a simpler gateway to make it more user-friendly. A third group created an artificial intelligence (AI) bot to make it easier to search for open-access resources in any language. A fourth team envisioned a platform where authors could publish open-source material and converse with other authors on the same topic, while the final group designed a book exchange where students could bring a book and take a book in return. 

“I could see every single one of these projects being explored by the library, with us working towards some implementation based on the students’ final projects,” Craig said. 

Robinson was delighted to have YUL take a project partnership role this summer. 

“York University Libraries have been a strong partner of C4 from the very beginning,” Robinson said. “Libraries foster vital interdisciplinary spaces on campus, just like C4, so our values are in direct alignment and energize our collaboration. I am glad the project partnership this summer gave us a chance to give back to the libraries. 

“Now, Dana has a 360-degree view of C4 – she has supported students in the classroom and as a member of our leadership team. She has seen, close up, what the students can do and their extraordinarily creative problem solving. Being inside C4 in this way provides a unique perspective; it allows you to see the power of a York degree in action and the unique talents our students bring to the challenges the world is facing.” 

For her part, Craig had nothing but compliments for the C4 course and its impact. 

“I’m quite impressed by C4’s way of teaching and involving students,” Craig said. “Students love it, and I can see them learning to apply skills, such as compromises about work and having respectful conversations. They are learning through doing and it’s a fantastic experiential education opportunity.” 

She was also pleased to have the students brainstorm ideas for the library to consider. 

“We don’t know what we don’t know, and additional lenses on how students see and experience their learning and research environments are always valuable and welcome as additional avenues for us to explore.” 

Archives of Ontario at York offering free tours

Archives of Ontario

The Archives of Ontario, located at 134 Ian MacDonald Blvd. at York University’s Keele Campus, has been collecting, preserving and making available the history and documentary heritage of Ontario and its people since 1903.

Free one-hour tours of the Archives will be offered every Wednesday at 11 a.m., between Sept. 13 and Oct. 25.

Tours of up to 15 people will be led by the Archives’ staff through one of the largest archival facilities in Canada. Collections consist of a wide variety of records, including unique, multifaceted records donated by individuals, businesses and organizations that illustrate the province’s history and development. These date back to the 16th century and include everything from hand-written letters and diaries to books, maps, architectural drawings, city plans, photographs, films, sound recordings, electronic documents and more.

The Archives are also home to the eclectic Government of Ontario Art Collection, which has over 2,800 original works of art and antique furnishings that can be found in legislative buildings in Toronto and in government offices throughout the province.

The tour will include a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the Archive’s vaults, preservation lab and reading room, as well as a personal tour of the exhibit ANIMALIA, which features fascinating records from the Archives’ collections that explore humankind’s changing relationships with animals.

Faculty and students who take the tour will also have the opportunity to learn more about applying for a researcher card, using the microfilm and digital collections, and getting started on research with the assistance and expertise of the reference staff.

Register for a tour online by visiting outlook.office365.com/owa/calendar/ArchivesofOntarioFreeTour@Ontariogov.onmicrosoft.com/bookings.

For more information, contact Danielle Manning, outreach officer, at danielle.manning@ontario.ca or visit archives.gov.on.ca/en/about/index.aspx.

New this fall: cross-disciplinary certificate in children’s literature

Two people exchanging a stack of books

A new certificate program launching this fall through York University’s Department of Humanities answers a request from students to have their coursework in children’s literature recognized.

Students in the program, offered by the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LAPS), will have the opportunity to complete a cross-disciplinary certificate in children’s literature while completing a major or minor degree in children, childhood and youth studies; humanities; or English.

Alison Halsall
Alison Halsall
Cheryl Cowdy
Cheryl Cowdy

“We offer a breadth of courses in children’s literature few other departments at York University or in Canada can match,” explains Alison Halsall, a professor in the Department of Humanities, who together with Professor Cheryl Cowdy led the development of this certificate. “Many students in the Children, Childhood & Youth (CCY) Program also complete courses in children’s literature administered by the departments of English at the Keele and Glendon campuses. All these courses have high student demand and enrolment.”

The undergraduate certificate will recognize and value the importance of children’s literature in the study of constructions of children, childhood and youth, says Cowdy. It will review many of the methodological approaches that have governed and continue to govern the literature intended for young people.

This cross-disciplinary certificate in children’s literature is designed to allow students to engage with texts in the field to examine how modes of representation shape perceptions of children and youth in the contemporary world.  

Students will take a total of 24 credits in courses reflecting the certificate’s specific humanities approach. Two of the core courses for this certificate ensure that students have the opportunity to work with materials that are part of the Children’s Literature collection housed in the Clara Thomas & Special Collections Archive in Scott Library.

In 2020, the CCY program launched a unique 3000-level research methods course in children’s literature scholarship, CCY 3998: The Child and the Book: Research Methods, and a 4000-level honours research project, CCY 4998, that makes use of the Scott Library collection while providing students with valuable experiential education opportunities and training in the distinctive methods of children’s literature research.

The certificate will be housed in the LA&PS faculty’s department of Humanities, administered by the CCY program, and offered as a concurrent option.

“This certificate will be particularly useful for students entering into the communication or media industries, education, advertising and the arts, as well as those interested in careers in children’s book publishing and library studies,” says Cowdy.

Those interested should contact Elena Selevko at lapsccy@yorku.ca and/or Alison Halsall at ahalsall@yorku.ca for more information.

York Libraries houses collection by Caribana founding member

Photo credit: Kenneth Shah with Cult of the Leopards Band King, 1980. ASC, Kenneth Shah fonds, 2020-002/024 (07)

As Toronto hosts the annual Caribbean Carnival that began more than 60 years ago to recognize Black emancipation from slavery, York University Libraries (YUL) celebrates its role in preserving and sharing the historic origins of the festival.

Photo credit: Kenneth Shah in costume for the Caribana parade, 1970. ASC, )Shah fonds, 2020-002/021 (15
Photo credit: Kenneth Shah in costume for the Caribana parade, 1970. ASC, Shah fonds, 2020-002/021 (15)

The archives of Kenneth Shah, a founding organizer of the event originally known as Caribana, capture the enthusiastic embrace of the event’s masquerade, dancing and music through 30 years of text, photographs and film – all of which provide unique insights into the cultural contributions of the Black and Caribbean communities. Shah is a founding member of Caribana and the Caribbean Cultural Committee, and was involved for more than 30 years with the festival celebrating Black emancipation from slavery, which this year runs Aug. 3 to 7.

Caribana arose out of a desire by West Indian immigrants to share the festival culture of Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean with the dominantly white British and European population of Toronto and to educate Canadians. The event celebrates the emancipation of Black people from slavery through Calypso music, dance and masquerade, and provides an opportunity for Caribbean communities to have a voice in the Canadian focus on multiculturalism during the 1970s. Today, the Toronto Caribbean Carnival is an annual event, the largest of its kind in North America.

Born in San Fernando, Trinidad, Shah moved to Canada in 1965 to pursue a career in petroleum engineering. He eventually left this profession to focus on carnival arts, designing and making costumes, managing mas bands and taking a leadership role in programming from the first festival held in 1967 until his death in 2002.

Photo credit: Kenneth Shah with Cult of the Leopards Band King, 1980. ASC, Kenneth Shah fonds, 2020-002/024 (07)
Photo credit: Kenneth Shah with Cult of the Leopards Band King, 1980. ASC, Kenneth Shah fonds, 2020-002/024 (07)

Shah’s archives were gathered after his passing by the late Professor Christopher Innes, a Canada Research Chair in Theatre and Performance at York University, initially deposited with York University’s Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on Africa and its Diasporas.

The Kenneth Shah archives, also known as a fonds, were transferred to York University Libraries in 2019. These documents consist of almost four metres of textual records, 4,000 photographs of festivals in Toronto, Montreal, New York and Trinidad, and 51 sound and moving-image recordings. They include meeting minutes and financial records for the Caribbean Cultural Committee (early organizers of the festival), correspondence with participants and other Caribbean festivals, Shah’s sketches for parade costume designs and his program proposals, regulations and registrations for band competitions, as well as brochures and coverage of the festival by Black community newspapers.

Photo credit: A large mas costume, 1972. ASC, Kenneth Shah fonds, 2020-002/021 (14)
Photo credit: A large mas costume, 1972. ASC, Kenneth Shah fonds, 2020-002/021 (14)

University archivist Michael Moir says the records are very rare in the context of carnival arts, immigration and multiculturalism, and are remarkable as the result of Shah’s decision to include the roles of observer and recorder with those of festival organizer and participant.

“These records are now available for research, providing a rare opportunity to bring life to a generation of Black performers who connected with large international and multicultural audiences drawn to Toronto by its Caribbean festival,” says Moir.

Materials are showcased in the York University Digital Library platform.

Due to the pandemic, processing of these unique and significant archives, which began in 2020, was delayed. The project has now been completed by YUL archivist Emma Thomas.

“As an archivist, sorting through material that encapsulates the activities and achievements of someone’s life is a privilege,” says Thomas. “In Shah’s archives I found reflected the importance and value of his community. Shah’s love for costume arts, the Toronto Caribbean Carnival and his joy in having the opportunity to share it with others is palpable. It provides a unique insight into the Caribbean Carnival in its earliest years, as a gift from the Caribbean people to share their culture with others.”

The finding aid can be found here.

Access to the Kenneth Shah fonds reconnects the Trinbagonian and Caribbean diaspora in Toronto and on both sides of the Atlantic with the festival in its heyday, when the parade dominated the city’s downtown. The documents preserve the legacy of Black artists who found self-expression through carnival to celebrate the abolition of slavery.

Photo credit: Celebrating Black Emancipation through Caribana Festival, 1972. ASC, Kenneth Shah fonds, 2020-001/025 (25)
Photo credit: Celebrating Black emancipation through Caribana Festival, 1972. ASC, Kenneth Shah fonds, 2020-001/025 (25)

Moir says that in his conversations with students and the Markham African Caribbean Canadian Association, he found there was an increasing interest in Toronto’s Caribbean festival and its place in understanding the heritage of this diaspora. The community-based group in Markham, Ont., passes down the traditions of carnival and mas bands from older to younger generations.

“The Kenneth Shah fonds can play an important role in this process by providing unique insights into the celebrations of the Caribbean diaspora whose experiences and culture have yet to see broader representation in public libraries and archives,” says Moir.

Learn more about the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections and read the blog.

Artist-researchers present exhibit on research harassment during Congress

Joan and Martin Goldfarb Centre for Fine Arts

Sarah Hancock, an artist-researcher and undergraduate student at York University’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design (AMPD), is using data to bring awareness to the harassment experienced by scholars when sharing their work in online spaces. Her work is part of an exhibit running through Congress 2023.

When conceiving her artistic vision, Hancock was inspired by a York University Libraries-led co-curricular workshop she attended that was part of a series on data literacy, research computing, digital methods, research skills and media creation.

Taught by librarians Alexandra Wong and Priscilla Carmini, the workshop “Crochet Your Way to Data Fundamentals,” combined maker and data literacies through experiential learning. With crocheting, it brought data to life through the act of data physicalization, aiming to help students explore, understand and communicate data using physical representations while introducing participants to a research creation modality.

The goal was to not only teach students to crochet and create a physical item visualizing temperature data change in Toronto, but to also purposely foster diversity and inclusivity, and build confidence to engage with data. Student participants interacted with local temperature data, reflected, and chose how the use of different yarn colours could best encode the data to communicate data creatively. The workshop offers an introduction to the Maker Literacy programming that will extend to Markham Campus Library’s Data Visualization, Makerspace, Media Creation and Extended Reality (XR) and Gaming spaces.

Using this data visualization skill, a team of researchers has collected stories from graduate students, known as “storytellers,” on their experiences facing harassment due to their research. The team and resulting exhibit, both titled “Bearing Witness: Hate, Harassment and Online Public Scholarship,” are led by Alex Borkowski and Marion Grant, both PhD candidates in the Department of Communication and Culture in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, supported by Associate Professor Natalie Coulter, director, Institute for Research on Digital Literacies. The project will be displayed as part of a larger exhibit during Congress 2023.

Exhibit by Sarah Hancock on research harassment
Exhibit by Sarah Hancock on research harassment

The exhibit invites three artist-researchers to interpret the interviews and create artistic pieces that allow viewers to experience first-hand research harassment. It is part of an ongoing effort by the Bearing Witness team to establish a research community focused on addressing scholar harassment by providing a safe space for students to voice their experiences, and to highlight the need for institutional change and support.

“My installation is meant to be a space of confrontation. I wanted to highlight the ambiguity of the media’s usefulness in our society,” says Hancock.

She explains that she views data physicalization as a bridge between data and comprehension.

“The first reason I decided to use data physicalization is that I wanted a relevant medium and an art form that could highlight their identity as a researcher, yet humanize their work,” says Hancock.

Wong and Carmini led a consultation with Hancock to discover and understand the existing data for online researcher harassment. Although the topic is under-researched, the Libraries were able to support Hancock in finding an academic survey with data the artist could isolate to compare the victimization of researchers with a monthly online presence versus researchers without a monthly online presence.

“I settled on this data because it demonstrates how removing one’s online presence is not a solution, it promotes erasure and demonstrates that online harassment is independent of the researcher’s online usage,” says Hancock.

Leveraging the expertise of Wong and Carmini, Hancock chose to create her data physicalization as two stacks of cease-and-desist letters to represent the victimization of researchers with and without an online presence. Blending mediums, Hancock crafted a physical “online troll” with a QR code linking to a video simulating the threat of online harassment.

“We are really excited that a small spark of inspiration from our data physicalization workshop could snowball into an ongoing discussion on data and research skills, and finally to being part of an exhibit bringing light to an important topic like researcher harassment,” says Wong. “It really shows the potential of creative teaching pedagogies and the strengths of the Libraries’ support throughout the research lifecycle. Through our participatory workshop, we were able engage Sarah to see data in a new light, which led her to her art exhibit project where we could help her to continue to build her research skills; it was very rewarding to assist Sarah’s learning to critically read academic articles, understand how to read complex statistical analyses to retrieve the data she desired, and then to transform that data into a physicalization.”

Borkowski says the current guidance when encountering harassment online is insufficient.

“Researchers are told to respond to harassment by making themselves smaller, like to use a pseudonym, or to not share on Twitter, which is very detrimental, because so much about being a graduate student is about building a public profile and building a network. It also has the result of limiting what research is allowed to take place, which perspectives are silenced, and which are permitted to be shared. We’re really trying to highlight the stakes of the issue, not only for individuals, but for academia more broadly,” says Borkowski.

The Bearing Witness exhibit will be on display from May 27 to June 2 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily in the Special Projects Gallery in the main lobby of the Joan and Martin Goldfarb Centre for Fine Arts at York University (86 Fine Arts Rd., North York).

More information for this project, exhibit and related Congress panels can be found here.

For more information on York University Library workshops, visit https://yorku.libcal.com/calendar/libraryworkshops/. To learn more about the data physicalization workshop, visit https://yorku.libcal.com/event/3706464.

C4 team receives teaching innovation award

Award stock image banner from pexels

Members of York University’s Cross-Campus Capstone Classroom (C4) team were awarded the 2023 D2L Innovation Award in Teaching and Learning from the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE), which recognizes post-secondary collaborative teams for their innovative approaches to promoting student-centered teaching and learning.

C4, launched in 2019, enables students to work on real-world challenges with social impact, promoting team-based collaboration, advanced research and design, critical and strategic thinking, and more.

The award was bestowed on those associated with C4’s innovative approach to pan-university interdisciplinary experiential education, including:

  • Danielle Robinson, co-founder and academic co-lead of C4, as well as associate professor in the Department of Dance;
  • Franz Newland, co-founder and co-lead of C4, as well as associate professor of Space Engineering;
  • Rachelle Campigotto, classroom coordinator assistant for C4 and contract faculty in the Faculty of Education;
  • Dana Craig, Libraries liaison for C4 and director of student learning and academic success in the Libraries;
  • Danielle Dobney, team culture strategist of C4 and assistant professor in Kinesiology and the Athletic Therapy Certificate program;
  • Andrea Kalmin, curriculum lead, classroom coordinator for C4 and adjunct faculty in the Department of Social Science;
  • Alice Kim, scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) research lead for C4 and interim assistant program head for Psychology at the University of Guelph-Humber; and
  • Natasha May, Teaching Commons liaison for C4 and educational developer in York’s Teaching Commons.

The D2L Innovation Award is an international recognition, open to applicants from all countries. It evaluates and rewards innovations in pedagogical approaches, teaching methods, course design, curriculum development, assessment methods, and more. It is named after D2L, a cloud-based learning analytics platform.

Award recipients are invited to a retreat held the day of the pre-conference at STLHE’s Annual Conference. This retreat includes a facilitated session, lunch, and a social and learning excursion focused on innovation. At the conference they will be recognized at the Conference Awards Ceremony and receive a certificate in recognition of their work.

York library exhibits to reflect on Congress theme Reckonings and Re-Imaginings

Scott Library

By Elaine Smith

Congress 2023 at York University will involve more than academic presentations and panel discussions, as York University Libraries is set to showcase its unique archival holdings built through five decades of preserving cultural heritage.

Michael Moir, University archivist, and his team have been working for many months to create thought-provoking, interesting exhibits for the event. Three exhibits will be on display on the second floor of the library between May 27 and June 2 reflecting on the event theme, Reckonings and Re-imaginings.

At Congress in 2006, “John Lennox, the former dean of Graduate Studies approached the archives about having exhibits of interest to various learned societies,” said Moir, who is also head, Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections. “When Congress’ return to York was announced, the Libraries began to plan for participation in the celebration, building upon our first experience.”

The first exhibit, Reckoning and Reimagining: Deborah Barndt’s Engaged Use of Photography, showcases images taken by the retired professor, who is also curating the display. The exhibit will focus a contemporary lens on photos of migrants to Peru in the 1970s; posters from ESL classes in Toronto between 1977 and 1984; literacy teachers in Nicaragua learning to be photojournalists during the Sandinista regime in the 1990s; and urgent social issues of the early 1990s.

Celebrating Black Emancipation Through Carnival focuses on the work of the late Kenneth Shah, a native of Trinidad and Tobago who immigrated to Toronto and was a major force for years in the city’s Caribana, an annual celebration of the emancipation of the Caribbean’s Black population. His costume designs were featured in the parade year after year and the colours and styles will be on display for viewers.

Ben Wicks, the late cartoonist, and his work are the focus of the third exhibit, Cartoons as Commentary and Agents of Change.

“Wicks was known for his cartoons and his work with CBC-TV,” said Moir. “Fewer people are aware of his humanitarian work and his campaigns against poverty and malnutrition in Canada and Africa, and to promote children’s literacy. We seldom think of cartoons as agents of change, but he used them to draw attention to causes dear to his heart.”

The Wicks family donated many of his drawings, scrapbooks and episodes of his television show to York and a selection of these aims to give the viewer more insight into his work as a changemaker.

All three exhibits will be open to the public during regular library hours, except if a Congress 2023 reception is taking place in the space.

York University and the Federation for Humanities and Social Sciences will host Congress 2023 from May 27 to June 2. Register here to attend. Term dates have been adjusted to align with timelines for this year’s event.

Dean’s Changemaker Placements offer unique experience 

Eco campus bridge

By Elaine Smith

Since she’s planning a career in environmental law, undergraduate student Kaitlin Pal was thrilled that the Dean’s Changemaker Placements at York University’s Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change (EUC) funded her to undertake a summer project related to her interests.

Kaitlin Pal
Kaitlin Pal

The placements program offers students the opportunity to apply scholarly knowledge through paid positions with EUC’s living labs: Ecological Footprint Initiative, Zig Zag Gallery, Maloca Garden, Waste Wiki and Las Nubes EcoCampus. The guiding principle behind the placements is that the students must design projects that have the potential to create change. 

“I was looking for a summer job that was related to my research interests and came across the Dean’s Changemaker Placements,” said Pal, a second-year environmental arts and justice (BES) student. “There was an open call to apply, so I applied to all of the labs and got assigned to the one that interested me most.” 

Pal spent the summer working with the Ecological Footprint Initiative, a group of researchers and organizations who work together to advance the measurement of ecological footprint and biocapacity, which includes cropland, grazing land, built-up land, fishing grounds, forest products, and forest carbon uptake, providing measurements by country, as well as worldwide. Her task was to run the lab’s social media accounts, which required featuring the data in meaningful ways. She also developed a strategy report for the team so they could keep the accounts active.  

In addition, she pursued her own change project: a research paper that applied environmental metrics to the land claim case being put forward by Saugeen Ojibway Nation. She estimated the biocapacity – or number of biologically productive global hectares – for the area being claimed. The goal of this project is to apply these metrics to this land claim to determine the value of the land that has been dispossessed.  

Pal, who has continued working with the team part-time during the academic year, has already presented her work at an Ecological Footprint event and will do so again in May at the Dean’s Changemaker Exhibit. She also hopes to be accepted to present her research at the Canadian Society of Ecological Economics conference. 

“I’m trying to get it out there,” Pal said. “Initially, I was pretty nervous about presenting, but they’ve given me a lot of opportunities that have allowed me to improve. I’ve grown in terms of confidence in a professional setting.”

Thereza Eric
Thereza Eric

One of her professors encouraged fourth-year environmental studies student Thereza Eric to apply for a Changemaker’s Placement in eco arts, and she took up the challenge this past fall, continuing through the academic year.  

“I like and practise art myself,” Eric says. “I had to create a project to implement change in the Faculty, and I wanted to build community through art. This has been a very transitional time as people return to campus from the COVID-19 lockdown and I thought about rebuilding community and how art could help do that.” 

Reviving and programming EUC’s Eco Arts and Media Festival post-pandemic was a major focus of Eric’s work. The February festival brought faculty, staff and students together through events such as workshops and art exhibitions. The theme of the festival was “Mending,” and Eric was eager to repair the damage to the sense of community lost during the months of remote learning. 

A collaborative mural was one of her favourite events, because it brought students together in an informal way. Everyone who dropped by the student space where the canvas was laid out was invited to paint a part of the mural. Ultimately, it provided what Eric calls, “a mosaic of the students and cultures involved in our Faculty.” 

Eric says that the Changemaker’s Placement allowed her to “realize my skills in a professional setting.” Initially, she fell victim to imposter syndrome, wondering “Who am I to host workshops and be an event promoter?” Soon, she became comfortable in her role and tasks became second nature as her skills came to the fore. 

As she finishes her placement, she is creating a handbook that contains a record of her work and tips for navigating the position in future. 

“I had to start from scratch, so I want to pass on any strategies that worked,” she said.

Samantha Navalta
Samantha Navalta

Samantha Navalta, who is in the third year of her undergraduate degree in sustainable environmental management, also had a Changemaker Placement. She worked with the Las Nubes EcoCampus, focusing on expanding the communications and marketing program for the Casita Azul library there. It was the perfect way to mix her interest in the environment with her advanced diploma in public relations. 

“When I first joined the library team, I did an online search and couldn’t find much information about their place in the EcoCampus,” Navalta said. “I wanted to make it clear that the library was a part of York and that it served both the campus and the surrounding community.” 

Navalta is also updating and refreshing the library’s branding to fit with York’s brand, which means revising the website, communications materials and handbook. 

“While working in public relations, I knew I needed a deeper connection to my own interests,” she says. “York is so big in environmental studies that I really feel at home and in the right place for my career. This placement feels like a good fit, because I’m doing what I want to do and can see that it’s something I want to do in the medium- and long-term. 

“It has given me real-life skills and has helped me be excited about potential career prospects.”

Dana Craig
Dana Craig

Dana Craig, director of Student Learning and Access Services for York University Libraries, was thrilled to have a student with marketing expertise to assist her in promoting the Las Nubes library. 

“Casita Azul is the connector between York and the community, but it’s hard to explain what it is because it has so many audiences,” Craig said. “We needed a student voice to help make it more visible in the Las Nubes universe and Samantha has that magical communications experience in environmental education, so we hit the jackpot. 

“Changemakers is definitely a successful program.”