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York professors highlight satellites, sustainability in space

Satellite in space

An interdisciplinary project between professors in the Department of Earth & Space Science Engineering and the Department of Computational Arts at York University is promoting sustainability in space.

Resident Space Objects (RSOs), such as satellites and rockets, are frequently launched into space for different missions but are not removed after they serve their purpose or become non-functional. This creates an overcrowded and unsustainable environment which can interfere with space assets and activities.

To tackle this complex issue, Professor Regina Lee from the Lassonde School of Engineering has focused her research on developing satellite technologies for space situational awareness missions. These technologies enable the identification of inactive satellites that should be removed from space and track active satellites that are at risk of collision with other objects. The collected information can then be communicated and used to notify scientists about the status of their satellites, encouraging their removal or other required action.

Regina Lee
Regina Lee

“We talk about sustainability all the time, but what about sustainability in space?” says Lee. “We need to start bringing this idea to the public domain, we need to reach larger audiences.” This complex task required an interdisciplinary approach, one which is central to Lassonde and is part of what differentiates the School.

To spread awareness of this issue and make her research more accessible, Lee collaborated with a fellow professor from York on an interdisciplinary creative project that combines art with science, titled “Space Situational Awareness and Us,” and aims to bridge knowledge gaps and address the world’s greatest challenges.

The project was created by Principal Investigator Professor Joel Ong from the Department of Computational Arts in the School of the Arts, Performance, Media & Design (AMPD) at York University, through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) New Frontiers in Research Fund grant.

The project was proposed in 2019 during a speculative conversation between Lee, Ong and their students, as well as data visualization artist Scott Hessels at Sensorium: Centre for Digital Art and Technology, an organized research unit out of AMPD where they discussed different perspectives on the visualization of satellites and space junk. “We realized that there were significant overlaps in our strategies, particularly in the way we were all finding creative solutions to read images, infer data and compose photographs. It made sense for us to take this further and build our skill sets through interdisciplinary experimentation,” says Ong.

Professor Lee and her students posing at the Ontario Science Centre
Professor Lee and her students posing at the Ontario Science Centre

“Space Situational Awareness and Us” includes several artistic presentations and exhibitions about Lee’s research regarding the environment in space, objects that orbit our planet and space surveillance using small satellites. During March Break (March 13 to 19), one of the artistic presentations, titled “Satellites & You” was demonstrated at the Ontario Science Centre to youth and their families. This presentation was co-written and directed by Lee’s students: Akash Chauhan, PhD candidate, and Vithurshan Suthakar, MSc candidate.

Presentations about Lee’s research were led by her graduate students who engaged with the audience using creative props, interactive demonstrations and informative videos. Youth in the audience were invited to write messages that will travel to near-space and back to earth with one of Lee’s nanosatellites in an upcoming mission.

In addition to presenting her research, Lee used the project to encourage youth to consider pursuing career paths in STEM. “Science is usually introduced to students when they’re older, but I think we should show younger generations what opportunities exist as early as possible,” says Lee. Along with her students, Lee will continue showcasing space research to k-12 classrooms, summer camps and community-based programs over the coming months.

Professor Lee’s graduate students presenting at the Ontario Science Centre.
Professor Lee’s graduate students presenting at the Ontario Science Centre.

Another goal for this project was to promote diversity in space sciences and engineering, especially among young girls. “Women are already underrepresented in engineering, but there are even fewer women in space programs,” says Lee. To help inspire girls, Lee ensured that most presentations of her project included at least one of her female students in a major role. “I want to promote women in space in a subtle way, it’s important for young girls to see what is possible.”

Lee will be continuing her work with Ong, developing creative installations that will be displayed at various exhibits, including the Macintosh Gallery at Western University in London, Ont. Ultimately, Lee hopes art can help reignite conversations about satellites. “There was a time when everyone was excited about satellites being launched into space,” says Lee. “I want to bring that passion back.”

AGYU online event to consider role of public art

Schulich will soon be launching its Business Excellence Academy, a business education and mentorship program supporting 60 Black and Indigenous Ontario high school students this summer.

The Art Gallery of York University (AGYU) will present “Permanence/Impermanence: The Life of Public Art” on May 4 at 1 p.m, an online conversation featuring prominent global artists discussing the challenges and importance of public art.

The conversation is part of The Uncontainable Collections Research Project presented by AGYU, an annual workshop series initiated in 2022 to make York University’s art collection more accessible to the public and for research purposes.

In the spirit of accessibility, this iteration of the workshop was produced collaboratively by AGYU staff Allyson Adley, Liz Ikiriko and Jenifer Papararo, as well as faculty and students in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design.

The preliminary interview questions were developed with York University graduate class, ARTH 6000, led by Professor Anna Hudson, and will be addressed to the participants who are prominent artists and curators whose work critically engages with notions of “publicness” as it relates to “public art,” “the public sphere,” “public space” and “publics.” They include: Allison Glenn (United States), Vanessa Kwan (Canada), Mohammed Laouli (France, Germany, and Morocco) and Raqs Media Collective (India).

During the online conversation, each participant will give a 10-minute overview of their research and practice before joining a collective conversation that uses public art to counter codified notions of public space. In preparation for this live discussion, pre-interviews with each of the participants will be conducted, addressing the principles and ideals of democracy in how public space is inhabited; how decolonial acts of resistance de-centre monuments that glorify settler-colonial histories; what role communities can play in the commissioning of public art; and the limitations and risks of working in public spaces. Transcripts of these interviews will be available on the AGYU website on April 28.

This iteration of the workshop intends to activate, question and learn from involved arts practitioners discussing public art as a form of inspiration, as community engagement, and as a marker of time and place.

Those who wish to find more information or register, can do so here.

York community digs in at Keele, Glendon to create greener campus

Tree planting on campus

York University community members converged at both Glendon (April 12) and Keele (April 13) campuses to plant trees in celebration of Earth Month. The event was organized to help drive positive change by creating a greener campus with restored ecosystems to help mitigate climate change.

The event, sponsored by the UNFCCC’s Youth Climate Report, was held in partnership with Regenesis and York’s Property Management Grounds, Facilities Services with grant funding provided by the City of Toronto.

“In this time of climate change and the biodiversity crisis, we are engaging the York community in Earth Month activities to raise environmental awareness and work on minimizing our footprint,” says Mike Layton, York’s chief sustainability officer. “It’s the perfect opportunity to come together to take action on campus and in our everyday lives, as we continue to work on system level change.”

A total of 214 trees were planted across both campuses, with the addition of a variety of native species such as sugar maples, red maples, black cherry, red oak, dogwood, hackberry, serviceberry, white spruce, white cedar, winterberry and more.

Another opportunity to celebrate Earth Month will take place on April 19 at the Keele Campus when the York community is invited to participate in a 20-minute campus clean-up.

View a photo gallery of the tree planting events below.

Keele Campus Tree Planting April 2023

Watch the video below to see how York community members are committing to sustainability.

York receives $1.65M NSERC grant to develop pharmaceutical technology

pharmaceutical pills and blister packs

Distinguished Research Professor Sergey Krylov of the Faculty of Science received the Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to train the next generation of technologically advanced graduates.

Krylov will lead a team of researchers and industrial leaders in helping graduates meet the scientific and engineering challenges of tomorrow, as well as drive and support pharmaceutical drug discovery and vaccine development in Canada. The goal is to allow master’s and PhD students to graduate from York with the technical and managerial skills to take on leading positions in new entities to capitalize on disruptive technologies that could impact Canada’s research and development in the pharmaceutical industry.

Sergey Krylov
Sergey Krylov

“This grant will help train our students to become highly qualified personnel ready to meet difficult scientific and engineering challenges, while also helping to drive and support pharmaceutical drug discovery and vaccine development in Canada,” says York Vice-President Research and Innovation Amir Asif.

“This NSERC CREATE program taps into York’s expertise in bio-analytical methods and instrumentation and the University’s commitment to purposeful research. I congratulate Sergey Krylov on his successful application and collaboration.”

The NSERC-funded industrial stream Technology-Enhance Pharmaceutical Discovery (TEPD) program at York, designed with industry input, will bring together some of Canada’s leading academics working on technological aspects of pharmaceutical discovery, as well as major companies driving or supporting this country’s pharmaceutical research and development.

“Big Pharma is continually shifting tremendous costs and risks associated with pharmaceutical discovery to small-venture players, changing the landscape of pharmaceutical discovery in Canada,” says Krylov. “The pressing needs of Canadian pharmaceutical research and development were what motivated our academic and industrial team members to come together to create a comprehensive training ecosystem capable of making a difference in this industry at the national level.”

The goal of this program is to enhance Canada’s global economic competitiveness by fuelling innovation in the pharmaceutical industry, a sector of the economy which creates more research and development jobs in Canada than any other industry.

Trainees will conduct collaborative research in one of seven pharmaceutical-discovery research themes, like the stages involved in pharmaceutical discovery used by developers of drugs, biologicals and vaccines. They will work with leading-edge technologies that could result in potential drug discovery and vaccine development.

The program is comprised of collaborative research, joint seminars, summer school with hands-on and in-classroom workshops run by instructors from academia and industry meant to advance soft and professional skills of the trainees, summer research conferences and industrial internships in the research and development labs of the four industrial partners in Canada or the United States.

Students will graduate with superior industrial and academic research expertise, ready to meet the scientific and engineering challenges of Canada’s new research landscape.

Learn more at News @ York.

Groundbreaking global health simulation slated for May

Global health

By Elaine Smith

Students will be immersed in an unparalleled learning experience on May 1 and 2 as York University’s School of Global Health unveils an innovative global health simulation event designed for Faculty of Health students.

Ahmad Firas Khalid
Ahmad Firas Khalid

Spearheaded by Dr. Ahmad Firas Khalid, a physician and assistant professor of global health and faculty Fellow with the Faculty of Health, this first-of-its-kind simulation will transport students into the heart of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) World Health Assembly.

Participating students will have a unique opportunity to collaborate, tackle multi-sectoral challenges, and deepen their understanding of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). The deadline to register is April 17. Students must register using this link. Those who would like to attend the opening and closing plenary sessions and the side sessions as an observer are also welcome; the registration deadline is noon on April 21 using an online form.

Khalid has created a state-of-the-art simulation of the World Health Assembly (WHA), WHO’s supreme governing body, giving students the chance to participate in creating collaborative governance approaches to multi-sectoral and multi-jurisdictional global challenges. The simulation, the first of its kind, also provides a deeper understanding of the UN SDGs.

“This project is groundbreaking because simulation-based learning in global health training is new,” Khalid said. “Presently, there is a distinct lack of continuous efforts aimed at advancing experiential education through simulation-based learning in global health, especially beyond the traditional clinical settings.

“In accordance with the University Academic Plan, the WHA SIM advances experiential education (EE) at York beyond the classroom by pioneering a novel EE strategy that combines the opportunity to explore and analyze real-world problems by applying theory and skills to a concrete experience and producing outputs that are collaborative and action oriented.”

The simulation, which takes place at the Keele Campus, begins with an opening ceremony and a welcome address by York University President and Vice-Chancellor Rhonda Lenton, followed by a panel discussion on “Building Solidarity for Worldwide Health Security” moderated by Professor A.M. Viens, director of York’s School of Global Health. The panel features Dr. David Peters, dean of the Faculty of Health; Dr. James Orbinski, director of York’s Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research; and Krishnan Shankar, science advisor and community partnerships lead at ScienceUpFirst Initiative, Canadian Association of Science Centres.

Afterward, students will immerse themselves in the simulation, joining one of three committees: Public Health Emergencies: Preparedness and response; Strengthening Infodemic Management; or Universal Health Coverage: Reorienting health systems to primary care. Students will discuss the issue facing them and draft a related position paper and resolution. Each committee will work with a York University mentor who is an expert in the field: Godfred Boateng, assistant professor of global health; Matthew Poirier, assistant professor of social epidemiology; and Farah Ahmad, associate professor in the School of Health Policy and Management.

On the second day of the simulation, each committee will take its resolution through the WHA approval process, aiming to have it passed.

“The WHA simulation should be eye-opening for students as they are exposed to the procedures and politics involved in global health initiatives,” Khalid said. “This amazing opportunity will offer valuable lessons that will be transferable to their future careers.”

Participants will also attend a career session focused on opportunities in global health and enjoy a lecture by Anthony Morgan, the new host of CBC’s acclaimed television program, The Nature of Things.

The simulation will end with an awards ceremony, recognizing the best delegate, best collaborator and best position paper.

“This is a fantastic EE opportunity for our students,” said Viens. “York’s undergraduate global health program was the first in Canada and one of the first in the world to offer a free-standing undergraduate global health degree. Its reputation and record of educating the next generation of global health leaders will be further advanced by this innovative, real-world simulation-based experiential learning initiative. It’s something we hope to enlarge upon in years to come.”

Research calls for governance of wildlife trade in pandemic treaty

Black woman typing on a laptop

Researchers from York University’s Faculty of Health have co-authored a study investigating the governance of pandemic prevention in the context of wildlife trade.

Published in The Lancet Planetary Health, the research considers the current institutional landscape for pandemic prevention and how prevention of zoonotic spillovers from the wildlife trade for human consumption should be incorporated into a pandemic treaty.

Raphael Aguiar
Raphael Aguiar
Adrian Viens
Adrian Viens
Mary Wiktorowicz

Professors Mary Wiktorowicz and A.M. Viens, along with doctoral candidate Raphael Aguiar, collaborated on the research with colleagues from the University of Washington. The researchers argue that a pandemic treaty should be “explicit about zoonotic spillover prevention and focus on improving coordination across four policy domains, namely public health, biodiversity conservation, food security, and trade.”

A pandemic treaty, they say, should include four interacting goals in relation to prevention of zoonotic spillovers from the wildlife trade for human consumption: risk understanding; risk assessment; risk reduction; and enabling funding.

Ideas about preventative actions for pandemics have been advanced during COVID-19, but researchers say more consideration on how these actions can be operationalized, with respect to wildlife trade for human consumption, is needed.

“To date, pandemic governance has mostly focused on outbreak surveillance, containment, and response rather than on avoiding zoonotic spillovers in the first place,” the study states. “However, given the acceleration of globalization, a paradigm shift towards prevention of zoonotic spillovers is warranted as containment of outbreaks becomes unfeasible.”

According to Raphael, “A risk-based approach to wildlife trade and its interconnected threats can be used to situate the governance of pandemic prevention in relation to their shared causal pathways. This approach enables more efficient coordination of responses.”

Trade-offs must be carefully balanced to meet multiple objectives, says Wiktorowicz. For instance, while bans on all wildlife trade could reduce health risks, they may undermine access to food for some local and indigenous populations around the world and alter incentives for sustainable land use.

“Pandemic prevention at source needs to be based on a better understanding of how interaction with wildlife increases health risks to humans along the entire trade chain, so that overregulation does not occur,” says Wiktorowicz.

The researchers note that containment of zoonotic outbreaks and prevention of spillovers into pandemics could become more difficult to manage with increased globalization and urbanization, and this calls for an international institutional arrangement that accounts specifically for these possibilities.

“The current pandemic treaty negotiations present an opportunity for a multilateral approach, to address deep prevention,” adds Viens.

Read the full study “Global governance for pandemic prevention and the wildlife trade.”

Wiktorowicz and co-author Eduardo Gallo Cajiao (University of Washington) will present the paper in a seminar at the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research on April 26 at 1 p.m. See the event listing online for more information and details on how to attend.

York professors lead Queer Comics Symposium

coloured pencils sketch cartoon

Building upon the work of the just-published and Lambda Literary Award nominated publication, The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader: Critical Openings, Future Directions (University Press of Mississippi, 2022), York University Professors Alison Halsall and Jonathan Warren will host a Queer Comics Symposium on Friday, April 28.

This event, presented by York University’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and the Departments of English and Humanities, will focus on transdisciplinary and international LGBTQ+ comics scholarship and creativity. Taking advantage of the appearance of the Reader as a field-defining publication, organizers say the symposium will mobilize the specific kinds of knowledge that it showcases: putting scholars in conversation with creators, providing a forum for the work of thinkers at different stages of their careers, and featuring a diversity of analytical approaches with the aim of generating further contributions to the field.

The day begins at noon, in Accolade Building East (room 005), with a plenary lecture given by Professor Michelle Ann Abate (Ohio State University), author of Tomboys: A Literary and Cultural History (Temple University Press). She will discuss “Queering Conformity in Postwar America: The Li’l Tomboy Comic Book Series and Gender Rebellion in the 1950s.” Following this lecture will be a panel that features papers by Professor Lin Young (University of Calgary), Joti Bilkhu (York University), as well as Halsall and Warren.

The second session takes place at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre (12 Alexander St., Toronto) at 6 p.m. It will feature a public address given by Professor Justin Hall (California College of the Arts), cartoonist and editor of No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics (Fantagraphics). This lecture will be followed by the first Canadian screening of the award-winning documentary, No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics (Compadre Media, 2021), directed by Vivian Kleiman.

The Queer Comics Symposium will feature contributions from established and upcoming scholars in the field, as well as comics creators and students, at an event that is committed to inspiring and diversifying conversations about LGBTQ+ sequential art and its production around the world.

Via slideshow presentations and a book display, there will also be a presentation of a creative curation of queer comics art.

All are welcome to attend.

Students from Jane-Finch community engage with Congress 2023

Students in front of Vari Hall 2021

When York University Professor Andrea Davis became the academic convenor for Congress 2023, she listened closely to York members who wanted to engage the University’s surrounding community. Davis, the Congress scholarly planning committee and Research Assistant Jellisa Ricketts have prioritized making space for local high school and undergraduate students at the event.

“The scholarly planning committee wanted to do this engagement well and we decided to focus on four high schools in the nearby Jane-Finch community,” said Davis.

Davis contacted administrators at each of the schools – C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute, Downsview Secondary School, Emery Collegiate Institute and Westview Centennial Secondary School – to arrange two pathways for participation.

Each school recommended five senior students who identify as Black or Indigenous to attend two of Congress 2023’s Big Thinking lectures: former Governor General Michaëlle Jean’s lecture about ”Re-Imagining Black Futures” and Indigenous filmmaker Alanis Obamsawin’s talk, “Seeds of the Future: Climate Justice, Racial Justice, and Indigenous Resurgence.” Afterward, each speaker will meet the students for a private lunch and conversation.

High school students participate in a poetry competition
High school students participate in a poetry competition (credit: Sissi Song, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies)

These senior students will be paired with undergraduate students who attended high school in the Jane-Finch community, meeting twice before Congress 2023 to build connections. To identify appropriate York undergraduate ambassadors, Davis reached out to Associate Professor Sylvia Bawa, director of the Resource Center for Public Sociology and the Jane-Finch Social Innovation Hub, and Mohamed Ahmed and Tesfai Mengesha, co-directors of the community-based program, Success Beyond Limits.

A poetry competition has also been running in these schools to engage students with Congress. The author of the best entry from each school will receive a $500 honorarium and the opportunity to read their poem at a Congress 2023 event.

“This is the best kind of outreach,” Davis said. “We want to show students they have a voice and a future, while breaking down walls between academia and our wider communities.

“It’s part of our larger commitment to demonstrate what it means to be a place-based university adjacent to the Jane-Finch community. York University and the Jane-Finch community both emerged in the mid-20th century and our location makes us both unique and co-dependent. As a university, we have a commitment to serve the communities adjacent to our campus and to deal with them ethically and honestly.”

Ricketts added, “This work is very intentional. We’re backing up our talk with action and hoping some of these York connections flourish beyond Congress 2023, because I can feel how grateful the high school students are.”

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.

Study explores barriers, opportunities for implementing Finnish Baby Box concept in Canada

A new study out of York University examines how the Finnish Baby Box concept was instituted across nations identified as liberal welfare states, such as Canada, the U.K. and the U.S., that minimize income redistribution, social spending and management of the labour market. It also identified numerous barriers to building progressive public policy in these nations.

For more than 80 years in Finland, expectant mothers have been provided with a cardboard box containing an extensive collection of clothing, bathing products and diapers, together with bedding and a small mattress, which could be used to place the baby in if necessary.

Dennis Raphael
Dennis Raphael

Faculty of Health Professor Dennis Raphael and Alexis Blair-Hamilton, a recent graduate of the Health Studies program at York and lead author of the study, investigated how the concept was translated in liberal welfare states. Raphael says they were led to do so by their observing that governmental authorities and the media in Canada, the U.K. and the U.S. put forth the mistaken belief that Finland’s very low infant mortality rate was achieved by having babies sleep in the box rather than by the advantages provided by Finland’s extensive social democratic welfare state.

Using a critical case study methodology, the study looked at whether the Finnish Baby Box concept’s implementation in Canada, the U.K. and the U.S. experienced message distortion (having the box serve as a means of preventing SIDS rather than providing essentials associated with childbirth), commercialization and watering down of content and authorities, and media separation of the baby box concept from the broad array of Finnish welfare state policies that support families with children.

Numerous barriers to building progressive public policy in these three countries were identified, including: “the structures and processes of the liberal welfare state, commercial interests that skew public policymaking and media logic that limits news reporting to the concrete and simple, eschewing complex analysis.”

Additionally, the researchers found that only Scotland and Wales recognized the decommodification and equity roles played by the Finnish baby box and its contents. The authors noted that in Scotland and Wales, like Finland, governing authorities were decidedly on the left-wing of national politics, demonstrating how a commitment to equity and social democracy serve as important spurs to health promoting public policy. Barriers and opportunities in liberal welfare states for implementing such public policy to support families and promote health and well-being were considered.

The full study “A critical analysis of the Finnish Baby Box’s journey in to the liberal welfare state: Implications for progressive public policymaking” is available for free download until May 17. To obtain a copy of the study after May 17, contact Raphael at draphael@yorku.ca.

Teaching Commons pilots Students as Partners initiative

Teachers students celebration

By Elaine Smith

Four students from York University’s Faculty of Education have joined educational developers at the Teaching Commons (TC) to create a new way of working together in partnership.

Students as Partners Teaching Commons

The students – teaching candidates Zainab Chaudhry, Theodora Dobbs and Lauren Wilson, and undergraduate educational studies major Corina Vitantonio – have just completed year-long placements with the Teaching Commons, working closely with educational developers Matthew Dunleavy, Lisa Endersby, and Lianne Fisher to think about how students can operate as partners, rather than as clients, in post-secondary education. Their work will form the foundation for future Student as Partners opportunities at TC, but they also hope that it will serve as a guide for future collaborations between students and staff or students and faculty.

Lisa Endersby
Lisa Endersby
Matthew Dunleavy
Matthew Dunleavy
Lianne Fisher
Lianne Fisher

“When we get student feedback on programs, it’s after the fact and doesn’t speak to their expertise,” Endersby said. “This is a chance to think about how to do it better.”

As the students state in a blog post they authored for TC, “At York, we aim to highlight the importance of student and faculty collaborations and vocalize the idea that within our society various power structures exist that perpetuate inequitable practices. As a united front, we must work together to break down these societal barriers and create meaningful and inclusive practices within our pedagogical work.”

They suggest six concrete ways to incorporate student partnership into teaching practice:

  • resisting client models of education;
  • pedagogical transparency;
  • valuing and centring student experience;
  • active feedback;
  • collaboration in assessment; and
  • self-reflection by everyone involved.

Initially, the idea of being an equal partner to perceived experts was unfamiliar to the quartet.

“I had little experience with the students as partners idea,” said Wilson. “I’m coming from a system where the professors are the experts and being on an equal playing field as an expert in my own lived experience didn’t occur to me. Now, I’ll take with me to my own teaching practice the knowledge that it’s up to me to value students’ lived experience, bring it out and show that it’s valued.”

Theodora Dobbs
Lauren Wilson
Corina Vitantonio
Zainab Chaudhry

Dobbs said, “Even within a course, I often wish I could provide feedback in the moment. It’s more valuable then than during course evaluations.”

Chaudhry noted, “We are programmed to believe in the traditional hierarchy and that’s how I thought. Now, my perspective has changed. Our opinions matter and the faculty can learn from us.”

The students and educational developers collaborated on the research and design of a Students as Partners program framework that will inform future student opportunities at the Teaching Commons.

“We’re designing the program as if it were a course with learning outcomes, and perhaps it will also be a resource for faculty,” Dobbs said. “We’re giving the Teaching Commons a foundation for what the program should be going forward, but it will allow for future students to tweak it. It is a solid place for new students to come in and bridge the gap between themselves and the staff.”

“They gave us control,” said Vitantonio. “It’s cool to know that we had this information in us and it’s appreciated.”

Wilson discovered that the larger themes in Students as Partners apply equally at the university level and the elementary school level where she hopes to practise.

“It’s about valuing the entire student, respecting where they come from and giving the student choice,” she said.

The educational developers are delighted by the collaboration and its outcome.

“The way we envision the program is that the students partner with us to collaborate on the work we engage in with faculty,” said Dunleavy.

Endersby added, “The students’ work is, ultimately, curating and collecting ideas about students as partners to give us a foundation for putting this into practice at the Teaching Commons. We hope to build on this important foundational work by engaging a new group of students to partner with us in piloting these ideas in the fall.”