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An announcement regarding changes to the Faculty Relations area

Vari pond

The following is an important message to the University community from York President and Vice-Chancellor Rhonda Lenton, Interim Vice-President Academic and Provost Lisa Philipps, and Interim Vice-President Finance and Administration Trudy Pound-Curtis:

We are pleased to announce some organizational changes in York’s Faculty Relations area, intended to support the enhancement of our capacity and services in this area and to clarify roles and responsibilities. Effective July 17, Barry Miller will assume the role of Senior Policy Advisor on Labour Relations; and Leanne DeFilippis will be appointed Interim Executive Director of Faculty Relations. Both positions will report to the Vice-President Academic and Provost.

Barry has served as Executive Director of Faculty Relations since 2009, previously serving as Executive Director of Employee Relations from 2006 to 2009 and as Director of Academic Employee Relations from 2001 to 2006. Barry has provided outstanding stewardship of the Faculty Relations department. His recognized expertise in university collective bargaining and labour relations has been much appreciated by colleagues across the University and across the country. In his new role as Senior Policy Advisor, he will focus on providing strategic advice to the senior leadership of the University on a range of key labour relations matters.

As Interim Executive Director of Faculty Relations, Leanne will oversee the provision of support and advice across the University in matters of academic contract administration and dispute resolution, and contribute to professional development activities for academic community members as part of ensuring their success, including assistance to new faculty and staff members in their transition to York (including immigration). Leanne brings to the position extensive faculty relations experience.  She holds an LLB from Osgoode Hall Law School, and in her current position in the office of the University General Counsel, she provides support to the offices of human resources and faculty relations, and practices in the areas of human rights law and general litigation. She is also coordinator of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities office.

Over the next six months, we will be reviewing how the University can best deliver human resources and faculty relations functions in order to provide outstanding services to the community in these areas in support of our academic priorities.  Further announcements will follow as these discussions proceed.

Film screening marks 50th anniversary of Indigenous FrontRunners

FrontRunners youth

On the evening of Wednesday, July 19 at the Nat Taylor Cinema located on York University’s Keele campus, the 50th anniversary of a pivotal sporting event will be re-visited in the film Nigaanibatowaad: FrontRunners (2007). The event is sponsored by the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS) at York University. It’s a must-see film for anyone who has thought about what truth and reconciliation could mean.

“The Faculty is honored to be a part of this event. It is through the work of many activists over thousands of years that we have today found the courage to confront our collective histories as a country,” said Professor Ananya Mukherjee-Reed, dean of LA&PS. “The film is one such contribution to that process and speaks poignantly to the question of justice which is the core concern that shapes the Faculty’s work.”

An archival image of the original FrontRunners

In 1967, 10 Indigenous teenage boys, all of whom were accomplished long-distance runners, were chosen to run with the Pan Am Games torch from St. Paul, Minnesota to the game’s stadium in Winnipeg, Manitoba, a distance they accomplished in one week. But when they arrived, the torch was taken from them and given to a white runner. They were not invited in to watch the ceremonies. Instead, they were sent away. All were residential school students.

In 1999, Winnipeg again hosted the games and organizers tracked down the original runners, apologized and 32-years later they finished the journey and delivered the torch. Nigaanibatowaad: FrontRunners is their story, and four of the original runners, Patrick Bruyere, William Merasty, Charlie Nelson and Bill Chippeway, will be at the screening to celebrate the anniversary of their run, and meet the thousands of young athletes attending the North American Indigenous Games (NAIG) at York University. The group says they are committed to passing the fire within to another generation of frontrunners. That fire includes dealing with colonialism and the long shadow it casts.

A scene from the film Nigaanibatowaad: FrontRunners

For some, healing from the abuse endured as children has taken years, and is never really over. For many, the journey of staying strong includes not losing their language. In residential schools, warning signals and signs were used if a person in authority was approaching at school. Language is a cornerstone of culture which is why Mishomis (Grandfather), who watches the film’s main character Thomas as he revisits his past, speaks Ojibway.

Running is another cornerstone. The film’s title, Nigaanibatowaad, alludes to the person who runs in front of the dogsled on the trap line, a job for which the runners from Northern Manitoba were responsible. There is no word for “athlete” in Ojibway. Running was almost like breathing in that it was the main form of transportation. It was also one way the runners survived residential school, allowing them to escape its confines as often as possible by travelling if they made the track team, and if they were successful at competitions, receive more food.

Of the 10 original runners, eight were still alive in 1999. Two had tragic deaths, and, like many Indigenous people, the surviving runners continue to deal with enormous losses in family and community. Children who attended residential schools were more likely to die than were Canadian soldiers in the Second World War. The generations afterward live in a shadow of that experience, something the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry was initiated to address.

But much has changed since 1967: Indigenous athletes from the Mexican border to above the Arctic Circle will be competing at York. Thousands of cultural performers will accompany them. This promise of a strong, vibrant generation of frontrunners gives the surviving runners great hope. All four will speak after the film. As Mishomis advises: “The past should never be forgotten. But keep your eyes up. Look ahead.”

For more information, visit http://bit.ly/2udCFC6.

Milky Way could be home to 100 billion failed stars

False-colour near-infrared image of the core of the young massive cluster RCW 38 taken with the adaptive-optics camera NACO at the ESO's Very Large Telescope. RCW 38 lies at a distance of about 5500 light years from the Sun. The field of view of the central image is approximately 1 arc minute, or 1.5 light years across. (Photo by the research team )
False-colour near-infrared image of the core of the young massive cluster RCW 38 taken with the adaptive-optics camera NACO at the ESO’s Very Large Telescope. RCW 38 lies at a distance of about 5500 light years from the Sun. The field of view of the central image is approximately 1 arc minute, or 1.5 light years across. (Photo by the research team )

An international research team has discovered that anywhere from 25 to 100 billion failed stars reside in the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way Galaxy is the celestial home to Earth.

Ray Jayawardhana

The failed stars, which are known as Brown dwarfs, are astronomical entities that are too large to be planets and too small to be stars.

Astronomer Ray Jayawardhana, who is dean of the Faculty of Science at York University, is a member of the research team that made the discovery.

Classified as substellar objects, Brown Dwarfs are unable to sustain stable hydrogen fusion in their core, a hallmark of stars like the Sun and they are too large to be planets. Many are found in star clusters, which are thought to be the universe’s nursery for new stars.

The seven-member research team cautions that their finding of 25 to 100 billion brown dwarfs could be a significant underestimation as there are many lower mass and fainter brown dwarfs present in star clusters.

“It seems that brown dwarfs form in abundance in a variety of star clusters,” says Jayawardhana. “They are ubiquitous denizens of our Milky Way galaxy.”

The research team surveyed brown dwarfs in a massive star cluster and found that there was one brown dwarf for every two stars in the cluster. The ratio is similar to what researchers found in nearer, less dense star clusters.

Their findings were presented at the National Astronomy Meeting presented by the Royal Astronomical Society, at the University of Hull in the United Kingdom, July 2 to 6.

The project’s lead researcher is University of Lisbon Astronomer Koraljka Muzic. Muzic collaborated with Aleks Scholz, an astronomer and researcher at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, and Jayawardhana, their former postdoctoral supervisor.

“We’ve found a lot of brown dwarfs in these clusters,” said Scholz, “and whatever the cluster type, the brown dwarfs are really common. Brown dwarfs form alongside stars in clusters, so our work suggests there are a huge number of brown dwarfs out there.”

False-colour near-infrared image of the core of the young massive cluster RCW 38 taken with the adaptive-optics camera NACO at the ESO's Very Large Telescope. RCW 38 lies at a distance of about 5500 light years from the Sun. The field of view of the central image is approximately 1 arc minute, or 1.5 light years across. (Photo by the research team )
False-colour near-infrared image of the core of the young massive cluster RCW 38 taken with the adaptive-optics camera NACO at the ESO’s Very Large Telescope. RCW 38 lies at a distance of about 5500 light years from the Sun. The field of view of the central image is approximately 1 arc minute, or 1.5 light years across. (Photo courtesy of the research team)

Since the discovery of the first brown dwarf in 1995, astronomers have identified thousands more. The overwhelming majority of brown dwarfs that are known to researchers reside within 1,500 light years of the Sun, which astronomically speaking is relatively nearby.

In 2006, Jayawardhana and his collaborators began a new search for young brown dwarfs. After surveying five nearby star-forming regions, they turned their attention to the more distant “RCW 38” star cluster, which has a high density of more massive stars and very different conditions from the other surveyed regions.

The fact that they have found just as many brown dwarfs in RCW 38 suggests that the environment where the stars develop has only a small effect on how brown dwarfs form.

For the current study, the researchers used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile to target the RCW 38 cluster, which is located some 5,500 light years away from the Sun.

The RCW 38 study has been submitted to Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The study is available at https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.00277

Three York U researchers awarded SSHRC Connection Grants

word collage for connection grant story
word collage for connection grant story

Three York University professors have been awarded Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Connections Grants, each worth approximately $25,000.

The recipients are Professor Roger Keil, Faculty of Environmental Studies and Tier 1 York Research Chair in Global Sub/Urban Studies; Professor Carolyn Podruchny, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies; and Professor Poonam Puri, Osgoode Hall Law School.

“York University is delighted with the success of our researchers in a competition whose aim is to create vital connections among researchers in exciting and important areas of research,” said Robert Haché, vice-president research & innovation at York University.

“I want to congratulate today’s award recipients of the Connection Grants − Professors Roger Keil, Carolyn Podruchny and Poonam Puri − and wish them every success as they move forward with their research projects,” added Haché.

Connection Grants support events and outreach activities geared toward short-term, targeted knowledge mobilization initiatives. These events and activities represent opportunities to exchange knowledge and to engage on research issues of value to those participating. Events and outreach activities funded by a Connection Grant may often serve as a first step toward more comprehensive and longer-term projects potentially eligible for funding through other SSHRC funding opportunities.

Event details

Roger Keil – After Suburbia: Extended Urbanization and Life on the Planet’s Periphery

Roger Keil
Roger Keil

Scheduled for October 19 to 21, this is the final conference of a series marking seven years of suburban scholarship. It is part of the multiyear project, the Major Collaborative Research Initiative (MCRI) Global Suburbanism: Governance, Land and Infrastructure in the 21st Century.

This conference will bring together four categories of participants:

  • Leading scholars of suburbanization and suburbanisms with a global profile – the keynote presenters;
    • International scholars associated with MCRI;
    • Toronto-based urban policy and planning professionals and practitioners; and
    • Graduate students who will present their own work in a pre-conference.

Carolyn Podruchny – Manitoulin Island Summer Historical Institute (MISHI) 2017

Carolyn Podruchny
Carolyn Podruchny

Running from August 14 to 18, the Manitoulin Island Summer Historical Institute (MISHI) will bring together 29 participants. Professors, graduate students, Elders and local experts will explore how places can be used as sources for the Anishinaabe history of Manitoulin Island, located in northern Lake Huron in Ontario.

MISHI 2017 has two goals. First, participants will study Anishinaabe history on Manitoulin Island and its surrounding environs. Second, participants will work for the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation (OCF) on organizing, digitizing and transcribing parts of the OCF oral history collection with the long-term goal of publishing an anthology; recording interviews with local Elders; and creating teaching modules of Anishinaabe history.

Poonam Puri – Towards New Governance Strategies for Preventing Corruption: Law, Theory, and Practice

Poonam Puri
Poonam Puri

This conference, dubbed the “Anti-Corruption Symposium,” will be held in Toronto from September 14 to 15.  It is organized by Osgoode Hall Law School together with Canadian, American and international partner institutions including Ryerson University, the University of Victoria Faculty of Law, Jindal Global Law School of OP Jindal Global University, and The Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania.

The symposium’s goal is to facilitate collaborative analysis of a variety of cross-jurisdictional and interdisciplinary methods for advancing formal anti-corruption laws and norms that would advance and entrench the formation of informal anti-corruption norms and values. For details, visit the website.

To learn more about Connection Grants, visit the SSHRC website.

Winters College awards celebrate student accomplishments

From Welcome Week to convocation at York University, Winters College is a home away from home for students enrolled in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD). More than 250 students live in the residence and most of them are from AMPD. It’s a welcoming and close-knit community offering activities from pub nights and performances to exhibitions and intramural sports, plus comfortable spaces to study and relax between classes.

In the hours before the AMPD convocation on June 19, Winters College hosted an awards ceremony, giving out almost $2000 in scholarships and prizes. Opening with a long-standing tradition, a euphonium solo performed by alumnus Randall Pilson (BFA ’02), the event featured live music by York students in the Peter Eratostene Jazz Quartet and a lunch to celebrate students who have made an impact over the 2016-17 year.

Above: From left, Nigel D’Souza,Olivia Faveri, Philip Torrenueva
Above: From left, Nigel D’Souza,Olivia Faveri, Philip Torrenueva

Fifth-year dance student Olivia Faveri received the Winters College Fellows Scholarship, awarded to a student with high academic standing who has been exceptionally engaged in college life. A former Winters Council member and past president of the Dance Students’ Association, she described Winters as being like “a family and a home,” with the welcoming atmosphere starting from day one of orientation week, for which she coordinated the academic portion last year.

“Winters supports its students,” Faveri said. “You can talk to John [Mayberry, a theatre professor and master of the college] for advice, and there are grants available to produce your work, extending beyond your class projects.”

With funding from Winters, Faveri co-curated and launched Bloom in 2016 – a student-run choreographic showcase produced by the Dance Students’ Association that took place in downtown Toronto and drew talent from the seven departments within AMPD. With Winters support, the production will continue in future years.

The Winters College Council 50th Anniversary Award was presented to Philip Torrenueva, who is in his fifth year of a concurrent music and education degree. Torrenueva was blown away by Winters’ WIBI a cappella choir when they performed at his frosh week and auditioning was one of his top priorities that first semester. He’s been a member ever since, and served as director for two years and president last year.

“WIBI changed my life,” Torrenueva said.  “It’s a professional experience. I’m in touch with alumni from the ensemble, and they give me help and feedback on the music and managing the choir. It’s a valuable network I plan to keep connected with throughout my career.”

Lindsay Vereggen, who just completed her first year in the York/Sheridan Program in Design, received the Master’s Book Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Residence Life.

Above: From left, Ron, Lindsay and Kathy Vereggen
Above: From left, Ron, Lindsay and Kathy Vereggen

“First year can be daunting, but I really wanted to make the most of my university experience,” Vereggen said. “Winters was so welcoming, and I made really close friends. I got involved in Residence Council and next year I’m excited to come back with a job as a residence don.”

Vereggen has a summer job lined up in her field, working at a print shop in her home town of Pickering. Her parents attended the awards ceremony and expressed how glad they were that she is returning to Winters residence as a don next year. “Lindsay is really thriving here,” said her father, Ron Vereggen.

Back row l to r Lindsay Vereggen, Philip Torrenueva, Nigel D’Souza, Maddisyn Fisher Front row Olivia Faveri, Jill Mogado
Above: Back row, from left, Lindsay Vereggen, Philip Torrenueva, Nigel D’Souza and Maddisyn Fisher. Front row, from left,  Olivia Faveri and Jill Mogado

Three additional Master’s book prizes were presented for contributions to college life outside of residence. Maddisyn Fisher, Jill Mogado and Nigel D’Souza all mentioned what an honour it was to be recognized.

Fisher, who served as VP Athletics on Winters College Council, is going into fourth year of her combined theatre and education degree. “Intramural sports are an amazing way to keep active. You meet students from across the university and experience a different sort of commitment and closeness with your team,” she said.

Mogado, a communications major, and D’Souza, who focused on theatre production, had just completed their degrees and were set to convocate later that afternoon.

“I lived at Winters in my first year and kept on attending college events throughout my time at York,” D’Souza said. “I made a lot of friends here – everyone was so welcoming, and I feel like I was a friendly face here too. This award confirms for me that I made a difference.”

Graduate chemistry students sweep conference and travel awards

Chemistry students with Prof. Derek Wilson

Graduate students in Chemistry Professor Derek Wilson’s lab in the Faculty of Science have been sweeping up awards to attend conferences and for their presentations at these events.

They have been travelling across Canada and internationally to present their research, which uses the latest technologies in mass spectrometry to explore the dynamics, structure and function of proteins. Wilson and his students seek to understand how enzymes bind other proteins, how some proteins become misfolded and cause diseases, and how proteins interact with other proteins, RNA and DNA. Understanding how proteins move and bind to other molecules provides insights into their biological activity and how they can be implicated in diseases.

“I couldn’t be prouder of all of my graduate students, past and present,” said Wilson. “They have brought their own unique approaches and hard work to the scientific challenges that the Wilson group tackles every day.”

Some of Wilson’s students have also received competitive Ontario Graduate Scholarships to support their research.

Recent award successes

Left to right: Lucienne Nouchikian, Irina Oganesyan, Derek Wilson, Lisa Szymkowicz and Kerene Brown
Above: From left, Lucienne Nouchikian, Irina Oganesyan, Derek Wilson, Lisa Szymkowicz and Kerene Brown

PhD student Kerene A. Brown, who received a Travel Award  from the International Mass Spectrometry Foundation ​to present a poster at the Structural Mass Spectrometry Workshop at the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel). She was also part of a team at the workshop that won first place in a research project presentation. Her research explores the structure of RNA chaperones, such as the human La protein, in complex with different RNA ligands. She has also received an Ontario Graduate Scholarship for the upcoming school year.

Master’s student Ruth Knox, who recently received the Poster Award at the first International Conference on Hydrogen Deuterium Exchange. Ruth is studying the fundamental connection between how proteins move and how they catalyze biochemical reactions. She is looking specifically at bacterial enzymes called b-lactamases, which degrade common antibiotics that contain a b-lactam core, to understand how they interact with antibiotics.

Master’s student Lucienne Nouchikian, who received an Ontario Graduate Scholarship to support her research. Her research aims to find a quick way to determine protein stability using Differential Mobility Spectroscopy, a type of mass spectrometry technique coupled with Hydrogen Deuterium Exchange. Her research could help pharmaceutical companies determine the stability of their vaccine products.

Master’s student Irina Oganesyan, who received the second place Graduate Student Poster Award in Analytical Chemistry Division of the Chemical Institute of Canada. Her research is focused on understanding the folding abnormalities of alpha-synuclein, a protein implicated in the initiation of Parkinson’s disease.

Master’s student Lisa Szymkowicz, who won the Poster Prize Award for a 5-minute thesis presentation entitled “Phospholipid-based model membrane system for Hydrogen Deuterium Exchange Mass Spectrometry of membrane proteins” at the International Symposium on Enabling Technologies for the Life Sciences. She also won the second place Undergraduate RSC PCCP Poster Prize in the Physical, Theoretical & Computational Chemistry division at the Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition.

In addition, Szymkowicz, Knox and Brown just won Travel Awards for the 34th Annual Trent Conference on Mass Spectrometry this August.

“Many of our award winners this summer are relatively new to the group – they’ve achieved a lot in a short amount of time and I’m confident that this talented team will keep the recognition coming,” said Wilson. “I would also be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the leadership of lab manager Cristina Lento and administrative assistant Nicole Chevannes-McGregor, whose work behind the scenes makes all of these successes possible!”

To learn more about the Wilson lab, visit http://derekwilsonlab.ca/

Olympian Hayley Wickenheiser urges grads to make the most of their lives

Hayley Wickenheiser
Hayley Wickenheiser

Hayley Wickenheiser, celebrated Olympian, author and motivational speaker visited York University on Wednesday, June 21 to accept an honorary doctor of laws degree during spring convocation ceremonies for the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. 

Hayley Wickenheiser
Hayley Wickenheiser

Considered one of the best female hockey players in the world, Wickenheiser is a five-time Olympic medalist and seven-time World Championship medalist. At 15 years of age, she became the youngest member chosen for the Canadian Women’s National Team, which she later led to six gold and one silver medal at the Women’s World Hockey Championships. Her Olympic career spans five Winter Olympics between 1998 and 2014. Twice named one of The Globe and Mail’s “Power 50” influencers in sport, her many accolades also include being named #20 on Sports Illustrated’s Top 25 Toughest Athletes in the World in 2008. She was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2011 and inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2014. In addition to working with organizations such as JumpStart, KidSport, Project North and Right to Play, she provides mentoring opportunities for young athletes through The Canadian Tire Wickenheiser World Female Hockey Festival.

In her motivational address to graduands, Wickenheiser offered an animated and humourous recount of her life in the spotlight. She joked about parenting her beloved son Noah and marvelled at his individuality (he loves the military over sports).

She spoke to graduands about her focus on turning her hard-earned celebrity into helping others through a career in medicine and the power of education and having a dream and the support to achieve it. “I am just a little girl from Saskatchewan who had a dream to play hockey for the Edmonton Oilers,” she said, noting that her parents, who are both teachers, did not try to counter her dream by telling her that a girl could not play hockey. “I stand here front of you 30-some years later, simply to say that ‘I had a dream and I was allowed to go for it’ and great things happened,” she added.

Above: From left, Chancellor Greg Sorbara, Hayley Wickenheiser, and York President and Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri

She acknowledged that those present had different journeys to get to their degrees and paid tribute to 89-year-old Alma Kocialek, who was also graduating that day after starting her studies in 1978. “It took me a long time to get my bachelor’s degree and then a master’s degree,” she said, noting that she earned her undergraduate degree over 16 years and in between Olympic Games.

“An education is more valuable to the world than any Olympic gold medal will ever be,” said Wickenheiser because education gives people “wings” and a chance to soar above adversity to new heights of excellence. She urged graduands to soar, to make a difference in the lives of others and to strive, in their own unique ways, for excellence.

As an example, she spoke about her career in a male-dominated sport. She told graduands that she hasn’t had a traditional bucket list, but a “buck-it” list where she’s had to buck gender, tradition, fear of failure and “don’t-rock-the-boat” mentality. She encouraged the graduating class of 2017 to focus on their own “buck-it” list and figure out what inspires and motivates them to get up each and every morning.

Wickenheiser was honoured by York University for her achievements as an athlete and her tireless work as a volunteer in promoting the power of sport and play to change the lives of children.

York study finds exposure to neonics results in early death for honeybee workers and queens

Worker and queen honeybees exposed to field-realistic levels of neonicotinoid insecticides die sooner, reducing the health of the entire colony, a new study led by York University biologists has found.

Researchers were also surprised to find the neonicotinoid-contaminated pollen collected by the honeybees came not from crops grown from neonicotinoid-treated seeds, but plants growing in areas adjacent to those crops.

The role of neonicotinoid insecticides in honeybee colony deaths in Ontario and other parts of North America has been controversial. Some critics dismissed studies that found negative effects on worker behavior and colony health as unrealistic, suggesting bees were exposed to higher doses of pesticides for much longer than realistically found in the field.

“This debate about field-realistic exposure has been going on for a long time,” said York University biology Professor Amro Zayed of the Faculty of Science. “We needed season-long monitoring of neonics in bee colonies to determine the typical exposure scenarios that occur in the field, which we have now done.

Professor Amro Zayed checking out a frame of honeybees from one of his colonies

The research team studied honey bee colonies in five apiaries close to corn grown from neonicotinoid-treated seeds and six apiaries that were far from agriculture. These colonies were extensively sampled and tested for pesticides from early May to September.

“Honeybee colonies near corn were exposed to neonicotinoids for three to four months. That is most of the active bee season in temperate North America,” said York Univesity PhD student Nadia Tsvetkov.

However, the neonicotinoid-contaminated pollen the honeybees collected did not belong to corn or soybean plants – the two primary crops grown from neonicotinoid-treated seeds in Ontario and Quebec.

“This indicates that neonicotinoids, which are water soluble, spill over from agricultural fields into the surrounding environment, where they are taken up by other plants that are very attractive to bees,” said Tsvetkov.

The researchers then chronically fed colonies with an artificial pollen supplement containing progressively smaller amounts of the most commonly used neonicotinoid in Ontario, clothianidin, over a 12-week period. The experiment mimicked what would occur naturally in the field.

The worker bees exposed to the treated pollen during the first nine days of life had their lifespans cut short by 23 per cent. Colonies that were exposed to treated pollen were unable to maintain a healthy laying queen, and had poor hygiene

“We found that realistic exposure to neonicotinoids near corn fields reduces the health of honey bee colonies,” said Tsvetkov.

While chronic exposure to neonicotinoids has negative effects on honeybees, the researchers also discovered that a commonly used fungicide can interact with neonicotinoids to make them more dangerous.

“The effect of neonicotinoids on honey bees quickly turns from bad to worse when you add the fungicide boscalid to the mix,” said Professor Valérie Fournier of Laval University who collaborated with the York U team. “The researchers found that field-realistic levels of boscalid can make neonicotinoids twice as toxic to honeybees.”

The research, “Chronic exposure to neonicotinoids reduces honeybee health near corn crops”, is published in the journal Science.

York University hosts its first MRI Research Day

York University’s Faculty of Health held its first York MRI Research Day on June 22 to explore ongoing research at the University’s MRI Facility.

The event, which took place in the lower lobby of the Sherman Health Science Research Centre, brought together 50 researchers to hear talks and poster presentations about the research.

Topics ranged from MRI studies of brain changes in pediatric multiple sclerosis (MS), to brain differences in individuals who are bilingual, to the study of how the spine changes during body rotation.

Presenters included graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty from York University, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), and the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus.

The event offers the community of MRI researchers an opportunity to gather and discuss research and develop new collaborations.

York biology and psychology Professor Jennifer Steeves, who is a researcher in the Centre for Vision Research and director of the York MRI Facility, said “we have great breadth of MRI research taking place at the York MRI Facility and this is a wonderful opportunity to interact with our MRI colleagues and learn about their work.”

Organizers plan to run MRI Research Day on an annual basis.

Governor General David Johnston tells grads ‘education is a sacred trust’

Graduands of the Faculty of Education were reminded of the importance that inclusiveness will play in order to restore, reinforce and build trust in Canadian society by the 28th and present Governor General of Canada David Johnston during convocation ceremonies on June 22.

Governor General David Johnston

Johnston, who received an honorary doctorate of laws degree during York University’s tenth convocation ceremony, told graduates that “education is a sacred trust” and that as future educators, they need to make trust building a central part of what they do in order to make society a better place.

The motto on Johnston’s coat of arms reads Contemplare Meliora, meaning “to envision better things” − a sentiment clearly evidenced by his dedicated service as Canada’s current Governor General and as a professor and university administrator. After teaching law at Queen’s and the University of Toronto, he became dean of Western University’s law faculty in 1974. From 1979 to 1994, he served as principal and vice-chancellor of McGill University.

In 1999 he became president and vice-chancellor of the University of Waterloo, a position he held until 2010 when he was appointed as the country’s 28th governor general. In that role, he has focused on strengthening the pillars of philanthropy and volunteerism, learning and innovation and families and children and launched new initiatives, including the Governor General’s Innovation Awards and My Giving Moment, a national initiative to encourage Canadians to give back to their communities. He is also a Companion of the Order of Canada.

During his remarks, Johnston shared the recent findings of the Adelman Trust Barometer – a global study that looks at public opinion on the subject matter of trust. Results of the study indicate that ‘trust’ in governments, institutions, leaders, and businesses was at an all-time low not only around the globe, but also here in Canada. He told graduands that “trust is the glue that holds us together as a society”, and encouraged and challenged them to not become complacent and to take the path of inclusiveness in order to restore trust in society.

“How do we reinforce professionalism in education and through education in order to re-establish trust?,” Johnston posed. “This is a defining challenge for educators, and the well-being of the many and not the few must be at the heart of our re-definition. Greater inclusiveness is the path that we must take to renewal because in times of change, it is our values that will lead us towards the smart and caring country that we desire.”

Chancellor Greg Sorbara, Governor General David Johnston and President and Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri

Johnston referred to York as a prime example of inclusiveness and highlighted the University’s work in the area of Indigenous education in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Report. His comments were timely, as the second graduating cohort of the Faculty’s unique MEd in Urban Indigenous Education program – a collaboration with the TDSB Indigenous Education Centre in response to the need for knowledge and understanding of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit cultures, histories and perspectives – were also being celebrated for their accomplishment.

In closing, Johnston told the graduating class that trust building means that they are being called to an era of civic engagement and need to play their part.

“As educators, think about the glue that holds us together and make trust building a central part of what you do,” he said. “This is a challenge but also an opportunity because those that lead in establishing trust will help Canadian society to thrive in the years to come.”