York University named one of Canada’s Greenest Employers for 2017

EARTHdayFEATURED
EARTHdayFEATURED

For the fifth year in a row, York University has been named one of Canada’s Greenest Employers. The announcement was made on April 21 at the University’s Earth Day celebrations by President-designate Rhonda Lenton.

“For the past four years, York has been named one of Canada’s Greenest Employers, and I am delighted to announce today that we have once again been named one of Canada’s Greenest Employers for 2017, for our fifth consecutive year,” said Lenton. “This is a very exclusive list, with only a small handful of universities and colleges, and I think this achievement is a testament to the excellent work that has been happening here at York.”

President-designate Rhonda Lenton announced the Canada’s Greenest Employer 2017 designation during Earth Day events on April 21

The University was named along with 69 other organizations in a competition organized by the editors of Canada’s Top 100 Employers project.

Employers were evaluated and ranked on their unique environmental initiatives and programs, success in reducing environmental footprints and employee involvement in sustainability efforts.

The Canada’s Greenest Employers distinction specifically recognizes York University for its Energy Management Program (a $40 million initiative that has reduced energy consumption by 30 per cent), the University’s Green Office, which encourages staff, faculty and students to volunteer as sustainability ambassadors and help manage various campus events focused on sustainability. It also noted the formation and work done by the President’s Sustainability Council, and the phasing out of the sale of disposable water bottles on campus. The program praised ZeroWaste, York’s formal waste reduction program that was established in 1990, which has achieved a 68 per cent waste diversion, eclipsing the original goal of 50 per cent by 2000.

Employers who make the Canada’s Greenest Employers list have developed exceptional, earth-friendly initiatives and are actively attracting people to their organizations because of their environmental leadership.

Adding the logo to your email signature

Members of the York University community can now include the 2017 Canada’s Greenest Employers logo in their email signatures.

Note that older versions of the logo from 2013 to 2016 can no longer be used, and should be removed from signatures when adding the new 2017 logo. Older versions of the logo should also be removed from websites and replaced with the 2017 logo.

First, download the logo:

Create your signature in Notes if you don’t have one already:

  • From the Actions menu, select More and click on Preferences
  • Click on the Signature
  • Check the box for Automatically append a signature to the bottom of my outgoing email messages.
  • Make sure T (Text) is selected.
  • Type your signature in the space provided.

Add the logo to your signature:

  • Place the cursor where you want to place the logo (It would be better to create a new line at the bottom of your signature).
  • Change the T (Text) to Graphics by clicking on T and selecting Graphics.
  • Click on the Tree icon and navigate to where you have saved the logo on your hard drive and click Import.
  • Click OK.

Alternative way:

  • Update the following signature with your information
  • Select it and copy it to your clipboard.
  • Paste it into your signature box and press OK.

First name Last nameTitle
Department, Division

YORK UNIVERSITY
Building •4700 Keele Street
Toronto ON •Canada M3J 1P3
T 416.736.xxxx F 416.736.xxxx
email@yorku.ca

 

Earth Day event celebrates York U’s sustainability leaders

Martin Bunch, chair of the President’s Sustainability Council

The fourth annual President’s Sustainability Leadership Awards reception was held on Friday, April 21 in advance of Earth Day. The celebration took place at the new Bergeron Centre for Engineering Excellence at the Keele campus.

As part of the Earth Day event, it was revealed that for the fifth year running, York University was named among Canada’s top 100 Greenest Employers.

It also was announced that the Bergeron Centre for Engineering Excellence building, which is also known as “The Cloud” had received a coveted Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold designation. LEED is a third-party green building rating system used in over 160 countries.

Michael Kenny, PhD Candidate in the Faculty of Education; the Las Nubes Student Association; Joseph Sanguedolce, manager of custodial services; and Biology Professor Dawn Bazely were named recipients of the President’s Sustainability Leadership Awards by Faculty of Environmental Studies Professor Martin Bunch, who is chair of the President’s Sustainability Council. York Vice-President Academic and Provost Rhonda Lenton, who is the president-designate, presented the awards on behalf of President and Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri (who was unable to attend the reception). The awards consisted of a keepsake copy of a book on Las Nubes that was donated by the York University Bookstore, and a plaque bearing the recipient’s name. The plaques are being made out of reclaimed wood, which is consistent with the mission of sustainability.

Michael Kenny

From left: President-designate Rhonda Lenton, York PhD student Michael Kenny and Martin Bunch, chair of the President’s Sustainability Council

Michael Kenny has studied at York University since 2008 and is now nearing the completion of his third degree, a PhD this time.  He has dedicated countless hours over the past nine years to improving sustainability at York

Kenny is a co-founder of Regenesis York, which has had an impressive record of sustainability initiatives and success under his leadership, including a student levy to support its sustainability work, a popular farmers’ market, a campus free store, a borrowing centre and more than one hundred sustainability-related events, including campus clean-ups, documentary film screenings, tree plantings and public talks.

He is being acknowledged for his success in building relationships with York University administrators to pursue sustainability at York and for his mentorship of younger students, who then go on to become champions for sustainability.

The Las Nubes Student Association

From left: President-designate Rhonda Lenton, Las Nubes Student Association representative Eric Rapelje and Martin Bunch, chair of the President’s Sustainability Council

The Las Nubes Student Association has worked to create greater accessibility for Las Nubes research, to provide York an option for fair trade sustainable coffee on campus and has helped to create opportunities for people to get involved in sustainable initiatives on campus and abroad.

The students are a constant presence in the Health Nursing and Environmental Studies Building and at events on campus where they raise funds to support sustainability initiatives associated with York University’s ecocampus, the Alexander Skutch Biological Corridor and the community partners in Costa Rica.

They have engaged with local Toronto artisans and sold their products at the Las Nubes Silent Auction, used coffee grinds to create coffee body scrubs, eliminating any waste involved in coffee production, and recently, they gave up their entire evening to volunteer at the Fisher Fund Wine Auction that raises funds for the Las Nubes Project.  At the auction, they also acted as ambassadors for the University and offered a shining example of the quality, energy and dedication of York students.

Joseph Sanguedolce

From left: President-designate Rhonda Lenton, Joseph Sanguedolce, manager of custodial services, CSBO, and Martin Bunch, chair of the President’s Sustainability Council

Joseph Sanguedolce has made great efforts to support the ongoing green cleaning initiatives for York University. In addition, he is credited for continuing the process of positive change. His efforts include the reduction of the use of garbage bags, utilizing environmentally safer cleaning products, and driving the shift from paper towels to hand dryers at York University’s Keele and Glendon campuses.

In particular, he has been a key figure in implementing and supporting the ongoing efforts to make the University’s Zero Waste Program the success that it is today. Program support through Custodial Services was the primary requirement for Zero Waste to thrive and Sanguedolce was a key factor in this success.

In addition to implementing the program, he is constantly researching and sourcing new, more environmentally sustainable Green Cleaning Products.

Dawn Bazely

From left: President-designate Rhonda Lenton, Helen Psathas, director of environmental design and sustainability, and Martin Bunch, chair of the President’s Sustainability Council. Psathas accepted the award for Professor Dawn Bazely who could not attend the reception due to a previous commitment.

Professor Dawn Bazley, who teaches in the Department of Biology in the Faculty of Science, has made impressive and sustained contributions to sustainability research, teaching and outreach at York University. She has a record of outstanding teaching, is a highly regarded expert and leader in social media communications, and pursues knowledge mobilization activities and networking on climate change, global sustainability, environmental protection, and public engagement.

Dawn Bazely

She has demonstrated leadership in sustainability in many ways, including leading and championing many research and education projects on York University’s campuses. She championed and led the application process to certify York University as an official “civil society observer” of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process, which made it possible for York U representatives to attend as delegates at the annual Conferences of the Parties (COPs).

Particularly impressive is her ability to build bridges between the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, and to bring non-governmental organizations, student groups, University staff and others into productive collaborations to advance sustainability at York, in the local community, in Canada and beyond.

Researchers discover “safety feature” in our perception of self motion

By touching the slide with her fingertips, this child is using tactile flow

An international research collaboration between York University Faculty of Health Professor Laurence Harris and researchers in Japan has discovered that our perception of self motion has a previously unknown safety feature.

Their discovery involves tactile flow, the tactile stimulation provided as you push through leaves in the undergrowth or rub your hands along a wall, and its predominant role in enhancing our sense of self-motion, overriding the information provided by vision and the balance-and-movement system contained within the inner ear.

“When you move around you have visual information that tells you how you’re moving and when you walk around the information flows past you,” says Harris. “If you’re touching something stationary as you move, such as a wall or the banisters then that information, that tactile information, will also flow over your skin.”

Harris, who is the director of the Centre for Vision Research at York University, was invited to the Tohoku Gakuin University (TKU) in Sendai, Japan. There he collaborated with TKU Professor Kenzo Sakurai and researcher William Beaudot. “It was very unexpected,” says Harris. “Instead of simply combining with other sensory information about the movement in the same way as for example visual and acceleration cues combine, tactile flow actually dominated perceived self-motion.”

From left: William Beaudot, Laurence Harris and Kenzo Sakurai

The addition of tactile information seems to provide a sort of emergency override, says Harris, making people feel they are going faster than they really are – something he says that may contribute to the “thrill of sliding down the banisters.”

In their experiments, the researchers measured the perception of self-motion; how fast a person was going and how the perceived timing of the motion was impacted by the addition of tactile flow. Harris adds that there are special receptors in the skin that are specialized to respond to something moving over the skin.

“We had people sitting on a swing that could move from side to side. Participants rested their fingertips on a flat piece of wood that was stationary. As they moved from side to side, they could feel the motion on their fingertips,” says Harris. “We discovered that this made them feel they were moving faster than when they were not feeling the tactile flow at the same time.”

The importance of this newly discovered role of touch in our sense of self-motion may account for why we reach for something to stabilize ourselves to prevent a fall if we miss a step. Holding on to something provides stability and provides a tactile cue about what is happening, overriding other available cues. The discovery also has ramifications for virtual reality and for airline pilots.

“Artificial tactile stimulation might be a powerful aid to provide self-motion information in virtual environments or in situations where accurate knowledge about self-motion is critical, such as when flying a high-performance plane,” says Harris. “In people who are at risk of balance problems, such as older or blind individuals, or people who have had damage to the vestibular system, this information could provide an additional motion cue for them to help create tools for them.”

The researchers used TKU’s parallel swing, a specialized apparatus that moves a person from side to side. In their study, they had test subjects swing with and without tactile clues (created by running fingertips along a stationary surface).

The research Tactile flow overrides other cues to self-motion is published in the journal Scientific Reports and appears on nature.com.

It’s Sakura time: Cherry trees on Keele campus moving into full bloom

Although their display is short-lived, it is worth the time to visit York University’s Keele campus to view some 250 Sakura Cherry trees, which will move into full bloom in the next few days.

The Japanese flowering cherry tree, or Sakura, is a revered symbol of Japan. Its blossoming marks the arrival of spring and is celebrated in Waka and Haiku poetry and with annual Hanami, or flower viewing picnics under the full blossom of the Sakura.

This image, from 2014 shows one of the best displays of Sakura Cherry trees on the Keele campus. The trees are located beside Calumet College.

The delicate trees were planted as part of the Japanese government’s Sakura project, symbolizing the long-standing close relationship between Japan and Canada and York’s many cultural and academic ties with Japanese institutions. In 2003, York University was the first university in Canada to participate in the Sakura Project, which had a goal of planting 3,000 trees in Ontario by 2005. More than a decade later, the trees planted on the Keele campus continue to thrive.

One of the best displays is situated beside Calumet College. Trees are also located in pockets around the Keele campus, including a group outside of the Tait McKenzie Centre.

In 2016, the unseasonably warm weather and cold spring killed many of the blossoms. This year promises a return of the magnificent display but it won’t be around for long.

Indigenous Youth, Indigenous Voices symposium to take place at York U

Vari Hall
Vari Hall

On Wednesday, April 26, high school students and community members, along with York undergrads, faculty, and staff, will gather at Vanier College to learn about one of Canada’s fastest growing demographics: Indigenous youth.

“Indigenous Youth, Indigenous Voices” will highlight issues of relevance to young Indigenous people in contemporary Canadian society and examine how all Canadians can contribute to advancing equity for Indigenous peoples in Canada.

“We are honoured to welcome the community to this important event,” said Ananya Mukherjee-Reed, dean of the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. “The Department of Equity Studies continues to show great leadership in this area, and it is my hope that through such engagements with the community we will be able to respond proactively to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action.”

Megan Scribe

Megan Scribe (BA ’11, MA ’13) will provide the keynote speech, “Betty, Robyn, and Thousands More,” exploring the connections between violence against Indigenous girls and Canada’s ongoing settler colonial project. Originally from Norway House Cree Nation, Scribe is a 2spirit Ininiw iskwew currently pursuing doctoral studies in Social Justice Education at the University of Toronto.

Bonita Lawrence

“We are excited about the opportunity to host high school students from all communities,” said Department of Equity Studies’ Professor Bonita Lawrence, who will be speaking at the event and who was instrumental in the development and expansion of Indigenous curricular offerings at York. “Our Indigenous students and alumni from York will provide us with a unique opportunity to learn about the power and promise of Indigenous youth.”

Running from 8:30am-2:30pm, the symposium will give attendees the chance to participate in two workshops featuring York students and alumni:

  • Learning from the Land, facilitated by Chelsie John, Candice Jacko, and Onika Forde;
  • Indigenous Identities, facilitated by Ryan Neepin;
  • Pipelines 101, facilitated by Samantha Craig-Curnow; and,
  • Criminal Injustice, facilitated by Stephanie Pangowish. 

All members of the York community are welcome to attend the symposium: registration is required and is available here. Morning snacks and a lunch will be provided. 

“Indigenous Youth, Indigenous Voices” is the latest installment in the Department of Equity Studies’ annual “And Social Justice for All” symposium series. Past themes have included “Human Rights in the Age of Surveillance” in 2016 with a keynote address by Desmond Cole, and “Student Voice, Student Action” in 2014. The Department of Equity Studies is home to the University’s Multicultural & Indigenous Studies and Human Rights & Equity Studies degree programs.

This year’s “Indigenous Youth, Indigenous Voices” symposium was made possible with support from Canada 150@York, the VP Academic’s Indigeneity in Teaching and Learning Fund, LA&PS’ Global Community Engagement Events & Outreach Fund, and the Centre for Feminist Research.

Towards ending homelessness: New report calls for major shift

It is time to prioritize homelessness prevention, says a new report from the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (COH).

“We would never build our health care system around the emergency department only, so why would we think this way in addressing homelessness?” says York University Professor Stephen Gaetz, director of the COH, a national research institute based at York. “While there will always be a need for emergency services to help those in crisis, we need to focus on preventive strategies that address the many causes of homelessness, to reduce the number of people in Canada who experience the trauma of becoming homeless.”

“While there will always be a need for emergency services to help those in crisis, we need to focus on preventive strategies that address the many causes of homelessness, to reduce the number of people in Canada who experience the trauma of becoming homeless,” he said.

A new report on homelessness says prevention is key to ending the problem.

The report, A New Direction: A Framework for Homelessness Prevention, calls for the adoption of a model similar to preventive health care, with policies, practices, and interventions that reduce the likelihood someone will experience homelessness. Homelessness prevention also includes providing those who have been homeless with support to reduce the risk that they will become homeless again.

Some innovative Housing First policies are being used in parts of Canada to help people successfully exit homelessness, says Gaetz. To complement these efforts, and to stem the flow of people into homelessness in the first place, it is time to shift direction to prevention strategies, he says, and it is a particularly good time to do so. The federal government is working on the upcoming National Housing Strategy and seems to recognize the role of prevention, and several provinces including Ontario and Alberta have homelessness strategies that they have rolled out or are in the process of rolling out.

A new report on homelessness says prevention is key to ending the problem.

Communities have been asking for prevention strategies for a long time, said postdoctoral fellow Erin Dej, who co-authored the report with Gaetz.

“Currently, many individuals who leave institutional or state care of one form or another do not have housing or necessary supports, and so we transfer the problem from one sector to another, rather than stopping the flow into homelessness in the first place,” she said. “We need prevention strategies that recognize that access to housing is a human right.”

A rights-based approach will require the appropriate areas of government – health care, child protection, justice and others – to be responsible for their role in preventing people from becoming homeless, according to Gaetz and Dej.

Their Framework for Homelessness Prevention outlines an integrative systems approach to prevention, addressing the structural, systematic and individual factors that lead to homelessness. It identifies roles and responsibilities in the prevention of homelessness, from the policy level where structural barriers to housing are considered, to people who work with young people that are leaving child protection systems, to those providing assistance to prevent evictions.

The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness will consult on the report for about a year to highlight successful and innovative programs and approaches from Canada and internationally. The goal is to begin a national conversation about homelessness prevention and come up with practical solutions that will really make a change, says Gaetz, and to mobilize support from all levels of government, along with a commitment to changing the way we as a country address homelessness.

York faculty, staff and students take part in the March for Science

Earth Day (April 22) saw scientists from around the world take part in the March for Science, an event to highlight and celebrate the importance of science in our lives.

The event brought researchers, citizen scientists, academics and science buffs of all ages to the streets to demonstrate and defend the vital role science plays in our health, safety, economies and governments.

York U faculty, staff and students took part in Saturday’s March for Science in Toronto. Photo courtesy: Laurence Harris

Marches took place in 600 cities in 68 countries. The protest was mobilized to protest the policies of American President Donald Trump, who has slashed funding scientists and for climate change research, along with many other areas including deep cuts of more than 20 per cent to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Some 3,000 people took part in the Toronto March for Science, which closed Bay Street in downtown Toronto.

York University faculty, staff and students were in the thick of it. York Librarian John Dupuis was one of the keynote presenters at the Toronto March for Science. Dupuis is currently a science and engineering librarian at York University’s Steacie Library. Since 2013, he has been using his librarian superpowers to keep track of how governments are ignoring scientific and other evidence in their decision making or attacking science and the environment in their policies, first with the Stephen Harper Conservatives here in Canada and now Trump in the USA. He blogs at Confessions of a Science Librarian and tweets at @dupuisj.

More about the March for Science

The March for Science champions robustly funded and publicly communicated science as a pillar of human freedom and prosperity. Scientists around the world have united as a diverse, nonpartisan group to call for science that upholds the common good and for political leaders and policy makers to enact evidence-based policies in the public interest.

The March for Science is not only about scientists and politicians; it is about the very real role that science plays in each of our lives and the need to respect and encourage research that gives us insight into the world.

The event was not without controversy in that it has generated a great deal of conversation around whether or not scientists should involve themselves in politics. In the face of an alarming trend toward discrediting scientific consensus and restricting scientific discovery, scientists worldwide have a unified reply: “There is no Planet B.”

Welcome to the April 2017 issue of Innovatus

Innovatus

Finally, it seems that spring has arrived and with it, the news that 54 projects focused on experiential education, eLearning and internationalization developed by York University faculty and staff, will receive funding from the Academic Innovation Fund (AIF).

The announcement of the AIF funding is one of the stories published in this edition of Innovatus for April 2017. Innovatus, is a special issue of YFile that celebrates teaching, learning and the student experience at York University. Each month we explore how York University community members are expanding experiential learning, eLearning and internationalization in education.

In addition to the much-anticipated announcement of AIF funding, the third issue of Innovatus features an interesting array of stories focused on experiential education and eLearning. There is a feature article on a field course program for biology students and coverage of an outreach event to the Portuguese community that explored new opportunities for students in the Portuguese & Luso-Brazilian Studies Program in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. There’s a story on a group of faculty in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design who are taking online learning to new heights. The issue closes with a reminder to register for York University’s very successful Teaching in Focus conference and the STAY Symposium for Teaching Assistants. Both events will be held in May at the Keele campus.

Innovatus publishes on the third Friday of every month during the academic year. We have one more issue for this year and then we will spend the summer preparing new stories about teaching, learning and the student experience at York University. Innovatus is produced by the Office of the Associate Vice-President Teaching & Learning in partnership with Communications & Public Affairs.

As always, we are looking for unique story ideas. Share your experience with us through the Innovatus story form, which is available at http://tl.apps01.yorku.ca/machform/view.php?id=16573/.

Sincerely,

Will Gage
Associate Vice-President Teaching & Learning

York University funds more than 50 projects focused on academic innovation

academic innovation fund

More than 50 new and continuing projects dedicated to advancing eLearning, experiential education, and internationalization at York University will receive a portion of $1.5 million in funding from the Academic Innovation Fund (AIF). William Gage, associate vice-president teaching & learning, announced the successful project roster today.

Will Gage

“I am delighted to announce that 54 projects in total have received funding in this third year of the second phase of AIF,” said Gage. “My office received a wide array of very high quality and detailed project proposals and each was carefully considered by the committee charged with adjudicating the proposals.”

Of the 54 projects funded this year, 27 multi-year projects addressing major initiatives will receive up to $100,000 per year in funding available through Category I. As well, 27 Category II projects proposed by faculty members will receive a one-time $5,000 Curricular Innovation Grant.

The success of AIF initiatives funded thus far has allowed York to build pan‐University strategies and systems supporting the further growth and development of curricular innovation through various forms of eLearning, experiential education and the first-year experience. York students are currently benefiting from these innovations.

“We have continued to take a focused approach in supporting projects that address the priorities contained in the University Academic Plan (2015-2020), the Strategic Mandate Agreement and the Institutional Integrated Resource Plan,” said Gage. “This year, the AIF projects advance institutional priorities in eLearning, experiential education, and internationalization and extend current initiatives in new and interesting ways.”

Some of the notable projects in Category I to receive funding include a Las Nubes Experiential Education and Field Research Program that will be developed at York University’s new EcoCampus in Costa Rica. Another project will address movement and its roles in social justice through experiential learning. Numerous projects will address eLearning, including one that will develop eLearning best-practice guidelines for instructors, under the auspices of the Teaching Commons. The Glendon campus will see the creation of a digital media laboratory. A project in the Faculty of Health will see the development of a simulated experiential teaching learning initiative.

York U students participate in a field course activity in the Las Nubes Rainforest in Costa Rica

In Category II, funding has been awarded to a wide array of projects offering both blended learning and experiential education opportunities. One project will focus on global career management and will feature a timely study of professional migrant integration into work and society. A number of fully online courses will be developed using Category II funding and will expand York University’s already significant and high-quality roster of online courses. One such course will explore design and Inuit culture, another features the intriguing title “Dance Like No One’s Watching”.

“My thanks to everyone who prepared and submitted these detailed and innovative project proposals,” said Gage. “All of these projects will help advance teaching and learning priorities at York University. I would also like to thank those on the review committee for their thoughtful deliberations. It is a true testament to the dedication of York University faculty and staff to academic innovation and I am very proud of all the projects we have announced.”

To learn more about the projects, visit the AIF website at http://aifprojects.yorku.ca/.

New eLearning community gets AMPD’d

Five years ago, Professors Michael Longford of computation arts and Judith Schwarz of visual arts volunteered to tackle the challenge of adapting eLearning to an arts curriculum for the benefit of the entire School of Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD).

Michael Longford

“In the beginning, I was an eLearning skeptic,” Longford said. “I wasn’t sure it was the way to go in the fine arts because I thought of Moodle and online courses as a largely text-based medium.”

With the help of an Academic Innovation Fund grant, he and Schwarz explored eLearning possibilities, such as blended courses; researched the pedagogic strengths and barriers involved; and collaborated with staff members, such as Lillian Heinson, the Instructional Technology Coordinator for AMPD, as well as the Teaching Commons, and Learning Technology Services who could assist faculty with the technical and pedagogical challenges bringing their ideas to life online.

David Gelb

The result?  Today, he is a firm believer in the possibilities of eLearning and together with Schwarz and Professor David Gelb of design, they have successfully encouraged their colleagues to give it a try.

Their project, titled “Looking to the Future: Creating State-of-the-Art eLearning in AMPD” has yielded positive results throughout the school and proven that visual media can be successfully incorporated into instruction and into the Moodle platform. There were only a few courses that incorporated eLearning during the first year of the grant; in the 2016-17 academic year, AMPD boasts 28 courses that reach 4,000 students overall.

Gelb, who joined the group when the grant was renewed two years ago, said finding ways to incorporate visuals into online learning was very important for their students, as course enrolment numbers demonstrate.

“Moodle, our learning management system, prioritizes text,” Gelb said. “We needed to find ways to engage students who take visual courses.”

Katherine Knight

There are many success stories. For example, Professor Katherine Knight of Visual Art & Art History teaches a blended course that includes assignments in which students submit and share images using the Media Gallery in Moodle. Professor Gillian Helfield of Cinema & Media Arts moved to online delivery of her first-year course, Hollywood Old and New, redesigning it for the new format. The course draws 600 to 800 students and offers 19 tutorials, and Helfield has worked hard to ensure that all students receive a consistent learning experience.

Professor Matt Vander Woude of Music also moved to online delivery of his course, Rock and Popular Music.

“We’ve all taught reluctant participants in our classes,” Vander Woude told YFile previously. “It was amazing to see how much the students became engaged in the Moodle forum: shyness was not an issue.

The three professors aren’t ready to rest on their laurels just yet, despite the obvious successes; there are more new courses in the pipeline and more work to be done.

Judith Schwarz

“We meet annually with the department chairs to see if there are professors who are interested in eLearning or courses that could easily accommodate an eLearning component,” Schwarz said.

They have also been strong promoters of eLearning across AMPD. They organized a series of eLearning exchange luncheons where a faculty member who was employing eLearning in a course could offer a case study, discussing how he or she worked through the challenges of incorporating digital media. The luncheons were opportunities for faculty members to have informal conversations about eLearning.

“Sharing experiences with colleagues is critical, and that includes discussing challenges as well as successes,” Longford said. “People have pre-conceived notions of what eLearning means and these conversations open their eyes to what’s actually possible. They can picture themselves using it and can see the benefits for their students.”

The trio also organizes an annual eLearning celebration day, featuring a panel of faculty who have used digital learning creatively. In addition, they have created an AMPD eLearning Teaching Award that recognizes a faculty member who has made a major, innovative contribution to eLearning at York.

“Faculty on our panels talk about their journeys to incorporating digital technology into their courses and the audience connects with their honesty,” said Schwarz. “Every time I hear a faculty member talk about a course, I’m inspired.”

By Elaine Smith, special contributing writer to Innovatus