York University has risen an impressive five spots to be among the top 35 institutions in the world for advancing the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), according to this year’s Times Higher Education Impact Rankings, published today.
This is a testament to the growing recognition for York’s global leadership on the SDG Challenge and has been made possible by our community of changemakers – faculty, staff, students, course directors, alumni and our many partners. It is your commitment to our shared values of sustainability, inclusivity and equity that has enabled us to achieve our highest ranking yet.
On behalf of the University, thank you for your individual contributions and collective efforts in interdisciplinary research, teaching, and a myriad of campus initiatives and community projects, which have led to this success.
With an additional 300+ universities joining the rankings this year, York has continued to hold its leading position among more than 2,100+ universities worldwide for the sixth consecutive year. York has a particularly strong global standing in the following categories:
SDG 1 (No Poverty) – #2 in the world and #1 in Canada;
SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) – 33rd in the world and #1 in Canada; and
SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) – tied for 13th in the world.
This is an achievement we all share and one that the entire York community can take great pride in. We are delighted to see the community united by our common goals: to realize the University Academic Plan 2020-25 and to answer the call of the SDG Challenge.
When we work together to create positive change there is no limit on York’s ability to address the most pressing global issues of our time. Read the News@York story for more details.
Sincerely,
Rhonda Lenton President & Vice-Chancellor
Lisa Philipps Provost & Vice-President Academic
Amir Asif Vice-President Research & Innovation
Those who wish to share the news in social media posts or email signatures can find instructions on how to do so in the THE Impact Rankings Toolkit.
Annual Walk with Excellence to celebrate achievements of local high-school graduates
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Now in its 11th year, the Walk with Excellence is an annual event that celebrates the achievements of graduating students from high schools in Toronto’s Jane and Finch community. Signifying the beginning of their journey to post-secondary education, the event – taking place this year on Thursday, June 6 – will see over 500 graduating students walk from five local high schools onto York University’s Keele Campus.
The students’ supportive teachers and administrators will be cheering them on along the way, and all York University community members are invited join in welcoming the students onto the Keele Campus in true York U style.
“The Walk with Excellence signals new beginnings and a new season,” said Itah Sadu, founder of the Walk with Excellence and a York University honorary degree recipient. “Walking with the graduating students in this annual urban rite of passage is pure joy.”
Organized by a coalition of community partners – including the York University-TD Community Engagement Centre, local school principals and high-school leaders, the Blackhurst Cultural Centre and A Different Booklist – the Walk with Excellence will feature brief musical performances from each participating high school, remarks from community leaders and Toronto poet laureate Lillian Allen reading a poem she wrote specifically for the event. Organizers look forward to presenting several bursaries this year, generously funded by CUPE Local 4400/Toronto Education Workers, Blackhurst Cultural Centre and York University.
“We are proud to stand alongside our students and school board partners in celebrating the hard work and dedication that define the Jane and Finch community’s collective journey toward excellence,” said Byron Gray, manager of the York University-TD Community Engagement Centre. “Together, we are fostering a brighter future for all.”
All York University community members are invited to take part in the event by cheering for students as they enter the Keele Campus and witnessing the presentation of scholarships and remarks. The students are expected to arrive in front of Vari Hall at approximately 11:30 a.m.
Those who cannot attend or would like to further support the cause can consider contributing to Vice-Provost Academic Marcia Annisette’s Walk with Excellence campaign for 2025, which will offer bursaries to five future York U students – one from each of the five participating high schools.
“This event exemplifies the power of community, resilience and academic achievement,” said Annisette. “It is our vision that a newly initiated campaign will engage all of York University in funding an ongoing Walk with Excellence Bursary.”
Student-led group tackles Indigenous food sovereignty
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After personally experiencing food insecurity, and witnessing its effects first-hand, a group of York University Faculty of Health students decided to do something about it.
The Learning Spirit Alliance is an Indigenous student-led group, open to all York students, committed to educating the community about food sovereignty and helping to prevent poverty and food insecurity on campus. Led by current students Leo Manning and Rainingbird Daniels, and former student Shanice Perrot, the initiative was established as a result of discussions with Indigenous students about access to food – particularly healthy and traditional food, and especially for students who had moved away from home.
Leo ManningShanice PerrotRainingbird Daniels
“Members of our leadership team have personally experienced the effects of food insecurity and lack of food access throughout their time in post-secondary education,” explains Daniels. “There are many Indigenous students facing the increasingly high cost of housing both on and off campus; required meal plans at institutions and/or inflation of food costs; transportation costs associated with travelling home; and a lack of sufficient funding while completing post-secondary education.”
Launched last year with funding from a national organization called Indigenous Youth Roots, the Learning Spirit Alliance held three Food is Medicine workshops this semester, where both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students were welcomed at Skennen’kó:wa Gamig – the gathering space for York’s Indigenous community – and taught how to make traditional Indigenous foods such as elk stew, bannock, three sisters salad and various soups. Each participant was also given an honorarium towards groceries.
According to Daniels, the feedback received from the community has been overwhelmingly positive.
“The different dishes we learned to make gave me the knowledge to make affordable and healthy meals while in residence and away from my traditional territory,” said workshop participant and York student Doreen Scow.
“The workshop helped me feel more culturally involved and connected,” said another participant, student Miigwan Mainville. “This initiative allows us to share stories and laughter with others while sharing cultural food; food is truly medicine.”
In addition to the workshops, the Alliance held weekly free lunch events for the community, to help bring more traditional and nutritious meals to students in need.
With no plans currently in place for the next academic year, the group’s leadership is using its resources to apply for more grants in hopes that they can continue to host events and workshops on culturally relevant food and food sovereignty, giving Indigenous students the tools they need to cook at home at a low cost.
“We are striving to make a difference in ways that strengthen community and provide relief,” said Manning.
Professor’s book explores health inequality in Canada
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A new third edition of the book About Canada: Health and Illness, written by York University health policy and management Professor Dennis Raphael, explores social determinants of well-being in Canada and provides updated information connecting health and illness to the worsening levels of inequality throughout the country.
Dennis Raphael
In About Canada, Raphael – an expert in covering health inequality – argues that the inequitable distribution of the social determinants of health is structured by Canada’s political economy, including public policy decisions.
According to Raphael, and his book, while some common wisdom might dictate that our lifestyles – exercise, food choices and more – affect our health, the truth is altogether different. Instead, he says, it is how income and wealth, housing, education and adequate food are distributed, as well as employment status and working conditions, that determine whether we stay healthy or become ill. Furthermore, who gets to be healthy is too often a reflection of social inequalities that are associated with class, gender and race in Canadian society.
The new edition of About Canada points toward how – based on tent cities becoming more common, food bank use hitting record high levels and more – ongoing health inequalities have only escalated since the first edition of his book was released in 2010.
“The social determinants of health situation in Canada has become so problematic as to constitute a polycrisis whereby growing food and housing insecurity, income and wealth inequality, precarious and low-paid work, social exclusion and declining quality of public policy threaten Canadians’ futures,” says Raphael. “The declining Canadian scene not only compelled a documentation of this situation but also formulating a vision of dramatic reform or even transformation of our profit-driven economic system.”
In addition to updated information throughout the book that better reflects the current moment, a new chapter also considers the social determinants of who got sick and died from COVID-19, and how the pandemic makes a clear case for restructuring work and living conditions through public policy that more equitably distributes economic resources.
Raphael’s goal is for the latest edition of the book is to provide important context for readers. “Hopefully, the new edition will provide Canadians with a means of understanding the Canadian polycrisis and means of moving beyond it,” he says.
The third edition of the book will be published on May 2 and is available to purchase through Fernwood Publishing.
Grant funds York-led household energy insecurity study
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Godfred Boateng, an assistant professor in York University’s School of Global Health and Canada Research Chair in Global Health and Humanitarianism, has been awarded a grant by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development for a two-year project on household energy insecurity in Colombia.
The HEINS study is a continuation of Boateng’s leading work in comprehensively measuring and understanding resource insecurity across the Global South, undertaken at the Global & Environmental Health Lab at York’s Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research as part of his mandate as a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair.
In deciding to study this topic, the York professor observed that measurement of energy insecurity has historically been limited to the macro level – representing a country or region – and has not been widely extended to the household level, particularly outside the Global North. He also noticed there has been little assessment of the relationship between household energy insecurity and health outcomes among women and children in the Global South. As a result, it is difficult to determine how inadequate access to clean and safe energy sources impacts women and children differently in the household. It also becomes difficult to propose strategies to ensure clean energy transitions that effectively target the needs of that demographic.
Boateng’s HEINS project, which will be conducted in three municipalities in the Choco province of Colombia, will address these issues. It will use a mixed-methods approach to find out whether or not household energy insecurity uniquely impacts disease, socioeconomic and psychosocial outcomes. The project will also produce and validate a scale – one of the first of its kind in Latin America – that can be used to comprehensively assess the impact of household energy insecurity on women, infants and children.
“With this grant, my team and I will advance current scholarship on the adverse effects of household energy insecurity in Latin America,” said Boateng. “It will produce a novel instrument for identifying energy insecurity hotspots, which will serve as recruiting points for a longitudinal study that examines the effect of energy insecurity and indoor air pollution from conception through the first two years of life.”
Ultimately, the goal of the project is to generate scientific evidence to develop sound, scalable technologies and strategies to ensure equitable clean energy transitions across the Global South. Through this study, Boateng and the Global & Environmental Health Lab, in partnership with Lucumí Cuesta, will advance research that promotes equitable access, good health, human development and environmental sustainability.
To help instructors navigate sensitive issues and challenging classroom dynamics, the Teaching Commons has launched a new toolkit and series of professional development sessions focused on difficult moments and conversations in the classroom.
“I’m always happy to work with faculty members on student support, inclusion, and preventing and managing conflict” says Robinson. “I know this can be a source of stress for many of us, and this is a great opportunity for colleagues to share experiences and helpful ideas.”
“One of the goals has been to help members of the University community revisit commonly used terms like ‘safety’ and ‘comfort,’ and to think critically and collaboratively about what it means and looks like to build accountable spaces,” says Kipang, who has worked with the Teaching Commons over the past year to support initiatives in decolonizing, equity, diversity and inclusion (DEDI).
The toolkit provides a range of resources to support productive dialogue and collaborative learning in the classroom. Included in it are topic-specific resources such as strategies for facilitating discussion, addressing harm and creating community guidelines.
Shani Kipang
“Our hope is to help instructors walk into the classroom with clear goals and responsive strategies, so students can be motivated to engage and have the sense that it will be worthwhile,” she explains. “We want to help instructors address unanticipated situations with intention, and to support meaningful and carefully guided opportunities for learners to engage with critical issues in ways that shape how they learn and work and interact in the world.”
Ameera Ali
In addition to the March 14 workshop, the Teaching Commons offers a variety of other opportunities to explore strategies for teaching in times of crisis and integrating DEDI-informed pedagogies. Among these are a workshop series on trauma-informed pedagogies and a DEDI community of practice – a space where teachers can come together to learn, share, and question a wide array of topics related to DEDI in teaching and learning.
In partnership with York’s Centre for Human Rights, Equity & Inclusion and faculty co-facilitators, these initiatives are led by Ameera Ali, an educational developer in the Teaching Commons with a portfolio focused on equity, diversity and inclusion.
“These offerings invite folks to come together to collectively reflect on and discuss various aspects of trauma, race, disability, gender, wellness, belonging and more,” she says. “And through this work, building understanding in these areas, we can better support meaningful dialogue and connection within the classroom.”
York community working together to achieve UN SDGs
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In response to global challenges like climate change, pandemics, inequality and political polarization, York University continues to advance positive change through the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) with innovative thinking, groundbreaking projects and meaningful collaborations.
Introduced in 2015, the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development outlines 17 interconnected SDGs aimed at addressing global social, economic, and environmental issues to promote the well-being of all people and the planet.
The 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
York’s University Academic Plan, which was launched in 2020, includes a commitment to enhance the University’s contributions to the SDGs. Notably, the University’s achievements in advancing the SDGs were recognized in the 2023 Times Higher Education Impact Rankings, where York was positioned among the top 40 universities globally. York placed in the top 100 in nine SDGs, with a strong standing in the following categories:
SDG 1: No Poverty (21st in the world);
SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities (25th in the world); and
SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities (12th in the world).
“York’s third and most recent annual report on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals demonstrates how we are bringing positive change to communities around the world,” said Lisa Philipps, provost and vice-president academic. “Our community has demonstrated once again why our partnerships, research and academic innovation are at the centre of our success as a leading Canadian university dedicated to building a better future.”
York has prioritized ethical research practices by establishing the first wholly autonomous Indigenous Research Ethics Board at a Canadian post-secondary institution. This initiative, which addresses SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, reaffirms York’s commitment to decolonizing research methodologies and amplifying Indigenous voices and perspectives in academic discourse. Indigenous knowledge is also being recognized in the context of municipal climate solutions through the creation of a Climate Change Solutions Park in the town of Penetaguishene, Ont., which is led by Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change Professor José Etcheverry.
For students, organizations like the SDG Student Hub facilitate learning and engagement with the SDGs. Events such as York Capstone Day provide platforms for students to present sustainable solutions to societal challenges.
The University is celebrating these accomplishments and more during SDG Week Canada from March 4 to 8, featuring workshops, panels, and other interactive programming to increase awareness of and engagement with the 17 SDGs. Learn more about York’s progress on the UN SDGs by visiting York’s SDG Week website and following the University on social media.
Osgoode student lawyers save family from deportation
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With only 11 hours to spare, two student lawyers from Osgoode Hall Law School’s Community & Legal Aid Services Program (CLASP) saved the parents of a York University student from family breakup and deportation to Colombia, where they faced potential danger or even death.
When second-year student Brandon Jeffrey Jang and third-year student Emma Sandri learned on Dec. 18 that the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) had ordered the parents of a fellow student to be deported on a Colombia-bound plane on Jan. 18, they worked tirelessly over the winter break to prepare about 1,000 pages of legal submissions to stop it – on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
Osgoode students Brandon Jeffrey Jang (left) and Emma Sandri (right).
The student’s father became a target of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the early 1990s when he was a candidate for the country’s Liberal Party, actively working to prevent youth from joining the paramilitary organization. After several threats and acts of physical violence, the family fled to the United States. They returned to Colombia seven years later, but remained in danger and fled again, eventually making their way to Canada in 2009. With the Colombian peace process currently faltering and FARC still a viable force, the family believes their safety could still be threatened if they return to their home country.
The couple’s adult son is a student in York’s School of Kinesiology & Health Science and their daughter is set to graduate from Queen’s University and plans to study medicine. The son and daughter, who already have permanent residency status in Canada, faced being separated from their parents as well as possible academic repercussions if the deportation had gone ahead as scheduled.
The CLASP team’s request to save this family from deportation was initially denied by the CBSA, so they filed two supporting applications with the Federal Court, under the supervision of CLASP review counsel Subodh Bharati. On Jan. 17, just one day before the scheduled deportation, they appeared in person before a Federal Court judge in Toronto to make their case for the family – and they succeeded.
The parents – who have become actively involved in their Toronto community, volunteering during the pandemic, for example, to deliver food to house-bound, immune-compromised residents – expressed their gratitude to the CLASP team in an emotional email.
“Thank you very much for all the effort that you put in our case,” the mother wrote. “I don’t have enough words to express what I feel right now and to say thank you. You are the best lawyers that Toronto has.”
Their joy was shared by Jang and Sandri.
“We were just so happy,” said Jang about hearing news of the successful stay application. “We’ve built a close connection with the family and we’ve all worked extremely hard on this case.”
Jang said the experience has confirmed his desire to pursue a career in immigration law – and this summer he will work for Toronto immigration law firm Green and Spiegel LLP.
Sandri said preparing hundreds of pages of court applications in a month was a tremendous challenge, but learning that the family can stay in Canada as a result of their efforts was a huge relief and incredibly rewarding.
“It was difficult, in terms of wanting to put out our best work in such a limited time span,” she explained, “and we really felt the pressure of the fact that these people’s lives were possibly at stake.”
As they waited for the court decision, she added, “we both couldn’t sleep because we were thinking about what’s going to happen to this family and we were really stressing about that.”
In the wake of the court decision, Bharati said, the parents can now obtain work permits while they wait for the Federal Court to hear judicial reviews of previous decisions that rejected their applications for permanent residency status.
With the students’ time at CLASP nearing an end, Jang and Sandri expressed special appreciation for Bharati’s guidance and trust.
“All of our experiences at the clinic leading up to this case prepared us for the uphill battle we confronted when fighting for this family,” said Jang. “The result was a total team effort on everybody’s part and it was all worth it.”
Prof’s new book reveals communicative capacities of textile
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Long before the invention of the typewriter or the telephone, and even before humankind had a functioning alphabet, communication was taking place through textile craft. Ganaele Langlois, a professor in York University’s Department of Communication & Media Studies, has published a new book exploring just that – the often-ignored transformative communicative capacities of traditional textiles.
A Shipibo-Conibo (Peruvian Amazon) design being drawn on textile using natural pigments. Photo by Ganaele Langlois.
Ganaele Langlois
How Textile Communicates: from Codes to Cosmotechnics (Bloomsbury, 2024) is a thought-provoking contribution to the fields of both fashion and communication studies, challenging readers’ preconceptions and shining new light on the profound impact of textiles on human communication.
Textile, Langlois explains, has been used as a medium of communication since the prehistoric period. Up until the 19th century, civilizations throughout the world manipulated thread and fabric to communicate in a way that she believes would astound many of us now.
“We often think of the digital as something that is brand new and contemporary, but the fact is that digital modes of communication such as textile weaving, knitting, lace-making, and so on have existed and been used as means of communication and information storage long before the invention of the alphabet,” says Langlois.
In the book, she dissects textile’s unique capacity for communication through a range of global case studies, before examining the profound impact of colonialism on textile practice and the appropriation of the medium by capitalist systems.
“I was intrigued as to why in my own field, communication and media studies, textile has never received the same in-depth treatment as other media,” she says. “I explain the reasons for this in this book – mostly related to colonialism and capitalist appropriation – and explore how traditional textile practices continue their important and unique work of communication today.”
Study: alternative framing influences entrepreneurship training success
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Providing entrepreneurship training programs to individuals living in poverty has been a growing trend worldwide over the past two decades. New research from York University’s Schulich School of Business suggests that how new entrepreneurial practices are framed can significantly impact the extent to which they are ultimately adopted by trainees.
Geoffrey Kistruck
The findings are contained in a recently published article in the Journal of Business Venturing, titled “Exploring the relative efficacy of ‘within-logic contrasting’ and ‘cross-logic analogizing’ framing tactics for adopting new entrepreneurial practices in contexts of poverty.” The article was co-written by Geoffrey M. Kistruck, a professor and RBC Chair in Social Innovation and Impact at Schulich, together with Charlene Zietsma, the Max McGraw Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment & Sustainability; Angelique Slade Shantz, an assistant professor of strategy, entrepreneurship and management at the University of Alberta; and Luciano Barin Cruz, director of sustainability transition at HEC Montréal.
The researchers conducted a mixed-methods field experiment in rural Sri Lanka with an entrepreneurship education and training partner involving 683 entrepreneurs. They used two framing tactics for introducing new entrepreneurial practices. The first framing tactic – “within-logic contrasting” – is the dominant framing approach used currently, and is focused on distinguishing the behaviour of unsuccessful entrepreneurs with highly successful entrepreneurs or “role models” who used the newly prescribed entrepreneurial practices. The second framing tactic – “cross-logic analogizing” – was an alternative designed by the researchers, and focused on likening the newly prescribed entrepreneurial practices to activities that individuals routinely engage in within the non-business domains of their lives – everything from new cooking recipes to trying different ways to better protect their children from mosquitoes. Ultimately, the researchers found that cross-logic analogizing was more efficacious in terms of both a change in entrepreneurial mindset and entrepreneurial behaviour.
“Our research findings contribute to entrepreneurship theory and practice by helping to explain and predict why and when alternative framing tactics can significantly impact the success or failure of entrepreneurship education and training programs in impoverished regions,” says Kistruck. “Individuals living in poverty are often forced to rely heavily on routines and heuristics in order to survive. Entrepreneurship training efforts that essentially ‘borrow’ from existing logics rather than require the ‘building’ of new logics have a much better chance of ultimately being adopted in such contexts.”
