This fall, in response to recommendations from the Presidential Task Force on Homophobia and Heterosexism (1996),York University will undertake a two-year pilot project aimed at improving the climate for sexually- and gender-diverse members of our community.

Titled the Positive Space Project, it plans to provide designated places where those seeking information, wanting referral to specific services, or simply in need of a sympathetic ear, may discuss their concerns with informed volunteers on both campuses of the University.

The initial project will involve volunteers (faculty, staff and students) who will commit to a two-year trial period during which they will attend orientation sessions and agree to provide this special service to any member of the University seeking help.

It is hoped that some volunteers around the University will discuss the need for this service with their co-workers, and get agreement that their office might be designated as a Positive Space with a trained volunteer.

"We need this project to ensure that people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered will know there are places they can go on the campus to find information or a sympathetic ear, and be certain that they will encounter people who are comfortable with respect to issues of sexual and gender diversity," said Gill Teiman, Special Assistant to the President (Equity).

Designation of such places throughout the University will be signalled by the presence of a Positive Space Indicator, a distinctive sticker which alerts users to the availability of an informed advisor able to provide referrals concerning matters of sexual and gender diversity.

Similar programs have been successfully undertaken at other universities in the United States and Canada, and have done much to improve the climate for those who feel marginalized and fearful of their reception.

David Bell, director of York's Centre for Applied Sustainability and former dean of the Faculty of Environmental Studies, is hosting a series of radio broadcasts examining some of the world's most serious economic, social and environmental problems.

The series of 12, one-hour broadcasts is called "Sustainability: Canadian and Global Views." It began broadcasting Thursday, Sept. 17, at 11 a.m. and is repeated at 7 p.m. The Thursday series runs for 12 weeks on CJRT 91.1 FM.

The series focuses on international dimensions of sustainability and the role of Canadian development assistance in helping other countries respond to the challenge of sustainability. It features case studies of development projects in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. Much attention is also given to Canadian responses to sustainability issues. Bell talks to people from many different countries who have spent their lives trying to solve these problems.

Sustainability is an approach to decision making which integrates environmental and social concerns into business and economic decisions. Sustainability is also fast becoming a touchstone for governmental policy at all levels, from the local to the global. It requires planning for the welfare of future generations while attempting to meet the needs of the present generation.

More than 100 people from all parts of the world have been interviewed for the series. Notable North Americans include environmentalist Maurice Strong, United Nations official Elizabeth Dowdeswell, Manitoba premier Gary Filmon, CIDA president Hugette Labelle, American sustainability advocate Ray Anderson, and former Brundtland commission executive Jim MacNeill.

Program titles include: (1) The Challenge of Sustainability; (2) Sustainability and Our Common Future; (3) International Assistance, and the Role of CIDA; (4) The Rio Conference and Agenda 21; (5) Environmental Training in Brazilian Industry; (6) Eco-Tourism in the Windward Islands; (7) Sustainability and District Planning in Kenya; (8) Measuring Progress toward Sustainability; (9) Environmental Sustainability in Indonesia; (10) Sustainability in Eastern Europe; (11) Sustainability in Canada; and (12) Sustainability and the Future of Humankind.

CJRT Open College is the educational division of CJRT-FM, associated with of Ryerson Polytechnic University. Open College produces university credit courses for broadcast on CJRT-FM, and for delivery by distance education. Admission is open. Courses are credited at Ryerson, and other universities by permission.

Beginning January 1999, Sustainability: Canadian and Global Views will be available to students for credit on audio cassette and on the Internet. The broadcast portion of Sustainability: Canadian and Global Views is supported by CIDA, The Canadian International Development Agency.

The Yeomen and Yeowomen are sporting rookies on more than just the field, as Nick Rowe and Alan Hawes join the coaching staff at York.

Rowe, the head coach of the Yeomen rugby team, who's coached at the high school level for the past 12 years, has now made the leap into university athletics.

Although he graduated from York with a BA in English, Rowe was always interested in physical education and took many of his electives in the area.

While a student at York, Rowe was also a member of the varsity rugby team.

"I have been involved with rugby for 18 years, playing most positions on the field," says Rowe. "At York I played back row, lock and hooker. And I was fortunate to have been selected to play rugby for Canada against the United States and France."

While Rowe is optimistic about the Yeomen squad he inherited from Dominic Scuglia, he is putting the focus on more than just winning.

"The main goal is to get to know the players and what they want to achieve," says Rowe. "Secondary goals are to qualify for playoffs, and possibly win a championship."

Rowe tackles coaching the same way he tackles life, by keeping a positive attitude and capitalizing on the benefits of learning from others. "We all have gifts or talents from God," says Rowe. "We must strive to find out what they are and develop them to help each other."

Yeowomen rugby team head coach Ev Spence has also
stepped down. Alan Hawes is his replacement.

Hawes has 12 years of coaching experience including stints with Beacon Field Rugby in Montreal and the Toronto Scottish. Both teams compete in the Senior A division. In his last season with the Toronto Scottish, Hawes was undefeated.

"My goal for the team right now, which I think is achievable, is to finish better than we did last year," says Hawes, (the Yeowomen finished sixth last season).

Hawes graduated from Concordia University with a BA in economics and he played scrum half for their varsity rugby team.

Thirty years ago, Pierre Elliott Trudeau introduced Canadians to the "Just Society," a sweeping vision of a new, more commanding and compassionate country. To provide a commemorative and comprehensive examination of the man and the mood of those times, York is hosting a conference titled The Trudeau Era -- Media, Politics and Culture, from Thursday, Oct. 22 to Saturday, Oct. 24.

The Trudeau Era will analyse the ideals and ambitions of that dynamic age, and aim to place Trudeau's legacy in a political, historical and social context. The conference will seek to foster a fuller understanding of Canada's history and the possibilities of a new millennium.

"We will concern ourselves with the promise of Canada," says author Bruce Powe, academic advisor to Winters College at York University. "The purpose of the conference is to review and
re-evaluate Pierre Trudeau, his aspirations and accomplishments, and to examine the political and cultural heritage of the Just Society. It's our ambition to re-ignite the debate about what liberalism means for Canada."

Among the invited speakers will be such noted scholars, journalists and authors as Michael Bliss, Stephen Clarkson, Andrew Cohen, Carole Corbeil, Richard Gwyn, Derrick de Kerckhove, Mark Kingwell, Linda McQuaig, Kenneth McRoberts, and Cité Libre editor Max Nemni.

Special guest participants include former Trudeau principal secretary Jim Coutts, former cabinet minister Iona Campagnolo, award-winning writer Ron Graham, actress Linda Griffiths of "Maggie and Pierre" fame, and York University President Lorna Marsden, a former Canadian Senator.

Addressing such topics as the competing visions of Canadian and French Canadian nationalism, speakers will also focus on Trudeau as a leader, a philosopher, an icon and as a catalytic figure of Canadian society. The Trudeau Era will also serve as the launching pad for two new books at the opening of the conference. The first is The Essential Trudeau (McClelland & Stewart), a collection of the former prime minister's classic essays, featuring a new introduction by Pierre Elliott Trudeau and edited by Ron Graham. The second, Trudeau's Shadow (Random House Canada), is a compendium of commentaries by luminaries of politics, media and the arts, edited by Andrew Cohen and York professor emeritus Jack Granatstein.

Employing a boldly interdisciplinary, inter-faculty and inter-collegial approach, this conference is breaking new ground in co-operation and scope. The Trudeau Era is jointly sponsored by four York University colleges: Winters, Vanier, McLaughlin and Calumet, with support from the Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, the Departments of Political Science and English, the York University Bookstore, Offices of the President and Vice-Presidents, Canadian Studies, Random House, and McClelland & Stewart.

Tickets for the conference are available through York University. (Tickets for the three-day conference, including admission to the reception/book launch, are $85; $10 for York students; $20 for off-campus students; group rates available.)

by Anne Russon

The Follow
by Linda Spalding,
Key Porter Books

The Follow grew from the idea of writing a biography of Birute Galdikas. Galdikas is the third of the "angels" chosen by anthropologist Louis Leakey to pioneer the study of great apes in the wild. In 1971, in the tradition of Jane Goodall's work with chimpanzees and Dian Fossey's with gorillas, Galdikas entered the rainforests of Borneo. Her quarry was the only great ape living in Asia, the orangutan. She found the orangutan and stayed. Now, 27 years later, she is "somebody you should know," internationally identified with orangutans, awarded the Order of Canada, about to have a film made of her life. Linda Spalding, a novelist and editor of a respected literary magazine, was commissioned for the project.

Spalding envisaged working with Galdikas‚ the ibu protecting orangutans (ibu is Indonesian for mother), to explore Galdikas' sense of her life's goals and sacrifices. That vision took her to Los Angeles, where Galdikas' Orangutan Foundation International (OFI) is based and Galdikas was publicizing her autobiography, Reflections of Eden. Two themes stood out at Galdikas' talks, her "doing good" for orangutans and their rainforest and OFI's tours -- the only way to visit Galdikas' Borneo, OFI said, was to call 1-800-orangutan. Galdikas agreed to a chat with Spalding but it mired in rambling small talk. OFI told Spalding: "there's not going to be a book ... She's already done the story of her life," "you shouldn't have come." Spalding's request to visit Galdikas in Borneo elicited an indifferent "we'll see ... I'll contact you" that never materialized.

Finding direct contact barred, Spalding reinvented a technique used by field researchers like Galdikas for studying elusive subjects -- the follow. She gleaned information from the places and people Galdikas frequented and the traces Galdikas left behind. I was one of many people Spalding contacted. My link was my research on ex-captive orangutans at Galdikas' site from 1989 to 1993. I offered recollections and opinions, brokered contacts, and watched from the wings.

The Follow recounts what transpired in that venture, via engaging vignettes of the scenes Spalding found linked with Galdikas. Deceptively simple, each vignette neatly illustrates or sets off a striking feature of Galdikas' world. Three strands tie them together. First is the inner voyage, Spalding's choices, reactions, and interpretations as an urban western woman of Galdikas' vintage, interested in motherhood, venturing into Bornean wilderness. Second is the larger forces threatening orangutan and rainforest survival. Third is Galdikas herself, the inevitable centerpiece. Therein lies much controversy.

The Place

Spalding followed Galdikas' trail into Borneo, sans OFI, three times. The contradictions at play surfaced as soon as she reached Indonesia. In Pangkalan Bun, gateway to Galdikas' Camp Leakey in Tanjung Puting National Park, Spalding's group and an OFI tour -- conservation-minded visitors -- were directed to a hotel owned by a timber baron. Nothing else fit expectations either, not the dayak village where Galdikas lives, her house, her orangutan facilities, nor her dayak husband.

Spalding continued into Tanjung Puting up the Sekonyer River, now a well-worn visitor route. The park's main attraction is ex-captive orangutans being rehabilitated to forest life at several riverside stations. Orangutans had free run of everything; close encounters were a given. Beyond that, each station had its visitor rites. The last was Camp Leakey itself, locus of Galdikas' orangutan project; it featured landmarks of Galdikas' past. Park sights were not just marvels of nature. Also conspicuous were illegal logging, a mercury-polluted river, human hostilities and commercial ventures. The Rimba, a stylish lodge on the Sekonyer, turned out to be owned by Galdikas and friends, including the same Pangkalan Bun timber baron. OFI tour groups stayed there.

The Players

Visitors, park staff, researchers, Galdikas' supporters and critics, and Galdikas herself all played important roles in this setting, but the key players were the ex-captive orangutans.

Ex-captives were all coping with one basic problem, lost mothers. Details of their fates varied -- emotional scars, career mooching, infected with human disease. The current star had to be Gistok. His finer moments spanned locking Spalding's daughter in an outhouse for a half-hour before unbolting it, to a meditative sit in the river. Others had become famous. The Bangkok Six, six infants rescued at Bangkok airport, brought Galdikas to celebrity status when they were sent to her care. Most died, raising questions of responsibility. The Taiwan Ten, a second repatriated group, brought notoriety. Disputes arose over their lot -- Galdikas' program or a new one run by a Dutch forester. Galdikas‚ and some supporters seized the Ten. Eleven months, a kidnapping, and several arrests later, authorities recovered them. Galdikas sought international media support. She got it, but at great cost in Indonesia.

Park visitors, although only passing through, are the target of the park's program, a major source of support for conservation, and a font of liberal spending. Those Spalding encountered brought problems as well. Some visitors infected infant orangutans; others came with music blaring and littered the river with their trash. OFI tours regarded themselves as research volunteers, doing research work like searching for wild orangutans and taking data. Connie Russell, who had studied research volunteers, found they, too, fit visitor "types" -- nurturing cuddlers, pristine nature lovers, and photo-op collectors. Spalding's group crossed paths with one OFI tour. The tour seemed offended at their presence.

Others who had worked with Galdikas offered comments. Researchers questioned her rehabilitation's effectiveness. Several park officials reported that she no longer had permits to work in the park and cited a raft of problems. The volunteer that Galdikas had had care for the Bangkok Six explained how the Six had fallen ill, how some died, and why she had kept silent about it for years. A recent ex-volunteer offered similar, more disturbing reports.

Galdikas still had supporters in the park, permits or not. They ranged from Pak Akhyar, "father" to Galdikas' ex-captives for 17 years and one of her few staff still at Camp Leakey, to Mr. Ralph, a supporter in his seventies who had been visiting Birut‚ "The Professor," and her orangutans every year for the last 10, and Charlotte Grimm, a good friend who was leading the OFI tour. Charlotte's response to Spalding's concern about an orangutan sanctuary that OFI planned for Hawaii, given Hawaii's ecological fragility, was "I know someone -- in the government ... I've got him onside."

Galdikas herself was rarely in the park but Spalding met her there once, by design, still hoping to be received. Spalding was with Mr. Ralph on the river when another boat came into view bearing Galdikas and the actress who was to star in her film biography. The two great boats churned toward each other until they could halt, abreast, and permit the occupants to talk. It was no better. Spalding barely got a "hello."

Perspectives on The Follow

The Follow largely refrains from explicitly interpreting the events, hints and contradictions that surfaced around Galdikas. One exception is attempting to pinpoint the forces driving her life. Spalding settled on power. Power may have been a lure that took control once Galdikas' world of orangutans opened to too many self-indulgent, well-heeled humans.

Explicit or not, the impression is not the heroic image of Galdikas popular in North America. That raises a stir, some of it indignant. Some consider it a priori unacceptable to portray a person honored for protecting nature in the highly disturbed world of today in non-heroic proportions. Some see it as sullying the conservation movement itself, one that can little afford to show feet of clay because its authority relies heavily on the moral high ground. Others dismiss the unflattering portrayal as a cheap shot by yet another disgruntled writer, ego raw from a less-than-effusive welcome. Not the least of the indignation comes from Galdikas' camp, which has retorted with accusations of rumour-mongering and inept research.

The bottom line, preferences aside, is where the truth lies. The outcome is likely to have heavy consequences because indulgences granted conservation heroes, like hefty few-questions-asked donations, wax and wane with integrity. Views tend to be split between two poles: Galdikas is a heroine who courageously faces powerful forces of destruction and is being martyred for confronting them; or she is herself a force of destruction masquerading in heroic garb.

The truth is likely some amalgam of the two. In Indonesia, what is said often has little in common with what is done. Alliances with timber barons and profit-seekers reflect in part the practicalities of working in a developing country, and they form a basis for change. Bribes are costs of working in a country rife with corruption and donations address the costs of conservation work. As a Toronto associate of Spalding's put it, "The good news about working in Indonesia is that anything is made possible by money. The bad news is that anything is made possible by money."

Resource extraction enterprises, local people trying to eke out better lives, and ineffective bureaucrats do stand to gain from evicting nature protection advocates like Galdikas. On the other hand, consorting credibly with them requires constructive alliances that are clearly separated from self-serving ones that corrode integrity. Further, critics of Galdikas' rehabilitation include orangutan experts. They assessed other older rehabilitation programs, not just hers, as no longer viable. They concur on the need for screening ex-captives for diseases, medical clearance before release, and release in habitat devoid of wild orangutans. Orangutans are susceptible to infectious human diseases like tuberculosis and hepatitis, so these concerns are serious. These requirements, now legislated, aim to protect the fragile wild population from further stress. Galdikas has put no such medical practices in place and no such habitat exists in Tanjung Puting. Finally, if her permits were revoked, her failures to produce legitimate research and to improve rehabilitation practices likely played a sizable role.

In that light, The Follow's image is a credible one. It is thoroughly researched -- the product of three years' study, carefully digested, intelligently presented. Outside, a respected environmental magazine, published extracts. Its substance and flavour jibe with my own experiences, even if many of its particulars are new, and with portrayals published in recent years in the Georgia Strait and the Manchester Guardian. It also echoes many of the concerns raised by a recent Indonesian investigation, which halted Galdikas' orangutan-related activities. It does reflect outsiders' more than insiders' views of Galdikas‚ but not by choice, and it spans allies as well as adversaries. If the image differs from the popular one, it is partly because Spalding explored a route other than the one that Galdikas and OFI prescribe, their tours to Tanjung Puting and their literature. She also entered the arena unbiased by involvement, so her image derives from what she saw and heard, not ordained belief. Her image has a legitimate place as one face of a controversial figure, a face seen through the eyes of many who have worked with her.

United Way Campaign kicks off with breakfast

The 1998 York University United Way Campaign "kicks off" on Friday, Oct. 9 with a pancake breakfast in the Central Square Cafeteria between 8 and 10 a.m. Breakfast will be prepared and served by York President Lorna Marsden and other York vice-presidents for a minimum $2 donation. Come out and show your support for a very worthwhile cause. This event is being put on in conjunction with Sodexho Marriott.

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Memorial services for faculty members

Memorial services for two faculty members will be held soon. On Saturday, Oct. 3, a memorial service will be held for Prof. Karigondar Ishwaran of the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts. It will be held in the Scott Religious Centre at 2 p.m. On Thursday, Oct. 8, a memorial will be held for Jerilyn Manson-Hing. She was associated with Women's Studies, and taught at York and Atkinson College. The service will be held at 1:30 p.m. in the Scott Religious Centre. For more information on Manson-Hing, visit the web site: http://www. yorku.ca/faculty/academic/cliveh/ jerilyn.html.

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Novelist Umberto Eco coming to York conference

A conference titled "The Power of Words: Literature, Society and the University" will be held at York University from Oct. 8 to 10. Conference organizers in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics planned the event as a timely response to questions such as: will society benefit from downplaying literature as a field of higher education, in favour of more directly utilitarian subjects? Are the aesthetic and cognitive functions of literature necessary in the modern human community, and are they so self-evident that they need little additional attention in public education? The trend towards a global economy, the corporate-driven agenda of governments, the fragmenting effect of post-modernist theories, the erosion of the "traditional" curriculum and pedagogy produced by technological changes and the information highway, collectively if inadvertently threaten to undermine the place of literature in Canadian education. The conference aims to address these issues. The keynote speaker will be renowned author Umberto Eco, who penned The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pendulum, and other novels and scholarly books, including Interpretation and Overinterpretation and Misreadings. For more information on the conference, call Silvana Stifani at (416) 736-5016 or fax: (416) 736-5483 or email: sstifani@yorku.ca.

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York hosts conference on Canadian families

The Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies invites the university community to attend an upcoming seminar series on "Canadian Families Transformed: Towards the Millennium." Coordinated by Benjamin Schlesinger, research associate at the Robarts Centre, and Rina Cohen, Department of Sociology, the series runs every Wednesday from Oct. 7 to Nov. 11 (except for Oct. 14), from 3 to 5 p.m. With the millennium fast approaching, the seminar organizers say the timing is right for an examination of the future of Canadian families. The seminars will be held in Room 305, York Lanes. Watch the Gazette's Calendar of Events for more details about the speakers and topics at each seminar.

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York welcomes international students