Filipino youth are not doing as well as their parents’ generation when it comes to education and employment levels, said a panel of speakers at Toronto’s Metropolis Conference on Friday, reported The Philippine Reporter March 9. “If you look at the Filipino community, it’s the one group where you see a downward movement from a very high level in the first generation to a lower level of degree ownership in the second generation,” said Professor Philip Kelly of the York Centre for Asian Research and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, to the group of about 20 people who attended a workshop. Kelly was presenting the work of the “Filipino Youth Transitions in Canada” (FYTiC) research project, a collaboration between York University and the Community Alliance for Social Justice (CASJ). Read full story.
Jose Canseco, Terrell Owens, Allen Iverson: $300 million and broke
“It’s a combination of narcissism and fallibility,” Paul Dennis, a professor of sport psychology in the School of Kinesiology & Health Science, Faculty of Health, told the Toronto Star in a March 10 story about millionaire athletes who have lost it all. Superstar athletes quite simply have trouble imagining the end of their careers, said Dennis. Read full story.
BlackBerry-maker’s bold new tactic: fun
BlackBerry maker Research in Motion is adding something else to the marketing mix as it tries to gets its groove back, wrote the Toronto Star March 10: the satirical, bawdy minds behind CollegeHumor.com. Trying to appeal to younger consumers by using humour is a “very good idea” for RIM, but not without its risks, said Alan Middleton, a marketing professor in York’s Schulich School of Business. Read full story.
Letters: Changes to the law on refugees
“This is a sweeping change to Canadian refugee law, one that puts the permanent residence of tens of thousands of recognized refugees at risk,” wrote Professor Sean Rehaag of York’s Osgoode Hall Law School, in a letter to the Montreal Gazette March 9 about comments by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney defending Bill C-31. Read full story.
Irving Layton at 100
“In 1969, when I was a fledgling poet about to enter undergraduate English studies, the Toronto Star announced that the Montreal poet Irving Layton would be teaching at York University,” wrote York grad Kenneth Sherman (BA ’73), in the National Post March 9. “I switched immediately from the University of Toronto, with its trendy downtown location, to York… I have never regretted that decision.” Read full story.
Fear trade still in play
“Systemic fear is a class of its own. It has little to do with the periodic downswings that make capitalists cautious,” noted Jonathan Nitzan, a professor of political economy in York’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, and Shimshon Bichler, who teaches political economy at several colleges in Israel, in a research paper published in 2010, said the Financial Post March 9. Fortunately, said the Post, Nitzan and Bichler found that periods of systemic fear have seldom occurred in the age of modern finance. Read full story.
On energy and environment, Pembina plays both offence and defence
York grad Ed Whittingham (IMBA ’05), executive director of the Pembina Institute, gets upset when they call him a “foreign-funded eco-radical beholden to foreign funders,” said the Financial Post March 9, in the introduction to a Q&A interview the graduate of the Schulich School of Business. While the Calgary-based Pembina Institute has for years been one of the Canadian oil sands’ toughest critics and gets some funding from US foundations, it’s also a big consultant to the sector. Read full story.
Teacher drops the dumbbells
Lifelong east Toronto resident and York grad Michael Ferrer (BA’99, BEd ’01) has retired at the age of 36; not from his day job as an elementary school gym teacher but from his other passion: competitive bodybuilding, reported InsideToronto.com March 11. Read full story.