“In graduate programs across Canada, students at the Master’s and PhD levels face a range of experiences and (mixed) feelings as they contemplate the beginning of the semester,” wrote York University PhD candidate Melonie Fullick in The Globe and Mail Sept. 13. “While some are just starting out in their programs, for others the orientation sessions and adjustments to new teaching or research jobs are part of a familiar routine, one that’s often being managed alongside increased professional responsibilities, dissertation or thesis work and family obligations.” Read full story.
York U looks to hire teaching-only faculty
Most students are aware that an extensive amount of their professors’ time goes to research in addition to their teaching duties. York University, however, has become the first university in Canada to announce extensive hiring of teaching-only professors, who will focus on teaching almost exclusively while doing little or no research, reported the Gazette Sept. 12. Though almost all Canadian universities have some faculty who teach exclusively, York is the first to hire them on a large scale. Read full story.
Joseph Boyden on the novel he was ‘always meant to write’
York alumnus Joseph Boyden, 46, is one of the most acclaimed Canadian writers of his generation, reported the National Post Sept. 6….He enrolled at York University, studying creative writing and the humanities. York English Professor B.W. Powe, who taught Boyden, says he possessed “a quiet passion and a quiet intensity about him, a concentration and a receptivity that was easy to notice. [But] what I thought was most powerful about him was that he carried in himself the mark of determined solitude, the need to create something. There was something in him that made him memorable.” Read full story.
Jolted by power costs
“The blame for increases in the ‘global adjustment’ portion of customers’ electricity bills should not be laid at the feet of the province’s renewable-energy initiatives,” wrote York University environmental studies Professor Mark Winfield in The Globe and Mail Sept. 13. "However fashionable it has become to blame green-energy initiatives for rising energy costs, these figures suggest that doing so does little to inform the debate on energy policy.” Read full story.
Martin Gladstone: Where is the gay campaign to boycott Egypt?
York University Professor and filmmaker John Greyson and his traveling companion Dr. Tarek Loubani were arrested in Cairo on Aug. 16. Both Canadian men have been arbitrarily held without formal charge in Tora prison. Egyptian prosecutors (dubiously) claim that the two men conspired with the Muslim Brotherhood in an attack on a police station, reported the National Post Sept. 12….Greyson is an openly gay man (simply Google him) and a fixated anti-Israel activist….So it all begs the question: Where are the large gay marches outside the Egyptian diplomatic missions in Canada, or the calls for boycotts of Egyptian goods? Read full story.
TTC’s new articulated bus spotted on training run near St. Clair and Bathurst
Twelve of the city’s busiest bus routes are under consideration: 7 Bathurst, 25 Don Mills, 29 Dufferin, 36 Finch West, 39 Finch East, 199 Finch Rocket, 35 Jane, 41 Keele, 53 Steeles East, 85 Sheppard East, 116 Morningside and 196 York University Rocket. In March, the TTC board approved the purchase of 126 additional NovaBus LFS articulated buses (“artics”), at a total cost of nearly $120 million, upping the total fleet size to 153, reported the York Guardian Sept. 12. Read full story.
Three things to do this weekend
He went on his historic run for cancer research back in 1980, and all these years later Canadians are still inspired by Terry Fox’s life and work. The 32nd annual run will happen across Toronto, including High Park, Toronto Island and York University, reported the Toronto Star Sept. 12. Routes vary between 5 and 10 km; proceeds go to the Terry Fox Foundation. Read full story.