Second-year York University business student John Liu said he was encouraged to see the Ontario Ministry of Labour taking action on the matter of unpaid internships. But he said he expects things to remain bleak for the current generation desperate to enter the workforce. In his first year, Liu worked once a week for six months at a Canadian brokerage firm, shadowing a company director and helping with filing and researching client portfolios. “Personally, I think if the work is good, unpaid is totally justified,” said Liu in CBC News March 28. Read full story.
Daniel Drache: Does every crackpot really have an absolute right to speak on campus?
“In theory, free speech is the right to voice your opinion without reprisal or recrimination,” wrote Daniel Drache, professor emeritus and senior research fellow at the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies at York University, in the National Post March 27. “But freedom of opinion is not an absolute right – you cannot disrupt classes, you cannot prevent others from speaking, you cannot advocate hatred, racism, ethnic discrimination, deny the Holocaust. . . . The university can choose who gets a platform; who is allowed to speak and who gets invited into the conversation.” Read full story.
A political science professor’s spiritual pilgrimage to Nelson Mandela’s funeral
“The news of former South African president Nelson Mandela’s death punctured, for me, the ordinary course of life,” wrote Radhakrishnan Persaud, professor of political science at York University’s Glendon College, in Pride March 26. “On the day of his death, I realized how impelled I was, by the spirit with which he lived his whole life, to act in a way that would make real for me his influence, his love of all of humankind and his legacy of peace. On the evening of Dec. 7, 2013, I headed for South Africa to be in the final presence of this majestic soul.” Read full story.
Barrie officials hoping funding announcement means campus headed this way
Georgian College president MaryLynn West-Moynes said they’ve been talking with their university partners about possible growth and expansion, reported the Barrie Examiner March 27. Georgian currently has five active university/college partnerships, with Lakehead University, Laurentian University, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, York University and Central Michigan University. Read full story.