The five associate deans for York’s new Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS) have been announced. The positions will take effect July 1, when the new Faculty replaces the Faculty of Arts and the Atkinson Faculty of Liberal & Professional Studies. Here is the new team:.
Professor Barbara Crow will become the associate dean, research. Crow is currently a professor in the Division of Social Science in the Faculty of Arts and is the director of the York and Ryerson Joint Graduate Program in Communication & Culture. Her research interests are in the social, cultural, political and economic implications of digital technologies. She has edited collections on mobile technologies, US radical feminism and Canadian women’s studies. She has worked on a number of large-scale interdisciplinary grants with engineers, designers, artists and communication scholars to produce technical and cultural content for mobile experiences.
Her most recent project with Professor Kim Sawchuk of Concordia University focuses on senior citizens and mobile technologies. She is one of the co-founders and lab directors of the Mobile Media Lab, co-founding editor of Wi: Journal of Mobile Media, and former president of the Canadian Women’s Studies Association (2002-2004). Crow’s portfolio includes supporting and expanding research in the new Faculty and disseminating information about the Faculty’s research activities both within and outside the University.
Right: LA&PS Dean-designate Martin Singer (left), Haideh Moghissi, Barbara Crow, Marilyn Lambert-Drache, Kim Ian Michasiw and Narda Razack
Professor Marilyn Lambert-Drache, currently associate dean, student relations, and a professor in the Department of French Studies in the Faculty of Arts, will be the associate dean, students in the new LA&PS. A linguist by training, Lambert-Drache’s areas of expertise include language planning and issues of language and identity in the francophone world. Her recent work examines the patterns of use of the Internet by francophone users and the visibility of the languages and cultures of the French-speaking world in cyberspace. In the last few years she has participated in many international conferences and she has been invited to lecture at universities in Korea, China and Japan. Outside of York, Lambert-Drache serves on the board of the International Federation of French Professors and is president of the North American Commission which represents associations of professors of French language, literature and linguistics in Canada and in the US. Her portfolio includes the Centre for Student Success, student engagement, and student advising, recruitment and retention.
Sociology and women’s studies Professor Haideh Moghissi, of the School of Social Sciences, Atkinson Faculty of Liberal & Professional Studies, will become associate dean, external of the new Faculty. Moghissi has served as chair of the executive committee of the Centre for Feminist Research, member of the executive committee of the Centre for Refugee Studies and coordinator of the Anti-Racism Research & Practice Certificate.
In addition, Moghissi was the project director of the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada funded Major Collaborative Research Initiatives project “Diaspora, Islam and Gender” and led international comparative research projects on Muslim diasporas, identity, gender and cultural resistance funded by the Ford Foundation. Moghissi has been published in several journals, including Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Monthly Review, and the Socialist Register. She is the co-author of Diaspora by Design: Muslims in Canada and Beyond (University of Toronto Press, 2009); and the author of Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism: The Limits of Postmodern Analysis (ZED MacMillan, 1999), winner of a Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award in sociology, and Populism and Feminism in Iran (Palgrave Macmillan, 1997). She is also the editor of Muslim Diaspora: Gender, Culture and Identity (Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2006); and the three volume reference, Women and Islam: Critical Concepts in Sociology (Routledge, 2004).
Moghissi’s previous experience working with the international community and her commitment to lifelong education provide a rich framework upon which to draw in the external portfolio including community outreach, internationalization strategies, the Division of Continuing Education and articulation agreements.
English Professor Kim Ian Michasiw, from the Faculty of Arts, will be the new associate dean, programs. Michasiw received his doctorate from the University of Toronto and joined York in 1988. He is a specialist in late-18th-century and romantic British literature and has published several articles in the field, with particular emphasis on the meeting points of esthetics and subjectivity.
His current research involves a revival of interest in Druids and the cult of the prehistoric in the last years of the 18th century. Michasiw chaired the Department of English in the Faculty of Arts for seven years during which time he was also coordinator of the Professional Writing Program. In addition, he has served as chair of the Arts Council and of Senate’s Academic Policy & Planning Committee. His most recent administrative post was as the last associate dean, curriculum and enrolment, in the Faculty of Arts. His new position includes curriculum and program development and review, and course management.
Professor Narda Razack of the School of Social Work, Atkinson Faculty of Liberal & Professional Studies, will become the new associate dean, faculty, in LA&PS. Razack has extensive experience in administration, research, teaching and community. She recently completed a three-year term as the School of Social Work graduate program director, during which time two new programs were approved and introduced – a PhD and a two-year master of social work. Her research primarily focuses on north-south relations, globalization and international social work, critical race theory and post-colonialism.
Razack is the author of Transforming the Field: Critical Antiracist and Anti-Oppressive Perspectives for the Human Services Practicum (Fernwood Publishing, 2002). She is a co-applicant on a recently awarded Community-University Research Alliance project, Assets Coming Together for Youth: Linking Research, Policy and Action for Positive Youth Development; is a team member on a Canadian International Development Agency funded project, Social Work in Nigeri; and has recently developed a proposal on critical perspectives on anti-oppression with partners in India.
Razack has been actively involved on committees, including equity officer for the York University Faculty Association, nationally with the Canadian Association of Social Work Education, and internationally where she is currently a board member of the International Association for Schools of Social Work and chairs the Task Force on International Exchanges & Research Collaborations for the association. Razack’s portfolio includes the recruitment and retention of faculty, professional development, tenure and promotion, sabbatical leaves and other matters pertaining to faculty members.