Patrick Monahan, currently vice-president academic & provost at York University, leaves next week to become Ontario’s new deputy attorney general, reported the Law Times Nov. 19. Read full story.
Construction begins on $45M stadium for Toronto Pan Am Games
With less than three years to go until the 2015 Pan Am and Parapan Am Games, work began Monday to break ground for the new stadium at York University that will host track and field events, reported the National Post and others Nov. 20. Read full story.
Local group collecting donations for Syrian refugees in Turkey
As another cold winter approaches, the local interfaith community is collecting donations to help the thousands of Syrian refugees displaced since civil war erupted in March 2011.[…]In conjunction with a Toronto initiative, students from York University will be collecting donations from Waterloo Region, Oakville and Toronto and shipping the good to Syrian refugees based in Turkey, reported the Waterloo Region Record Nov. 20. Read full story.
Whither Canadian Tire? Female MBA team wins with answer
For the first time in seven years, an all-female team won the Financial Executives International Canada’s Best in Class Invitational MBA case competition. The winning team on Saturday came from University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business, while runners up were from McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management and Schulich School of Business at York University, reported The Globe and Mail Nov. 19. Read full story.
Parcelling off the democratic commons for corporate profit
In 2010, two Canadian law professors, including York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School Professor Gus Van Harten, spearheaded a ‘Public Statement on The International Investment Regime’, warning that investor rights clauses grant corporations the right to repeal the ability of citizens and their governments to enact laws for the public good.[…]“They are the most important legal mechanisms to regulate countries since the colonial period, established mainly to protect the interests of large corporations,” Van Harten said in iPolotics Nov. 20. Read full story.
Heartburn pills that cause heart attacks, antidepressants that lead to suicide
Dr. Joel Lexchin, a professor in the York University’s School of Health Policy & Management, found that almost one-fifth (19.8 per cent) of 434 new active substances approved by Health Canada between 1995 and 2010 were later given serious safety warnings – some only months after approval, reported Maclean’s Nov. 20. Read full story.
North by nature
Indeed, despite the ongoing global economic slump, there has been a proliferation of government grants in Canada for northern research projects that are more closely linked to resource development and the need to assert a strong Canadian presence across the North. “I do think there has been a shift in funding in the North from environment and climate research to national security and resource development,” said Dawn Bazely, a biology professor at York University, in Canadian Geographic Dec. issue. Read full story.
What ultra-low interest rates are telling us
“It is no secret why short-term interest rates are very low. With the economy still operating significantly below capacity and inflation running at just 1.2 per cent – well below the 2 per cent mid-point of the target range – the Bank of Canada is keeping the overnight rate at 1 per cent in order to stimulate demand through cheap short-term credit. The puzzle is why long-term interest rates are at near record low levels,” wrote Andrew Jackson, the Packer Professor of Social Justice at York University, in The Globe and Mail Nov. 19. Read full story.
Plus-size fashion bloggers try – and fail – to get more mainstream clothing options
Eileen Fischer, a marketing professor and the director of entrepreneurial studies at York University, spent more than three years examining the Internet’s “fatosphere” – blogs by plus-size women, many of whom expressed interest in fashion.[…]What Fischer urges retailers to take away from the study is that they shouldn’t assume plus-size shoppers don’t want fashionable clothes, “because they do,” she said in BuzzFeed Nov. 17. Read full story.