The report, authored by five researchers under the guidance of lead author Stephen Gaetz, suggests that the region may be particularly well suited to deal with homelessness before young people move to the “big city,” reported Yonge Street Dec. 3… “You can go from being stuck to being innovative really quickly,” says Gaetz, a professor at York University. “If you look at the communities that have done the best at homelessness in Canada, if you look at them 10 years ago, they look like just any other place. That can happen in York Region, too.” Read full story.
Good samaritan Tugce Albayrak a true rarity, research says
The case of a German woman who died while protecting two teenage girls from harassment has captivated the world, but sociologists say these sorts of interventions are actually quite rare. Most people “want to preserve the smooth flow of interaction” and will typically go out of their way to ignore uncomfortable social situations, said Arthur McLuhan, a social psychology professor at York University, in CBC News Dec. 2. “The most common response to any sort of deviance is doing nothing.” Read full story.
Don’t let your board fail your company
“You know that old saying, ‘the fish rots from the head’? When it comes to a board of directors, never were truer words spoken,” wrote York University Professor Richard Leblanc in the Globe and Mail Dec. 2. “An effective board is the last line of defense for shareholders, regulators and other stakeholders. This small but mighty peer group is responsible for overseeing the management of an organization.” Read full story.
Canada’s 100 Most Powerful Women
The Women’s Executive Network honours 100 of Canada’s private, public and not-for-profit sector leaders, reported the Financial Post Dec. 2…. Julia Foster, chair, of the York University Board of Governors, has achieved many career highs, including driving the financial turnaround of The Stratford Festival as its first female board chair, rallying corporate funding for Canadian Olympic Athletes as president of the Olympic Trust of Canada and serving as chair of the National Arts Centre Board of Governors. Read full story.
Queen’s University astronomer leads international team to detect a Super Earth
Astronomer Ernst de Mooij from the Astrophysics Research Centre at Queen’s University Belfast led an international team that has used an Earth-based telescope to detect a Super Earth, a planet with more mass than Earth but less than Uranus or Neptune, reported the Belfast Telegraph Dec. 2…. Study co-author Ray Jayawardhana of York University said: “Observations like these are paving the way as we strive towards searching for signs of life on alien planets from afar. Remote sensing across tens of light years is not easy, but it can be done with the right technique and a bit of ingenuity.” Read full story.
Toronto man says he was racially profiled by a Hamilton police officer
Racial profiling is prevalent here in southern Ontario, too, said Frances Henry, York University professor emeritus and coauthor of the book Racial Profiling in Canada, in the Hamilton Spectator Nov. 28. A Toronto Star investigation found that of the 1.25 million “contact cards” filled out by Toronto police when they stopped and questioned people between 2008 and mid-2011, 23.4 per cent were for people identified as black – yet blacks account for only 8.3 per cent of the city’s population. Henry argues that the police’s job is to protect us when they suspect something criminal is occurring or is about to occur: “they cannot just randomly stop people for no behavioural reason.” Read full story.
Three causes that deserve more attention right now
A report released earlier this year charged that Canada falls short when it comes to meeting the needs of homeless youth in their treatment of them as adults, reported Notable.ca Nov. 27. Simply put, shelter care alone is not enough to meet the needs of these disadvantaged youth. The author, York University Professor Stephen Gaetz, compared the Canadian ways of handling the situation to countries like the United Kingdom and Australia. Read full story.
You can be overweight and perfectly healthy: researchers
While the conventional thinking has been that obesity is a medical problem unto itself, two studies indicate that it’s possible to be overweight and be perfectly healthy, reported NewsmaxHealth.com Nov. 27…. The studies used the Edmonton Obesity Staging System (EOSS), which considers an array of physical and psychological factors in determining a person’s health…. “Using the EOSS criteria, we see that there are many obese individuals who are healthy other than [having] an excess body weight,” says York University Professor Jennifer Kuk, lead author of one of the studies. Read full story.
LGBTQ refugees lack mental health care
Individuals seeking asylum based on persecution for sexual orientation or gender identity have been hit especially hard by the cuts to health care for immigrants and refugees in Canada, reported Psychology Today Nov. 27….Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights, an organization and research project out of York University in Toronto, has been collecting data from focus groups with LGBTQ refugee claimants both pre- and post-hearing. Read full story.