Welcome to our April issue of Innovatus. This month, our newsletter shines the spotlight on the Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change (EUC) as it celebrates Earth Month.
Each month, the Faculty continues to find innovative ways to respond to some of the most pressing challenges facing people and the planet. During Earth Month, which takes place every April, we have an opportunity to raise ecological awareness of the pressing issues impacting our people and planet, and EUC sees students as future changemakers.
“Our Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change is especially inspired by and committed to students. We are empowering students with fundamental knowledge, critical thinking skills, hands-on experience and global perspectives throughout our program offerings. Undergraduate students can choose majors in environmental arts and justice, environmental science, global geography, sustainable environmental management or urban studies. They can also mix and match these options through minors or certificates according to their passions and interests,” EUC Dean Alice Hovorka says in the welcoming address from the dean.
“Our programs highlight career readiness as a means through which students can realize their potential as changemakers in the workforce as problem solvers, policymakers, planners and leaders.”
With its focus on experiential education for students, EUC is showcasing the living labs, the transformative change, and the equity, diversity and inclusivity in its programs.
This issue of Innovatus offers you a glimpse at several of the innovative initiatives the Faculty provides its students. Our first story demonstrates EUC’s commitment to its living labs, such as the Ecological Footprints Initiative, Zig Zag Gallery, Maloca Garden, Waste Wiki and Las Nubes. EUC students undertake a change project through a Dean’s Changemaker Placement (DCP), showcase it at a networking event and then apply for the Dean’s Changemaker Award. The innovative work of these DCP students helps them become career ready and provides them with an opportunity to work with EUC’s living labs.
EUC’s dedication to student success is also evident in the Black Mentorship Program starting in Fall 2023. The initial phase consisted of a consultation with the EUC community (staff, alumni, students and faculty) focused on Black futures to inform best practices to ensure visibility, Black student success and accessibility. The new program also highlights the Faculty’s commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion in its EUC Black Inclusion Action Plan 2020-2025 Action Plan.
Student success, broadly speaking, is a large part of EUC’s student education. Our third article demonstrates how, on alternating Tuesdays and Thursdays, EUC offers specialized lunch-and-learn opportunities, which influence employability and can help advance career success and satisfaction among students. Finally, in our last article, the range of experiential educational opportunities available to EUC students is detailed, emphasizing their positive impacts on students.
We hope you enjoy learning more about the path EUC has created to ensure a better future for all of us, especially as we enter this new world of unprecedented environmental change.
Will Gage
AVP, Teaching & Learning
Faculty, course directors and staff are invited to share their experiences in teaching, learning, internationalization and the student experience through the Innovatus story form, which is available at tl.apps01.yorku.ca/machform/view.php?id=16573.
EUC empowers students as future leaders for green labour shift
Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change (EUC) Dean Alice Hovorka shares how the Faculty is empowering its students as changemakers and future leaders for a labour shift toward “green jobs.”
Dean’s Changemaker Placements offer unique experience
The guiding principle behind placements with the Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change’s living labs is that students must design projects that have the potential to create change.
Lunch n’ Learn pilot a pathway to career opportunities
First-year student Anthony Loschiavo has turned the resume guidance he received at his York University Faculty’s Lunch n’ Learn program into a summer position with the Toronto Region Conservation Authority.
Consultation first step in creating EUC Black Mentorship Program
EUC is launching a Black student-to-alumni mentorship program to enhance learning opportunities and support for the Faculty’s Black students.
EUC champions hands-on learning, creating immersive outside classrooms
The Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change (EUC) is dismantlig the traditional four walls of a classroom for students.