The Schulich School of Business at York University has launched a Web-based software tool to help prepare students for critical job interviews, wrote the National Post May 23. InterviewStream allows students to video-record themselves answering industry- and skill-specific questions. Students select from hundreds of questions testing their communication, analytical and leadership skills. Their answers are video recorded by a Webcam from their home or a kiosk set up at Schulich. By analyzing everything from the content of answers to body language and speech patterns, a student can hone key points and polish a final presentation. The software can even track the number of times unnecessary words or phrases are used.
Opera hall architect will design new wing for Osgoode
What do opera and lawyers have in common? Toronto architect Jack Diamond, wrote The Globe and Mail May 23. Fresh off his widely acclaimed design of Toronto’s new Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, Diamond will be joining a team of legal heavyweights at Toronto’s Design Exchange tonight to unveil his plans for a new building at York’s Osgoode Hall Law School. Canada’s largest law school is seeking to raise $20 million to add a modern glass and stone wing to the school’s cramped brick low-rise at York’s Keele campus.
Ever since the school moved to York’s Keele campus in 1969 from its stately, historic home in downtown Toronto, students have grumbled about the lack of light and space in the school’s bunker-like building. Diamond plans to infuse the new building with natural light from massive windows and skylights that will clad much of the building.
It’s Tuesday – time to protect the planet
The Toronto-based environmental group Paradigm Shift Environmental Alliance, a network of students, activists and academics, has been holding Tuesday morning vigils since Earth Day in April to call for the immediate closure of Ontario’s coal-fired power plants and protest the proposed Portlands power plant on Toronto’s waterfront, wrote the Toronto Star May 23.
David Ravenfish, 44, of Toronto, a co-coordinator of the alliance, is present for the weekly protest. Ravenfish’s mother, Theressa Nahanee, an aboriginal rights lawyer from the Squamish Nation in British Columbia, inspired his activism, which began when he attended York’s Osgoode Hall Law School. After graduation, he chose life as an activist instead of practising law.
Environmental studies student starts farmers’ market as course project
The Sears patio downtown will soon be the site of a new farmers’ market, thanks to the efforts of the Downtown Chatham BIA and organizer Meghan Holmes, wrote Chatham This Week May 23. A Thamesville resident, Holmes is currently in her second year of the master’s degree in environmental studies program at York.
"I wanted to work on a project for my master’s, instead of doing a thesis, that incorporates ideas of environmental sustainability and specifically, local food systems," she said. After deciding she’d like to launch a farmers’ market, Holmes said she made a few phone calls and discovered that the BIA had also been discussing the idea. SouthWest Agri Development is also a partner in the venture.
On air
- Roxanne Mykitiuk, professor in York’s Osgoode Hall Law School and an expert on issues raised by reproductive technologies, spoke about infertility awareness week on CBC Radio’s “Metro Morning” May 22.
- Brendan Quine, professor in York’s’ Faculty of Science & Engineering, spoke about efforts by his company, Toth Technology, to send a Canadian built probe to Mars, on Discovery Channel’s “Daily Planet” May 22.