Experiential Education

Healing begins on the land: How U of T's Dalla Lana School of Public Health is Indigenizing the teaching of public health

noreen.rasbach — Fri, 02 Aug 2019 04:00:00 +0000

Healing begins on the land: How U of T's Dalla Lana School of Public Health is Indigenizing the teaching of public health

noreen.rasbach Fri, 08/02/2019 - 00:00

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Students work at building a fire during a five-day land-based learning course, one of the first in Canada, held at Hart House Farm in late spring (all photos by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Heidi Singer

Topic

Our Community

Waakebiness-Bryce Institute for Indigenous Health

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Experiential Education

Graduate Students

Indigenous

Subheadline

A dozen people – grad students, a public health nurse, a paramedic, a midwife and two physicians – had just finished a lesson in the proper way to split logs. Now they sat in a circle in a teepee trying to light a fire with metal.

It wasn’t easy.

“Learning how to make a traditional fire is teaching the self,” said Clayton Shirt, an Elder at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health’s Waakebiness-Bryce Institute for Indigenous Health. “It’s teaching patience and dealing with the fire within yourself. So it’s very sacred.”

Students learn fire-making techniques from Scott Debassige, an Indigenous artist and Knowledge Keeper

The day was raw and wet, an early spring afternoon at Hart House Farm, about an hour’s drive northwest of Toronto in the Caledon Hills. The students, all enrolled in public health or Indigenous studies courses at Dalla Lana or the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, were spending five days learning about Indigenous health in one of Canada’s first land-based learning courses.

“I feel like it’s my responsibility to learn about Indigenous health as a non-Indigenous person entering health care,” said Alice Gauntley, who is finishing her second year studying health promotion in the Master of Public Health program. “But I’m also grateful to participate in these ceremonies. I don’t consider myself a spiritual person but I think it’s valuable for me to get out of my comfort zone.”

Angela Mashford-Pringle (centre), associate director of the Waakebiness-Bryce Institute for Indigenous Health, leads a discussion

Learning on the land is really about learning from the land, said Angela Mashford-Pringle, an assistant professor and associate director of the Waakebiness-Bryce Institute and the second Indigenous person to receive a PhD from the school, in 2008.

“It’s the soil that’s teaching them,” she said. “The water, the plants, the animals and the trees are teaching through the Elders and Knowledge Keepers and me.”

During their time on the farm, students searched for wild ginger, learned how to make tea from cedar, and communicated with trees. But there were no chimes or water sounds playing in the background. Indigenous culture does not romanticize the land or shroud nature in New Age mysticism. The land is not an exotic other, said Mashford-Pringle. It is part of the self. She hopes that if students can understand that, they can begin to grasp why the residential schools, Sixties Scoop and other actions that separated Indigenous people from the land were so devastating to their health.

“If I first teach you how we relate to Mother Earth and Father Sky, and then I teach you about this trauma, maybe you can start to see how the loss of the land played into that trauma,” said Mashford-Pringle. “Taking the land was the first way of traumatizing Indigenous people.”

“Everything to do with Indigenous health is tied to spirituality, and spirituality is based in the land and in the relationship between land and people,” says the director of the Waakebiness-Bryce Institute about the land-based learning course

Many of the students in the land-based course work with Indigenous people already, but worry that a lack of cultural understanding is creating barriers to healing.

“Understanding cultural safety is important going into it,” said Campbell Drohan, a health promotion student with a summer practicum working on vaccination hesitancy with the BC First Nations Health Authority. “I’m hoping to have a sharing circle with people from the community to try to understand where vaccination hesitancy is coming from. We have to rebuild trust.”

“You see people in their lived environment, but what good is it when you don’t have the knowledge to understand it?” asked paramedic Priscilla Sisourath. “We have Indigenous patients, but no ability or capacity to give them the empathy they need.”

The move to land-based learning is an attempt to truly Indigenize the educational experience so that public health workers can begin to gain the kind of understanding they’ve been missing, said Suzanne Stewart, director of the Waakebiness-Bryce Institute. She hopes this shift in thinking will address the root reasons for many of the failures of public health institution programs to improve Indigenous health.

“The Western paradigm has privileged the mind. In Indigenous culture, it’s the spirit and the heart that makes decisions and guides our lifestyle and behaviours,” she said. “Everything to do with Indigenous health is tied to spirituality, and spirituality is based in the land and in the relationship between land and people.”

Debassige and a student chop wood: Leaders of the Waakebiness-Bryce Institute see land-based learning as an important step to teach the next generation of public health professionals the Indigenous perspective

Stewart said all of the courses, which include Indigenous public health, policy, research and environmental and food systems, will eventually be land-based. In the meantime, the institute is helping people connect to the land in meaningful ways. Every Tuesday and Thursday, Clayton Shirt, the Elder, works with homeless Indigenous men to cultivate Indigenous plants in a medicine garden at The Stop, a Toronto food security hub. The men prepare and eat spiritually nourishing meals together.

Mashford-Pringle is working on a plan to Indigenize the Dalla Lana building itself, bringing culturally important plants to the front façade. She is also speaking out about how the land acknowledgements, which have become a staple way to open meetings at U of T and other institutions in Toronto, are performed.

Although well meaning, Mashford-Pringle says the practice of acknowledging original inhabitants and treaties often becomes a box to check rather than a genuine attempt to Indigenize the gathering with a reflection on the relationship between the land and self.

Students learn wood-gathering techniques at the five-day, land-based course

“If we’re not going to talk about how you as a person connect to this land, it’s worthless,” she said. “What does the Dish With One Spoon treaty mean? It’s about creating community and taking care of each other, but how many people who recite the words know that?”

The holistic emphasis on the land, another aspect of land-based learning, can also be a positive influence on environmentalism, which is still a Western movement, said Mashford-Pringle.

“Indigenous scientists will spend weeks observing a flower in a meadow,” she said. “They don’t pick it. They look at how it responds and moves with the light, what’s around it. Western scientists will pick it, remove it from its context and bring it to the lab to look at its molecular structure. I don’t think one way is better than another, but I want students to understand both perspectives.”

Mashford-Pringle hopes Indigenous ways of knowing, particularly about the land, could help to heal the relationship between people and environment.

“If we’re not going to talk about how you as a person connect to this land, it’s worthless,” says Mashford-Pringle

“How do we start to get people to think about planetary health without beating them over the head?” she asked. “Telling you to go touch a tree, walk on grass or meditate in front of a lake, none of these practices has a carbon footprint, and they are all deeply healing. Can you open up enough to see Indigenous ways of knowing and healing as a possibility? People have opened up to Traditional Chinese Medicine. Can they do the same for Indigenous healing? We find they can.”

Land-based learning is not officially a part of Dalla Lana’s response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendations. But leaders of the Waakebiness-Bryce Institute see it as an important step to teach the next generation of public health professionals about Indigenous trauma from an Indigenous perspective.

It’s “a stepping stone, part of the healing we need to do between Indigenous people and DLSPH. There’s a ton of racism and discrimination in our health system,” said Mashford-Pringle.

“Public health touches every area of the system. We need to get people in to help reduce the racism in our system. That’s going to be very healing.”

This article is part of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health’s 2018/19 Annual Report. For more highlights, check out the full report.

Measuring success in a suburban oasis: U of T students team up with neighbourhood groups to address urban challenges

Romi Levine — Thu, 01 Aug 2019 13:56:31 +0000

Measuring success in a suburban oasis: U of T students team up with neighbourhood groups to address urban challenges

Romi Levine Thu, 08/01/2019 - 09:56

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WexPOPS is a pop-up installation in a Scarborough strip mall that is designed to encourage visitors to get to know the community and local businesses (photo by Kat Rizza Photography)

Topic

Experiential Education

Graduate Students

Rotman School of Management

Urban Planning

If you happen to be near Warden and Lawrence Avenues in Scarborough this summer, you’ll likely notice an unusual sight at one the many strip malls that populate the area.

Wexford Heights Plaza is a one-storey stretch of local businesses – including a barber, a Syrian pastry shop and a 61-year-old family restaurant – bordered entirely by a parking lot. But from July 5 to Aug. 18, a portion of the lot has been transformed into a makeshift suburban oasis, complete with comfortable seating, interactive art and hundreds of potted plants.

The installation is called WexPOPS – a temporary, collaborative project that aims to create a place where community members can gather, meet each other and support local businesses.

WexPOPS serves as a pilot project that, if successful, can be replicated in different ways in other business improvement areas (BIAs) in Toronto and elsewhere.

But to prove the project is worthy of future funding means having the data to back up its success. It requires a toolbox of strategies that will help organizers measure the impact of the project on the local community and businesses. That task was given to a group of University of Toronto students.

The U of T students were part of the Rotman CityLab Fellowship, a year-long elective course that pairs MBA students from the Rotman School of Management with urban planning and industrial relations master’s students. Together, they team up with BIAs and community groups, using their expertise to help address issues faced by neighbourhoods across the GTA.

“I was really excited about working with different people from different parts of the university and the tangibility of the project seemed really cool,” says Fifile Nguyen, who graduated this spring from the Rotman MBA program.

“I was also compelled because my parents, for several decades, were small business owners so I was really excited to be able to do something related to the work I had watched them do as I grew up.”

The WexPOPS installation was created by a group out of the University of Guelph called plazaPOPS, led by Daniel Rotsztain, a recent graduate of Guelph’s master of landscape architecture program, and his faculty advisers Brendan Stewart and Karen Landman. The project originated from Rotsztain’s thesis, which was realized when the team secured funding through a number of community grant programs to create its first pop-up installation in Wexford Heights Plaza.

PlazaPOPS was also inspired by the work of Rafael Gomez, a U of T associate professor and director of the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources, and his work on small businesses and BIAs, which he wrote about in his book Small Business and the City. Gomez is also the co-founder of the CityLab course.

“When we reached out, Rafael was very generous with his time and knowledge, and suggested and facilitated the connection with CityLab,” Stewart says.

Fifile Nguyen attaches a message to a tree sculpture at WexPOPs (photo courtesy of Fifile Nguyen)

Gomez developed the CityLab course alongside Neel Joshi, director of Rotman’s office of student engagement.

Joshi and Gomez met by chance over a decade ago in Wexford Heights Plaza where Gomez was hosting a pop-up of his own – occupying a storefront where he ran exhibits that celebrated the history and culture of the Scarborough neighbourhood.

The duo reconnected a few years later when they both coincidentally ended up working at Rotman, and decided to identify an experiential learning opportunity that could benefit both students and BIAs.

“The nature of urban problems is complex and multidisciplinary and at a local level, to assemble that kind of diversity of talent would be really expensive if these organizations were trying to do it on their own,” says Gomez. “We can come in with solutions to a challenging problem that requires all of our insights and training and academic knowledge.”

Since its inception, CityLab has placed students in BIAs across the city, working on projects that included navigating the tensions between long-standing and new businesses in a gentrifying neighbourhood, assisting with entrepreneurship programs in Scadding Court, and working with the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas to explore how big infrastructure projects are affecting small businesses.

For the plazaPOPS partnership, the U of T students provided the team with options for evaluating the strip-mall installation – including how WexPOPS affects the availability of parking, its economic impact on local businesses and the level of community engagement, says Stewart.

“They helped us work through the most efficient research data collection strategies that we can utilize in order to measure the performance of the installation,” he says.

“We’re implementing their recommendations, pretty much as we speak.”

CityLab students (from left) Igor Samardzic, Fifile Nguyen and Michael Guberman worked on the WexPOPS project along with planning student Lucy Cui (photo by Romi Levine)

Building the right metrics involved a great deal of research and community consultation. Students read up on evaluation methods used by other City of Toronto pilot projects and tapped into their combined academic knowledge of design thinking and urban planning. The students also interviewed local businesses and community members to gain insight into what they felt would make WexPOPS a success.

“[Business owners] were telling us that they were really excited about being the catalyst for people to meet each other,” says Nguyen. The students also discovered that community members felt it was important to raise the profile of the neighbourhood, telling them, “the only time our neighbourhood is ever in the news is when something bad happens … but really there is so much more vibrancy to our neighbourhood than that.”

Similarly, U of T students were keen to turn the spotlight on Scarborough – an area of Toronto that’s often overlooked when it comes to inventive design and planning.

“When it comes to certain planning elements, suburbs are not looked at the same way as the downtown core, especially with regards to investment and doing things that are more innovative,” says Igor Samardzic, who graduated with a master’s in urban planning from the Faculty of Arts & Science.

In neighbourhoods that are less dense than downtown Toronto, strip malls play a much more important role in fostering a sense of community, says Michael Guberman, a CityLab student and recent MBA graduate.

“What they are lacking is the warmth and gathering spaces that you would see in more of an urban landscape,” Guberman says.

Projects like WexPOPS can help those suburban spaces become more of a community hub, he says. “Using what they have already, building on it and getting the community buy-in is important to see that this type of infrastructure is not forgotten and not thought of as a waste of space.”

Stewart says plazaPOPS is currently in talks with a number of potential partners as they determine how the project will evolve beyond the Wexford pilot. Regardless of the outcome, the data collected from WexPOPS with the metrics designed by U of T students will play an important role in defining its future.

“The data and the feedback on how it’s received is really critical to being able to scale this up,” says Stewart.

This September, the CityLab fellowship will enter its fourth year, offering a new cohort of students the opportunity to make their mark on community projects across the city.

Connecting across borders: U of T commerce students explore Latin America's financial hub

noreen.rasbach — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 04:00:00 +0000

Connecting across borders: U of T commerce students explore Latin America's financial hub

noreen.rasbach Wed, 07/31/2019 - 00:00

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Rotman Commerce students at U of T took part in an experiential learning opportunity in Mexico City (photo by Lesley Mak)

Alexa Zulak

Topic

Global Lens

Experiential Education

Faculty of Arts & Science

Undergraduate Students

University College

Twelve Rotman Commerce students in the University of Toronto's Faculty of Arts & Science took part in an experiential learning opportunity in Mexico City to gain an on-the-ground perspective of the Mexican market and economy – the first experience of its kind for the undergraduate program.

Developed collaboratively with the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) in Mexico City, the international study tour in the spring gave students the opportunity to learn about the key industries, trade relationships and business culture of one of Canada’s most significant trading partners.

“We were looking for ways to differentiate the types of international experiences available to our students to reduce barriers to participation and increase international engagement,” said Lesley Mak, associate director, academic program services at Rotman Commerce.

With Rotman Commerce having previously engaged with ITESM, including hosting students from the institute for an international roundtable event after the Puebla earthquake in 2017, Mexico City was the perfect place for this experience.

“Our students were intrigued by Mexico City’s economy and history,” said Tricia Patel, an academic adviser at Rotman Commerce. “They were able to learn about global business strategy and social innovation. ITESM emphasized a strong entrepreneurial culture and sense of social responsibility as key to doing business in Mexico.”

Alongside a cohort of undergraduate business students from ITESM, Rotman Commerce students attended lectures, visited international companies, banks and government offices and participated in activities to learn about the history and culture of the region.

“It was great to see many of Mexico City’s financial centres,” said recent Innis College grad Ibraheem Aziz, who completed a Rotman Commerce management specialist and minor in economics in June.

“Mexico City is the financial hub of Latin America. We visited and toured the Mexican Stock Exchange and Central Bank of Mexico, two institutions that play an instrumental role in the regional economy through investment and trade.”

For many students, the trip was the first time they had the chance to take part in an intensive international learning experience to complement their academic work.

“The trip was an opportunity to apply the tools that we had learned in the classroom to a real-life setting in a completely foreign context. Not only that, it forced us to be critical, open-minded and combine our skills to make the most of the trip,” said Eri Kimura Meguro, a fourth-year New College student who is double majoring in Rotman Commerce’s management specialist and international relations with a minor in economics.

And for Meguro – who hails from Mexico City – the trip was also a homecoming. “I was so excited to show everyone around the city and share the facts or history I had learned over my lifetime. I was also looking forward to being able to see my home through my friends’ eyes and represent U of T and Rotman Commerce in Mexico City.”

The experience also allowed students to deepen intercultural learning, communication and interpersonal skills to build connections with other students and industry professionals in Canada and abroad.

“The bonding that took place between the Rotman Commerce students and staff during the trip was so valuable,” said Brenna Hamel, a fourth-year University College student in Rotman Commerce with a specialist in public accounting.

“I feel like this trip enhanced my student experience, my personal and professional networks, and my relationships with our academic advisers. I would 100 per cent recommend this experience to other students.”

Student interest in the study tour was incredible, Patel said. “We received 111 applications for 12 spots. The candidate pool was very strong with many candidates whose interests in the region were strongly aligned with their personal, professional and academic goals.”

For Rotman Commerce, the trip was all about giving students access to valuable insights and skills that would serve them well as business students and global citizens.

“Rotman Commerce is a global community,” said Patel. “The exposure to diverse perspectives that challenge the status quo will no doubt contribute to our students’ success as strong and innovative leaders who are equipped to connect across borders and address global issues.

“Our students have returned with a tremendous sense of self-awareness and purpose, embracing an expansive definition of community that is global in scope.”

Fresh perspectives and large Raptors celebrations: Hong Kong pharmacy students take part in U of T summer program

noreen.rasbach — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 13:27:54 +0000

Fresh perspectives and large Raptors celebrations: Hong Kong pharmacy students take part in U of T summer program

noreen.rasbach Tue, 07/30/2019 - 09:27

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Marco Ho (left) and Alan Li are pharmacy students at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who spent five weeks this summer doing a rotation at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy (photo by Steve Southon)

Kate Richards

Topic

Global Lens

Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Experiential Education

Global

Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

When Alan Li and Marco Ho begin the fourth and final year of their pharmacy degree at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in September, they will bring with them experiences and new perspectives gained from their summer rotation at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy.

The five-week rotation provided Li and Ho with the opportunity to learn about pharmacy practice in Ontario and Canada. Faculty course co-ordinators developed a diverse activity plan, placing the students with different preceptors from week to week and giving the two students the opportunity to take part in research, education and clinical observation activities.

Each week had a different focus, such as medication safety with time spent at the Institute for Safe Medication Practices Canada (ISMP Canada) and front-line clinical practice observation at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). They also shared insights from pharmacy practice in Hong Kong with faculty, staff and students at Leslie Dan.

The clinical observation opportunity at CAMH, Canada’s largest mental health and addictions teaching hospital, was eye-opening for Li. “We don’t have many chances to work with mental health patients,” he says. “This was a first for me.”

At one point, both students observed a pharmacist as she met with patients in the CAMH emergency department and were impressed by how she interacted with an agitated patient whose mental health problems were worsening because of diabetes complications.

“What she did was mind-blowing,” says Li, describing how the pharmacist changed the patient’s mood from agitated to receptive and calm by having an empathetic approach and listening. “At the end of the interview, the patient even thanked her and us for having someone to talk with about his medication concerns. He was very sincere. This flips my understanding toward patients with mental health disorders and I will be able to take that home.”

For his part, Ho was inspired by a presentation delivered by Jamie Kellar, an associate professor, teaching stream, who is exploring the evolution of the professional identity of pharmacists.

“To be honest, I’ve been struggling to identify as a clinician and it was interesting to hear Professor Kellar question whether being a clinician is the only and ultimate goal,” says Ho, who adds that he is more drawn to pursuing research.

“I think there has to be more discussion about what a pharmacist is. Our work in Hong Kong is so focused on the clinical side, we may be missing out on other areas where pharmacists can contribute.”

Ho appreciated the opportunity to perform qualitative analysis on medication incident data using the Medication Safety Culture Indicator Matrix and the Multi-Incident Analysis methodologies developed by ISMP Canada. In Hong Kong, Ho is part of a hybrid research and outreach team called CU CHAMPION that provides services for the public and the elderly to deepen their understanding of disease prevention and drug safety.

“I’ve done a lot of surveys with that group and now that I’ve had the qualitative analysis, this can help improve recommendations for medication safety,” he says.

Li says that participating in the exchange “is to learn what is good on both sides, to learn from each other so we can each progress and improve faster.” In Hong Kong, health providers and patients benefit from an advanced informatics system that provides a unified patient record and medication history, something that is underway but not fully complete in Ontario.

On the flip side, working in clinical environments in Toronto was the first time Li and Ho saw medications being issued in secure vials and blister packs for patients who need it. “In Hong Kong, despite some of our advantages, we still dispense medication in plastic bags,” Li says.

On the street in Toronto celebrating the Raptors's NBA victory (photo courtesy of Marco Ho)

“I was brought up in Hong Kong and received pharmacy education in Toronto,” says Certina Ho, a lecturer and experiential education co-ordinator at Leslie Dan. “Having the opportunity to meet and work with Alan and Marco was something that I was looking forward to, even before their arrival. I was impressed by their curiosity and eagerness to learn and know more about not only the Canadian health-care system, but also the expanded scope of pharmacy practice here.

“It is very rewarding to see collaboration between pharmacy students from Hong Kong and our students.”

Both Li and Marco Ho say that the ultimate goal of their rotation was to bring something meaningful back to their classmates in Hong Kong and they are keen to share their experiences. Exploring the culture of Toronto was equally exciting and they were lucky enough to be in the city the night the Toronto Raptors won the 2019 NBA Championship.

Both joined the spontaneous celebration on the streets.

“It was incredible to see so many people out celebrating something positive together,” says Ho.

U of T welcomes federal budget provisions for work-integrated learning, international education

geoff.vendeville — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 16:06:02 +0000

U of T welcomes federal budget provisions for work-integrated learning, international education

geoff.vendeville Tue, 03/19/2019 - 12:06

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The U of T crest as seen on the downtown Toronto campus (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Geoffrey Vendeville

Topic

Our Community

Centre for International Experience

Experiential Education

Research & Innovation

STEM

The University of Toronto is lauding a number of measures announced in Tuesday’s federal budget aimed at giving more students the opportunity to learn in the workplace and around the world.

The budget also supports research by promising to create more master's and doctoral scholarship awards through the federal granting councils.

“These investments in experiential learning are investments in Canada's future,” said U of T President Meric Gertler, the co-chair of Canada’s Business/Higher Education Roundtable, which has been advocating for increased investments in work-integrated learning.

“The investments are good news because they will drive economic growth by giving Canadians the skills they need to succeed,” he added. “They will enhance the success of U of T graduates and others across the country who are entering the labour force.”

Touting his fourth budget as an investment to create “well–paying jobs and the promise of a better future,” Finance Minister Bill Morneau said it includes several measures to help students get ahead in a competitive, increasingly inter-connected world.

The budget targets 84,000 new student work placements across the country by 2023-2024. “This will be a significant step toward ensuring that, ten years from now, every young Canadian who wants a work placement will be able to get one,” Morneau said in his prepared remarks.

These opportunities – ranging from co-op placements to internships and applied research projects – provide students with a chance to hone their skills on the job while giving employers access to new talent and ideas.

The budget plans to support work-integrated learning through investments of:

$631.2 million over five years in the Student Work Placement Program to create 20,000 work-integrated learning opportunities, including for students outside STEM (science, technology, engineering and math)
$150 million over four years in Employment and Social Development Canada to foster partnerships with innovative businesses and create another 20,000 opportunities by 2023-24
$17 million over three years in the Business/Higher Education Roundtable (BHER), representing some of Canada's largest companies and universities including U of T, to help forge partnerships and create more work-integrated opportunities across Canada. BHER has committed to creating an additional 44,000 work-integrated learning placements and opportunities per year by 2021. President Gertler is a co-chair of BHER with Dave McKay, president and CEO of RBC, and Anne Sado, alumna and president of George Brown College.

Morneau also unveiled an International Education Strategy to give more post-secondary students the chance to travel for their studies and acquire critical cross-cultural skills.

Although many employers look for graduates who can thrive in a globalized work environment, only 11 per cent of Canadian undergraduates have a study-abroad experience during their degree, according to Universities Canada. A higher share of U of T students go abroad – about 20 per cent – but the university is aiming to increase that number to 30 per cent.

U of T has been a vocal proponent of increased funding for international mobility, aligned with the university's own goals to prepare graduates to meet global challenges. Last year, U of T increased funding for study, work and research abroad opportunities available through the Centre for International Experience.

The latest federal budget promises $147.9 million over five years and another $8 million per year ongoing for the International Education Strategy. It includes an outbound student mobility pilot program and an investment “to promote Canadian education institutions as high-calibre places to study.”

Though the 2019 budget provides more funding for graduate research, U of T is eager to continue working with the government to support the full costs of research. The budget sets aside $114 million over five years and $26.5 million per year ongoing in new funding for the federal granting councils to create 500 more master's level scholarship awards and 167 three-year doctoral scholarship awards through the Canada Graduate Scholarship Program.

"Since graduate students play a key role in our research enterprise, today's announcement adds an important complement to the government's past investments to bolster the country's research strength," President Gertler said.

Other key investments include:

Parental leave coverage for graduate and post-doctoral students: $37.4 million over five years, starting this year, and $8.6 million per year ongoing to the federal granting councils to expand parental leave coverage from six months to 12 months for students and post-doctoral researchers who receive granting council funding
Canada Training Benefit: $1.7 billion over five years and $586.5 million per year ongoing for a new Canada Training Benefit. One component is a new “training credit,” intended to help workers aged 25 to 64 with the costs of training fees. Workers accumulate $250 per year to a lifetime limit of $5,000 and apply that credit against half of training fees at universities, colleges and other eligible institutions. They would then claim a refund when they file their tax return. The other component is the Employment Insurance Training Support Benefit to provide income support when an individual needs to take time off work
Indigenous Student Support: A number of investments, starting in 2019-2020, to ensure that Indigenous students have better access to post-secondary education, and more support to ensure that they can succeed during their studies. This includes investing $327.5 million over five years to renew and expand funding for the Post-Secondary Student Support Program while the government engages with First Nations on the development of long-term, First Nations-led post-secondary education models

$1.7-million gift will help U of T become a player in sports management

rasbachn — Tue, 28 Nov 2017 05:00:00 +0000

$1.7-million gift will help U of T become a player in sports management

rasbachn Tue, 11/28/2017 - 00:00

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From left: U of T President Meric Gertler, Tenniel Chu, vice-chairman of Mission Hills Group, and Bruce Kidd, vice-president and principal of University of Toronto Scarborough (photo by Vincent Chu)

Don Campbell

Topic

Global Lens

Alumni

Experiential Education

Management

Meric Gertler

Sports

University of Toronto Scarborough

The University of Toronto is establishing a new sports management program, courtesy of a $1.675-million gift from alumnus and entrepreneur Tenniel Chu.

Chu's donation will establish the Tenniel Chu Chair in Sports Management, as well as a fund to support programming and an annual lecture series in sports management. The new program will be at U of T Scarborough.

“It is my pleasure to give back to UTSC, a university which gave me so much and where I started this wonderful journey into the world of business and sport,” said Chu, who is vice-chairman of Mission Hills Group, which owns and operates the world’s largest golf and leisure resort in China.

“Sport is at the heart of the Mission Hills philosophy and is what enables us to bring China to the world and the world to China. This is why I am so eager to support the growth of sports management at UTSC. I hope we can create opportunities for international business students to study and work in China, but also for more young Chinese people to study and work around the world.”

Chu’s gift will allow U of T Scarborough to recruit and retain a leading scholar in sports management – the Tenniel Chu Chair – who will head programming that includes an annual lecture series and workshops designed to educate students and bring together academics and practitioners in the field.

“Tenniel Chu is an outstanding business leader and a distinguished alumnus of the University of Toronto,” said U of T President Meric Gertler. “Through his generous and forward-thinking gift to UTSC’s department of management, he is helping to propel us to a new level of impact in the growing field of sports management. He is also building on UTSC’s wonderful record of leadership in experiential learning, by providing opportunities for our students to apply what they have learned through local and international work placements.”

The gift also establishes the Tenniel Chu Management and International Business Awards, which will provide scholarships for management and international business (MIB) students to help gain the global experience they need for their careers. The MIB program is the only one of its kind in Canada, offering both work-abroad and study-abroad components.

From left : Gertler, Chu and Kidd (photo by Vincent Chu)

The gift is the largest ever given from an individual to U of T Scarborough’s department of management.

“Today’s announcement shows how management continues to grow and evolve in innovative ways that provide our students with experience to become future leaders,” said David Zweig, chair of the department of management at U of T Scarborough. “We look forward to unveiling our first Tenniel Chu Limited Term Chair and our first lecture series speaker, and we’re excited by these new opportunities for management students to participate in international study and work.”

U of T Scarborough is growing in importance as a hub for sports and already has significant experience in programs that combine study with work. Since opening the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre in 2014, the campus has been a training ground for many of Canada’s top athletes, becoming connected to many top sports organizations.

“UTSC is thrilled that Tenniel Chu has chosen to champion our sports management programming,” said Bruce Kidd, vice-president and principal of U of T Scarborough. “His investment in sports management makes us unique in U of T’s tri-campus system as the only place to study and apply what is learned in this discipline through experiential learning.”

Chu graduated from U of T Scarborough with a bachelor's degree in economics in 1999. In 2001, he joined Mission Hills Group, where he now oversees the operations and development of Mission Hills Shenzhen, the world’s largest golf facility, which has played an important role in attracting the world’s biggest stars and international tournaments.

In addition to his duties with Mission Hills, Chu is actively involved in charitable organizations in Hong Kong and mainland China, including the United Nations golf charity event.

U of T student shares behind-the-scenes look at Jane’s Walk in Toronto

Romi Levine — Fri, 05 May 2017 16:25:51 +0000

U of T student shares behind-the-scenes look at Jane’s Walk in Toronto

Romi Levine Fri, 05/05/2017 - 12:25

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Fourth-year urban studies student Amilia Cervantes has been working with Jane's Walk since September (photo by Romi Levine)

Romi Levine

Author legacy

Romi Levine

Topic

Experiential Education

Subheadline

“A lot of it is about seeing the city from a different perspective”

Jane Jacobs’s influence on the city is hard to miss. The most prominent tribute to the activist and urban theorist, who spent much of her life in Toronto, is the annual Jane’s Walk festival, a series of citizen-led walking tours that take place in cities all over the world.

This year, University of Toronto fourth-year urban studies student Amilia Cervantes got a chance to play a part in organizing the Toronto festival, which runs from May 5-7. She landed a placement as a program assistant with the organization through a course last fall and has been there ever since.

Cervantes says anyone with a story to tell can lead a tour.

“Usually somebody has an idea of what they want to do if there's an initiative going on in their community, or somebody wants to share a special space whether it's a garden or school-led project.”

Learn more about Jane Jacobs

Tours are meant to open discussion about a particular issue or location between the guide and the participants. In the GTA alone, there are 180 registered walks. Around the world, there are over 1,000 walks in 200 cities.

One of the walks this year takes participants around U of T's downtown Toronto campus to learn about “everyday activism.” Another, led by U of T alumna Denise Pinto, will inspire one's inner scribe with a creative writing walk in North York.

Cervantes is particularly excited about an exploration of the future site of the proposed Rail Deck Park, a walk looking at the Indigenous history of Toronto’s downtown east-end and a walk examining defensive or hostile urban design that’s meant to protect property or prevent crime.

“It's such a great tool for community development in terms of creating urban literacy and having people become more engaged with their surroundings so they're aware of what's going on,” says Cervantes. “I think a lot of it is about seeing the city from a different perspective.”

This year, Cervantes is running a pilot project to help festival organizers document the walks.

“We have volunteers this year who are going to go out and act as citizen journalists and take pictures. They're taking a journalistic perspective and documenting some of the walks going on,” she says. “They're specific examples we can show to past, present and future walk leaders and volunteers to take a snapshot of things that happen at the festival.”

Though the weekend will be a wet one, Cervantes says there are many reasons to come out and brave the rain.

“Put on some rain gear. Put on your best rain boots. If you're scared of getting your device wet, just stick it in a sandwich or Ziploc bag, and it'll be A-OK,” she says. “It can be deterring, but sometimes it brings new, exciting things that happen that wouldn't normally happen. People will scoot into places that weren't necessarily on the tour and discover new things. It adds another element of surprise to the walk so people should embrace that.”

U of T in the community: students make buddy bench and friends in St. James Town

geoff.vendeville — Tue, 14 Mar 2017 16:17:39 +0000

U of T in the community: students make buddy bench and friends in St. James Town

geoff.vendeville Tue, 03/14/2017 - 12:17

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Architecture and urban studies major Josh Estrella stencils on a buddy bench that he and other U of T students helped make for Art City, a children's charity with after-school programming in St. James Town (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

Geoffrey Vendeville

Author legacy

Geoffrey Vendeville

Topic

Experiential Education

Faculty of Arts & Science

Take some wood. Add styrene, wires and words of friendship. What do you have? A buddy bench for kids at the not-for-profit Art City in St. James Town.

The project was part of an introductory course in urban studies where U of T undergrads chose to work on one of 11 opportunities around the city.

In St. James Town, considered the largest high-rise community in Canada and one of 13 “economically deprived” neighbourhoods in the city, a group of U of T students worked with young artists to visualize and design colourful benches created with architecture software.

“It’s to facilitate friendship and allow someone who is feeling lonely to have a seat and be approached by someone else, so that everyone feels welcome in the community,” explained Josh Estrella, a U of T architecture and urban studies student in the course.

The Art City kids settled on an origami-style bench with right-angle triangles across the back. To make the bench more inviting, they chose a warm colour palette of oranges, yellows and reds and stencilled on hearts.

From planning to construciton, the young artists of Art City were the driving creative force behind their buddy bench (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

“For the kids, this is a meaningful project now and into the future,” said Orev Katz, Art City’s director.

If not for the extra help, she said Art City might not have had the time to explore different materials and designs to suit the children’s needs and tastes.

“We were able to make it in unique and fun ways because the students from urban studies had that skill set,” Katz said.

For the undergrads, the experience was an opportunity to get to know the neighbourhood. As part of their homework, Katz asked them to research the neighbourhood, walk around and take note of their surroundings.

“I hope they got to learn more about this neighbourhood and how it works, the amazing vibrant culture here and its kinship networks,” she said.

Before working on the buddy bench, architecture student Tashiana Lusterio had rarely set foot in St. James Town, she said.

“If you don’t understand the urban fabric and different types of people you’re dealing with – even for clients in architecture, for example – you probably won’t be as connected to what you’re going to build,” she added. “It comes down to getting to know your surroundings, and getting to know people.”

Students Josh Estrella and Tashiana Lusterio pal around with the kids of Art City (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

The Art City project was one of the projects students could choose from in assistant professor David Roberts’s class. They also had the option to help survey commuting habits of students and staff at U of T Scarborough, or to chart rising property values in Kensington Market to study gentrification. Students who preferred to write a conventional term paper instead, could do so.

For any students who are new to Toronto, the community project is a good way of getting the lay of the land, Roberts said.

“I think it’s also a way to connect what we’re doing in the classroom to actual real-world experiences, and identify needs that community groups put together,” he said.

U of T undergrads off to Brazil to research poverty

sgupta — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 10:37:55 +0000

U of T undergrads off to Brazil to research poverty sgupta Wed, 10/07/2015 - 06:37

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Getting the chance to help design a research project from the ground up? “As an undergraduate student, it's invaluable,” says Alexa Waud

Terry Lavender

Author legacy

Terry Lavender

Topic

Global Lens

Features

Undergraduate Students

Faculty of Arts & Science

Experiential Education

Education

Brazil

Global

It’s not unusual for University of Toronto professors to travel abroad to do field research. It’s not even out of the ordinary for graduate students to do so.

But for undergraduate students, the chance to fly to another country to do original research is an opportunity not to be missed.

Alexa Waud and two other undergraduate students will be travelling to Brazil in December to investigate that country’s approach to alleviating poverty. For Waud, the chance to help design a research project from the ground up is irresistible.

“I haven’t had that chance before. As an undergraduate student, it’s invaluable to understand how that process works – starting with a literature review, then an annotated bibliography, determining the questions, getting ethics approval and the rest of it.”

Waud is in her third year at U of T, doing a double major in peace, conflict and justice studies and environment and health. She and the other students, including two students in the masters of global affairs program, will be travelling with Professor Joseph Wong of political science to find out why Brazil’s Bolsa Familia program is so effective at getting funds directly to the poor.

Bolsa Familia – the largest conditional cash transfer program in the world – provides a direct cash transfer to 14 million poor families and has a 75 percent success rate in getting the funds into the hands of those who need them, Wong says.

“These conditional cash transfers have had a positive effect on child health, including a significant decrease in under-5 mortality rates,” he says. “It’s a remarkable record, but I don’t have time to do all the research myself, so I recruited these phenomenal undergraduate students to help me out.”

Wong recruited the undergraduate students from former participants in the Munk School of Global Affairs Munk One program, where he teaches a first-year course in global innovations. (Learn more about Munk One.)

Wong and his students will be meeting with government officials, health care workers and program recipients. Divided into two teams, they’ll travel to the capital city Brasilia, to Salvador in the northeast part of the country, to São Paulo and to Belo Horizonte.

Wong says he’s not surprised by the students’ enthusiasm to participate. “For them this is just a fantastic research experience. All of them are motivated by issues of poverty reduction, they’re motivated by issues of development, and here’s an opportunity for them to get into a particular initiative or project, to get into it very deeply.”

In a discussion paper on U of T's three priorities released last week, President Meric Gertler talked about the importance of re-imagining undergraduate education and emphasizing research-based, experience-based and international learning.

“Over the past 10 plus years we have dramatically scaled up the number of research opportunities for undergraduates,” Gertler said, “championed experiential and service learning and expanded the range and variety of international experiences available to our students. We need to build on these successes and maintain this momentum.

“Participating in research provides a valuable opportunity for students to develop key skills – to enhance their problem-solving ability and creativity, to foster their capacity for team work and to sharpen their communication skills (both written and oral).”

Experiential Education

Healing begins on the land: How U of T's Dalla Lana School of Public Health is Indigenizing the teaching of public health

Measuring success in a suburban oasis: U of T students team up with neighbourhood groups to address urban challenges

Connecting across borders: U of T commerce students explore Latin America's financial hub

Fresh perspectives and large Raptors celebrations: Hong Kong pharmacy students take part in U of T summer program

U of T welcomes federal budget provisions for work-integrated learning, international education

$1.7-million gift will help U of T become a player in sports management

Read more about Tenniel Chu

U of T student shares behind-the-scenes look at Jane’s Walk in Toronto

Learn more about Jane Jacobs

U of T in the community: students make buddy bench and friends in St. James Town

U of T undergrads off to Brazil to research poverty

Read more about the three priorities