Year in Review Report 17–18

A great example of this is the award-winning research, historical, contemporary, often bridging both, which focuses critical attention on the lives of girls and women. Sociology postdoctoral researcher Dr. Rachel Barken’s analyses of women’s informal care work in long-term care settings seeks effective alterations of policy and practice. The results of clinical neuropsychology doctoral student Komal Shaikh’s investigations of cognitive dysfunction associated with cancers that disproportionately affect women will heighten awareness in the medical community and the broader circles of support care. Banting postdoctoral researcher Dr. Heather Fitzsimmons Frey’s innovative methodology to investigate 19th-century in-home theatricals employs practice-based research which is simultaneously knowledge creation and knowledge mobilization. While examining with youth participants various diaries, letters, and scripts, working through scenes and discussing images, Fitzsimmons Frey draws findings which braid youth psychology, sociology and education.

These projects exemplify the cross-disciplinary nature of so much research conducted by the graduate and postdoctoral community at York, involving innovative, inter- and multi-disciplinary methodologies and significant implications.

Look, for instance, at how master’s student, Raghed Charabaty, uses film to explore the relationship between mass uprooting, political unrest and the hostility of desertification in the Middle East. One of four CGS Nelson Mandela award-winners at York, his work can’t but ignite ideas in the minds of those working in, for instance, International Development Studies, Disaster and Emergency Management, Middle Eastern History and Politics, Geography (physical and human) and Environmental Studies.

The impact of postdoctoral researchers on campus is increasing exponentially, exemplified, for instance, in Dr. Heath MacMillan. Not only did his resource flourish with international recognition in Biology Professor Andrew Donini’s lab, collaborating with Professors Jean-Paul Paluzzi and Scott Kelly, but his supervision of master’s student Gil Yerushalmi played its own role in this brilliant MSc being recognised and awarded for his own biological research.

The Faculty of Graduate Studies earned some recognition of its own this year – indeed, acclaim – by hosting for the first time at York University the provincial Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition. Credit is due to interim Dean, Fahim Quadir, Communications Manager, Wesley Moir, and all of the staff of FGS for this exciting research event. Of special note also this past year is the creation of FGS’s innovative Wellness Consultation Service, with kudos upon its principal counsellor, Sarah Irwin-Gardner. Designed specifically for ease of access and confidentiality, the Wellness Consultation Service offers a unique, fast-access counselling and consultation service specifically for graduate students.

With a segue opportune yet uncomfortable, I must note that 2018 was also a year of great challenge for the graduate and postdoctoral community at York, with a labour disruption that affected the primary focus of all students on campus, namely their studies. FGS is committed to supporting graduate students in all aspects of their academic and professional development as we move ahead from this challenging period. We administer the fellowship guaranteed by the university to all registered full-time graduate students, just as we administer with CUPE 3903 a variety of funds supporting graduate student research, fieldwork, and conference travel, degree completion and thesis/dissertation production, which have been negotiated between the university and the union. What cannot be lost as arbitration ensues, however, is the exceptional quality of our graduate students and all the contributions that they make at and to this university.

As we move into the fall term, I am excited for the opportunities that lie ahead for York, and am enthusiastic to see our scholars’ ground-breaking, status-quo shaking, and paradigm-shifting work flourish even further.

Thomas Loebel
Dean & Associate Vice-President
Faculty of Graduate Studies