PG - Research

Areas of Research Interests

Advertising Ethics

At the 2005 conference of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation, I was fascinated to discover that there are Philosophers who do not believe that advertisements can be arguments. In June of 2006, I attended a conference in Amsterdam of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation, where I presented a paper titled "The Ad as Argument" using Michael Gilbert's Multi-Modal Argumentation Model, and a number of other models and theories from the fields of Argumentation and Philosophy to make the argument that an advertisement is indeed an argument, knowing these same Philosophers would be there. I regularly use Gilbert's model to examine ads which I consider to be on the edge of unethical; this paper did not deal explicitly with ethics but was an exercise in verifying that an ad can indeed be an argument. It was well received and eventually I published it in one of Philosophy's top journals, Argumentation.

Other Recent Works

I have recently had a chapter published in a book, Psychology of Persuasion, using Michael Gilbert's work. I also had a chapter called "Online Teaching: The Joys of Joining the Discussion", published in The Dynamic Classroom: Engaging Students in Higher Education.

Click on Link to My C.V. to read more.

Union Bargaining

In 2006/07, I spent some of my most exciting writing for my Union (YUFA - the York University Faculty Association). We spent 7 1/2 months in bargaining with the Employer and managed to bring in a good settlement. As YUFA's Communications Officer, and a member of the Bargaining Team, I was responsible for producing Bargaining Updates, written in what is still for me the most exciting way to write - last minute to a deadline, and with what was new for me - with help from a team, where I produce a first draft, the Team helps work it further into what we want to say, it then goes to YUFA President Arthur Hilliker, The Voice of YUFA, with bargaining and negotiating all along the way for what each of us wants to actually get said. Exciting times!

Book on The YUFA Strike of 1997

I have completed a book about the YUFA Strike of 1997. My agent asked me to cut it by 20%, which I did, and she is now trying to find a publisher for it.

Teaching on the Internet, Technoism, Advertising Ethics

For many years, each year I attended an annual conference on Emerging Issues in Business and Technology, held at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Sadly, the conference is no longer being held due to low attendance. My last paper there dealt with the necessity, in my opinion, for the business professor to be an active member of Discussion Groups in online courses:

TALK TO ME!: THE CASE FOR BEING THERE IN ONLINE BUSINESS COURSES

I now present at other conferences, most often on Internet teaching, but also on the effects of technology on our lives.

Silent Partners: Finding Materials For Teaching Internet Courses

The Waving Hand: Facilitating Online Discussion

Trickster Fiddles with Informatics: The Social Impact of Technological Marketing Schemes

I have found a great conference to replace Emerging Issues. It is the annual conference in Orlando Florida of Social and Organizational Informatics and Cybernetics: SOIC.

Here are some of my previous papers

Trickster Fiddles with Informatics: The Social Impact of Technological Marketing Schemes

Technology Has No Conscience of its Own: Trickster, Technoism, and Technology Acquisition Life Cycles

Consumer Behaviour, Social Class, and Marketing: Technoism and Digital Divisions

Ethics in the Business Classroom

Advertising and Youth Culture

Measurement in Multi-Modal Argumentation Models

Ethical Decision Making in Advertising

Business and The Environment
My ongoing work in this area concerns making the environment of the work world a friendlier place for women and for those concerned with survival of the planet

Women in Business

Images of Women in Environmental Ads (forthcoming at the 13th Conference of The Association for Research on Mothering, ARM)
Maternal Well-Being and Work Outside the Home: The Causes and Costs of Stress or ‘How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You’re Not Anywhere At All?’” (at the 11^th Conference of The Association for Research on Mothering, ARM)
PUMPKINS One year, a few short days before Halloween, I presented a paper at The Motherlode Conference put on by York University's Association for Research in Mothering, founded by Professor Andrea O'Reilley. In a piece titled, "Halloween, Pumpkins, and Motherhood: Gender Differences in How We Nurture Students," I addressed an issue that had plagued me for more than twenty years, why I could not seem to let go of the role of nurturing when I left home and went to work. Eventually, after twenty years of teaching, I decided that I never had and did not need to.

I was invited to speak at the Association for Mothering Research Conference, on “Work and Family: Pressures and Answers” York University (an area in which I have expertise rather more by researching the topic than by personal experience; I'm still working out how to balance my life better). I also am working on eplicating a 30-year old study of how managers treat people differently based on gender. My first novel, most likely never to be publishable, was based on the issues facing women who enter traditionally male-dominated professions, like Finance, or teaching business at large universities. Every writer should have a never-published first (or only) novel in the bottom drawer of the desk.

Sexism in the Media
I was interviewed by a television station filming a programme on issues of violence and advertising to children. I receive calls from journalists on this topic fairly frequently.

Consumer Behaviour
You can see me being interviewed by CBC Marketplace talking about why consumers tend not to think about or buy (enough) fire insurance.

Mentoring
I have been involved with various groups in work with mentoring programmes, including the now defunct Toronto MBA Women's Association (we figured no one had time to get to the meetings).

Channels of Distribution (My Doctoral Area)
An on-going study of the trucking industry comes out of my annoyance with reading headline-grabbing newspaper stories that too often suggest that truck drivers go off for a day's work knowing but not caring that their brakes don't work and their tires are about to fall off. I've met these truck drivers; they have lives like everyone else; they have spouses and children at home waiting for them to come back. Do you really think they deliberately put their lives at risk? I want to write something that tells the truck driver's side of the story. I have my A-Z Learner's Permit, and have actually driven a 22-wheeler.

See me on my truck

The American Civil War
Born an American, I have the near-birthright fascination with this terrible period of America's history. After the York University Faculty Association strike in 1997, I wrote a novel about the passions and emotions and lessons of the strike, but since I could not write about anything so deeply personally close to me, I set the story in the time of the American Civil War.

The novel is about survival in conflict, which is what it's all about in marketing and in business and especially in Gender Issues in Management. Any resemblance of any of the characters in the novel to any persons living or dead at York University is purely coincidental.

A New York literary agent has agreed to represent me, but has just about given up on finding a publisher. The novel's hero is a young gay male who rides with a Southern war hero and this is still a difficult combination to sell, especially in America. My hero, by the way, owned no slaves and was deeply opposed to slavery.

I read from the novel at the speech I gave when given the Atkinson Alum Association's Award for Excellence in Teaching. You can read the brief speech here.

Link to My C.V.