Current Events at Stong College
Friday, March 26, 2010, 4:30 – 6:30 pm
Stong Master’s Dining Room 101
Imagined Healers: A Panel Discussion
Tina Y. Choi: Representations of Germ Theory in Late-19th-century Popular Journals
Ann Gagné: Telepathic Touch, Healing Power, and the Complex Ethics of Spiritualism
Elizabeth Sabiston: George Eliot’s Tertius Lydgate: Misogyny And The Medical Profession in Middlemarch
Hédi Bouraoui’s poem: Cardiologue/ The Cardiologist
Thursday, March 18, 2010, 1:00 – 2:30 pm
Samuel Beckett Theatre, Room 112 Stong College
Top 10 Secrets in Landing your “Dream” job
“Explore and learn student success strategies leading to graduation and your dream job!”
Robert Martellacci will share the best job searching techniques, including how to effectively use technology and social networks in your job search.
Robert Martellacci is president & publisher of MindShare Learning (www.mindsharelearning.com), and the MindShare Learning Report, Canada’s Leading, Learning & Technology eMagazine. Mr. Martellacci is a graduate of York where he earned a B.A. in Economics and a Certificate in Sports Administration. He recently received his Masters degree in Educational Technology from Pepperdine University.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010, 12:30-1:30 p.m.
Sylvester's, Rm.201 Stong
Stong College presents a stage reading of the play "The Tesla Chronicles"
Written by Edward Fenner, 1st place winner of the 2009 Kent Haworth Playwriting Contest.
Directed by Wajma Soroor
A great scientist who influenced our modern world, Nikola Tesla is the subject of “The Tesla Chronicles.” In this one act play, an elderly Tesla is visited by himself as a child, teen, young man, middle aged man and as a ghost. Ed Fenner has written a well-researched and informative play that urges contemporary society to remember an influential scientist/inventor. Identity and Memory are two major themes of this thought-provoking play that will surely engage the audience
Kent Haworth Playwriting Contest: (click here )
Tuesday, March 2, 2010, 1:00 – 2:30 pm,
Sylvester's, Room 201 Stong
Stress Buster Session: Optimizing Our Amazing Body & Mind. Mark Cummings has taught courses in biofeedback-assisted self-regulation in the School of Kinesiology and Health Sciences at York for the past sixteen years. He has developed innovative programmes in Stress Management Therapy at a leading addiction and mental health treatment centre in Toronto.
Our brains and bodies are capable of amazing and powerful feats of athletic and human performance, but at the same time we get ourselves tied up in knots that create disease. We can be our own greatest enemy or greatest ally. The first step is to become aware of how this occurs and what we can do about it. Learn the simple secrets from the Owner's Manual for Self-Regulation of Your Brain and Body in order to be in greater control of your mind and body states. Enjoy instructor Cummings’ engaging, and humorous, exploration of your capacities as a human being.
http://podcast.yorku.ca:8080/itc/2009/EVENTS/stress_busters_stong201_mar02_2010.mp4
Monday, February 22nd, 2010, 2:30pm
Renaissance Room, 001 Vanier College
`Educating “Emma”: Stories to Pass on from the Late Slavery Era in the Niger Area'
Presented by Vanier College, Stong College Master's Office, and the Harriet Tubman Institute
Dr. Modupe Olaogun
This lecture explores a critical excavation of a submerged history that is in the form of a play by Femi Osofisan, Ajayi Crowther: The Triumphs and Travails of a Legend, which debuted in 2002. The eponymous subject is a figure from the transatlantic slave trade. Ajayi was a young boy when he was torn from his family in the Yoruba town of Osogun by slave raiders in 1821, shackled a few months later in a Portuguese slave ship headed for Lisbon but rescued by a British anti-slavery vessel, subsequently becoming the first Black Anglican Bishop in 1864 and over the next thirty-five years leading a massive Christianization of a geographical area that stretched from the Niger delta to the north, east and west of present-day Nigeria. The lecture examines the dramatic and symbolic structures of Osofisan’s play and how the play’s tropes of riddles, games and the story-that-begets-another-story participate in the discursive act that imbues the story of Ajayi Crowther with continuing significance.
Modupe Olaogun is Associate Professor of English at York University and Master of Stong College. Dr. Olaogun specializes in African and postcolonial literatures and drama and has published widely in these areas. She founded AfriCan Theatre Ensemble in Toronto in 1998 and has staged several plays, many of them Canadian premieres of African classics and new creation. Recently, she has written a new play, with Olabisi Gwamna, “Woman King,” which was featured at the Toronto Buzz Festival in December 2009, and is expected to premiere in 2011. Dr. Olaogun is a Fellow of the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples.
Monday, January 25th, 2010, 5:00 – 7:00 pm
Hédi Bouraoui Master’s Dining Room, 101 Stong College
Robbie Burns Celebration
Hosted by Neil Sinclair and Dr. Andrew Weaver
Join us to celebrate the life and poetry of Robert Burns, author of many poems including “Auld Lang Syne”. This celebration originated late 18th century in Ayrshire, Scotland when friends of the deceased poet gathered in memoriam for supper. People of Scottish descent and lovers of Burns’ poetry now celebrate his life and works on January 25, his birthday. These suppers usually include haggis, Scotch whisky, poems, speeches and plenty of fun. Neil Sinclair and Dr. Andrew Weaver will host the event which will include poetry readings, the life and importance of Robert Burns and much more. Don’t miss it!
Neil Sinclair is an alumnus and Fellow of Stong College and a lawyer. He combines legal and business experience gained over a career in practice and executive management with the Information Technology Industry. He has been a legal and business educator at Community Colleges and Universities. There is no MC like him.
Andrew Weaver is a professor of English specializing in contemporary Canadian and American poetry and poetics, with an emphasis on formally innovative and experimental texts. He has published articles on the poetry of Fred Wah and John Cage. His current research focuses on the relationship between contemporary and poetry and political anarchy.
Monday, November 30th, 2009, 11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Samuel Beckett Theatre, Rm. 112 Stong College
Women in Nollywood
Dr. Onookome Okome
Nollywood, Africa’s most prolific cinema, has challenged assumptions about what African cinema should entail and it has re-written the way Africa is seen and experienced. Dr. Okome tracks the location that women occupy in this cultural enterprise. Building on and expanding the scope of an earlier essay, “Women, Religion and the Booming Nigerian Film Industry,” he argues that although women are located in the “narrative limbo” of the Nollywood film, reading women in Nollywood as in other forms of popular arts in Africa is a more complex and rewarding exercise than is suggested in many studies.
Dr. Onookome Okome is Professor of English and Film Studies at the Department of English, University of Alberta. He earned his PhD at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He is co-author of Cinema and Social Change in Nigeria and author of Before I am Hanged: Ken Saro-Wiwa, Literature, Politics and Dissent and Ogun’s Children: The Literature and Politics of Wole Soyinka Since the Nobel. He has published extensively on the Nollywood phenomenon in West Africa, including the co-authored essay with Jonathan Haynes, “Evolving Popular Media: Nigerian Video Film.”
Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 12:30 - 2:00 pm
Samuel Beckett Theatre, Rm. 112 Stong College
University Governance: What does the University Secretary and General Counsel really do?
Harriet Lewis
Have you ever wondered: Who are behind the decisions made by the university and from where they get their authority to act on the university’s behalf? York’s governance processes are rooted in the York University Act, 1965 and Harriet Lewis, the University’s Secretary and General Counsel, will be discussing how that Act distributes authority among the governing bodies, the university officers and the many others who act as the “mind” of the institution. She will also share some of her observations on the legal issues and challenges of Canadian universities in general and York in particular.
Ms. Lewis completed both her Honours Bachelor of Arts and Masters degrees at York, and went on to earn an LLB from the University of Toronto. She has been practicing law since her call to the Ontario Bar in 1977, and returned to York as its first General Counsel in 1988. In June 1988 Ms. Lewis was appointed University Secretary in which capacity she oversees the governance of the university by both the Senate and the Board of Governors.
Monday, November 2, 2009, 4:00 - 6:00 pm
Junior Common Room, 111 Stong College
Day of the Dead: A Celebration of Life
Tania Hernandez Cervantes & Manuel Romero Mier
Tania Hernandez Cervantes is a researcher specializing in ecology and in topics related to sustainable agriculture. She holds an MA from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and is now working on a PhD in environmental studies at York University. Manuel Romero Mier is a Mexican writer of stories and essays, who studied physics at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. His stories, "El Jardín de las Delicias" and "El Niño que quería Caminar" are both winners of literary contests
On November 1st and 2nd, a special altar called an ofrenda is made to celebrate the Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead). The altar has at least three tiers, and is covered with pictures of saints, personal items belonging to dead loved ones, and pictures of cavorting skeletons (calaveras). Marigolds, water, salt, bread, and a candle for each of the dead with one extra so no one is left out are also placed on the ofrenda. In their talk, Tania Hernandez and Manuel Romero show the origins of the Mexican celebration of the dead. Drawing on historical evidence they demonstrate that ancient societies across the world had parallel rituals, traditions and festivities to remember the dead as the aborigines of Mexico did. This tradition has evolved in Mexico, becoming an eclectic festivity that gathers up pre-hispanic, Catholic and modern worldviews. The talk will expose the cultural components of the celebration and its influence on literature and pop culture beyond Mexico’s frontiers.
Piñata festivities, a musical performance by Mery Perez and Julia Campisi singing Mexican and Latin American songs with guitar accompaniment, and an exhibition of Catrina, images by Jose Guadalupe Posada, will follow the lecture.
Friday, October 23rd, 2009, 2:30 – 4:00 pm
Sylvester's, Room 201 Stong
Vision Science In Practice: A Day in the Life of an Optometrist
Dr. Modupe Oladeji
In this lecture you will learn what you must know about your vision. You will hear the answer to several of your questions, such as “Why do I need to get my eyes checked?” “I have 20/20 vision.“ Your eyes are the only ones you will ever have and 80% of your learning comes from what you see. Your eyes are the only organs in your body that provide a clear view of your blood vessels, which can reveal considerable information about your general health. The eye is one of the most complex organs in the human body. It acts like a camera, recording images and sending them via impulses to be processed in the brain. The eyes consist of a great number of intricate components and it is important you care for them. This lecture demonstrates the outer and inner workings of the eye and how a comprehensive assessment of the health of your eyes and the quality of your vision is important yearly.
Dr. Modupe Oladeji is a board-certified Optometrist with over 15 years of clinical experience both overseas and here in Canada. She obtained her Optometry degree in 1992 and also holds a Masters Degree in Vision Science at the School of Optometry, University of Waterloo. Dr. Oladeji operates an Optometric practice in the St. Clair & Bathurst area. She works closely with area family physicians, pediatricians, and eye surgeons. She also works as a consultant Optometrist at the renowned Bochner Eye Institute in Toronto, providing pre and post-operative care for refractive surgery patients, post-cataract surgery care and more recently, cornea crosslinking C3R (keratoconus treatment). Dr. Oladeji attends continuing education conferences on an annual basis to keep up to date in all aspects of vision science. She is committed to providing high quality care to patients with a variety of optometric need. She appeared on one of CBC Canada segments of “Living in Toronto” discussing the aging eye “bifocal blues – aging gracefully”. Dr. Oladeji enjoys several extra-curriculum activities, being an active volunteer/sponsor in various charitable groups and she is also involved with various musical organizations.
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009, 12:30 – 2:00 pm
Sylvester's, Room 201 Stong
Visions from the Top of the World: An Arctic Journey
Dr. Allan Weiss
For many people outside our borders, Canada is known above all as a northern land. Those who live in countries at the same general latitude, particularly in Scandinavia, often identify with Canada on the basis of a shared "nordicity"; as a result, they are especially interested in our geography, history, society, and literature. The Nordic Association for Canadian Studies was founded by scholars in Scandinavia and the Baltic region to explore Canada and, in the process, the common ground between their own countries and ours. Every three years, NACS holds a conference in Scandinavia that brings together scholars from Canada, Europe, and elsewhere. The venue of the conference changes so that all the countries in the region can have an opportunity to host the event.
Allan Weiss has attended all of the Association's conferences since 1993, and as a result has had an opportunity to travel to each of the Scandinavian countries, including Iceland. Most recently, he visited the northern reaches of Norway: the Svalbard archipelago, more specifically the island of Spitsbergen, an area that lies above the Arctic Circle. Professor Weiss's talk offers an account of and images from his travels, showcasing the beauty of the region's cities and the grandeur of the northern landscape.
Dr. Weiss is Associate Professor in the Departments of English and Humanities, York University, and specializes in Canadian literature and science fiction.
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009, 2:30 – 4:00 pm,
Samuel Beckett Theatre, Room 112 Stong
"Healthy Professional Boundaries"
Dr. Michael Paré, B.Sc., M.Sc., M.Ed., M.D.
Physician Psychotherapist
Having clear boundaries is essential to healthy, balanced working relationships. A boundary is a line that marks those things for which we are responsible. In other words, boundaries define who we are and who we are not. Although boundaries impact all areas of our lives, this talk will focus on boundaries at work.
- Physical Boundaries help us determine who may touch us and under what circumstances.
- Conceptual Boundaries give us the freedom to have our own thoughts.
- Emotional Boundaries help us to deal with our feelings.
- You will learn what is meant by a “boundary” in professional working relationships.
- You will find out the crucial difference between a boundary crossing and a boundary violation.
- This session will help you minimizing the risk of inappropriate boundary violations in working relationships.
Public Lecture Series – Michael Riddell – Physical Activity: Its Role in Diabetes Prevention
College Masters Public Lecture Series
Sep 24, 2009, 7-9PM
Location: Computer Science & Engineering Building Lecture Hall A, York University, Keele campus
For more information (click here)
Tuesday, May 12th, 2009, 1:00 – 2:30 pm,
Samuel Beckett Theatre, Room 112 Stong
Stress Buster Session: Optimizing Our Amazing Body & Mind. Mark Cummings has taught courses in biofeedback-assisted self-regulation in the School of Kinesiology and Health Sciences at York for the past sixteen years. He has developed innovative programmes in Stress Management Therapy at a leading addiction and mental health treatment centre in Toronto.
Our brains and bodies are capable of amazing and powerful feats of athletic and human performance, but at the same time we get ourselves tied up in knots that create disease. We can be our own greatest enemy or greatest ally. The first step is to become aware of how this occurs and what we can do about it. Learn the simple secrets from the Owner's Manual for Self-Regulation of Your Brain and Body in order to be in greater control of your mind and body states. Enjoy instructor Cummings’ engaging, and humorous, exploration of your capacities as a human being.
Monday, May 4th, 2009, 1:30 – 3:00 pm
Samuel Beckett Theatre, Rm.112 Stong College
The Narrative Power of the Line: A Visualization Approach to Composition
Professor Adam Kolodziej
School fo Interior Design,
Faculty of Communication, Ryerson University
Our emotional dimension is expressed through our insatiable appetite for both verbal and visual communication with other human beings. One of the most important means of sharing our excitement is the storytelling hand gesture; what flows from the hand is the line that we unconsciously draw.
Professor Adam Kolodziej in this lecture employs the storyboarding technique to the structure of narrative communication. Reminding us that all writing, imaginative, humanistic or scientific, employs narrative to a great extent in relaying its information, he will demonstrate his own method of art creation—charcoal drawing—in which each element embodies a story and an emotive value.
Since 2004 Professor Kolodziej has taught in the School of Interior Design, Faculty of Communication, Ryerson University. His professional activity has included that of a designer for film, television and theatre. He won the Pauline McGibbon Award for outstanding theatre design in 1987; he received Dora Award nominations for best theatre design in 1986 and 1987 and Gemini Awards for his film and television art direction in 1995 and 1996, His achievements were honoured by his election to the Royal Canadian Academy for Arts in 2005.
Thursday, April 30th, 2009, 1:30 – 3:00 pm,
Samuel Beckett Theatre, Room 112 Stong
Wounded Healer: One Physician’s Journey of Stress and Depression from the Inside and Outside
Dr. Michael Paré, B.Sc., M.Sc., M.Ed., M.D.
Physician Psychotherapist
This presentation is a unique window on the subjective and objective truths concerning Major Depressive Disorder. The speaker – who is a physician and psychotherapist – takes the audience on a short journey into the personal depths of his own horrendous subjective experience of depression.
Yet Dr. Paré also encourages the participants by his story of full recovery. He discusses the fascinating up-to-date progress in recent brain research on the diagnosis, management, and treatment of depressive illness, using methods including brain scanning techniques, medication treatment, deep brain stimulation and psychotherapy.
Dr. Paré is a physician whose clinical work consists of Medical Psychotherapy and General Practice Psychiatry. He obtained a degree in Psychology and later went McGill University where he received a Master’s degree in Neuroscience. His interests led him to a Masters degree in Education. Dr. Paré is Coordinator of the Medical Clinic for Person-Centered Psychotherapy and an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Psychology at Tyndale University College.
He is certified in both Individual and Group Psychotherapy. He also provides educational supervision and
mentorship to physician psychotherapists. He holds an Ontario Medical Association (OMA) position as
“Physician Coordinator” for the Toronto Physicians’ Health Project (which is under the direction of the OMA
Professionals’ Health Program).
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009, 12:30 – 1:30 pm,
Samuel Beckett Theatre, Room 112 Stong
The Courage to Cooperate: Lessons Learned in Building Arab and Israeli Cooperation
Dr. Harvey Skinner
We are living in a difficult time concerning world peace. Events in the Middle East, such as the ongoing Palestinian-Israel conflict and US invasion of Iraq, dispel hope. Yet, now is the time for leadership of that special kind that is constructive, respectful and inspiring. At York University, it is important that we ‘begin with ourselves’ as we address the growing cultural diversity on campus and in the Greater Toronto and York Regions. York’s Faculty of Health is on an ambitious mission to be an integrative force for promoting health – locally and globally. Collectively, we can make a difference by building “Cooperation Networks” – a global lattice work among academic communities worldwide. But this type of positive change must flow from individual actions.
Dr. Harvey Skinner is the Dean of York University’s Faculty of Health. He has conducted research youth engagement in community health promotion in the Middle East. He is looking at how Arab and Israeli health professionals enter into cooperation for building health security, resovling conflicts, and promoting global health.
Thursday, March 5th, 2009, 1:00 – 2:30 pm,
Samuel Beckett Theatre, Room 112 Stong
Stress Buster Session: Optimizing Our Amazing Body & Mind. Mark Cummings has taught courses in biofeedback-assisted self-regulation in the School of Kinesiology and Health Sciences at York for the past sixteen years. He has developed innovative programmes in Stress Management Therapy at a leading addiction and mental health treatment centre in Toronto.
Our brains and bodies are capable of amazing and powerful feats of athletic and human performance, but at the same time we get ourselves tied up in knots that create disease. We can be our own greatest enemy or greatest ally. The first step is to become aware of how this occurs and what we can do about it. Learn the simple secrets from the Owner's Manual for Self-Regulation of Your Brain and Body in order to be in greater control of your mind and body states. Enjoy instructor Cummings’ engaging, and humorous, exploration of your capacities as a human being.
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009, 3:00 – 7:00 pm,
Sylvester's, Room 201 Stong
A Hispanic Evening. Panel Discussion- “State of Inclusiveness: Being Hispanic in Canada”; and Book launch: Bilingual collection of poems - El Portal de la Sirena/The Mermaid’s Gateway and De Viajes y Rodajes/Break-In Voyage by Margarita Feliciano. In the panel discussion, Juan Carranza, Mauricio Ospina and Duberlis Ramos explore the past, the present and the future of the Hispanic community in Canada from a socio-economic perspective. Using official statistics, community reports and their own experiences, the presenters demonstrate the challenges and the issues faced by this growing community and suggest ideas about how to maximize its contribution to Canada.
The launching of the bi-lingual books of poetry, “EL Portal de la Sirena/The Mermaid’s Gateway” and “De Viajes y Rodajes/Break-in Voyage”. Margarita Feliciano will read from some of her poetry. Literary Contextualized readings of prose works and poetry translations from Spanish to English by Patricia Keeney, Guillermo Bañuelos and Claudio Kuczer.
Mr. Guillermo Bañuelos is Lawyer by training and an educator by profession. He explores literary creation in Spanish short stories and poetry that he translates into English.
Mr. Juan Carranza is the founder and principal of Carranza Barristers & Solicitors, Toronto’s largest ethnic law firm.
Mr. Claudio A. Kuczer is very much involved in the creative process as a short story writer. He has received literary prizes from the Hispanic Community and Glendon College, York University for his short stories.
Mr. Mauricio Ospina works as an International Marketing Consultant for the Government of Ontario.
Mr. Duberlis Ramos is the Executive Director of Hispanic Development Council
Professor Margarita Feliciano, Department of Hispanic Studies, Glendon College, York University.
Professor Patricia Keeney, English Department, York University
Universal Imagination: A Series of Six Art Exhibitions
Samuel J. Zacks Gallery, 109 Stong College
September 2008 - March 2009
“Space of Light,” featuring the paintings and drawings by two prominent Canadian artists, Irena “IRiKO” Kolodziej and Adam Kolodziej, launches Universal Imagination, Stong College’s series of six major art exhibitions by twelve distinguished Canadian artists.
“Naming the series Universal Imagination,” says Modupe Olaogun, Master of the College, “is appropriate for the inauguration of our year-long celebration of the 40th anniversary of the college and the 50th of York University. It indicates our historic connection between education and culture, offering to students, the York community and Toronto a unique opportunity to experience the variety of forms, mediums and subjects in the work of world-renowned artists.”
“Space of Light,” the first exhibition in the series, features oil paintings of ethereal images by Irena “IRiKO” Kolodziej and expressive charcoal drawings by Adam Kolodziej. He will give a live drawing demonstration at 8:30 p.m. following the opening ceremony.
Tad Jaworski, curator of Universal Imagination, observed that in his experience he could not recall any exhibitions of such scope and variety, representing the work of twelve award-winning artists, exhibiting their work as part of a common theme, yet expressing in different mediums–painting, drawing, sculptures in raw wood, metal and iron, Chinese brush painting, photography, and fibre art (tapestry/goblin) --their vision of a universal imagination.
“Space of Light” ran from September 26 to October 14, 2008.
The other exhibitions are
Ernestine Tahedl / Gordon Becker Painting / Sculpture, Friday October 17 – Tuesday November 4, 2008
Maya Foltyn / Fly Freeman Painting / Sculpture, Friday November 7 – Tuesday November 25, 2008
Peng Ma / Ryszard Litwiniuk Painting / Sculpture Friday Jan. 23, 2009 – Tuesday February 10, 2009
Christopher Chapman / Edward Falkenberg Photography / Sculpture, February 13 – March 3, 2009
Tamara Jaworski / Wojtek Biczysko Tapestry Goblin/ Sculpture, Friday March 6 – Tuesday March 24, 2009.
The exhibition is open to the public; there is no admission fee. Hours for the Samuel J. Zacks Gallery are Monday to Friday: 11:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
For more information, please contact:
Tad Jaworski, Curator, Chair of Visual Arts, Stong College tamtad@rogers.com; 416 222 8491
Stong College Reception: 416 736 5132.
