MEDIA

Competition for IT and business grads is tough
– but so are the interviews
A sharp reduction in university graduates with IT and MBA degrees, coupled with a buoyant economy, has seen corporate recruiters competing fiercely to snap up the best of the best, reported the National Post Aug. 10. At the same time, corporations are paying greater attention to vetting those they do recruit. "There is no question competition is becoming quite intense," said Monica Belcourt, director of York’s Graduate Program in Human Resources. "What they are also doing is spending money up front to ensure they are getting the right person rather than having to spend even more down the line to repair the damage done by hiring the wrong one."

Freshman likes York’s personal touch
Glendon College freshman Keith Hosannah, 19, praises York University's on-campus orientation session for helping him choose his courses, reported Metro Toronto Aug. 9 in an article about revamped university-orientation programs. For Hosannah, the personal touch is the way to go. The graduate of Oakwood Collegiate said he knew he made the right choice of going to Glendon when university officials invited him to an all-day, on-campus orientation in late May. Hosannah said the six-hour session was limited to 25 students with up to five instructors and senior students available to assist them with their course selection, fees information and campus tour. "I even went a half hour beyond the time allotted trying to choose my courses, and they stayed with me," said Hosannah, who plans to study linguistics and English/French translation.

Matt Dusk seduced by swing-era songs
Just 26, crooner Matt Dusk was seduced by swing-era songs as a teenager while taking classes with Oscar Peterson at York University, reported The Review in Niagara Falls Aug. 5, the day before the Toronto-born singer performed at the Jackson-Triggs Estate Winery amphitheatre. "I was very fortunate at York University to be trained by an experienced old cat who played with the best, including Billie Holiday. He didn't have a voice left in him, but he could phrase a lyric so well it didn't matter. When I heard that, I was like, 'This is what music is.' Music is a way of communicating a story to somebody, and music nowadays is so explicit it doesn't leave the listener an ability to add their personality to what they're hearing." The Standard in St. Catharines also published an interview Aug. 5 with Dusk, who graduated from York with a bachelor of fine arts in 2002.

Breath-holding seals eyed in heart research
A deep-diving Antarctic seal that can swim for up to 30 minutes without taking a breath may hold the key to repairing the damaged tissue of heart and stroke victims, reported The Globe and Mail Aug. 6. Scientists hope studying the changes in the muscle proteins of Weddell seals, which unlike humans can exercise without breathing, will shed light on how to prevent tissue damage in humans with cardiovascular problems. "Weddell seals can dive down to 400 meters and hold their breath for up to 30 minutes to find food," said stem-cell biologist Thomas Hawke, a professor in York’s School of Kinesiology & Health Science. "That is equivalent to a human taking a deep breath, walking into a darkened Wal-Mart, shopping, and emerging 30 minutes later before taking their next breath. And yet they don't have heart attacks, they don't have strokes." This October, Hawke will travel to Antarctica with three scientists to study the seals. The team will take tiny muscle biopsies from infant, juvenile and adult seal populations cavorting on the Ross Ice Shelf, he said.

Diet market is fat – and fickle, says prof
Despite knowing the tried-and-true way to lose weight is to eat less and move more, people continue to look for the easy way out, reported the Toronto Star Aug. 5. That tendency to take the trouble-free road is what the weight loss industry is counting on, says Alan Middleton, professor of marketing at York University's Schulich School of Business. While the diet market is huge – and continuing to grow – it's also fickle, says Middleton. "It's up and down like a yo-yo," he laughs. "A lot of people start diets," says Middleton. "Very few people stay on them ... (That's why) there are fad diets upon fad diets upon fad diets. Every year we must have a new fad diet." He says, "it doesn't matter how smart or rational we are, we look for things that may help make us more acceptable to ourselves. We know it's unlikely to work, we know it's likely a con, but we always think, 'there may be a faint chance it works for me.'"

Gay activist says it with film
Director John Greyson said he always believed his contribution to gay activism has been making movies, reported The Vancouver Sun Aug. 4 in a profile of the York film and video professor. "I always saw them as part of an ongoing conversation in the culture that involved us all," Greyson said. "I guess that's one thing I insist on: Queer issues are everybody's issues, whether you're straight or gay. Not everyone might see it as engaging in a conversation, but that's their loss." In more than 20 years of filmmaking, Greyson has gone from making five-minute experimental shorts to full-length feature films, the best-known being Lilies, which won a Genie as the best Canadian film in 1996. Over the years, he's become one of the country's top independent filmmakers while maintaining his role as a creative agent provocateur on queer issues. Greyson is a keynote speaker at the 17th annual Queer Film and Video Festival.

Bees going extinct and scientists playing catch-up
Many scientists are increasingly concerned that bees may really be turning into ghosts; that extinction may be stalking not only commercial hive bees but also thousands of species of wild bees that ensure that flowers bloom and crops ripen, reported the Toronto Star Aug. 7. Just weeks ago, Amro Zayed, a bee researcher in York’s Biology Department, published research that significantly upped the ante in the bee survival debate. The PhD student and his supervisor, Laurence Packer, a biology professor in York’s Faculty of Science & Engineering, used computer simulations to calculate that species of solitary bees are 10 times less able than other insects to rebound from a random population crash. The reasons are complex, most of them stemming from the peculiar genetic mechanism that determines the sex of newborn bees, wasps and ants. In small populations, this mechanism can sometimes turn female bees into sterile males, greatly increasing their risk of extinction. This high proportion of dud males isn't a threat to apian (bee) survival as long as there is a large enough gene pool, explained Zayed. "Above a thousand individuals you're usually safe, so long as that's the breeding population," he said.