MEDIA

Helping students kick the procrastination habit

One recent Tuesday at noon the counselling group for procrastinators met at York University , but although nine students had signed up, only three got around to attending, and one of them straggled in 40 minutes late, reported Maclean's in its Feb. 20 issue. Clarry Lay, a retired psychology professor and author who has led groups for dawdlers for more than a decade, is used to this kind of thing. A reformed "heavy-duty procrastinator" and pioneering researcher of procrastination in academic settings, Lay says many procrastinators suffer from neurotic disorganization: they're unable to focus on everyday details such as showing up on time.

Lay gave everyone a handout, a 10-step program, if you will. Number 1: We must spend more time working on tasks that are most important. Number 2: We must be prepared to give up spending time on something that is less important. Work even if you're not in the mood; making yourself do it creates the mood. "The timely pursuit of our honourable intentions is the measure of success in life," he told the group. Afterward he admitted, "There's no strong negative association between being a procrastinator and grade point average – that's something you don't want to publicize to this group, but it's what the research indicates."

Cartoon controversy reminds law prof of post-9/11 moment
"The whole cartoon debacle, which lamentably appears to be not fully spent, reminds me of another moment when the atmosphere was electrified with a similar climate of devastation, anguish, animosity, and suspicion," wrote Susan Drummond, a comparative law professor at York’s Osgoode Hall Law School in a Globe and Mail op-ed piece Feb. 11. Shortly after the twin towers of the World Trade Centre fell, she was teaching a comparative law course and "an interesting thing happened, not unlike the current debate about the relationship between the values of the secular and religious worlds." A devout Muslim student and Lubovitch Jewish student together complained about the insensitivity of reproducing an image of the Koran on the cover of a textbook and a page from the Talmud in her teaching materials. Students agreed to hand back the photocopied pages of the Talmud.

"The exchange left me uneasy and unsettled about what had just taken place, and I remain so to this day. Osgoode is a secular institution, resting upon centuries of the same cherished traditions that infuse the value of freedom of speech," wrote Drummond. "Comparative law begins from the premise that she who understands one legal tradition understands none, or to quote script from a sculpture on the campus of York, a fish only recognizes water when it discovers air. Taking into account that the study of law touches upon values that also embody different senses of injustice, I urged my students that year not to simply understand unfamiliar texts and traditions from the vantage of a cold and purportedly neutral detachment, but to follow another of Simone Weil's admonitions: to understand the self from the point of view of the other's affliction."

Drummond concluded that she continues to be buoyed by the fact that “a devout Muslim student felt moved to approach a devout Jewish student to query him about whether he felt pained by the way that a secular professor had handled one of his holy books – and that they respectfully approached me and their colleagues with their concerns.”

Chantel Dunn's murder inspires fundraising drive for centre
Church and business leaders in the Jane-Finch area have banded together in a bid to prevent youths from joining gangs following the brutal slaying of York student Chantel Dunn, reported The Toronto Sun Feb. 12. Residents kicked off a "Toonie drive" to raise funds for a training centre for youth. The 19-year-old university student and aspiring lawyer died Feb. 6 after being shot outside the Northwood Community Centre as she picked up her boyfriend, Shane Morrison, 21. Two men are sought for murder. A funeral for Dunn was held Feb. 18.

'World can be yours,' black students told
Aim high, think big and most importantly keep your options open, an inspirational speaker told local black high school students Friday, reported The Record (Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo) Feb. 11. Michelle Hughes of Toronto was the keynote speaker at a day-long conference organized by the Wilfrid Laurier University ’s Association of Black Students. "I want you to think big. The world can be yours. It is a game and you only get one chance to play,’’ the 39-year-old employment counselor and professional speaker told a group of 70 students. She quit school when she was 17. She later returned and graduated from York with a BA in psychology in 1998 and was the first black female student president.

Theatre grad heads Neptune school
Like a hurricane wind, Samantha Wilson blew into Nova Scotia last fall after a 12-year absence, got married, got a new job, went back to Toronto and packed up her belongings and moved to Halifax, reported Cape Breton Post Feb. 11. "I'm very excited about being back here. This job is certainly the perfect blend of everything I love," says the recently minted director of the Neptune Theatre School. Wilson, who grew up in Sydney River, earned a masters degree in fine arts in 2003 from York where she also lectured in theatre.

Prof’s father was a friend of Dylan Thomas
Poet, traveller and flamenco guitarist, Charles Fisher was a life-long bohemian and a schoolboy friend and collaborator of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, reported The Globe and Mail Feb. 15 in an obituary. His daughter Caitlin Fisher (right, with Charles), an academic and Canada Research Chair in Digital Culture at York, said her father had spent his whole life trying to avoid what he called "the Dylan industry." But he relented on the 50th anniversary of the poet's death in 2003 and gave keynote addresses in Swansea and at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. The Guardian reported on Feb. 8 that, during the Swansea speech, he was handed a poem he had written in 1939. Although he had not looked at it for more than 50 years, after briefly scanning the opening line, he recited it in full, by heart, to a hushed and deeply moved audience. The obituary in a local Welsh paper, This is South Wales, noted on Jan. 28 that Fisher's death, at the age of 91, "marks the final chapter in the most important and alluring era in modern Welsh literature."

Cake cutting: What's up with that?
Cake cutting, also known as fair division, is about figuring out how to divide a resource so that each recipient feels they've received a fair portion based on their needs and desires, reported the Toronto Star Feb. 12. The cake-cutting problem was first presented by Polish academics in the 1940s. Since then, mathematicians and computer scientists have attempted to one-up each other with more efficient algorithms. At a University of Toronto seminar, Jeff Edmonds, a computer scientist in York ’s Faculty of Science & Engineering, presented an algorithm he developed with Kirk Pruhs of the University of Pittsburgh. They showed that by identifying the recipient's desires in a randomized manner, they can solve a problem in fewer operations.

Leagues will ignore bodychecking study, says Howie Meeker
To those wonderful researchers from York University and the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto : Don't expect anyone in hockey power anywhere to pay any attention to the facts. There is a huge shortage of skill teachers in their organizations, so to cover up they tossed in bodychecking, wrote Howie Meeker (right) , former Toronto Maple Leaf and a hockey broadcaster for 40 years, in an op-ed piece in the Ottawa Citizen.

Emile Therien, president of the Canada Safety Council, also commented on study in the St. Albert Gazette Feb. 15. "Bodychecking in minor hockey could jeopardize our national sport by turning it into our most dangerous game," he wrote "The February issue of the journal Pediatrics published a study by York University and the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto . Researchers found that children who start checking at age 10 are twice as likely to be injured as those who start after age 14," he noted. "Minor hockey is a better game to watch and play without bodychecking. When players concentrate on skating, shooting, passing and teamwork the quality of the game improves. If players skate well, the other skills become academic. The Canada Safety Council urges hockey associations to reconsider their stand on body checking."

Granatstein calls for more reserves
Canada needs to more than double its strength of military reserves to deal with disasters, terrorism and to prepare for future conflicts, a leading historian told a military studies conference Friday, reported the Windsor Star Feb. 11. Jack Granatstein, distinguished research professor of history emeritus at York , told more than 100 at the Windsor military studies conference that the new Conservative government needs to deliver on their election promises. Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised to expand the military by 13,000 in the regular forces and by 10,000 in the reserves. "The country needs to hold Harper to that promise," said Granatstein. "There are far too many reservists on full-time service."

Emerson naive not to expect backlash
Bernie Wolf , director of the international MBA program at York 's Schulich School of Business, says David Emerson, a Liberal who joined the Conservatives days after the federal election, should have expected the backlash, reported The Globe and Mail Feb. 10. "The fact that Emerson is surprised surprises me," Wolf said. "He has to be awfully naive to think that isn't going to upset a lot of people."

Women to the left, men to the right
Since the early 1990s, parties on the right have held less appeal for women than they have for men, reported the authors of the Canadian Election Study in an op-ed piece in The Globe and Mail Feb. 15. While the newly united right succeeded in closing the gender gap in 2004, it reopened in last month's election. In the closing days of the campaign, women outside of Quebec were once again less likely than men to say that they would be voting Conservative, by an average of 10 points. If fewer women than men were voting for the Conservatives in 2006, it was not because they were voting for the Liberals. As they had since 1997, more women than men were voting NDP outside Quebec , according to data from the 2004 and 2006 Canadian Election Studies conducted by the Institute for Social Research at York University.

What's the point of ranking MBAs?
What do MBA students think of the business school rankings? asked Richard Bloom Feb. 10 in his Globe and Mail column about studying for an MBA at York . The general consensus on campus is that the rankings do serve one key purpose: they help us find jobs, he concluded in the wake of the good news that York 's Schulich School of Business had been ranked No. 18 in the world and No. 1 in Canada in the annual Financial Times rankings of global business schools. The rankings give recruiters an independent study to help make decisions about which schools to visit, he added. And improved scores make alumni feel proud to affiliate themselves with the school, increasing participation in mentorship programs and financial donations – all of which help attract top-notch faculty who develop successful graduates and further help the school's score in the rankings, he wrote. What's more, he continued, the competition among schools for that top spot in the rankings ensures business programs stay innovative and strive to deliver the best education possible.