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Faculty of Education News Bulletin - October

Tuesday, October 27th, 2026

TOP STORIES
PROGRAM OFFICE UPDATES
NEW PUBLICATIONS

IN THE MEDIA
CONFERENCE & SEMINAR CONTRIBUTIONS
RESOURCES FOR FACULTY

FACULTY OF EDUCATION STUDENT ASSOCIATION (FESA)
FROM THE YORK COMMUNITY
EVENTS

TOP STORIES

Flavio Volpe urges York grads to lead responsibly at fall convocation - Volpe encouraged graduands to recognize the family members, teachers, friends and mentors who helped them reach this milestone, and reminded them that opportunity comes with responsibility. Read more

York community members sweep provincial human rights awards – Professor and Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora, Carl James, was one of three York University community members awarded the Ontario Human Rights Commission's 2026 Daniel G. Hill Human Rights Awards, recognizing his leadership in advancing educational equity, accessibility and human rights across the province.  Read more

York scholar honoured for equitable education - Throughout his academic journey, course director and PhD student Wahid Khan, has worked to ensure students from diverse backgrounds see themselves reflected in physical and health education. Read more

Exploring the Science of Reading: A Guest Lecture with Robert Savage – Savage’s presentation titled “Foundations of Phonetics: Supporting Children into Literacy” takes a deep dive into the Science of Reading (SoR) and its role in literacy development. Read more

Two Credentials, One Classroom - Ten Years of the York /TMU BEd Partnership - When Ontario committed to Full-Day Kindergarten, it created a new professional role that no teacher education program in the province was graduating students to fill. To meet that need, York University's Faculty of Education and what was then Early Childhood Studies at Ryerson University (renamed to Toronto Metropolitan University, TMU), created a collaborative York-TMU Bachelor of Education program. Read more

UNESCO Chair in Reorienting Education towards Sustainability, Charles Hopkins and Co-Chair Katrin Kohl, will be speaking at the International Forum on Global Citizenship on November 4 - The event is available online for the community to attend. Learn more

Faculty of Education Winters College

PrOGRAM OFFICE UPDATES

Student Services Office

Faculty of Education at the Ontario Universities Fair (OUF) - Students, course directors, staff, and current and former secondees represented the Faculty at the Ontario Universities’ Fair on Sept. 28-29, engaging with thousands of prospective students. The two-day event welcomed more than 68,700 visitors

Faculty of Education at the Ontario Universities Fair (OUF)

Research Office

Upcoming Events

A group of elementary aged children heading into a school

Building and Sustaining Research Relationships with School Boards

Thursday, November 5, 2026 | 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. | Online via Zoom

Interested in conducting research with schools/boards but unsure where to start or what they might expect of you? Your search is over! Come meet our expert researchers representing four Ontario school boards. They will discuss important aspects of building university/public education research relationships and strategies on how to sustain them.

Learn more and register

Canoe with Us? Indigenous Education & Research

November 24, 2026 | 3:30 – 5:15 p.m | 280N York Lanes

A panel discussion bringing together three Indigenous scholars to share insights, experiences, and future directions in education and research. A big thank you to Dr. Angel Alook, Director of the Centre for Indigenous Knowledges and Languages (CIKL), and Associate Professor in the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies, for agreeing to facilitate this discussion.

Learn more and register

On Monday, October 26, 2026 the Research Office hosted a session to “Meet, connect, and collaborate with the newest members of our faculty community”. During this engaging event faculty members shared their academic journeys, research interests, and discussed their future scholarly goals through short panel presentations, followed by interactive breakout discussions that fostered networking, collaboration, and partnership opportunities in a welcoming environment

The Government of Canada has released a revised Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications that will make peer-reviewed articles resulting from agency-funded research freely available at the time of publication (immediate open access). By supporting broader access to research findings, the revised policy will help strengthen knowledge sharing; enable evidence-informed decision-making; and foster collaboration across academic, public, private and not-for-profit sectors. More information

Read Our Faculty Wall: Faculty members who have not yet submitted a book cover are encouraged to do so soon to ensure their publication is featured on the Read Our Faculty wall. Please email an image of your book cover to Research@edu.yorku.ca

Congratulations to our Faculty members

Assistant Professor John Hupfield was awarded an Insight Development Grant for a project titled 'Miikaans mobile movement lab: understanding Anishinaabeg haptic knowledges through digital media'. The Miikaans Mobile Movement Lab asks how academia might support the cultural resurgence (Simpson, 2011) and decolonization of not only the minds of Anishinaabeg, but also their bodies. The lab sets out to utilize digital photography, digital video, and audio recordings to document and elicit meanings of embodied and haptic knowledges (Yunktaporta, 2019) that are interwoven within the stories, dances, and movements that occur at powwow as 'place' (Hupfield, 2023) and on the Land (Styres, 2018) for Anishinaabeg

Associate Professor Molade Osibodu was awarded an Insight Grant an Insight Grant for a project titled 'Navigating Blackness: Sub-Saharan African Immigrant Parents' and Youth's Perspectives on the Racialization of Mathematics Education'. This four-year qualitative study, set in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), explores how SSA immigrant youth experience racialization in mathematics education and how their parents make sense of, navigate, and resist these experiences. As the first study of its kind in Ontario, this proposed research will generate new insights that deepen and complicate our understanding of how Black Sub-Saharan African youth experience mathematics education

Associate Professor Gillian Parekh was awarded an Insight Grant an Insight Grant for a project titled 'Constructing disability in education: Disability identity, policy enactment and academic outcomes'. The project investigates what drives the wide variation of student exceptionalities across Ontario as reported by school boards. The project includes a critical quantitative analysis of datasets housed in the Research Data Center including provincial and linked board data to examine variations in identification, relationship to board factors, and academic outcomes. To complement the quantitative analysis, Parekh and her team will be conducting a critical policy analysis, reviewing each of Ontario's 72 school boards special education plans

Assistant Professor sava singh was awarded an Insight Grant an Insight Grant for a project titled 'Machine Learning or Learning Machines: Critical AI Futures in Education'. This research-creation project will interrogate and communicate the potential impact of generative ai on the future of education in Canada, taking into consideration broader cultural, environmental, economic, and social implications. Using design fiction and speculative fiction as narrative approaches, this project draws on an interdisciplinary framework based in critical ai studies, critical digital literacy, abolition, decolonial studies, and Indigenous futures to produce a short near-future film about the impact of generative ai on the future of education

Upcoming Internal Calls

  • The Minor Research and Development Grant (MRG) Call for Proposals is now open! Because the proposal deadline falls on a weekend (Sunday, November 15, 2026), the OADR will accept applications by the next business day, Monday, November 16, 2026
  • Applications for the YUFA Research Release Program (RRP) are due by Friday, November 27, 2026
  • The deadline for receipt of the 2026-2027 President’s Research Awards (President’s Emerging Research Leadership Award, President’s Research Impact Award, and the President’s Research Excellence Award) is Wednesday, December 16, 2026, at 4:30 p.m.
  • Graduate Teaching Award: Preliminary nominations due February 24, 2027; final nomination packages due April 7, 2027
  • Dean’s Research Impact Award due March 22, 2027

Selected Research Funding Opportunities

October 2026

November 2026

December 2026

January 2027

February 2027

March 2027

Selected Awards

November 2026

December 2026

January 2027

March 2027

NEW PUBLICATIONS

Assistant Professor Salsabel Almanssori co-authored a new study titled “A Participatory Action Research Inquiry into Experiential Teacher Education for the Prevention of Sexual Violence in Schools” in Action in Teacher Education. The study examines how experiential learning, participatory action research, and community partnerships can strengthen teacher education for the prevention of sexual violence in schools

Assistant Professor Kara Dymond has two new publications:

Assistant Professor Stephanie Fearon guest edited a special issue of YU-WRITE: Journal of Graduate Student Research in Education on Black mothers’ relationships with writing, featuring contributions from scholars worldwide and Faculty of Education graduate students. Fearon also co-leads A Love Letter to Fellow Dreamers, a community-based journal celebrating the leadership, scholarship, and artistry of Black mothers, women, and girls in Canada, with the September issue guest edited by graduate student Tonneil Levene

From Guidance to Policy: Advancing Whole-Institution Approaches to ESD – The UNESCO Chair at York University Charles Hopkins and Co-Chair Katrin Kohl, contributed to a new UNESCO policy paper on whole-institution approaches to sustainability, serving as co-authors

IN THE MEDIA

Inside the slow death of Ontario’s private colleges – and can they be revived after OSAP bans?
Professor emeritus Paul Axelrod was quoted in the Toronto Star, October 24

CONFERENCE & SEMINAR CONTRIBUTIONS

Associate Professor Qiang Zha participated in a panel “Fewer Students, Changing Schools: Education and Demographic Change” at the 2026 East Asia Youth Summit. Zha also delivered a seminar on October 22 at the University of Hong Kong titled “Evolving Perspectives on Internationalization of Higher Education: A Review of My Own Research Trajectory through the Lens of Reflexivity Theory”

Course Director Andrew McConnell presented at two fall conferences, contributing to discussions on Indigenous perspectives in AI at Sapienza University of Rome and on Indigenous continuance in an era of AI and digital assessment at the International Association for Educational Assessment (IAEA) conference in Toronto

Course Director Karen Armstrong presented virtually at the 4th Annual World Teaching, Learning, and Education Conference in Milan, Italy, October 16-18

RESOURCES FOR FACULTY

Transform Your Faculty Profile with Discover York Academics: Create Your Profile Today! - York University has introduced Discover York Academics, an innovative electronic curriculum vitae (CV) tool aimed at highlighting the exceptional work of our faculty. This searchable database allows faculty to showcase and store their research, publications, scholarly and creative works, as well as related teaching and professional activities, all in one centralized profile. Learn more

Email Signatures - For consistency across the Faculty and to support York University’s success in rankings, please click here for instructions on how to update/brand your email signature

Faculty of Education Student Association (FESA)

FESA's Professional Development Conference – FESA will be hosting their annual Professional Development Conference, Illuminate 2026, on Saturday, November 21st from 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. at the Second Student Centre (Keele Campus). Learn more and register

FROM THE YORK COMMUNITY

York shares University Academic Plan, invites community participation - York has launched its new University Academic Plan and invites faculty and staff to attend upcoming campus engagement sessions to learn more, ask questions, and share feedback. Learn more

Take part in York’s first employment systems review to advance workplace equity - York University invites all full-time, permanent staff and faculty to take part in its first Employment Systems Review (ESR) survey – a key step in strengthening employment equity across the institution. Learn more

EVENTS

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