Arthur Kaptainis

So how did the double major in biochemistry and neuroscience, who graduated last June, end up as the stage manager of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing at the Hart House Theatre?

She says the migration from laboratory to stage was gradual. She was fine with science coursework but less enamoured of the data-input duties that clinical studies entailed.

“It’s very hands on,” she explained backstage. “That’s what I really like.”

Feeling nostalgic for the extracurricular theatre and choir activities she enjoyed in high school, McPhee approached the Hart House Theatre late in her second year. As a University College student, she also volunteered for the UC Follies. But not as a performer.

“I don’t like being on stage in front of people at all,” McPhee said. “I don’t want to be looked at. But I really like being part of the production and seeing all the parts that make it work.”

McPhee thinks her grounding in science helped her as a young theatre professional.

“You have to have time-management skills,” she said. “In labs, it’s all about recovering information, knowing what has happened at every moment. So when you write the lab report you can say, ‘Oh, at this time it was like this.’

“It is similar in the theatre. You have to know that in this scene, at this time, this person is standing here. And they have this prop, and they’re wearing this costume.”

While the position of stage manager might conjure an image of someone scurrying behind the curtain and yelling “five minutes!,” McPhee in fact spends much of her time at a control panel.

As an assistant stage manager she became well acquainted with on-stage mishaps, including wardrobe malfunctions. Duelling and scuffling were abundant in the 2014 Hart House production of Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet).

“So many Shakespearean doublets,” McPhee recalled. “I probably sewed every button on.”

While the director is formally in charge during rehearsals, the stage manager has the unstated duty of making sure that people are present and paying attention.

“After the show starts running, it becomes your show,” McPhee explains. “In some professional situations, they have a formal handing over for duties, with everyone on stage.”

Personal interaction, in McPhee’s view, is what most distinguishes the theatre from the laboratory.

“This aspect doesn’t really exist in the sciences,” she says. “It’s very much a solitary field. I’ve always liked working with people.”

Her philosophy: respect begets respect. “Some people believe that actors are like children and have to be coddled. I think if you treat people like adults, they’ll step up to that.”

Doug Floyd, general manager of the Hart House Theatre, regards McPhee as a natural.

“She gets the job done with a quiet confidence that builds trust with a company. This is what the very best stage managers do. Lucy has that gift.”

He also regards McPhee as part of the Hart House Theatre family.

“Lucy as a student fully immersed herself into the environment. She had the opportunity to work with some really terrific stage managers and absorbed that information and know-how like a sponge.

“Drama or theatre may not have been part of her academic pursuits at U of T but she left learning a trade, a craft. This is experiential learning at its best.”

"Much Ado About Nothing" plays until Nov. 19 at the Hart House Theatre.

Developing a bot for Microsoft: U of T undergrad's summer internship

lanthierj — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 11:46:10 +0000

Developing a bot for Microsoft: U of T undergrad's summer internship

lanthierj Wed, 11/02/2016 - 07:46

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U of T undergrad Ankita Singal worked at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Wash., this past summer

Arthur Kaptainis

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Arthur Kaptainis

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Our Community

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Internship

Microsoft

If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to spend a summer interning at the headquarters of Microsoft, just ask undergrad Ankita Singal.

Singal is now in her second-year at the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, but she spent last summer in Redmond, Wash., as an Explore Microsoft Intern.

“I’m not an Xbox addict,” Singal said. “I actually don’t own one. But I am a Windows user. I was accustomed to using Windows, so it worked well.”

How did a first-year student land such a prestigious, paid internship? Singal started by dropping off her resumé at the Microsoft booth at the 2015 Fall Career Fair – an annual project of the student-run You’re Next Career Network.

But is it literature? U of T experts on Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize

lavende4 — Fri, 14 Oct 2016 15:35:14 +0000

But is it literature? U of T experts on Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize

lavende4 Fri, 10/14/2016 - 11:35

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Bob Dylan performing at a musical festival in western France in 2012 (photo by Fred Tanneau/Getty images)

Arthur Kaptainis

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The Swedish Academy stunned the world and delighted music enthusiasts of many generations on Thursday by awarding the Nobel Prize in Literature to celebrated singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.

The news is making headlines here at home and around the world. (Read U of T's Ira Wells in The Globe and Mail and The National Post)

U of T News spoke to Robin Elliott, professor of musicology and Jean A. Chalmers Chair in Canadian Music; Don McLean, professor and dean of the Faculty of Music; Ken McLeod, associate professor of music and culture at U of T Scarborough; and Ira Wells, a sessional instructor in American literature in the department of English.

Is this a surprising award?

Ira Wells: It is rare for an American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. The last was Toni Morrison in 1993. And obviously Dylan is the first pop singer. Many recent Nobel literature laureates have been niche figures, known only in literary circles. It is rare that you get a celebrity on these lists, especially someone of Dylan’s magnitude.

Ken McLeod: I think it’s wonderful that a singer-songwriter has been recognized for the quality and impact of lyrics. Going back to the ancient Greeks, the great narrative epics were accompanied and enhanced by music. The ability to write literature and/or poetry as an adjunct to music has been highly prized in classical music from the criticism of Robert Schumann, the narratives of Berlioz and, perhaps most prominently, in the works of Richard Wagner, who is celebrated for having written both the texts and music for his music dramas.

But do lyrics on their own count as literature?

Ira Wells: There is a relatively simple way of addressing that question. Do the lyrics yield multiple interpretations? Is it possible to read these lyrics and come up with multiple interpretations that would reward serious, close reading? That is a baseline for a university professor deciding whether or not something counts as literature. It is indisputably the case that Dylan’s best songs – "Like a Rolling Stone," "Visions of Johanna," "Every Grain of Sand" – meet this threshold.

Don McLean: Popular-music lyrics across a wide range of genres make up arguably the most significant poetic form of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Lieder and folksong-derived nationalisms of the long 19th century remained confined largely to arts-circle and upper-middle-class elites. Sound reproduction paved the way for the radio and record industries, without which the ubiquity of popular music is unthinkable. For many, American and British popular music became the iconic poetics and affective underpinning of the age, which is in part why relationships to music and artists are so nostalgia- and memory-driven.

Ken McLeod: In an age of – I would argue – declining emphasis on meaningful lyrical content in popular music, it is nice to see that indeed words can and do matter (with apologies to Donald Trump). Even though it is clear that many listeners mishear a large percentage of Dylan’s lyrics in his recordings (as indeed is the case for many pop music recordings).

There are many Dylans. Is he still equated substantially with the early protest songs?

Ira Wells: For many of his most ardent fans, Dylan has never really outgrown that phase of his career. "The Times They Are A-Changin" and "Blowin’ in the Wind": that is what Bob Dylan is. In fact, that protest period lasted only a few years. By the mid-1960s he had become something quite different. Bringing It All Back Home and Blonde on Blonde are more or less apolitical albums.

This is what is fascinating about Dylan as a cultural figure. He has changed so many times. And he has not only changed, he seems almost in a perverse way to react against the expectations and desires of his audience. Just when people are starting to celebrate him as a folk protest singer, he plugs in and becomes a rock 'n' roll star. Just when rock 'n' roll becomes culturally accepted in the late 1960s, he reinvents himself as a country song writer in Nashville Skyline. When we move into disco and punk in the late 1970s, Bob Dylan becomes a Christian gospel singer.

Is this contrarianism a literary quality?

Ira Wells: It certainly implies that he is not abiding by market imperatives. It suggests that there is something else going on. He is not responding to the marketplace as did the other well-known musical acts of his generation: The Rolling Stones, U2, Paul McCartney. Dylan rises above the marketplace. And he defies expectations in a manner that seems almost deliberately calibrated to alienate his fans. If you have ever seen him in concert, he almost never addresses the audience. He makes no attempt to entertain you. He does his thing, and you either get it or you don’t.

How will other musicians react to this?

Don McLean: Dylan was, and is, considered hugely influential by many contemporary and later musicians. I have heard this directly from Joni Mitchell and Patti Smith. The Beatles’s lyrics and generic mimicking were puerile until they started breathing at Dylan depth. These artists use song as the chariot of poetry. As with Dylan, the music bears the lyrics forward and gives them a halo of reflective complexity not always evident in the text itself.

Would it be valid to call Dylan a revolutionary?

Don McLean: The idea of “game changers” and stylistic “revolutionary steps forward” in popular music always seems improbable to classically-trained musicians, on harmonic grounds alone. But Bob Dylan’s lyrics, music and performances – "Like a Rolling Stone," "Mr. Tambourine Man," "Every Grain of Sand" – his folk-blasting electrification and his gravelly but never grovelling voice-of-God delivery have all given many cause for pause.

Does the Dylan victory give Canada hope for a Nobel? Or at least make it possible to view lyrics more critically?

Robin Elliott: Leonard Cohen would be the nearest Canadian equivalent to Bob Dylan. Both were poet-songwriters who negotiated the boundaries between folk and pop music while capturing the Zeitgeist of the 1960s and beyond. Both have received widespread acclaim and recognition for both their literary and musical activity over the past five decades and more.

Saving the planet with carbon dioxide – U of T hosts gathering of experts on climate change

lanthierj — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 19:40:47 +0000

Saving the planet with carbon dioxide – U of T hosts gathering of experts on climate change

lanthierj Fri, 10/07/2016 - 15:40

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(photo by Isengardt via flickr)

Arthur Kaptainis

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Arthur Kaptainis

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Faculty of Forestry

Faculty of Arts & Science

Its official title is Transformative Research to Combat Climate Change but Professor Geoffrey Ozin dubs it “the Woodstock of carbon dioxide”.

On October 12, experts from around the world will gather at the ��߲ݴ�ý for a cross-disciplinary look at one of the biggest challenges humanity faces. And they’re finding hope where many of us might not think to look: greenhouse gases.

“I think you can call this the Woodstock of carbon dioxide in Ontario,” says Ozin.

A University Professor in the department of chemistry, Ozin will give a presentation entitled CO2 Chemistry and Engineering Solutions to Climate Change.

Learn more about the event

Possibly the most widely reviled compound on the planet thanks to its effect on the environment, carbon dioxide is seen by most people as nothing more than a byproduct of fossil fuel consumption. But Ozin is one of a number of scientists who look at the most famous of greenhouse gases as a potential source of energy.

“Just as you recycle plastic, glass and paper, why not recycle carbon dioxide?” Ozin asks.

It won't happen overnight, Ozin says. At the core of the problem is the chemical stability of carbon dioxide. Energy must be applied to the molecule, preferably from renewable sources, to transform it into a fuel or product (manufacturing being a secondary aim of carbon-dioxide researchers).

It’s a process that could be compared to photosynthesis, the natural process by which plants generate energy from carbon dioxide and water. And the parallel has made biochemists and even forestry experts part of the CO2 research endeavour.

“There are many ways to tackle the climate change challenge, or, I would say, fight the climate change war,” says Professor Mohini Sain, dean of the Faculty of Forestry, which is the host of the conference.

“The Paris Agreement took two pathways: mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and reduction of fossil-fuel consumption. What we are saying at the ��߲ݴ�ý is that there are other ways of doing this.

“We are bringing in a third paradigm: Use CO2 as a resource, just as we have used petroleum as a resource.”

Ontario Minister of the Environment and Climate Control Glenn Murray is set to open the event at U of T's Faculty Club. Speakers include a nanochemistry authority from Penn State University; a representative of the National Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC); and several alternative-energy company executives, as well as the director of alternative fuel platform management for Volvo trucks. Peter Styring, professor of chemical engineering and chemistry at the University of Sheffield and director of the UK Centre for Carbon Dioxide Utilization will deliver the plenary speech.

Ozin says it makes sense for Ford Canada to sponsor a conference dedicated to finding alternatives to fossil fuels.

“Can you imagine the pressure that the automobile industry is under?” he asks. “They put out 35 per cent of the emissions in the city. There are strict controls coming along. They have to figure them out. As do all the CO2 industries.”

The CO2 economy is a complex subject in its own right and Ozin does not hesitate to use the modifier “utopian” to describe his long-term thinking. But the basic goal is to turn CO2 into to a commodity with value.

“The beauty is this,” he says. “Fossil fuel will run out. Carbon dioxide will be recycled for the rest of time.”

Sain foresees a cohort of young scientists occupying this research area, both in universities and in corporate research departments. He expects some will migrate from crowded fields where research is taking a traditional approach to the CO2 dilemma.

“We want to make it happen,” he says. “Not only from the research point of view, but making a transition to demonstrating its viability.”

(Visit flickr to see the original of the photo used above)

#UofTBTS16: Co-curricular record helps boost your U of T experience

ullahnor — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 19:14:17 +0000

#UofTBTS16: Co-curricular record helps boost your U of T experience

ullahnor Thu, 09/15/2016 - 15:14

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(Photo by Ken Jones)

Arthur Kaptainis

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As you work on a university degree, keep in mind that academics may not always be enough.

A co-curricular record can help complement what you do in the classroom with workplace experiences and skills.

The co-curricular record (CCR), which began in 2013, is an online centralized directory of activities for which students on all three campuses can get formal recognition for everything from work study jobs to volunteer work, regardless of whether they are pursuing an undergraduate or graduate degree.

“It’s a validated document, from the university, and signed by the vice-provost,” says David Newman, U of T’s senior director of student experience.

There are now more than 10,000 students at U of T with co-curricular records.

Look through the directory and learn more about the program

The program allows students to track and showcase their experiences, contributions and skills. And Newman says it’s the kind of thing employers and admission officers for graduate and professional programs like to see.

Listen to a U of T student talking about the program

The paid and unpaid opportunities that can qualify a student for a formal co-curricular record include orientation coordinators, resident dons and mentors. Work-study jobs are on the list as are membership in a Varsity sports team and titled positions with student clubs. Click here to find a link to your campus’ co-curricular program.

“It’s a great way for students to show that they have been engaged not just in the academic side of the university,” says Susan Froom, a Trinity College philosophy and political science student in her fourth year who is vice-president of the association of part-time undergraduate students.

Pier Angeli Taruc, a third-year Woodsworth College life sciences student is working this year as an ASKme orientation consultant, a position that is recognized for a co-curricular record. She hopes the range of activities will be expanded, in her case positions that will help with getting into medical school.

Along with searching for positions that could fit a potential career choice, keep in mind that first-year students are encouraged at orientation to subscribe to Blueprint, a series of workshops related to health and wellness and academic success. Completing the Blueprint program is recognized by CCR.

So are activities for Alternative Reading Week, organized by the Centre for Community Partnerships.

“It’s a really robust program,” Newman says of this initiative. “We go into about 25 community organizations with about 300 students, generally first- or second-year students.”

#UofTBTS16: Keeping U of T students healthy

ullahnor — Wed, 14 Sep 2016 18:50:00 +0000

#UofTBTS16: Keeping U of T students healthy

ullahnor Wed, 09/14/2016 - 14:50

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U of T's Health and Wellness Centre is located on the second floor of the Koffler Student Services Centre (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Krisha Ravikantharaja

Arthur Kaptainis

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Arthur Kaptainis and Krisha Ravikantharaja

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Watching friends struggle with stress, family problems and mental illness without anyone to talk to led Faraz Honarvar to get involved with U of T student clubs focused on mental health.

Karen Young, a psychology and health studies student at U of T Scarborough, started Minds Matter Magazine devoted solely to mental health issues because she saw a real need out there for not only students, but also faculty, staff and alumni.

With a growing focus on mental health research as well as services across the university, there are many supports for students who may be dealing with what may feel like insurmountable challenges.

Students can access counselling services across all three campuses: on the downtown Toronto campus at the Health & Wellness Centre in the Koffler Student Services Centre; at U of T Scarborough's Health & Wellness Centre and at U of T Mississauga's Health & Counselling Centre.

Along with these centres, many faculties host their own programs. The Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education launched the Mental Health and Physical Activity Research Centre (MPARC), which is dedicated to the promotion of mental health through exercise.

#UofTBTS16: Classroom upgrades coming to a room near you

ullahnor — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 16:42:54 +0000

#UofTBTS16: Classroom upgrades coming to a room near you

ullahnor Fri, 09/09/2016 - 12:42

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Engineering students learn at one of many video screens in a newly renovated classroom (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

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Students returning to school may see wider seats, more writing space – and get this – electrical outlets within reach to charge laptops and phones.

This school year, a handful of classrooms at the St. George campus have the new amenities. In eight years, U of T administrators hope to have all of the classes retrofitted with new furniture and amenities that are timed to bring U of T into a new era of teaching and learning.

“Modern day learners need power, more comfortable seats and more writing space,” said Steve Bailey, director of Academic and Campus Events. “The intent is that in eight years, we’ll have gone through all the classrooms on campus, transforming the instructional landscape.”

As part of the program, the university is also looking at creating more active (also known as interactive) learning spaces. So, gone are the blackboards at the front of the classroom. You won’t see rectangular desks lined up in rows.

Instead, think of hexagonal shaped desks that invite more student collaboration. And video screens and whiteboards hanging on multiple walls that allow for students to display their work and more teacher-student interaction.

This year the university is piloting a second renovated active learning space at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education building on Bloor Street. There's a similarly retrofitted classroom at the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering’s Sanford Fleming building.

Once they’ve solicited faculty feedback, university officials will see whether more classrooms like this should be created across the campus. Right now, the goal is to add to the active learning spaces planned for the new Centre for Engineering Innovation and Entreprenuership in the next two years.

“It’s about recognizing that instruction in the current form takes many capacities,” Bailey said. “For some people, lecturing is the way to do it. For other people, it’s not about lecture theatres. They want to do more active learning. We’re introducing these spaces to the teaching community and then getting feedback from them on what works and what doesn’t work.”

With the St. George campus alone home to 300 classrooms, some rooms over the years have been upgraded but more than 200 instructional spaces remain unchanged. Investments are planned over the next few years to upgrade and revitalize the rooms. The cost is estimated at $12 million, paid through both the operating budget and income generated from renting out university spaces.

The upgrades can’t happen all at once. They need to be spaced out, taking place mostly during the quieter summer months when not all classrooms are in use. There are more classrooms expected to be upgraded over the winter break as well.

In the eight upgraded classrooms located across St. George – at Galbraith, Health Sciences, McLennan Physical Laboratories, Medical Sciences, Ramsey Wright, Sanford Fleming, Sid Smith and OISE – students will see wider, more comfortable seats.

In smaller classrooms, stiff chairs have been replaced with comfortable bucket seats that can move. In larger lecture halls, the chairs still may be fixed but can swing around or have more room, making it easier for students to get in and out of their seat.

The small kidney-shaped desks have also been upgraded with in some cases flat tabletops, and in other cases wider writing surfaces – to accommodate laptops.

Where possible, for every seat in a renovated classroom, there is an electrical outlet.

Student feedback has made it clear that charging capacity is essential, Bailey said.

Along with the upgrades to the classroom, Bailey’s office is working with faculties on a new approach to classroom assignment – one that considers a professor’s needs in the classroom rather than focusing on their faculty assignment first.

“It’s a two-parter,” Bailey said. “We need a commitment to invest in our classrooms. But we also need a plan and direction on how we can get the right people in the right space.”

#UofTBTS16: Financial supports keep students focused

ullahnor — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 18:43:24 +0000

#UofTBTS16: Financial supports keep students focused

ullahnor Tue, 08/30/2016 - 14:43

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Scholarships helped Marie Trotter stay involved in drama and theatre activities on campus (Johnny Guatto photo)

Arthur Kaptainis

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Arthur Kaptainis

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Our Community

Back to School

Undergraduate Students

Financial Aid

Faculty of Arts & Science

Without academic scholarships offered by the ��߲ݴ�ý, Marie Trotter would have spent all her free time over the last three years working part-time jobs to pay for school.

The aspiring theatre director would have been unable to pour time and energy into her true passion — drama.

Trotter, who is the executive producer of the UC Follies, the oldest student company on campus, is one of many students who receive financial support to attend U of T. In fact, thousands of U of T students – more than 1,800 from the Faculty of Arts & Science alone – receive help to pay for their academic program.

“I have no doubt that my university experience would be very different without this support,” says Trotter, who has worked part-time jobs since Grade 11 and taken no student loans.

At U of T, spending on student assistance (including needs-based grants, scholarships and fellowships) was estimated to be about $193 million in 2015-2016. Over the years, financial supports for students have increased, going up from $109.9 million in 2007-2008. In addition to U of T’s grants, scholarships and fellowships, students acquired $260 million in loans and grants from the Ontario Student Assistance Program.

This year, the Ontario government announced that low-income students at post-secondary institutions like U of T will be getting their education for free. More than any other university in Ontario, U of T admits a higher percentage of students from families earning less than $50,000.

“There is no doubt in my mind that our dedication to access, while easily justified as a social policy, pays great dividends in quality and diversity,” said University Vice-President and Provost Cheryl Regehr. “We want top performers regardless of their background or financial circumstances. We believe increased access makes us stronger.”

Financial aid from university sources greatly lowers the actual outlay for students facing financial need. The “net tuition” paid by U of T undergraduates who received OSAP was, on average, 51 per cent of the posted tuition rates.

“To be supporting almost half of tuition expenses for so many undergraduates is clearly a remarkable accomplishment,” Regehr said.

For Trotter, who will be going into her fourth year, pursuing a double major in English and drama, her academic scholarships fully paid for her tuition and partially for textbooks and supplies in her first year. Since then, she has received other smaller scholarships over the years that have helped her stave off additional part time work, instead freeing up time for extracurricular opportunities in theatre and drama.

Last year she directed Rope, the 1929 play by Patrick Hamilton that inspired the Hitchcock movie, for the Trinity College Dramatic Society. As part of U of T's work-study program, she is based at the Centre for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies, helping with the Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse. She hopes her drama and theatre experiences will help her build a solid profile that can one day help her land a job as a theatre producer or director.

Students looking for more information about student aid can contact your college or faculty admissions office. Click here and here for more details about government aid, scholarships and bursaries.

#Rio2016: U of T cheers for its Olympic athletes

krisha — Fri, 05 Aug 2016 20:07:40 +0000

#Rio2016: U of T cheers for its Olympic athletes

krisha Fri, 08/05/2016 - 16:07

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Christine Sinclair #12 of Canada scores their second goal during the match between Canada and Australia womens football for the summer olympics at Arena Corinthians on August 3, 2016 in Sao Paulo, Brazil (photo by Alexandre Schneider/Getty Images)

Arthur Kaptainis

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Arthur Kaptainis

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Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

The excitement started even before the opening ceremonies – with a 2-0 victory by the Canadian women’s soccer team over Australia on the first day of competition.

But which athletes and teams will ��߲ݴ�ý students and faculty be cheering for at the 2016 Summer Olympics Games in Rio de Janeiro?

“Team Canada, of course,” said Ayesha Ali. A third-year student from University College at the Faculty of Arts & Science, Ali works the welcome desk at the Goldring Centre for High Performance Sport. She likes swimming – where Canadians appear to have good chances – and track and field events of all types.

As a global health major, Ali is less impressed with the measures undertaken by the authorities. The Zika virus threat needs to be taken more seriously, she says.

“They’re telling people to come at their own discretion,” Ali said. “I wouldn’t feel safe going there.

‘The [Brazilian] government could definitely do more to make sure its citizens as well as tourists are protected. And the Olympic organization could have been better prepared.”

Melanie Yu, a Rotman Commerce student who is president of the student-run ��߲ݴ�ý Sports and Business Association (UTSB), counts herself among the thousands of U of T people (and perhaps millions of Canadians) with a special affection for 2012 gold medalist Rosie MacLennan – the Kinesiology & Physical Education grad student and two-time trampoline Olympian who was named flag bearer for Canada.

“I can't wait to watch her bring home gold,” Yu said. “Her story is so inspiring and I think she is such a great role model.”

Yu’s favourite sport, however, is basketball. “It's exciting to see the Canadian team back in action again,” she said of the women’s squad from which so much is expected.

“And Canadian pride aside, I'm also looking forward to watching the U.S. basketball teams – both men and women – as they have many superstars on both teams.”

To say Dr. Doug Richards, medical director of David L. MacIntosh Sport Medicine Clinic, is a supporter of the Canadian women’s basketball team is putting it mildly. This associate professor at the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education (KPE) was the team physician from 1987 until after the London Olympics of 2012.

Richards has treated the five newcomers to the basketball team as well as the seven veterans of 2012. “They are legitimate medal contenders,” he says.

Richards also likes the chances of the Canadian Beach Volleyball teams. Again, his opinion has some authority, Richards having served as team physician from 1997 to 2014 and knowing well the three U of T alumni on the teams (Heather Bansley, Josh Binstock and Kristina Valjas) who played indoor volleyball for the Varsity Blues.

Richards’s wife, Blues volleyball coach Kristine Drakich, has coached both Bansley and Valjas. His brother-in-law Ed Drakich, a former Blues coach, is the technical director of the Olympic Beach Volleyball event, a role Drakich played also in Beijing, London and in the Toronto 2015 Pan Am and Parapan Am Games.

And as chief medical officer of the Canadian Sport Institute Ontario, situated on the ��߲ݴ�ý Scarborough campus, he has frequent interaction with swimmers and wheelchair basketball athletes. Both the Canadian men and women wheelchair teams have qualified for Rio Paralympics.

“Of course I will be interested in many of the U of T and KPE alums in other sports,” Richards adds. “Rosie MacLennan, Michelle Li (badminton) and Kylie Masse (swimming) have all been among my students in two undergrad KPE courses. The first two on that list have been my patients. I will be rooting them all along.”

Not all the enthusiasm is confined to Canada. Yu reports that she and many of her UTSB colleagues are fans of the British track and field star Jessica Ennis-Hill, who will be competing in the heptathlon. “She’s overcome various injuries throughout the years and also gave birth in 2014 but is looking to retain the Olympic title,” Yu observes.

Vice-president and principal of U of T Scarborough Bruce Kidd, a former Olympian, says he will be following the fortunes of Dutee Chand (India, 100 metres) and Caster Semanya (South Africa, 800 metres) with special interest. These runners have been the subject of controversy owing to their failure to meet the International Olympic Committee’s former hyperandrogenism regulations – which Chand overturned through an appeal to the International Court of Arbitration for Sport.

“Both women have been vilified in the media and ostracized by some members of the sports community,” says Kidd, a leading figure in the campaign to abolish the Olympic sex test. “They will no doubt face extra pressure in Rio.

“Yet they have persisted, kept their heads high and made the Olympic standard to qualify for Rio. They are such remarkable and courageous women, I will be cheering loudly for them.”

Kidd will also be solidly behind the U of T students and alumni competing in Rio, many of whom he knows personally and has taught. “Such a thoughtful, determined and unassuming champion,” he says of modern pentathlete Donna Vakalis.

As well as Binstock, Li and MacLennan, Kidd mentions Crispin Duenas (archery) and four women from the U of T Track Club: Alicia Brown, Micha Powell, Andrea Seccafien and Gabriela Stafford. “I admire these athletes so much.”

Water quality in Rio has generated some headlines but the more enduring Olympic problem is doping. Richards, who has lectured on the subject in various courses, feels that progress is being made.

“While the recent spat of positive re-tests and scandals emerging from Russia, Kenya, Jamaica and elsewhere could add fuel to a cynic's fire, I am more of a glass-half-full optimistic kind of guy,” he said. “I think the IOC faced a very difficult decision, both legally and ethically, as do the various international sport federations that are now dealing with each sport and its Russian athletes on a case-by-case basis.”

Canadian athletes, he adds, are consistently among the cleanest in the world.

For Professor Ira Jacobs, dean of the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education, part of the thrill of Rio is waiting to see if – or more likely when – the next plateau in human performance is reached.

“I invariably get quite excited just before and during each and every Olympic and Paralympic Games,” he said. “On one level that excitement is because of the emotional high of seeing true excellence in a human endeavour personified in the remarkable athletes regardless of their nationality.

“On a professional level, my exercise physiology research has involved the study of physiological capacities and limitations. As dean, I also closely follow the sports-focused research of my colleagues in the social sciences and humanities. So I think I have a good grasp of the magnitude of both physical and cognitive training that goes into the preparation of a high-performance athlete.

“Yet in every Games there is at least one remarkable performance that has me questioning my knowledge and leading me to ask: ‘How is that performance possible?’

“I’m quite excited to see when the question first materializes during the Rio Games. And hoping it will be associated with a Canadian athlete’s performance!”

Innovations in teaching: Alex Motut

lavende4 — Mon, 25 Jul 2016 18:22:55 +0000

Innovations in teaching: Alex Motut

lavende4 Mon, 07/25/2016 - 14:22

Cutline

Alex Motut (right) and some of the students in her LIN204 English Grammar course (Arthur Kaptainis photo)

Arthur Kaptainis

Author legacy

Arthur Kaptainis

Topic

Our Community

Undergraduate Education

Linguistics

Faculty of Arts & Science

Teaching

Subheadline

Mans are enrolling in this U of T linguistics course

Alex Motut, a PhD candidate in linguistics, is speaking to a class of about 90 in a lecture hall that normally services chemistry students.

“Does anybody remember what the definition of conversion is?” she asks.

A keener with a baseball cap in the front row supplies the answer: the process a word undergoes when it moves from one part of speech to another.

“Tweet converted from a noun to a verb,” Motut continues, choosing an example that all present could surely appreciate. “Facebook, on the other hand, has never been anything but a noun.”

The classic and the contemporary often converge in LIN204, English Grammar, one of the most popular offerings of the department of linguistics in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

As the syllabus makes abundantly clear, the point of the course is to analyze English, not enable its acquisition as a second language. All the same, most of the students who enroll are bilingual or trilingual undergraduates in disciplines other than linguistics who seek further insight into to the lingua franca of U of T and the wider world.

Not that BBC (or CBC) English is the only variety considered. Several minutes of this lecture are devoted to a discussion of the emergence of “man” as a street pronoun adaptable to multiple persons, genders and numbers. (“It’s her personality man’s looking at,” was a high-minded example expressed in the first person singular.)

Jenny Cheshire, a British linguistics scholar, has studied “man” as a phenomenon in multicultural London English. Now Derek Denis, a U of T alumnus affiliated with the University of Victoria, is working on its recent manifestations in Toronto speech, tweets and texts.

As the issue of “man” indicates, the study of linguistics today is primarily a matter of description, not prescription – however the followers of Henry Watson Fowler might prefer a more rule-driven approach.

“As linguists we don’t care so much about punctuation errors,” Motut, whose dissertation concerns syntactic theory, said in her office in Sidney Smith Hall. “We care about the structure, the mental grammar, the cognitive representation of language.”

This is not to say that description and prescription do not intersect. A sentence that is missing an object or verb will be classified as ungrammatical by descriptivists and prescriptivists alike.

For all its dedication to systematic analysis, linguistics relies heavily on intuition. Often a discussion in LIN204 starts with a consensus on whether a sentence or phrase sounds right or wrong.

“‘Dog is running down the street’ doesn’t sound so good,” Motut declares, and no one disagrees. A singular common noun usually needs a determiner or quantifier. (The, my, every and no are examples of valid candidates.)

How about “the red small parrot”? Good or no good?

Murmurs rise to a crescendo of animated chatter. No good. “Small red parrot” is how it should go.

“This is thought to be universal,” Motut points out. “The ‘colour’ adjective is closer to the head noun than the ‘size’ adjective.” Several speakers of languages other than English confirm this observation.

Yet another question: why do the sentences “I went to the bank” and “I went to the store” sound fine with definite articles when there is no reason to suppose the listener is familiar with the bank or store being referred to?

One student offers the theory that such sentences are holdovers from a simpler time when there would be only one bank or store in town. Another suggests that noun phrases like “the bank” are really abstract despite the specific look of the construction.

It is clear from the lively debate that most of the students – whatever their reasons for enrolling – are fully engaged in the subject.

Two fourth-year computer science specialists sitting near the back could be heard comparing sentences as the class dispersed. Both confessed to finding LIN 204 more thought-provoking than they expected it to be.

“Originally – and this might be a little offensive – we thought it might be an easier course, a break from our core courses,” said Sina Ghaffari, who arrived from Iran as a two-year-old and speaks Farsi as well as English.

“But honestly, it ended up being something I’m interested in. And it could be applied to some aspects of computer science, such as language processing.”

His friend Afsheen Rane, a native of India who retains only a smattering of Hindi, made the point that schooling these days in grammar is rudimentary at best. “What’s a noun, what’s a preposition: sure, this was taught,” Rane said. “But this is new material.”

Motut is aware that few of the computer science, engineering, economics and mathematics students who pack LIN204 semester after semester will pursue linguistics as a minor. No matter.

“I suspect that they hear by word of mouth that it’s an interesting and not super-difficult breadth requirement course,” she said. “But once they’re there, I feel I do have their attention.”

Arthur Kaptainis

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Innovations in teaching: Alex Motut