Janet Rowe

How U of T alumna Rosemary Sadlier convinced Canada to recognize Black History Month

geoff.vendeville — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 16:23:30 +0000

How U of T alumna Rosemary Sadlier convinced Canada to recognize Black History Month

geoff.vendeville Wed, 02/02/2022 - 11:23

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(Photo courtesy of Rosemary Sadlier)

Janet Rowe

Topic

City & Culture

Black History Month

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

In 1995, ��߲ݴ�ý alumna Rosemary Sadlier led the drive to have Black History Month recognized across Canada. As volunteer president of the Ontario Black History Society, she worked tirelessly to expand awareness and win official acknowledgement. Now both Black History Month in February and Emancipation Day on Aug. 1 have been declared national events.

The author, advocate and consultant – who earned degrees in social work and education from U of T – recently spoke with writer Janet Rowe about what it took to create a national declaration, writing books in the wee hours of the night and the ongoing work needed to better recognize Canada’s Black history.

What are your memories from your time as a U of T student?

I got a master’s degree in social work, and then I got a bachelor’s degree in education. I also have completed all of my coursework towards my doctorate. A range of factors prevented me from finishing, including that I was unemployed and couldn’t afford to, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t.

Working my way through school was challenging. For example, there were only five Black students in the Faculty of Social Work, and of the five I was the only one who was generationally Canadian. And one challenge was I couldn’t take the placement that was offered, because I had to factor in travel time because I was also working. I took a placement with the Y instead.

But I remember with great fondness some incredible profs, and it really was an opportunity to be able to explore and consider so much about the significance of social work. Later, at OISE [the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education], people were also lovely. I had David Booth – what a fantastic prof! Nobody missed his classes.

My social work degree reinforced some of my abilities in terms of what I did with community, my teaching degree helped underscore some of what I did in terms of writing and my doctoral coursework helped to bring about a greater understanding of some overarching issues. I think all of those things are valuable.

How did you become involved with the Ontario Black History Society?

When I got my social work degree I was highly motivated to work for the Children’s Aid Society, because I was going to build change from within. But I could never get past the gatekeeper.

I wanted to believe that, if I have the qualifications, of course I will be hired. But I couldn’t even get interviews. That was really hard. And I think people don’t understand. People think it’s you and people don’t understand that you apply and you do your best, and you just don’t get in.

So, I was thrust into unpaid work. Not because I’m a saint, but because I needed something that was meaningful to me to do. I got married and had three lovely children, and I also volunteered with the Ontario Black History Society (OBHS). And then I got to a meeting on time, quite by chance, and found myself president. It wasn’t like I was looking for a critical responsibility, but I looked the situation over and decided that I absolutely needed to do this. I looked upon it as an opportunity to make change in a different way.

What was the status of Black History Month at the time you began volunteering for the OBHS?

I didn’t create Black History Month as a commemoration. It had started in the United States in 1926 and came to Canada in the 1950s with the porters – Black men, mainly Canadian, who worked on the railways running between Canada and the U.S. So it was a celebration in the Black community in the 1950s, and the very first commemoration was done by the Canadian Negro Women’s Association. It was brought into the mainstream through the efforts of the OBHS at its beginnings in 1978-79.

When I became president in late 1992, I found out that we had apparently missed a deadline to request that the City of Toronto issue a proclamation for February as Black History Month. We were able to make sure that that proclamation wasn’t overlooked. But we also realized that it was so precarious. It just seemed like the clear thing to do was to try to secure this as a more permanent, annual thing.

How did you help push the federal government to recognize Black History Month?

I pushed for Black History Month to be permanently recognized by the City of Toronto. And then I did the same with the province of Ontario, then with every province in the country. Then I went to people in the federal government – all while building up a community of interest by going out and doing hundreds of Black History Month presentations.

Ultimately, Jean Augustine [Canada's first Black female MP and a U of T alumna] agreed to take it to the House. That was in 1995, and I remember I had to drop everything and provide historical information that she could use in support. It passed unanimously in December, and the first celebration took place in February 1996.

I was there on stage with Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, Deputy PM Sheila Copps, and Jean Augustine, Ovid Jackson and the Black Caucus. I gave a presentation and provided the prime minister with a framed art print which became the OBHS’s official Black History Month poster for that year. It was quite phenomenal, and I was really, really proud.

You also succeeded in having the federal government recognize Emancipation Day on Aug. 1 – but that took more than 25 years.

Yes, around the same time I started a process of having Aug. 1 commemorated as Emancipation Day, which marks the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade on Aug. 1,1834. But then our funding was cut 90 per cent, and all of our efforts went to just trying to keep the OBHS alive. I agreed to do every Black History occasion anyone asked me to do, so that the payment for those presentations would go to the OBHS. That’s how we kept the doors open.

But I was successful having Aug. 1 commemorated as Emancipation Day with the City of Toronto and the City of Ottawa, and ultimately it became the first unanimously passed bill in the Ontario parliament. Federally, it went to second reading twice in the House and twice in the Senate and it didn’t go through until March of 2021.

Your books are also an invaluable (and best-selling) resource about Black history. How did you find time to write?

I was approached by a publisher and asked to write a book and I agreed. I felt it was important. I had three small children – my son was almost born at a Black History Month brunch, by the way – and they did not nap at the same time. So I would go to sleep early as soon as the kids were tucked in and the kitchen cleaned up, and I would wake up at two o’clock in the morning, and I would write until six. I did that until the manuscript was completed.

The book was called Leading the Way: Black Women in Canada (Umbrella Press, 1994). There wasn’t a sufficient market for it at the time, but it led to several more until the publisher closed. Then I ended up, again by chance, with another publisher and wrote The Kids Book of Black Canadian History (Kids Can Press, 2003). It was a Canadian bestseller and is still in print.

How would you describe the importance of Black History Month and of teaching Black history in school?

Black History Month is a time and an opportunity to bring a focus to the contributions and experiences of people of African descent. But this question needs to be reframed. Black history is not learned in school. We don’t have a required Black history curriculum anywhere. That should have happened years ago, and it still needs to happen.

Because Black History Month was never conceived of by anyone as being the only time that we talk about Black people. One month is, I think, sometimes incredibly inadequate.

I can’t know how much things have changed, but when I was doing my bachelor’s of education in 1992, there was no Black history in the curriculum for the future teachers. I had the opportunity to make a presentation, but my one hour was cut to 10 minutes. So the graduating class of my section were going to go out and face their incredibly diverse classes with nothing but 10 minutes of Black history from a fellow student. The reality is, those were challenging times.

But it wasn’t all hard. I’ve got the Order of Ontario. And I have three lovely children – that’s important. And I’ve been able to see things happen that define and frame and ensure mention of important people, places and things in Black history. That’s important.

With a passion for STEM, U of T recipients of the Schulich Leader Scholarships are flying high

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:13:54 +0000

With a passion for STEM, U of T recipients of the Schulich Leader Scholarships are flying high

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 10/20/2020 - 09:13

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Schulich Leader Scholarships recognize Canadian students with academic excellence who exemplify leadership and embrace STEM fields. The scholarships were awarded to 10 U of T students this year.

Janet Rowe

Topic

Our Community

Computer Science

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Faculty of Arts & Science

Meric Gertler

Schulich Leader Scholarships

St. Michael's College

Adele Crete-Laurence remembers the moment when she really started to feel like a leader. “In air cadets, I worked my way up to second-in-command of the whole squadron,” she says. “As I stood in front of everyone on parade, I thought back to when I first started cadets and thought, ‘That person in the front seems so old! And now, I’m that person’. It was just amazing.”

Leadership skills not only propelled Crete-Laurence to the ��߲ݴ�ý, but also to a prestigious, top-level entrance award: a Schulich Leader Scholarship.

Founded in 2011 by philanthropist Seymour Schulich through the Schulich Foundation, Schulich Leader Scholarships recognize Canadian students with academic excellence who exemplify leadership and embrace the STEM fields – science, technology, engineering and mathematics. In 2020, the Schulich Foundation awarded Schulich Leader Scholarships to 10 U of T students. The scholarships last for four years and are valued at $80,000 for science, technology or mathematics students and $100,000 for engineering students. Recipients become part of the Schulich Leaders Network.

That network excites Crete-Laurence as she embarks on an engineering degree with plans to work on sustainability in aerospace. She says she loves meeting new people. “I’ve had a few experiences in a group with a lot of students that were very driven and had a lot of interests – like me – and it’s always a really energizing experience,” she says. “And I always leave it with just a lot of joy.”

Aaron D’Mello, who is studying computer science and hopes to launch a career in software development and artificial intelligence, agrees. “Meeting the Schulich Leaders from past years over calls online – that’s been great,” he says. With an interest in music, academics and athletics, D’Mello says collaborating with others is a big part of why he loves math so much.

“There’s definitely an answer to most questions, so there’s that instant feedback,” he says. “But even to get the answer, there are so many methods and perspectives you can take. Just collaborating with other people can give you more tools. And when you finally get it …you have so much satisfaction out of finally cracking that problem.”

D’Mello led a team of more than 10 students to initiate a school-board-wide chess tournament in Ontario’s Durham Region – and wrote software to manage the player pairings.

An entrepreneur and a business leader, Schulich is one of Canada’s most generous philanthropists. He has given $200 million to support the Schulich Leader Scholarship endowment and help launch the next generation of technology innovators.

Crete-Laurence hopes to be one of those innovators.

“Recently, I earned my pilot and glider licenses and became very passionate about aviation,” she says. “I know a lot of people say that we shouldn’t fly because it creates emissions, but aviation is a really key industry for travel and for trade, so it’s not effective if we just ignore it. I’m really interested in how we can make it greener and improve the technology through different forms of energy. As I’ve learned more about energy in physics class, I’ve become even more passionate about how technology and going green intersect.”

“Seymour Schulich embodies truly visionary leadership,” says U of T President Meric Gertler. “He sets a wonderful example for these ambitious students, as a successful entrepreneur and a leading light in Canadian philanthropy. “On behalf of the ��߲ݴ�ý, I would like to thank him for enabling these exceptional students to join our academic community. We’re delighted to welcome them to U of T.”

“These inspiring students have the talent and commitment to lead our world to a positive future,” adds Sandy Welsh, the university’s vice-provost, students. “Supporting them in exploring their passions and relieving financial stress allows them to focus on academic achievement and to take advantage of the university’s rich extra-curricular learning environment. We’re tremendously grateful to Mr. Schulich for his vision for educating the best and brightest of Canada’s diverse young generation, and thrilled to do our part in helping them thrive as leaders.”

The students are grateful, too.

“It was incredible to hear I got the Schulich Leader Scholarship,” says D’Mello. “The financial aspect is a really big deal because now I can focus on getting the most out of my education. But also, it’s just a huge honour. I’m really proud of it and I hope that through my education and through my career, I can make Mr. Schulich proud, too.”

“I want to express my true gratitude to Mr. Schulich,” adds Crete-Laurence. “He has really made an impact on me. Being called a leader has renewed my sense of confidence as I go into what I know will be a challenging degree, and I’m going to seize every opportunity that arises for me.”

U of T’s 2020 Schulich Leaders have many accomplishments under their belts, from building apps to schools and businesses. Here are this year’s recipients of the Schulich Leader Scholarship:

Mallory Bond, mathematics and physical sciences, Trinity College

Bond’s dual passions for math and music are just the beginning of her wide-ranging interests, which include competitive choir, ballet, tap dancing, lifeguarding and swim coaching. She’s launched a music program for at-risk youth and helped build a school in Kenya. She says she hopes to continue making a positive impact with the Schulich Leader network.

Aaron D’Mello, computer science, U of T Scarborough

D’Mello doesn’t just love math. As a tutor who’s been volunteering for four years, he helps others appreciate it, too. He’s placed on the honour roll at four University of Waterloo math competitions; inaugurated and managed school-board-wide chess tournaments in Durham Region; and is a track athlete, a top-level pianist, an air cadet and a Reach for the Top alumnus.

Daniel Hocevar, computer science, St. Michael’s College

Hocevar skips his own curling team, playing at the provincial level, and has already founded a tech startup, Curling Analytics – a first step to creating accessible sports analytics apps. In high school, he enjoyed the robotics club and, at U of T, he’s looking forward to diving into artificial intelligence, computer vision and other innovative technologies.

Jessie Ritter, computer science, mathematics and statistics, U of T Mississauga

Ritter hopes to take her entrepreneurial ambitions to the next level at U of T Mississauga. At her home in Bancroft, Ont., she has already created a golf ball business, managed an egg-selling operation, sold her organic produce to supermarkets, looked after 14 beehives and co-led an initiative to feed hungry families.

Matthew Toohey, computer science, University College

With music, travel, gaming, coding, volunteering, audiovisual club, a black belt in karate and even a popsicle stick bridge-building championship on his resume, Toohey brings a well-rounded energy to U of T. He had already built himself a desktop computer by Grade 9, and he’s looking forward to learning about fields such as computer security and privacy at U of T.

Adele Crete-Laurence, engineering science

Crete-Laurence earned pilot and glider licenses as an air cadet, where she rose to second-in-command of her squadron and won the Royal Canadian Legion Cadet Medal of Excellence. And she still found time to debate with the Model United Nations, study piano and sing in a choir. She hopes to make contributions to aerospace engineering and become fully involved with the U of T Engineering community.

Zack Fine, engineering science

Fine didn’t just build his own 3D printer at his high school, he used it to design, build and sell fidget spinners, and founded a 3D printing club for good measure. He was also involved in math and coding clubs, student government and Reach for the Top. He looks forward to getting just as involved in U of T Engineering’s vibrant club and research community.

Aditi Misra, engineering science

From nanomedicine to robotics and sustainability, Misra has already delved into the gamut of engineering initiatives, and looks forward to more collaborations at U of T. Her achievements include a National Academy of Engineering award for her essay proposing a flywheel energy storage system for Mississauga, Ont., as well as a nanomedicine research proposal.

Christopher K.W. Adolphe, engineering science

A goalie for AAA hockey since 2017, Adolphe also found time to co-found a Duke of Edinburgh Club, focused on global citizenship, at his Toronto high school. He has a passion for emerging technological fields such as AI, biotech and virtual reality and has already participated in a project designing tech-driven solutions to mitigate the impact of natural disasters.

Azeem Mohammad, electrical engineering

Joining a drone-building club in high school gave Mohammad a passion for engineering, while years of volunteering fed his interest in helping humanity. He is looking forward to exploring a wide range of topics, meeting other students passionate about engineering, and building a career that allows him to have a positive impact on others.

Architect – and U of T alumnus – designs 'healthier' temporary ICUs for COVID-19 patients

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 01 May 2020 14:11:02 +0000

Architect – and U of T alumnus – designs 'healthier' temporary ICUs for COVID-19 patients

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 05/01/2020 - 10:11

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U of T alumnus Tye Farrow is designing temporary ICUs that are quick and easy to build, and wrap health-promoting features like natural light and isolated logistics corridors into their design (image courtesy of Farrow Partners Architects)

Topic

John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture

They went from a conversation on a Thursday morning to blueprints on Monday and a full-scale prototype built five days later. ��߲ݴ�ý alumnus Tye Farrow, who graduated with a degree in architecture in 1987, and friend Ray Arbesman moved quickly to design temporary intensive care units in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Farrow (left), who is the senior partner at Farrow Partners Inc. and the current president of the U of T Alumni Association, is known for creating buildings that wrap health-promoting features into their design. Arbesman is the founder of Nucap Industries, a global technology company, and the inventor of a novel mechanical system that can bind building materials together.

Together, they’ve developed Solace Rapid Assembly - High Performance COVID-19 Inpatient Bed Solutions, and they're hoping the project could soon help hospitals around the world that are struggling to care for COVID-19 patients.

“Our goal has been to create solutions that are faster, cheaper, smarter, safer, more adaptable to individual hospital needs and importantly – healthier,” says Farrow.

Farrow founded the Cause Health movement to promote designs that nurture complete wellness, incorporating environmental sustainability, cultural sensitivity, a sense of purpose and health-boosting features such as natural materials, fractal shapes, and sunlight.

For example, Farrow designed the Carlo Fidani Regional Cancer Centre with tree-like structures that evoke a person reaching to the sky.

“Spaces can tune basic emotions and background bodily feelings from negative to positive,” says Farrow. “Neurophysiologists call the principle ‘neural mirroring’ – we model, or feel into, feelings we observe in another person.”

He adds that a building environment creates a similar response, so the reaching structures in the Mississauga hospital seek to generate optimism, as well as a sense of life and growth, and an uplifting feeling that you are somewhere special and purposeful.

Farrow is currently earning a master’s degree in neuroscience applied to architecture and design – a field so specialized “I believe I will be the only architect in Canada with this degree,” he says.

“There is scientific evidence that space can be an accelerant or leave us numb. And the human dimension connecting space and performance for medical staff and patients alike is at the top of my mind.”

Farrow’s design for the ICU structures is based on an innovative, never-before used building technique: wood blocks laminated with metal instead of glue. Arbesman, a U of T donor, initially invented the fail-safe, velcro-like technology to build safer car brake pads, but began collaborating with Farrow on possible construction uses about five years ago.

The resulting blocks are as strong as concrete, but lighter and as easy to assemble as Lego. Even unskilled volunteers could build one of the 12-bed ICU units on a parking lot or vacant lot in a few hours, according to Farrow.

Features such as clerestory windows to introduce natural light are designed to lower patient and staff stress, while the unit’s wraparound logistics corridor is environmentally controlled so that workers who service mechanics, electricity and medical gases remain isolated from patient areas.

(image courtesy of Farrow Partners Architects)

Farrow was inspired to improve on other temporary hospital solutions he’d seen on the news. “The environments we build to support our medical staff and patients need to be the meal equivalent to a fruit-, vegetable- and protein-enhanced energy drink smoothie,” he says, “giving you mental energy and clarity, physical strength and resiliency and mind comfort; an accelerant that will help you succeed under stressed conditions.”

Solace launched on April 23. “We already have interest from a range of different organizations in Canada, the U.S. and Israel,” says Farrow. “People are looking at it for the COVID-19 ICU responses, but because it is permanent in character, yet can also be disassembled easily, jurisdictions are also looking at it for other related uses that will need a longer shelf-life solution as we move into the winter.”

“I thought that the grip timber block solution was perfect as it could give a rapid response solution that could be designed to any medical special need, versus a fixed size as with shipping container structures,” he says. “And we can create an enhanced environment for staff and patients alike.

“Working on the project has been very stimulating and it’s satisfying that we will also be able to do our part.”

Champion for sport: meet alumna and paracyclist Shelley Gautier

sgupta — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 10:00:06 +0000

Champion for sport: meet alumna and paracyclist Shelley Gautier sgupta Wed, 08/05/2015 - 06:00

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Shelley Gautier in July, after being chosen for the Parapan Am team (photo by Eric Thibault/Canadian Paralympic Committee)

Janet Rowe

Author legacy

Janet Rowe

Topic

Global Lens

YouTube's Doc Mike Evans

sgupta — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 06:56:04 +0000

YouTube's Doc Mike Evans sgupta Thu, 11/14/2013 - 01:56

Janet Rowe

Author legacy

Janet Rowe

Our Faculty & Staff

Medicine

Health

Subheadline

Professor's viral videos explain health issues

The cartoon face sports a gap-toothed grin and hardly any hair. “I look like Skeletor!” laughs Dr. Michael Evans, a professor in the department of family medicine and public health at the ��߲ݴ�ý.

This is his alter ego: Dr. Mike, whose short videos on exercise, smoking, stress, acne and more have become YouTube sensations.

Dr. Mike sprang from Evans’ research at U of T: he conducted trials on how to summarize medical evidence for a general audience.

“We found that multi-faceted approaches work best,” he says. “So I started Mini-Med School in 2003.”

The U of T lecture series features experts explaining medical topics for a lay audience – with interactive elements such as question periods or interviews with actors playing patients.

The advent of social media provided a new creative outlet for Evans. In 2011, he hired a professional artist and film producer and in December uploaded 23 and 1/2 Hours: What is the single best thing we can do for our health? Charming comic book-style illustrations race across the screen as Dr. Mike’s laid-back voice-over makes the case for exercise.

“I had no social media plan,” says Evans. “I sent it to my hockey team. We had 340 views and I was feeling pretty proud, and then a few days later it went to 17,000 views.”

Although Evans can’t pinpoint why the video took off so quickly, he did do “a bit of an autopsy” on his viral hit. Visual learning seems important, plus the storytelling approach.

“And I’m not ramming it down people’s throats, that they have to do this. It’s sort of like, well, here’s the evidence.”

The dozen films at the DocMikeEvans channel on YouTube now get upwards of 600,000 views a month. Along with cartoons and charts, sound effects add to the mix: teens scream as an acne monster stalks the land, while crunching and munching underscore a comment about diet. Other topics include concussions, diabetes and smoking, and he has plenty more planned: “back pain, weight, memory…”

“I used to brag that 400 people attended Mini-Med School,” marvels Evans. With 23 and 1/2 Hours way past three million views, this benign and friendly Skeletor is clearly master of the YouTube universe.

Janet Rowe is a writer with the U of T Magazine where this story originally appeared.

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Personal librarians for first-year students

sgupta — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 08:25:26 +0000

Personal librarians for first-year students sgupta Wed, 11/06/2013 - 03:25

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Librarian Jacqueline Whyte Appleby helps student Tony Ding learn to navigate one of the top three library systems in North America (photo by Camelia Linta)

Janet Rowe

Author legacy

Janet Rowe

Topic

Subheadline

Helping undergrads explore one of the top three library systems in North America

Last fall, first-year student Helen Rudnicki received an intriguing email at her brand new utoronto address.

Signed by librarian Jacqueline Whyte Appleby, the message welcomed Rudnicki to the ��߲ݴ�ý and offered her something special – personalized help coming to grips with St. George Campus’s 42 libraries.

“I thought that was pretty cool,” says Rudnicki, an archeology major who attends New College. “A lot of my friends didn’t go to the library at all, but I always had books. There’s a lot of material you can’t get online.”

That’s exactly why U of T started the Personal Librarian Program, says Rita Vine, faculty liaison and information literacy co-ordinator for ��߲ݴ�ý Libraries and administrative lead for the project: first-year students just didn’t seem to be using the library.

“I came up with the idea after doing research on similar programs at Yale and Drexel University,” she says, adding that the John M. Kelly Library at U of T's St. Michael’s College has run a similar project for several years and shared data with her.

During last year’s pilot project, Vine and Appleby matched 1,000 incoming students with 10 librarians who work across St. George Campus – from Trinity College to Robarts Reference Department to OISE. About 200 students took up the offer of help, says Vine.

“That ranks among the highest levels of take-up [among similar programs] that we’re aware of.”

The librarians explained everything from how to read a call number and write a citation to how to find non-academic services on campus. All contact was through email.

“A lot of the time I didn’t know where to start at all,” says Rudnicki. “I was able to give the librarian a topic and she would help me narrow it down, give me places to look and [teach me] how to search.”

“Students may not even know that they can ask for help,” says Vine. “By creating an intentional connection to a librarian, we’re helping them meet one more person in the university who cares about their academic success.”

Vine wants to expand the program, but says there aren’t enough librarians to reach out to all 7,000 first-year students in Arts and Science on the campus.

“We’ll require more administrative and librarian resources.”

In the meantime, 2,000 frosh were emailed this fall, and approximately 24 librarians are participating.

For students who haven’t been assigned a personal librarian, Vine offers an insider secret.

“One of my favourite ‘hidden’ resources is a set of bibliographies on many subjects,” she says. “Prepared by experts, each item has an abstract that can help you figure out if the article is suitable for your assignment – a big time-saver for busy students. The trick is to look under ‘Oxford Bibliographies Online’ in the library catalogue.”

Bonus: many paywall-protected articles are free when accessed through the library website.

This article originally appeared in the U of T Magazine. to read more U of T Magazine articles visit www.magazine.utoronto.ca

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