Story

  A sunny day in late December 2018 turned out to be my one-day immersion course on India. It was almost Christmas and I went to one of the stores at York Lanes and bought some sweatshirts with York logos on them. I discovered that they were made in India and, so the enthusiastic sales […]

 In 2008, Mark Osbaldeston wrote a book called Unbuilt Toronto: A History of a City That Could Have Been documenting and telling the stories surrounding unrealized building proposals in the city. This short reflection is inspired by that idea. But it is also much more. It also reflects on the questions and trepidations involved […]

  Towards the end of the summer in 2015, having just arrived from India, I made my way to the York University campus for the very first time, to see the place where I would be spending the next two years in the Master of Environmental Studies program. The fall term hadn’t begun yet. When […]

The entrance to Black Creek Pioneer Village Black Creek Pioneer Village, a re- creation of a white settler farming settlement in southern Ontario from the 1860s, is one of York University’s prominent neighbours. In 2013, the Village reported it attracted 145,000 visitors per year. It even has its own new subway stop (as of December […]

    Who arrives? Who invades? Who is welcome? Who is not? When does a plant become a weed?   Since 2012, I have developed an unlikely relationship with Ailanthus altissima, a species of tree more commonly known as the Tree of Heaven. Tree of Heaven is one of the most “successful” global plant species. […]

  This safety phone in Central Square is one of the 35 emergency phones located on campus. The bright yellow colour and spinning blue light are supposed to make these phones easy to see…but how often do we look up from the phones in our own hands as we walk across campus? And if we […]

    Adorned with yellow brick and two lower rectangular structures extending from its sides, Vari Hall is a well-designed and extraordinary space. When I enter the building I am engulfed by a cylindrical-shaped hall and stories echoing of its outer walls. The building was constructed in 1992 and named after one of York University’s […]

  Some time ago I conducted a campus tour for a group that included a couple of senior faculty members at York. When walking across the ledge leading over the narrow empty and largely vacant space between the Ross Building [originally called the Ross Social Sciences and Humanities Building] and Vari Hall, the faculty members […]

  I love the library! I started working as a student assistant in Scott Library in the mid-1990s and then started working full time there in 2000. I sometimes feel that I have walked the hallways of this library for a very long time, however, in reality, there are many library staff members who have […]

First Nations peoples’ fires burnt the forest now known as the Michael Boyer Woodlot for centuries. The fires were likely used to provide room for the three sisters (squash, beans and corn), for spiritual ritual, and fostering community. European settlers’ plows and axes later ruptured the same earth, surrounding root systems and felled neighbouring trees […]