Stories | Alternative Campus Tour

Looking for and Appreciating Labour on the York University Campus. - L. Anders Sandberg

On March 3, 2024, CUPE 3903 at York University went on strike, fighting for wages that keep up with inflation and in defence of hard-earned gains made in working conditions in the past. CUPE 3903, which sta ...

Inside Osgoode Hall Law School - L. Anders Sandberg

It is a lovely sunny but not too warm day in August and I am doing a campus tour with Kim Anderson and her research team from the University of Guelph. Kim is a Métis Professor and Canada Research Chair in Storyin ...

Larry Licht: Professor of Biology, Guardian of Wood Frogs (in the Boyer Woodlot), and Poet of Life - L. Anders Sandberg

A University Campus, like any other place, contains the presence of people’s imprints, the way they have modified the land and the way they carry memories with them about it. Of course, the big stories are there, ...

Teachings from Ahqahizu - L. Anders Sandberg

On a mid-morning Friday in late November, I was guiding a group of young Indigenous women from Saskatchewan to Ahqahizu (A-ka-hee-zu), the giant sculpture of an Inuk man who is playing soccer with a walrus ...

Honouring the Citizen-Taxpayer at the York University Common - L. Anders Sandberg

There is a new bench placed on the York University Common with a plaque that reads “Dedicated to the Citizen-Taxpayer.” It is in honour of all citizens, across the world, who feel a sense of pride and duty ...

“To Be or Not To Be”: The Wheelchair Ramp at Curtis Lecture Halls - Megan Grace Halferty

The presence of wheelchair ramps in buildings is often seen as a sign of progress towards a more accessible future where persons with disabilities are included in the design of buildings and public access spaces. ...

Looking for the Huron-Wendat at York University? - L. Anders Sandberg

Just to the south of York University, along Black Creek, in former farmers’ fields, in a utility corridor harbouring hydro towers, pipelines, and a recreational trail, there is an Ancestral Huron-Wendat vil ...

Who is Osgoode of Osgoode Hall Law School? - L. Anders Sandberg

In 1797, the Law Society of Upper Canada (since 2017 the Law Society of Ontario) was formed and three decades later it established Osgoode Hall as its home at the corner of University Avenue and Queen Street. The ...

What’s in a Name? What does the Duke of York have to do with York University? - L. Anders Sandberg

What's in a name? It turns out quite a bit, judging from what has taken place lately with Confederate and colonial figures and their names and statues being challenged and removed from public places all over the w ...

Planning for Transit Equity: Lessons from the York University Subway Expansion - Alana Barone and Natalie Maw

York University is well known for being a largely commuter-based campus. Between the two of us, for example, we can count the amount of people we know who live on campus on one hand. Most of our peers come from th ...

Speaking Up for Fair Fares at Queen’s Park - ENVS 1200 Taking Action

On March 9, 2020, six FES students in ENVS 1200 - Taking Action: Engaging People and the Environment, travelled to Queen’s Park on the invitation of Jessica Bell, the NDP critic on transportation issues. They were ...

Gandhi versus Ambedkar: The Story of Two Statues in the Scott Library - L. Anders Sandberg

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 ...

The Walkers Walk: The Pavilion That Was Not To Be - L. Anders Sandberg

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 i ...

A (not so) little bird is telling us...: Thinking with geese on the York University Campus - Seema Shenoy

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 Mast ...

Visiting one of our Neighbours: Walking the Black Creek Pioneer Village Site - Jesse Thistle

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, ...

Now You See It, Now You Don't: Looking for the Tree of Heaven at Founders College - Darren Patrick

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 ...

Safety Phone at Central Square - Michaela McMahon

Is this the best way to stop sexual assault on university campuses? 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 sup ...

Vari Hall: A public or private space? - L. Anders Sandberg

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 ...

The Ross Building Ramp and Terrace: Curse or Promise? - L. Anders Sandberg

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 B ...

Scott Library: A Place for Books or People? - Dana Craig

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 ...

Michael G. Boyer Woodlot: A living place of symbiotic stories: Exploring woodlots as place-makers of culture, time and resistance - Adrina Bardekjian

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 fos ...

The Health, Nursing and Environmental Studies Native Species Garden - Michael Classens

You might call the HNES Native Species Garden a campus naturalization project—designed to make the campus more ‘natural’. The corollary to this, of course, is that the campus is too ‘unnatural’. And I have to admit, the ...

Stong Pond: What role does it play in managing the storm water on campus? - L. Anders Sandberg

When a 2005 hurricane flooded the campus and washed out parts of Finch Avenue just south of the campus, the campus’ storm water pond was confirmed as inadequate (it could not hold the water of a major hurricane), and ...