Academics

�鶹��Ƶ Mississauga's teaching lodge to host new course on Indigenous feminisms

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 18:17:52 +0000

�鶹��Ƶ Mississauga's teaching lodge to host new course on Indigenous feminisms

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 11/29/2024 - 13:17

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A new, third-year course on Indigenous feminisms will be the first at �鶹��Ƶ Mississauga to take place predominantly in the campus's Indigenous teaching lodge (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Megan Easton

Topic

Our Community

Indigenous

�鶹��Ƶ Mississauga

Subheadline

“I find that it’s not until students are outside on the land and in Indigenous spaces that they really understand the teachings”

This winter, students taking Maria Hupfield’s “Indigenous Feminisms” course won’t meet in a classroom or lecture hall, but will head to the northern edge of the University of Toronto Mississauga campus where, nestled in a quiet spot among trees, sits the Indigenous teaching lodge.

Inaugurated in September 2023, the lodge has hosted workshops, conferences and occasional classes – but this marks the first time a course will predominantly be held in the space.

Maria Hupfield (photo by Grégoire Féron)

For Hupfield, an assistant professor in �鶹��Ƶ Mississauga's department of English and drama who is cross-appointed to the department of visual studies, the walk to the lodge will be just as integral to students’ learning as the conversations that will take place beneath its canopy.

“This small journey will start the process of moving students away from their usual way of thinking,” says Hupfield, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Transdisciplinary Indigenous Arts. “Then, once they get into the lodge, it defamiliarizes them because they’re not in the usual lecture hall or seminar room. It opens up how they respond to the teaching and how they approach the content.”

A third-year English course, “Indigenous Feminisms” will rely on traditional and modern Indigenous texts, media and performances. Classes will be held in the teaching lodge – which has a wood stove – whenever possible, moving to the Multimedia Studio Theatre only when advanced digital technology is needed.

Leading a course in an Indigenous space marks the latest chapter in a longstanding connection between Hupfield, an off-reservation urban Anishinaabe who belongs to the Wasauksing First Nation, and �鶹��Ƶ Mississauga.

An alumna of the university, Hupfield earned a degree in art and art history with a minor in Aboriginal studies – somewhat unusual in the late 1990s. “I became very interested in working at the intersection of Anishinaabe cultural knowledge and Western-based art practices,” she says. “The program made room for me to do that.”

As a student, Hupfield mounted her own exhibits and launched partnerships with Indigenous arts and social services organizations. After graduating, she went on to establish herself as an internationally respected artist, holding exhibitions at prominent galleries across North America and winning prestigious awards.

In 2019, she returned to �鶹��Ƶ Mississauga as a faculty member, and amid increased institutional support for Indigenous initiatives, has thrived and expanded the scope of her projects.

As director and lead artist at the new Indigenous Creation Studio, Hupfield leads a team of faculty members and students exploring media ranging from traditional sculpture to video. Her current research, conducted in collaboration with Indigenous communities, aims to bring new life to Indigenous artefacts via the creation of a digital archive that presents each piece in novel ways, such as through storytelling, video and 3D rendering.

She also leads a seminar series for students in the master of visual studies program at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design.

Hupfield also continues to work on an array of projects beyond campus. Earlier this year, she contributed to the first ever Native Fashion Week held in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is also currently presenting an original commission at the Toronto Biennial of Art, an opportunity she describes as “a really powerful moment in my art practice.”

The teaching lodge is equipped with a wood stove and can be used year-round (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

As she looks forward to the "Indigenous Feminisms" course, Hupfield reiterates that Indigenous pedagogy is about doing and experiencing. “I find that it’s not until students are outside on the land and in Indigenous spaces that they really understand the teachings,” she says.

Tee Duke, director of �鶹��Ƶ Mississauga’s Office of Indigenous Initiatives, notes that expansion of Indigenous curriculum and spaces – along with hiring of Indigenous faculty – were among the calls to action outlined in Answering the Call – Wecheehetowin, the final report of the �鶹��Ƶ Truth and Reconciliation Commission Steering Committee. “It’s an important development to have a course on Indigenous Feminisms taught in UTM’s own teaching lodge," Duke said.

The course also ties into �鶹��Ƶ Mississauga’s strategic framework, specifically the central values of truth, openness and reciprocity, according to Terry F. Robinson, associate chair of the department of English and drama. “We’re thrilled to be able to offer this experiential, land-based course, led by inter-disciplinary scholar Professor Hupfield,” Robinson said.

Registration for the course is already full – a fact that is incredibly heartening for Hupfield.

“I love that there’s interest. It’s beautiful,” she says. “More courses like this, held in Indigenous spaces and rooted in experiential learning, will attract more Indigenous students. We need to continue to support Indigenous research and teaching, and focus on retaining Indigenous faculty.

“But so much is happening here right now and I’m happy to be part of it.”

Students from �鶹��Ƶ and India’s Ashoka University explore urban challenges in Pune

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 14:20:19 +0000

Students from �鶹��Ƶ and India’s Ashoka University explore urban challenges in Pune

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 11/28/2024 - 09:20

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Students from �鶹��Ƶ and Ashoka University accompany waste pickers who belong to the SWaCH collective in Pune, India – part of a course offered through the �鶹��Ƶ India Foundation and School of Cities India (photo courtesy of Reyansh Lokare)

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Subheadline

Undergraduate course in partnership with Ashoka University, near New Delhi, is one of many initiatives now facilitated by the �鶹��Ƶ India Foundation

Samantha “Sam” Guevara says accompanying two waste pickers in Pune, India as they went about their daily work offered a window into the social dynamics of the city of more than seven million.

“What interested me was the stigmatization that waste pickers tend to receive from the general public juxtaposed with the pride they have in their work,” says Guevara, a fourth- year student at the University of Toronto who is pursuing a double major in human geography and political science.

The workers she joined belong to SWaCH Waste Pickers, a co-operative of self-employed waste collectors who are contributing to the region’s environmental and financial well-being.

Guevara, meanwhile, is one of nine students from �鶹��Ƶ who, along with nine students from India’s Ashoka University, a private liberal arts institution near New Delhi, recently explored three city-building projects identified by Indian non-profit and civil society organizations as part of a �鶹��Ƶ undergraduate course.

Students from �鶹��Ƶ and Ashoka gather at the Centre for Development Studies and Activities in Pune for a lecture by a local consulting firm (photo courtesy of Reyansh Lokare)

Offered through the �鶹��Ƶ India Foundation and School of Cities India, the International Multidisciplinary Urban Capstone Projects course also saw students join guides for walking tours in Mumbai, attend lectures and develop what Aditi Mehta, an assistant professor, teaching stream, in urban studies at Innis College, calls “critical consciousness.”

The course is one of numerous activities facilitated in recent months by the �鶹��Ƶ India Foundation, a partnership between �鶹��Ƶ and Tata Trusts. Others include: a pitch competition and incubation program with Social Alpha, an incubator for social impact startups, that saw �鶹��Ƶ faculty members participate on the technical jury that helped select 10 winning India-based entrepreneurs; and research projects that bring together �鶹��Ƶ faculty members and India-based partners to work on building more resilient and sustainable cities.

Kunjpreet Arora, co-founder and director of India-based brick and paver upcycling startup Angirus, delivers a presentation at a social launch event (photo courtesy of Jake Karpouzis)

For the students involved, Mehta says questioning “why things are the way they are” and understanding their place in the world is a crucial part of their education – and one of the many takeaways they will bring back to Toronto.

“It’s about seeing how things are done in the east and thinking about how we can bring some of this problem solving back to the west,” says Mehta, who accompanied the students to India.

Jake Karpouzis, a fourth-year student in public policy and urban studies, spent his time exploring how the makeshift parking lots and garbage dumps beneath city overpasses, or flyovers, in Pune can be transformed into more valuable spaces that better serve surrounding communities.

“We're putting together a blog of the trip so the various organizations involved can read about it and take those experiences back to the classroom,” says Karpouzis, adding that he was excited by the opportunity to gain first-hand experience in urban studies in another country.

Ashoka University students speak to a vegetable vendor under a flyover in Pune (photo courtesy of Jake Karpouzis)

Kaitlyn Chan, a fourth-year urban studies student, concentrated on transgender studies while in India.

“Our program focused on skill development for the transgender community in Pune,” Chan says. “That includes access to government interventions, employment opportunities, self-efficacy and creating safe spaces.”

Professor Mehta, who created much of the programming with the �鶹��Ƶ India Foundation, says the course was often life-changing for �鶹��Ƶ students.

“The Indian students were amazing. They really took it upon themselves to be hosts for the Canadian students and they just kept asking, ‘When can we come to Toronto?’,” she says, adding that she is working on a reciprocal learning exchange in both countries.

Karan Singh, a professor of computer science and the associate director of School of Cities India, sees the capstone course as an opportunity to further strengthen �鶹��Ƶ’s global reputation.

“We’re looking at �鶹��Ƶ as a global brand and in India that is increasingly evident,” he says.

Professor Aditi Mehta (second from left) with students from �鶹��Ƶ and Ashoka University and SWaCH workers on the streets of Pune (photo courtesy of Reyansh Lokare)

Andrea Russell, director of international relations in �鶹��Ƶ’s Office of the Vice-President, International, says she’s thrilled with how the experience resonated with �鶹��Ƶ students.

“It’s a wonderful example of global collaboration and an amazing opportunity for our students to increase their global fluency.”

‘Tree Stories' course connects �鶹��Ƶ students to nature, history – and themselves

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 13:58:09 +0000

‘Tree Stories' course connects �鶹��Ƶ students to nature, history – and themselves

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 11/27/2024 - 08:58

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The 'Tree Stories' course – taught by Professor Alan Ackerman from the Faculty of Arts & Science's department of English – weaves together elements of literature, history, environmental studies and getting to know the local landscape (photo by Diana Tyszko)

Sean McNeely

Topic

Our Community

Department of English

Faculty of Arts & Science

John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture

University College

Subheadline

"Individual trees have such rich history and are often overlooked so it's great to learn about them in this class”

On a recent cool and sunny morning, Alan Ackerman’s class sat under century-old elm trees behind the Whitney Hall residence at the University of Toronto’s University College, much like students did over 100 years ago.

The setting in the historic core of the St. George campus was fitting for "Tree Stories," Ackerman’s first-year English course which examines how we imagine trees in literature and art, and what trees can teach us about our place in the world.

“This course aims to get people in touch with their living world and with parts of themselves that have probably atrophied in their digitized lives,” says Ackerman, a professor in the Faculty of Arts & Science’s department of English. “It's a weave of stories, literature, history, environmental studies and getting to know the local landscape.

“For first-year students, it's a wonderful opportunity for them to get to know aspects of Toronto.”

Ackerman holds most of his lectures outside, visiting locations with a rich arboreal history across the St. George campus – which boasts over 3,300 trees including cedar, birch, ash, oak, maple and many others – and around the city.

Alan Ackerman holds most of his lectures outside, visiting locations with a rich arboreal history across the St. George campus and beyond (photo by Diana Tyszko)

“When I heard the class was always going to be outside, I wasn’t looking forward to that aspect,” says Jennifer Wilton, a first-year student and member of Woodsworth College. “But I’ve really come to appreciate the two hours of class in the fresh air.

“And now when I walk past these elms, I feel like I’m walking past something familiar. Individual trees have such rich history and are often overlooked so it's great to learn about them in this class.”

Ackerman has also held classes in the courtyard of Trinity College as well as the courtyard of University College’s Sir Daniel Wilson Hall, where students met with Danijela Puric-Mladenovic, an assistant professor, teaching stream at the Institute of Forestry and Conservation in the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design.

“She gave us a tour around [University College] where she identified a number of different trees and talked about them in relation to each other and to their ecosystem,” says Ackerman.

Alan Ackerman's class meets for a lecture beneath elm trees behind Whitney Hall (photo by Diana Tyszko)

Outside of campus, Ackerman had the students meet at spots at Queen’s Park, the Mount Pleasant Cemetery and Christie Pits Park.

“I’ve talked about Henry David Thoreau's essay, Walking, and how wilderness is not just something far off in the mountains,” says Ackerman. “There’s wilderness we can discover much closer to home.”

One of the course’s most popular outings was a visit to the Spadina Museum and its gardens, near Casa Loma.

“We talked about the history and ecology of those grounds as we picked apples,” says Ackerman. “We read Robert Frost’s poem, After Apple-Picking, and thought about the form and the content of the poem. We talked about other tree stories about apples, like Johnny Appleseed which is based on a real historical person, John Chapman.”

Students gather the dimensions of a century-old elm tree (photo by Diana Tyszko)

Sam Buonassisi, a first-year Rotman Commerce student and member of St. Michael’s College, relished his time at the Spadina Museum.

“It was such a different environment from my regular lectures, and it was just nice to see a new area,” he says. “I recently moved to Toronto from Vancouver to come to �鶹��Ƶ, so I hadn’t had many opportunities to see the city. This was one of those opportunities and I really enjoyed it.”

For Ackerman, the course is an extension of his personal interest in the burgeoning field of environmental humanities. It also taps into his appreciation for nature that grew during the COVID pandemic.

“I spent a lot more time outdoors, especially when the pandemic closed everything,” he says. “Trees became vital in my imagination, especially how trees wind their ways through stories.”

The literature the class studied varied as much as the trees they visited, from some of the earliest-known stories – such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and King James Bible – to poems by Emily Dickinson to contemporary writers like Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass, and The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben.

“We also read authors, poets, essayists and others from a vast array of time periods, places and cultures, not only to consider differences, but to also gain a sense of what we have in common – not only with other members of our own species but all life on this beautiful planet,” says Ackerman.

Ackerman says the course is an extension of his personal interest in the burgeoning field of environmental humanities (photo by Diana Tyszko)

Students are also encouraged to think about their individual relationships with trees by maintaining a “Tree Diary” and writing weekly about their connection to a specific tree.

“The tree I picked is just outside my dorm, and I picked a younger tree in hopes that it would be a bit unique from some of the ones we talked about. Surprisingly, by the time I get outside and get my journal out, something always pops into my head," says Buonassisi, who adds that he now finds himself noticing trees he wouldn't have paid attention to otherwise.

For Wilton, learning about the history of trees has been a source of comfort on campus. “It makes me feel more at home and much less intimidated by this huge school,” she says.

Ackerman says he hopes the experience leaves a lasting imprint on students’ hearts and minds.

“Years after taking “Tree Stories,” they probably won’t remember the names of poems or poets or their professor, but I hope they retain the sense of being on a journey – in pursuit of not just knowledge but of wisdom.”

�鶹��Ƶ engineering students encouraged to consider sustainability when designing future AI systems

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 16 Sep 2024 15:10:13 +0000

�鶹��Ƶ engineering students encouraged to consider sustainability when designing future AI systems

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 09/16/2024 - 11:10

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Professors Hans-Arno Jacobsen, left, and Natalie Enright Jerger of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering are part of a team that is training computer system designers to integrate sustainability practices into the development of AI and machine learning systems (photo by Jenny Lee)

Matthew Tierney

Topic

Our Community

Computer & Electrical Engineering

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

NSERC

Sustainability

Subheadline

The Sustainable Data Systems for Data Science initiative aims to align Canada’s tech investments with its vision for a carbon-neutral future

The growing global adoption of artificial intelligence technologies, including machine learning, has created a new sustainability challenge: AI systems are energy-intensive – and the more sophisticated they become, the more resources they require.

To help address the issue, a team of experts including the University of Toronto’s Hans-Arno Jacobsen and Natalie Enright Jerger – both professors in the Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering at the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering – are launching an initiative that aims to align Canada’s tech investments with its vision for a sustainable, carbon-neutral future.

The Sustainable Data Systems for Data Science (SDSDS) project aims to train a new generation of computer and data scientists who can combine comprehensive technical skills with sustainability awareness. The project recently received a $1.6-million Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) grant from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

“A majority of students are unaware of how sustainability informs responsible development of platforms and systems because, frankly, there just aren’t many courses or learning paths available to them in this area,” says Enright Jerger, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Computer Architecture and is director of the division of engineering science.

“Another crucial component of this project is to equip our students with knowledge transfer strategies so they can seed these ideas in the workforce. Today’s trainees becoming tomorrow’s trainers.”

The SDSDS team propose training future computer systems designers to adopt a green approach when developing data analytics platforms and systems. The approach would apply to all aspects of the life cycle of development and deployment – such as hardware infrastructure, software systems and application domains.

To advance knowledge and dialogue on the issue, SDSDS will look to hold cross-university seminars on sustainability challenges and will offer courses on sustainable data science, along with summer school programs focused on energy-efficient software and hardware platforms.

The researchers also aim to connect students with industry via internships and applied research projects, enabling them to gain exposure to current challenges and facilitate cross-pollination of knowledge between industry and academia.

“The awareness about AI’s environmental impact is growing, but there is an expertise gap on how to address this very real problem – not just after the fact, but at inception. SDSDS aims to bridge this gap and prepare for the future resource demands of AI-driven industries,” says Bettina Kemme, professor of computer science at McGill University and team lead at SDSDS, which also includes Semih Salihoğlu of the University of Waterloo, Oana Balmau of McGill University and Essam Mansour of Concordia University.

“The potential of AI and machine learning systems are seemingly limitless,” says Jacobsen, who is the Jeffrey Skoll Chair in Computer Networks and Innovation. “Yet the true genius lies in building machine learning systems founded on sustainability principles. That’s real innovation.”

�鶹��Ƶ urban studies course explores wildfire response in Canada's North

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 19:57:57 +0000

�鶹��Ƶ urban studies course explores wildfire response in Canada's North

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 08/12/2024 - 15:57

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Clouds of smoke billow into the air as forest fires burn in the Northwest Territories in 2015, leaving trees damaged and charred (photo by Sherry Galey via Getty Images)

Cynthia Macdonald

Topic

Our Community

School of Cities

Faculty of Arts & Science

Geography and Planning

Graduate Students

Innis College

John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture

Subheadline

As part of a graduate seminar, students and professors visited Yellowknife to study the city's 2023 wildfire evacuation with an eye to informing future policy recommendations

Wildfires such as the one that devastated Jasper, Alta., in July are becoming ever more common in Canada due to increased record-high temperatures and drought conditions associated with climate change.

One year ago, it was Yellowknife that found itself under threat, forcing a near-complete evacuation of its 20,000 residents. Unlike Jasper, Yellowknife's homes and businesses were ultimately saved from destruction, but the Northwest Territories capital is nevertheless reviewing its wildfire response plans so it will be better prepared in the future.

And the city is receiving valuable assistance from the University of Toronto.

Professors and graduate students from the urban studies program at Innis College recently visited the city to research disaster response policies and make suggestions on possible improvements.

“We ended up designing a course that provided a retrospective on the evacuation experience as it related to government officials and the non-profit sector,” says David Roberts, an associate professor, teaching stream, in the department of geography and planning in the Faculty of Arts & Science and director of the urban studies program.

“The students are now working on projects that will provide policy recommendations for the future.”

The view over Yellowknife’s Old Town (supplied image)

This seminar, which was also taught by Assistant Professor Aditi Mehta, is one of several Multidisciplinary Urban Graduate Seminars (MUGS) being offered by �鶹��Ƶ’s School of Cities.

Roberts and Mehta created the class in consultation with Rebecca Alty, Yellowknife’s mayor and a visiting expert, or Canadian Urban Leader, at the School of Cities.

Mehta says that the seminar’s multidisciplinary nature was key to crafting a well-rounded response to the crisis.

“We were very deliberate in picking students from different disciplines so that we could create knowledge and think about what happened from different perspectives,” she says, adding that students who successfully applied came from backgrounds including geography and planning, forestry, anthropology, landscape architecture and public health.

The seminar’s participants pose for a group photo at the Bush Pilot’s Monument in Yellowknife (supplied image)

The 10 graduate students visited sites and interviewed government officials, community organizations, residents and Indigenous leaders. They explored how to build improved communication infrastructure in the city and investigated the connections between a local housing crisis and climate change.

They also studied how Indigenous Peoples, including members of the Dene Nation living in Yellowknife, suffer disproportionate harms due to wildfire. Research shows that while 12 per cent of the entire Canadian population is at risk, that number rises to 32 per cent for on-reserve First Nations communities.

Léo Jourdan, who is completing his master of science degree in forestry at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, says the seminar provided him with an opportunity to examine wildfire science from a different angle.

“The research we do in our lab has to do with wildfires, but from a scientific point of view – in the sense that we try to answer ecological questions about the origins of these fires. So this class was a great opportunity to broaden my perspective and learn more about the human side of wildfires, and I think it did an amazing job.”

Jourdan explains that most wildfires are a natural – and necessary – phenomenon. “A lot of the forest in Canada co-evolved with fires, and their ecosystems would not function without them,” he says. “The issue we’re facing now, however, is that the wildfires are getting more intense and the communities closer.”

The seminar group enjoyed the city’s culinary and cultural offerings (supplied image)

For Lilian Dart, the course offered an opportunity to explore her twin interests in environmental justice and housing policy.

“One of the focuses was to look at how people experiencing homelessness were evacuated,” says Dart, a PhD student in the department of geography and planning.

She notes that in the wake of the wildfire evacuation, a team from professional services firm KPMG conducted an audit that revealed significant holes in the system that allowed vulnerable populations to fall through.

“People without housing, for example, did not have social safety supports that other people did,“ she says. “They also had comorbidities that affected their health, making them even more vulnerable.”

Dart’s final assignment for the course is a policy paper that examines this issue. “My recommendations are mostly to do with how the municipality can better support service organizations in their collaboration with one another. How can resources be co-ordinated? And how can people work together to ensure a more organized response?”

Jourdan, for his part, is proposing that Yellowknife adopt the principles of FireSmart, a national program that leads the development of programs and resources to help Canadians increase their resilience to wildfires.

Mehta says Yellowknife’s mayor provided the group from �鶹��Ƶ with some recommendations of her own. “She gave an important critique of planning education in our country, noting that people rarely study the problems that cities in northern Canada are facing,” Mehta says. “Instead, we are overly focused on big cities like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.”

Roberts says that the policy recommendations written by Dart, Jourdan and the other students will be offered “not just to the mayor, but to everyone else we talked to – those working in the non-profit field and at the territorial level, as well as those who work with the Dene.

“We’re now thinking about other ways of presenting this information, such as returning to Yellowknife to ensure that the dialogue we’ve started is able to continue.”

Learning rewired: �鶹��Ƶ researcher sparks kids’ interest in tech with animatronic critters

bresgead — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 18:22:39 +0000

Learning rewired: �鶹��Ƶ researcher sparks kids’ interest in tech with animatronic critters

bresgead Tue, 07/16/2024 - 14:22

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Paul Dietz, a distinguished engineer in residence and director of fabrication in �鶹��Ƶ’s computer science department, hopes his paper animatronic creations can engage more kids in STEM through the power of storytelling (photo by Polina Teif)

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Robotics

STEM

Subheadline

Paul Dietz says robotic paper creations are a creative – and more inclusive – way to get kids interested in STEM fields

Could a talking paper octopus be the key to igniting kids' curiosity about technology?

University of Toronto engineer Paul Dietz certainly thinks so. With the help of a menagerie of mechanically controlled puppets, he has a plan to help students learn to think creatively across a wide range of fields.

All it takes is some simple circuitry, a few arts and crafts supplies – and a lot of imagination.

A distinguished engineer in residence and director of fabrication in the Faculty of Arts and Science’s computer science department, Dietz is the whimsical mind behind the Animatronics Workshop. The program collaborates with schools to provide opportunities for children to create, design and build their own robotic shows.

Dietz has been partnering with schools where kids create their own animatronic stories – from staging pre-programmed puppet shows to hosting Q-and-As with Shakespeare – departing from the competition-based competitions typical of many youth robotics efforts.

Dietz’s program has been his passion project for a decade and a half, developed on the side while he worked day jobs engineering innovations for companies like Microsoft, Mitsubishi and Disney, as well as his own startups.

Now, at �鶹��Ƶ, Dietz is focusing on bringing accessible and affordable animatronics to classrooms across Canada. The goal, he says, is to teach kids to use technology as a tool for storytelling, dismantling what he sees as a false divide between the arts and sciences.

“One of the first participants in this program was a young girl who was really into writing creative stories and really loved science. And she saw these as two conflicting parts of her world,” says Dietz, who is also a faculty affiliate at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society.

“After what she did in animatronics, it suddenly dawned on her that you can do both. If you do engineering right, it is a creative art.”

In a capstone course on physical computing in K-12, Dietz encouraged undergraduate students to explore how computer-based systems can bring stories to life in the classroom (photo by Polina Teif)

Dietz had a similar realization as a teenager in the late 1970s, when a behind-the-scenes tour of Walt Disney Imagineering got him tinkering with an animatronic robot penguin.

This early fusion of technical skills and storytelling sensibilities set Dietz on a path that turned flights of imagination into real-world breakthroughs that shape our engagement with technology.

A prolific inventor and researcher, Dietz is best known for co-creating an early progenitor of the multi-touch display technology that’s ubiquitous in today’s smartphones and tablets. Other innovations include 'Pal Mickey,' an interactive plush toy that guided visitors through Disney theme parks, and parallel reality displays that allow multiple viewers to see individualized content on the same screen.

Dietz says his storied career debunks the common misconception – often reinforced in schools – that creativity is exclusive to artistic pursuits, while science is the domain of strict rationality, where there are prescribed methods of inquiry to arrive at a single correct answer.

As Dietz sees it, weaving a narrative and programming a robot are propelled by the same creative impulse – they just exercise different skills. He believes a well-rounded education should equip students with a diverse arsenal of tools to explore new ideas.

“If you’re an artist, you have to learn the mechanics of sculpting or painting or whatever your medium is,” he says. “We should be looking at engineering and technology as those tools, and the key is … learning how to use them creatively to achieve things that are actually positive for our society.”

The universal appeal of storytelling also serves to make technology accessible and exciting to kids of all ages and genders, Dietz adds.

Bridging the gender divide in STEM has been core to Dietz’s animatronics mission since its inception.

When his daughter was in middle school, Dietz took her to a robotics competition – but she was turned off by the contest, which seemed pointless to her. However, when the two of them worked together on an animatronic raccoon, he saw her passion for creating ignite.

“This light bulb went off in my head: Maybe the problem isn’t that we’re doing tech,” says Dietz. “Maybe kids like my daughter need to see some application that makes sense to them – like telling a story.”

Kids at the Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study are encouraged to develop creative and computer science skills (photo courtesy of JICS)

Over the years, Dietz has partnered with several schools to set up animatronics workshops that attracted an even number of boys and girls and ensured every kid participated in all aspects of the projects – from storytelling and character design to robot building and programming.

But as his career took him across the U.S., Dietz found it difficult to sustain and replicate the success of the programs because of the prohibitive costs of full-scale animatronic robots and the significant technical expertise required from teachers.

At �鶹��Ƶ, Dietz is working to bring animatronics to schools of all resources, allowing students to develop creative and computer science skills by harnessing the endless storytelling possibilities of paper.

Undergraduate students demo an interactive diorama during a capstone showcase at the Bahen Centre for Information Technology (photo by Polina Teif)

At the Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study (JICS) at �鶹��Ƶ’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, students from kindergarten through Grade 6 have put Dietz’s paper animatronics kits to the test, bringing characters to life with kinetic, vocal creations.

The laboratory school has hosted a series of pilot projects where kids fashioned characters out of construction paper, recorded voices and wired motorized movements to animate creations ranging from a chomping, sharp-toothed maw to a bouncing kitten.

Dietz hopes the pilot program at JICS, pictured, can be scaled up to schools across the country (photo courtesy of JICS)

Nick Song, a special education and technology teacher at JICS, says he sees enormous educational potential for paper animatronics to engage students in hands-on, interactive learning that simultaneously develops technology skills and fosters creative expression.

“The kids love doing things with technology because it gives them a really cool feedback loop where they can try something and see it work immediately,” says Song. “All of this is very motivating for kids, seeing something pick up their voice and start moving, and you almost feel like it’s coming to life.”

Building on the pilots at JICS, Dietz is aiming to scale up the program to schools across the country in hopes of nurturing the next generation of out-of-the-box innovators.

“It’s very different from the technical work that I’ve generally done … but it feels very right,” says Dietz. “I think we’re doing something important for Canada.”

�鶹��Ƶ Engineering to launch new certificate in electric vehicle design

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 13:22:03 +0000

�鶹��Ƶ Engineering to launch new certificate in electric vehicle design

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 04/29/2024 - 09:22

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(photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Topic

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Sustainability

The University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering will launch a new electric vehicle design certificate for undergraduate students this fall.

The program aims to prepare the next generation of electric vehicle (EV) engineers for professional and research opportunities in the growing industry.

“EVs have tremendous potential to improve local and global climates, which fits right in with our faculty’s broader goals of sustainability and environmental considerations,” says Professor Dionne Aleman, the faculty’s associate dean of cross-disciplinary programs.

“From battery design to sustainability to infrastructure, engineering is a big part of advancing EV technology. We want engineering students to be able to hit the ground running in this exciting and growing field if they want careers in electrification.”

The widespread adoption of EVs has come into greater focus as governments across the globe develop new policies to achieve net-zero emissions goals by 2050. In Canada, the federal government has set a zero-emissions vehicle sales target by 2035, which will require all new cars, trucks and SUVs to be battery operated.

To meet this demand, the EV industry will require a workforce that can advance all facets of electrification technology, from vehicle design and charging technologies, to battery capacity and thermal management of power systems. This work is multidisciplinary, spanning mechanical, electrical, chemical, industrial, computer and materials science engineering.

While many �鶹��Ƶ Engineering courses include aspects of EV design, the faculty has delved deeper into EV-focused topics in the past year with two graduate-level courses in electric vehicle systems and thermal science.

The new certificate will expand on these offerings to provide eligible undergraduate students with an understanding of the technical and environmental implications of engineering in EV design. It includes a new course, APS380: Introduction to Electric Vehicle Design.

“The EV Design certificate is the beginning of a start-to-finish investigation into both the design of EVs and their integration into society,” says Matthew Mackay, an associate professor, teaching stream, in the department of mechanical and industrial engineering, who worked with Olivier Trescases, a professor in the Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering (ECE), to design the introductory course.

“Since EVs are inherently multidisciplinary, having students first encounter this content through the certificate and a multidisciplinary design course will expose them to the challenges and knowledge they would not otherwise see through a single-program outlook.”

The APS380 course is a broad-based introduction to EV design, which makes the technical content accessible to students across engineering programs.

“This certificate is part of a multi-year effort to bring EV teaching to our departments. It will take some time for us to grow the capacity of this effort as new lab spaces, lecturers and courses are brought in,” says Mackay.

“But we want this to be an inclusive experience for students. If someone is interested but doesn’t have the required experience, we hope that they can come to see us anyway – there may always be opportunity to join.”

Trescases says there is a growing demand for engineers with specialized EV skills in Ontario.

“In ECE we’ve been teaching core EV topics like electric motors and power electronics to undergraduates for a long time, in courses like ECE314, ECE463 and ECE520. This new multi-disciplinary course takes a more ‘systems/application’ perspective and I think that it will be a great complementary offering for our students,” he says.

“In developing the labs and the course content for APS380 we leveraged elements of our research at [the �鶹��Ƶ Electric Vehicle Research Centre, or UTEV], our new EV graduate course, as well as the new Porsche EV microcredential that we offer to industry through the School of Continuing Studies.”

Uncovering untold stories: �鶹��Ƶ course explores Black Canadian history

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 19:01:44 +0000

Uncovering untold stories: �鶹��Ƶ course explores Black Canadian history

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 02/28/2024 - 14:01

Cutline

Archival photograph of the Emanuel African Methodist Church congregation, early 1920s, in Edmonton (photo by Glenbow Archives, University of Calgary, ND-3-1199, and via the research of Jennifer R. Kelly, professor emeritus, University of Alberta, for the Edmonton City as Museum Project)

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

History

St. Michael's College

Trinity College

How familiar are you with Black Canadian history?

“So many people educated in Canada, or external to Canada, don't know about the long-standing presence of Black people in this country,” says Funké Aladejebi, an assistant professor of history in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Arts & Science.

“This breadth of knowledge on Black Canadian history often gets ignored or is not often inserted into broader courses on Canadian history.”

Determined to change this, Aladejebi is teaching a year-long course titled “Black Canadian History.” It’s part of a new Certificate in Black Canadian Studies offered through University College and open to all students in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

“Many of the students in this class come from health and science, equity studies and Indigenous studies, and a lot of them like the idea of being able to say they have specific expertise on Black Canadian studies more broadly,” says Aladejebi.

“It's trying to give students a broad overview of the movements and migrations of persons of African descent into the land that is now called Canada and thinking in complex ways about how people were living and existing in this country.”

Salt Spring Island's Central School, 1929 (photo courtesy of the Salt Spring Island Archives)

The course goes as far back as 1604, which marks the earliest records of persons of African descent in Canada. It also explores the experiences of Black Loyalists – people of African descent who sided with the British during the American Revolutionary War – passengers of the Underground Railroad, as well as lesser-known movements to the West Coast, the Prairies and Maritimes.

Funké Aladjebi (supplied image)

“We tend to forget about these regions where Black people resided in smaller numbers,” says Aladejebi. “But it's our responsibility as historians to show the breadth of where Black people have been and where they still are.”

For example, most Canadians are unfamiliar with the history of the Jamaican Maroons in Nova Scotia.

After a series of wars fighting for freedom from British control in Jamaica, more than 500 Maroons – men, women and children – were forcibly transported to Halifax in 1796.

Despite an inhospitable reception, the Maroons flourished and maintained a strong sense of community in exile, says Aladjebi, adding that they were connected to the city’s larger community, having been involved in the construction of the Halifax Citadel. However, many in the community spent years petitioning the colonial government to leave Nova Scotia, and in 1800, most of them left for the free Black colony of Sierra Leone in West Africa.

“But it’s widely believed some Maroons stayed behind and their continued presence is reflected in the surnames, accents, idioms, customs, oral histories and traditions of African Nova Scotians,” Aladejebi says.

The Halifax Citadel (photo by Ron Cogswell, CC BY 2.0)

The second half of the course dives into more contemporary issues such as racial violence, anti-Black racism, immigration trends, equity and inclusion for Black communities, and injustice in Canada.

“We never just stay in the history, we always bring it to the contemporary with these historical foundations and track why this continues to exist today,” says Aladejebi. “By the time we move through the course, students understand the roots of anti-Black racism in Canada, and they're able to navigate institutions in a clearer way.”

Aladejebi says she is intrigued by the range of emotions the students experience as she teaches the material.

“They move through emotional stages where they are surprised at first and then get frustrated because of what they didn't know,” says Aladejebi. “The Black students go through a variety of feelings, but at end of the class, they’re feeling like they know a little bit more about themselves and the experience of persons of African descent.

“Non-Black students also go through a series of emotions. They feel better equipped to talk about Black Canadian history, they’re able to better understand various social relationships that are part of Black experiences across the diaspora.”

There can be anxious moments.

“Students have to talk about, ‘What was my experience in school? What was my experience and engagement with policing and the judicial system?’ So we go through pockets where students are nervous about saying the right and wrong things.”

For many students, working through these tensions leads to knowledge and understanding.

“As a Black Canadian political science major pursuing a career as a policy analyst, the course’s material, conversations and activities are crucial to both my academic and professional development,” says Dacian Dawes, a third-year member of St. Michael’s College who is double majoring in political science and critical studies in equity and solidarity, with a minor in African studies and a certificate in Black Canadian history.

“It has increased my understanding of systemic inequalities, inspiring me to use this information to build on my political science studies and future career.”

Erinayo Adediwura Oyeladun, a second-year student in African studies and a member of Trinity College, says she has been empowered by studying the work of Black Canadian history scholars, and sees how historical understanding can be a powerful tool in creating change.

“The historians’ research teaches me the importance of situating your work as more than just an intellectual discovery. Your work should also represent your community and serve a broader purpose in making a positive impact for your community.”

For Aladejebi, teaching the course has been equally as energizing, with her students continually challenging the way she delivers – and receives – information.

“We all come with our limitations, biases and prejudices. This course is helping us to think about where they come from, why they exist, and how we can interpret them. It's about interrupting the cycles, unlearning what we thought we knew, and re-imagining something better.”

‘Incredible leadership’: �鶹��Ƶ provost Cheryl Regehr leaves an enduring legacy

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 20:26:44 +0000

‘Incredible leadership’: �鶹��Ƶ provost Cheryl Regehr leaves an enduring legacy

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 12/19/2023 - 15:26

Cutline

(photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Rahul Kalvapalle

Topic

Our Community

Presidential and Provostial Task Force on Student Mental Health

Academics

Cheryl Regehr

Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work

Faculty

Faculty of Arts & Science

Graduate Students

Meric Gertler

Provost

Undergraduate Students

Subheadline

In her 10 years as vice-president and provost, Regehr championed student well-being, inclusive excellence and teaching innovation

Champion of student success and wellness. Advocate for inclusive excellence. Compassionate leader in times of crisis.

This is how members of the University of Toronto community describe Cheryl Regehr as she prepares to step down as vice-president and provost at the end of the year – leaving a legacy that will shape �鶹��Ƶ for generations to come.

At a recent reception, �鶹��Ƶ President Meric Gertler said Regehr has “always put the University of Toronto first” regardless of whether she was supporting students, strengthening diversity or guiding the university community through the COVID-19 pandemic – “the worst public health crisis in a century.”

He added that Regehr’s commitment to student success and well-being was the “North Star” that guided her efforts, citing her stewardship of the transformation of mental health service delivery at the university.

“This is typical of [Provost Regehr’s] work over the past decade – acknowledging a pressing challenge, developing an action plan driven by collegial consultation and expert leadership, embracing recommendations, outlining an ambitious agenda for change, and then rolling up her sleeves to get it done with equal measures of creativity, determination and charm.”

After spending a decade leading the university’s academic mission, Regehr will return to a full-time research and teaching role as a professor in the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work on Jan. 1. She will be succeeded as �鶹��Ƶ’s provost by Professor Trevor Young of the Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

Regehr was first appointed vice-president and provost in September 2013, before being reappointed in January 2015 and one more time in January 2020 – racking up awards and honours along the way. She previously served as vice-provost, academic programs and as dean of the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, where she has been a faculty member since 1999.

Regehr’s work on championing teaching excellence, experiential learning, and building a caring and supportive environment for students stand out among her many signature achievements.

Her office created the “teaching stream” professorial ranks to emphasize the importance of teaching to �鶹��Ƶ’s academic mission, devised funding streams to support teaching innovation and launched an array of teaching fellowships and awards. It also opened the doors to many opportunities for students to gain first-hand experience in subjects through summer abroad, co-op and work-study programs.

An expert in mental health, trauma and social work practice, Regehr also recognized the unique pressures faced by university-aged youth and advanced efforts to harmonize student mental health services across the three campuses. That included more funding for mental wellness and establishing a partnership with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) to create pathways for students requiring treatment for complex mental health problems.

As a result, �鶹��Ƶ students can now more easily access same- or next-day counselling in-person as well as 24-7 virtual support – part of a broader push to create a “stepped model of care” that prioritizes individually tailored treatment over lengthy assessments.

“I’m extremely proud of the work we have done on student mental health,” Regehr said in a recent interview for �鶹��Ƶ’s Defy Gravity campaign. “Youth today are under immense pressure, and the pandemic exacerbated some of those stresses … in response to this, we’ve completely redesigned our mental health services to try to make sure that students who are struggling can get the assistance they need more quickly and responsively.”

Sandy Welsh, �鶹��Ƶ’s vice-provost, students, said Regehr’s student focus stemmed just as much from her academic expertise as it did from a “deep sense that we need to listen to our students and can always do better for them” – including thinking constantly about improving every aspect of the student experience.

“There’s this creativity and thoughtfulness that she has. For example, she thinks about how our students move through and inhabit our three campuses,” said Welsh, adding that Regehr’s interest went far beyond ensuring there were ample spots to study. “There was a focus and encouragement to all three campuses and all the academic divisions to think about creating spaces where a commuting student who’s on campus all day can just sit in a comfortable place and relax.

“For Provost Regehr, the centre of her work is always, ‘How is this helping students?’”

In that vein, Regehr also accelerated �鶹��Ƶ’s efforts to welcome more students from underrepresented backgrounds – with the number of access and outreach programs at �鶹��Ƶ growing from 30 to more than 135 since 2018. “We can only be great if we ensure that every single excellent student here in the city of Toronto believes the University of Toronto is a place for them, a place where they belong,” Regehr said during the launch of one of those programs, SEE �鶹��Ƶ, in 2019.

Similar strides were made when it comes to making sure �鶹��Ƶ’s faculty members better reflect the community in which �鶹��Ƶ resides, with Regehr overseeing the creation of the Diversity in Academic Hiring Fund that has resulted in the addition of 190 faculty from underrepresented groups – mostly Black and Indigenous – and post-doctoral fellowship programs for Black and Indigenous scholars.

Regehr also played a key role in advancing the university’s reckoning with various forms of racism, including collaborating with Indigenous community members to build a new Office of Indigenous Initiatives to strengthen reconciliation efforts. During her tenure, �鶹��Ƶ set up working groups to examine anti-Black racism, anti-Asian racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia on campus and provide recommendations to support the university’s response.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in early 2020, Regehr oversaw �鶹��Ƶ’s efforts to provide academic continuity and supports as the university pivoted to a virtual learning environment.

“As we moved to remote, it meant figuring out new ways of managing things and continuing to support everyone as they tried to continue with their activities – and [Provost Regehr] provided incredible leadership through that,” said Vivek Goel, who served as special adviser to �鶹��Ƶ’s president and provost on the pandemic and is now president of the University of Waterloo.

Regehr’s responsibilities as provost were carried out alongside distinguished scholarly work. During her 10 years in the role, she authored or co-authored more than 50 papers (including a paper describing �鶹��Ƶ’s response to the pandemic, co-authored with Goel), and editions of four books.

“While I have continued to do research while I’ve been provost, I’m looking forward to focusing even more on this,” Regehr told the Defy Gravity campaign. She noted her work will explore topics like the impact of workplace stress and trauma on decision-making and cyber-violence against public service professionals.

Welsh said Regehr’s compassion and thoughtfulness were evident in the work environment she cultivated at �鶹��Ƶ.

“She is just a beautiful combination of being direct around the priorities you need to focus on, but also encouraging your ideas and having compassion and understanding for the people that work with her and the challenges they may face,” Welsh said.

“I’ve learned a lot from her about what it means to be an academic administrator and a senior leader at the university. I’m going to miss her.”

Melanie Woodin, dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science, said academic leaders across �鶹��Ƶ’s three campuses regarded Regehr with “widespread admiration.”

“Whenever we’re together, we inevitably end up in a conversation about the amazing qualities of our provost, Cheryl Regehr,” Woodin said during a recent event to honour the provost.

Regehr, for her part, told attendees at the same event she relished working with the expansive �鶹��Ƶ community during her many years in Simcoe Hall.

“I have loved being part of this incredible group of brilliant people,” she said. “Academic leaders, staff, faculty… and our students – our wonderful students – all of us working together as a team to ensure we achieve our mission of being a world-class institution with a local heart.”

Wars, Diaspora & Music: �鶹��Ƶ courses explores the role of music during times of war

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 17:17:03 +0000

Wars, Diaspora & Music: �鶹��Ƶ courses explores the role of music during times of war

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 12/07/2023 - 12:17

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Simon Bikindi, right, a Rwandan singer-songwriter, is pictured with his lawyers and a United Nations guard at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 2008 (photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Cynthia Macdonald

Topic

Our Community

Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies

Faculty of Arts & Science

Undergraduate Students

Victoria College

In the 1990s, Simon Bikindi was Rwanda’s most popular musician – a United Nations official even dubbed him the “Rwandan Michael Jackson.” A sometime wedding singer, Bikindi’s lyrics often told of love stories and his country’s beautiful landscape.

But Bikindi’s music could also be dangerous. Over the three months in which almost a million Tutsis were massacred during the Rwandan Civil War, the country’s Radio Télévision Libre des Milles Collines repeatedly broadcast the singer’s violent, inflammatory songs. In 2008, Bikindi, an ethnic Hutu, was convicted for his role in inciting war crimes.

The Bikindi story is but one of the case studies covered in “Wars, Diaspora and Music” – a University of Toronto course in the Faculty of Arts & Science that explores the important role that music often plays in ethnic conflicts, wars, exile and displacement.

“We look at how music can be a weapon – as military music and propaganda,” says course creator Anna Shternshis, the Al and Malka Green Professor of Yiddish Studies and director of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies.

“But we also look at songs created by people under duress – songs about love and the reclamation of humanity, when everything has been destroyed.”

Shternshis says she conceived of “Wars, Diaspora & Music” while working on Yiddish Glory, the Grammy-nominated album of Holocaust-era Yiddish songs she assembled with Russian performer Psoy Korolenko.

Anna Shternshis is the director of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies and is the Al and Malka Green Professor of Yiddish Studies (photo by Diana Tyszko)

Yiddish Glory is part of the course’s syllabus, along with music from many other conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries. That includes music from Rwanda, Korea, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Palestine.

“I decided to take this course as I had never heard of anything like it,” says Anjali Joshi-Dave, who is in her third year as a member of Trinity College. “Although I do not play any musical instruments, I adore music and was interested to see its connection to violence and diasporas from an academic perspective.”

Gabriella Batikian is a fourth-year member of Victoria College. A member of the Armenian diaspora, she grew up listening to a wealth of music from her heritage – much of which was produced around the time of the 1915 Armenian genocide.

She says the course helped her contextualize such music, as well as that from other countries.

“We do a deep analysis of the lyrics that we’re studying,” Batikian says. “And it’s really interesting to learn how music can be used for good and for bad. We’ve learned how it can be used as a propaganda tool and to incite violence. But at the same time, music is also used to comfort survivors of war. That’s the main thing – discovering the power that music truly holds.”

War invariably involves displacement – hence its connection to diasporic communities longing for home. To this end, students learn about initiatives such as the U.S.-based Refugee Orchestra Project.

Shternshis is a scholar of refugee experience and a supporter of refugees in Toronto.

“In class, we’ve discussed what kind of music is created in refugee camps,” she says. “Listening to music like this becomes a way of learning what people really care about. And I think that when students examine events in future, they will count music among the sources they use to try and make sense of them.”

By studying music produced within different conflict environments, Shternshis has drawn several unique insights. She notes, for example, that the closer a musician is to conflict, the less “martial” the music becomes. That includes war songs in which soldiers sing about their loved ones back home, or joke about inferior army food.

“A lot of soldiers also learn to play a musical instrument, because they desperately need the emotional break,” she says.

Hearts of Pine by Joshua D. Pilzer (Oxford University Press)

The course also features a unit on Hearts of Pine, a book by Joshua Pilzer, an associate professor in the Faculty of Music. The book explores how Korean women used song as a means of coping with trauma while forced into sexual enslavement during the Second World War.

“When people live through sexual violence in war, very few songs describe the violence itself,” says Shternshis, noting it was a phenomenon she noticed when interviewing Holocaust survivors who were also musicians. “They sing about everything else but that.”

Shternshis has been teaching “Wars, Diaspora & Music” since 2018 and changes the syllabus every year to incorporate music from the world’s current wars. “I keep hoping that this will become a historical course,” she says ruefully. “But it is always contemporary.”

Last year, for example, she monitored music – emerging in real time on social media – created during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This year, she and her students are keeping watch on music from the Israel–Hamas war with the help of a student translator.

While it is painful to engage with contemporaneous pain, Shternshis says it’s a valuable way of recording experiences and emotions that are easily forgotten with the passage of time.

What unites the music studied in the course is its enormous power – both to incite killing, as in the case of Rwanda’s Bikindi, but also to provide healing.

Shternshis says the latter may ultimately be stronger than the former.

“If a person who lives under extreme duress is able to enjoy music, that often gives them incredible strength to move on,” Shternshis says, adding that her course offers a glimpse of the human spirit at its most threatened – and most triumphant.

“We are asking: What are the things that people are saying, or singing, or even laughing about in conditions that are not designed for life at all?”