A collaboration between Associate Professor ANTJE BUDDE and Assistant Professor JILL CARTER at the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies has been selected as one of the inaugural projects for the Critical Digital Humanities Initiative’s Emerging Project Fund for their project, “Streaming Life: Storying the 94!" They envision the project as a collaborative, live-streamed, live-performed digital transmedia intervention provoked by the 94 Calls to Action by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.
Antje Budde Photo Credit: Vojin Vasovic
Jill Carter and Trina Moyan Photo Credit Antje Budde
THE DIGITAL DRAMATURGY LAB_SQUARED OR DDL2, headed by Antje Budde, and the Interactive Media Lab were jointly successful with their application for XSeed funding ($120,000 CDN) with their highly innovative project: “PLAYStrong – Promoting Student Resilience through Interactive Prototypes for Embodied Self-learning.” The project aims at building interactive environments that help students in everyday stress situations in a competitive university context to assess the situation and explore alternative scenarios and game plans in a playful and embodied way.
Professor JOSEPH HEATH, a UC faculty member who teaches in the Department of Philosophy, won the 2020 Donner Prize for the best book on public policy. The Machinery of Government: Public Administration and the Liberal State examines how much power rests in the hands of the public service and how bureaucracy is vital for creating public policy and delivering public services. The Donner Prize recognizes and rewards the best public policy thinking, writing and research by a Canadian and considers its impact.
SIMON LEWSEN, an instructor at the UC Writing Centre, has won a 2021 Digital Publishing Award from the National Media Arts Foundation, earning gold in the Best Feature Article (Long). His award-winning piece, “A Long-Term Tragedy,” illustrated how the myriad and tragic COVID-19 deaths in seniors’ homes resulted from decades of indifference and neglect, part of our shameful history in handling long-term care. The feature was published in The Local.
SHAWN MICALLEF, an instructor for UC One’s Engaging the City program, earned a 2021 Faculty of Arts & Science Superior Teaching Award for his work with the course Citizenship in the City. Micallef, who writes about urban issues for the Toronto Star and other publications, says, “I want the students to see how they can be involved with their city and understand how it works; We’re in the centre of a municipal democracy that’s messy and argumentative and it’s a living thing that is happening in front of us.”
Professor SIOBHAN O’FLYNN will continue to serve as director of the Canadian Studies Program at University College through June 30, 2023. O’Flynn will also serve as UC Experiential Learning and Online Teaching advisor for the 2021-2022 academic year. She is an accomplished university teacher and expert in digital technology and a champion of public humanities. Collaborative digital apps created in her courses have twice in recent years been honoured with the Lieutenant Governor's Ontario Heritage Award.
Two paintings from the UNIVERSITY COLLEGE COLLECTION were recently on display at the SCHIRN in Frankfurt, Germany, a vibrant exhibition space. Ontario Hill Town by Lawren Harris and Evening Silhouette Georgian Bay by Arthur Lismer are on loan from the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, which houses the University College Collection. The Group of Seven paintings were a gift to University College in 1947-48 by H.S. Southam in memory of GORDON H. SOUTHAM (BA 1907 UC).
Guests View Ontario Hill Town (R) from UC Collection Photo by Frank Rumpenhorst
Professor MICHAEL WIDENER has been named director of the Health Studies Program at University College from July 1, 2021 – June 30, 2026. Widener is an associate professor in the Department of Geography and Planning and holds the Canada Research Chair in Transportation and Health. Meanwhile, UC gives thanks to Professor PAUL HAMEL, who served as the program’s interim director for the 2020-2021 academic year. UC is very appreciative of his excellent service, especially in the face of a pandemic.
The Ontario Library Association (OLA) named the revitalized UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LIBRARY as one of the three winners of its 2021 Ontario Library Association Architectural and Design Transformation Award. “The new elements of the library are considerately designed to draw on and respect their context in the fabric of the carefully restored existing building,” said the jury in a unanimous vote. UC and the project’s architects, Kohn, Shnier + ERA Architects in association received the award virtually July 14.