Commonly, York University is most notable for its size, reputation as a commuter school, and thanks to media misrepresentation, its apparently rampant and out-of-control crime rate.
York has also become known for its mindless and atrociously expensive“This is My Time” campaign. Arguably, this campaign offers no real value to the university. In fact, it may be doing more harm than good to York’s reputation because quite frankly, it looks pretty ridiculous—no other urban university advertises on this scale. What could save York’s reputation is more focus on the amazing research performed by faculty and students.
For instance, York has been awarded more large-scale grants— valued at $1 million—than any other university in the country. Currently, 19 faculty members hold prestigious Canada Research Chair positions, which formally recognize them as national experts in their respective fields. Even students are contributing to the scientific community—a York PhD candidate was recently published in the scientific journal, Ecosphere, for discovering two species of bees make their hives out of plastic.
But most students don’t know about any of this. There is a large audience of unknowing students who could save the school’s reputation if they only knew about our achievements.
News about research is published on yFile, which advertises itself as the “daily campus newsletter,”even though it is primarily tailored to faculty and staff members.
It is readily available online, but it’s not actively promoted or distributed to students, so most of us don’t even know it exists.
The yFile website does boast it is “searchable on Google,” as if this is highly innovative. In this respect, yFile could be way more welcoming to students. Directly reaching out to us through email and physical copies of the newsletter might actually encourage us to pay attention, or at the very least, be numbingly aware of the research at York.
Other universities, like the University of Toronto and Western University, widely publicize their research-related news using their equivalents of yFile, and because of this, they’re commonly given better academic reputations. But there are just as many people conducting research here, which is equally valuable, if not more so.
If knowledge is power, then this university has power in vast quantities. Maybe if more students actually knew about the groundbreaking scholarly work being done here, academic life would be more vibrant. This vibrance could then evolve into a better overall academic reputation for York.
Creating an awareness of research happening could give us something to be proud of again. And maybe, the “fork” joke would finally see the quick death it deserves.
Ashley Glovasky
Deputy Copy Editor
