The cool breezes of autumn are upon us, and I couldn’t be happier. This is my happiest time of year – as nature falls asleep and we have to bundle up to keep warm. I find that the coolness keeps my mind crisp and focuses my thoughts on what is important. Last weekend, I went …
Category Archives: Academic Politics
July 1st – A Day of New Beginnings
Well, yesterday was finally July 1, 2011. A fateful day. A day of change and thresholds. Before I tell you why it was so important, I have to say that I spent the evening in lovely surroundings, at my friend and colleague, Dr. Terry Flynn’s house in Kitchener. He and his wife put together a …
Life-Love 92: Rainy days
I just ran in from under the rain – my hair still has beads of waters that roll down like cool surprises onto my ears and cheeks and forehead. I’ve just driven home after an outing at the grocery store, where I picked up a bâtard French loaf, some veggies and a sac of my …
Life-Love 79: Visiting monuments
We all have a relationship to the past. Oftentimes, that relationship is conflicted – we don’t feel as though we want to take ownership of it, or can’t make sense of parts of it. It can be challenging and confusing. So we do our best to make sense of the past, to try to piece …
Life-Love 44: Saying good-bye to a good class
This is a bittersweet life-love. There are few things in the world that are as poignant as saying good-bye to people with whom you’ve worked closely for a good stretch of time. As a university professor, for me this often means the last day of class. I have felt this in office or community projects, …
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Guest lecture from Gurdeep Ahluwalia of CP24 in CMST 4N03
Today was quite the day for me. I rushed back from Niagara Airport in Buffalo to make it to teach CMST 4N03 News Analysis: Theory and Practice. It was an important day, because one of our alumni, Gurdeep Ahluwalia was coming in to give a guest lecture about his experiences building up a career as …
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A social media lecture at the Living Arts Centre in Mississauga
Today I gave a second lecture on social media, this time in the BMO Room of the Living Arts Centre in Mississauga. The topic was how social media is changing the way we do business and lead our personal lives as engaged citizens. A big part of what I was saying had to do with …
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15 (okay 20) authors who have marked me…
Someone challenged me to write the first 15 authors who have influenced my thinking. This was hard to do. I could probably list about 100, but these are the ones that feel fresh and foundational at the same time in my mind right now. I cheated and listed 20 – but this list feels pretty …
My Keynote at REVISE: Social Media is a Key to Personal Branding
On Friday afternoon, I gave a keynote address and three one-hour workshops on building a personal brand using social media at REVISE, an event organised by Steph Seagram, program director, Cossart Exchange in Hamilton, and Vanessa Sage, a PhD student in Anthropology (working on the James St N arts renaissance in Hamilton). The theme of …
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My talk at the McMaster Student Union “Vision 2010” Workshop
Today I had the pleasure of speaking to student leaders from across McMaster as a guest speaker in the Vision 2010 workshop organised by MSU President Mary Koziol and her executive. I spoke between Kate Whalen, Director for the Office of Sustainability and Brian McHattie, Hamilton City Councillor for Ward 1. I spoke about the …
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