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Professor Jacob Beck: Texas used to have universities

egamulin — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 20:53:02 +0000

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91��ɫ experts have got you covered for Paris Olympics

egamulin — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 17:23:22 +0000

July. 26, 2024, TORONTO – While the Olympics are a show of international friendship and athletic excellence, they are also about politics and diplomacy, tourism, social change and spectacle, and sometimes even espionage.

Hernán ��ܳ��ñ��, three-time Olympic coach and expert on the History of the Olympics, is in Paris cheering on his daughter in beach volleyball.

“The Olympics has the potential to be such a positive force for good in the world,” says 91��ɫ Faculty of Health Associate Professor , a three-time Olympic coach who teaches a course on the history of the Olympic Games and will be in Paris July 26 onward cheering on his daughter, . “Every Olympics strives to meet its ideals, and every Olympics falls short — but I am an optimist, I believe each Olympics gets better and better.”

��ܳ��ñ�� and other 91��ɫ experts are available to give comment to media on everything from nationalism in sport and why the economic pressures on athletes are getting even worse, to branding and tourism opportunities, the evolution of women’s basketball in Canada and how large sporting events intersect with sex tourism and displacement of low-income people, and more.

Hernán ��ܳ��ñ��

��ܳ��ñ��, who helped Canada secure a bronze in the Atlanta ’96 games, teaches in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Science at 91��ɫ. He was an early coach for his daughter, who along with her Canadian beach-volleyball partner and fellow 91��ɫ alumna Brandie Wilkerson, is currently ranked fourth in the world and is in Paris competing for a medal. ��ܳ��ñ�� played for the Chilean national volleyball team and came to Canada as a political refugee during the Pinochet years, a journey which he documented in his book Playing Under The Gun: An Athlete's Tale of Survival in 1970s Chile. He is available from Paris to comment on the history of the Olympics and how political and social events intersect and affect the modern games from their inception in the late 1800s to now. ��ܳ��ñ�� can also offer interviews in Spanish.

Topics he can speak to include:

History of the Olympics
Sport and nationalism
Gender issues in sport
Compensation and treatment of athletes

Parissa Safai, expert in the sociology of sport, health and social inequality.

Parissa Safai

The Canada Soccer drone-spying controversy is, in part, a great example of how much more aggressive Canada has become on the international sport scene in pursuit of wins, says , professor in the Faculty of Health and Chair of the School of Kinesiology and Health Science.

“In many ways, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics marked a pronounced shift in Canada’s attitudes towards success on the Olympic stage and our high-performance sport system became even that much more intentional about ‘owning the podium’,” says Safai. “For an athlete, gold medal-winning performances demand not just an unconditional commitment to physical training and skill development, but presuppose disposable money and disposable time, as the financial support from governments is just not enough.”

Many athletes are highly reliant on their parents for financial support, and the costs of producing a gold-medal winning performance has gone up, adds Safai, putting more pressure on high-performance athletes, and making their finances even more precarious. Safai is an expert in the sociology of sport, health and social inequality. She is available for phone and video conference interviews and can speak to:

Sports medicine and sports related pain and injury
Sport risk-taking
Sport and social inequality and gender equity in sport
Barriers to physical activity in communities
Sport policy and governance

Danielle Howard, an expert in race, sport and performance.

Danielle Howard

In 2018, a U.S. conservative news commentator said that LeBron James should just “shut up and dribble,” after the NBA star gave his views about then-President Donald Trump in an ESPN podcast.

Those comments inspired a documentary by the same name that explored the social and political influence of NBA players through the history of the league, which in turn was an inspiration for AMPD Assistant Professor ’s latest research at the intersection of race, sport and performance.

“The documentary got me thinking, does dribbling have more to say about politics, about Black life, then we have initially given it credit for?”

Howard is working on a book called Making Moves: Race, Basketball, and Embodied Resistance that spans the twentieth and twenty-first centuries of basketball history. She examines America’s history of white supremacy and how comments like “shut up and dribble” reflect a continued dismissal of Black lives and experiences, images of the Black body on display through history from slave auctions to NBA drafts and how audience and media surveillance impacts movement. “The majority of bodies in the NBA are Black. So from a media standpoint, the majority of the media consumption we have of basketball is represented by Black bodies.”

She also looks at how Black athletes speak with their bodies, and how politics, history and social movements are embodied in athleticism, from the New 91��ɫ Renaissance basketball team to present times.

“Black performance in sport is not merely aesthetic, it has potential and purpose to be disruptive to the political and to ultimately incite change and liberation.”

Howard is available to comment on:

Race, politics and sport
Sport as performance, particularly basketball
Theatre and spectacle in the opening and closing Games
Aesthetics and virtuosity in Olympic sports such as gymnastics, diving, synchronized swimming and breaking

Vijay Setlur, expert in sport marketing and tourism

Vijay Setlur

“France is already the most visited country in the world, but hosting the Olympics would diversify the destination and its visitor economy,” says , a marketing instructor at 91��ɫ’s Schulich School of Business specializing in sports marketing and tourism marketing. “People visit the country for its museums, galleries, architecture and culinary offerings, but Paris will now be able to attract more international sporting events to capitalize on the growing sport tourism segment and elevate its status as a sports city.”

Setlur attended and gave commentary at FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and is also a consultant for Concacaf (Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football). Setlur is available to comment on:

Canadian soccer drone scandal and how it might affect the perception of Canada Soccer and sponsorship activity
Sponsorships and the Paris Olympic Games
How the NFL and ICC are hoping to leverage flag football and cricket, making its debut at the LA28 Games, to engage younger consumers
TV ratings and viewership of the Games
Use of technology at the Olympics

Sarah Bay-Cheng, expert on the history of women's basketball in Canada

Sarah Bay-Cheng

“For me, sports is another kind of performance: It's aesthetic, it's time-based, there's an audience,” saysProfessor , dean of the School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design at 91��ɫ and a former NCAA basketball player. “As the playwright Sarah Kane once said, the difference between theatre and a football (soccer) match is that you don't know how the football match is going to end.”

Bay-Cheng’s research focuses on the intersection of performance and media, including how digital technologies create performance conditions in museums and other cultural heritage sites. In this capacity, she is co-curating a gallery exhibition for the Museum of Toronto on the history of basketball in Toronto that will open in the spring of 2025.

“In Toronto basketball didn’t follow a linear development. Different versions of the game emerged at different times and in different places. Part of the work of preparing the exhibition has been to dig into the history of basketball in Canada and what has made Toronto such an exceptional place for the sport. As a former player, I’ve been very interested in learning more about the history of women's basketball in Canada as relation to, but also very distinctive from the history of the sport in the United States.”

Bay-Cheng is available to comment on the history of basketball in Canada, particularly the women’s game:

The American and Canadian roots of the game
How women’s basketball started among primarily white, upper-class women in the U.S., Ontario and eastern Canada, and why they were no match for a team from Western Canada that adopted a more aggressive style of play
How Title IX in the U.S. was a game-changer for women’s basketball
How both the men’s and women’s games have become more international, with training concentrated in NCAA schools
Sports as mediated performance

Amanda De Lisio, expert in sport mega-events, sex work, displacement and migration

Amanda De Lisio

During the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games, Faculty of Health Assistant Professor partnered with researchers in Rio de Janeiro to examine what happened with sex workers during the games.

“One of the narratives that follows the sport mega event is related to the involvement of human trafficking,” says De Lisio in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science. “We work with people who are often the target of these anti-trafficking strategies to find out what is actually happening on the ground, are they being trafficked or exploited in their labour? And how their patterns of labour and migration in the city may change as a result of the mega event.”

De Lisio is working with groups in Los Angeles, which will host the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the 2027 Super Bowl, and the 2028 Olympic Games to examine what is happening on the ground there ahead of the games. Her , published earlier this month, looks at the security apparatus of the Rio Olympics, and argues that “despite the enormous investment and facade of newly militarized host communities, insecurities remained, and ‘security’ as a practice failed to be guaranteed.” De Lisio is also available for interviews in Portuguese.

She can comment on:

Understanding sex work as labour in a vulnerable sector and how displacement brought on by mega-events affects sex workers and other communities
Sport mega-event construction and the financialization of housing
Local groups in Paris decrying Olympics-related displacement of low-income people

J-Rebel (Joseph Hersco), a youth worker in the Jane and Finch community in Toronto and expert in breaking.

J-Rebel

A half century after the birth of Hip-Hop among mostly Black and Latino, working-class youth in the South Bronx, breaking makes its debut as an Olympic sport. For longtime breaker (Joseph Hersco) from the Supernaturalz Crew, who helped develop and co-taught a course on the art of breaking at 91��ɫ with AMPD dance professor Mary Fogarty, he’ll be watching the competition on Aug. 9 and 10 with a mix of emotions and criticisms.

“There is a political side of Hip-Hop — it comes out of particular socio-economic conditions, right? I think a lot of that can easily get washed out, when the focus is around just who's winning in the competition,” says J-Rebel, who lives and works in the Jane and Finch community in Toronto. “But those things are intertwined in breaking — the politics, the cultural aspects, race, class and gender.”

J-Rebel, who teaches kids breaking and has travelled the world by competing in international breaking competitions comparable to the caliber we will see at the Olympics, picked up the practice himself decades ago with peers and in community centres in Jane and Finch, Lawrence Heights and Malvern where he grew up and lived. He says that while breaking is more accessible to the youth in his community — predominantly low-income and working-class — than a sport like hockey or football, there are still barriers to who might be able to compete at the highest level due to social inequalities that are still present in many communities in Toronto.

“It's not necessarily a predetermined thing because youth from these particular places have become resilient out of necessity, but your proximity to privilege and having resources is going to give you a better chance at developing your competencies.”

J-Rebel is available to comment on:

Origins and connections of breaking to hip-hop; roots in New 91��ɫ and Black diasporic cultural expression
Why the Olympics need breaking and not the other way around
Technical, cultural and social aspects of breaking
Ensuring access to breaking and sport in low-income and racialized communities.
History of breaking in Toronto

Martin Breaugh, an expert in French politics.

Martin Breaugh

France was on shaky grounds ahead of the Olympics, politically speaking, but the ruling parties dodged a bullet in the snap election by blocking the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party from taking power, says Professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies and an expert in French politics.

“The presence of RN ministers at the Olympics would have been an impossible situation to manage with the potential of athletes boycotting such ministers, as well as local officials and maybe even delegations from elsewhere, especially the former French colonies, doing the same,” he says.

Breaugh is available for email, phone and teleconferencing videos and is currently on Central European Time six hours ahead of Toronto. He is also available for interviews in French and can speak on:

The political situation in France in the leadup to the Olympics
How the handling of the Olympics will impact public perception of the government
History of politics in France

Satinder K.Brar, an expert in water contamination.

Satinder K. Brar

Despite France spending more than $1.5 billion in cleanup efforts to get it in good shape before the start of the Olympics, the Seine continues to experience problems with water pollution, with the men’s triathlon posted this week due to unacceptably high levels. Lassonde School of Engineering Professor is an expert in environmental biotechnology and decontamination, with particular expertise in water. Brar is also available for interviews in French, Hindi and Punjabi, and can comment on:

Cleanup efforts of the Seine
Waste water contamination and potential risks to athletes
Other pollutants sometimes found in urban bodies of water

Lyndsay Hayhurst

Lyndsay Hayhurst, an expert in community sports programming.

For 15 years, Faculty of Health Associate Professor has been collaborating with self-identified women and youth in Canada, Uganda and Nicaragua to investigate the role of sport for social justice and ‘development’. This includes examining cycling as a possible catalyst for achieving mobility justice and gender equity; investigating how community sport for development programs may create novel possibilities for feminist climate-justice activism; and addressing physical inactivity among marginalized youth and women (cis and trans) through the use of trauma-and violence-informed approaches.

“We're arguing that these , and that certainly flies in the face of some of the approaches to coaching and sport that we sometimes see are taken up at the Olympics,” says Hayhurst, also the 91��ɫ Research Chair in Sport, Gender and Development & Digital Participatory Research.

Hayhurst and collaborators just launched a short documentary film - - and she is available to comment on:

Sport and gender equity
Gender-diverse youth and sport
Trauma-and-violence-informed approaches to sport, recreation and leisure

Sexual and gender-based violence prevention in/through sport for development
Climate change initiatives and ‘greenwashing’ at the Paris Olympics
Sport for development and peace initiatives and NGO activisms
Community sport and recreation initiatives, especially cycling and soccer

Please check your inbox or online for updates to this roster.

For a list of some of the 91��ɫ-affiliated athletes and medical team members participating in the Games, .

About 91��ɫ

91��ɫ is a modern, multi-campus, urban university located in Toronto, Ontario. Backed by a diverse group of students, faculty, staff, alumni and partners, we bring a uniquely global perspective to help solve societal challenges, drive positive change, and prepare our students for success. 91��ɫ’s fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario’s Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education. 91��ɫ’s campuses in Costa Rica and India offer students exceptional transnational learning opportunities and innovative programs. Together, we can make things right for our communities, our planet, and our future.

Media Contacts: Emina Gamulin, 91��ɫ Media Relations and External Communications, 437-217-6362, egamulin@yorku.ca

About 91��ɫ

Media Contacts: Emina Gamulin, 91��ɫ Media Relations and External Communications, 437-217-6362, egamulin@yorku.ca

The post 91��ɫ experts have got you covered for Paris Olympics appeared first on News@91��ɫ.

91��ɫ U study reveals new findings about anti-Black bias in children

egamulin — Mon, 20 Feb 2023 19:57:00 +0000

The post 91��ɫ U study reveals new findings about anti-Black bias in children appeared first on News@91��ɫ.

Anti-Black bias can persist despite kids’ tendency to favour same-gender peers

egamulin — Wed, 01 Feb 2023 16:01:10 +0000

91��ɫ researcher says talking to children about race and racism in age-appropriate ways can help combat biases

TORONTO, Feb 1 2023 — Children as young as five can display more positive associations with white children over Black children on measures of unconscious bias and this can be true even when taking into consideration kids’ tendencies to favour same-gender peers. Taking an own-gender lens does, however, increase positive associations towards Black children, pointing to both the persistence of anti-Black racism, but also its contextual nature.

“I think for many Black parents this would not be a surprising finding, given their own lived experience,” says lead author Jennifer Steele, psychology professor with 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Health. “Racism continues to persist in our society and children are picking up on that. What it also points to is kids looking at race through a lens that can come in and out of focus, depending on what they are paying attention to.”

Steele has studied racial bias since she was a graduate student at Harvard and has led multiple studies on children’s implicit biases around race at 91��ɫ as director of the University’s . While she acknowledges that it can be uncomfortable to think of young children as displaying racial bias, she says it can be useful to acknowledge and discuss issues of racism on the path to tackling them.

Professor Jennifer Steele

“We like to believe that children are innocent beings that are naive to many of the realities in the world, and at times they are. But simultaneously, they're watching the way the world works and they are picking up on things that adults transmit, sometimes unintentionally. So, in some ways it’s surprising, in some ways it’s not that surprising that they start to show racial biases from quite early in development.”

For the study, recently published in the American Psychological Association’s Developmental Psychology, more than 200 non-Black children were recruited to complete an Implicit Association Test used to measure unconscious bias. Children were shown pictures of Black children, who they did not know and who were their same gender, and pictures of white children who were not their gender. That is, girls saw Black girls and white boys, while boys saw Black boys and white girls. Steele and her research partner found that the level of bias depended largely on how children thought about the faces.

When the girls were asked to think of the Black girls as girls, their positive associations increased relative to white boys, but when asked to think of the Black girls as Black, they favoured the white boys. The boys in the study showed the same pattern of own-gender favouritism when they were asked to think about Black boys and white girls as boys and girls. But racial bias was still found when these same faces were seen through the lens of race.

These findings suggest that racial bias can persist, but can also come in and out of focus, making it sometimes harder to consistently identify. While not explored in this particular study, Steele says that one important way for parents and educators to work on reducing bias, is through representation and having age-appropriate conversations about race.

“It is important for children to see many examples of the diversity of amazing people, from all walks of life, who contribute positively to our society,” she says.

About 91��ɫ

Media Contacts: Emina Gamulin, 91��ɫ Media Relations and External Communications, 437-217-6362, egamulin@yorku.ca

The post Anti-Black bias can persist despite kids’ tendency to favour same-gender peers appeared first on News@91��ɫ.

Who is getting vaccinated has shifted as immunizations become more available

sandramc — Wed, 28 Sep 2022 13:45:46 +0000

TORONTO, Sept. 28, 2022 – Political ideology may be the main driver of who is getting a COVID-19 vaccine in the United States and it’s falling along racial lines with racial and ethnic minorities now being the most likely to roll up their sleeves, according to new research by a 91��ɫ professor.

This is a dramatic shift from the early days when COVID-19 vaccines were first available, and a lack of supply meant people in primarily Black and Latino areas of the United States were less likely to be vaccinated. Now counties that are primarily comprised of whites, are lagging behind in getting vaccinated.

It's a switch that runs counter to the belief that racial minorities shied away from vaccinations because of hesitancy and distrust with the medical establishment.

Cary Wu

"Although many thought a history of medical mistreatment caused Black communities to be skeptical of vaccines, the main reason for lower COVID-19 vaccination rates was unequal access to vaccines," says Assistant Professor of 91��ɫ's Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies.

"Recent research suggests vaccine hesitancy is not the root cause for lower uptake of vaccines in racial minorities. In fact, survey data show that Asian Americans are the group most willing to be vaccinated in the U.S. and Blacks have become more willing over time."

Today, the leading factors in who is willing to get a COVID-19 shot, more closely align with political leanings. Counties with large communities of Republicans – more likely to be whites living in more conservative suburban and rural areas – have lower vaccination rates than those with a high percentage of Democrats. Black Americans are more likely to have liberal Democratic ideologies, while white Democrats often live in racially diverse urban areas.

Wu looked at data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's weekly COVID-19 vaccination numbers and the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey, which provides the racial composition of more than 3,000 U.S. counties, for his research. He compared the vaccination rates of counties with the highest compositions of Asians, Blacks, Hispanics and whites, and analyzed how those rates shifted as the pandemic wore on.

In the beginning, a clear pattern of lower vaccination rates in socio-economically disadvantaged Black and Hispanic counties and higher rates in more affluent Asian and white counties emerged. But as time went on and access to vaccines increased in all areas, albeit more slowly and unevenly in disadvantage counties, that pattern began to change.

"If you were to ask me now what the single biggest predictor of who will get vaccinated is, I would say political ideology,” says Wu.

Conservatives are more wary of science and government which seems to fuel their unwillingness to be vaccinated. That means counties with higher percentages of white people are finding their vaccination uptake slowing, while counties with a higher composition of racial minorities, often with liberal leanings, are increasingly getting vaccinated.

“Socioeconomic disadvantage played a large role in who got vaccinated initially, but political ideology is now a major factor underlying vaccination rates across counties with varying levels of concentrations of different racial groups,” he says. “Even so, there is a need to pay attention to the particular vulnerability that members of different racial groups experience during pandemic. As newer vaccines become available, it will be important to ensure their equitable distribution as this should result in more widespread uptake.”

Acknowledging and addressing group-specific patterns and barriers for different racial groups is crucial for achieving effective and equitable responses and for reducing racial disparities during disease outbreaks in the future.

The paper, , was published in the September issue of the journal Social Science & Population Health.

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91��ɫ is a modern, multi-campus, urban university located in Toronto, Ontario. Backed by a diverse group of students, faculty, staff, alumni and partners, we bring a uniquely global perspective to help solve societal challenges, drive positive change and prepare our students for success. 91��ɫ's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education. 91��ɫ’s campuses in Costa Rica and India offer students exceptional transnational learning opportunities and innovative programs. Together, we can make things right for our communities, our planet, and our future.

Media Contact:
Sandra McLean, 91��ɫ Media Relations, 416-272-6317, sandramc@yorku.ca

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