The Murray G. Ross Award, established in honour of the University’s first president, is awarded annually to a graduating student in recognition of academic excellence and outstanding contributions to undergraduate student life.

“I feel honoured to have received such a prestigious award. It represents years of hard work and dedication,” says Llaguno.

Her path to this recognition began four years ago, when she moved to Canada from Ecuador with the aim of becoming a physicist and gaining experience in the field.

When she was accepted to 91��ɫ, Llaguno received the 91��ɫ Science Scholars Award (YSSA) for her scholarly achievements in high school. The award included a guaranteed summer research position, providing an early opportunity to conduct paid, hands-on work following her first year.

Through that opportunity, she joined the experimental atomic, molecular and optical physics group led by Professor Anantharaman Kumarakrishnan from the Department of Physics and Astronomy. It proved to be formative, she says, noting “It was there that I discovered my passion for experimental physics."

Over the next four years, Llaguno continued to build on that interest through applied work experiences – supported in part by the Earle Nestmann Undergraduate Research Award (ENURA) in her second year and a Research at 91��ɫ (RAY) position in her third – focused on designing and refining laser-based systems used to study the behaviour of atoms.

With guidance from Kumarakrishnan’s group, she presented her work at several physics conferences and co-authored published papers, reflecting the level of achievement she reached during her undergraduate studies.

During her time at 91��ɫ, Llaguno also sought out opportunities to be involved in her academic community and engage in outreach. In her second year, she became a Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS) leader, a role she held for two years, supporting first-year physics students.

The experience helped her discover a growing interest in teaching, and her students later nominated her for the Bethune College Academic Leadership and Community Building Scholarship.

She took on other roles across the University, serving on a Tenure and Promotion Committee and working as a science student ambassador, campus tour guide and laboratory tour guide. She also contributed to efforts to strengthen teaching and learning in the classroom, helping revise the PHYS 2020 (Electricity and Magnetism) curriculum for engineering students after the course had shown lower performance compared to its physics-major counterpart.

“These experiences were motivated by my desire to give back to my community and share my enthusiasm for physics with prospective students,” says Llaguno.

That combination of academic work and community contribution has now been recognized through the Murray G. Ross Award.

“This award is also a reminder that my passion has not gone unnoticed,” says Llaguno.

Reflecting on the award, Llaguno credits the significant role her parents played in her journey. “I am deeply grateful to my parents, who have always supported me, prioritized my education and taught me the value of learning,” she says. She also expresses gratitude to her professors, her department and her research group, as well as the scholarships, bursaries and awards she received from 91��ɫ that enabled her to continue her studies as an international student.

Llaguno has already begun the next stage of her studies, joining Kumarakrishnan’s group as a master’s student immediately after completing her bachelor degree. She plans to build on the projects she began as an undergraduate while also mentoring incoming students. But, her ambitions extend beyond her master’s studies. “My long-term goal is to remain in academia and ultimately pursue a career as a faculty member, combining research with teaching and mentorship,” she says.

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Building on past participation and renewed community engagement, 91��ɫ invites faculty, staff, instructors, students and alumni to join a dedicated 91��ɫ Pride group walking in the parade. Participation is open to those who wish to take part in a shared, visible expression of support and inclusion alongside colleagues and peers from across the University.

The 91��ɫ Pride group will walk together in 91��ɫ-branded t-shirts and will have the opportunity to contribute to a long-running show of support for 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals and communities.

Space is limited to 100 participants. Register to participate through

Pride Month at 91��ɫ recognizes the contributions of these communities while underscoring the ongoing work to address systemic barriers and build a more inclusive and equitable environment. Visit 91��ɫ’s Pride Month website for more.

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At the 91��ɫ Psychology Clinic, however, researchers and graduate students are working from a different premise: that understanding a child means understanding the family around them.

Heather Prime, a clinical psychologist and associate professor in the , is leading that effort with a team of graduate students.

At the clinic – a mental health care facility for families in the community and training centre for 91��ɫ’s emerging clinical psychologists – graduate students study family mental health while also engaging directly with clients. As part of their clinical training, the students deliver services and conduct supervised assessments with families.

PhD candidate Gillian Shoychet’s doctoral dissertation sits at the centre of this work: she is studying how to implement family assessments in a university clinic, using feedback from families to refine the model.

Their work, alongside researcher Maya Koven, is outlined in an published in JAMA Pediatrics which argues that family systems assessments remain underused in the care of older children and youth.

"The family system – all family members and the interactions between them – influences a child's development and mental health," says Shoychet. "Children's mental health does not exist in isolation."

The approach centres on the Lausanne Trilogue Play Paradigm, a structured assessment that originated in Lausanne, Switzerland. During the assessment, families complete tasks while clinicians film the sessions. In a follow-up meeting, clips are played back to the family and observations are discussed collaboratively.

"We don't say ‘here's what we learned, and here's what you need to do,’" says Prime. "We say, ‘here's what we saw – how does that make sense to you?’"

A key focus of this approach is the co-parenting relationship: the parenting team and how both caregivers work together to support their child. The team’s research states that this dimension is rarely examined in standard child mental health care, where assessments typically involve only one caregiver.

"We're interested in all those relationships that are co-occurring," says Shoychet. "Without observing all those different pieces, it's hard to get a full sense of the child in a holistic manner."

The assessment spans four sessions and concludes with a tip sheet compiled by the clinical team and a follow-up check-in. For some families, that is enough. For others, it becomes a roadmap – pointing toward individual therapy for the child, parental support or longer-term family therapy.

"It's really a broader systemic map of what services families might be able to access," says Prime.

Building that map required significant groundwork by Shoychet. With support from Koven and the graduate student team, Shoychet worked to merge two existing clinical manuals into a single program guide designed for the 91��ɫ Psychology Clinic and its clinical, research and training teams.

"It takes a lot of time, a lot of attention to detail, a lot of patience,” says Shoychet of that project. “As a graduate student, I'm not just getting training to do this program – I'm supporting the implementation of it in my clinic, which is a very unique experience."

Graduate students are trained through a deliberate scaffolding approach. They begin by observing how Prime leads a case, then they work alongside her as co-therapists. Eventually, they take the lead themselves. Between sessions, the team gathers for group consultations – typically joined by collaborator Diane Philipp, a child psychiatrist at The Garry Hurvitz Centre for Community Mental Health at SickKids who was instrumental in bringing this training model to Canada.

"Even if the student isn't the primary clinician, students on the team can come watch, provide feedback and learn," says Shoychet. "It's a really beautiful learning opportunity."

Families are also active participants in shaping the program. Surveys provide meaningful feedback on time commitment, session satisfaction and whether families felt their clinician was supportive.

"We're not just evaluating outcomes," says Shoychet. "We're really trying to understand how the program works in this specific setting and what we need to change to meet the needs of the communities we serve."

"I actually get to see the value that this has for families and be part of changing it to make it more valuable," she adds. "That was one of my aspirations for coming into grad school."

Both Prime and Shoychet share the same vision for the program: to serve those in need while creating meaningful learning experiences for grad students.

Success would mean sustainable program, says Prime, characterized by ongoing training opportunities for graduate students to serve a continuous intake of families.

"We put so much heart and soul into this project," adds Shoychet. "I'm hopeful that people will know more about it."

With files from Mzwandile Poncana

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More than 480 students developed and tested projects in collaboration with external partners across two distinct programs – the interdisciplinary Cross-Campus Capstone Classroom (C4) and the ’s ENG 4000 Capstone course.

While separate cohorts, both groups engaged in projects that advance work ranging from sustainable energy systems and health technologies to responsible uses of AI, with an emphasis on applied research focused on real-world solutions aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The outcomes of this collaborative approach highlight the role of partnership-driven design in accelerating innovation. Students worked directly with organizations to refine project scope, test feasibility and consider pathways to implementation.

Students in both cohorts showcased their work to faculty, partners and peers during two separate Capstone Day events. Lassonde students shared their innovative ideas, spanning disciplines and real-world applications, from developing an autonomous EV charging robot to a system that provides data to satellites about resident space objects or space debris.

“What makes Capstone especially powerful at Lassonde is seeing students evolve from early-stage engineering design into confident engineers capable of designing, building, integrating, testing and communicating complex solutions that address meaningful societal and industry challenges,” says Edris Hassan, Lassonde capstone course director and teaching team lead.

Students in the interdisciplinary C4 cohort developed solutions focused on community wellness, decentralized clean energy, ethical supply chains, campus accessibility and more – projects that underscore meaningful solutions to complex challenges. “C4 offers students the opportunity to move beyond theory to address real-world challenges – and the results show how interdisciplinary collaboration can generate solutions with real impact,” says Richard Hornsey, co-academic lead for the C4 program. “These projects demonstrate the value of bringing together different perspectives to create practical, community-focused solutions.”

Several projects were recognized with awards for their potential impact:

Lassonde Capstone Day Awards

Class Favourite (design, creativity, presentation)
Team 1 – LaunchLab
Autonomous Pickleball Launcher
Team: Adam Hallag, Doluwamu Olubiremi, Dominic Igumbor, Leonard Gladzah, Mohammed Abbas Jega, Sarimah Chindah
Supervisor: Kai Zhang

Engineering Capstone Prize (impact on human well-being)
Team 20 – VitalSense
Rewearable Health Monitoring
Team: Ayesha Shahid, Dave Hiralall, Jakub Przystupa, Maria Ahmed, Muhammad Zafar, Ossama Benaini
Supervisor: Peter Lian

Y-Space/SmartTO Mobility Award (innovation in mobility solutions)
Team 29 – Team PE⇌KE
Drop-in Regenerative Braking for Bicycles
Team: Eugene Park, Hassan Dannyal, Mohammed, Faizaan, Raiyyan Husein, Vincent Hasbun, Yunus Akcor
Supervisor: Thomas Cooper

C4 Spring Capstone Awards

Best Project Award (Quanser) (creativity, inclusion, community impact)
3.0-credit: Team A1 – Seasons of Wellness: Outdoor Programming for Peel Region Youth
Team: Quratulain Alvi, Jessie Enokela, Zarin Hasan, Mihai Puscas, Catalina Tulcan Meza, Gadion Woldemariam
Partners: TRCA; Jack.org

6.0-credit: Team C19 – Go Green: Decentralizing Electrical Energy in St. James Town
Team: Rajendra Brahmbhatt, Steven Chen, Aahana Dube, Nicolas Madronero Martinez, Nisha Panai, Junting Wang
Partner: Engage

Innovation Award (YSpace) (market readiness, creativity)
3.0-credit: Team C12 – Project Walkway: Weather-Protected Areas for the Hangar District
Team: Mohamed Abdel Rahman, Danielle Burnett, Shuwayne Fyne, Haytham Hassan, Akshar Jadhav, Anthony Pham, Shami-uz Zaman
Partner: Northcrest Developments

6.0-credit: Team B10 – Clicking with Conscience: Digital Tools to Combat Forced Labour in Supply Chains
Team: Dimitri Arjoon, Alannis Hopkinson, Dhruv Kapadia, Tony Mendoza Sanchez, Gabisan Sritharalingam, Daniel Vinitski
Partner: International Justice Mission

Sustainability Award (Honda Canada) (SDG impact)
3.0-credit: Team C11 – Cultivating Continuity: Co-Creation in Parks and Open Spaces at YZD
Team: Harsha Bonthagorla, Sina Heidari, Ben Petlach, Nathan Pillinger, Alessandro Policicchio, Deepanjali Syal, Camilo Vargas Cardenas, Nicolas Vargas Gonzalez
Partner: Northcrest Developments

6.0-credit: Team B15 – UNITY: Understanding Needs and Inclusivity Throughout 91��ɫ
Team: Prabhjyot Grewal, Abigail Laverick, Mazha Memon, Ariana Ram, Asad Rehman
Partner: Open Architecture Collaborative Canada

People’s Choice Award
Nrup Patel – 91��ɫPulse: 91��ɫ’s Verified Student Community Platform

See more moments from the day in the .

The Lassonde Capstone team welcomes project proposals for the 2026-27 academic year. Industry partners, community organizations and alumni are encouraged to submit ideas that give the next cohort of engineering graduates a meaningful challenge to solve. Reach out to capstone@yorku.ca to learn more.

C4 is preparing for courses in fall (3.0 credits), winter (3.0 credits), and a full-year fall/winter (6.0 credits). Contact c4class@yorku.ca to explore partnership opportunities.

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When Olsen finished his bachelor of fine arts in 1979 at 91��ɫ, instead of leaving, he made the University his home.

For 41 years, he worked in the Department of Visual Art and Art History (VAAH) as a technician within the print media area, overseeing the daily operations of a specialized space where AMPD students learn printmaking, the process of transferring inked images from prepared surfaces onto paper using presses and other tools.

Much of the role happens behind the scenes – including coordinating studio schedules and maintaining equipment and supplies. Because these processes rely on dedicated equipment, materials and controlled working conditions, students depend on an experienced technician to help them develop their skills and complete coursework.

Olsen exemplified these responsibilities, playing an active part in student learning by guiding them and supporting their work in the studio.

“As technician, teacher and mentor, he supported and encouraged generations of students, creating a cooperative and dynamic environment where they could realize their goals,” says Barbara Balfour, professor emerita, who worked with Olsen for over two decades. He even helped them do so when ideas pushed the limits of conventional approaches or required creative problem-solving in the studio.

“Dan always seriously entertained students’ unorthodox technical questions, only discouraging them when health and safety considerations prevailed,” she says.

For Daryl Vocat, the current print media technician in VAAH, that was part of who Olsen was, and something that continues to inspire his own approach to the job. “I remember Dan as someone who was happy to lend a hand, and as someone who made the studio a welcome and friendly place,” he says.

The long-term impact of Olsen’s generosity, patience and technical knowledge was recognized through honours like the AMPD Award of Excellence Staff Recognition Award in 2019 for his career efforts and the annual Dan Olsen Print Media Award, named after him when he retired in 2020.

Olsen’s impact is recognized in other meaningful ways. David Scott Armstrong, an associate professor who worked with Olsen for 17 years, says when he meets former students who were part of VAAH’s printmaking community, a frequent question arises. “They ask, with a glimmer of fond recollection in their eye, ‘Is Dan still there?’”

He may no longer be, but his influence continues to be felt in the studio and in the work of the many artists he supported over the years.

“Dan brought so much to this community over the years, and all who knew him – students, artists, teachers, colleagues – are grateful for all that we have learned from him,” says Armstrong. “Faculty and course offerings came and went, but Dan was there through it all. He was a vital presence and spirit that made 91��ɫ's printmaking community strong and enduring.”

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A new study by 91��ɫ researchers puts a name to that feeling and examines what it means for employee well-being and job satisfaction.

Tsorng-Yeh Lee, associate professor in the School of Nursing, and Gordon Flett, professor emeritus in the Department of Psychology, are co-authors of "," published in the Canadian Journal of Nursing Research. The study examines how employees' sense of mattering, or its absence, relates to psychological well-being and satisfaction at work.

"Mattering is that feeling of being significant to others, that others see you as important," says Flett. "When somebody says they feel seen, heard and appreciated, that reflects their sense that they matter."

The flip side is anti-mattering: feeling invisible, unimportant or irrelevant. The study indicates that anti-mattering is negatively associated with well-being, mattering at work and job satisfaction – making it one of the study's most robust findings. Feeling unseen at work, the results suggest, has distinct effects, separate from feeling undervalued.

"If participants feel they don't matter, they are less likely to find their work meaningful," says Lee. "If they feel their voice is heard by their boss, they will work harder and do better."

The study also reveals a link between the fear of not mattering and problematic social media use, and an association between the latter and depression.

"When you are engaged with social media at a problematic level, you are exposing yourself to crafted, perfectionistic images of lives [that appear to be] better than yours," says Flett. "People see perfect vacations or perfect children and realize their life isn't like that, making them feel more isolated."

The research was conducted with 60 adults working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants who reported having COVID-19 indicated lower mattering and higher anti-mattering – suggesting that becoming ill somehow limits employees' feelings of significance.

Flett notes the research is a small-scale pilot study with limited scope. While the findings require further investigation, he notes the results point to meaningful patterns that merit closer examination.

For employers, the study's practical implications are clear. Lee points to the value of recognizing contributions regularly and giving meaningful feedback. As Lee explains, this helps foster a feeling for employees that “I’m not just here – I make a difference.”

When employees feel they matter, they are more likely to be engaged, satisfied and emotionally positive about their work. Flett adds that organizations need to move beyond passive wellness messaging and actively demonstrate that employees matter.

"We shouldn't assume people know they are important," he says. "We need to show them."

That can take many forms, he says, such as involving employees in decision-making, checking in on them as people rather than just as workers, and cultivating what Flett calls the “lost art of sending a personal note.”

The U.S. Surgeon General's framework for workplace mental health identifies mattering at work as one of its five core pillars, and Flett suggests organizations should build wellness approaches that include mattering and frame their messages around that construct.

“Mattering is about feeling important, being noticed and feeling depended on,” he says. “When workers are sent messages such as 'You matter to us' and 'Everybody counts,' they know they are seen, heard and cared about at the organizational level. They won't feel like a number."

Lee’s research on the topic will continue through a follow-up grant focused on mattering among Asian communities, with the aim of expanding the research to more diverse and conclusive samples.

The pilot study was supported by a seed grant from the Faculty of Health.

With files from Mzwandile Poncana

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In a historic first, Canada’s 2026 long-form census asks respondents about their sexual orientation, adding vital demographic evidence to the mandatory survey used to guide public funding and infrastructure planning.

For Nick Mulé, it is a shift that has been decades in the making.

"Many of us feel this is long overdue," says Mulé, professor at 91��ɫ's and Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. "I was one of many people who have been advocating for this, going back to the 1990s."

The question – which asks respondents to identify as heterosexual; lesbian or gay; bisexual or pansexual; or to write their own answers – appears on the long-form questionnaire sent to roughly 25 per cent of Canadian households. While Statistics Canada has collected sexual orientation data through smaller specialized surveys before, adding it to the census gives the findings a broader national reach and a different level of public visibility.

"The census is much larger. It goes right across Canada, and it's also mandatory," says Mulé. "It lends legitimacy to these populations, raising their visibility."

But Mulé says visibility alone is not the point, and the more consequential argument is about evidence – and what its absence has cost.

When community organizations doing frontline work with 2SLGBTQIA+ populations have approached governments and funders to address their clients' needs, they have often been told the same thing: without data, resources cannot flow.

"The government acknowledges they believe you, that it probably is true there is a struggle out there, but asks us to give hard evidence," Mulé explains.

That evidence gap is central to Mulé's research. He is project director of 2SLGBTQ+ Poverty in Canada: Improving Livelihood and Social Wellbeing, a 91��ɫ-hosted national study examining poverty among 2SLGBTQIA+ communities. Early findings from this project's national survey reflect what frontline workers have long reported: these populations face significant and compounding hardships.

Census evidence on sexual orientation could deepen that picture considerably. Mulé points to housing, health care, employment, education, income and social services as areas where 2SLGBTQIA+ people face disproportionate challenges due to discrimination, stigma and bias – barriers that differ meaningfully depending on life stage, from youth to seniors.

"Not everyone experiences those things the same way," he says. "It's important that those links are made between one's social location and the kind of challenges they're facing."

The categories included in the census question, Mulé says, are reasonable, and the write-in option is an important safeguard for those whose identity does not fit the options. He acknowledges, however, that open-ended responses create complexity on the research end, as analysts must decide how to group and interpret varied self-descriptions.

More pressing concerns involve privacy, trust and the particular vulnerability of young respondents. Many 2SLGBTQIA+ people have not made their sexual orientation public, and disclosing such information on a government form is considered risky by some.

Those ages 15 and older can fill out the long-form census; however, in most households, an adult who completes the form on behalf of all members. This raises concerns that younger individuals may not be accurately represented if adults are not aware of their sexual orientation.

"Those are some of the conundrums," Mulé says. "It's great on the one hand to include it, but Statistics Canada needs to be aware that there is a sensitivity attached to this when it comes to people's comfort level with disclosing this information."

Mulé frames the census change within a longer arc. Sexual orientation has long been protected under human rights legislation in every province and territory, and federally, for years. Yet, legal recognition has not brought an end to discrimination.

For Mulé, having these communities counted in the census – and having that data inform policy, funding and services – is part of closing that gap.

"It really elevates the recognition and legitimacy of these groups in Canada," he says. “By gathering data specific to the realities of 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, governments can get a clearer picture of what these communities are facing and what resources, supports and services are needed to equitably meet those needs.”

With files from Mzwandile Poncana

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In a new video series titled Renaissance, two Black Canadians – one from the world of academia, the other from the arts, culture or community leadership sectors – sit down for an unscripted conversation about Black life in Canada.

The participants have no idea who they are about to meet.

The four-part video project is produced through a partnership between 91��ɫ’s Glendon College and SHIFTER, a Canadian media platform focused on Black culture, entertainment and community storytelling.

For Glendon, the project brings together alumni engagement, public storytelling and the campus's broader community engagement work. It marks the 100th anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance – the early 20th-century movement where Black intellectualism and Black culture converged – and uses the anniversary to explore Black cultural visibility in Canada today.

The partnership grew from an alumni connection: Kevin Bourne, SHIFTER's director and producer, is a Glendon graduate. After Glendon's communications team took notice of his work in journalism and entertainment, Bourne reconnected with the campus and collaborated on a 2023 written profile series spotlighting Black members of the Glendon community – students, professors, staff and alumni.

Renaissance grew from there.

"We always kind of had the idea that this will be the beginning of not just one collaboration but multiple collaborations," says Bourne.

For Glendon, Pascal Arseneau, executive director of strategic communications and community engagement, says the project reflects a word students often use to describe the campus: community.

"Glendon is special because of its capacity to create spaces for dialogue," he says. "People come from a variety of perspectives and places and manage to quickly form alliances, work on what brings them together, get involved in different causes, tackle challenges and seek out solutions together."

Arseneau says Glendon approached the project to connect several of its communities at once: current students, faculty, staff, alumni and wider audiences. By pairing Glendon-connected participants with community figures from outside the University, the series extends critical conversations into a broader public setting.

That emphasis on bringing together different perspectives also shaped the format of Renaissance. Glendon provided funding, studio space at the Glendon Theatre and a list of community members to participate. SHIFTER handled production and brought its own network of artists, creatives and community leaders. The pairings were intentional, but participants were not told in advance who they would meet – even on set. The two were kept apart until the cameras were rolling.

"It's in the place of spontaneity that potential collaboration can happen," says Bourne, adding several participants exchanged numbers after filming and spoke about staying in contact.

Bourne also says the team was conscious of Glendon's bilingual identity throughout. One of the four episodes is in French, a deliberate reflection of Glendon’s francophone community.

The first episode, now available , pairs Excellencia Bambi, a fourth-year psychology student at Glendon, with 4KORNERS, an international DJ and music producer. Their conversation ranges from the influence of Black artistry at the Juno Awards to whether visibility, gathering and institution-building are needed before Canada can be described as being in a Black cultural renaissance.

Anna Mossakowska, a digital strategist in Glendon’s strategic communications and community engagement unit, says the series also gives viewers a chance to see representatives of Glendon in conversation with people whose experiences may differ from their own.

“I’m excited to see our community members connect with people from different backgrounds and perspectives, and to discover not only what makes us different, but also the many things we share,” she says.

The overall goal, says Bourne, is to foster greater understanding of the Black experience in Canada.

"I hope that people who don’t identify as Black can look at it and say, 'Oh, wow, I've learned something,'" says Bourne. "By partnering with an academic institution, we are hoping this is a way of educating people that's outside of the norm of what they would typically think of as education."

The remaining three episodes are expected to be released over the next few months, with specific dates still being finalized. The series will continue to bring together participants from different fields, backgrounds and parts of the Glendon and broader Black Canadian communities.

"I definitely felt a very strong sense of pride to bring my crew into my former school," says Bourne.

For him, the project also represented a chance to bring culture into an educational space. "I think we need to do more of that," he says.

With files from Mzwandile Poncana

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When Rick Powless learned that Health Sciences North in Sudbury launched its first Indigenous hospital menu, he felt a shift happen.

The third-year doctoral student at 91��ɫ's Faculty of Education is a Red Seal-certified Indigenous chef, an Ontario College of Teachers-certified educator and a member of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Oneida Nation of the Thames, Bear Clan.

He was also the primary consultant on an initiative led by Compass Group Canada to bring Indigenous meals into Ontario hospitals – a project that recognizes the role of traditional and cultural food in healing.

His contributions also serve as a testament to his work to advance meaningful cross-cultural engagement.

"It was emotional for me," he says of the menu’s launch in Sudbury. At 91��ɫ, his PhD research draws on Indigenous food sovereignty, food insecurity in urban centres and strategies to integrate traditional foods and land-based knowledge into Kindergarten to Grade 12 education.

Much of Powless's work focuses on how traditional foods and land-based knowledge support well-being, identity and learning for Indigenous people living in urban communities. His research explores the impact of food and cultural disconnection on mental health while also examining how Indigenous knowledge is taught – or overlooked – in Ontario’s Kindergarten to Grade 12 classrooms. For Powless, that means pushing beyond superficial, checkbox-driven approaches and creating space for stories, reciprocity and food-based learning rooted in Indigenous ways of knowing.

“If you give somebody a recipe to cook Indigenous food but don't have the stories or the history behind those recipes then the students aren't getting anything out of it,” he says. “Beyond mere sustenance, our food is also a form of cultural transmission.”

Part of what makes his work distinct is its attention to access. Indigenous ingredients – such as sun chokes, wild rice, butternut squash – have been more commercialized, driving up prices and making them less accessible.

"We're being priced out of our own ingredients," he says.

That tension shapes his approach to teaching. During cooking demonstrations and teaching kitchens across Ontario – including at 91��ɫ, Hart House and the University of Toronto – Powless shows students how to prepare traditional dishes using affordable, accessible ingredients. For example, Three Sisters Soup – made from corn, beans and squash – becomes a lesson in both food sovereignty and practical food literacy.

The collaboration with Compass Group Canada is a clear example of how his teaching has translated into real-world institutional change. In January 2025, Powless was approached to develop traditional Indigenous recipes for hospital menus across Ontario – including Brantford, Cornwall, Brockville, Newmarket, Niagara Regional Health and Health Sciences North.

He curated and vetted the recipes, wrote the cultural stories to accompany each dish and worked within Health Canada guidelines and hospital food requirements to preserve the recipes' Indigenous identity while adapting them for institutional settings.

For Powless, the menus are about more than nutrition; they reflect what happens to an Indigenous patient when they see their culture represented on a hospital food tray.

"If I can offer a piece of bannock and Three Sisters Soup and our people get that, they're going to instantly recognize the food," he says. "It's going to warm them up inside. It's going to take them back to the territory, back to community, back to family again. When that happens, mental health begins to heal."

Early responses to the menu have confirmed what he hoped for. In September 2025, a man from Akwesasne territory had an extended hospital stay in Cornwall. When the menu appeared, he recognized the dishes immediately.

"He had this smile on his face," Powless recalls. "He said, 'I get to have my food.'"

Looking ahead, Powless hopes to expand the Compass One menus into seniors' homes, correctional facilities and offshore operations focusing on areas with Indigenous populations.

He is also offering teaching kitchens to outpatients at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health’s Shkaabe Makwa, Canada's first Indigenous-led hospital-based centre. A second recipe menu featuring traditional Indigenous food tied to ceremony and seasonal changes is also in development.

91��ɫ, he says, has been central to his path as an advocate and educator. When Powless introduced Indigenous dishes to 91��ɫ's student dining halls, he recalls being stopped by nursing students who shared that their entire class had been coming down for the soup.

Those conversations reinforce what he already believed: that food is the most direct route to cross-cultural understanding.

"If it wasn't for 91��ɫ, I don't think I would be where I am today," he says. "91��ɫ gave me a voice. It gave me a purpose. It gave me real value to what I think the world should look like through an Indigenous lens."

With files from Mzwandile Poncana

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The study, co-authored by Faculty of Education's Robert Brown, adjunct professor, and Gillian Parekh, associate professor and Canada Research Chair in Inclusion, Disability and Education, along with collaborators from the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) and Wilfrid Laurier University, uses the 2011-12 academic year as a baseline to track absenteeism trends in TDSB schools through 2023-24.

One of the study's key findings complicates the common assumption that rising absenteeism is mainly a post-COVID issue. While student absence rates surged dramatically during and after the pandemic, the researchers found that roughly one-third of this increase was already underway before the pandemic.

"COVID took existing trends and put them on steroids," says Brown. "This isn't something just caused by COVID."

The study finds that absenteeism roughly doubled over the 12-year period, with increases evident across grades. Brown says attendance tends to be relatively high in kindergarten, stable through much of elementary school, then rises in senior elementary grades before accelerating in high school. More recent 2023-24 data show some decline in absence rates among early and mid-elementary students, but rates continued to climb across all secondary grades.

The pattern of who is most affected points to a deeper concern. Students with lower academic achievement tend to have higher absenteeism and experience the most severe effects from missing school.

"Absenteeism is yet another way that the more vulnerable students become even more vulnerable," says Brown.

Since COVID-19, the strength of the relationship between school absences and graduation has shifted. Before the pandemic, high absenteeism was more strongly associated with not graduating; in the post-COVID data, that association remains but is less pronounced. Brown says the finding points to unanswered questions about student engagement, learning and whether graduation rates capture the long-term effects of these attendance patterns.

"Absenteeism is often a proxy for academic engagement," says Brown. "It's a truism that schooling can't benefit students who aren't there."

The long-term stakes become clearer when looking beyond high school. A 2021 linking TDSB Grade 9 cohort data to post-secondary outcomes found that students who eventually graduated from university had an average Grade 9 absenteeism rate of about three per cent, compared with nearly 10 per cent among those who did not enter Canadian post-secondary education.

With roughly 70 to 80 per cent of students now continuing to post-secondary, according to Brown, the long-term effects of elevated post-COVID absence rates on this generation remain an open question on the implications beyond high school completion.

"For those students who managed to be more absent and still graduate, how will they do in post-secondary?" says Brown. "We simply don't know yet."

This trend also raises broader questions about how school attendance has been understood historically.

Brown's doctoral research traced absenteeism policy in Toronto schools back to the 1850s, a period when getting students into school was a central educational priority.

By the 1970s, attendance had largely disappeared as a policy concern. The current surge, however, reflects a broader international pattern across developed countries.

"No one has been much interested in absenteeism at the Ontario level for at least 50 years," says Brown. "This is the first time I'm aware of that it has become an important part of things at the provincial level."

That provincial attention comes in the form of the Putting Student Achievement First Act, which would require attendance and participation to count toward final marks – worth 15 per cent for Grades 9 and 10 and 10 per cent for Grades 11 and 12. Brown was careful about the extent to which the research directly shaped that decision.

"I know folks in [the ministry] were aware of the research, but whether those folks had any connection to the decision-makers, I have no idea,” he says.

On the policy itself, Brown sees two sides.

He says there is little evidence that attaching marks to attendance, on its own, changes the behaviour of students who are already frequently absent. But he views the government's attention as a meaningful first step and sees potential value if the policy becomes part of a broader response.

With files from Mzwandile Poncana

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