Christine Elstub

Role reversal: U of T student and faculty dean swap jobs, gain insights

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 14 Apr 2023 14:47:25 +0000

Role reversal: U of T student and faculty dean swap jobs, gain insights

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 04/14/2023 - 10:47

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Second-year student Chelsea Wang recently traded places with Faculty of Arts & Science Dean Melanie Woodin for a day, sending Wang to high-level meetings and Woodin to a class on modern East Asia (photo by Sarah Khan)

Christine Elstub

Topic

Our Community

Student Experience

Faculty of Art & Science

Undergraduate Students

Victoria College

Chelsea Wang has been busy during her two years as a ��Ƶ student. The international relations major is vice-president of the East Asian Studies Students’ Union, a mentor to incoming Victoria College students and a U of T tour guide.

Now she can add “dean” to her already impressive resume – albeit for a single day.

Wang recently got to trade places with Melanie Woodin, dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science, after winning a raffle held by the Arts & Science Student Union (ASSU), with the money raised going to food banks. For one day, Wang attended Woodin’s meetings while Woodin attended Wang’s class and worked her shift as a campus tour guide – a role swap that gave each party new insights into the university.

Wang says the highlight of her “Dean for a Day” experience was chairing a meeting of Arts & Science vice-deans, where she learned about ongoing initiatives such as improvements to student spaces like Robarts Common and the Sidney Smith Commons.

“I was able to give feedback on what the student experience is like in those spaces,” says Wang, adding that she was pleased to learn about the team’s efforts to solicit student voices on the projects. “I offered ideas about what can be improved, especially during exam time.”

Chelsea Wang, centre, leads a meeting of Arts & Science vice-deans (photo by Sarah Khan)

Wang’s schedule also included back-to-back meetings with members of the faculty’s academic leadership team, including Acting Vice-Dean of Undergraduate Students Bill Ju and Acting Associate Dean of Student Affairs Alana Boland, as well as meetings with U of T Vice-Provost of Students Sandy Welsh and Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering Dean Christopher Yip.

Chelsea Wang and Sandy Welsh, vice-provost, students (photo by Sarah Khan)

Meanwhile, Woodin attended Wang’s modern East Asia lecture, where she chatted with instructor Yurou Zhong, an associate professor in the department of East Asian studies, interacted with students and even participated in the class discussion – although she admittedly had not completed the required readings.

Faculty of Arts & Science Dean Melanie Woodin arrives early for Chelsea Wang's morning lecture (photo Christine Elstub)

After the lecture, Woodin headed to the Nona Macdonald Visitors Centre to cover Wang’s shift as a U of T tour guide. She greeted a group of incoming students and their families at the centre before they toured the St. George campus.

Faculty of Arts & Science Dean Melanie Woodin, right, prepares to cover Chelsea Wang’s shift as a U of T tour guide (photo by Sarah Khan)

“I really enjoyed attending class and chatting with current and future students. It was a great reminder of what it’s like to be a student here,” says Woodin, an Arts & Science alumna. “The Dean for a Day fundraiser was a wonderful opportunity for Arts & Science students, faculty and staff to come together to learn from each other while giving back to the community.

“Trading places with Chelsea gave me fresh insight into the student experience, and my team gained invaluable feedback from Chelsea’s participation in meetings.”

For Wang, who is involved in student government, her experience as dean was also not entirely unfamiliar. “I found the meetings I attended similar to how student government meetings work, with members of different teams working together to get feedback and make improvements.”

Wang says she would participate in any future Dean for a Day raffles and encourages other students to do the same. “It supports a great cause, so it’s a nice way to get to know ASSU and participate in administrative life for a day.”

Bringing the Middle Ages to life: U of T students draw on pandemic experience to create teaching resource

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 31 May 2022 16:29:55 +0000

Bringing the Middle Ages to life: U of T students draw on pandemic experience to create teaching resource

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 05/31/2022 - 12:29

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Clockwise from top left: Amrita Brar, Hannah Guiang, Mailey Horner, Rion Levy, Sai Vipin Nikam, Josefina Novoa Reátegui, Anita Jyothi Sritharan and Theodosiya Zyla won an award for connecting the tales of 14th century Italian book to modern-day issues.

Christine Elstub

Topic

Our Community

Experiential Learning

Faculty of Arts & Science

Living through the COVID-19 pandemic helped inform the work of eight ��Ƶ students in the Faculty of Arts & Science – and now their work could help inform students across the province.

The students – Amrita Brar, Hannah Guiang, Mailey Horner, Rion Levy, Sai Vipin Nikam, Josefina Novoa Reátegui, Anita Jyothi Sritharan and Theodosiya Zyla – contributed to “Giovanni Boccaccio’s One Hundred Tales,” a web-based resource bank hosted on ArcGIS StoryMaps.

Teresa Russo

Set up like a virtual museum, the resource combines text, images, maps and other digital elements to explore the tales of 14th century Italian book The Decameron – and connect it to modern-day issues of class, gender, race and, of course, the pandemic It is designed to help educators teach the Middle Ages and is accessible to teachers at all Ontario school boards.

Sritharan, an Innis College student specializing in cognitive science, says the project will prepare her for a career in education.

“This was my first time creating a resource for teachers to use following provincial curriculum guidelines,” she says. “It’s a skill I’ll be using in the future.”

“Giovanni Boccaccio’s One Hundred Tales“ was developed as a class project for “Signs, Meanings and Culture,” a second-year material culture and semiotics course at Victoria College. It was created in partnership with Gianluca Agostinelli of the Niagara Catholic District School Board, whose feedback helped ensure the content meets Ontario curriculum guidelines while addressing the needs of diverse learners.

Instructor Teresa Russo was inspired to launch the project after hearing from high school teachers about their challenges in finding a Medieval text that students could relate to. She knew The Decameron – a collection of short stories narrated by a fictional group of friends who escape to the countryside during the Black Death (1346 to 1352) – would be relatable to students who had experienced the COVID-19 pandemic.

“If students who are now in elementary school study The Decameron when they get to high school, they’ll remember back when they had to wear masks and learn online,” Russo says.

The eight students won an Experiential & Work-Integrated Learning Ontario Student of the Year Award, which recognizes students who have shown a strong contribution to work-integrated learning, an experiential learning approach that combines academic studies with experience in the workplace or another practical setting.

Levy, a literature and critical theory specialist and a member of Victoria College, explored how nonchalant attitudes about travel during both the Black Death and COVID-19 pandemics contributed to the spread of disease.

“We always knew that if you travel, you’re going to spread what you have or be more likely to catch something,” Levy says. “In my lifetime, we had never really spoken about that until now, so I made the connection that this has happened throughout history yet we’re still repeating the same mistakes.”

Reátegui, a Trinity College student majoring in anthropology and psychology, drew parallels between the book’s central narrative and her own interactions with friends during the pandemic.

“I included a picture of me and my girlfriends having a picnic in the middle of 2020,” she says. “It was the first time I’d seen them in ages and we were telling each other stories. Hundreds of years before that, a group of friends were doing the same thing. Even the way the narrator talked – it’s just how I talk to my girlfriends. It made me realize that the people in the Middle Ages were actually human.”

The plague of Florence in 1348, as described in Boccaccio’s Decameron. Etching by L. Sabatelli after himself. See page for author, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Beyond adding an award to their resumes, the students gained workplace skills, including teamwork, communication and the ability to make complex academic concepts relatable to a general audience. “Many of these students want to become museum curators or go to graduate school,” says Russo. “To have experience working with a digital humanities project is amazing for their resumes.”

Russo’s students completed 38 of The Decameron’s 100 tales this year. She plans to repeat the project to have the remaining 62 stories completed by 2023. Through a partnership with the American Boccaccio Association, she will also engage scholars from around the world for additional contributions.

Knowing the resource they created will be used by educators for years to come is especially rewarding, says Levy.

“I haven’t seen a class activity before where we actually get to create something real. It’s exciting that the end product is going to be of value to people.”