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Every Friday, the Convolvulaceae Network gathers virtually to discuss all things related to the morning glory family. Taxonomist Ana Rita Simões of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in the U.K. and researcher Lauren Eserman of the Atlanta Botanical Gardens in the U.S. started the seminar series in September 2019 as a space for scientists to share their work.
The group grew organically, from the fewer than 50 people who joined the first Skype call during which Eserman presented her work on the evolution of storage roots in morning glories to roughly 150 today. Now held via Zoom to handle the crowd, its fluid membership joins the discussions, seminars and collaborative meetings from nearly 20 countries, including Brazil, China and Mozambique.
Aníbal Martens arrived in Canada months before the pandemic hit and immediately asked staff at Seneca College about opportunities to engage with others in his new school’s 2SLGBTQ+ community.
It turned out they needed an ambassador, a part-time role the polytechnic offers students to help others orient themselves to post-secondary campus life, and after background checks cleared, the creative marketing student got the job.
“I was available to students who might want to talk, providing them help, maybe even directing them to counselling if they needed professional help,” explained Martens, who, in that first semester, worked part-time in a secluded space in the student services room of the Markham, Ont., campus.
Mostly older, white men have seats on Toronto city council, but Renee Jagdeo is hoping to shift that mix a little closer to the demographics of the city’s residents later this month.
Jagdeo is a young racialized woman who has joined a crowded field of more than two dozen contenders to fill a vacated seat in Scarborough, and she has a clear vision of what she wants to achieve.
“I am representing a reality and lifestyle that isn t necessarily being advocated for in city council currently,” said Jagdeo, a second-year undergraduate student in urban planning at the University of Toronto’s department of human geography.
Unions see opportunity as new generation of organizers emerge amid pandemic
As the pandemic has dragged on, workers from companies have joined unions this year December 24, 2020 by Anita Balakrishnan, The Canadian Press
While “unprecedented” has been the go-to term to describe the ripple effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the wave of labour upheaval currently moving across the country is the latest turn in a familiar cycle.
Times of crisis have always been linked to labour unrest, says Dimitry Anastakis, who teaches business history at the University of Toronto’s department of history and Rotman School of Management. Labour activity followed both the First and Second World Wars as well as the Great Depression. Anastakis points out the largest strike in Canadian history the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 came amid an influenza pandemic.