No. 451 - May 11, 2020

  • Coming Events:

    - FIMSwrites - Virtual Edition
    - "Beyond Giving Voice: Advancing theory and methodologies for qualitative research with children"

  • Important Dates:

    - Wednesday, May 13, 2020 - Faculty Council (Zoom, 12:00pm)
    - Monday, May 18, 2020 - Victoria Day holiday (no classes)
    - Friday, June 5, 2020 - Meeting of the Senate (Zoom, 1:30pm)

  • News & Announcements:

    - Subscribe to the Graduate Research Blog
    - SGPS Pathfinder Doctoral Degree Planning Portfolio now available
    - Western's policy on Gender-Based and Sexual Violence goes into effect

  • Awards & Accomplishments:

    - Marni Harrington
    - Heather Hill
    - Sabrina Hope
    - Danica Pawlick-Potts
    - Randy Richmond
    - Paulette Rothbauer
    - Nafiz Shuva
    - Nadine Wathen

  • Publications & Presentations:

    - Jacquie Burkell
    - Nick Dyer-Witheford
    - Amber Matthews
    - Romayne Smith Fullerton
    - James Steinhoff
    - Elise Thorburn
    - Samuel Trosow

  • In the Media:

    - Juan Bello
    - Jeremy Copeland
    - Heather Hill
    - Carla Rawson
    - Sharon Sliwinski
    - Romayne Smith Fullerton
    - Sam Vander Kooy

  • Additional Activities of Note:

    - Victoria Rubin's FIMS 9328 Poster Presentation
    - FIMS Class of 2020 Yearbook (with Amanda Grzyb, Alison Hearn, Susan Knabe, Selma Purac, John Reed, Meaghan Skinner, Sharon Sliwinski and Lindsay Sommerauer)

  • News from the FIMS Graduate Library:

  • Next Issue:


Coming Events

FIMSwrites - Virtual Edition
Every Thursday
9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Via Zoom
Do you expect to have paper, story, article, report, thesis, or book deadlines coming up? Does having other people writing around you help keep you on-task? Then join FIMSWrites, an informal initiative to provide some solidarity in the sometimes-solitary writing process. All FIMS graduate students, staff and faculty are welcome to bring their favourite writing devices and join us to write and check in. If you're interested, contact Pam McKenzie.

"Beyond Giving Voice: Advancing theory and methodologies for qualitative research with children"
June 4, 9, 11, 2020
3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Via Zoom
'Beyond Giving Voice' will be hosted as a series of virtual interactive symposium webinars in June 2020 (see agenda below). We invite you to join us as we explore theoretical, methodological, and ethical implications of claims to be 'giving voice' to children through research. While presentations will be focused on qualitative research with young people, the knowledge shared will be equally relevant to the design and conduct of methodologies with other populations. See full details.


Important Dates

- Wednesday, May 13, 2020 - Faculty Council (Zoom, 12:00pm)
- Monday, May 18, 2020 - Victoria Day holiday (no classes)
- Friday, June 5, 2020 - Meeting of the Senate (Zoom, 1:30pm)


News & Announcements

Subscribe to the Graduate Research Blog
Graduate Students are invited to subscribe to the Graduate Student Research Blog. The blog provides research information for graduate students – scholarship, fellowship, internship and other funding announcements, tips on writing scholarship/funding applications, and other research-related tidbits.

SGPS Pathfinder Doctoral Degree Planning Portfolio now available
Pathfinder is a doctoral degree planning portfolio that will enable you (and your supervisory committee) to record your accomplishments and plan towards the completion of your doctoral degree. The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (SGPS) and your Faculty are focused on ensuring that you have a platform to record the impact that the pandemic has had on your degree plans and progress. In addition to the other supports already available, Pathfinder will begin to lay the groundwork for how this impact will be addressed for you. Find out more.

Western's policy on Gender-Based and Sexual Violence goes into effect
On May 1, 2020 Western’s new policy on Gender-Based and Sexual Violence and its procedures came into effect. Last year, Western engaged in a rigorous review process to update this policy. Now, there are some important changes to how faculty and staff are expected to support survivors with any new disclosures. Find out more about Western's Gender-Based and Sexual Violence policy.


Awards & Accomplishments

Professors Heather Hill, Marni Harrington, and Paulette Rothbauer are pleased to announce that they were awarded a 2020 Fellowship in Teaching Innovation Award from Western's Centre for Teaching and Learning. The award supports their ongoing project (with critical contributions from LIS PhD student, Danica Pawlick-Potts) on Indigenizing and decolonizing the curriculum of the Master of Library and Information Science program. This work is also supported by FIMS. Stay posted for upcoming learning opportunities!

Sabrina Hope, Media Studies PhD student, won the Budding Writers Contest for 2020 at Western for overall winner across the categories. This year's theme was on Artificial Intelligence, and I wrote a short story called "The Other Side of the Door". Which has been published in Scholarship@Western. 

Randy Richmond, MIT instructor and previous Clissold Lecture presenter, was named the Canadian Journalist of the Year at the National Newspaper Awards in early May. Randy won for his We Are the Cops series, published in the London Free Press in 2019. His series also won the prize in the local-reporting category.  

Nafiz Shuva, Library & Information Science PhD candidate, successfully defended his thesis, titled Information, Employment, and Settlement of Immigrants: Exploring the Role of Information Behaviour in the Settlement of Bangladesh Immigrants in Canada, on April 9, 2020.

Professor Nadine Wathen, in partnership with frontline service providers, received a Catalyst grant to study the effects of physical distance, technology-mediated services, physical space planning and rapid change on women and children who use anti-violence services and on service staff.


Publications & Presentation

Jacquie Burkell, Associate Professor, co-authored an articled titled, "Children's privacy is at risk with rapid shifts to online schooling under coronavirus," published in The Conversation on April 21, 2020.

Professor Nick Dyer-Witheford, James Steinhoff (Media Studies PhD'19) and Elise Thorburn (Media Studies PhD'15), sat on the panel "How to Liberate Technology from Capitalism" as part of Red May on May 6, 2020.

James will also present a talk called "Autonomy or Automation? Digital Labour in the Machine Learning Industry" on May 11, 2020, at 5:00 p.m. (EST) for a Brazilian journal called DigiLabour.

Amber Matthews, LIS PhD student, published a feature series titled, Theory in practice: Moving from systemic racism to anti-racism in Ontario public libraries in Open Shelf on April 6, 2020. Part 1 is titled "Systemic racism in public libraries." It addresses the media response to conversations about white privilege that happened during Super Conference 2020 and the need to acknowledge the systemic racism in public libraries. In Parts II and III, which will be published in May and June respectively, Amber discusses the need to acknowledge racist thinking and how to engage in anti-racist praxis.

Romayne Smith Fullerton, Associate Professor, co-authored an article titled, "Challenging our conventions around naming mass shooters," published on J-Source.ca on May 6, 2020. Professor Smith Fullerton also published an article titled, "The Surprising Reason Some Countries Don't Publish the Names of Accused Persons," on Canadalandshow.com on May 10, 2020.

Samuel Trosow, Associate Professor, co-authored (with Lisa Macklem, Law PhD candidate) an article titled, "What is fair dealing in copyright? Here's why it matters when moving classes online due to coronavirus," in The Conversation on April 28, 2020.


In the Media

Juan Bello, FIMS instructor, was featured in an article titled, "Project brings arts, artists home for kids," published in Western News on April 29, 2020.

Jeremy Copeland, FIMS instructor, and Carla Rawson, MMJC student council president, were featured in two articles about the upcoming MMJC internship period. The first was titled, "Western University creates companies so student interns have somewhere to work," published in the London Free Press on April 25, 2020. The second was titled, "Students embrace MMJC summer internships shift," published in Western News on April 29, 2020.

Heather Hill, Associate Professor, and Sam Vander Kooy, LIS PhD student, were featured in an article titled, "Course explores pandemic info flow in real time," published in Western News on May 4, 2020.

Professor Sharon Sliwinski's research got a shout out in an article titled, "With changing sleep patterns and increased stress our dreams are in overdrive," published in the Globe and Mail on April 26, 2020.

Romayne Smith Fullerton, Associate Professor, was interviewed by Global News Radio (Toronto Morning Show) on April 21, to comment on varying media practices of naming or not naming the suspect in the recent Nova Scotia mass shooting. Professor Smith Fullerton also featured on a podcast episode titled, "Should We Stop Naming Killers?" posted on May 11, 2020, on Canadalandshow.com. 


Additional Activities of Note

Victoria Rubin, Associate Professor, put together a Sway presentation of the student work that was submitted for the end-of-year FIMS 9328 poster presentation (cancelled by COVID) so that people would still be able to view them. Titled "Are You Being Fooled? Ways To Find Out," the complete collection is available online.

FIMS Class of 2020 Online Yearbook
A number of faculty members and staff participated in creating a promotional video for the FIMS Class of 2020 Online Yearbook project. Cast members included Amanda Grzyb, Alison Hearn, Susan Knabe, Selma Purac, John Reed, Meaghan Skinner, Sharon Sliwinski and Lindsay Sommerauer. Staff and faculty are welcome to submit their own messages for the yearbook, which is intended to give graduating students another way to connect us FIMS and with each other in the absence of Spring Convocation. The deadline is May 27.


News from the FIMS Graduate Library

Contact us!
Although our physical location is closed, Kendall and Marni are still here to help you with any library-related questions. We can help with access to digital resources for your teaching, learning and research.

You can email us (fimslib@uwo.ca) or call and leave a message (519-661-2111 x88488).
We are available to offer assistance Monday to Friday, 9am to 4:30pm.

Temporary eAccount to London Public Library (LPL) resources
LPL has graciously offered eAccess to our grad students regardless of their location to ensure everyone has access to resources needed for classes. More information is available on the FIMS Graduate Library electronic resources page: https://intranet.fims.uwo.ca/graduate/services_groups/electronic_resources.html 

Be Social @FIMSGradLib!
Follow us @FIMSGradLib on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for updates on electronic resources, access to informative articles, and lots of humour to get you through the term.

Western Libraries Print Resources Response Team
For faculty members or thesis-based students who urgently require print materials, exceptional needs may be met. Please email wl-prrt@uwo.ca.

Next Issue


The Grad Bulletin is your source for news, announcements, and events pertaining to FIMS graduate programs. Submissions from the FIMS community are always welcome and may be sent via e-mail to bblue@uwo.ca.

The Bulletin will be published four times over the summer. The next issue will be on Monday, June 8. The deadline for submissions is noon on Friday, June 5.