News & Notes About FIMS

Successful Defences

Roger Chabot, LIS PhD candidate, successfully defended his thesis titled, "The information practices of New Kadampa Buddhists: from 'Dharma of Scripture' to 'Dharma of Insight'" on April 16, 2019.

Elaine Zibrowski, HIS PhD candidate, successfully defended her thesis titled, “Easier and faster is not always better: Grounded theory of a large-scale, system transformation on the clinical work of emergency nurses and physicians” on April 3, 2019.

Tiara Sukhan, Media Studies PhD candidate, successfully defended her thesis titled, “Watching and Working Through Navigating Non-being in Television Storytelling” on April 1, 2019.

Claire Burrows, LIS PhD candidate, successfully defended her thesis titled, "Accessibility and Academic Libraries: A Comparative Case Study" on March 14, 2019.

Brad Hiebert, HIS PhD candidate, successfully defended his thesis, "Normalizing Masculinity: Explaining Processes, Factors, and Contexts That Influence How Rural Male Farmers See Health Information in Southwest Ontario," on December 14, 2018.

Abdul Malik Sulley, HIS PhD candidate, successfully defended his dissertation, titled "Investigating the Use of M-Health for Learning and Clinical Training by Medical Students in Ghana," on Wednesday, December 5, 2018. 

Karen Nicholson, LIS PhD candidate, successfully defended her dissertation, titled "Academic Librarians and the Space/Time of Information Literacy. The Neoliberal University, and the Global Knowledge Economy," on Friday, November 30, 2018. 

Nicole Dalmer, LIS PhD candidate, successfully defended her thesis, titled "Informing care: Mapping the social organization of families' information work in an aging in place climate" on November 9, 2018. 

Alison Frayne, LIS PhD candidate, successfully defended her thesis, titled "A Study of Six Nations Public Library: Rights and Access to Information" on November 8, 2018.

Publications & Presentations

Luke Arnott, Assistant Professor, published the chapter "Building Broken Worlds: The Alien Franchise, Failed Utopias, and Other Bio-Shocks" in the anthology Beyond the Sea: Navigating Bioshock (McGill-Queens University Press), edited by Felan Parker and Jessica Aldred. The chapter had earlier been presented as a talk for the FIMSSC Creativity and Beyond 2017 speaker conference.

Paul Benedetti, FIMS journalism instructor, and colleague Wayne MacPhail authored an investigative report on the chiropractic industry for the Globe and Mail, titled "Chiropractors at a crossroads: The fight for evidence-based treatment and a profession’s reputation." Research contributions made by LIS PhD student Anton Ninkov are also referenced in the piece. It was published on November 1, 2018.

Nick Dyer-Witheford (Associate Professor) and Svitlana Matviyenko (Theory & Crit PhD alumna, now at Simon Fraser University) published their book titled, Cyberwar and Revolution: Digital Subterfuge in Global Capitalism on March 12, 2019.

Lyndsay Foisey, HIS PhD candidate, published the following book chapter:

Foisey, L., Booth, R., McBride, S., Tietze, M. (2018). Social media: Ongoing evolution in healthcare delivery. In Nursing informatics for the advanced practice nurse, second edition: Patient safety, quality, outcomes and interprofessionalism. McBride, S. & Tietze, M. (Eds.). Springer: New York.

Professors Robert Babe and Edward Comor edited Harold Innis's Political Economy in the Modern State for the University of Toronto Press. View the publication flyer.

Students enrolled this term in MMJC 9604 - Professional Writing - wrote mini-bios of FIMS graduate students from other programs as part of their coursework. All the bios are published on the FIMS website. You should read them, they're fun.

Awards & Accomplishments

Juan Bello (FIMS instructor), Amanda Grzyb (Associate Professor), and Giada Ferrucci (Media Studies PhD student) are among an interdisciplinary, international team of scholars, students, survivors and community partners working on the "Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador" project, which was recently awarded Western University's Humanitarian Award for 2018. You can find out more about the award and the project in the Western News article, "Mapping memories nets team Humanitarian award."

Paul Bendetti, FIMS instructor, was presented with the inaugural 2018 FIMS Dean's Award for Lifetime Excellence in Teaching in recognition of a distinguished teaching career in the Faculty of Information & Media Studies.

Hannah Buckley, MA in Popular Music & Culture student, successfully completed her creative project, titled To: Virginia in April 2019. It is available to listen to on Spotify.

Jacquie Burkell, Associate Professor, was presented with the 2018 Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching in recognition of outstanding contributions to the academic development of students in the Faculty of Information & Media Studies.

Michael Chee, MLIS student, was awarded the Winter 2019 Spirit of Librarianship award, while Instructor Mark Rayner was named the Fantastic FIMS award winner. Both awards are presented each term by the MLISSC. Past winners can be viewed under FIMS Awards.

Nicole Dalmer, LIS PhD student, was announced as the inaugural winner of the Michael F. Harcourt Policy Fellowship. Presented by the AGE-WELL Network of Centres of Excellence (NCE), the recipient will be supported by AGE-WELL’s knowledge mobilization, policy and governmental relations team, to develop and enact a policy engagement plan during the tenure of the award.

Max Eisen's book By Chance Alone was the last one standing for #CanadaReads2019. Associate Professor Amanda Grzyb helped Eisen through the writing process as he worked to put his story as a Holocaust survivor down on paper. They began working together in 2012, the book was published in 2016, and was selected for Canada Reads in 2019. Western News wrote about their partnership in 2016, and also posted about the Canada Reads win, announced on March 28, 2019.

Mark Kearney, FIMS instructor, was presented with the 2018 Dean's Award for Excellence in Part-Time Teaching in recognition of outstanding contributions to the academic development of students in the Faculty of Information & Media Studies.

Mark Rayner, FIMS instructor, was presented with the 2018 Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching in recognition of outstanding contributions to the academic development of students in the Faculty of Information & Media Studies.

Sharon Sliwinski, Graduate Programs Director, Thesis Programs, was promoted to the rank of Professor in January, 2019. The promotion will take effect on July 1, 2019.

Sam Trosow, Associate Professor, was elected to the Board of Governors, Faculty Constituency, in the voting that took place on January 29 and 30, 2019.

A project led by Juan Bello, FIMS instructor, was awarded a $30,000 grant through the Museum London Idea Incubator. The project is titled Discover London Art, and "will provide school-age children with an interactive opportunity to engage with Museum London’s permanent collection." For more information, read the press release.

Patrick Gavin, LIS PhD candidate, and Sean McLaughlin, MLIS alum, are working on a second project and were awarded a $30,000 grant under the Incubator program. Led by Jill Bogart, the project is titled The Museum London cARTography Project, and "aims to draw out and highlight the connections between works of art in the museum's collection and the time and place of their production." Read the press release.

Samuel Trosow, an Associate Professor who holds a joint appointment in the Faculty of Law, has received a $10,000 grant from the Canadian Foundation for Legal Research for his project, “Freedom of Expression in Canadian Colleges and Universities.” The study will compare and analyze the freedom of expression policies that were developed by Ontario's colleges and universities in response to a provincial mandate, and will also explore the applicability of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to Canadian universities. Prof. Trosow was a member of the Provost’s Ad Hoc Committee for Freedom of Expression which drafted the policy last fall that was approved by the University Senate and UWO Board of Governors.

In the Media

Catherine Ross, Professor Emerita and previous FIMS Dean, was featured in a short video posted to the Royal Society of Canada Twitter account in which she discusses the focus her research. Professor Ross was named to the College last year.

MLIS students Danielle Bettridge, Alissa Droog, Alyssa Martin and Ashleigh Yates-MacKay were featured in an article titled, "Focus on: LGBTQ+ Children's Picture Books," published on the Librarianship.ca website on March 14, 2019.

Norma Coates, Associate Professor, was interviewed by Vox on March 8, 2019, for an article titled, "Michael Jackson, R. Kelly, and the dangerous intimacy of fandom."

Jason Netherton, PhD in Media Studies candidate, was featured in an article titled, "How a Media Studies PhD Birthed Misery Index's New Album, 'Rituals of Power'," published on the exclaim.ca website on March 6, 2019.

Juan Bello, FIMS instructor, was featured in an article titled, "Project gives kids new view of London art," published in Western News on March 1, 2019.

Romayne Smith Fullerton, Associate Professor, was interviewed by CBC London Morning on February 15 in relation to the case of the sexual assault charges levied against a London Health Sciences Centre technician being dropped.

Sam Trosow, Associate Professor, was interviewed on CBC London Morning on February 15 in relation to the recent Supreme Court of Canada Jarvis decision. A print piece was published, titled, "Supreme Court ruling in London case upholds privacy, even in public spaces, professor says." Trosow was also interviewed for CTV London's evening newscast on television.

Matt Stahl, Associate Professor, was quoted in the article, "Why Original 'Lion King' Writers are Losing Out With This Year's Remake," published in The Hollywood Reporter on January 11, 2019.

Professor Nadine Wathen made several appearances in the media in relation to a recently released study looking at equity-oriented health care and how it affects health outcomes for marginalized or impoverished patients. Wathen appeared in the London Free Press article/video "Cup of kindness from clinicians an elixir for better patient health: Western University study," published on December 19, 2018, as well as a CTV News item aired during December 18th's local newscast. Both appearances stemmed from a media event held at the London InterCommunity Health Centre on December 18, announcing the results of the study.

Norma Coates, Associate Professor, appeared on CBC's London Morning on December 6 in an interview clip titled, "Is it too cold to stop playing Baby, It's Cold Outside?" Coates discussed the controversy around the classic holiday song, which was recently pulled from rotation by a number of radio stations (including CBC, Rogers, Bell, etc.).

Jim Seale and Nicole Schoenberger, who authored the article "Be Internet Awesome: A Critical Analysis of Google's Child-Focused Internet Safety Program," were quoted in the New York Times article "Google is Teaching Children How to Act Online. Is It the Best Role Model?" published on October 23. Seale and Schoenberger's article was originally published in the first Issue of Emerging Library & Information Perspectives (Spring 2018).

Camille Ginnever, MLIS student, was profiled in the Librarianship.ca blog Freshly Minted on October 9, 2018.

News & Announcements

In Memoriam: Betty McCamus
Betty McCamus, LIS Professor Emerita, passed away in Guelph on March 20, 2019, at 94 years old. Betty taught for the School of Library & Information Science until the early 1990s, and is still fondly remembered by a number of staff and faculty in FIMS today. For more information, view the obituary.

In Memoriam: Janette White
Janette Hunter White, Professor Emerita, has passed away. White was a founding member of Western's School of Library and Information Science, and also served as Assistant to the Dean from 1984-1986. She taught and worked in administration at the university until she retired. White passed away in Hamilton, on November 27, 2018, at the age of 97. View obituary.