A Message from the Dean

February 2025

Headshot of Lisa Henderson

Dear Alumni,

As I write, the world is not getting less complicated. In Canada, we are navigating federal changes in international student recruitment and what they will mean for Western’s global engagement and resource picture. And we are watching the discussion of trade relations between the US and Canada. Those are just a couple of examples from the geopolitical context that affects us all. We want to be open to the world and unblinkered, while keeping our eyes on our primary purpose: research and education in information and media. That work is at the core of current global concerns. Our colleagues and communities bear these pressures in mind as we undertake our work in the spirit of our academic mission and of coexistence. We are also thinking about you, sending our brightest and warmest wishes as we move through this wintry Winter and head toward Spring.

On January 30, FIMS was privileged to host an alumni gathering in the GTA in conjunction with the Ontario Library Association Superconference. In the tradition of one beautiful public institution supporting another, this year we gathered at the Art Gallery of Ontario for news, refreshments and the company of alumni from all FIMS graduate and undergraduate programs and eras. It was a lovely chance to see friends, network, re-connect to FIMS and, for those who arrived a little early, to visit the AGO’s extraordinary galleries, including featured exhibit The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century and solo exhibits by Sonia Boyce and Louise Noguchi. Our thanks to the many FIMS alum who were able to make it and to the warm and creative staff at AGO.

Four short FIMS highlights:

  • We are launching a brand new FIMS Alumni Award of Excellence, which thrills me and which will be presented for the first time at Homecoming next Fall. We’ve just opened our nomination site at the FIMS Alumni page. Nominate a FIMS alum from any program and era to recognize someone for their outstanding professional achievement, community service, service to the university, or social impact and innovation. A committee of FIMS faculty, staff, students and alum will adjudicate our 2025 award.

  • Western’s Provost Florentine Strzelczyk is now actively recruiting FIMS’ new Dean and we look forward to that announcement in the coming weeks. My extended term closes as planned on June 30, 2025. (It’s hard to imagine not being FIMS Dean, but I look forward to supporting our incoming leader.) Until then, there’s lots going on here on campus and in Toronto. On March 20 we’ll be at Hot Docs in collaboration with CJFE, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, for a panel of journalists and editors about covering the upcoming federal election in a global context. Stay tuned--we’ll announce on all channels in late February, as soon as we’ve confirmed our panel roster.

  • If you’re not in London, join us virtually for two upcoming lectures from The New School’s Nancy Fraser (Feb 12) and CBC’s Nahlah Ayed (Feb 27). Ayed, distinguished journalist and host of CBC’s Ideas, will be featured in our annual Clissold Lecture. Ayed’s title goes to the heart of the context I mentioned above: It Takes a Village: Covering the World in the Post-Truth Age. Nancy Fraser will present a lecture titled Three Faces of Labor: Uncovering the Hidden Ties Between Gender, Race, and Class. Join us in person, if you can, or via Zoom webinar. Our thanks, as always, to the Clissold Lecture Fund established by family members in honor of early London Free Press editor Edward Clissold.

  • We have great initiatives that you can contribute to, also at the Alumni page under Giving. It all goes to students and research—and even the research gifts go to student researchers. Check out our Askunessippi Scholarship for Indigenous MLIS students. Check out our Founders and Future Fund, our Journalism Fund for journalism and comms students, and our new Starling Centre fund.

I will have another chance to write to alumni in our June newsletter, and at that time expect to be able to introduce our new Dean. Friends, as I noted in my comments at the AGO, even as I complete my term, FIMS will stay with me. You, the FIMS community, are the reason why.

Lisa Henderson
Dean, Faculty of Information and Media Studies