A student-led project at Dawson has won the provincial Forces Avenir award in the category of Mutual Aid, Peace and Justice. On Sept. 27 during a gala in Quebec City, the award was presented to a group of Dawson graduates and students who founded the Mahsa Amini Initiative.
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Out of a record 81 entries at Dawson alone, three Dawson students were selected as semifinalists for the 2023 Quebec Writers’ Federation (QWF) College Writers Award. The 2023 award will be announced at the QWF Gala on Nov. 13.
Visit the link to find out who Dawson's winners are and to read their writing.
“The 17 Sustainable Development Goals” illustrated by students in the Illustration program at Dawson won the 2023 student art competition of Colleges and Institutes Canada.
“36 illustration students collaborated on this fanzine project along with Sustainable Dawson,” said Stéphanie Aubin, co-chair of and instructor in the program. “They had to create an illustration that would be evocative and powerful visually. Their illustration could be based on a personal experience or a researched fact. Each student's approach to their subject was different, which makes the project even more unique.”
Three of the winning students shared their thoughts about the project. Visit the link below to read the three interviews and for a link to view the two fanzines of the SDG art.
Writer Sarah Gilbert (Faculty, English) was born in the United States, grew up in Winnipeg and lived in Ottawa before moving to Montreal. For the last three decades, the Mile End neighbourhood has been her home, and she chose it as the place where she would raise her daughter.
“The Mile End is a real muse. It is a very dense neighbourhood with a lot going on,” she said in an interview with Dawson’s Communications Office. “I had acquired tons of content without noticing it.”
Our Lady of Mile End (Anvil Press, 2023) is a collection of short stories about “gentrification and displacement in a once affordable area that is feeling the squeeze of social and cultural transformation.
“The overlapping lives—of girls and women, tenants and landlords, neighbours and strangers, the old generation and the next—chart the tensions and affections among people living in a community that has turned into a destination,” reads the description on the website of Anvil Press.
Sarah wanted her daughter to grow up somewhere where she knows the neighbours. When she had her baby, she had “a free pass to talk to anyone,” she said.
The fictional book project grew out of a blog Sarah created called Mile Endings in 2008. That project was journalistic and through it, Sarah documented the endings of neighbourhood businesses and characters and some of the new beginnings of the neighbourhood in transition.
The Mile End is still a real community, Sarah says, citing density and walkability as important factors in fostering community. Neighbourhood gathering spots, like the cafés, the library, the local grocery store and the school, are also important.
“I watch the neighbourhood by walking around,” she said. “There are neighbours who know each other and send their kids to the same school up the street and there are a lot of artists. There are people you see regularly who you may not know but they are part of your personal landscape.”
In our goal to get to 1,000 species identified on Dawson's downtown campus in 1,000 days, our total is now at 810 species! Over the last two weeks, there were:
"A large contributing factor was the Nighttime Biodiversity Observation we did last week," said Brian Mader, project lead and a Biology teacher. "Two teachers, one staff member, five students and one alumnus stayed for sunset and beyond with insect traps to observe biodiversity at night.
"Students were able to observe multiple bats and a skunk! Although the photos were not great for these organisms, students were able to get some nice shots of a House Centipede (Cassiana Silva-Young, Enriched Pure & Applied Science) and a Narrow-winged Tree Cricket (Jacob Davies, Environmental Science).
North-South Studies is now rebranded as the Social Change and Solidarity profile of the new revision of the Social Science program, which welcomed its first students this fall.
Students considering the social sciences are invited to be part of a small and engaged community while making lifelong friendships, learning and working for social and environmental justice. The Social Change and Solidarity profile provides a meaningful introduction to the social sciences, giving students the theoretical and practical tools to understand and analyze the social, political, economic, and historical contexts of the world around them. The heart of the program is a project and trip to the Global South or a hands-on collaborative local project.
To celebrate the legacy of 30 years of North-South and look toward the future of the new profile, a video was made. It includes interviews with faculty, graduates and retirees.
Visit the link to see the video.
Chris shared his experiences with the Communications Office: “The 2015 trip was across the Pacific from Vancouver to Shanghai on the container ship Hanjin Geneva. The trip was part of Twenty-Three Days at Sea: A Travelling Artists Residency through Access Gallery, Vancouver. During the trip I was considered ‘in-residence’. The trip did take exactly 23…
For the first time in four years, Dawson is opening our doors to welcome everyone on the afternoon of Sunday, Oct. 22 from 1 PM to 4 PM. No reservations required; just come!
It is important to note that everyone is welcome to visit Open House, apply for programs and attend Dawson, whether or not you hold an English eligibility certificate.
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ENvironnement JEUnesse (ENJEU) has certified that Dawson College has met the criteria for the excellence level of its Cégep Vert program. This means that Dawson is at the highest level of CEGEPs that are committed to environmental education and action.
“They gave special mention to our Dawson Wetlands Project, completed in Paul Wasacz’s Eco-Landscaping Physical Education course,” said Chris Adam of Dawson’s Office of Sustainability.
Faculty interested in designing projects that reconnect people, community and Nature like the Dawson Wetlands project should contact the Office of Sustainability to learn how they can support you and your students.
Photo: Chris Adam and students check out the brand new worm composting system.
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“I met my best friend at Dawson and we came together.”
“Dawson made such an impact on me during my first years in Canada; I had to come.”
“There is just something special about the Dawson community and I had to come back and be part of it again.”
These were the sorts of comments we heard from graduates, retirees, employees and even current students who attended Dawson’s first-ever Homecoming on Sept. 23.
Special thanks to the Homecoming Organizing Committee, the staff who worked on a Saturday to make it happen, the teachers who hosted reunions and our event sponsors: the Burgundy Lion Group, Shaughnessy Café and Chartwells Canada.
Visit the link below for the homepage news story and more photos.
Last Modified: October 11, 2023
