FACULTY OF ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES York University BES Program UNDERGRADUATE COURSE SYLLABUS Course: Term: ES/ENVS 2200 6.

0 Foundations of urban and regional environments Fall/Winter 2012-2013

Calendar Description
This course focuses on the interrelationships of the ecological, social, built and spatial environments within the urban and regional setting. It provides a critical understanding of urban and regional environments along with a solutions-based approach to addressing urban environmental issues with an explicitly environmental perspective. Students will attain knowledge of the theories, histories and current issues of urbanization and regionalization and their effect on environments, but also learn practical methods of analysis and intervention in different human settlements. With the Greater Toronto Area as a field laboratory, there will be an emphasis on application and involvement. Prerequisite None Course Director Stefan Kipfer - HNES 245 Course consultation hours: Tuesdays 13:00-15:00 Teaching Assistants Kyle Gibson Oded Haas (F) Kim Jackson Azam Khatam Thorben Wieditz (W) Office Hours T.B.A. T.B.A. T.B.A. T.B.A. T.B.A. E-mail address kylegibson@hotmail.ca odedhaas@gmail.com lizakim@yorku.ca azamkhatam@gmail.com twieditz@yorku.ca

Course Organization In this course, the Course Director and the Teaching Assistants form a Teaching Team. The Teaching Assistants, who are PhD Candidates in the Faculty of Environmental Studies, will share with the Course Director and Course Instructors responsibility for the overall shape and direction of course activities.

Time and Location Lectures: Tutorial Groups: Tutorial Group 1: Tutorial Group 2: Tutorial Group 3: Tutorial Group 4: Tutorial Group 5: Tutorial Group 6: Tutorial Group 7:

Fridays, 10:30 - 12:30

Location: CLH G

Fridays 12:30 1:30 BC 214 Fridays 12:30 1:30 BC 325 Fridays 12:30 1:30 CC 318 Fridays 12:30 - 1:30 SC 219 Fridays 1:30 - 2:30 BC 214 Fridays 1:30 - 2:30 BC 325 Fridays 1:30 - 2:30 CC 318

Note: TAs have been directed not to accept students into a tutorial unless they have formally registered in that section. In exceptional circumstances, the Course Director will consider recommending to the Undergraduate Programme Director that a student be permitted to change tutorial group enrolment; a written request detailing the reasons why a change is being requested and the choice of alternative tutorials must be submitted by the student to the Course Director prior to the first tutorial session.

Objectives
This course has the following goals: Present global, comparative and historical perspectives on urbanization and its impacts Introduce concepts and theories necessary to analyze urban and regional environments Discuss how forms of urban politics and planning have dealt with the challenges urban and regional environments present for social justice, democracy and ecology

Assumptions and Perspectives

We now live in an urbanizing society. Urban settlements have ceased to be physically discrete and socially unique settlements for a small minority of the worlds population, as was the case during much of history. While human settlements around the world remain very diverse in scale, size, form and organization, today more than half of the global population resides in urban areas. Eighty percent of Canadians inhabit urban areas, as classified by the census. The process by which urban settlements have become the majority settlement form for most humans in less than three centuries is a result of the dynamics of the modern capitalist and imperial world economy. In our modern times, urbanization has become a world-wide process that connects particular urban settlements to each other and to their

respective hinterlands. On the one hand, urban regions are part of global networks which connect cities with each other. These urban networks comprise investment and migration flows, infrastructure and technology networks, governmental institutions and political strategies, and webs of cultural practices. The Toronto region today can be seen as part of a network of global cities. It functions as a centre of corporate financial decision-making as well as a point of attraction for migrants. On the other hand, city life takes place within particular regional contexts. Since it is no longer easy to draw clear boundaries between city and the region, this course will assume that urban, or metropolitan regions are the building blocks of urban life. These regions encompass central cities, suburbs, exurbs and various, seemingly semi-rural areas. York University, for example is located in the very middle of Torontos urban region: on the periphery of the countrys largest central municipality (the City of Toronto) and on the cusp of one of the most extensive urban belts in North America, reaching roughly from Hamilton to Bowmanville, and from Lake Ontario up to Simcoe County. Global urbanization presents enormous challenges and formidable opportunities for the future of the planet. Just as in earlier periods, urban settlements are the product of transformations in agriculture and the relationship between cities and the hinterlands that supply migrants, resources and political power to urban societies. Yet, in todays urbanizing world, the environmental challenges of global urbanization can no longer be addressed by de-urbanizing and de-concentrating populations, as generations of planners and environmentalists have suggested since the 19th century. These challenges can only be dealt with by coming to terms with urban life as our second nature and by radically transforming how urban life relates to other spaces and settlements. The future of the planet will be urban, or not at all. Urban regions are economically contradictory, socially differentiated, and culturally complex environments. Characterized by socio-economic and cultural difference/inequality, urban-regional landscapes not only link human with non-human nature. They are also riddled by politics: relationships of conflict and compromise among various social groups, which are strongly shaped by state intervention. Transforming cities for the purpose of ecological sustainability is thus not just about technical and technological adjustment. It poses fundamental social, cultural, economic and political questions and raises issues of power, democracy, and social justice, both locally and globally. This foundations course has three interrelated dimensions: urban and regional analysis, landscapes and politics and planning. The main purpose of the course is to provide an introduction to the following list of topics. Urban and regional analysis Urban settlements in history and global context Cities in global North and global South Landscapes Nature and Society, City and Countryside Cultural, economic, social landscapes Politics and planning Urban politics and power Urban-regional development processes Social movements

Social and Spatial analysis: -Commodification -Social and spatial inequality

Landscapes of Power Urban political ecology Landscape design and ecological restoration

Urban and Regional Planning The State, Governance and Government

Course Organization
The course is structured by lectures and weekly tutorial sessions involving 20 to 25 students. The lectures may be supplemented by films, videos, and, occasionally, music. Tutorial sessions will be conducted by a teaching assistant and will be the main focus for discussion of readings and assignments in the course. Next to the lectures, the required readings are the central building blocks of the course. The lectures and tutorials will serve to enrich, clarify, and illustrate but not repeat - the assigned readings. Readings listed under a particular date are assigned for tutorial discussion usually in the same week, and must be read in advance of the lecture and tutorial for which they are assigned. Students are expected to have the proper course materials with them when they attend tutorials. Evaluation The grade for the course is based on the following percentages for each activity in the course. Assignment 1 - Physical Observation (5%) Assignment 2 Book Review (15%) Midterm Exam (20%) Assignment 4 Research Proposal (10%) Assignment 5 - Research Paper (20%) Final Exam (20%) Tutorial Participation : 10% Due: October 12 Due: November 23 Exam Period (December 5-21) Due: February 8 Due: March 28 Exam Period (April 10 to 26)

Final grades may be adjusted to conform to Program or Faculty grades distribution profiles. Grading Scheme, Assignment Submissions, and Lateness Penalties The grading scheme for ENVS courses conforms to the 9-point system used in other undergraduate programs at York. Assignments and tests will bear either a letter grade designation (e.g., A, B, C+, etc.) or an equivalent percentage grade. (See detailed descriptions in the FES Regulations or in the BES Handbook) The final grade for the course will be calculated using the weighting formula established above for this course. Instructions for Submission and Return of Final Assignments

In cases where students will be handing an assignment late in the term and the Professor or Teaching Assistant will not have an opportunity to return the graded assignment in a subsequent class/tutorial, special arrangements must be made to accommodate students wishes to have the graded assignment returned to them: students must submit their final assignment with a self-addressed, stamped, envelope if they want to receive the graded assignment. If the assignment is more than 5 pages in length they are advised to have the post office weigh the package to determine appropriate postage required. if students do not attach a self-addressed stamped envelope, they must attach a document with their course details, their name and student number and their signature and a statement confirming they do not wish to have the assignment returned to them.

Proper academic performance depends on students doing their work not only well, but on time. Accordingly, the assignments for ENVS courses must be received by the Instructor or Teaching Assistant on the due date specified for the assignment. Assignments can be handed in either the course drop box located across room 114 HNES or as specified by the Tutorial Leaders / Teaching Assistants. Note: students may have their essay or assignment date stamped by Reception staff in HNES 109. Once date stamped, Reception staff will deposit the essay or assignment in the course drop box on behalf of the student. Assignments should not be deposited in the Instructors or TAs mailboxes in the HNES building, nor will they be accepted by OSAS staff.Lateness Penalty Assignments received later than the due date will be penalized 5% of the value of the assignment per day that the assignments are late. For example, if an assignment worth 20% of the total course grade is a day late, 1 point out of 20 (or 5% per day) will be deducted. Exceptions to the lateness penalty for valid reasons such as illness, compassionate grounds, etc. will be entertained by the Course Director only when supported by written documentation (e.g., a doctors letter). Please note Faculty policy on electronic submission of material, "That all written or visual work that is submitted as part of an academic program must be submitted in hardcopy (not electronically), unless previously agreed to by the instructor or advisor ." Submission must be received in hard copy form on due date or will be considered late. Missed Tests Students with a documented reason for missing a course test, such as illness, compassionate grounds, etc., which is confirmed by supporting documentation (e.g., doctors letter) may request accommodation from the Course Instructor. Further extensions or accommodation will require students to submit a formal petition to the Faculty.

Required Reading The following materials are required reading for the course. The book by Boudreau et al. as well as the course kits are available at the York Bookstore. Parker and Yeong-Hyun / Short are e-books available directly on the York Libraries website. 1. Simon Parker Urban Theory and the Urban Experience (London: Routledge, 2004) [ebook] 2. Kim Yeong-Hyun and John Rennie Short Cities and Economies (London: Routledge, 2008) [e-book] 3. Julie-Anne Boudreau, Roger Keil and Douglas Young Changing Toronto: Governing Urban Neoliberalism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009) [for book review] 4. Course Kits available at the York Bookstore, one for the fall, one for the winter term 5. Readings available electronically (on e-resources York Libraries or on the internet) as indicated in the syllabus Supplementary Reading Suggested supplementary readings will be recommended by the Course Director or Teaching Assistants from time to time as the course progresses. In addition, students will be required to undertake additional individual library research in conjunction with the course assignments. Given the relationship of course discussions to issues of current interest, students are strongly encouraged to read, on a regular basis, a daily newspaper published in the Toronto area like the Globe & Mail and the Toronto Star, the news sections in NOW magazines, and community or neighbourhood-based newspapers/websites.

Detailed outline, weekly sessions: FALL TERM A. Introduction

Week 1 (September 7): Introduction - Urban and Regional Environments
Required: Willam S. Rees, Getting Serious about Urban Sustainability: Eco-Footprints and the Vulnerability of Twenty-First-Century Cities, Trudi Bunting, Pierre Filion, Ryan Walker eds. Canadian Cities in Transition, Fourth Edition (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 72-86. In course kit Information on the field trip: The Great Indian Bus Tour organized by the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto

B. Section 1: Urban and Regional Environments in Global Perspective

Week 2 (September 14): Urban and regional environments in history: settlements and cities
Required: Rodney Bobiwash, The History of Native People in the Toronto Area: An Overview, Frances Sanderson and Heather Howard-Bobiwash eds, The Meeting Place: Aboriginal Life in Toronto (Toronto: Native Canadian Centre, 1997) 5-24. In course kit Viktoria Freeman, Toronto Has No History! Indigeneity, Settler Colonialism and Historical Memory In Canadas Largest City Urban History Review 38.2.: 21-36. (E-Resources) Michael Redclift, "Envisaging the Frontier: Land Settlement and Life Chances in Upper Canada," In: Michael Redclift (Ed.) Sustainability: Life Chances and Livelihoods (New York: Routledge, 2000: 106-120). In course kit.

Recommended: Bonita Lawrence, Real Indians and Others: Mixed-Blood Urban Native Peoples and Indigenous Nationhood (Vancouver: UBC, 2006)

Week 3 (September 21): Global Urbanization I Capitalism and urban networks

Required: Nestor Rodriguez and Joe Feagin, Urban Specialization in the World System: An Investigation of Historical Cases in Neil Brenner/Roger Keil eds. The Global Cities Reader (London: Routledge, 2006) 32-41. In course kit Yeong-Hyun Kim and John Rennie Short, Mercantile cities and European colonialism, The rise and fall of industrial cities, Cities and Economies (London: Routledge, 2008) 13-32.
Recommended: Aidan Southall, The City in Time and Space (Cambridge U.K.: Cambridge U. Press, 1998)

SATURDAY, Sept. 22 or SUNDAY Sept. 23: Bus Tour, departing from Native Canadian Centre (16 Spadina Rd @ Spadina Subway Station) Week 4 (September 28): Global Urbanization II Colonization, colonial cities, third world cities
Required:
Yeong-Hyun Kim and John Rennie Short, Chennai/Madras, Third World Cities Cities and Economies (London: Routledge, 2008) 22-23, 117-39.

Harry Hiller, The Dynamics of Canadian Urbanization, Urban Canada ed. H. Hiller (Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 2005) 2747. In course kit
Recommended: Anthony King, Urbanism, Colonialism and the World Economy (London: Routledge, 1990) 13-43. Nicholas Blomley, Unsettling the City (New York: Routledge, 2004)

Week 5 (October 5): Global Urbanization III Globalization, Global Cities, Migration
Required: Simon Parker, Urban Theory and the Urban Experience (London: Routledge, 2004) pp. 111-119 Yeong-Hyun Kim and John Rennie Short, Globalization and world cities Cities and Economies (London: Routledge, 2008) 65-79 Thomas Nail, Building Sanctuary City Upping the Ante 11 (2010): 147-60. In course kit
Recommended: Stephen Castles and Mark Miller, The Age of Migration, 4th ed. (New York: Guildford, 2009)

Week 6 (October 12): Urban Regions I Restructuring in Global City Regions

Required: John Friedmann and Goetz Wolff, World-city Formation: An Agenda for Research and Action In Brenner and Keil, pp. 57-66. In course kit Yeong-Hyun Kim and John Rennie Short, The Fordist City, Cities and Economies (London: Routledge, 2008) 37-47.

Recommended: Allen Scott, Globalization and the Rise of City-Regions, in Brenner and Keil, pp. 370-6

Week 7 (October 19): Urban Regions II Urban Decentralization and Suburbanization

Required:

Simon Parker, Urban Theory and the Urban Experience, pp. 74-84 Dolores Hayden, Sitcom Suburbs Building Suburbia (New York: Pantheon, 2003) 128153. In course kit
Recommended: Richard Harris, Creeping Conformity: How Canada Became Suburban 1900-1960 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004)

October 26 NO CLASS IN RETURN FOR FIELD TRIP November 2 NO CLASS CO-CURRICULAR DAYS Week 8 (November 9): Urban Regions III The New Urban Region

Film: Bollywood, Hollywood (2002, Director Deepa Mehta)

Required: Ed Soja Exopolis in Soja, Postmetropolis (Oxford: Blackwell) 233-263. In course kit Anthony King Suburb/Ethnoburg/Globurb: The Making of Contemporary Modernities in Spaces of Global Culture: Architecture, Urbanism, Identity (New York: Routledge) 97-110. In course kit
Recommended: Pamela Blais, Perverse Cities: Hidden Subsidies, Wonky Politics, and Urban Sprawl (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010)

C. Section 2: Theorizing the Modern City

Week 9 (November 16): Urban Theory I Culture, Commodity, Sexuality

Required: Simon Parker, Urban Theory and the Urban Experience, chapters 2, pp. 8-19; chapter 8, 143-6 Walter Benjamin and Asja Lacis, Naples, in Walter Benjamin, Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings Trans. Ed. Jephcott (New York: Schocken Books, 1986) 163-73. In course kit
Recommended: Jennifer Robinson, Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity and Development (London: Routledge, 2006)

Week 10 (November 23): Urban Theory II Class Conflict and Spatial Differentiation
Required: Simon Parker, Urban Theory and the Urban Experience, chapter 3, 27-50; chapter 6, 100-9
Yeong-Hyun Kim and John Rennie Short, The Industrial City and Social Conflict, The Planned City Cities and Economies (London: Routledge, 2008) 32-37.
Recommended: Andy Merrifield, Metromarxism (London: Routledge, 2002)

Week 11 (November 30): Urban Theory III Race, Racism and Urban Space
Required: Simon Parker, Urban Theory, chapter 5, p. 89-96 Carl Nightingale, Introduction Segregation: A Global History of Divided Cities (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012) pp. 1-16 In course kit
Recommended: Frantz Fanon, Algeria Unveiled, A Dying Colonialism Trans. by Haakon Chevalier (New York: Grove Press, 1965 [1959]) 35-67)

December 5 December 21: Exam Period

WINTER TERM D. Section 3: Politics, Planning, Landscapes

Week 12 (January 11): Highways, Urban Renewal and Postwar planning: another view from New York City
Film: New York - The City and the World (PBS documentary, dir. Ric Burns, 140 min.)

Required: Matthew Gandy, Technological Modernism and the Urban Parkway. Concrete and Clay:
Reworking Nature in New York City (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002) pp. 115-152. In course kit. Andrew Harris, Vertical urbanism: flyovers and skywalks in Mumbai. In Matthew Gandy ed. Urban Constellations. (Berlin: Jovis, 2011) pp. 113-117. In course kit.
Recommended: Marshall Berman, All that is Solid Melts into Air (New York, 1982)

Week 13 (January 18): Nature and the City: Politics, Planning and Landscapes Required:
William Cronon, Natures Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York and London, 1991): pp. 5-19; 371-385. In course kit. Ann Zimmerman, Ecology, Ecosystems, and the Greater Toronto Region. In Roots, Betty I., Chant, Donald A. and Heidenreich, Conrad H. (eds.) Special Places: The Changing Ecosystems of the Toronto Region.(Vancouver and Toronto: UBC Press., 1999) pp. 93103. In course kit.
Recommended: John Berger, Ways of Seeing (London, 1972) Alexander Wilson, The Culture of Nature: North American Landscape from Disney to Exxon Valdez (1991) 89-115. Nik Heynen et al. eds In the Nature of Cities: Urban political ecology and the Politics of urban metabolism (New York, 2006)

Week 14 (January 25): Parks and Landscape Design

Required: Michle Dagenais, The Urbanization of Nature: Water Networks and Green Spaces in Alan MacEachers and William J. Turkel eds. Method and Meaning in Canadian Environmental History .

(Scarborough: Nelson, 2008) pp. 216-35. In course kit. Jennifer Foster, Off Track, In Nature: Constructing Ecology on Old Rail Lines in Paris and New York, Nature and Culture 5.3. (2010): 316-337. Available in E-RESOURCES, York Libraries website.
Recommended: Francesco Dal Co., From Parks to Region in The American City: From Civil War to the New Deal Eds. Ciucci, Dal Co, Tafuri, Manieri-Elia (Cambridge, 1970) Jordan Stranger-Ross, Municipal Colonialism in Vancouver: City Planning and the Conflict over Indian Reserves, 19281950s Canadian Historical Review 89:4 (2008): 541-580.

Week 15 (February 1): City, Nature and Sexuality

Film: Pride and Resistance (Dir. Nancy Nicol, 2007) 17 min. Required: Catriona Sandilands, "Where the mountain men meet the lesbian rangers: Gender, nation and nature in the rocky mountain parks." In Melody Hessing, Rebecca Raglon and Catriona Sandilands eds, Women and the Canadian Environment (Vancouver, 2004) In course kit. Alison Blunt and Jane Wills, Sexual Orientations: Geographies of Desire, Dissident Geographies (Harlow, 2000) pp. 128-41, 145-61. In course kit.
Recommended: Brent Ingram et al. eds Queers in Space: communities, public places, sites of resistance (Seattle, 1997)

Week 16 (February 8): Regional Planning I: Growth Control and Transit

Required: Simon Parker, Visions of Utopia: From the Garden City to new urbanism Urban Theory and the Urban Experience (London and New York: 2004) pp. 51-73. Timothy Beatley, Transit Cities. In Beatley, Transit Cities (Washington D.C.: Island Press, 2000) 10936. In course kit.
Recommended: Bianca Mugyenyi and Yves Engler, Stop Signs. Cars and capitalism on the road to economic, social and ecological decay (Vancouver: RED, Fernwood, 2011)

Week 17 (February 15): Regional Planning II: The Compact City, Intensification, Gentrification

Guest lectures: Kim Jackson and Thorben Wieditz Required: Simon Parker, Urban Theory and the Urban Experience, p. 86-89. Sue Bunce, The emergence of 'Smart Growth' intensification in Toronto Local Environment.
9:2 (2004):

177-191. Available in E-RESOURCES, York Libraries website. Loretta Lees, Tom Slater, and Elvin Wyly, The Birth of Gentrification, in Lees, Slater, Wyly, Gentrification (New York: Routledge) pp. 3-36. In course kit.

Recommended: Neil Smith, The New Urban Frontier: Revanchism and the Gentrification of the City (New York, 1996)

February 16- February 22: Reading Week No Class Week 18 (March 1): Whose sustainability? Urban politics 101
Scott Campbell, Green Cities, Growing Cities, Just Cities? Urban Planning and the Contradictions of Sustainable Development in Campbell, Scott and Fainstein, Susan S. Readings in Planning Theory, 2nd edition (Blackwell: Malden, Mass. and Oxford, U.K, 2003) pp. 435-58. In course kit. Simon Parker (2004) Urban Theory and the Urban Experience. London and New York: Routledge. Ch. 7 The Contested City: Politics, people and power. pp. 120-131.
Recommended: Jonathan Davies and David Imbroscio eds. Theories of City Politics 2nd. Ed. (London, 2009) James Lightbody, City Politics,Canada (Toronto, 2006)

Week 19 (March 8) Urban social movements I: 1968 and the right to the city
Required: Simon Parker, Urban Theory and the Urban Experience, chapter 7, 131-5. Bryan Palmer, May 1968: An Appreciation, Canadian Dimension 42.3. June (2008) 1925. Available at: http://canadiandimension.com/articles/2008/05/01/1790/ Tony Roshan Samara, Gentrifying Downtown, ColorLines Issue 39, July-August 2007. Available at: http://colorlines.com/archives/2007/07/gentrifying_downtown.html
Recommended: Henri Lefebvre, The Right to the City In Bridge and Watson (eds.) The Blackwell City Reader (Malden, Mass: Blackwell, 2002) Karen Dubinsky et al. eds (2009) New World Coming: The Sixties and the Shaping of Global Consciousness (Toronto: Between the Lines)

Week 20 (March 15): Urban social movements II: housing struggles in the global South
Film: Bombay Our City (Dir. Anand Patwardhan, 60 minutes, 1985)

Required: Kim and Short, Globalizing Islands in Developing Countries, Cities and Economies, 156-168. Liza Weinstein and Xuefei Ren, The Changing Right to the City: Urban Renewal and Housing Rights in Globalizing Shanghai and Mumbai City and Community 8:4. (2009) Available in ERESOURCES, York Libraries website.

Recommended: Mike Davis, Planet of Slums (London: Verso, 2006)

Week 21 (March 22-23): Field Trip Downtown Toronto March 29 No class (University is closed on Good Friday) Week 22 (April 5): Public Space: Regulation, Privatization, Appropriation
Guest Lecture: Azam Khatam

Required:
Simon Parker Urban Theory and the Urban Experience 2004, 140-43 Evelyn Ruppert (2006) "Rights to Public Space - Regulatory Reconfigurations of Liberty" Urban Geography 27.3. pp. 271-292. Available in E-Resources York University Library Azam Khatam (2009) The Islamic Republic Failed Quest for the Spotless City, MERIP (250):44-50. Available at http://www.merip.org/mer/mer250/islamic-republicsfailed-questspotless-city. Deen Sharp (2012) Urbanism and the Arab Uprisings: Downtown Cairo and the Fall of Mubarak. Jadaliyya August 6. Available at http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/6759/urbanism-and-the-arabuprisings_downtown-cairo-and

Recommended:
Neil Smith and Setha Low eds. (2006) eds. The Politics of Public Space (New York: Routledge)

Week 23 (MONDAY April 8): Landscapes of Hope: Democracy and the Convivial City
Required: Richard Swift (2002) Weak and Strong Democracy, The No-Nonsense Guide to Democracy (London: Verso) pp. 35-56. In course kit. Mike Davis (2010) Who Will Build the Ark? New Left Review 61 (Jan-Feb) pp. 29-46. Available at EResources, York University Library website. Recommended: Ellen Wood (1995) Democracy against Capitalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

April 10 April 26: Final Exam Period

Inclusivity in the BES Program

The BES Program strives to include a broad range of perspectives and substantive material in its course offerings. Central to a clear understanding of environmental problems is the link between exploitation of the natural world, and justice issues related to racism, gender inequity, and poverty. An inclusion of nonwestern perspectives is therefore essential to a fruitful discussion of North-South issues, and environmental debates generally.

Religious Observance Days

York University is committed to respecting the religious beliefs and practices of all members of the community, and making accommodations for observances of special significance to adherents. Should any of the dates specified in this syllabus for in-class test or examination pose such a conflict for you, contact the Course Director within the first three weeks of class. Similarly, should an assignment to be completed in a lab, practicum placement, workshop, etc., scheduled later in the term pose such a conflict, contact the Course director immediately. Please note that to arrange an alternative date or time for an examination scheduled in the formal examination periods (December and April/May), students must complete and Examination Accommodation Form, which can be obtained from Student Client Services, W120 Bennett Centre for Student Services or online at http://www.registrar.yorku.ca/pdf/exam_accommodation.pdf

Academic Honesty York students are required to maintain high standard of academic integrity and are subject to the Senate Policy on Academic Honesty as set out by York University and by the Faculty of Environmental Studies. Please read the Senate Policy on Academic Honesty (which can be found

as Appendix One of the Academic Regulations of the Faculty of Environmental Studies or in the University Policies and Regulations section of the York University Undergraduate Programs Calendar), available at: http://www.yorku.ca/secretariat/legislation/senate/acadhone.htm There is also an academic integrity website with complete information about academic honesty. Students are expected to review the materials on the Academic Integrity website at: http://www.yorku.ca/tutorial/academicintegrity

Student Conduct Students and instructors are expected to maintain a professional relationship characterized by courtesy and mutual respect and to refrain from actions disruptive to such a relationship. Moreover, it is the responsibility of the instructor to maintain an appropriate academic atmosphere in the classroom, and the responsibility of the student to cooperate in that endeavour. Further, the instructor is the best person to decide, in the first instance, whether such an atmosphere is present in the class. A statement of the policy and procedures involving disruptive and/or harassing behaviour by students in academic situations is available on the York website at: http://www.yorku.ca/secretariat/policies/document.php?document=202

Access/Disability

York provides services for students with disabilities (including physical, medical, learning and psychiatric disabilities) needing accommodation related to teaching and evaluation methods/materials. It is the student's responsibility to register with disability services as early as possible to ensure that appropriate academic accommodation can be provided with advance notice. You are encouraged to schedule a time early in the term to meet with each professor to discuss your accommodation needs. Failure to make these arrangements may jeopardize your opportunity to receive academic accommodations. Additional information is available at http://www.yorku.ca/cds/ or from disability service providers:

Office for Persons with Disabilities: Room N110 of the Bennett Centre for Student Services , 416-736-5297, Learning and Psychiatric Disabilities Programs - Counselling & Development Centre: Room N110 of the Bennett Centre for Student Services, 416- 736-5297, http://www.yorku.ca/cdc/ Glendon students - Glendon Counselling & Career Centre: Glendon Hall 111A, 416-4876709, http://www.glendon.yorku.ca/counselling/personal.html