Podcasts about Mount Saint Vincent University

Alex Khasnabish is chair of the department of Sociology and Anthropology at Mount Saint Vincent University. He studies social movements, radical politics, and social & political theory. Erik McDuffie is an associate professor of African American Studies and History at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of the Jon Gjerde Prize winning book, "The Second Battle for Africa: Garveyism, the US Heartland, and Global Black Freedom". Alex Guye spoke with the two professors about the term woke, and the harm the anti-woke movement can cause.

On the phone-in: Our topic is parenting. We discuss the fine line between nurturing a child and coddling them. Our guest is Christine McLean, She is chair of the Child and Youth Study program at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax And off the top of the show, we speak with Tina Northrup, a lawyer with East Coast Environmental Law about a federal court challenge with the aim of better protecting piping plovers.

Alex Khasnabish is chair of the department of Sociology and Anthropology at Mount Saint Vincent University. He studies social movements, radical politics, and social & political theory. Host Jeff Douglas spoke with Alex about what fascism looks like in 2025 and some of the language violent extremist movements use.

Kendall Darling is the co-founder and CEO of Pilot X, an AI-powered transportation marketplace transforming how businesses and individuals deliver goods. "The Airbnb of Transportation" Originally from the Bahamas, Kendall was inspired by his own moving challenges to create a seamless, cost-effective, and accessible delivery solution.With a Bachelor of Business Administration from Mount Saint Vincent University and a background in commercial underwriting, logistics, and talent acquisition, Kendall brings a strategic, people-first approach to business. His expertise spans supply chain innovation, operations, and community-driven growth strategies.Kendall is passionate about building an interconnected, tech-driven future for logistics—where businesses thrive, transportation is efficient, and accessibility is at the core.Find out more @thekendallsa@pilotx.ca

Jamie Metsala, a professor of Education at Mount Saint Vincent University, is lauding the province for introducing structured literacy back into classrooms.

A new study that examines food insecurity in Nova Scotia's 2SLGBTQ+ community is underway by Feed Nova Scotia and the Human Nutrition Department at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax. Guest host Preston Mulligan is joined by Sue Kelleher and Phillip Joy to learn more about the scope and what initial research shows.

In support of Pride Month 2024, Barry Murphy, Research and Policy Officer at Bodywhys speaks with Dr Philip Joy, Mount Saint Vincent University, about compassion, recovery and LGBTQ experiences. Notes Wicked Bodies  “It's beautiful and it's messy and it's tragic”: exploring the role of compassion in the eating disorder recovery processes of 2S/LGBTQ + Canadians | Journal of Eating Disorders  New research report highlights stark deterioration in mental health of LGBTQI+ people since 2016  - Belong To - LGBTQ+ Youth Ireland

The Black Educators Association will hold its annual REP Provincial Spelling BEE on Saturday. Nearly 100 students are expected to compete at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax. Three of them, alongside former spelling bee champ Maggie Andrew, join host Jeff Douglas to talk about the competition — and to spell a few words.

Hailie Tattrie (she/her) is a sociologist, a white settler, a communist, and a lifelong learner. She is currently working towards finishing her PhD in educational studies at Mount Saint Vincent University. She works as a part-time professor at Saint Mary's University & is hoping to become a full-time professor at one of Halifax's universities when she is done with her schooling. Hailie grew up in rural Nova Scotia, after graduating high school she went to Mount Allison University where she fell in love with sociology and academia. After her undergrad she travelled Europe and the UK and was a nanny in Scotland, she then went to Dalhousie University where she completed her Masters in Sociology in 2020. When not in school Hailie likes to volunteer her time to worthy causes like Justice for Workers or going to local rallies and protests. She lives in Halifax (K'jipuktuk) with her partner Jacob and their two kitties- Michael and Dexter. Learn more @hailiemtattrie

When people say they think Joe Biden or Donald Trump — or both of them — are simply too old to be president of the United States — is that fair game? Or is that a step backwards for an economy that needs older workers to stay on the job in the face of demographic change? Mainstreet's Alex Mason spoke with Janice Keefe, the director of Mount Saint Vincent University's Nova Scotia Centre on Aging, to learn more.

Noémie (pronounced No-Emmy) is a Québecer of Haitian ancestry who has resided, worked and lived in Mi'kma'ki (Nova Scotia) since 2016. She received an undergraduate degree (honours) in Psychology from Mount Saint Vincent University in 2021 and is set to receive a graduate degree in Clinical Psychology from Acadia University in 2024.Noémie has a passion for Health Equity research, and for sharing scientific knowledge in ways that can be understood and accessed by everyone.She is particularly sensitive to issues of Black mental health and the lack of services for folks of African ancestry. Noémie embraces opportunities to educate the public on mental health topics, and to advocate for the cultural diversification of mental health care practitioners and scholars.Find out more @almost_a_shrink

The Trudeau government got some bad news yesterday from a court case about its use of the Emergencies Act in 2022. Mount Saint Vincent University professor Alex Khasnabish weighs in on what could be a costly decision for the feds.

You may know Barbara Emodi as a Mainstreet Spinbuster, but the former communications professor at Mount Saint Vincent University has a not-so-secret talent. She's a published author, with books about sewing and several mystery novellas. She joins host Jeff Douglas to talk about her upcoming mystery novel that's set in Nova Scotia, called Crafting Deception.

Krista Collier-Jarvis (nek'm/she/her) is a PhD Candidate at Dalhousie University and an Assistant Professor at Mount Saint Vincent University, both of which are in the Departments of English. She graduated with a BA (honours) from Mount Saint Vincent University in 2013 and a Master of Arts from Dalhousie University in 2016.She describes her work as a process of watching zombie films and trying to say smart things about them. She's a member of the Mi'kmaq Nation, and her culture influences much of her research. In addition to studying and teaching Indigenous literature and film, she incorporates Indigenous knowledge approaches in much of her research and seeks to elevate Indigenous voices.In late 2014, she joined inesS, a pole and circus studio located in downtown Halifax. She started with aerial silks but fell in love with pole dancing. She started competing in pole art and pole doubles beginning in 2017 and holds three gold medals, two silver medals, and two bronze medals in competition.After winning a bronze medal in pole doubles at nationals, she and her pole partner, Jill, were offered positions on Team Canada to compete at Worlds. However, between the pandemic and the kind of time and energy required to compete on the world stage, they never did compete at that level. She now teaches and performs at inesS. You can find her performing annually at such events as Fringe and Nocturne or you can sign up to take one of her classes.When she's not studying or hanging out at inesS, she can be found paddleboarding, photographing, or hanging out with her husband, her dog, and her three cats at her home near Peggy's Cove.Find out more @mikmawmutiny

There are classic books from a few centuries ago, and then there are classic classic books from distant and remote regions covering events that are long-lost to the sands of time. Today's episode is about this kind of book: the Icelandic sagas written in the 1300s and covering events from the start of the second millennium. The saga I read for this week's episode is called Njal's Saga and it is written anonymously, as many of the texts at the time were, probably through a long oral tradition and it is a fictionalized history of the start of what was called the Icelandic Commonwealth, which was a pretty unique society, largely agrarian, with no king or aristocracy and a system of laws and norms that maintained some form of stability.  However, that stability would soon come under grave threat with a series of spiralling feud, mostly based on stupid slurs leading to bloody murders, that would eventually lead to the collapse of the Icelandic Commonwealth. My guest today is Dr. Matthew Roby, who's an assistant professor at Mount Saint Vincent University in Nova Scotia, Canada, and he's a leading academic on the sagas and medieval literature in general. Today, he takes us through what exactly are the Icelandic sagas, why and how they were written, what influenced them and what did they influence (e.g The Lord of the Rings) and all sort of other fascinating tidbits on this long-lost form of story-telling.  Books mentioned in the episode: “Old-Norse Icelandic Literature: A Short Introduction” by Heather O'Donoghue (2004) “Gisla Saga” is the saga he recommends, which has noble heroes, and it centres on concepts of family, friendship and ties and it is relatively accessible. Favorite book that I've never heard of: “Letters from Iceland” by the poet WH Auden & Louis MacNeice (1937), which is a series of vignettes of life in Iceland at the time. The book that he loves but can't recommend to friends: The family sagas which are a sub-genre of the sagas focused on the historical aspects of Iceland.  The best book that he's read in the last 12 months: “Tess of the d'Urbervilles” by Thomas Hardy (1891), a classic novel about the tragic treatment of a woman in 19th century British society. The book that he finds over-rated: “Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens (1861) in which he found the morals too contrived and overt. The book that he would take to a desert island: “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy by JRR Tolkien (1954) The book that changed his mind: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by TS Eliot (1915), his first published poem, which made him want to pursue literature. He also mentioned the children's book “We Sang You Home” by the Canadian indigenous author Richard Van Camp, published in 2016. Follow me ⁠⁠⁠⁠@litwithcharles⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more book reviews and recommendations!

After a Charter challenge was turned away in Ontario, an appeal may bring the laws that govern sex work in this country directly to the supreme court—and these laws are a battleground right now.At the heart of it is this question: Is sex work inherently exploitative? Or can it be just a job? And if it can't be, then why have the courts sided with a Halifax sex worker who took a non-paying client to small claims court, and won?GUEST: Dr. Meredith Ralston, professor, Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax; filmmaker and author focusing on sex work

This episode of Darts and Letters examines the theory and practice of anti-statist organizing. There's a story you can tell about the post-Occupy left gravitating towards a more state-oriented kind of politics, exemplified by the enthusiasm around Bernie Sanders, The Squad, and others. However, this misses autonomous and anarchist-inflected (and sometimes, explicitly anarchist) social movements that have brought enormous energy, and enormous change–from the movement for black lives, to organizing for Indigenous sovereignty, and so much more. In this episode, we look at the Kurdish movement, and mutual aid experiments across North America. First, we look at the work of the late libertarian socialist Murray Bookchin. Bookchin broke with Marxism, and later anarchism, and eventually developed an idiosyncratic ecological and revolutionary theory that said radical democracy could be achieved at the municipal level. This Vermont-based theorist has been enormously influential, including in an area formerly known as Rojava. There, the Kurdish people are making these ideas their own, and developing a radical feminist democracy–while fighting to survive. We speak with Elif Genc about these ideas, and about how the Kurdish diaspora implements them within Canada. Next, what is mutual aid? Peter Kropotkin's Mutual Aid: A Factory of Evolution (1902) examines how cooperation and reciprocity are core to nature. To anarchists, this should be generalized to radical political program, and a radically new way of living. Darts and Letters producer Marc Apollonio speaks to Payton McDonald about how the theory and practice of mutual aid drives many social movements across North America. Payton is co-directing a four-part documentary series called the Elements of Mutual Aid: Experiments Towards Liberation. Finally, how do social movement scholars understand (or misunderstand) autonomous social movements? There's a tendency to dismiss movements that do not make clear tangible demands, and deliver pragmatic policy victories (see: Occupy). However, Max Haiven and Alex Khasnabish say that this misses something key to radical social movements: their radical imagination. These movements do not want to just improve this system, they want to imagine, and create (or prefigure), a different system. We discuss their book the Radical Imagination: Social Movement Research in the Age of Austerity, the blind spots of social movement theory, and whether there might be a new style of organizing emerging that is somewhere between the the statist and the anti-statist. This episode received support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. It's part of our mini-series that we are producing which looks at the radical imagination, in all its hopeful and its sometimes troubling manifestations. The scholarly leads are Professors Alex Khasnabish at Mount Saint Vincent University and Max Haiven at Lakehead University. They are providing research support and consulting to this series. For a full list of credits of Cited Media staff, visit our about page. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

This episode of Darts and Letters examines the theory and practice of anti-statist organizing. There's a story you can tell about the post-Occupy left gravitating towards a more state-oriented kind of politics, exemplified by the enthusiasm around Bernie Sanders, The Squad, and others. However, this misses autonomous and anarchist-inflected (and sometimes, explicitly anarchist) social movements that have brought enormous energy, and enormous change–from the movement for black lives, to organizing for Indigenous sovereignty, and so much more. In this episode, we look at the Kurdish movement, and mutual aid experiments across North America. First, we look at the work of the late libertarian socialist Murray Bookchin. Bookchin broke with Marxism, and later anarchism, and eventually developed an idiosyncratic ecological and revolutionary theory that said radical democracy could be achieved at the municipal level. This Vermont-based theorist has been enormously influential, including in an area formerly known as Rojava. There, the Kurdish people are making these ideas their own, and developing a radical feminist democracy–while fighting to survive. We speak with Elif Genc about these ideas, and about how the Kurdish diaspora implements them within Canada. Next, what is mutual aid? Peter Kropotkin's Mutual Aid: A Factory of Evolution (1902) examines how cooperation and reciprocity are core to nature. To anarchists, this should be generalized to radical political program, and a radically new way of living. Darts and Letters producer Marc Apollonio speaks to Payton McDonald about how the theory and practice of mutual aid drives many social movements across North America. Payton is co-directing a four-part documentary series called the Elements of Mutual Aid: Experiments Towards Liberation. Finally, how do social movement scholars understand (or misunderstand) autonomous social movements? There's a tendency to dismiss movements that do not make clear tangible demands, and deliver pragmatic policy victories (see: Occupy). However, Max Haiven and Alex Khasnabish say that this misses something key to radical social movements: their radical imagination. These movements do not want to just improve this system, they want to imagine, and create (or prefigure), a different system. We discuss their book the Radical Imagination: Social Movement Research in the Age of Austerity, the blind spots of social movement theory, and whether there might be a new style of organizing emerging that is somewhere between the the statist and the anti-statist. This episode received support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. It's part of our mini-series that we are producing which looks at the radical imagination, in all its hopeful and its sometimes troubling manifestations. The scholarly leads are Professors Alex Khasnabish at Mount Saint Vincent University and Max Haiven at Lakehead University. They are providing research support and consulting to this series. For a full list of credits of Cited Media staff, visit our about page. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

This episode of Darts and Letters examines the theory and practice of anti-statist organizing. There's a story you can tell about the post-Occupy left gravitating towards a more state-oriented kind of politics, exemplified by the enthusiasm around Bernie Sanders, The Squad, and others. However, this misses autonomous and anarchist-inflected (and sometimes, explicitly anarchist) social movements that have brought enormous energy, and enormous change–from the movement for black lives, to organizing for Indigenous sovereignty, and so much more. In this episode, we look at the Kurdish movement, and mutual aid experiments across North America. First, we look at the work of the late libertarian socialist Murray Bookchin. Bookchin broke with Marxism, and later anarchism, and eventually developed an idiosyncratic ecological and revolutionary theory that said radical democracy could be achieved at the municipal level. This Vermont-based theorist has been enormously influential, including in an area formerly known as Rojava. There, the Kurdish people are making these ideas their own, and developing a radical feminist democracy–while fighting to survive. We speak with Elif Genc about these ideas, and about how the Kurdish diaspora implements them within Canada. Next, what is mutual aid? Peter Kropotkin's Mutual Aid: A Factory of Evolution (1902) examines how cooperation and reciprocity are core to nature. To anarchists, this should be generalized to radical political program, and a radically new way of living. Darts and Letters producer Marc Apollonio speaks to Payton McDonald about how the theory and practice of mutual aid drives many social movements across North America. Payton is co-directing a four-part documentary series called the Elements of Mutual Aid: Experiments Towards Liberation. Finally, how do social movement scholars understand (or misunderstand) autonomous social movements? There's a tendency to dismiss movements that do not make clear tangible demands, and deliver pragmatic policy victories (see: Occupy). However, Max Haiven and Alex Khasnabish say that this misses something key to radical social movements: their radical imagination. These movements do not want to just improve this system, they want to imagine, and create (or prefigure), a different system. We discuss their book the Radical Imagination: Social Movement Research in the Age of Austerity, the blind spots of social movement theory, and whether there might be a new style of organizing emerging that is somewhere between the the statist and the anti-statist. This episode received support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. It's part of our mini-series that we are producing which looks at the radical imagination, in all its hopeful and its sometimes troubling manifestations. The scholarly leads are Professors Alex Khasnabish at Mount Saint Vincent University and Max Haiven at Lakehead University. They are providing research support and consulting to this series. For a full list of credits of Cited Media staff, visit our about page. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

An exclusive chat with the Hon. Jason Hayward, JP, MP, Minister of Economy and Labour on the Economic Development Strategy and the outlook for Bermuda. Minister Hayward was first elected as a Member of Parliament in 2019, and was later appointed as the Minister of Labour in 2020.  Before becoming a Member of Parliament, he was appointed to the Bermuda Government Senate in 2017, and served as Junior Minister of Education, Health, Labour, Community Affairs and Sports. Mr. Hayward is a former Chairman of the National Training Board and chaired the Working Group which produced Bermuda's first National Workforce Development Plan. Prior to entering the political arena, Min. Hayward worked in the Economic and National Accounts Division of the Department of Statistics. Min. Hayward also served as the first elected full-time President of the Bermuda Public Services Union (BPSU), President of the Bermuda Trade Union Congress, and Director and Treasurer of the Bermuda Credit Union. Minister Hayward is an alumnus of the Canada - Caribbean Emerging Leaders Dialogue (a Commonwealth leadership development program), an alumnus of the US Department of States' International Visitor Leadership Program, and holds a Chartered Manager Designation from the Chartered Management Institute. Minister Hayward holds a MBA in Finance from Nova Southeastern University, a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Mount Saint Vincent University and an Associate's degree in Arts and Science from the Bermuda College.   Sponsor - Government of Bermuda - Ministry of Economy and Labour

Mary Beth Piper is a metal artist who recently returned home to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Piper works mainly in sterling silver with freshwater pearls and semi-precious gems, as well as reclaimed materials such as copper and wood.They are interested in making unique jewellery that explores humanity's place within the natural world and the constructed nature of identity.Piper's work has been exhibited at the New Brunswick Government House and the Beaverbrook Art Gallery.They attended NBCCD and graduated with a diploma in jewellery and metal arts in 2018, as well as a Bachelor of Arts from Mount Saint Vincent University in 2011. Piper's artistic career blossomed from an existential crisis regarding a political theory thesis and their love for making odd little things, and they've happily managed to merge both those loves into their practice today.Find out more @mb.piper

Live from the tradeshow floor of the SIAL food innovation show in Toronto. Our exceptional guest is Quebec Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food André Lamontagne, who pays us a visit to our bespoke podcasting studio in Toronto. We talk with the Minister about food innovation in the Province and the government's best role in moving the industry forward for the people and hand out magic wands to discover the art of the possible.In food news, we talk about the wisdom and regulation of Gene editing with Crisper, backyard chickens and the avian flu, AI's bright outlook until it maybe kills us all, and the somewhat surprising resilience of restaurant home delivery post-pandemic. Backyard chicken Photo by amy lynn grover on UnsplashAbout Minister LamontagneBorn in Saint-Félicien in 1960, André Lamontagne earned his bachelor's degree in business administration from Université Laval. He has also completed training in counselling, psychotherapy and transactional analysis at the Eastwind Institute in Halifax. He holds a master's degree in educational psychology and human relations from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, and also has a commercial helicopter pilot license.Before going into politics, Mr. Lamontagne had a career in business. He owned three supermarkets, co-owned a network of 20 travel agencies across multiple regions of Quebec, served as president and co-owner of a management consulting firm, and owned a company specializing in helicopter purchase, reconditioning, resale and rental. He has also worked as a consultant and coach for executive clients, primarily in the business community. Over the years, he has been an investor and director at many technology companies in the manufacturing, e-commerce and industrial sectors.In 2014, Mr. Lamontagne made the switch to politics when he was elected MNA for the electoral district of Johnson under the banner of Coalition Avenir Québec. He continued in this role when he was reelected in 2018. After his reelection, the Premier appointed him Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and Minister Responsible for the Centre-du-Québec Region. He was reconducted Minister in 2022.About UsDr. Sylvain Charlebois is a Professor in food distribution and policy in the Faculties of Management and Agriculture at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He is also the Senior Director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab, also located at Dalhousie University. Before joining Dalhousie, he was affiliated with the University of Guelph's Arrell Food Institute, which he co-founded. Known as “The Food Professor”, his current research interest lies in the broad area of food distribution, security and safety. Google Scholar ranks him as one of the world's most cited scholars in food supply chain management, food value chains and traceability.He has authored five books on global food systems, his most recent one published in 2017 by Wiley-Blackwell entitled “Food Safety, Risk Intelligence and Benchmarking”. He has also published over 500 peer-reviewed journal articles in several academic publications. Furthermore, his research has been featured in several newspapers and media groups, including The Lancet, The Economist, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, BBC, NBC, ABC, Fox News, Foreign Affairs, the Globe & Mail, the National Post and the Toronto Star.Dr. Charlebois sits on a few company boards, and supports many organizations as a special advisor, including some publicly traded companies. Charlebois is also a member of the Scientific Council of the Business Scientific Institute, based in Luxemburg. Dr. Charlebois is a member of the Global Food Traceability Centre's Advisory Board based in Washington DC, and a member of the National Scientific Committee of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) in Ottawa. About MichaelMichael is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc. and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada and the Bank of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, Today's Shopping Choice and Pandora Jewellery.   Michael has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. ReThink Retail has added Michael to their prestigious Top Global Retail Influencers list for 2023 for the third year in a row. Michael is also the president of Maven Media, producing a network of leading trade podcasts, including Remarkable Retail , with best-selling author Steve Dennis, now ranked one of the top retail podcasts in the world. Based in San Francisco, Global eCommerce Leaders podcast explores global cross-border issues and opportunities for eCommerce brands and retailers. Last but not least, Michael is the producer and host of the "Last Request Barbeque" channel on YouTube, where he cooks meals to die for - and collaborates with top brands as a food and product influencer across North America

Moashella Shortte is a mother, educator, author, entrepreneur, and child and youth advocate. She received her formal training at Mount Saint Vincent University, earned an Early Childhood Management Certificate at St. Mary's University and was granted a “Baccalauréat en sciences humaines” from “immigration et communautés culturelles”, in Montreal. She spent most of her formative working years at the East Preston Day Care and Family Resource Centre and ultimately became its Executive Director. In 2018, she co-founded Learning4YoungMinds, a company offering online and in-person workshops teaching empathy and socialization to young children; anti-racism training for educators and student support workers; and writing support for BIPOC youth. She currently serves on the ECE advisory committee and is filling the role of lead faculty for the Africentric Cohort of the ECE program at the Nova Scotia Community College. Moashella defines her mission as providing as many learners as possible with exceptional learning experiences that will help them build a strong, positive foundation for learning for life!Find out more @moashellamshortte

Brian speaks with Dr. Meredith Ralston. Dr. Ralston is a Professor, Department of Women's Studies/Political Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax and the author of “Slut-Shaming, Whorephobia, and the Unfinished Sexual Revolution”. She was commissioned to present a report to the Mass Casualty Commission report about a mass murder in Nova Scotia. Mass Casualty Commission report details the Nova Scotia shooter's abuse of sex workers.

Mount Saint Vincent University is turning 150 this year, and its president emeritus Ramona Lumpkin tells us about the world in which the school was founded and how it's evolved since then.

Dr. Jerome Harste talks to us about writing in early childhood, the inherent social risks in writing, Sketch to Stretch writing, arts-based ways of communicating, kids as curricular informants, teachers as intellectuals and philosophers, and schools as spaces of possibility. Dr. Harste is best known for his work exploring young children's written language literacy learning, connecting arts and literacies, and critical literacies. As a literacy educator his expanded view of what it meant to be literate went far beyond traditional notions of reading and writing to include visual literacy and more generally semiotics. Jerry is also a celebrated artist, working mainly in watercolors. He has published over 200 articles in refereed journals and won many awards for his research and teaching. Notably, he was inducted into the Reading Hall of Fame, given the James Squire “Paradigm Shifters'' Award (National Council of Teachers of English), the Oscar Causey Reading Research Award (Literacy Research Association) and the David Russell Research Award for his work in the Language Arts (NCTE). He also earned the coveted Gorman Teaching Award from the School of Education and the Frederick Bachman Teaching Award from Indiana University. Before retirement, he was an elementary teacher in Monticello, Minnesota and the Peace Corps, a college professor for nearly 50 years at Indiana University, and an educational researcher. Dr. Jerome C. Harste retired from Indiana University as a Distinguished Professor where he held the Armstrong Chair in Teacher Education. He currently teaches graduate courses at Mount Saint Vincent University in Canada. You can connect with Jerry on Facebook at “Harste as Artist”or online at jeromeharste.com.To cite this episode: Persohn, L. (Host). (2023, Feb. 28). A conversation with Jerome “Jerry” C. Harste. (Season 3, No. 19) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/DD6E-8C6E-272E-1073-EB2E-UConnect with Classroom Caffeine at www.classroomcaffeine.com or on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Jacqueline Gahagan with Mount Saint Vincent University weighs in on new survey findings from Gallup that suggest the percentage of the U.S. population that identifies as LGBT may be leveling off at about seven per cent, but it's much higher among respondents in Generation Z.

Amber Grosse hails from the community of East Preston and is a descendant of the Preston Township. She is a purpose-driven creative professional who enjoys creating events and thinking outside of the box. She spends her nine-to-five at the Black Business Initiative as an Entrepreneurship Engagement Manager working and supporting black businesses across Nova Scotia.Her personal entrepreneurial pursuits consist of content creation, social media marketing, entrepreneurial consulting, and event planning. She has been able to work in various areas in the event planning space as well as content, corporate and small businesses, and marketing with her own business called Evolving Embers Event Planning.Amber graduated with a Business Administration degree from Mount Saint Vincent University, with a double minor in Marketing and Management.Amber is a youth champion, and community connector as well as a swim teacher at Zatsman Sportsplex. Amber enjoys also modelling, fashion, travelling, and COFEE !!To book with Amber either personally or professionally follow her on @evolving.amber

El Jones is a poet, journalist, professor and activist living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She teaches in the department of Political and Canadian Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University. She's the author of Live from the Afrikan Resistance!, a collection of poems about resisting white colonialism. Her work focuses on feminism, prison abolition, anti-racism and decolonization. In Rehearsals for Living, Robyn Maynard describes El as a “Black liberation visionary and long-time prison abolitionist [who] was nourishing abolitionist freedom dreams for years before the public would listen.” Since 2016, El has co-hosted a radio show called Black Power Hour on CKDU-FM. We talk about the important role that show played in producing the sorts of bonds that allowed for more substantial and sustained prison organizing. El explains how the show translated into building relationships, which translated into legal advocacy, a significant prison strike, and the creation of a manifesto demanding justice for those behind bars. The show led to the creation of a “kind of trust where” people like Abdoul Abdi could get to know El, feel connected, and from positions where they are made to feel utterly disconnected from the rest of the world. El's been on the podcast before, but this is a special occasion, because she's just put out a book that represents, as she's put it elsewhere, her “life's work.” The book, which you should order from Fernwood right now, is called Abolitionist Intimacies. It's started to appear on a number of lists of the best nonfiction books of 2022, and it is a difficult-to-describe intervention. As El describes it, the different parts of the book, the different approaches to writing in it, are kind of “in conversation with each other;” she says that different images and events “preoccupy” her throughout and tend to show up again and again in this iterative, poetic, meditative way. But the main idea of the book, she states very simply, is “friendship,” it's about love. What is by no means simple, though, is the book's preoccupation with the barriers to that friendship and love. Those barriers are not housed in the hearts and minds of the incarcerated, she says, but in the phone system that makes it near impossible to maintain communication with the world, the guards who police contact in the prison, the administrators who ban people from coming in. El is asking: How can anything like intimacy be sustained under those conditions? One way that she has cultivated over time is by thinking a lot about the power and the intimacy of voice. So much of Abolitionist Intimacies is about voice, voices heard over the phone, over the radio. There is so much joy there. And pain, too. Someone's voice, and the feeling of connection, can change your day. Take you away. There are some indelible moments in El's book where she documents exactly this sort of witnessing: witnessing the strength of connections across borders and through walls. Against the tyranny of a carceral society. And she points out that changing the world we have is within our grasp, even if it's difficult to imagine. Like, she admits that “it's difficult to live a different kind of life.” Of course it is. But the point is that it can be done, just not through separated acts of individual behaviour change. It has to happen collectively. Sacrifices, in her words, are also blessings.

With Canada’s National Housing Strategy hitting the halfway point of its ten year term, People First Radio featured a pair of conversations exploring the strategy’s progress thus far. One of those conversations was with Jacqueline Gahagan, Associate Vice President of Research at Mount Saint Vincent University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Gahagan's background is in health […]

It's a first for two Nova Scotia Universities as they move to help First Nations students on campus. Emily Pictou-Roberts has been named Resident Nsukwi' (Auntie in Residence) at University of King's College and Mount Saint Vincent University.She is from the Mi'kmaw community of Millbrook First Nation.The role goves her the opportunity to provide cultural, emotional, and spiritual support for Indigenous and other students on campus. And it's another step towards recognizing our shared history and honouring the spirit of being treaty people.

On Fernwood Publishing's 30th anniversary podcast THIRTYWOOD host Nora Loreto discusses new book 'Frequently Asked White Questions' with authors Alex Khasnabish and Ajay Parasram. Ajay Parasram is a multigenerational transnational byproduct of the British empire, with roots in South Asia, the Caribbean and the settler cities of Halifax, Ottawa and Vancouver. He is an associate professor in the Departments of International Development Studies, History and Political Science at Dalhousie University in Kjipuktuk (Halifax), unceded Mi'kma'ki. His research interests surround the colonial present, or the many ways through which strings of historical colonial entanglements continue to tighten the limit of political action today, and how those strings might be undone. Alex Khasnabish is a writer, researcher and teacher committed to collective liberation living in Halifax, on unceded and unsurrendered Mi'kmaw territory. He is a professor in sociology and anthropology at Mount Saint Vincent University. His research focuses on radical imagination, radical politics, social justice and social movements. Hosted and produced by Nora Loreto with music is by General Khan.

On Fernwood Publishing's 30th anniversary podcast THIRTYWOOD host Nora Loreto discusses new book 'Frequently Asked White Questions' with authors Alex Khasnabish and Ajay Parasram.Ajay Parasram is a multigenerational transnational byproduct of the British empire, with roots in South Asia, the Caribbean and the settler cities of Halifax, Ottawa and Vancouver. He is an associate professor in the Departments of International Development Studies, History and Political Science at Dalhousie University in Kjipuktuk (Halifax), unceded Mi'kma'ki. His research interests surround the colonial present, or the many ways through which strings of historical colonial entanglements continue to tighten the limit of political action today, and how those strings might be undone.Alex Khasnabish is a writer, researcher and teacher committed to collective liberation living in Halifax, on unceded and unsurrendered Mi'kmaw territory. He is a professor in sociology and anthropology at Mount Saint Vincent University. His research focuses on radical imagination, radical politics, social justice and social movements.Hosted and produced by Nora Loreto with music is by General Khan.

Nick Mombourquette is the founder and president of NewGround Financial Inc. NewGround specializes in employee benefits programs for SMB's with 5-500 employees. NewGround also works with entrepreneurs to provide tax efficient wealth planning strategies. They pride themselves on providing national-level service and advice, with a local approach. Based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, NewGround serves clients in NS, PEI, NB, ONT and AB. Nick also founded and co-hosts The Interesting People You Meet Podcast, where he interviews people from all walks of life, with interesting stories and perspectives. Nick has a BBA from Mount Saint Vincent University and holds a Certified Employees Benefits Specialist designation from Dalhousie University. He lives just outside of Halifax with his wife and three young children. Nick is a fitness enthusiast who enjoys almost every genre of music. In his spare time, when he doesn't have a book in his hands, he enjoys spending time with his family and playing golf in the summer and hockey in the winter. Entrepreneurs are the backbone of Canada's economy. To support Canada's businesses, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter. Want to stay up-to-date on the latest #entrepreneur podcasts and news? Subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter

In this special episode of Streaming Wars, host Colin Chisholm discusses Prime Video's epic The Rings of Power, a prequel to The Lord of the Rings, with special guest Dr. Anna Smol, an English and Medieval Studies professor at Mount Saint Vincent University.What's good, what's great and what are some things that seem out of place? Plus, they discuss larger topics, like Tolkien's background in languages, the powerful hold of Middle Earth on popular culture and the toxic component of the fanbase.Have a suggestion for Colin's next episode? Reach him on Twitter @ColinHantsCo or send him an email at colin.chisholm@herald.caFor more Streaming Wars content, stay on SaltWire.com.

Ajay Parasram has roots in South Asia, the Caribbean and the settler cities of Halifax, Ottawa and Vancouver. He is an associate professor in the Departments of International Development Studies, History and Political Science at Dalhousie University in Kjipuktuk (Halifax), on unceded and unsurrendered Mi'kmaw territory. His research interests focus on the politics of colonialism and structural forms of violence founded and exacerbated by and through imperialism. Alex Khasnabish is a writer, researcher and teacher committed to collective liberation who also lives in Kjipuktuk (Halifax). He's a professor in sociology and anthropology at Mount Saint Vincent University. His research focuses on the radical imagination, social justice and social movements. In our conversation we look at some of the ideas from their forthcoming book from Fernwood Press, Frequently Asked White Questions. The book comes out of both frustration and inspiration. They were frustrated by the insufficiency of existing efforts at anti-racist education, given especially the current state of affairs in the world, with a resurgent far-right populism winning political ground, but they were also inspired to create space for people to pose questions that, especially in the case of white folks like myself, we might feel somewhat anxious about asking, because there are certain expectations within existing social justice spaces. Their book was the outgrowth of a YouTube show where they saw specific patterns emerge from the questions that were being asked. It's clear that there were specific things on people's minds, and so they wrote the book in order to catalog and constructively engage with those patterns, those questions, those concerns that keep people from being able to even imagine multiracial society, and solidarity within it. Instead of trying to play expert, they want to try to move past “moralistic denunciation” and lecturing and toward a model of “generosity” and “genuineness.” As Ajay puts it, “basic respect” has become more difficult at a time of conflict and polarization. This is, for him, where the Left has collectively sort of “missed the boat;” it has “underestimated right populism and failed to adequately address the political moment.” In the face of these failures, they want to experiment with more “evocative methods” on what needs to be done. The crucial question, from their perspective, is who is going to come up with a narrative that is “savvy and engaging enough to capture public attention” and gain traction in an era of persistent white supremacy and a potent attachment to past and present frameworks for maintaining hierarchy? These are not ideas that are easy to drive home. Arguing for an anti-capitalist politics is not necessarily going to resonate with all people or publics. But they still bring it into the conversation in ways that are convincing, and bring it, more specifically into the conversation about ecological justice movements and anti-racism. One of the biggest takeaways here is the idea that where we start out ontologically has a crucial effect on where we end up. In Ajay's words it's ontology rather than epistemology that is at stake here. Rather than just a matter of knowledge, it's about the “nuts and bolts that go into cultivating whole systems of knowledge and approaches to ethics.”

We begin with our weekly conversation with Mercedes Stephenson, Global News Ottawa Bureau Chief and Host of “The West Block”. This week, Mercedes brings us the latest on the incident earlier this week that saw Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland being harassed and threatened in Grande Prairie.   Kids head back to the classroom this week, the first "normal" return since 2019. But what precautions have been but in place by the CBE to prepare for any potential COVID or even "Monkey Pox" outbreaks ahead of the new year? We discuss with Christopher Usih, Chief Superintendent of the CBE.   Have you been a victim of a flight cancellation? Besides the inconvenience, it can be a real ‘battle' trying to get a refund from an airline for a cancelled flight. But now the process may be getting easier. We get details from “The Travel Lady”, Lesley Keyter.   Finally, Monarch Butterfly populations have significantly declined over the past few decades. In fact, the species is now considered endangered. We speak with a Professor from Mount Saint Vincent University who's research suggests the conservation efforts need to be widely expanded to ensure the survival of the beautiful butterfly.

Most of us are wanting to better support Indigenous people on the lands we now also call home. We want to learn and understand more about the connections between current ecological catastrophes and colonization, and about coming into right relationship with the land and the first peoples of the land. Join us for this conversation about the lifelong journey of living respectfully within Mi'kma'ki, or wherever you may be, and contributing to regeneration and healing.On a beautiful summer day, I met Diane Obed to talk about decolonization, including its importance in environmental movements.Diane Obed is an Inuk woman mixed with white settler ancestry. She is a mother, writer and community member originally from Hopedale, Nunatsiavut, Labrador, currently living, studying and working in Mi'kma'ki, Nova Scotia. She is presently enrolled in the Educational Foundations PhD program at Mount Saint Vincent University, exploring decolonization and contemplative land-based studies.In this conversation, Diane shares wisdom, gentleness and many helpful resources, including why cultural diversity loss leads to loss of biodiversity, and the importance of practices that help oneself be grounded in these uncertain times. The connection is explored between current ecological crisis and Indigenous dispossession from their lands. The more people who explore these topics together of the continued effects of colonization, of what decolonization means, and ideas of how we can contribute, the better the chances for a healthier and more whole world.Episode resources:Indigenous Climate Action websitewebsite for Healing Haunted Histories, the book by Elaine Enns and Ched MyersBook referenced by Diane by Inuit Elder: The Qaggiq Model, toward a theory of Inuktut knowledge renewal link to Good ReadsThe Land Back paper Diane referencedKira Jewel Lingo's website Kira's episode The way out is inDeveloping Stamina for Decolonizing Higher Education: A Workbook for Non-Indigenous People(2021). (This workbook is relevant for anyone, despite it being written for a context of higher education.)Land Water Spirit on Mighty Networks (an interactive platform through How We Thrive)Mi'kmaw place and language resources:Mi'kmaw place names interactive mapNative land .cawww.mikmaqonline.org and the section specific to treesOther resources:Treaty Education, Nova Scotia: 13...

Seventy-five teachers from around the island celebrated the completion of Professional Development Training in Special Education through the collaborative efforts of the Department of Education through EQUIP, Sir Arthur Lewis Community College and The Mount Saint Vincent University, Canada. The program will be adopted and offered at the Community College in September 2022.

Michael McGuire is a multi-disciplinary artist, educator, and rapper who recently completed his PhD in education at Mount Saint Vincent University. He tells guest host Preston Mulligan how his doctoral work involved recording a rap album and submitting 200 pages of liner notes.

Toronto's interim police chief apologized after a report detailed disproportionate police action taken against racialized people — but activists say an apology isn't enough. We talk to Neil Price, executive director of non-profit consultancy group LogicalOutcomes; El Jones, a poet, activist, and professor of political and Canadian studies at Mount Saint Vincent University; and Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Toronto, who researches police and racism in Canada.

Meredith Ralston is Professor in the Departments of Women's Studies and Political Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her most recent book, Slut-Shaming, Whorephobia and the Unfinished Sexual Revolution is a remarkably self-reflexive and rigorous study of contemporary sexual politics in a supposedly permissive era. We talk about the limits of white feminism and carceral thinking when it comes to the prevalent approaches to thinking about and reckoning with the reality of sex work. Meredith speaks to her profound sense that a “pleasure gap” still exists, where the disparate and binaristic socializations of men and women position people very differently in terms of access to pleasure. I ask her about the place of biology in sex, and whether culture and context, and power, are always complexly at play in determining even our sense of the biology of sex. Ralston's research work has largely focused on sex work and sex tourism globally, she's also looked at unhoused women and sex work in Canada. She is also an award-winning filmmaker, and her film, Hope in Heaven received a very positive reception when it was broadcast on CBC. She also wrote and directed two documentaries with the National Film Board of Canada on women in politics. Here, though, we talk about her shifting relationship to the documentary work that she's produced. This is where the critical self-reflection comes in, as Ralston is extremely aware of her own tendency to adopt certain conservative relationships to sex and sex work. It's a complex topic that warrants an engaged conversation that doesn't conveniently skip over the impasses. I would definitely recommend her new book. It thinks through the ripple effects of the #MeToo movement, which is differently relevant in the face of the misogynistic vilification of Amber Heard we're seeing right now; it talks about the discourse of rape culture, and, most intensely, it advocates for sexual equality and justice, and an end to the sexual double standard that continues to contribute to the vulnerability and widespread dehumanization of trans women, women of colour and women in general who are open about sexual desire. We end by talking about a broader end to the policing of sex, which cannot arrive soon enough.

Brian interviews Floria Aghdamimehr. Floria is celebrating her 15th anniversary as founder and CEO of Recognize Your Potential, advocating New Mindset for New Results. Floria is a proud alumna from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, with a degree in Nutrition and major in Dietetics. She has happily devoted decades studying Growth Mindset, Mindfulness, Law of Attraction, and Positive Psychology. Floria says she is a catalyst moving people from Information to Transformation, and achieving a New Mindset for New Results.

In January, a subcommittee of the Halifax Board of the Police Commissioners released a report, which is Canada's most detailed blueprint to defund, disarm, and dismantle the police. It lays out a plan for how to redirect funding from police to other organizations and pursue police accountability. The subcommittee was chaired by Dr. El Jones, poet, journalist, activist and assistant professor of political and Canadian studies at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax.

This week we're joined by Dr. Meredith Ralston to talk about women's sexual empowerment and the unfinished sexual revolution. Meredith is a professor from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax.  We get into: Sexual double-standards  How women police themselves to protect their image Sex education and its focus on abstinence The unfinished sexual revolution  The rise of women's pleasure and orgasm equality This episode times perfectly for International Women's Day next week! Connect:  @MeredithRalston on Twitter http://www.meredithralston.com/ Get her book: Slut-Shaming, Whorephobia, and the Unfinished Sexual Revolution  Notes:  International Women's Day episode:  74. The Power of Our Voices - Empowering Female Podcasters The Goop Lab Episode: The Pleasure is Ours  

Tari Ajadi is an Assistant Professor in Black Politics at McGill University. El Jones is an Assistant Professor of Political and Canadian Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University, and Julia Rodgers is a PhD Candidate studying patient-oriented healthcare and public engagement in the Department of Political Science at Dalhousie. They are three of the four lead authors of the high profile and politically impactful report Defunding the Police: Defining the Way Forward for HRM. (https://www.halifax.ca/sites/default/files/documents/city-hall/boards-committees-commissions/220117bopc1021.pdf) In our discussion we unpack that important document, but we also try to look at some of the historical roots of defunding and divestment as tools for achieving social justice, the complicated challenge of trying to gain public support for policies that strike the public as “too radical” because a prior set of cultural assumptions, ideologies and biases blind many of us to the need to go radically in a different direction from the system that we have: which blindly wastes a fortune in public funds financing a broken status quo. We talk about the ongoing fiasco of the so-called “Freedom Convoy” that has terrorized Canadian cities, and especially Ottawa, for the last several weeks. They make it clear that the public's disgust with the response from political leaders and law enforcement should not be read as necessarily about a desire for more authoritarian measures to keep the peace–though there is likely a lot of that within Canadian public opinion–it should be seen as, first off, a moment where the police demonstrate they are here to “uphold the social order,” as El puts it, to protect “white conservative movements,” but it should also be interpreted as another example of a “long history of ignoring white nationalism” in Canada, in Julia's words. In many instances, social movements and counterprotests organized by communities–these forces that “exist outside the system”--were able to accomplish what the police couldn't. This just confirms, from their perspective, that we need an alternative model of public safety, one that trusts communities enough to work “in concert for the good,” to quote a particularly powerful turn of phrase from Tari that he makes near the end of this discussion. He makes that turn in the context of describing the Defunding the Police report as a “love letter to the city.” And admits that love can be “complex” and “conflictual,” but due to the fact that the evacuation of love from the social in a carceral nation allows “space for domination to exist,” we need to reengage with the public as an act of redemptive love. Things did not have to turn out this way, and they could still change. But achieving that alteration of social reality will necessarily mean, as El teaches us, working to achieve that change at the social level. It's not going to happen without knowledge translation and civic engagement. As Julie succinctly puts it at one point: “language matters so much” in negotiating the attachment to authority that prevents many people from imagining a more radically democratic means of fostering healthy communities. So often the struggle is less about evidence and data and more about arguments, established doctrines, ideas that have been embedded in institutions for so long they come to count as unreflexive forms of common sense. Moving forward in a transformative way, they stress, might mean looking back in time at misremembered or deliberately forgotten movements, the voice of black women, for example, who Tari tells us “were truth-tellers in their time;” taking up their words and recognizing the prescience of their ideas rather than just “producing the same violence while citing [their] names.”

With more than 30 years of experience, Judy Pal has served in management and public relations positions for public safety, government, and the professional sports and entertainment industry in both Canada and the United States. She has been teaching media and public relations skills and serving in executive staff positions with law enforcement for more than a decade. She has extensive experience dealing with sensitive, image-threatening issues including criminal conduct of police officers, international scandal, and acts of terrorism.A former broadcast journalist and news anchor; she has a unique understanding of the critical objectives on both sides of the camera. She is passionate about image development, media relations, crisis communications, and the use of social media; and has hosted workshops and training for public safety agencies, government services, non-profit and professional associations, and retail and business executives.Before joining NYPD as an Assistant Commissioner serving as Advisor to the Police Commissioner, Pal was Director of Operations and an instructor for the FBI Law Enforcement Executive Development Association (FBI-LEEDA). Prior to that, she served as Chief of Staff with the Baltimore Police Department. Previously, she served as Operations Director with Kroll Security Group where she worked with international clients, including the Government of Chile and the Trinidad & Tobago Police Service. Before joining Kroll, she was Chief of Staff with the Milwaukee Police Department in Wisconsin and served on the command staffs of the Atlanta Police Department, Savannah Chatham Metro Police and Halifax Regional Police in Canada.Pal is credited with re-tooling the image of the largest police department in Atlantic Canada and developing innovative and award-winning marketing and communications programs. While with the Atlanta Police Department, she created and carried out a plan to regain public trust after officers shot and killed an 87-year old woman during an illegal search. She has overseen communications in many instances of crisis – including the tornado that ripped through downtown Atlanta in 2008; and while with the Savannah-Chatham Metro Police spearheaded a communications campaign for precinct realignment.Pal is a past president of the National Information Officers Association and is a former columnist with The Insighter magazine of FBI-LEEDA and Blue Line Magazine, the national law enforcement publication in Canada. She has served as an adjunct professor with Mount Saint Vincent University in Nova Scotia, Canada; as well as being an instructor with the Institute for Law Enforcement Administration in Texas. Pal began her career in professional sports, working with the Stanley Cup-winning Edmonton Oilers of the National Hockey League before joining the Edmonton-based Canadian affiliate of Ogilvy-Mather as a consultant. She moved to the east coast to pursue broadcast journalism with Global Television, serving as a program host, anchor, producer, and reporter before moving to law enforcement.Upon moving to the U.S., Ms. Pal worked with Madison Square Garden as the Public Relations Director for the Hartford Civic Center, Rentschler Field, and the minor league affiliate of the New York Rangers.Pal holds a Masters of Public Relations from Mount Saint Vincent University in Canada, and earned her Certificate in Police Leadership from Dalhousie University in Canada, along with various certifications in management, ICS, NIMS, death notification, suicide intervention, and domestic violence.Email - jpal.usa@gmail.comTwitter - @10_8_Comms Support the show (https://t.co/GOmAg9X6e8?amp=1)

In this final episode of Season 2, I bring on my dietetic intern, Caitlin, to chat about gardening with your toddler. She shares about why she decided to start gardening with her son, what the benefits are, changes that she's seen, and her tips on how to get started. I know it sounds like a daunting task to have your toddler help out with such a big activity, but it really does have so many developmental benefits, not to mention the benefits that can be seen if your toddler is picky around certain foods - particularly veggies! Remember how I've shared in the past all the positives that can come from food exploration for your toddler? Gardening is a really fun, hands on way to get that exploration in, without any pressure to eat - it's just a fun way for them to play in the dirt, and help you at the same time, two things toddlers love! As always, if you get value from this episode, please remember to rate and review it on Apple Podcasts. AND make sure you subscribe so that you get a notification when I'm back for Season 3! Additional Resources: If you're looking for more information on what and how to feed your toddler, including a complete breakdown of the benefits of food exploration and other ideas to try with your toddler, it's time to enroll in my Feeding Toddlers online course! Get access to all the foundational information for feeding your toddler, plus all my best strategies for preventing or reversing picky eating, now! (http://mylittleeater.com/feeding-toddlers/)  FOOD EXPLORATION: http://mylittleeater.com/food-exploration/ GARDENING TIPS: http://mylittleeater.com/gardeningtips/ About Caitlin: Caitlin is a soon-to-be Registered Dietitian, and is currently completing her dietetic internship through Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax with My Little Eater. Caitlin's passion for dietetics began when she took an interest in eating healthier herself, and realized she wanted to help others do the same. She has a passion for supporting local and sourcing her food products as close to home as possible – which led to her passion for gardening! Aside from her professional activities, Caitlin values family above all and you can typically find her spending any free time she has with her husband and her five-year-old son, Asher. Some of her favorite activities include hiking, gardening (of course), and spending time enjoying local cuisine. Having a son of her own, she knows firsthand the challenges that come along if picky eating sets in. One of her areas of interest is infant and child nutrition, and learning how to make mealtimes more manageable for families.  Skip to... Welcome Caitlin! (2:04) Caitlin's experience feeding a picky eater (3:54) How gardening has helped her with picky eating (9:30) How Caitlin's son helps in the garden (14:23) Tips for beginners (20:22) What can you easily grow indoors? (28:40)

Nicole Myles Brook is a multi-passionate entrepreneur delivering carefully crafted, highly effective marketing, PR, publicity and brand growth for Big Erics Inc where she is at the helm of the marketing team as the Director of Marketing. Big Erics Inc is Atlantic Canada's full-service solution provider in commercial kitchen design-build, commercial kitchen, sanitation, concession and convenience equipment and supplies. She has iterated her skills as a digital marketer, leading the team at Big Erics through the build, testing and live implementation of Big Erics new e-commerce store powered by Shopify. Previously, Nicole has worked as a marketing generalist with niche specialty in personal branding and influencer marketing and has fostered strong relationships with both brands and social media influencers connecting often with local and national media outlets in print, broadcast and new media. She had innovated aspects of both marketing and brand work for her clients through her company Core Elements Advisors Inc. Nicole has prior experience in events management and has worked alongside award-winning event strategists and event marketers for privately funded corporations like Cadillac Fairview (property management), Melissa Andre Events (offices in Toronto, ON, Los Angeles USA) Mer Et Solei (Agency of Atlantic Canada), and local and national non-profit organizations like the YMCA. Born and raised in St. John's Newfoundland but having permanently relocated to Halifax after attending Mount Saint Vincent University, where Nicole graduated with First-Class Honours in Public Relations. She continued her education at both Dalhousie School of Architecture and Saint Mary's University. Nicole's favourite titles are, Wife to Brian (Captain Air Force, Retired) and Mother, to Alexis and Step-Mother to Cameron. Together with her husband Brian, they own and operate the popular cafe and lounge The Nook, with a location in downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia. Nicole and Brian introduced the successful Nook Token program supporting and nourishing food insecure members of their city and offering up dignity on the side of coffee and a meal. The Nook Token Program has garnered local, national and international attention, via various radio, print and digital media. More notably the Program has received recognition in the House of Assembly of Nova Scotia with commendation from local MLA in the Nova Scotia Legislature. The Nook Token Program promotes the slogan “Kindness is Currency” and aims to not only provide nourishing food but help in a small way to break down stigmas attached to groups of people facing hard times. In addition to her involvement as the Director of Marketing at Big Erics Inc, and Co-Ownership of The Nook Espresso Bar & Lounge Nicole is an event partner for Leading Ladies Networking event series, selling-out events in Halifax for 10 years running. Leading Ladies run events every 6 weeks with the goal to connect women in business for the purposes of business growth and development. Nicole is a powerhouse entrepreneur who creatively innovates for social growth within both for her profession and community. Her big heart is at the centre of all that she does.

Dr. Melanie Zurba is an Assistant Professor with Dalhousie University where she holds a joint appointment with the School for Resource and Environmental Studies and the College of Sustainability. Melanie is originally from Treaty 1 territory; she has worked collaboratively with Indigenous and marginalized communities in Canada and abroad on issues of land use, food sovereignty, wellbeing and health promotion, and co-management of species and protected areas. Melanie also serves as Chair of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Theme for Governance, Equity and Rights (TGER) and is Co-Convener of the IUCN Intergenerational Partnership for Sustainability (IPS). Dr. Sherry Pictou is a Mi'kmaw woman from L'sɨtkuk (water cuts through high rocks). She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Women's Studies Department at Mount Saint Vincent University with a focus on Indigenous Feminism, and transitioning to Dalhousie University as an Assistant Professor in the Faculties of Law and Management. Sherry is former Co-Chair of the World Forum of Fisher Peoples and also a former Chief for her community, Bear River First Nation.