The following appeared in the Monday, February 8, 2010 edition of Y-File:

UYFIf you look at the York home page, you’ll see two new items: the logos of the social media sites Facebook and Twitter, guiding you to more sources of information about the University.

With the growth of social media on the Web, it has become essential for organizations to be where their audience lives – on Facebook and Twitter, among other popular sites. In recent times, many units at York have expanded their presence on one or both of these services – often with spectacular results.

The Admissions & Recruitment unit, for instance, has been among the pioneers in the use of social media at York. Having begun using Facebook in the spring of 2007, its York University page now boasts the most fans of all, at more than 4,200. York Alumni, which has more than 2,600 fans, launched its page in December 2008 and is growing quickly as more and more of York’s 235,000 grads sign on to keep in touch. On Twitter, the Admissions & Recruitment team also leads the way with over 3,300 followers at last tweet, although anyone can read Twitter messages without being a follower.

With the number of official York pages growing rapidly – now well over 30 – it was time to provide a guide to all the Facebookers and tweeters.

“York has a strong presence in social media, and we’d clearly reached the point where we ought to show it off. So we decided to put lists of all York’s official Facebook pages and Twitter feeds in an easy-to-find place on the home page,” says Berton Woodward, York’s publications director in the University Relations Division and chair of the New Media Subcommittee of York’s Brand Stewardship Council (BSC), which brings together communications experts from across the University.

The lists have been created within the Facebook and Twitter environments, so that users can easily click around to see what York offers. All Facebook fan pages and Twitter feeds are accessible by anyone online, without need for registration. (Facebook groups, which can be more restrictive, are not listed.)

Woodward is the first to agree that the lists are likely to have missed some official pages and feeds, given the amount of activity. Any unit that wishes to be included should send a note to editor@yorku.ca. An official Facebook or Twitter page is one set up and hosted by a Faculty, division, department or unit of York.

The Account Direction unit of University Relations has also developed York's new Social Media Guidelines in collaboration with the BSC New Media Subcommittee. York units contemplating a Facebook or Twitter page should adhere to these guidelines, which include a Social Media Brief that will ensure integration of a unit's broader objectives. Account Direction can provide guidance on creating a page, messaging and creative elements that maintain the consistency of York's visual identity.

The Facebook overview page so far lists 20 official York sites – everything from York International to I’m Thinking Environmental Studies at York University for 2010. There’s also a page for the Glendon campus that currently has almost 1,000 fans. And the student and alumni page for the Schulich School of Business boasts over 1,400 fans, currently the third most popular.

The Marketing & Communications group took the plunge in the fall, creating the York University - Home news and referral page, which hosts the Facebook list along with a Wall of news, and setting up the Twitter feed YorkUnews. Selected news stories from York’s daily news sites YFile and Ylife, as well as key media releases, are posted daily on both Facebook and Twitter to ensure the widest possible audience. “There is a cardinal rule with Facebook,” notes communications officer David Fuller, who handles the Facebook and Twitter feeds. “Make sure you post relatively regularly, but don’t over-post or it will clog up your fans’ own pages. So we make sure we limit Facebook to a single post each day showing a group of headlines. But with Twitter, it’s pretty unlimited.”

For Laura D’Amelio, manager of print & e-media content development in Admissions & Recruitment, it was clear that experimenting with social media was a priority, based on a growing awareness that students were already using it for their own networking. “Then we realized that, with all the day-to-day questions we were getting, it was working for us,” she says. The fan base jumped from 1,300 in June 2009 to more than 4,100 in February, in significant part thanks to a bold decision to open the site up to student comments, warts and all, and delete only those that are really offensive.

“We like to put the power back in the students’ hands,” says D’Amelio, explaining her group’s policy for answering student posts. “We’ll respond to anything. First we acknowledge the comment and then we suggest how they can go further to get answers or offer solutions.”

One of the biggest benefits of using social media, D’Amelio says, is learning what questions are uppermost in students’ minds and using that information to adjust the emphasis in the printed material that students receive. D’Amelio’s colleagues have also discovered that students, who can sometimes be reticent in person, are more willing to ask questions online. “They can also ask questions that occur to them at one in the morning. And sometimes other students answer them before we do because they have seen us give the answers before,” she says.

For Liz Teodorini, manager of alumni communications in the Alumni Office, two-way communication is the key to using social media successfully. “We’re trying to encourage dialogue among our grads and the number of comments has spurted up in the last couple of months,” she says.

For York academic units, using social media has also been rewarding. Annette Dubreuil, project manager at York’s Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS), says her unit made the decision to switch from a Facebook group to a fan page just recently. (Pages have more flexibility than groups, and are always public.) IRIS also made use of Twitter at COP15, the United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Copenhagen, where York sent a team of official observers. “We used tweets to keep in touch with everyone,” said Dubreuil. “It seems to be a good way to connecting with people, particularly students, faculty and staff.”

It’s important to have an overall social media strategy, says D’Amelio, whose office also uses Flickr to post photo galleries of York events and Vimeo for videos, and maintains YU Blog, written by both student information officers and student volunteers.

Visit the York University - Home page to see the current list of York Facebook pages.

To follow York on Twitter, see the YorkUnews list of official feeds.

IRIS Call for Nominations for the IRIS Executive

IRIS is now accepting nominations for volunteers to serve on the IRIS Executive, the executive board which oversees and approves the implementation of the Institute's policies, procedures, budgets, annual reports and strategic plans.

Nominations are open to students, staff and faculty and are due by March 3rd. University community members who are interested in serving on the IRIS Executive board should submit their CV to Annette Dubreuil, IRIS coordinator, at afdubreu@yorku.ca.

To learn more about the IRIS Executive and its structure, read our the IRIS Membership and Governance document.

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IRIS promotes practical sustainability solutions that encompass environmental, social and economic considerations at local, regional and global scales. Operating as a leading edge interdisciplinary research institute, IRIS is a hub for sustainability-related activities at York University.

The following appeared in the Monday, February 8, 2010 edition of Y-File:

Howard Daugherty, a professor of environmental studies and a researcher in neotropical ecosystems, died on Feb. 12 after a short illness. He was 68.

Prof. Daugherty was also the public face of York's Las Nubes Reserve, a 133-hectare area of mountainous cloud forest in Costa Rica. The land was donated to York University by Dr. Woody Fisher in 1998 and Prof. Daugherty played a key role in its oversight.

Born in Kremmling, Colorado, Prof. Daugherty received his PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in ecology at the University of Georgia. His primary areas of research included studying protected areas in the neotropics, natural resource policy and management, biological conservation and sustainable development. Prof. Daugherty was keenly interested in human disturbance of tropical ecosystems and how to prevent the loss of the tropical rainforest due to deforestation for agriculture.

In addition to his work within York's Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES), Prof. Daugherty was a member of the teaching faculty of the Latin America and Caribbean Studies Program. He was also a Fellow in York's Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean and a member of the Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability.

Right: Howard Daugherty

At FES, Prof. Daugherty taught biological conservation, resource management in the Third World, and development and ecology in the Third World. He supervised graduate student researchers in the areas of applied ecology, biological conservation and protected areas management in the tropics.

Las Nubes, situated adjacent to Chirripó National Park and the Amistad Biosphere Reserve in Costa Rica, means "the clouds" in Spanish. Fisher, a medical doctor, was inspired to purchase the rain forest and preserve its immense biodiversity after visiting the country on a holiday. Prof. Daugherty played a key role in making the reserve a living laboratory where York faculty and students, along with international partners, conduct valuable research related to protecting the biodiversity of the region, sustainable development of local communities and understanding and conserving our global biosphere.

The Las Nubes Reserve, coupled with Prof. Daugherty's own commitment to research in fair trade and to the communities adjacent to the reserve, has also helped raise public awareness about the value of shade-grown, organic coffee as an ecologically sound alternative to deforestation of critical ecosystems in Latin America. Prof. Daugherty was the primary steward behind York’s partnership with farming cooperatives in the area and Timothy’s Coffees of the World to produce Las Nubes Coffee, York’s own brand of sustainable, fair trade coffee, which is sold at Timothy’s Coffee stores in Canada and through several food establishments on the University’s Keele campus. A portion of all sales of the coffee is donated to the Fisher Fund for Neotropical Conservation, which supports ongoing research and conservation activities in the Las Nubes region.

Prof. Daugherty received numerous awards over the course of his career for his work. Most recently, he was the recipient of the 2009 Faculty Member Award for Outstanding Contribution to Internationalization from York International. The award recognized his contributions to the internationalization of the student experience at York University. He was also very proud of several national awards for outstanding environmental service in El Salvador and Honduras, including the prestigious Blanca Jeannette Kawas National Award for Excellence in Environmental Service in Honduras. The Specialty Coffee Association of America awarded Prof. Daugherty its Sustainability Award in 2005 for his outstanding contributions to fostering a more sustainable coffee community.

He leaves his wife Marina, and daughters Jessica, Alexandra, Danielle and Marrianne, and his brother James. Visitation for Prof. Daugherty will take place on Friday, Feb. 19, from 5 to 9pm, at the Elgin Mills Cemetary and Visitation Centre, 1591 Elgin Mills Road, located at the corner of Elgin Mills Road and Leslie Street in Richmond Hill, Ont. A funeral service will take place Saturday from 2 to 4pm, at the same location.

Donations may be made in Prof. Daugherty’s memory to the Fisher Fund for Neotropical Conservation by contacting Lisa Gleva, principal gift officer, at the York University Foundation at 416-650-8245.

A more detailed appreciation of Prof. Daugherty will appear in a future issue of YFile.