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The Impact of Global Extremism on Canada: Addressing the Local Threat
Full text linkOn May 15, 2025, Mr. Mubin Shaikh presented “The Impact of Global Extremism on Canada: Addressing the Local Threat” for the CASIS Vancouver May 2025 Digital Roundtable. The presentation was followed by a question-and-answer period with questions from the audience and CASIS Vancouver executives. The key points discussed were the ways in which foreign conflicts are influencing extremism within Canada, and how current mitigation efforts remain insufficient given the speed and scope of online radicalization and disinformation
Fentanyl in North America: Current Trends and Strategies
Full text linkOn February 20th, 2025, Ms. Victoria Dittmar presented “Fentanyl in North America: Current Trends and Strategies” for February’s Digital Roundtable. The presentation was followed by a question-and-answer period with questions from the audience and CASIS Vancouver executives. The key points discussed were the current trends of synthetic drug markets, the effectiveness of steps being taken to dismantle the trade, and the ease of entering illicit markets
Landscape, Well-Being and Connection: A Qualitative Study of Community College Students’ Perceptions of Campus Attributes
Full text linkAbstract: Research increasingly highlights the significant challenges faced by students in higher education, particularly in terms of stress, anxiety, and a diminished sense of belonging. While numerous studies have explored the relationship between students and the landscape at four-year institutions, there is a gap in understanding how campus landscapes influence community college students’ well-being and academic success. This study used a qualitative phenomenological approach to investigate how students perceive campus landscape attributes, which features they regard as most salient to their mental and physical well-being, and how they contribute to or hinder their success. Key findings point to the positive impact of diverse naturalistic settings, underscoring the link between campus landscapes and students’ psycho-physiological well-being. Additionally, participants highlighted the importance of landscape excellence in communicating that they are valued by the institution, thereby enhancing their sense of belonging. Insufficient student involvement in campus landscape planning is thus problematic, as it may result in environments that fail to support student well-being and persistence. The study concludes that intentional, student-centred landscape design is essential for fostering students’ mental health, sense of belonging, and academic resilience at the community college level
Lessons learned in building a sustainable and meaningful cooperative outreach program
No full textNo abstract provided
Memories of Parenting Behaviour and Their Relation to Young Adults’ Friendships: Moderating Effects of Cognitive and Dispositional Factors
Full text linkResearch has consistently demonstrated the effect of positive parenting on young adults’ social outcomes. However, a vast number of factors can moderate this link. The present study examined whether trait mindfulness and adaptive cognitive modification may be moderators in the link between young adults’ recollections of parenting and the present-day quality of friendships. An undergraduate sample (N = 626) was surveyed regarding memories of their parents’ positive parenting during their first 16 years of life, their own levels of trait mindfulness, and the quality of current interpersonal relationships with friends. Participants also provided narratives on their past vs. present perceptions of a negative parenting event from their childhood, and these narratives were coded for adaptive cognitive modifications in attributions for parenting behaviours. Analyses indicated that mindfulness enhanced the association between recalled positive parenting and friendship quality. Adaptive cognitive modification did not show statistically significant effects on the relationship between recalled positive parenting and friendship quality. These results show that dispositional factors such as mindfulness, but not adaptive cognitive modification for attributions, influence the way that recollections of parents’ parenting are related to young adults’ positive friendships.
Keywords— Parenting, Friendship, Mindfulness, Attributions, Recollections
Settler Colonialism, Systemic Queerphobia, and Indigiqueer Mental Health Outcomes: An Application of Geronimus’s Weathering Hypothesis
Full text linkGeronimus’s weathering hypothesis, initially derived from studies of African American women and their newborns, posited that their physical health outcomes were worsened by accumulated stress produced by long-term experiences of pervasive intersectional oppression. African American women experienced sociopolitical and economic oppression produced by the synergistic interactions of structural anti-Black racism and patriarchy. The weathering hypothesis can be extrapolated beyond African American women, and beyond physical health, as an analytic framework to understand how other less-studied intersectional groups may experience poorer mental health outcomes due to the intersections of multiple axes of oppression. The present work argues that Indigiqueer people, who exist at the intersection of Indigenous and queer identities, may similarly be weathered by their experiences of combined oppression arising from systemic forces of settler colonialism and queerphobia. After introducing the weathering hypothesis, its neuroendocrine mechanisms, and its original application to African American women, we then separately detail the ways that Indigenous and queer people in Canada experience oppression, linking the forms of oppression experienced by both populations to their respective mental health. In consideration of this discussion of the impacts of and queerphobia, we reapply Geronimus’s weathering hypothesis to understand the mental health disparities experienced by Indigiqueer people and defend this recontextualization of the weathering hypothesis. In closing, we celebrate Indigiqueer vitality and issue a call to action for Canadian healthcare systems to apply a holistic intersectional lens towards viewing Indigiqueer people and their lived experiences to make meaningful progress towards Indigiqueer mental health equity.
Keywords— Indigiqueer, Two-Spirit, Weathering Hypothesis, Intersectionality, Mental Health Equity
The Development, Socialization, and Cultural Variations of Moral Pride in Children
Full text linkMoral pride is a positively valenced self-conscious emotion critical for virtue development. Moral pride has been of interests to philosophers for centuries due to its potential for sustaining moral behaviour. However, empirical developmental research in young children is in its infancy. This literature review begins by defining various types of pride in the psychological literature, then discusses the role of moral pride in promoting character development. We summarize recent research on the development of moral pride from toddlerhood to early adolescence and highlight early expressions (i.e., general non-moral pride and happiness in prosocial contexts) of moral pride. From this work, we propose a developmental model based on existing research to highlight key shifts in moral pride across the toddlerhood to early adolescent years. Additionally, we review research on socialization mechanisms, like praise and parent-child conversations, that may be crucial for fostering moral pride in children. Throughout the review, we discuss the cultural influences of moral pride development, illustrating how socio-cultural contexts shape children's emotional experiences. We conclude by outlining potential directions for future research in this area. Ultimately, moral pride may be a critical cornerstone of children’s prosocial development, with significant implications for the well-being of children and their communities.
Keywords— Moral Pride, Prosocial Behaviour, Socialization, Culture, Child Development
The Implications of Awe as a Preventative Treatment for Young Children at Risk of Aggressive Behaviours
Full text linkExisting literature suggests that a positive correlation exists between awe and prosociality and that prosociality and aggression are negatively correlated. Young children who exhibit aggressive behaviours have a greater risk of experiencing peer rejection, delinquency, psychiatric illnesses, academic problems, and suicidal behaviours. Current treatments typically target clinical aggression and are not preventative or effective for young children without developed executive functioning skills. As such, creating accessible and appropriate preventative treatments for young children at risk of future aggressive behaviours or those displaying subclinical aggression should be a priority. Since awe is commonly experienced in childhood it may be effective in preventing the development or worsening of aggressive behaviours in young children compared to existing treatments that require cognitive reappraisal. Awe could reduce aggressive behaviours by promoting prosocial thoughts, curiosity about the world, and positive affect. While it is possible that awe does not directly influence aggression, its positive relationship with prosociality could decrease stress, promote curiosity, induce amusement, and foster well-being, which may have spillover effects into other domains of functioning and promote positive developmental outcomes such as improved family dynamics, reduced aggression and increased positive affect. This proposed treatment also has the potential to help differentiate children who need additional targeted support.
Keywords— Awe, Aggression, Aggressive Behaviours, Children, Prevention, Intervention
Ukraine’s Nuclear Weapon Surrender: A Futile Attempt at Preventing War
Full text linkThis paper was originally written for Dr. Ilya Vinkovetsky in History 420: Themes in Russian Imperial History. The assignment asked students to choose a topic relating to the recent war between Russia and Ukraine and then write either an analytical essay or a research paper on that topic. The paper uses Chicago citation style.
Following the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukraine possessed many Soviet nuclear weapons. For various reasons, Ukraine removed these weapons from their possession and became a non-nuclear state. Considering the current war between Russia and Ukraine, there is a rising narrative that Ukraine should be equipped with nuclear weapons to defend itself against Russo-aggression, however, this paper explains why Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons and why keeping the weapons was not a viable option. The Ukrainian surrender of nuclear weapons was a necessary step for Ukraine to remain sovereign in its early years of independence
John Builds a Great New Wall: The Oriental Object of Pearl
Full text linkThis paper explores the ways in which the Middle English Pearl poem remembers the crusades, imagines and objectifies the Orient, and transforms the historical reality of its socioeconomic, political and cultural contexts into the verses of the Occident's Early Modern xenophobia and xenophilia that still speak loudly to our present moment