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An Announcement from Dean Charles Falzon

March 17, 2021

Sent on behalf of Dean Charles Falzon, FCAD:

I am pleased to share with you the following announcements:

Asmaa Malik and Gavin Adamson have been appointed as Co-Interim Chairs of the School of Journalism, effective immediately. A formal search committee for a permanent Chair will be set up in the near future.

As part of its ongoing commitment to change and development, Journalism faculty and staff, supported by my office, will embark on an intentional review and transformation process. An overview of the action plan will be shared shortly. I am pleased to announce that Kamal Al-Solaylee has been appointed as Transformation Lead. 

Head shot of Asmaa Malik.

Asmaa Malik is an associate professor at the School of Journalism. Her research and teaching interests focus on journalism innovation, equity in media and collaborative approaches to graduate supervision. She is the co-recipient of 2020 Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge funding to develop an AI-powered tool that assesses news sourcing and is also the incoming Velma Rogers Research Co-Chair at the School of Journalism. She has held several leadership roles at The Montreal Gazette and Toronto Star and her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Walrus and Toronto Star.

Head shot of Gavin Adamson.

Associate professor Gavin Adamson has taught in every year of the undergraduate program over a period of more than a decade. His research is focused mostly around reporting and mental health. He is the Velma Rogers Research Co-Chair along with his colleague Asmaa Malik with whom he also won the 2020 Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge for a project that scores sourcing in journalism. Previously he has acted as undergrad program director and associate chair.  He worked for Bloomberg News and Transcontinental Medias. As a freelancer Gavin co-created several full-length documentaries and shorts for broadcast television. He was nominated for a Gemini in 2008 in the  biographical documentary category. 

Head shot of Kamal Al-Solaylee.

Kamal Al-Solaylee is a professor at the School of Journalism at Ryerson University and holds a PhD in English from Nottingham University. He’s the author of the national bestseller Intolerable: A Memoir of Extremes, winner of the 2013 Toronto Book Award and a finalist for the CBC’s Canada Reads and the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction. His second book, Brown: What Being Brown in the World Today Means (to Everyone), won the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing in 2017 and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Awards for Nonfiction. He’s a two-time nominee for the National Magazine Awards, winning a Gold Medal in 2019 for columns.  I am very grateful to Asmaa, Gavin and Kamal for accepting these leadership roles and to all Journalism faculty and staff for their hard work and their commitment to the school and the students.

Thanks,

Charles Falzon

DeanFaculty of Communication and Design 

Ryerson University