Interview with Jennifer McKelvie
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Jennifer McKelvie, a graduate of UTSC (Environmental Science, 2000) and a City Council Member for Ward 25, shares her experience as a life-long resident of Scarborough and seeing the changes that have occurred in the community over time. McKelvie left to do her graduate work at UofT and returned to UTSC as a post-doc from 2007 to 2009. She shares how she valued the experiential education component at UTSC, being able to just walk down into the valley to do field work components, something that was not possible in her graduate studies in the same way at the downtown campus. She reflects on gender diversity and the fact that she had a number of female student colleagues but that women were not significantly represented in the science faculty, although that appears to be changing. McKelvie goes on to talk about her sense that female mentorship is and was a critical component to women’s success both as a student and now as a City Council Member. Finally McKelvie talks about the important role UTSC plays in the larger community.