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MSW and PhD Collaborative Specializations

 

Addiction Studies (CoPAS)

For a detailed listing of MSW & PhD Requirements please visit the CoPAS Website.

The goal of the CoPAS at the University of Toronto is to develop and integrate graduate training in the multidisciplinary field of addictions. This field encompasses the use and abuse of alcohol, tobacco and other psychoactive substances, as well as gambling and other addictive behaviours.

Students must apply and be accepted into the MSW or PhD Program before applying to the CoPAS Specialization.

  1. Following notice of your acceptance to the MSW/PhD program, submit the completed CoPAS Application Form to e.mckee@utoronto.ca.
  2. When approved and signed, forward your application, along with your resume, to Prof Chaiton (CoPAS Program Co-Director) at michael.chaiton@camh.ca for final approval.
  3. Both MSW and PhD students are required to take PAS 3700H Multidisciplinary Aspects of Addictions. Following the notice of your acceptance to the CoPAS Specialization from Professor Chaiton, e-mail the completed course Add/Drop form to michael.chaiton@camh.ca.
  4. The Co-Director sends your application to the School of Graduate Studies where your enrolment is registered on ACORN. (Note that letters of confirmation are not sent to students – please check your registration on ACORN approximately 12 weeks after submitting your application).

Students fulfilling the requirements of the collaborating department and CoPAS will receive a notation indicating completion of a specialization in Addiction Studies on the transcript issued by the University of Toronto.

Aging, Palliative and Supportive Care Across the Life Course

For a detailed listing of MSW & PhD Requirements please visit the Insitute for Life Course and Aging (ICLA) Website.

Note: Both MSW and PhD students are required to take AGE2000H Principles of Aging (AGE2000H is a prerequisite for entry into the doctoral level of the Collaborative Specialization)

The Collaborative Specialization in Aging, Palliative and Supportive Care Across the Life Course prepares students for specialization in the field of aging and/or the field of palliative and supportive care, with an emphasis on viewing aging issues within the perspective of the life course. The Collaborative Specialization offers students two options of study:

  • Aging and the life course
  • Palliative and supportive care

Students must apply to and register in a home participating unit (see list of the graduate programs here), and follow a course of study acceptable to both the graduate unit and the Collaborative Specialization in Aging, Palliative and Supportive Care Across the Life Course.

Upon successful completion of the requirements, students receive, in addition to their graduate degree from the home graduate unit, the notation on their transcript: “Completed the Collaborative Specialization in Aging, Palliative and Supportive Care Across the Life Course”.

Ethnic, Immigration and Pluralism Studies

The Collaborative Graduate Specialization in Ethnic, Immigration and Pluralism Studies offers students with interests in citizenship, migration, and diversity the opportunity to widen their horizons – to expand their knowledge beyond a single disciplinary base, and to take advantage of the wealth of academic resources available at the University of Toronto – a great university situated in a large and cosmopolitan city.

Ethnic, Immigration, and Pluralism Studies is a Collaborative Graduate Specialization, and is only open to students who have enrolled in a Master’s or Doctoral program in one of the collaborating graduate units at the University of Toronto.

To enroll, students must contact the Harney Program Coordinator at harneyprogram@utoronto.ca. There is no firm deadline to join the EIP specialization, but it is preferable for new applications to be submitted before the start of the new academic year.

Note: All MSW and PhD students are required to take the Interdisciplinary Seminar: JTH3000H Coordinating Seminar: Ethnic, Immigration and Pluralism Studies, which is usually offered in the fall term.

For more information on how to enroll and requirements for MSW & PhD please go to the Harney Program in Ethnic, Immigration and Pluralism Studies website

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Public Health Policy

This Collaborative Specialization provides students with exemplary training in public health policy, which fosters synergies and cross-disciplinary learning. It gives students the capacity to engage in current events and contribute to the development, refinement, and evaluation of policies to address society’s pressing and emerging public health priorities. The collaborative specialization is cross-disciplinary, bringing together a broad range of disciplines, substantive foci, and theoretical and methodological underpinnings, to synergistically build an engaged community of practice of students and faculty focused on public health policy. It contributes to the creation of the next generation of public health policy research leaders and creative agents for change, able to address current health issues and challenges. Through the direction of the stellar team of academics and policy-makers associated with the collaborative specialization, students are provided with real-world skills to address the complex and demanding task of public health policy-making (including insight into a wide array of legislative and regulatory interventions, administrative practices, financing and funding decisions, and various forms of soft law, such as guidelines and informal processes) which operate at the international, federal, provincial, and municipal levels in ways that are both cross-jurisdictional and cross-sectoral.

Sexual Diversity Studies

For a detailed listing of MSW & PhD Requirements please go to the Sexual Diversity Studies Website.

The Collaborative Specialization in Sexual Diversity Studies, offered by the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, is a rigorously interdisciplinary program recognizing sexual diversity studies as an interdisciplinary field of inquiry. While it has emerged as an autonomous scholarly area, many of those who work within it engage questions of gender, ethnicity, race, Aboriginal status, (dis)ability, and class, to highlight the importance of exploring their interaction with sexual differences.

The graduate degree programs listed above participate in the Collaborative Specialization. From their home departments, students may take up questions from their own disciplinary or programmatic perspective, but explore it through the theoretical and methodological lens of sexuality studies.

Women and Gender Studies
  • Contact the Collaborative Specialization Office 416-978-3668 for application procedures.
  • Coordinator: Associate Dean, Academic, Dr. Eunjung Lee (until December 31, 2022); Ramona Alaggia (available from January 1, 2023)

For a detailed listing of MSW & PhD Requirements please go to the Specialization in Women and Gender Studies Website.

Specialization Requirements:
Students must demonstrate familiarity with the approaches and methodologies associated with scholarship in women’s studies. If students lack the interdisciplinary background in this field, they should be able to demonstrate extensive familiarity with women’s studies scholarship in a single discipline or a cognate set of disciplines.

The Graduate Collaborative Specialization in Women and Gender Studies (CWGS) provides a formal educational context for the pursuit of interdisciplinary research in women and gender studies and advanced feminist scholarship. The specialization, offered at the master’s and doctoral levels, provides a central coordinating structure to facilitate and disseminate research in women and gender studies through student and faculty research seminars, colloquia, circulation of work in progress, study groups, conferences, and publications. The CWGS contributes to the development of an integrated research community in women and gender studies at the University of Toronto.

The graduate programs listed above participate in the Collaborative Specialization in Women and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto. The collaborating units contribute courses and provide facilities and supervision for graduate research. The specialization is administered by the Women and Gender Studies Institute (WGSI). The CWGS brings together 33 graduate programs providing more than 100 courses and involving over 100 graduate faculty members.

Students who successfully complete the requirements of the collaborative specialization will receive the notation “Completed Collaborative Specialization in Women and Gender Studies” on their transcript, in addition to the master’s or doctoral degree from their home graduate unit.

Women's Health

For a detailed listing of MSW & PhD Requirements please go to the Collaborative Specialization in Women’s Health website.

The Collaborative Specialization in Women’s Health provides interdisciplinary training in women’s health research and practice for graduate students at the University of Toronto with the goal of:

  • Helping students develop shared understandings of the complex interactions of biology and environment, sex and gender;
  • Providing students with the necessary skill set to undertake and lead interdisciplinary, collaborative health care research projects;
  • Enhancing mutually beneficial relationships among researchers and practitioners of women’s health across the university and its affiliated teaching hospitals.

To successfully complete the Collaborative Specialization in Women’s Health, students must also successfully complete the program requirements of their home graduate unit. Master’s students who successfully complete the specialization will have the following notation added to their transcripts: ‘Completed the Collaborative Specialization in Women’s Health.’

 

Open to MSW students only:

Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Studies

For a detailed listing of MSW Requirements please go to the Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Studies Website.

The graduate programs listed above participate in the collaborative master’s degree program in Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Toronto. The collaborating units contribute courses and provide facilities and supervision for master’s level research. This specialization is administered by a Program Committee chaired by a Program Director.

This specialization is designed to provide graduates with advanced training in a particular discipline and in the historical and social science studies of modern East and Southeast Asia. The major topics of emphasis are political economy, modern and contemporary social history, international relations, gender, political and social change, economic development, and cultural studies. The specialization contributes to the development of an integrated and interdisciplinary research community in Asia-Pacific Studies at the University.

Applicants are expected to meet the admission and degree requirements of both a home unit and the specialization in Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Studies. The collaborative master’s degree specialization requirements can be met concurrently with, or in addition to, home unit requirements. Students who successfully complete the requirements of the collaborative specialization will receive the notation “Completed Collaborative Specialization in Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Studies” on their transcript in addition to the master’s degree from the home unit.

Community Development

For a detailed listing of MSW Requirements please go to the Collaborative Specialization in Community Development Website.

The Collaborative Specialization provides students with a multidisciplinary graduate education in community development. Community development involves working with community members and groups to effect positive change in the social, economic, organizational, or physical structures of a community that improve both the welfare of community members and the community’s ability to direct its future.

Students must apply to and register in a home participating unit (i.e., one of the graduate departments or faculties listed above), and follow a course of study acceptable to both that unit and the Collaborative Specialization in Community Development. Applications are considered for the master’s degree programs listed above.

Open to PhD students only:

Bioethics

For a detailed listing of PhD Requirements please go to the Collaborative Specialization in Bioethics.

Introduced in 1994, the Collaborative Specialization in Bioethics (CSB), a research-stream graduate program, has admitted more than 50 students. The seven graduate units of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (HPME), Law (LAW), Medical Science (IMS), Nursing (NUR), Philosophy (PHL), Public Health Sciences (PHS), and Religion (RLG) collaborate to offer master’s (LLM, MA, MHSc, MN, MSc) and doctoral (PhD, SJD) degrees.

The CSB prepares students who will specialize in bioethics with an emphasis on innovative interdisciplinary research and scholarship in bioethics, and trains scholars whose primary goal is to contribute original research in bioethics. Students are expected to conduct innovative research in relation to the discipline of their home departments and to have a working knowledge of selected bioethical issues from the current viewpoint of each of the other relevant disciplines.
Health Services and Policy Research

For a detailed listing of PhD Requirements please go to the Health Services and Policy Research Specialization Website.

The overall goal of the specialization is to increase health research capacity in Ontario through an innovative training program that builds on existing strengths in university and decision making environments.

Partnering with a number of health care organizations, the Collaborative Specialization in Health Services and Policy Research offers graduate training leading to a Diploma in Health Services and Policy Research.

Specific objectives of the specialization include:

  • to provide training in health services research for graduate students,
  • to enhance the quality and breadth of trans-disciplinary training in health services research, and
  • to include decision makers as active partners in teaching, program and curriculum planning, and the provision of field placements for students.

This competency-based specialization focuses on the following five areas:

  1. understanding the Canadian health care system,
  2. ability to carry out health services research,
  3. understanding theories regarding how the health of populations is produced,
  4. understanding theories of health and health services knowledge production, and
  5. knowledge exchange and development of research partnerships.