Four months after the end of the bruising Toronto mayoral race, Olivia Chow is going back to school.

Ryerson University will on Monday announce that the former Trinity-Spadina MP and city councillor has accepted a three-year visiting professorship at Ryerson University’s faculty of arts starting March 1.

In the part-time post she may teach her own courses, and will lecture on community organizing and activism and help organize events and a major symposium. A primary focus will be student mentorship, both by her and others who know how to turn passion into progress.

“I love to teach,” Chow, 57, said in an interview last week, fresh from leading a couple of sessions at the Jack Layton Summer School for Youth Activism, established by Ryerson in 2013 and named for her late husband. Before federal and municipal politics, Layton was a tenured professor in Ryerson’s politics and public administration program.

While cleaning out her basement, she recently came upon some of his old Ryerson course outlines.

As a young woman, Chow attended the University of Toronto and the then-Ontario College of Art. While on city council she taught courses at George Brown College. But her connection to Ryerson includes the donation of Layton’s papers after his August 2011 cancer death.

“Ryerson came calling (over the Christmas holidays) and said ‘Would you like to join us?’ So I went and checked it out and liked what I saw,” she said.

“It’s a fabulous school — dynamic, in the heart of the city, solidly integrating the intellectual and practical knowledge that are important for success.

“I see a lot of passionate faculty members, staff and students who want to contribute to the community.”

After quitting federal politics to run for Toronto mayor, and leading all early polls, Chow finished third behind winner John Tory and runner-up Doug Ford in the Oct. 27 election.

Afterwards, she went to the Middle East to help monitor Tunisian presidential elections for the Washington, D.C.-based National Democratic Institute. She also trained young people in Amman, Jordan.

Chow said she enjoyed overseas work but felt the pull of family, including elderly parents and grandchildren aged 3 and 5.

In Toronto she met with Tory, who had mused about offering her a city role. They had a good talk and she made some suggestions but nothing came of it.

Chow says that, during the marathon mayoral campaign, she met many young people eager to improve society, but without the training or skills to do it effectively. At Ryerson she hopes to be “a kind of connector that can bring people together,” including activist friends starting to retire.

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“I’m recruiting mentors,” she says with a laugh. “Give me a call. I can hook you up with fabulous community groups.”

Asked if she has quit politics for good, Chow says: “I don’t know.”

Does she feel compelled to jump into the looming federal election?

“What election?” Chow says with another laugh. She then launches into a stinging rebuke of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s dangerous goods rail freight policy.

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