This blog post was originally published in the September 2014 Bulletin of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT).
Susan M. Holloway
Education
University of Windsor
Planning for Congress 2015 has begun
The planning cycle for Congress 2015 has officially begun! The Congress 2015 Planning Meeting took place September 24-25, jointly hosted by the Federation and the University of Ottawa. Program Chairs (PCs) and Local Arrangement Coordinators (LACs) from each member association attending Congress were present for a two-day meeting at uOttawa, to get planning underway and to learn how to get the most out of Congress for their associations.
Ruby Heap, Academic Convenor for Congress 2015 at uOttawa, and Jean-Marc Mangin, Executive Director of the...
This is a transcript of the speech presented on September 16 by Shauna Sylvester, newly appointed Director of the Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University, and Executive Director of SFU Public Square. In this speech, Sylvester lays out her vision for the Centre for Dialogue.
Good afternoon. It is great to see so many friends in the room.
I think it is ironic that a former high school debater should become the new Director of the SFU Centre for dialogue. For those of you who know me well, it doesn’t take long for me to find the gaps in my worthy opponents arguments and go in for the jugular. And for many years, those skills served me...
Jean-Marc Mangin, Executive Director, Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences
The Canadian BA is surely but subtly transforming before our very eyes, as Antonia Maioni points out in a thoughtful op-ed in The Globe and Mail this week. The program from which I graduated at the University of Toronto more than 25 years ago is a case in point—it has maintained the same name but its curriculum has evolved in fascinating new directions and is making great strides toward preparing students for the unexpected. Leslie Chan, Program Supervisor for the International Development Studies program at the University of...
Antonia Maioni: Arts graduates are best prepared for the unexpected
An op-ed by Federation president Antonia Maioni in The Globe and Mail challenges the notion of the outdated BA. Maioni reflects on the contemporary, cross-disciplinary BA which offers students a solid preparation for the future of work.
SSHRC Impact Awards
SSHRC has announced the finalists for its Impact Awards, which recognize outstanding achievements among humanities and social science research that has received SSHRC funding. The finalists fall under four award categories: Talent, Insight,...
This post originally appeared on ScienceOpen.com on September 15, 2014.
Elizabeth Allen
The ScienceOpen team are pleased to announce some changes to facilitate the spread of Open Access publishing beyond the sciences, its traditional strong-hold. To encourage those in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) to try OA we are:
Professor Ummni Khan, Associate Professor in the Department of Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University, is not one to shy away from “taboo” research topics. Her latest book, Vicarious Kinks: SM in the Socio-Legal Imaginary (University of Toronto Press), takes a closer look at the claims made about sadomasochism and its practitioners, and what this in turn says about the institutions making those claims. This ASPP-funded title certainly caught our attention, and so we turned to Professor Khan with the question: Are some topics too taboo to tackle for a researcher?
Here is Professor Khan’s response:...
Canada leads in higher education spending, according to the latest study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Times Higher Education writes: “Canada overtook the US as the biggest spender on tertiary education, increasing its GDP spent from 2.6 per cent in 2009 to 2.8 per cent in 2010.”
Examinant le même rapport, Le Devoir constate que Le Canada possède un des taux les plus élevés de jeunes diplômés d’université entre 25 et...
By Amy J. Ransom, Associate Professor of French at Central Michigan University
Hockey is arguably the most identifiably Canadian cultural marker. We can take its national significance as a given considering that even the Prime Minister has found time in his busy schedule to write a book about the sport!
My goal in Hockey, PQ: Canada's Game in Quebec's Popular Culture (University of Toronto Press) was to convey the meaning of hockey in Francophone Quebec to the Rest of Canada. It might be argued that the love of “la game” is the only thing uniting the two solitudes, as illustrated by the popularity of the Quebec film Bon cop, bad cop (2005) across Canada.
Although regional...
Good news about employment and earnings for university grads
University education is in the spotlight as students across Canada head back to school.
A good news report from The Council of Ontario Universities (COU) confirms that university students in the province are securing well-paying jobs in their field within two years of graduating. Humanities and social science graduates fall within this trend as well. The COU report includes a survey and...
Karen Diepeveen, Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences
Each year, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance asks Canadians to identify their priorities for the upcoming federal budget. In response, the Federation puts forward recommendations pertaining to the social science and humanities community, noting ways in which federal funding could bolster these disciplines, research, scholars and students.
Last year in 2013, in addition to ask for the granting councils, the Federation recommended the federal government change the regulations for Mitacs to allow not-for-profits to participate in their internship program. When Budget 2014 was announced, this recommendation was adopted, with...
