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<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>Dear Colleagues:</blockquote><br>
Please read the following letter I sent to Marc Renaud last Friday.
Please also read the full text of his April Bulletin--on the SSHRC
WEBsite. Clearly there is a crisis in funding for Council and he is
sending out a strong call to us--his community--to help him make our
case. IF the Standard Grants Program were to be cancelled, it is we
in the Humanities and Fine and Performing who would suffer the
most. Therefore, we must make every effort--and quickly--to make it
clear WHAT we do, WHY it counts, and that under no circumstances should
this program be cancelled, even if only for one year.<br><br>
Once you have looked over the information, please consider whether you
won't take a moment to email Renaud wiith some constructive advice that
he can use. Please alert your VP's Research and your Deans--they
too must help us.<br><br>
I have rarely sent stuff to this listserve, not wanting to burden
everyone, but this time I think we have a very serious threat
looming. Please take a few minutes to inform yourselves and
reflect. <br><br>
Blessings and thanks--<br>
Sherrill<br><br>
<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite><blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>June
7, 2002<br><br>
<br><br>
Dr. Marc Renaud, President<br>
SSHRC<br>
350 Albert Street<br>
Box 1610<br>
Ottawa, ON K1P 6G4<br><br>
Re: April 2002 Update and Report<br><br>
Dear Dr. Renaud:<br><br>
It is with profound concern and a sharp sense of urgency that I write to
you, as Head of English at UBC, as a Humanist, and as a productive SSHRC
scholar for many years, to urge Council not, under any circumstances, to
“cancel upcoming Standard Research Grants competitions.”<br><br>
While I can fully appreciate that council “does not have the finances to
meet essential needs,” and that we desperately need an increase “by a
considerable magnitude” to SSHRC’s budget, I must also stress, in the
strongest possible terms, that a cancellation of any year of SRG
competition would represent a critical blow to researchers in the
Humanities and Social Sciences and to the graduate students we support on
our grants. I believe the blow would be especially damaging to the
Humanities and Fine and Performing Arts for several reasons: SSHRC
is the <u>only</u> major research funding source for these scholars in
Canada; a loss of even one year’s competition will drastically
reduce graduate student support, and statistics illustrate that graduate
students in Humanities are the least well supported members of the total
graduate student body and complete their degrees with the highest levels
of debt; the serious imbalance in CRC distribution means that very
few Humanists or Fine and Performing Arts academics benefit from this
portfolio; and without the SRG program, the core research
activities of these scholars will be abandoned to favour a small
percentage of Humanists who can make their projects and methodologies
conform to Social Science practices and priorities, which dominate the
strategic and INE programs.<br>
<br>
In your bulletin to our research community you note government pressure
on SSHRC “to undertake new joint initiatives and/or targeted research,”
and you ask us, individually and as a group, to recognize “the
seriousness of the situation” and to raise our voices. This I am
fully prepared to; this letter to you, copied to others, is one
such effort. I also completed the Federation postcard at the recent
Congress and I have requested more of them to distribute to my
colleagues.<br><br>
However, being asked to “convey, credibly, to members of Parliament on
what social sciences and humanities research contributes to the creation
of <i>Canadians’ wealth and quality of life</i>” sounds dangerously close
to validating a bottom-line, reductively utilitarian definition of human
culture and well-being. Few Humanists or Fine and Performing Arts
scholars accept such a notion; many would find it offensive and
completely wrong-headed. In my view, the most fundamental
contribution made by our research constituency to the wealth and quality
of life is cultural awareness of history, literature, art, music,
theatre, languages, cultural diversity and so forth we study what
it has been and is to be human. In an age of intense violence,
staggering poverty, environmental degradation, and oppression in many
forms, the arts <u>are</u> the essentials of our humanity, nowhere more
so than in a democracy.<br><br>
Let me speak to you, also, in personal terms. I have just sent
Council a copy of my new book, <i>Canada and the Idea of North</i>, the
research for which was funded by SSHRC. This book was prepared and
written in the passionate conviction that we must know ourselves and
that, as a Humanist, my responsibility is to attempt to make my small
contribution to that crucial enterprise. This is how I and
especially the precious artists examined and represented in the
book contribute to the wealth and quality of Canadian life.
Moreover, what I describe personally here is true of all the SSHRC
scholars I know and of all the SSHRC applications I have seen in my
career.<br><br>
In closing, let me reiterate that I will continue to raise concerns and
voice appeals wherever I can. I will also continue to support SSHRC
to the utmost. However, I am disturbed by your words that Council
“will have no choice but to cancel” the upcoming SRG competitions;
if this means that the Board is prepared to endorse such a move, then I
ask the Board to reconsider the wisdom of such action and to recognize
the irreparable damage that any cancellation of SRGs would
cause.<br><br>
Yours sincerely,<br><br>
<br><br>
Sherrill E. Grace, F. R. S. C.<br>
Professor and Head<br>
Senior Fellow, Green College<br><br>
Cc:<x-tab> </x-tab>Dr. Patricia
Clements<br>
President, FHSS<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Dr. Indira
Samarasekera<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Vice
President Research, UBC<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Dr. Anne
Martin-Matthews<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Dean of
Arts, UBC<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Members of
CACE<br><br>
SEG:tdc<br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
____________<br>
Tim Conklin<br>
Undergraduate Desk (Majors/Honours)<br>
UBC Department of English<br>
#397 - 1873 East Mall<br>
Vancouver, BC CANADA V6T 1Z1<br>
Phone: 604-822-9817; Fax: 604-822-6906<br>
Email: english.undergraduate@ubc.ca</blockquote><br>
Dr Sherrill E. Grace, F.R.S.C.<br>
Professor and Head,<br>
Department of English,<br>
#397-1873 East Mall,<br>
The University of British Columbia,<br>
Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z1<br>
Canada<br>
604-822-3174<br><br>
Author: <i>Canada and the Idea of North<br><br>
</i><a href="http://www.english.ubc.ca/faculty/grace" eudora="autourl">http://www.english.ubc.ca/faculty/grace</a><br>
</blockquote>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
Dr Sherrill E. Grace, F.R.S.C.<br>
Professor and Head,<br>
Department of English,<br>
#397-1873 East Mall,<br>
The University of British Columbia,<br>
Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z1<br>
Canada<br>
604-822-3174<br><br>
Author: <i>Canada and the Idea of North<br><br>
</i><a href="http://www.english.ubc.ca/faculty/grace" eudora="autourl">http://www.english.ubc.ca/faculty/grace</a><br>
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