It was with great delight that the Federation congratulated this week two authors who were funded by the Federation’s Awards to Scholarly Publications Program last year, Miranda Campbell and Gregory Taylor, for being shortlisted for the 2014 Donner Prize. To read more about this, see today’s blog ‘Tis the season for book prizes!
This month’s Big Thinking lecture “The secret to our success: Immigration policy in Canada” was presented by Irene Bloemraad, Barnes Chair of Canadian Studies and CIFAR Senior Fellow from the University of California, Berkeley. This lecture explored the pillars of success undergirding Canada's immigration policy to date, and cracks in these pillars moving forward. The video of Bloemraad’s lecture is now available on the Federation website.
Last month’s Big Thinking speaker, Lorne Dawson, described his scholarly interests in homegrown terrorism and radicalization this week in From cults to homegrown terror: How Lorne Dawson found his academic falling (CBC News). His Big Thinking lecture in March “Why do some Canadians become terrorists” focused on these same interests, and explored the many variables at work as they relate to this topic, the ways we can use existing forms of knowledge to model what is happening, and how this can help us create policies and programs that will best prevent further radicalization to violence.
Also last month, the Federation's Annual Conference was held at the McGill Faculty Club on March 28, focusing on the theme of "Transformations." All of the day's events were live streamed and the videos are now available here. Be sure to watch them as they include a panel discussion on transformations in undergraduate teaching and MOOCs, a workshop on Big Data, a Big Thinking lecture on “Borders without Boundaries”, and an address from Chad Gaffield, President of the Social Sciences and Research Council.