Thanks for this, Doug. An important (and timely) initiative.
Like many others, when applying for SSHRC support--especially in terms of SRG support--I've had to apply via Committee 15 (Interdisciplinary Studies); and when I've pointed out, repeatedly to SSHRC staff, that our field is not listed in the various selection committees, they tend to say that communications studies comes closest to the field I describe. A united effort seems what's needed to secure recognition and informed assessment from grant selection committees.
Cheers,
Will
W.F. Garrett-Petts, Professor & Associate Dean
Faculty of Arts
Thompson Rivers University
900 McGill Road, Box 3010
Kamloops, B.C., V2C 5N3
Tel.: 250-828-5248
FAX: 250-371-5697
Webpage: http://www.tru.ca/faculty/petts/index.html
Small Cities CURA: http://www.smallcities.ca
Blog: http://petts.blog.mytru.ca/
>>> Doug Brent <[log in to unmask]> 06/04/11 12:35 AM >>>
Hello all,
Here's a matter of some temporal urgency.
BACKGROUND
In the September 2010 issue of CCC, an article by Louise Wetherbee
Phelps and John M. Ackerman appeared called "Making the Case for
Disciplinarity in Rhetoric, Composition and Writing Studies: The
Visibility Project." The article documents a successful effort to get
our field formally recognized by the National Research Council's
taxonomy of research disciplines and by the federal Classification of
Instructional Programs.
In Canada, the equivalent would be SSHRC, in which we are equally
invisible, necessitating strange contortions under headings such as
linguistics, education and communications studies. Check out the list of
Grant Selection Committees at
http://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/funding-financement/peer_review-evaluation_pairs/selection_committees-comites_selection/standard_research-ordinaire_recherche_2011-eng.aspx
and the list of discipline codes at
http://www.outil.ost.uqam.ca/CRSH/Liste_Info.aspx?Info=2&Langue=2
You'll note that nothing like "us" by any name appears on either list.
Even those who have no intention of ever applying for a SSHRC grant, or
of supervising graduate students who do, would benefit from greater
visibility for our field. Recognition of this type tends to trickle down
from SSHRC to other levels of the academy and would potentially benefit
people working everywhere from graduate programs to writing centres.
At last week's meeting of CASLL (the Canadian Society for the Study of
Language and Learning, aka Inkshed), I put this matter on the table, and
was rewarded by being acclaimed as unofficial ringleader and gadfly for
a visibility project in Canada. Jennifer Clary-lemon at the U of
Winnipeg has made a start on this, and notes that SSHRC is planning a
reorganization of these categories in the coming year. This gives us a
window of opportunity until November at the latest, during which a
proposal to add us somewhere might have a good chance.
PROPOSED ACTION PLAN
As unofficial and un-authoritative spokesperson (my virtual of being the
one to open my mouth), I suggest the following steps.
1. Alert interested stakeholders in CASDW, CASLL, CSSR and CWCR, which
seem to me the national organizations most likely to be interested.
That's what I'm doing now. (Members, please feel free to spin this off
to others who might not be represented on one or more organizations).
2. Find out more about exactly what we might have to do to put a
proposal together. I am starting this fact-finding process with my local
university SSHRC rep.
3. Start a discussion about what we might want to call this research
area. The US folks used rhetoric/composition/writing studies, but in
Canada we could probably leave out composition, and might want to add
Discourse Studies. The suggestion from Winnipeg is to add ourselves to
Group 26, which currently includes Communication Studies, Cultural
Studies and Women's Studies. This is not a perfect spot but perhaps
better than any of the alternatives. Given our size, we might be better
positioned to add ourselves to an existing classification rather than
try to start a new one, but that's up for discussion.
4. Once we've gone through the initial discussions, and found out more
about what such a proposal might look like, perhaps we can get
representatives from the four organizations to make up a small committee
to wordsmith a proposal.
5. Lobby SSHRC representatives from our various institutions to at least
alert them to what we are doing and to lay a groundwork of support. Your
respective research offices can probably tell you who to talk to.
Please give me your comments on this project. Given the shortness of the
window, we should start these discussions right away.
Cheers
Doug
--
Dr. Doug Brent
Social Sciences 312
University of Calgary
Department of Communication and Culture
2500 University Drive N.W.
Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4
Voice: (403) 220-5458 Fax: (403) 210-8138
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~dabrent
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