CCUPIDS Meeting, June 4-5, 2011

York University, Founders College, Toronto.

CCUPIDS members present:

1) John Ejobowah, Wilfred Laurier, 2) John Cameron, Dalhousie, 3) Fahim Quadir, York University, 4) Leslie Chan, University of Toronto, 5) Myron Frankman, McGill, 6) Jim Bickerton, Francis Xavier, 7) Koumari Mitra, University of New Brunswick, 8) Ray VanderZaag, Central Mennonite University, 9) Garry Fehr, University of the Fraser Valley, 10) Haroon Akran Lodhi, Trent University, 11) Marc Epprecht, Queens University, 12) Rebecca Tiessen, Royal Military College,  13) Sally Humphries, University of Guelph

Saturday:

•Welcome from Sally Humphries, President of CCUPIDS.  Outline of the goals of the meeting, namely to put together information for a future special issue of CJDS on IDS programs in Canada and changes since the “White Paper” and previous CJDS article by Parmar, et al. in 2004.  Sally explained the relevance of the outputs from the meeting for IDRC, which has commissioned a scoping study of “knowledge for development” organizations in Canada. Members agreed to send in their presentations promptly so that IDRC would have access to these for inclusion in the study, which is due at the end of June.  

•Sally commented on the lack of attendance from some universities and the difficulty of getting in touch with a representative of IDS if the regular participant/coordinator decides not to attend and fails to invite someone in their place.

•Minutes from 2010 CCUPIDS meeting at McGill were approved with the one comment from the new member from UNB that UNB does indeed have an IDS program.

•Introduction of the new CCUPIDS member from UNB. 

•The State of IDS at Canadian Institutions:  Each participant presented a PowerPoint of undergraduate and, where appropriate, graduate programs at their institution. Participants received a photocopy handout of each presentation. A discussion of similarities and differences amongst programs followed the presentations and key themes were extracted and discussed.  The output from this session can be visited at ccupids.pbworks.com. IDRC will be invited to join the website so that they can access the output from the meeting for use in the preparation of their report on IDS in Canada.

•It was agreed that Sally Humphries would develop a statement on the state of IDS in Canada that would highlight growth in student numbers, the excellence of IDS students and the institutional benefits derived from this, against the severe shortage of resources, most importantly faculty resources as well as restrictive governance structures in several cases, including restrictions on hiring decisions and general autonomy of action within conventional departmental structures.  John Cameron agreed to try to put together a chart of growth in IDS student enrollment to support our case. This statement would be made available on the Wiki site where anyone could download it to support their particular needs.  A draft of the statement will circulated for input by the members.        

•CASID-CCUPIDS Relations:  There was disappointment/frustration that more CCUPIDS members were not at CASID. Some of the panels were about CCUPIDS-related work. There were two panels on the teaching of development, two on volunteering abroad, and others that are relevant to CCUPIDS. These panels were well attended, demonstrating interest from both CASID and CCUPIDS members. One member of CCUPIDS asked for clarification about the difference between the two organizations.  Given the tendency to present on curricular issues at CASID, rather than on research, this question was well taken. It was suggested that CASID was not a particularly good forum for presenting specialized development research because of the lack of congruence between researchers and difficulties forming a coherent panel. This made discussion of IDS curricular issues more relevant for the CASID forum.  Declining membership of CASID is a cause of concern for CASID organizers/supporters. One of the reasons for declining membership mentioned was the troubled history of CJDS. These problems have now been cleared up and the journal is on-line under the editorship of John Harriss. Membership renewals/applications are also available on-line and the process is very user friendly. Student memberships at CASID are low cost at $20/year.  It was suggested that grad students might be bought memberships by the IDS departments as a means to boost CASID membership and encourage students to take on book reviews.  The discussion at CCUPIDS emphasized the need to institutionalize collaboration between the two organizations with reciprocal attendance of a member of the executive at the two sets of meetings.  However, it was reiterated that the decision to hold the CCUPIDS meeting at York was reached by agreement last year at CCUPIDS based upon the difficulty of organizing the event without having a CCUPIDS member at UNB (until very recently). 

•Policy-Research Nexus: A panel at CASID with CIDA presence dealt with this issue. There was skepticism because of a perception that policy-making at CIDA is not based on research. Attempts to forge a nexus in the past have been frustrated by CIDA’s unwillingness to attend invited panels (e.g. 2009 when CIDA failed to show up at the panel). Nevertheless, there is some possibility for collaboration if CIDA makes changes. European countries have a long history of collaboration in ODA. Need for a single voice in Canada to support research-policy focus. It used to be CCIC but they have had their funding cut. Others voiced doubt that such a link was possible and that you shouldn’t expect academics to influence policy 

Sunday:

•Marc Epprecht agreed to provide a financial information update for the following day.  This showed 14 institutions had paid their dues to date and there was $14,924.20 in the account. Dues missing from amongst current members include the University of Toronto, University of Ottawa, University of Quebec, Outauouis, University of Northern British Columbia, University of Vancouver Island, Simon Fraser University. Marc Epprecht to provide follow-up.   

•The CCUPIDS membership agreed to support the application to the province of BC of the University of the Fraser Valley for a 4 year degree in International Global Development.

•Rebecca Tiessen gave a power point presentation to bring CCUPIDS members up to date on her research on Canadian volunteers.  

•It was agreed that next year the focus of the CCUPIDS meeting would be on experiential learning.  The meeting would ideally be organized back-to-back with Rebecca Tiessen and Barbara Heron‘s presentation of their report to university ILOs/student mobility administrators.  The latter would be organized as a workshop to discuss the findings and policy implications of the report. Participants discussed holding the workshop and CCUPIDS meeting either in Kitchener/Waterloo following CASID or alternatively, in Toronto at U of T’s Scarborough campus to make access easier for administrators who would not be attending the Congress.  IDRC would be approached early on to discuss this to secure the necessary funding for participants. This could be done in one of two ways: either Rebecca would request extra funds to cover the dissemination workshop or CCUPIDS would.  IDRC expressed a strong interest in such a workshop at the CASID meeting. The CCUPIDS meeting on experiential learning would take place the day after the dissemination workshop, likely the Sunday following CASID. 

•Fahim Quadir (past CCUPIDS president) brought CCUPIDS members up to date on the visit to SSHRC in December 2010 attended by CCUPIDS, CASID and IDRC representatives. SSHRC expressed surprise about the extent of IDS researchers, claiming lack awareness about demand for a specialized ID area of funding. Sally Humphries to follow up with Charmaine Levy to see what further action with SSHRC is planned.