Vanier-Intercom-February-11-2019
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Volume M22, Issue No. 4 February 11, 2019 Intercom is published regularly and serves to inform Vanier staff and teachers of notices and special events. It is posted on the Vanier College Website and distributed electronically. Submissions should be sent to [email protected]. Submissions should be in WORD, and sent as an attachment. No formatting or bullets. Deadline: 4:00 pm on the Wednesday preceding publication. Visiting students from Shanghai University of Medicine and Health Sciences say goodbye Twenty-seven students and one teacher from Shanghai University of Medicine and Health Sciences had their final day of classes on 31 January. They were at Vanier College to take classes with teachers from the departments of Nursing, Respiratory and Anaesthesia Technology and Special Care Counselling for three weeks. They also visited various hospitals and health centres in Montreal, including the MUHC, Shriner’s hospital, the Summit School and the Jewish Eldercare Centre. There were also visits to the Faculties of Medicine at Université de Montréal and McGill. They all stayed in homestay situations and had excursions to Niagara Falls, Toronto and Ottawa. Despite the terrible cold of January and getting used to new systems, food and academic conditions, the students responded positively to Vanier and Montreal, and indicated that they enjoyed Vanier’s teaching and learning approaches, and had learned a lot both academically and personally throughout their stay. The final Graduation Ceremony, where students received certificates for successful completion of their three-week academic experience, took place in the Auditorium. The students have now returned to Shanghai, just in time for special Chinese New Year celebrations with family and friends. Rowena Selby, International Education Poster Competition for the Vanier College Symposium on the Holocaust and Genocide Once again, we will be holding a poster and art competition as part of the Symposium, which will be held April 1-5 2019. The theme for this year is Fact, Fiction, or Propaganda. The winner of the poster contest will receive a cash prize and the poster will be featured in all advertisement regarding the Symposium (both within the college and outside of it). All submissions need to be brought to A-286 by noon March 15, 2019. Marlene Grossman, Psychology Department The Vanier College Foundation is now accepting funding requests for student related projects The Vanier College Foundation works to increase the financial resources available to the College so that it may continue to offer assistance to students with established needs, recognize academic achievement, and support programs and services which result in direct benefits to all Vanier students. The Vanier College Foundation is now accepting funding requests for student related projects for the Winter/Summer 2019 semesters. The deadline to apply is February 15. In order to have your request considered, please fill out this form Funding Request Form.pdf and submit it to [email protected]. Should you wish to donate to the Vanier College Foundation in support of one of the many funds, please fill out the following form Payroll deduction form.pdf or make a donation on Canada Helps Should you require additional information you may contact Silvana Cannatelli at 7025 or by email at [email protected]. Silvana Cannatelli, The Vanier College Foundation High School Outreach Project The high school outreach project consists videoconference sessions where Vanier students and teachers meet up online with students from high schools throughout Quebec. Vanier students have the opportunity to share their thoughts on a range of topics ranging from academic skills to urban survival skills and the day in the life of a college student. The atmosphere is fun and casual, and lunch is provided! We are in need of Vanier student volunteers. Students get to talk about the programs that they are currently in and so it’s a great way to highlight certain programs to high school students. If you know of any students who are able to volunteer at UB, please email me their names and I will be happy to Mio them. Thank you for helping me find student volunteers! Marlene Grossman, Psychology Department, [email protected] Vanier Indigenous Circle Funding for Indigenous Speakers and Projects The Vanier Indigenous Circle supports teachers’ efforts to indigenize their course content through sponsorship of Indigenous related speakers and events that bring in personal voices and/or traditional knowledge to the college community through a special funding envelope. The Vanier Indigenous Circle’s allocations of funds are dependent on yearly allotments provided by the Quebec Ministry of Education (MEES); the number of requests; prioritization of new programs/teachers accessing funds; and relevance to the indigenization of the academy. The funding, along with a protocol gift, will be provided by the Vanier Indigenous Circle, to invited speakers, up to the specified allotments provided for the year in question. If you’d like to apply for the funding, the forms are here: http://www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/indigenous/funding-requests/ If you have any questions, please contact Marya Grant, Student Life, Sustainability, and Indigenous Student Advisor, B205F, [email protected] Marya Grant, Student Services Diversity is Belonging invites Dr. Charmaine A. Nelson on Wed. Feb. 20 at UB Dr. Charmaine A. Nelson, a McGill Professor of Art History, will present her talk titled: “Enslaved Females in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth- Century Nova Scotia and Quebec: Examining the Canadian Fugitive Slave Archive”. Wednesday, February 20th at UB (12:00 – 1:15pm) Learning Commons, F-500 (5th floor of the library) You are welcome to bring your class. Space is limited, so please RSVP with Nirmala Bains by e-mail: [email protected]. Abstract (provided by Dr. Charmaine A. Nelson) The scholarship on transatlantic slavery has long benefited from the often-exhaustive data published in the fugitive slave archive. Ubiquitous throughout the transatlantic world, fugitive slave advertisements were commonly placed by slave owners seeking to recapture enslaved people who had fled. Such notices commonly provided specific, invasive detail about an enslaved person’s body, dress, skills, languages, and even gestures and mannerisms. However, enslaved females standardly comprised a smaller number of runaways. Nevertheless, the fugitive notices that do exist for female runaways, shed light on their lives and experiences. Through an examination of the fugitive slave archive and other sources, this paper seeks to fill some of the scholarly gaps on the experiences of enslaved females of African descent in Canada. More specifically, this paper will offer some distinctions between the lives and experiences of enslaved females in slave minority (temperate) and slave majority (tropical) sites in the British transatlantic world. Nirmala Bains, Anthropology Department Black History Month Why we celebrate Black History Month Matthieu da Costa Marie-Joseph Angélique Viola Desmond Positive role models Dr. Carter G. Woodson first started this event in the school system in 1926 to fight how Blacks were portrayed in a negative and degrading fashion in the curriculum. He did not only aim to add Blacks to history but to correct what had been written about them. Important aspects of the history of Blacks, especially in Canada, are still missing. Black History Month has been celebrated in Canada since 1995 after the Hon. Jean Augustine introduced a Motion in the House of Commons. She was the first African-Canadian woman to be elected to the House of Commons. In March 2006, following a large scale public consultation, of the Black Community, this Community decided that they wanted to see the image of blacks in today’s society reflected in a more realistic positive way. The participants also underlined a number of issues facing the Black community, among them negative stereotypes, a lack of information regarding their contributions and especially their invaluable contribution to society, the absence of positive role models made available to the Black youth. This is an important contributing factor in the rate of school drop-out in the community. It is to face this issue, that the National Assembly of Quebec adopted in November 2006 a Bill to make February the Official Black History Month. This Bill became law in February 2007. Ainsi, les représentations négatives et les stéréotypes dans le milieu scolaire sont dommageables et dévastateurs à long terme pour les jeunes noirs qui intériorisent ces représentations et ce, à leur insu. Ces phénomènes affectent leur estime de soi, leur confiance, leur réussite et leur parcours scolaire ; ce que les recherches ont parfaitement bien démontré aujourd’hui. Représenter le Noir de façon négative et stéréotypée est une époque révolue, prenant ses racines dans un passé esclavagiste et colonialiste. Comme disait Martin Luther King : « J'ai le rêve qu'un jour mes quatre enfants vivront dans une nation où ils ne seront pas jugés pour la couleur de leur peau, mais pour leur caractère ». Dans le cadre du Mois de l’Histoire des Noirs, il s’agit donc de mieux les représenter dans le milieu scolaire ; de mieux faire connaître leur histoire et leur réalité, car trop souvent leur voix est tue dans des rapports de domination où on parle à leur place et on leur prête une voix, une identité ou une histoire qui n’est pas la leur. Why the Month of February? Originally, Black History was celebrated during the second week of February, which corresponded to the birth month of two great slavery abolitionists: Frederick Douglass (14 February) and Abraham Lincoln (12 February). February is also the month when W.E.B. Du Bois (23 February), militant for the civil rights of African-Americans an intellectual and scholar was born; as well as the month the charismatic Black leader Malcolm X died (21 February). In 1976 this week was expanded to the whole month of February, and renamed Black History Month.