With Gisèle Yasmeen (Vice-President, Partnerships) and Brent Herbert-Copley (Vice-President, Grants and Fellowships)
Over 100 scholars and graduate students in the social sciences and humanities gathered on June 1 at Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business to participate in a forum, with SSHRC vice-presidents Gisèle Yasmeen and Brent Herbert-Copley, on the renewal of SSHRC’s program architecture.
The event was organized by SSHRC’s program architecture renewal group and moderated by Noreen Golfman, president of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. This is one of many engagement activities that SSHRC has undertaken with the research community on the renewal initiative, both online and in person.
Herbert-Copley and Yasmeen spoke about the topic before the forum.
Watch the video >
Learn more about SSHRC’s program architecture renewal under Program Updates.
Co-sponsored by SSHRC and the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences
More than 160 people gathered at Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business on May 31 to listen to a speech by Gerri Sinclair, former executive director of the Masters of Digital Media Program based at the Great Northern Way Campus in Vancouver. In addition to pursuing her academic career, Sinclair has also served as general manager of MSN Canada and as a visiting scientist at IBM Research. She is the founder NCompass Labs Inc., a company she later sold to Microsoft.
Sinclair described how she–the daughter of an auto-wrecker–obtained her PhD in renaissance drama and then moved into the high-tech field. Her early interest in computers began with her son’s VIC-20, and eventually led to her mastering coding and computer languages. Sinclair argued that everyone should learn how to code, as digital media represent the new way of communicating. In the digital age, she told the audience, we are either content producers or consumers, and producing is the way of the future.
Sinclair also took her audience through a tour of her avatars, shared how she hosted British Columbia’s first virtual and real-world media event with the province’s premier, Gordon Campbell, and discussed the Masters of Digital Media Program, which attracts students from a variety of disciplines. Sinclair spoke about the value of the social sciences and humanities in the new digital economy, arguing that content producers tend to come from these disciplines. She also said the social sciences and humanities prepare students very well for successful careers in a world in which workers increasingly need a variety of skill sets.
Gerri Sinclair is a member of SSHRC’s governing council.
