Known as the "kid from Cowichan Lake, British Columbia", Prof. Saywell arrived at the University of Toronto in 1954. Throughout the long聽and distinguished career that followed, Prof. Saywell聽took many roads less travelled. In the process, he deepened Canada鈥檚 knowledge and understanding of itself, from the constitution and federalism to the offices of the lieutenant-governor and the governor-general. He also chronicled Canadian history, economics, politics, culture and society as editor of the Canadian Historical Review from 1957 to 1963, and as editor of the Canadian Annual Review from 1960 to 1979, reviving and revitalizing these two journals.

Right: Professor John "Jack" Saywell in earlier years

Prof. Saywell was the founding dean of 91亚色's Faculty of Arts & Science, serving in this formative role from 1964 to 1973. As well, his thoughts and direction helped found 91亚色's Faculties of Fine Arts and Education. In 1970,聽he was shortlisted as a candidate to succeed founding President Murray Ross, a much-chronicled episode in 91亚色's history (the ultimate choice was David Slater, who later resigned amid聽deep controversy). Prof. Saywell, by all accounts, had strong support among faculty members.

In 1980, 91亚色 conferred on聽Prof. Saywell聽its inaugural University Professorship for both service and scholarly achievement. The citation read: "Your imprint was present in every major undertaking pursued by the University during its crucial, formative years鈥� Few people have ever so shaped any institution". It concluded by saying that "The Faculty of Arts, and to a great extent, 91亚色, remains 鈥榯he house that Jack built.鈥欌�� In 1999, during 91亚色鈥檚 40th anniversary year, he was inducted into the Founders Society for contributions to 91亚色 during its formative years.

Prof. Saywell鈥檚 ground-breaking scholarship was recognized through a number of major awards. His 1957 book, The Office of Lieutenant-Governor: A Study in Canadian Government and Politics, won the Delancey K. Jay Prize at Harvard University. Another, the 1991 "Just Call Me Mitch": The Life of Mitchell F. Hepburn, won the Floyd Chalmers Award for the best book on Ontario history. His 2002 study of the Supreme Court of Canada, titled The Lawmakers: Judicial Power and the Shaping of Canadian Federalism, won the John W. Dafoe Prize for "distinguished writing on Canada and/or Canada鈥檚 place in the world." He also interpreted Canadian, British and European history for thousands of Ontario high-school students through close to a dozen textbooks written between 1959 and 1969 with friend and colleague John Ricker.

As a teacher of undergraduate and graduate history and political science, Prof. Saywell excelled. His lectures and seminars were known across the University for their engagement and rigour. From 1987 to 1998, he was director of the Graduate Program in History. He was especially proud of his role in helping to shape a generation of scholars. 91亚色 PhD graduates from this period now staff history departments in virtually every major Canadian university. In 2009, two of these graduates edited 聽Framing Canadian Federalism: Historical Essays in Honour of John T. Saywell, a Festschrift (see YFile, June 17, 2009).

His work in the media included roles as actor, narrator and consultant in a series of CBC TV historical dramas; as host of the CBC TV newsmagazine "The Way It Is"; as host of "Options" for TVO; and as Tokyo correspondent for CTV National News.

Prof. Saywell consulted for USAID, the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program,聽the Harvard Institute for International Development and the聽governments of Ontario and Canada, among others. From 1974 to 1980, he was director of the 91亚色 Kenya Project in Nairobi. From 1979 to 1981, he was visiting professor at the Universities of Tokyo, Keio and Tskuba in Japan.

In 2008, he published , part history, part memoir of 91亚色鈥檚 early days. In it, Prof. Saywell documented the development of the college system, the creation of 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Education, the student revolt of the late 1960s and the controversy over hiring American professors to teach in Canadian universities, an issue he remembers debating in 1969 on CBC TV鈥檚 "The Way It Is". He also聽wrote about his part in the presidential聽struggles of the early 1970s.

Prof. Saywell will be remembered by his many friends and colleagues at 91亚色. He will be missed by the family whose lives he shaped as patriarch. He leaves his wife Suzanne Firth, his dog "Mist"; his four children, 12 grandchildren and his brother William Saywell and his family.

A private family聽service was held on April 23. Friends and colleagues of Prof. Saywell are invited to "The Way It Was: Remembering Jack", a celebration of his life, to be held on聽Sunday, June 19 (Father鈥檚 Day) from 11:30am, at the Japanese-Canadian Cultural Centre, 6 Garamond Court (off Wynford Drive, west of the Don Valley Parkway) in North 91亚色. For more information or directions to the location, call 416-441-2345.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that a donation in聽Prof. Saywell鈥檚 memory be made to the John T. Saywell Prize for Canadian Legal History, c/o the , to the , or to a charity of choice.

His is available online.

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Did you know that Upper Canada was the first place in the British Empire to make laws limiting slavery (1793)?

Did you know that Mathieu Da Costa, a multilingual translator of African descent, came to Canada with Samuel de Champlain in 1604?

If you didn鈥檛, now you do. And you can learn many more such interesting facts about the African-Canadian experience.

To mark Black History Month, 91亚色鈥檚 is posting did-you-knows daily on Facebook and Twitter throughout February.

The postings are part of the institute鈥檚 new project, . Funded by a knowledge mobilization grant from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada, the project aims to produce and share new scholarship on the immigration to Canada of African American refugees from slavery.

The institute is collaborating with scholars and educators, community groups, libraries, government agencies and other stakeholders to write a new chapter on Canada鈥檚 Underground Railroad-era heritage. The objective is to share this new information with the public, especially teachers, children and youth, in easily accessible ways.

For daily facts about the African-Canadian experience, visit , follow聽 and check out the website.

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Podruchny鈥檚 talk, 鈥淭ough Bodies, Fast Dogs, Well-Dressed Wives: Measures of Manhood Among French-Canadian Voyageurs in the North American Fur Trade鈥�, will take place聽tomorrow, from 2:30 to 4pm, at 010 Vanier College, Vanier Senior Common Room, Keele campus.

She will discuss French Canadian and M茅tis voyageurs working in the fur trade. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the voyageurs developed a range of masculine ideals that worked together to promote a particular trope of manhood among this workforce. Men were expected to perform near miraculous feats of labour by paddling continuously for weeks on end, barely stopping to sleep and eat, carrying impossibly heavy packs across slippery and steep portages, and shooting through dangerous rapids, says Podruchny.

They challenged each other to develop bodies that were as tough as possible through games of speed, endurance and strength. They distinguished categories within the workforce. Pork eaters were denigrated as lesser men; North men were considered to be tougher; Athabasca men the toughest, she says.

Tough man ideals included taking risks, being jovial and stoic in the聽face of hardship, and standing up to the dangers of the wild. Voyageurs also idealized largess, spending money on luxury goods, such as decorating their possessions, feasting and drinking, and wooing women with extravagant gifts. The range of these ideals created distinct values in fur trade and M茅tis communities that stood out sharply from their bosses, missionaries, and later white settlers who began to intrude in the northwest starting in the 1870s.

Podruchny work focuses on the history of French and indigenous contact in early Canada. She is the author of and co-editor of .

The 2010-2011 Canada: Like You鈥檝e Never Heard It Before Speakers' Series features public lectures by prominent 91亚色 Canadianists. Co-sponsored by the Canadian Studies Program and the Canadian Studies club, this interdisciplinary series demonstrates the breadth and depth of both Canadianist research at 91亚色 and the work of outside authors.

This series is co-sponsored by Vanier College, Winters College, New College, Stong College, Calumet College and Founders College, as well as the Office of the Dean of the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies.

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In the spring, the book won the Canadian Historical Association's 2010 Clio Prize for Ontario, and now it has won the Champlain Society鈥檚 Floyd S. Chalmers Award in Ontario History.

The award will be presented to Wall on Saturday at the society's annual general meeting in Toronto. Wall, a history professor at the University of Winnipeg, will also deliver a lecture at the meeting. To attend, go to the City of Toronto Archives, 55 Spadina Rd. at 2pm.

Published by the University of British Columbia, explores the history of an institution that shaped the lives of thousands of children who attended or worked at summer camps. Wall examines the connections between summer camps and the history of childhood, the natural environment, class cultures, and modern recreation and leisure.

Two competing cultural tendencies 鈥� anti-modern nostalgia and modern enthusiasms about the landscape, child rearing and identity 鈥� shaped the summer camp, argues Wall. She examines how this tension played out in camp programs, such as 鈥淚ndian鈥� programming, and informed modern assumptions about nature, technology and identity.

Left: Sharon Wall

The Nurture of Nature discusses the summer camp鈥檚 contribution to modern social life in North America and will appeal to students of history, sociology and cultural studies as well as anyone who has ever been packed off to camp and wants to explore why, states the publisher.

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鈥淚t raises some serious questions,鈥� says Martel, who holds the Avie Bennett Historica Chair in Canadian History. 鈥淲hat did they do with the information?鈥�

Martel, along with co-author , a history professor at Laval University, cover 400 years of language issues in Canada 鈥� since the arrival of the first non-native 鈥� in their聽recently released聽book, . About half of it deals with the last 100 years, including the Quiet Revolution and the Official Language Act. Martel and P芒quet received a two-year Language Policy & Minority Rights grant from the Official Languages Issues in Canada Strategic Grants Program to research material for the book, which, at the moment, is only available in French.

鈥淥ne of the reasons we wrote the book was to give a sense of where we鈥檙e coming from when we talk about language in Canada. It has characterized the way the country has developed since the arrival of the first non-native. This is not only about Quebec, the whole country has had to deal with this issue and it鈥檚 a very divisive issue,鈥� says Martel. It鈥檚 reassuring to know that language issues have been with us for a long time, he says. They have not just appeared in the last 50 or so years.

But what surprised him was that the federal government felt it necessary for the RCMP to keep files on anyone involved in either side of the bilingualism debate during the 1960s and 1970s. The goal was to assess whether any one person or group constituted a national threat, to prevent social chaos and to ascertain if there were foreign spies behind the scenes,聽Martel says. But it was also part of a larger stalling tactic by the government to keep the status quo, as were the use of royal commissions and committees to study the issue.

Even today, the RCMP won鈥檛 release many of the documents from that time period saying they could constitute a security risk or jeopardize the conduct of international affairs or the defence of Canada, says Martel. When a document is released, most of it is usually blacked out.

Left: Marcel Martel

What the authors found, despite the government鈥檚 wish that the language issue would disappear, is that change was instigated not by MPs and other government officials, but by individuals. 鈥淚t is people that forced government to deal with the issue,鈥� says Martel. 鈥淭he citizen, through demonstrations and petitions, has played a large role in the development of language policy in Canada.鈥� The extent of that role surprised Martel.

He gives the example of Georges Forest, a Manitoba man in the mid-1970s who received a parking ticket or something similar, in English only. He was so mad he decided to challenge not the ticket itself, but the fact that it was not also in French. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court which .

Martel also outlines how French-speaking parents won the right to send their kids to French-speaking schools outside of Quebec, run by French-speaking administrators. In 1982, Section 23 of the Constitution came into existence, which guaranteed this right to parents no matter where in Canada they live.

The language rights issue, however, is still far from over, he says. This is clear by the latest struggle in Moncton, New Brunswick, over calls for store signs to be posted in both official languages. It will be an issue that continues to shape Canada well into the future.

In addition, the F茅d茅ration des communaut茅s francophones et acadienne du Canada has recently asked the federal court to intervene in the ongoing census debate, arguing that the long-term census form should remain because governments need the data on languages spoken at home.

Martel has already begun researching his next project, which will deal with the RCMP鈥檚 surveillance activities and operations regarding French-speaking groups, natives and African Canadians from about 1945 to 1984 when the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was created and took over the surveillance and security intelligence job. He has already published a paper in the Canadian Historical Review in June 2009聽that looks at the RCMP and hippies, titled '', which he says 鈥渨ill in part contribute to the growing literature on state repression.鈥�

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer

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As a researcher, Zryd鈥檚 current work is focused on the complexities of history and academic institutionalization from the 1960s onward in relation to experimental and independent film. While most of his past research has concentrated on American films, Zryd is also examining Canadian avant-garde films created since the 1960s.

Left: Michael Zryd

"To analyze an experimental film is not so different from analyzing an abstract painting," says Zryd. The fun, he says, is in finding intersections between the elements of sound and sight, and discovering how these contiguities trigger emotions and ideas in a viewer.

Although "experimental" and "independent" films are both considered avant-garde film genres, they are not interchangeable terms. Experimental films are made outside the mainstream practice of filmmaking. They serve "to broaden the horizons of what film can be and do," says Zryd.聽 Experimental films usually lack dialogue and are sometimes referred to as "underground".

Independent or "Indie" films are made without studio aid and usually have a narrative. The more politically inclined avant-garde films, like many artistic endeavours of the 1960s, were created in response to events like the Vietnam War, the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy and the American civil rights movement.

Zryd鈥檚 research on Canadian film history will provide important information about the cultural contexts to which avant-garde filmmakers in Canada were responding. An interesting fact,聽notes Zryd, is that avant-garde were watched in the past by advertising companies to steal new techniques to market their products in television advertising. On the other side of the spectrum, avant-garde films have also influenced abstract and performance artists like , , and .

Even the Hollywood filmmakers of many well-known classics were influenced by the avant-garde films they were exposed to in film school, he says. Big-time Hollywood directors such as and have mentioned the influence of experimental filmmakers like and (a Canadian who was trained by the Group of Seven painter, Arthur Lismer).

One important difference between avant-garde and mainstream films is the sharp contrast in salary. George Lucas makes $121,354.16 per hour. Arthur Lipsett died almost penniless after losing his job at the . Does that mean Lucas is any less of an artist? Zryd is no hippie. Since art is not defined by its price tag, he considers Star Wars as much a piece of art as any of Arthur Lipsett鈥檚 pieces 鈥� just not as interesting.

By Jacquelin Chatterpaul, Faculty of Fine Arts research officer aide

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This is only the second year the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships have been awarded.

鈥淲e are delighted with the results of the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships competition and the opportunity that this represents for four of 91亚色's outstanding doctoral candidates,鈥� says Douglas Peers (left), dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies. "In addition to exhibiting remarkable potential as young scholars, the success of these students is a testament to 91亚色's interdisciplinary strengths in areas such as environmental studies and women's studies. The Vanier Scholarships' emphasis on bringing the most promising international students to Canada to study has allowed 91亚色 to attract three students with great potential."

The winners from 91亚色 are: Tania Hernandez Cervantes of Mexico, who is studying agricultural economics; Yasin Kaya of Turkey, who is studying聽political economy; women鈥檚 studies student Healy Thompson of the United States; and history student James D.J. Trepanier of Canada. Each will receive $50,000 per year for up to three years to pursue research that will lead to the growth of the global knowledge base.

Hernandez Cervantes will research alternatives against the global takeover of organic agriculture in Mexico and Canada looking at agro-ecological innovation, rural livelihoods and alternative production, distribution and consumption. Yasin is interested in researching globalization in jeans in a multi-sited ethnography of global economic processes. Thompson will research the protection of vulnerable women looking at northern paternalism and women's sexual and reproductive rights. Trepanier will study scouting and the two solitudes, investigating youth, religion and nationalism in French and English Canada from 1908 to 1970.

This year, 174 scholarships were awarded to doctoral students from Canada and around the world recognized as leaders in their fields of research and in their communities. The Vanier scholars were selected for their exceptional leadership skills and their high standard of scholarly achievement in graduate studies in the social sciences and humanities, natural sciences and engineering, and health.

The scholarships are administered by Canada's three federal granting agencies: the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada聽and the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada. The goal is to build world-class research capacity by recruiting top-tier doctoral students, both nationally and internationally, who will positively contribute to our economic, social and research-based growth for a prosperous future.

For more information, visit the Web site.

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