After eight months of consultation with the community, as well as internal and external research partners, the 91ŃÇÉ« Senate has unanimously approved the University’s new strategic research plan, "Building on Strength".

“91ŃÇɫ’s new strategic research plan commits to building research on our strengths and provides a strong aspirational vision for the development and recognition of 91ŃÇɫ’s research over the next five years,” said Robert HachĂ©, vice-president research & innovation.  “I would like to thank the entire 91ŃÇÉ« community for your positive response to the consultation process and earnest engagement that made such important contributions to the development of the plan.  We will continue to invest in the growth and development of our research as a foundational part of our efforts to grow our academic reputation as a recognized leading research-intensive university.”

Robert Haché

The plan supports the University’s research vision to better understand the human condition and the world around us and to employ the knowledge gained in the service of society as described in six intersecting themes:

• advancing fundamental discovery and critical knowledge,
• analyzing cultures and mobilizing creativity,
• building healthy lives and communities,
• exploring the frontiers of science and technology,
• forging a just and sustainable world,
• integrating entrepreneurial innovation and the public good.

The plan also articulates five areas of opportunities that complement past accomplishments, new developments, momentum and timing to provide particular opportunities for building research success.  They include:

• digital cultures,
• engineering research that matters,
• healthy individuals, healthy communities and global health,
• public engagement for a just and sustainable world, and
• scholarship of socially engaged research.

Through this plan, the University is implementing the objectives set out for research in both the University Academic Plan and the Provost’s 2010 white paper, which identify research intensification as a key University goal and recognize research as a core endeavor that broadly enriches the institution. The plan is meant to be a living document, responsive to the University's successes, as well as being sensitive to a rapidly evolving landscape.

Through a strategic combination of broadly based and focused investments over the course of the next five years, 91ŃÇÉ« will continue its impressive development as a leading Canadian research university whose scholarship enhances our culture and improves society.

To view the full plan, click .

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin to research stories on the research website.

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Cultures meet here in Canada, says Agnès Whitfield. Literary translation is an essential means of sharing heritages, yet it is a field too often overlooked and undervalued.

That situation is about to improve with the launch of the first volume in a new series called Vita Traductiva. A joint initiative of the Research Group on Literary Translation in Canada at 91ŃÇÉ« and , a small Quebec press Whitfield and her husband, artist Daniel Gagnon, have taken over, the series will be published in French and English, and focus on literary translators and translating around the world.

Cover illustration for Vita Traductiva, by Daniel Gagnon

“One of our goals is to bring into English or French important studies on translation from other languages,” says Whitfield. “These kinds of opportunities for international exchange are sadly lacking.”

“Another issue for translation scholars is getting research circulating quickly,” says Whitfield. “Traditional presses have long wait times, library budgets are declining and scholarly books are expensive.”

For this reason, the international peer-reviewed series will be published via the Internet on Open Access sites for scholars, as well as in traditional book form.

Agnès Whitfield

These days, “if a librarian in Canada wanted to organize an exhibition on Romanian culture, she would have a difficult time,” says Whitfield. She wouldn’t know where to find Romanian works translated into English or French, or works written by Canadian writers of Romanian origin, or how the translations were done.

On a broader level, the new series is important because “literature provides a rich source of knowledge about human activity and aspirations, and literary translation plays an essential role in building understanding between communities with different languages and cultures,” argues Whitfield. “Vita Traductiva aims to make an important contribution to the creation, promotion and dissemination of such vital cultural knowledge.”

Following her 2009 study, Whitfield helped found , an international research group based at the University of Oslo, focusing on the different voices in the translation process. Those voices will be expressed in Vita Traductiva.

The name is a reference to the Latin term vita activa (active life) to reflect the active, empirical orientation of the collection and its aim to generate and share more knowledge about translation – particularly between smaller countries – and greater intercultural understanding and respect, says Whitfield.

As series editor, she plans to solicit essays on literary translation and translators from scholars all over the world. Such international reach will be guaranteed with editorial and advisory boards representing 15 countries – from Finland to New Zealand, Portugal to Turkey. Whitfield also draws on 91ŃÇÉ« expertise; English Professor Priscila Uppal and humanities and translation studies Professor Susan Ingram are on her editorial and advisory boards.

The first volume of essays will appear this summer and two more in the fall.

The summer volume will focus on the translation of Polish, Czech and Romanian literature for Canadian audiences – and vice versa – and how to find works by Canadians of Polish, Czech and Romanian heritage.

The fall volumes, edited by European colleagues, are based on proceedings of recent Voice in Translation conferences. The first highlights the challenges of capturing narrative voice when translating between Arabic, Polish, English, Finnish, German, Spanish and French.

Whitfield with Voice in Translation group in Copenhagen

The second will probe the role of authorial and editorial voices in translation. It will include a piece by Whitfield on how small Canadian English presses edit and revise translations.

As a new international peer-reviewed publication series, Vita Traductiva is a perfect fit with 91ŃÇɫ’s strategic goal to improve its participation in emerging international research networks and enhance its reputation as a research-oriented university, says Whitfield.

She has played a leading role in compiling previously unavailable bio-bibliographical data on eminent Canadian Francophone and Anglophone literary translators as editor of Writing Between the Lines. Portraits of Canadian Anglophone Translators (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006) and Le Métier du double. Portraits de traducteurs et traductrices francophones (Fides, Collection du CRILCQ, 2005), shortlisted for the Canadian Federation of the Humanities Raymond-Klibansky Prize. (See YFile, April 11, 2006) She was also the editor of L’écho de nos classiques (Éditions David, 2009) on the international translations of two great Canadian novels, Gabrielle Roy’s Bonheur d’occasion (The Tin Flute) and Hugh McLennan’s Two Solitudes.

Whitfield is former president of the Canadian Association for Translation Studies and was bilingual joint chair in Women’s Studies at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University in 2009-2010.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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The summit will bring together education leaders (administrators, superintendents, principals, deans, faculty, teacher-leaders), private and not-for-profit sector leaders for a dialogue and discussion about involving people in the change necessary to achieve new learning cultures that are supported by the effective use of technology.

The one-day summit consists of two sessions in the morning ("Exploring the Leadership Required for New Learning Cultures – A Personal Experience" and "Learning and Leading: A Practical Approach to Engage Change"). Delegates will split into break-out groups in the afternoon to discuss Leading a New Learning Culture – Becoming a Narrative Champion. 

"This summit is a great leadership learning opportunity for 91ŃÇÉ« employees involved in the Academic Innovation Fund (AIF) projects that began earlier this academic year," noted Janet Murphy, ABEL program director. The AIF initiative provides support to faculty in order to advance innovation and change at 91ŃÇÉ« in the areas of teaching, learning and the student experience.

"This innovation and change on campus perfectly complements the topics that will be discussed at the summit," said Murphy.

Speakers and facilitators for the summit include: Dean Shareski, a digital learning consultant for Prairie South School Division in Saskatchewan; Alec Couros, a professor of educational technology and media and the coordinator of information and communications technology at the Faculty of Education, University of Regina; and George Couros, the division principal of innovative teaching & learning for Parkland School Division in Alberta.

Right: Dean Shareski

In addition to the face-to-face event in February, delegates are also invited to participate in two virtual learning sessions happening in the spring – “Understanding the New Learning Culture and Learner Footprint” and “Celebrating and Planning the Way Forward”.

Left: George Couros

These virtual sessions will be easy to join, and details on how to participate will be provided the day of the summit. The virtual sessions will be hosted by the speakers and facilitators from Feb. 10. Descriptions of the virtual sessions are as follows:

Understanding the New Learning Culture and Learner Footprint 

This session will explore the specifics of citizenship in a digital context. Rather than focusing upon prevention, participants will develop ideas to create and contribute to purposeful, engaged citizenship while learning online. These ideas will be explored and shared within the context of digital literacy, job-embedded learning, and engagement with parents, family and community.

Right: Alec CourosĚýĚýĚýĚý

Celebrating and Planning the Way Forward  

This session will provide delegates with an opportunity for “show and tell”, sharing their successes and challenges in implementing new learning cultures. This session is about reflecting upon your own professional growth and learning from fellow participants’ strategies that engaged systems in change and learning more about the road ahead.

To learn more or to register you and/or your team, please visit the website.

As part of the Professional Learning Program, ABEL offers two face-to-face conferences every year – the Leadership Summit in the winter and the ABEL Summer Institute.

Look for information about the ABEL Summer Institute .

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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There are three launches scheduled for Keeney's new books, First Woman (Inanna Publications) and You Bring Me Wings (ANTARES Publishing House of Spanish Culture). The first is Tuesday, Nov. 8 at The Art Bar at 8pm, second floor of the Paupers Pub, 539 Bloor St. W. in Toronto.

The second will be at 91ŃÇÉ« on Wednesday, Nov. 16, from 3 to 4:30pm, as part of the Canadian Studies Speaker Series, in the Senior Common Room, 010 Vanier College, Keele campus, where she’ll also read and discuss her creative work and research. The third launch by Inanna PublicationsĚý´Ú´Ç°ůĚýFirst Woman will take place Thursday, Nov. 24, from 6 to 8pm, at the College Street United Church, 452 College St. in Toronto. 

Keeney draws her greatest inspiration from the intersection of cultures, whether between members of one family, intimate friends or peoples around the world. She is a constant traveller. This academic year alone, she was involved in conferences and arts festivals from Russia to Slovenia to Iran. As Keeney puts it, "I'm a wanderer...more of a cultural explorer than a tourist." And it is those wanderings that seep deep into the layers of her work, emerging as poems that often express a different way of seeing the world.

Left: Patricia Keeney

For You Bring Me Wings, Keeney travelled to Mexico City for a summer of imaginative conversation with Mexican poet Ethel Krauze that spilled onto the pages of their new book. This bilingual (English and Spanish) collection is infused with what  identifies as "poems and conversations around love, the creative process, the conditions of womanhood and the marginalization of two distinct cultures co-existing along the American border.” The conversations explore approaches to writing poetry and living life fully. As writer Eva Tihanyi puts it in her introduction: “Finally a book that presents talking and poetry as a partnership, that dares to embrace its own ˛őłÜ˛úÂá±đł¦łŮľ±±ąľ±łŮ˛â.”

Keeney was one of the first Canadian writers to be given a grant under the North American Free Trade Agreement to open up areas of cultural exchange with Mexico.

Keeney's poems have been hailed as lyric and political, ranging from sexual love to individual relations, to confrontations with power and profound meditations on life and culture. In her First Woman collection of poems, she examines, at a "deeply personal level, the richly ambivalent experience of living in South Africa, for instance, and it explores the dynamics of family. So, the interior life is both personal and political, local and global. For me, there is no discrepancy in this," says the author of nine books of poetry and a novel. "The way we see things and the weight we give them determines their importance in our sense of who we are." 

Keeney continued her investigation of cultural borders in Iran recently where it is mandatory for women, including foreign visitors, to wear a hijab. "The ambivalence I felt about this was echoed in some extraordinary conversations with women in academia and the arts around various kinds of repression in a society that is deeply divided. I am writing about it already," she says.

Left: Patricia Keeney sharing a traditional meal in Iran with her husband, 91ŃÇÉ« theatre Professor Don Rubin, and a friend (left)

Her poetry has been translated into French, Spanish, Bulgarian, Chinese and Hindi. As a book and theatre reviewer, and an arts journalist for over 20 years, Keeney has written extensively in various Canadian and international publications, including The Canadian Forum, Maclean's magazine, Canadian Literature, Canadian Woman Studies, Arc Poetry Magazine, New Theatre Quarterly, based in London, England, South African Theatre Journal and Critical Stages, a web journal.

Some of Keeney’s previous work includes her first collection of poetry Swimming Alone (Oberon Press, 1988); a post-feminist novel, The Incredible Shrinking Wife (Black Moss Press, 1995); and Selected Poems of Patricia Keeney (Oberon Press, 2002). She is currently working on new fiction.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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