KAMLOOPS – The newest centre for research excellence at Thompson Rivers University was created on Canada Day this year.

The Centre for the Study of Canada, which came into existence July 1st, will build on years of success and growth in the Canadian Studies program at UCC and now TRU. The program allows students to focus on Canadian subject matter and consider Canadian issues in a broad context. The group that has led Canadian Studies since the 1990s has also hosted conferences, an annual Canadian Studies Day, symposia, special public speakers, and faculty exchanges with Canadian Studies centres in Europe.

In addition, Canadian Studies faculty have published conference proceedings, encouraged the growth of Canada-focused course programming, Service Learning study opportunities in the community, and closer links between the campus and the region’s cultural institutions.

“The Centre for the Study of Canada is a birthday present to Canada from TRU,” said TRU Interim Dean of Arts Dr. John Belshaw. “The establishment of a Centre will allow the Canadian Studies group to take their interdisciplinary project to the next level. It will facilitate more conferences, more cross-campus activity, and more interest in Canadian issues,” he said.

The Director of the new Centre for the Study of Canada is Ginny Ratsoy, a professor in the Department of English and Modern Languages and one of the founders of UCC’s Canadian Studies program. An instructor at TRU for the past 25 years, Ratsoy, who received a Distinguished Service Award this year, won a Master Teacher Award in 1992. She is co-editor of Playing the Pacific Province: An Anthology of British Columbia Plays, 1967-2000 and editor of the forthcoming Writing the Out-West Stage: Three Decades of Views on British Columbia Theatre.

The Centre will be guided by an interim board, whose members include Dr. Anne Gagnon (a Canadian historian currently a Visiting Professor in Germany), Dr. Terry Kading (a specialist on Canadian and Latin American politics), and Dr. Martin Whittles (an anthropologist who specializes in circumpolar ethnography and First Nations issues).

Professor Tom Pocklington, professor emeritus from the University of Alberta, and TRU’s Professor James Hoffman (Chair of the Department of Visual and Performing Arts) have been invited to sit as adjunct members along with the Dean of Arts.

For more information please contact Martin Whittles (250-371-5914), John Belshaw, (250-828-5171), or Ginny Ratsoy (250-828-5238).