 |
 Humanities at Trent
Acting Dean of Arts and Science - Humanities A Message from the DeanWelcome to Trent! Why come to Trent University? Trent is a dynamic place, small, friendly, and accessible. Learning is still fun, the campus and city are both vibrant and exciting places. I suspect this sounds like everywhere else, but I really think it’s true – when I first came to Trent I was very struck by how scenic the campus is and how much it looks like the pictures elsewhere on the website. Trent is a place where free discussion is genuinely encouraged, where doors are always open, and where getting things done is a way of life. Why Humanities? If you’re a prospective student, because it will get you a job. All those skills that employers tell you (and us) that they’re interested in, like being able to analyse documents, argue business cases, make presentations – these are skills that Humanities folk excel at. Interested in fuzzy data, in learning how to extract meanings from datasets that are incomplete, and then making someone else interested in that idea when you’ve posted it on YouTube or a Wiki? That’s what we do, using examples from History and then communicating them, sometimes in another language like French or Spanish. Six months after graduation, 91.47% of Humanities graduates were employed, compared with 89.25% in Social Science and 92.62 in Physical Sciences.[1] But it’s more than just about getting a job – and more than working with great people – you also get to work with great stuff, from reading the Iliad or the Odyssey in AHCL 1000Y (still in paperback over 2,500 years after they were first performed), to working with graphic novels in ENGL 1000Y, learning about Facebook in CUST 1035Y, or examining how to make arguments in PHIL 1005Y. And there are plenty of other fascinating courses that I don’t have space to mention here, taught by our 188 full and part-time faculty on our Peterborough and Oshawa campuses. The Maclean’s 2011 University Rankings have Trent at joint first in Canada in the percentage of full-time instructors with a PhD or equivalent (99.6%).[2] When I’m not involved in administration, I’m either helping students learn (traditionally called teaching) or learning myself (typically called research). Most of my research activity revolves attempting to understand how the Roman Empire worked in the period between the third and seventh centuries AD. Recent research projects thus involve looking at the effectiveness of the late Roman army and the nature of Roman rule in the ancient regions of Cilicia and Isauria (in southern Turkey) through texts or archaeology, while teaching projects include studies of Roman history from beginning to end, contributing to first-year courses for the departments of History and Ancient History + Classics, and senior seminars on topics such as the emperor Zeno (AD 474-491). I’ve also recently been supervising graduate students in the Anthropology MA programme in GIS and modelling projects related to fieldwork I’ve carried out in Turkey. For more information see my Webpage. [1] Latest year for which data available: The Ontario University Graduate Survey. [2] Maclean’s University rankings edition, Nov. 7, 2011, p155, data from fall 2009, percentage of full-time instructional faculty members who have a PhD, a first professional degree, or a terminal degree in their field. Undergraduate Departments and ProgramsAncient History and Classics Graduate ProgramsCanadian Studies and Indigenous Studies M.A. Current Research Currently under Construction - Come Back Soon! |