Trent University welcomes arrival of third PhD program
Go-ahead given for joint Trent-Carleton PhD program in Canadian Studies

After extensive consideration and five years of planning by Trent faculty and staff, the Ontario Council on Graduate Studies (OCGS) has given its approval for the start-up of a joint Trent-Carleton PhD program in Canadian Studies. The program is to begin in September 2001.

This brings to three the number of PhD programs at Trent. The others are Watershed Ecosystems and Native Studies.

The announcement was made last week at the first-ever OCGS meeting held at Trent.

"This is great news for Canadian Studies, graduate studies, and for Trent," says Paul Healy, Trent's dean of research and graduate studies. Canadian Studies is an interdisciplinary program drawing upon content of individual disciplines in the humanities, social sciences and sciences to analyse and explain Canadian experience in all of its dimensions.

OCGS, a branch of the council of Ontario Universities, provides advice to the Ontario government on post-secondary education.

The program will be the first interdisciplinary doctoral program in Canadian Studies in Canada.

The program will group studies into five fields: culture; environment and heritage; policy, economy and society; questions of identity; and women's studies. More than 50 professors in a wide range of departments at both universities will form the core faculty and can supervise PhD dissertations.

Students will be required to take a core seminar on concepts, theory and methods of interdisciplinarity in Canadian Studies. They will have to know English and either French, an aboriginal or heritage language taught at either university. They will be required to take comprehensive exams after two years, be examined in two fields, and complete and defend a doctoral dissertation.

Faculty committees from Carleton's School of Canadian Studies and Trent's Frost Centre for Canadian Studies and Native Studies have been meeting since 1995 to draft details of the joint program. Carleton has been offering an interdisciplinary MA in Canadian Studies since 1957 - longer than any other school. Close to national archives and libraries, Carleton also has a huge network of international links. Trent will complement these with its tradition of regional research initiatives, particularly in native and environmental studies.

Distribution: Peterborough, Regional