Activities held in 2008

• February 2008 – Vice-Chancellor announces new leadership for Centre
• July 2008 – Centre receives funding from the Government of Canada
• August 2008 – Centre receives Student Mobility Grant from the Government of Canada
• August 2008 – ‘All Canada Day’ back at UOW
• December 2008 – Seminar on the Construction of ‘Canada’

February 2008 – Vice-Chancellor announces new leadership for Centre

On 8 February 2008, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wollongong announced the appointment of a new team to lead the inter-disciplinary Centre for Canadian-Australian Studies: Professor Luke McNamara (Faculty of Law) as Director; Professor Wilma Vialle (Faculty of Education) and Dr Debra Dudek (Faculty of Arts) as Deputy Directors.

July 2008 – Centre receives funding from the Government of Canada

On 29 July 2008, the Director of the Centre for Canadian-Australian Studies was advised that the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade had approved the Centre’s application for an interim Program Development Grant for the balance of 2008/2009.

August 2008 – Centre receives Student Mobility Grant from the Government of Canada

On 1 August 2008, the Centre Director was advised that the University of Wollongong, through the Centre for Canadian-Australian Studies and the Faculty of Law, had been awarded a C$10,000 Student Mobility Support Grant under the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade’s ‘Understanding Canada’ program. The grant will allow UOW to provide two LLB students with a $6000 scholarship to enable them to complete an exchange semester at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Law in 2009, including an internship at the Centre for Constitutional Studies. The students will enrol in subjects and complete a supervised research paper on the topic of ‘Mobilising Law and Litigation to Protect Human Rights in Australia: Learning from Canada's Experience with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms’.

August 2008 – ‘All Canada Day’ back at UOW

On 14 August, the Centre for Canadian-Australian Studies, in cooperation with the Canadian High Commission, Canberra, and the UOW Study Abroad & Exchange Office, hosted an 'All Canada Day' on campus.
The day was conducted in order to promote the Centre’s mission to:

• conduct and facilitate Canada-related and comparative research;
• support the inclusion of Canadian content into teaching programs;
• attract and support Canadian students in Australia and provide pathways for Australian students to travel, study and research in Canada;
• enhance cultural and intellectual linkages between Australia and Canada.

Highlights of the day included:

• presentations by Tony McKittrick (Manager, Academic Relations and Canadian Education Centre, Canadian High Commission, Canberra) on Canadian research funding opportunities for UOW academic staff and HDR students;
• an exhibition of photos from the Faculty of Education-based 'Voices of Children’ featuring photographs and written responses from students attending the Sydney River Elementary School, Nova Scotia, Canada;
• a Canadian High Commission and UOW Study Abroad and Exchange Office information booth and presentation on 'Studying in Canada'.

December 2008 – Seminar on the Construction of ‘Canada’

On 16 December, Professor Neil Besner, Deputy Provost and Associate Vice-President, International, at the University of Winnipeg, presented a seminar on the topic of ‘Two Solitudes Revisited: Canada Under Postcolonial Eyes’. In his presentation Professor Besner considered what has changed, and why, in the construction of "Canada" since Hugh MacLennan's Two Solitudes (1945)? Through reading the work of MacLennan, as well as Margaret Atwood, Margaret Laurence, Fred Wah, and Michael Ondaatje, Professor Besner considered the significance of changing relations among contested national aspirations.

Neil Besner has taught Canadian literature at the University of Winnipeg since 1987, where he was Chair of the English Department (1993-2000), Dean of Humanities (2002-05), Dean of Arts (2005-06), and is currently Deputy Provost and Associate Vice-President, International. He has written books on the work of Mavis Gallant and Alice Munro, edited two collections of essays on Carol Shields, and translated a Brazilian biography of Elizabeth Bishop from Portuguese into English.  In 2001-02, he was the Seagram’s Chair in Canadian Studies at the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. Currently, he is the general editor of a new series of volumes of contemporary Canadian poetry.