CSSE Board of Directors Meetings, May 27 and May 31, 2005 University of Western Ontario

The Board of Directors of CSSE met on two separate days in May, at the start and the conclusion of the Annual Conference. This report is an amalgamation of key issues that arose during those meetings.

CSSE reported a surplus of $23,627 for 2004. However, the Secretary-Treasurer indicated that we will have a deficit of slightly over $25,000 for 2005. This is largely a result of promotional initiatives and the publication of a 25th anniversary booklet. As CSSE has a healthy accumulated surplus, there is no anticipated difficulty in covering this deficit.

There was substantial discussion of issues associated with the annual conference, notably paper submissions and the first author rule.

• The Board of Directors agreed that the person submitting the electronic paper proposal must be a member at the time of submission. If this is not the case, they will received an automated reply indicating that their membership has lapsed (or never existed) and linking them to the membership update site.

• In terms of the first author rule, the BoD agreed that a member can be a first author once per association. In this way, those with multiple association memberships can be a first author more than once at the Annual Meeting.

The BoD also recommended to the CSSE AGM that fees for the conference be increased by $10.00 over two years.

Sam Robinson, Editor of CJE, reported that theme issues of the journal are working exceptionally well, and that there has been very good review support. Issues of CJE are now available on-line, back to 1991.

Sebastien Demers attended the May 31st meeting to report on current issues facing SSHRC. He noted that there has been a 10% increase in the number of applications to Committee 12 (Education 1), bringing the total submissions to 155. He added that there was also an increase of “health” applications to Committee 17 (Education 2). The success rate currently stands at 40%, and the funding rate at approximately 70%. In addition, he noted that the first 10% of applications approved are accorded research time stipends.

Dwayne Trevor Ford attended the May 31st meeting on behalf of the Aboriginal Assembly. He indicated that there were 20 members of the Assembly participating in the 2005 conference, most of whom are graduate students. Dwayne noted that the Assembly will petition CSSE to recognize a new society (Canadian Association for the Study of Aboriginal/Indigenous Education) and that their intent is to achieve full association status by the 2007 Annual Conference in Saskatoon. CSSE President Margaret Haughey outlined the conditions that must be met for this to happen: (1) the association must have a mandate; (2) it must have 100 members; (3) it must be established for three years; and (4) it must have a constitution.

Don Fisher and Paul Ledwell attended the meeting on behalf of the Canadian Federation of the Humanities and Social Sciences. They spoke of a new CFHSS initiative, “The Next Generation,” in which they are making representation to SSHRC that there needs to be a new scholars’ initiative, with money for first-time scholars, as well as money for translation. CFHSS is actively encouraging the prompt replacement of the current President of SSHRC, Marc Renaud, who is stepping down at the end of his second mandate.

Both Don and Paul spoke to the Federation’s “report card” on women and equity groups, which is available on their website. They spoke in particular to the low number of CRC chairs that have gone to women.

The Board of Directors will meet again in Ottawa at the end of October, 2005.

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Follow-up from the CASEA Annual General Meeting, UWO, May 29th, 2005

CASEA is responsible for selecting the Canada Research Chair lecture, to be given at the Annual Conference at York University. As agreed, a call was sent out in July to the membership for input on possible candidates. A number of names were offered. From this list, the Executive has agreed on a first choice from a list of very impressive candidates. I am pleased to report that Karen Mundy at OISE has agreed to deliver this lecture. Karen’s research is focused on global governance and comparative educational change. I encourage all members to view the outline of her work on the CRC website (http://www.chairs.gc.ca).

Respectfully submitted,

David MacKinnon
President, CASEA