About - School of Canadian Studies

2020-2025 School Priorities

The School of Canadian Studies is deeply rooted in Carleton University’s rich history of putting communities and people first. Our graduates and faculty play an essential role in shaping discourse, policy and research on Canada and its place in the world. The School is a key player in a flourishing network of Canadian Studies programs both within Canada and abroad. Our research and teaching are deeply interdisciplinary, innovative, personal and collaborative. Choose Canadian Studies at Carleton University to become part of an activist, problem-oriented learning community that challenges students to think critically and apply their knowledge of Canada. Our priorities include:

Continuing the growth of programs and scholarship in Canadian Studies and Heritage Conservation;
Formalizing the School’s commitment to non-traditional and inclusive teaching and research practices;
Fostering and expanding our local, national and international research and academic programs; and,
Continuing the School’s long-term commitments to interdisciplinary research

Read the School's Statement on the Use of Oppressive Language

In the spirit of creating a respectful and collegial environment, the School of Canadian Studies does not accept the use of racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and ableist and other slurs by faculty, staff, or students. While teaching about and discussing systemic oppressions, we need to be sensitive, reflexive, and careful about the effects of using a charged word. A slur is a word that is so charged with contexts of hateful and demeaning usage that no space can be considered a neutral, academic one in which that charge is suspended. Slurs have harmful and even dehumanizing effects.

We recognize that the uses and meanings of words change over time and that change is of scholarly and social importance. However, the personal stakes of these processes are highly differential and that is why, especially as faculty, reflexivity about our different positionalities is necessary. In SCS classrooms, we have discussions and readings about naming practices and shifting identity vocabularies. Faculty have the responsibility to contextualize and guide discussions so as not to reproduce harm. While we fully recognize the classroom as a collective learning space where we learn by sharing our ideas, testing ideas we’re not sure of in public forums, and hearing how others respond, we will proceed on the principle that slurs should not be uttered and that our work is to participate in their being put to rest. The appearance of a slur in a reading or archival material will be handled with sensitivity to the original and present-day contexts, the writer’s positionality, and recognition of power relations.

History and Goals

Carleton University founded Canada’s first Institute of Canadian Studies in 1957, and offered the first MA degree program at Carleton and in Canadian Studies in Canada. Since its inception, well over a 1000 students have graduated with Master’s degrees in Canadian Studies. The Institute was transformed into the School of Canadian on July 1, 1992. Since its inception, the School has constantly reinvented itself to incorporate new knowledge and new approaches. We have established a strong reputation in interdisciplinary research and teaching in areas related to and intersecting with Canadian cultural studies; heritage conservation; settler studies; gender and women’s studies; environment and place; and issues related to public policy, politics, language, economy, and society.