My First Entry in the Dean's Blog…

September has always been, for me, the true start of the new year. When I was in school, it was certainly a time when I made resolutions: to keep a tidy desk, to have nice, neat handwriting (back in the day when that seemed to matter!), to do my homework carefully rather than rushing through it at the last minute. And typically, like most resolutions, they went out the window a couple of weeks into the start of the school year. Even though, when I was an undergraduate student, I lamented the end of summer – as I am doing right now, as I write my first blog – I would always look forward to my new courses, new profs, and new challenges. The few years when I was working at CBC Radio, between my undergraduate degree and the start of my graduate studies, I felt out of sorts around Labour Day, when I was not looking at a new class schedule and new book lists! And ever since returning to graduate studies and, later on, an academic position, I have welcomed September as a time of transitions and new rhythms, new classes, and new students. While I always wonder how it is that summer seems to disappear so fast, why I didn’t get some article finished, or why I didn’t manage to read the books I had planned on reading, I still feel the excitement of the fall, or what in French we call la rentrée scolaire.
And now, it is my additional pleasure to be able to welcome all of our new students — in the B.A., the B. Hums, B. Mus., the B. Cog.Sci., the brand new B.GINS, and of course, all of our graduate students -, our new faculty members – in Philosophy and Cognitive Science, Women’s and Gender Studies, Child Studies, Sociology and Anthropology, Psychology, Centre for Initiatives in Education, Linguistics and Language Studies, Canadian Studies and Environmental Studies, Film Studies -, and this year, our new Vice-President, Research and International, Dr. Nimal Rajapakse. A very warm welcome to all of you and hoping that your time at Carleton is productive and enriching! Really, how can January 1st compete with Labour Day, given everything going on in any educational institution, and Carleton University in particular?
For the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, this new year also marks a transition, as this is the first year in 10 years that Dr. John Osborne is not our Dean. I have accepted to step in for the year, as Interim Dean, while the Decanal Search Committee continues its work of finding the right person to take over as Dean, leading our faculty and our students over the next five years or so. My own engagement with Carleton is a long-standing one, in that I was an undergraduate student here, studying Journalism, French and Political Science (back in the day when Journalism was in the Faculty of Arts!). A few years after graduation, I returned to Carleton to study for my Master’s in French literature, studying with some of the same professors that my father had, when he did his M.A. in French literature, a few decades before me. As a high school student, growing up in Ottawa, I had even participated in a Mini-Enrichment Course offered to high school students at Carleton. So when I was offered a faculty position at Carleton, I was delighted to have the opportunity to return not only to my hometown but also to my alma mater. And now, as I look forward to this year as Interim Dean, I know both that this will be a very busy year and that it will also be (and has already begun to be) a very exciting one. It is a privilege to meet new and returning faculty, to discuss research projects, collaborations, teaching initiatives, and new ideas. It is an honour to be invited to welcome our new students, and to have the excuse to visit our First-Year Seminars, which I will do over the course of the year. It is with pride that I represent our Faculty and Carleton at recruitment, research, and cultural events, and at various meetings with students, other deans and academic administrators, on campus, in Ottawa and further afield.
One of the frequent questions people have been asking about my term as Interim Dean is whether I will maintain the tradition of the Dean’s Blog. The answer is both yes and no. We will continue to have a blog, but it will not be exclusively the “Dean’s Blog” in that I will not be the one blogging every week. This is partly a question of time management – I do not know how Dean Osborne managed to write a blog every week over the past 9 years. I think he values his sleep less than I do!! But I also do feel that there are some very exciting things happening around FASS and I prefer to leave it to those individuals who are immediately involved with FASS initiatives and events to relate those stories to you. So this year, we will be bringing to you the various voices of FASS to tell you about what is on our minds and what we’re busy doing. I do intend to be a regular contributor to the FASS blog, but I also look forward to reading the different voices and styles of my colleagues from across the Faculty.
To all of you, new and returning students, faculty and staff: I wish you a very happy new year, and all the best with your own resolutions for 2015-16.
– Dr. Catherine Khordoc, Dean (Interim), Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences – Associate Professor, Department of French