As I rode my bike through campus last week the signs of a fading summer and the beginning of another academic year were clear. Students showing their parents around campus, hugs as friends were reunited, the streets and walkways humming with activity. It was all refreshing after the relative calm of summer, but it made me think of the constancy of that dynamic of arrival and return, something that has been happening on campus for well over 150 years.
A lot has changed over those years. The original parochialism and exclusive quality of the university has shifted. Campus is an increasingly diverse space. Students come from all over the world to study here, from many different backgrounds. The range of programs of study offered has expanded. And we increasingly learn from each other, and all that we bring to our encounters with learning and teaching.
But over this time – one thing likely hasn’t changed - the excitement of the experience of arriving in an unfamiliar space. The feeling of return to a space that you have hopefully come to enjoy. And the anticipation of completion, of leaving and moving on to grapple with new unfamiliar experiences, and creating from them, the familiar.
So, to all of you, new and returning students, undergraduates, graduates, faculty, and staff, WELCOME to another in the continuing cycle of academic years. If you’re new to Toronto, welcome to an incredibly vibrant city. It’s not without its problems but I hope you’ll seek out and discover the qualities that make it a rewarding place to live, study and work.
If you’re familiar with the city but new to the university I hope that you find it a place of engaging challenges and rewards, take from it all that it has to offer, and give to it all that you can to help make it even better for those who have yet to arrive.
Welcome also to another year at CDTS. 2025 marks our 20th year as an academic program at the University. Over those years we have grown from three faculty members with no physical home, to 12 faculty and our suite of offices in the Jackman Humanities Building which serves as the hub for our Major, Minor and Collaborative Graduate Programs. Last year was a year of change for the Centre. Our Director, Professor Kevin O’Neill, having put enormous work into building the Centre and our programs, left us to take on more challenges as the Dean of Arts and Vice-Provost at Trinity College. Our loss is definitely Trinity’s gain, but I’m sure he’ll continue to be an active member and friend of CDTS. Professor Anna Shternshis, who has been with us from almost the beginning, has accepted a new position as the J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair of Jewish Studies. But she’s still sharing teaching duties for our introductory course, and will be just down the hall so I’m sure we’ll see her at the Centre regularly. Professors Naomi Seidman, Ted Sammons, and Padraic Scanlan are also on well-deserved Research Leave this academic year, so we’ll miss their faces, voices and thoughts in the hallways and classrooms.
So much for loss column. In the gain column we are fortunate to welcome Professor Tracy Lemos who joins us from Huron University College of the University of Western Ontario. Professor Lemos is taking up a new joint position between CDTS and the Women and Gender Studies Institute. Professor Lemos’ recent research has focused on processes of dehumanization, cultures of violence, and genocide and she has put together an exciting course being offered in the Winter semester – “Filth: Transnational Perspectives on Dirt, Garbage, and Impurity”. Look for it in the Calendar under DTS305H1 – Special Topics in DTS.
We have an exciting line-up for this year’s speaker series which will be distributed shortly. Please put them in your calendar and plan to attend. The announcement of the Annual Ato Quayson Lecture in Diaspora and Transnational Studies will be circulated later in the Fall semester. We will also have several social and professional development events scheduled through the year to help students navigate the program, the university and begin to think about what comes next. The first of these is a WELCOME BREAKFAST on Sept 19 from 9-11. This is open to all students in DTS courses, DTS grad students, faculty, and staff. It’s a great chance to get to know each other and meet faculty in a less formal space than the lecture hall, so please put it in your calendar and plan on being there.
The Breakfast will be in what we familiarly call “The Boardroom”. We’re in the midst of redesigning that room so that it can be open daily as a DTS STUDENT COMMON SPACE. We should have it ready to go soon, so please watch for an announcement and do come and use it.
There are still familiar faces in the Centre. Dr. Antonela Arhin, the Associate Director, keeps the Centre running smoothly, and Katharine Bell, Communications and Program Officer, takes care of keeping us all connected, organizing our events, and making sure that they come off without a hitch.
That’s it for now. I hope you enjoy the first few weeks of semester, are able to enjoy the remains of summer out in the city and that you have a rich, intellectually and personally rewarding year. If there are ways that we can help to make that happen, or if you have questions about CDTS please feel free to drop by the Centre or email. Regular hours are 9-5, Monday-Friday. And if we don’t see you before then, we’ll look forward to seeing you for breakfast on Sept 19!