President's Letter

From: James Russell, University of British Columbia
            <russellj@interchange.ubc.ca>
 
 

16 January, 2002                                                                                                   VANCOUVER,  B.C.

Dear Colleagues:

As President of the CAC I thought it might be a good idea to take advantage somewhat belatedly of our Electronic Bulletin to wish everyone who receives the Bulletin, members of the Association and friends alike, best wishes for a Happy New Year.  Bonne Année à tous.

At the same time I would also like to bring you up to date on recent developments in the Association.  For those of you who attended the annual meeting of the Association in Waterloo last May some of what follows will be familiar, but if you were not able to attend the meeting you may appreciate reading about some of the highlights.
 

A.  The Annual Meeting
First, the meeting itself set a record for the number of members attending, a total of 184 registrations.  The excellent attendance was matched by the splendid hospitality provided by the two host universities, Waterloo and Wilfred Laurier.  It was especially gratifying that the earlier date made it possible for a larger number of our archaeological colleagues to attend than in previous years.  I would especially like to thank the two Co-Chairs, Sheila Ager at Waterloo and Judith Fletcher at WLU, as well as their colleagues and student helpers, for all their hard work in arranging such a congenial and stimulating meeting.

The Waterloo meeting was the third time that we have met at a different time and place from the Congress of Learned Societies, a practice that we began as an experiment at Laval in 1999 and continued at the University of Winnipeg in 2000.  In order to establish whether we should continue to meet separately in the first half of May or revert to meeting with the other Learned Societies at the end of May, a questionnaire drawn up by a Committee chaired by Vice President Catherine Rubincam was circulated amongst the membership at the beginning of last year.  This produced results which indicated very strong support for continuing our new practice.  (A summary of the questionnaire prepared by Catherine follows this letter.)  A motion was therefore proposed at our AGM in Waterloo that we should in future regularly hold our annual meetings at places of our choice during the first half of May.  This passed almost unanimously.  You will be interested to know that the CAC Council has already received and accepted invitations for meetings at the following places for the next few years as follows:

2002, May 11-13, UBC, Vancouver
2003, May               UNB, Fredericton
2004, May               Univ. Laval, Québec
2005, May 12-14, Univ. of Calgary, to be held at The Banff Conference Centre.

B)  In memoriam collegarum qui nuper obierunt
One of the sad duties that I fulfilled at Waterloo was to announce the deaths of several members who passed away during the previous year.  We all stood for a minute of silence to honour their memory.  I would like to see us continue this practice in the future.

Janet Bews, Trent University
Desmond Conacher, Trinity College, University of Toronto, Honorary
        President of the CAC
James Doull, Dalhousie University
Edwin Eagle, University of Winnipeg, first editor of Classical News and
        Views (now Mouseion)
Homer Thompson, The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.

Please let me know of any names that we have missed so that we may honour their memory at our next AGM; and also notify me of the deaths of any members that occur in the present academic year.
 

C)  Honorary President
With Desmond Conacher's death, we have to seek a new Honorary President.  The responsibility for making the final selection rests with the Council, but in order to ensure a good range of choice, I encourage any member or group of members to send in nominations to our Secretary, Patrick Baker <patrick.baker@hst.ulaval.ca> or myself <russellj@interchange.ubc.ca>.  Although no guide-lines exist for this office, Honorary Presidents in the past have fallen into one of two categories.  The majority have been senior colleagues who have served the profession with distinction as scholars and/or teachers and taken an active part in the affairs of the Association.  On a number of occasions, however, we have chosen some distinguished citizen, who, though not a professional classicist, is a professed lover of the Classics, who may be expected by her/his reputation and example to raise the profile of Classics amongst the general public.  As examples of this category I recall the President of CBC and a Chief Justice of Manitoba having held office as Honorary Presidents.

D)  Fund-Raising

1)  The Desmond Conacher Scholarship Fund
At the Fall Council meeting of 2000 we discussed whether the CAC should not adopt a more vigorous policy of fund-raising for some of our programmes.  Although a number of possibilities were discussed without a decision, the God of Bonus Eventus had clearly been listening, for towards the end of that year I received a letter from one of our members challenging us to establish a Graduate Scholarship Fund in memory of Desmond Conacher with a target of $50,000.  Its purpose would be to support a Canadian student entering a graduate programme in any field of Classics at a Canadian University.  With the letter came the promise of a very generous donation to start the ball rolling.  This was all that was needed.  By March of 2001 a Scholarship Committee had been set up with Martin Cropp as Chair.  An initial appeal was sent out to friends and colleagues of Desmond Conacher.  This has produced in the space of only 9 months donations and pledges of over $35,000, including a very substantial gift from the Conacher family.  With the addition of a donation from the Association itself the Fund now stands at over $37,000.  Now that the appeal has been widened to include the entire membership of the CAC and the Classics Departments of our universities, you have an opportunity to push the Fund closer to its target.  Please give generously this year and pledge further donations for next year and following years.

2)  The Sight and Essay Contests.
Together with our two journals, the Student Contests are amongst the Association's oldest activities.  The Latin and Greek Sight Contests, then organized regionally, were already going strong when I first started teaching in 1959.  The Essay Contest was added more recently to give the opportunity to our non-language students to prove their mettle.  Over the years these competitions have proved their worth in encouraging our better students in universities and high schools across Canada to measure their translation skills against their peers in other parts of the country.  The continuing success of our Contests over the years has rested on the shoulders of a small number of colleagues who have taken on the task of administering the contests, selecting and marking the translation passages, and reading the essays.  The work is laborious and the value of what our colleagues contribute to this important programme in time and effort has not always been fully recognized.  On behalf of the membership, therefore, I extend the collective thanks of the CAC to those currently responsible for the Sight and Essay Contests; Patricia Calkin of Dalhousie University who has coordinated the programme for the last few years and also set and marked the Junior Greek paper, Leona MacLeod, University of Windsor (Senior Greek paper), Christopher Marshall, Memorial University (Senior Latin), Roberto Nickel, Laurentian University (Junior Latin), Kathryn Simonsen, The University of Alberta (High School Latin), Frances Pownall, The University of Alberta, who coordinates the Essay Contest, and her colleagues who assist her in ranking the candidates.

The various competitions also depend on the generosity of colleagues who contribute cash donations annually to fund the prizes given to the winners.  Unfortunately, the amount received barely suffices to fund even the very modest prizes that the CAC now currently awards.  Fund-raising for this programme has traditionally been rather passive, taking the form of an optional line in the statement of dues form that we receive at the end of each year.  If you have not already sent in your renewal payment, therefore, please consider adding a donation to assist in funding the Contests if it has not been your practice to do so; and if you have already sent in your renewal cheque, please consider sending a supplementary cheque for this worthy cause.  I know that your colleagues who are running the Contests will appreciate the opportunity to increase the amount awarded in each prize and, even more, the prospect of increasing the number of prizes awarded.

E.  The Journals
Recently we received the excellent news that both of the Association's journals have been awarded the full amount of funds that they had applied for from SSHRCC to cover the next three years.  Over the years we have come to take this triennial award for granted, and with it the endorsement of the excellence of both of our journals that this continuing success represents in what is a rigorous process of adjudication at a time when the funds available are quite restricted.  I would like to record the appreciation of the CAC to the editorial teams responsible for maintaining the high scholarly quality of each journal and so enhancing the reputation of Canadian classicists amongst our colleagues in other countries; Jonathan Edmondson of York University, the editor of Phoenix, who will shortly be stepping down from this role, and his team of Associate Editors, Review Editors and administrative assistants; and James Butrica and Mark Joyal of Memorial University, the co-editors of Mouseion and their team of assistants, for successfully overseeing the transformation of our familiar Classical Views/Echos du Monde Classique to its new format as Mouseion.  I can recall the original Classical News and Views back in the early 1960s when it appeared as a typescript newsletter and news rather than views  dominated its pages.  I never fail to admire how it has gone from strength to strength under successive editorial teams representing every region of our nation in the course of its nearly 50 years of existence; Winnipeg (1956-1965), Ottawa (1965-1981), Calgary (1981-1989), Victoria (1990-1994) and currently St. John's (1996-).  Buona fortuna to the new Mouseion and may it enjoy a future as bright and colourful as its new cover.

I look forward to seeing many of you at our annual meeting in Vancouver in May.

Sincerely,
James Russell,
President,  Classical Association of Canada.

The questionnaire drawn up by the Sub-Committee of Council appointed by President Russell, as approved by Council at its October 2000 meeting, was sent out with the annual mailing from the Treasurer in December 2000, with a request that responses be sent (by e-mail, fax, or regular mail) to myself, as Chair of the Sub-committee, by January 10, 2001.  This deadline was subsequently set back, by means of an announcement carried in the Electronic Bulletin of the Association, to February 12, 2001.

61 questionnaires were received by that date.  In the questionnaire the numeration descends from 5 = strongly in favour, to 1 = strongly opposed. Here is a tabulation of the responses:

a) The CAC should continue its recent practice of holding its AGM separately from the annual meeting of the Learneds organized by the HSSFC.

5: 21 = 35%     4: 14 = 23%     3: 6 = 10%     2: 5 = 8%     1: 14 = 23%

b) The time and place of any independent CAC AGM should be arranged with a view to enabling members to attend both the CAC and the Learneds.

5: 19 = 33%     4: 15 = 26%     3: 18 = 32%     2: 4 = 7%      1: 1 = 2%

c) The CAC should revert to its former practice of holding its AGM as part  of the annual meeting of the Learneds organized by the HSSFC.

5: 13 = 22%     4: 4 =  7%     3: 8 = 14%     2: 16 = 28%     1: 17 = 29%

d) The CAC should vary its practice, meeting some years with the Learneds and some years independently.

5: 7 = 12%     4: 6 = 10%     3: 17 = 29%     2: 11 = 19%     1: 18 = 31%

If one sets aside the responses in the middle of the scale (3 - "have no preference"), and adds together the percentages of the two groups at each end of the scale, the following is the result:

a)     5 + 4 =  58%                                     2 + 1  =  31%

b)     5 + 4 =  59%                                     2 + 1  =    9%

c)     5 + 4 =  29%                                     2 + 1  =   57%

d)     5 + 4 =  22%                                     2 + 1  =   50%

It thus appears that approximately twice as many respondents favour continuing the independent meetings as favour rejoining the Learneds, while a similar percentage of respondents would prefer that any separate meeting be organized so as to permit attendance at both CAC and the Learneds.  This might seem to be an argument in favour of varying our practice; but 50% of those responding indicated that they disagreed more or less strongly with this option.

Respectfully submitted,
Catherine Rubincam,
Chair of the Ad-hoc Committee

Next regular issue 2002 02 15
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