Recipients 2022
In 2022 we introduced our competitive funding opportunities and supported the following four projects:
Conference Support Grant: ($500)
Amy Lorencz (Patrick Power Library / Saint Mary’s University)
Virtual Symposium: “Open Educational resources”
In the Fall of 2022, the Patrick Power Library and the Studio for Teaching and Learning hosted an Open Educational Resources (OER) symposium to support and encourage the development and use of OER materials in the Saint Mary’s community. Unlike traditional textbooks and learning materials, Open Educational Resources permit adaptations to the content, allowing for unique resources that can be more culturally diverse and reflective of the communities using these resources. OERs are also provided at no cost and in a variety of formats.
The launch of, a service that “supports the hosting and creation of open educational resources by educators and students in the Atlantic Provinces,” has increased access to content and funding opportunities that faculty and students at Saint Mary’s University can take advantage of when looking for high quality learning materials relevant to their studies. Featuring speakers from student advocacy groups, OER creators, and faculty who have adopted OER materials for their courses, this event increased awareness about the growing number of available resources and empower faculty to choose and use more open resources.
Research Grants ($1,000)
Dr. Tom Ue (Department of English / Dalhousie University)
Project: “(Re)Discovering Edward Prime-Stevenson’s Left to Themselves (1891)”
My project studies the depiction of Atlantic Canada in Edward Prime-Stevenson’s Left to Themselves: Being the Ordeal of Philip and Gerald (1891). Long acknowledged as a pioneer of American gay fiction, Prime-Stevenson (1858-1942) conceived of his novel as a prototype for an ambitious new kind of children’s literature: “It will be found its writer hopes to embody study, as well as story, for the thoughtful moments in young lives, on whose intelligences daily clearly break the beauty and earnestness of human life, of resolute character, of unselfish friendship and affection, and of high aim.” Accordingly, the scholar James Gifford praises Valancourt Classics’ new edition (2016) both for its contribution to LGBTQ studies and for its “resurrection” of Prime-Stevenson studies. Criticism has nevertheless overlooked his commentary on Atlantic Canada, notwithstanding the novel’s focus on its teenaged central characters’ journey from New York to Nova Scotia. My project recovers Left to Themselves’ insights into nineteenth-century Atlantic Canada; advances our understanding of Prime-Stevenson; converses with an international consortium of scholars on his writing; and situates Atlantic Canada more concretely in the area of global nineteenth-century studies.
My scholarship is recognized internationally. In 2022, I was appointed to the Editorial Board of the flagship Journal of Victorian Culture (Oxford UP); and I delivered my keynote lecture, on “Sherlock’s Lenses,” at the DePaul Pop Culture Conference in Chicago (). My excellent undergraduate research assistant, Jacob Aubut (SMU English Language and Literature), and I have produced several substantial outputs. First, we wrote an article, titled “A Moment’s Reprieve: Space and Performativity in Edward Prime-Stevenson’s Left to Themselves,” for submission to the peer-reviewed journal Global Nineteenth-Century Studies, and we are working on a second essay that studies the novel’s blackmailing plot. Secondly, Aubut has developed, with the support of Professor Dino Felluga (Purdue) and his Collaborative Organization for Virtual Education project (), a virtual map that traces and that analyzes Philip’s and Gerard’s journey to Nova Scotia. Thirdly, Aubut and I have discussed aspects of this project in Emma Catan’s Victorian Legacies podcast (). In the fall of 2022, Aubut and I presented some of our work at the launch of the Society of Global Nineteenth-Century Studies’ journal (). This meeting enabled us to gain invaluable feedback, equip Aubut with the training and the experience of consolidating and presenting our findings, and shared with delegates some of the exciting research activities in the Gorsebrook Research Institute. We thank the Gorsebrook Research Institute and Saint Mary’s University for their support.
Community Initiative Grant ($2,000)
Delmore Buddy Daye Learning Institute (Halifax, NS)
Project: “Youth Mental Health and Well-Being: Conversation to Develop an Africentric Support Framework.”
The Delmore "Buddy" Daye Learning Institute (DBDLI) collaborates with a variety of educational institutions on a wide range of community improvement projects. In 2022, the DBDLI received research funds worth $1,400 from the Gorsebrook Research Institute for its project, “Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing: Conversations to Develop an Africentric Support Framework.” It is a partial response to what we heard from community youth via our household COVID survey, and our Ancestral Roots Summits held with the regional centres of education throughout Nova Scotia. We are thankful for the bravery of youth to share their stories to contribute to a project that has promise to support all.
In this mental health workshop held on 25 May 2022 in Cape Breton, DBDLI worked with the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional Centre for Education through River View Rural High School to establish an Africentric framework with the goal of improving the youth's mental health and overall well-being. The youth participating had significant roles to play in all stages of the planning, developing, implementing, and evaluating processes pertaining to this effort. An Africentric mental Health framework will contribute to the improvement of youths' mental health and overall well-being in Nova Scotia.
Partnership Grant ($3,000)
Dr. Tony Charles (Acting Director School of the Environment / Saint Mary’s University)
Project: “Enhancing fishery sustainability as socio-ecological systems adapt to global change.”
How do fishers and fishery management institutions respond to ecological and economic changes? The North Atlantic Ocean has experienced dramatic changes and so the focus of our project involved two case studies to highlight the impact upon the fisheries. This collaborative project is carried out by Jennifer Beckensteiner (postdoctoral fellow, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, France), working with Olivier Thébaud (Ifremer, France) and Tony Charles (SMU).
The first case study is the anchovy fishery in the Bay of Biscay, which has changed greatly in the last two decades. The closure of the fishery from 2005 to 2010 led to negative impacts, with increasing pressure on other species and loss of market for the French fishing industry. While the anchovy stock has recovered, the fishery has not returned to its pre-collapse status. The second case study involves invertebrate fisheries in Nova Scotia, notably the development of the lobster fishery as a response to the collapse of the Atlantic cod fishery decades ago. This involves a survey of retired fishers, addressing their perceptions of fishery management and shellfishery development.
The study will lead to a comparison of long-term responses at the sectoral, coastal community, and institutional levels between the anchovy (France) and groundfish (Canada) fisheries. This comparative analysis will result in a more comprehensive understanding of the long-term responses of fisheries to major disruptions and reveal lessons for the adaptation of fisheries in the face of possible future shocks.