SSHRC campaign presents 17,000 signatures to the house of commons

I just received this email from the campaign to stop the changes to SSHRC. Congratulations to the organizers of this campaign.

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Hello, Thank you for being one of more than 17,000 people who have signed the written petition in opposition to the government's earmarking of Canada Graduate Scholarship funding within SSHRC.
Once we started our campaign against this earmarking, petitions flooded our office from every province and territory in Canada, as well as the United States, Britain, Germany and Japan.
It was an incredible response.
In this last legislative session, I had the honour of presenting this petition in the House of Commons on your behalf. Together, we have made a powerful statement in opposition to the government’s attack on the social sciences and humanities and its overall disregard for the fundamental principle of academic freedom.

(Featured: Arati Sharma and Rick Theis of CASA, Hon. Niki Ashton, and from CFS Graham Cox, Federico Carvajal and Gaétan-Philippe Beaulière)
We must continue to work together. The battle continues in the face of ongoing actions and interference of the Minister of Science and Technology, Gary Goodyear. In advance of the next budget, we will continue to make it clear that not only is discipline-related earmarking unacceptable but that social sciences and humanities research in Canada is vital. The contributions made by students, researchers, academics and people working in the social sciences and humanities are integral to moving our country forward.
Thank you again for joining me, and the thousands of others who have spoken out in opposition to the actions of this Government.
I invite you to watch the embedded video link of my presentation to the House: https://mail.uvic.ca/owa/redir.aspx?C=856195e385fa4f9aaab6b65e26669bdb&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.youtube.com%2fwatch%3fv%3d-ms6o_LlUc0
I look forward to staying in touch!
Niki

The Graduate Student's Society is no more

Because we are now the Graduate Students' Society.

Hurrah for punctuation!

Tandem Heaven!

As a tandem rider, I am excited the Northwest Tandem Rally is at UVIC this weekend. And I'm finding it hard to sit at my desk because from here I can see hundreds of tandems taking off for a lovely ride to Butchard Gardens!

I was especially jealous of this:


... the rare three-seater! I have heard rumours someone in town has a tandem big enough for my whole family, but have never seen one.


I wish I was out there too... look how friendly the tandem folk are:


Wait a minute, is that my old English teacher from high school?



Can't wait for the weekend!