Learn from the best

The list of instructors for the 2013 edition of Concordia’s Workshops on Social Science Research (WSSR) reads like a veritable who’s who of Canadian politics.

Among the big names are former Liberal Party Leader Stéphane Dion, who will lead a workshop titled Making Sustainable Policy Choices, and former deputy prime minister Sheila Copps, who will address the future prospects of the Federal Liberal Party.

The list of presenters also includes former president of the Treasury Board Stockwell Day, Liberal critic John McCallum, former cabinet minister Don Boudria, and former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page.

Mebs Kanji, associate professor in the Department of Political Science, says that while securing the participation of these big names involves a lot of hard work, it’s also important for them to pass on what they learned in office to the young people who may one day assume similar political roles.

“They’ve had the privilege to serve, and now we’re asking them for one more thing: that they come here and share some of the experience that they’ve gained, so that future generations can benefit from it. Where else in our post-secondary education are we providing the opportunity to delve directly into the world of politics?”

A “summer school” initiative, launched in 2008 by Concordia’s Department of Political Science, the WSSR were initially designed to provide Concordia students with supplementary training in research methodology to prepare them for graduate school. “Students who are doing graduate degrees need to have some background in methodology in order to be able to do research, and we didn’t have that capacity,” Kanji says.

The WSSR workshops proved popular, and the program has doubled in size every year since. It now includes a variety of seminars on quantitative and qualitative research methodology, as well as a new section added last year on public policy and democratic governance. The workshops are taught by leading former or current political figures, as well as top-ranked professionals and academics.

“The idea is to give our students the chance to top off the innovative and excellent education they get here at Concordia with some actual frontline experience,” says Kanji, adding that the workshops are a great place for students to test theories they’ve learned in class against what’s happening out there in the real world.

“When they want to learn the ins and outs of how a budget is made, who better to convey that message than a former finance minister at the provincial level, or a treasury board president at the federal level? Not only do you get to discuss the topic; you often get to experience it too: question period simulations and policy drafting often occur as real-time group activities in the classroom,” he said.

Among the academics presenting workshops is Matteo Gianni, associate professor of political theory at the University of Geneva. He will examine public policy surrounding the political accommodation of cultural differences in multicultural societies, a particularly relevant topic here in Quebec, where reasonable accommodation has been a hot topic. “His experience in this field has a lot to offer us in terms of learning where things could go, or how things could develop, and how certain experiences have evolved,” Kanji says.

This is the second year in which Concordia students can earn credit for attending WSSR workshops, as long as they take enough to meet the requirement for a three-credit course.

The workshops are also open to students from other institutions, as well as members of the public. Kanji says people frequently travel from outside of Quebec, including the United States, to attend.

For this year’s edition, the organizers struck a partnership with the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), which is based at the University of Michigan. The ICPSR has been running its own Summer Program in Quantitative Methods Research since 1963. This year, it will offer a five-day workshop at Concordia during the WSSR titled Introduction to Regression Analysis.

There will also be three workshops related to sustainability issues. “This is bound to attract a lot of interest from our environmentally conscious Concordia community.” Kanji says.

Anyone wishing to register for WSSR workshops is encouraged to do so soon through the WSSR web page. Last year, many of the workshops reached their full capacity long before the registration deadline.

Related links:
•    Workshops on Social Science Research
•    Department of Political Science