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Dear colleagues and friends,

When I think of all of the exciting developments in the Faculty of Public Affairs over the past year, these are the images that stay with me:

• More than 400 beaming undergraduates, parents and friends celebrating at the Dean’s Honour List reception;

• Our researchers sharing the stage with scholars from across the country during FPA Research Month;

• The knowledge and confidence of our students as they asked questions of visiting speakers such as humanitarian Stephen Lewis and journalist Lyse Doucet; and

• Watching federal election returns with students, faculty, staff, and community members on that Monday night in October when the face of the Canadian government changed profoundly.

These are the moments that reveal who we are in the Faculty of Public Affairs: people who strive to address regional and global challenges, as well as build better societies and better democracy by preparing the next generation of leaders.

Our exceptional faculty members and staff accomplish this in so many ways, both large and small. FPA in Motion 2015 is an opportunity for us to celebrate a few of these accomplishments, which reflect both the priorities of Carleton University’s Strategic Integrated Plan as well as the Faculty of Public Affairs’ Moving FPA

FPA in Motion Celebrating Our Progress in 2015

FPA in Motion 2015 2

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Forward: Priorities and Directions for the Faculty of Public Affairs, 2013-2018.

In Moving FPA Forward, we identified five broad objectives for our Faculty over a five-year period:

• Improving the accessibility and effectiveness of our courses and programs through the application of online resources.

• Creating opportunities for our faculty and students to engage with issues affecting the public interest.

• Transforming FPA into a more effective platform for engaging broader publics in Public Affairs issues.

• Fostering FPA’s involvement in training and educating public officials and citizens in Canada and abroad.

• Enhancing our capacity to deliver our research and programs of study effectively.

This publication is intended to tell our story for 2015, within the context of the Moving FPA Forward objectives. Thank you for being an important part of the FPA story.

Sincerely,

André PlourdeDean, Faculty of Public AffairsCarleton University

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“My preferred approach to teaching would probably be sitting in a circle and having a discussion.”

When Professor Gerald de Montigny received the call for proposals for blended learning courses, he was a bit apprehensive, but immediately interested.

“My preferred approach to teaching would probably be sitting in a circle and having a discussion,” acknowledges the Director of the School of Social Work. “I’ve always had a profound antipathy to being at centre stage while delivering a lecture.”

With that in mind, Professor de Montigny proposed a third-year Social Work course that would provide prerecorded lectures online that students could watch on their own time. It also reserved class time for the more engaged, dynamic discussions he prefers.

His course is just one example of blended learning, which the Faculty of Public Affairs supported in 2015 with a competitive grant program. Professors worked to develop courses—in collaboration with Carleton’s Educational Development Centre (EDC) —

Improving the accessibility and effectiveness of our courses and programs through the application of online resources

that cut classroom time in half and replaced it with online lectures and other assignments. The intention was to allow more flexibility for students with challenging schedules.

For de Montigny, the structure also allowed for a re-invigorated learning experience: classroom time was dedicated to role-playing common scenarios in social work with families, individuals and small groups.

“Class time was focused on the work at hand and skills development,” says Professor de Montigny, “and I was free from having to deliver a lecture.”

Those rich class discussions were also part of Political Science Professor Mira Sucharov’s experience with blended learning, which she applied to her course on Israeli-Palestinian relations.

But rather than recording lectures, Professor Sucharov used the opportunity to assign her students a larger selection of readings and documentary films, as well as asking them for weekly summaries about the materials.

“There are so many outstanding documentary films and written materials that lay out the

Priority A:

Blended Learning Initiative

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facts and arguments precisely, but we don’t have time for them in a conventional course,” says Professor Sucharov. “This allowed us to have a compact, intense, guided conversation during class time where we would really talk through the issues.”

Yet another advantage cited by faculty members was their ability to closely track students’ progress during the academic term.

For instance, Professor Andrea Chandler, the Acting Chair of the Department of Political Science, developed online lessons that guided students in her second-year course on Comparative Politics of the Global North through the reading materials. Each section finished with a multiple choice quiz to assess

their comprehension and help them prepare for the final exam. After each one, Professor Chandler advised students on which material they should read again.

“Overall, I found their marks improved with every section they completed,” she says. “By the end, they were applying their research skills and not just memorizing things. I hope to continue teaching the course in this way.”

Plans are under consideration to extend this initiative in 2016, during which time we will also assess what we have learned from offering these blended courses.

Professors Mira Sucharov, Gerald de Montigny and Andrea Chandler.

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Educating undergraduate students is at the heart of our mission here at FPA.

But any of us who work with them know that getting undergraduates more engaged can also be a serious challenge.

As part of our efforts to foster relationships between the University, Faculty, students, and organizations working for the benefit of society, we introduced FPA Connects, an event series designed to do just that.

The genesis of the idea arose, in part, from focus groups conducted for FPA by the Carleton University Survey Centre in May 2015. The researchers found undergraduates didn’t see beyond their academic units and didn’t feel that they were “a part of ” something larger, a Carleton community.

“We wanted undergraduates to have more opportunities to engage with faculty and other students on the Carleton campus,” says Betina Kuzmarov, Associate Dean (Student Success). “FPA Connects offers that and also contributed to our Faculty’s mission to foster informed citizenship, build better societies and better democracy.”

Creating opportunities for our faculty and students to engage with issues affecting the public interest

Priority B:

FPA Connects

FPA Connects featured three events in Fall 2015:

FPA Connects: Engage featured a viewing of the documentary film The Drop: Why Young People Don’t Vote, followed by a lively panel discussion featuring the film’s director; youth leaders from Toronto and Ferguson, Missouri; Laura Anthony from Samara Canada; and Political Science Professor Bill Cross, who has studied voting patterns among young people.

FPA Connects: Elect was an election night party that was open to students, faculty, staff, and the general public to come together to discuss the issues presented during the election campaign with FPA’s own political pundits, and then watch the returns roll in.

FPA Connects: Energize featured a panel discussion entitled “How to Get that Job” with young professionals working in the political realm. The wide-ranging discussion addressed undergraduates’ concerns about “putting their degree to work” upon graduation.

Planning for the 2016 edition of FPA Connects is already underway.

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VOTE

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Transforming FPA into a more effective platform for engaging broader publics in Public Affairs issues

Priority C:

Events and Communications

“Bringing Public Affairs to the public and the public to Public Affairs” is one of our main objectives in FPA. But there are challenges: helping members of the public navigate a university campus, translating our research for a general audience, and even just getting the word out about who we are.

We launched several initiatives in 2015 to share our work with the general public and to make it easier for them to attend our events on the Carleton campus.

FPA AmbassadorsGuided by the capable hand of our Event and Outreach Coordinator Cassie Hodgins, our FPA Ambassadors program grew from a handful of volunteers manning tables at 2015 FPA Research Month to an enthusiastic club with more than 40 members who are now taking on writing and photography assignments.

Not only do the Ambassadors present a friendly and knowledgeable face to members of the

public, they are often excited by the opportunity to attend the events and meet well-known speakers.

“I’ve learned so much as an Ambassador,” says Frohan Foroutan, president of the Carleton Undergraduate Economics Society. “Each event is unique and brings together people from various fields of studies to talk about current local and global challenges.”

FPA VoicesThe idea for this online magazine arose out of a brainstorm between our Creative Mastermind/Media Strategist Leo Solano and Communications Writer and storyteller Karen Kelly.

The two were thinking of new ways to tell the FPA story and agreed that the best stories in FPA are embodied in the people studying, teaching, researching, and working here.

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Since then, the magazine has featured special editions for Back to School, undergraduate recruitment, graduate student research, Research Month, convocation, and Carleton’s Collaborate campaign. But each issue remains rooted in the voices of the fantastic people who work here.

Author Meets Readers As firm believers that research findings are better appreciated while sitting on a well-worn bar stool, we found great success with our Author Meets Readers series, held monthly at a local pub.

Each event attracted a healthy mix of academics and members of the general public who engaged in lively debates based on a recent book published by an FPA faculty member. Our presenters included:

• Law and Legal Studies Professor Ummni Khan on the legalities of sadomasochism;

• SPPA Professor Stanley Winer on coercion and taxation;

• Political Management Professor Stephen Azzi on cultural comparisons across the 49th parallel;

• Law and Legal Studies Professor Melanie Adrian on religious freedom in French society;

• Journalism Professor Andrew Cohen on President John F. Kennedy; and

• SPPA Professor Graeme Auld on the eco-labelling movement.

RecruitmentIn response to concerns expressed by the heads of our academic units, FPA’s undergraduate outreach efforts featured a strong marketing push at the Ontario Universities Fair in September with a virtual tour—now available on the FPA website—a special undergraduate edition of FPA Voices, and the development of online recruitment pages for each academic unit to offer prospective undergraduates a one-stop shop for information on our programs of study.

For graduate students, we produced an expanded issue of FPA Voices that featured outstanding students from each graduate degree program. In the coming year, we will also be developing more comprehensive pages for our graduate programs on the website.

Faculty WebsiteWe have also been hard at work on a complete redesign for the FPA website. The site features new degree program pages, an updated Documents page for faculty and staff, and a more prominent space for our award-winning researchers. For a visit, click here.

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Fostering FPA’s involvement in training and educating public officials and citizens in Canada and abroad

Priority D:

The International Program for Development Evaluation Training (IPDET)

They come from Albania and Azerbaijan, Indonesia and Ireland, Nepal and Norway.

Participants from dozens of countries arrive on the Carleton campus each June as part of the four-week course for the International Program for Development Evaluation Training (IPDET), a global training in development monitoring and evaluation.

“This is a go-to program for development evaluation administrators around the world,” says IPDET Manager Julia Thompson. “It offers technical skills, but also strong networking and leadership development that has helped our alumni go on to play catalytic roles in their local environments.”

This past year, the IPDET program expanded its reach and revitalized its collaboration with the World Bank and FPA to consider building evaluation capacity around the world and particularly in the Global South.

The annual IPDET program attracts large teams of staff from the Canadian government as well as development administrators from developing countries, Western governments, NGOs, the United Nations, and elsewhere.

While the program aims to equip managers and practitioners with the tools to evaluate the

effectiveness of development policies, programs, and projects, it also provides support to its alumni who, as Thompson puts it, “can find it challenging to translate their learning into complex, demanding work environments.”

In response, IPDET launched a one-year mentorship program that matches alumni with experts in the development evaluation field. For instance, a partnership was forged between a former head of the Canadian Public Service Commission, Maria Barrados, and a team within the Public Service Commission in South Africa.

“The alumni group found it really useful to be able to reflect and strategize with someone from a similar institutional context,” says Thompson. “It was a very rich exchange.”

Thompson says IPDET recently completed a strategic review to assist with its continued growth year after year. The Faculty of Public Affairs has also assumed greater responsibility for both the operational management and the strategic direction of the program. But one attribute will remain constant: with each cohort and each intake of global delegates, the IPDET community of support and expertise will continue to expand.

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The Professional Institute

Another successful example in 2015 of FPA’s involvement in training and educating public officials and citizens is the FPA Professional Institute. The Institute expanded to include six workshops for professionals in fields such as non-profit communications, digital media, African Studies, data research, risk communication training, and political advocacy. More workshops are scheduled for 2016.

Julia Thompson, IPDET Manager.

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Enhancing our capacity to deliver our research and programs of study effectively

Priority E:

European Studies at Carleton

At a time when events in Europe dominate the front pages, the Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (EURUS) has established itself as a leader in the study of this region.In 2015, the Institute’s director, Professor

Achim Hurrelmann, was awarded a prestigious Jean Monnet Chair, a three-year teaching and research post funded by the European Union.

Professor Hurrelmann is one of only two Canadians to win the award last year and he is the second Jean Monnet Chair in the Faculty, along with EURUS colleague Professor Joan DeBardeleben.

“The fact that Carleton has been awarded its second Jean Monnet Chair reaffirms the role of Carleton as Canada’s premier research and teaching institution in the field of European Studies,” says Professor Hurrelmann.

DeBardeleben and also Hurrelmann lead Carleton’s Centre of European Studies (CES), which has been designated by the European Union as an EU Centre of Excellence (EUCE) and serves as the network coordinator for all of the EUCEs in Canada.

The centre plays host to visiting European scholars who offer courses at Carleton, and organizes conferences and numerous lectures on the Carleton campus and elsewhere. CES also provides travel grants for Carleton students to do field research in the EU, consult with European institutions, and take part in internships—all of it enriching our students’ understanding of this important region.Professor Joan DeBardeleben.

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Additional Highlights of 2015:

• The establishment of a Legal Decision- Making Lab, led by Professor Evelyn Maeder in the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

• The creation of an Experimental Economics laboratory, led by Professor Radovan Vadovič in the Department of Economics, funded by a Canada Foundation for Innovation Grant and an Ontario Small Infrastructure Grant.

• The introduction of research bursaries to support faculty members who are finishing a research project, as well as travel bursaries to aid faculty with travel and accommodations at teaching-focused conferences.

• The approval of the renewed Bachelor of Communication and Media Studies, which will welcome its first cohort in Fall 2016.

• The ad hoc committee on Priority Area D—Fostering FPA’s involvement in training and educating public officials and citizens in Canada and abroad released a white paper entitled Moving FPA Institutes Forward. Consultations on the white paper and possible next steps are currently underway.

• The ad hoc committee on Priority C— Transforming FPA into a more effective platform for engaging broader publics in Public Affairs issues is in the process of meeting to develop a plan to ensure more effective promotion of research by FPA faculty and students and to build relationships between the Faculty and the wider community. A committee white paper will be forthcoming.

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Conclusion

Those are just a few of the many success stories from the Faculty of Public Affairs over the past year, and as we begin 2016, there’s a sense of excitement in the air. Here’s what we’re looking forward to:

2016 FPA Research Month: With more than 30 lectures, symposiums, and student research presentations, Research Month continues to highlight our strong commitment to research and learning.

New FPA Websites: As noted previously, we recently unveiled our improved Faculty website

featuring online student recruitment pages. We’ll be following up with new websites for each of the academic units to improve our visitors’ experience.

IPAF 4900: Our commitment to undergraduate research opportunities is expanding with the IPAF 4900 course, which allows undergraduates to earn academic credit while acquiring first-hand experience conducting research on projects identified by faculty members.

BGInS: Our Bachelor of Global and International Studies (offered jointly with the

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Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences) exceeded expectations for enrollment in its first year. In 2016, we’ll be adding a thirteenth specialization in Global Media and Communication to the BGInS offerings.

75 for 75th: As Carleton prepares to celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2017, FPA has begun reaching out to the inspiring alumni recommended by our academic units. We’ll start featuring them on a 75 for 75th page on our website in April.

As the year progresses, you may think of something or someone who deserves to be featured on our website or in FPA in Motion 2016. If so, please send me an email. I always welcome good news about FPA!

Wishing you a happy, healthy, and productive year!