The King’s history of science and technology program has come into money, receiving over $222,000 in grants from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council.
The smaller $22,000 grant is for the HOST department’s international workshop on history of marine sciences, in honour of Eric Mills. The workshop, in June 2014, is organized in partnership with York University, Dalhousie University, the Nova Scotia Institute of Science, and others.
“(Mills) was teaching at Dalhousie and because he loved the history of science so much, he created with Gordon McOuat the history of science and technology program,” program director Melanie Frappier said. “So it’s kind of a way to celebrate his career and what he has done for the college.”
The second grant, coming in at over $200,000, will help fund Gordon McOuat’s project of developing research and teaching partnerships with universities in China and South East Asia. This money will fund the project for several years.
The grant may enable McOuat to bring researchers from countries like India or Singapore to King’s to interact with the community by teaching courses, leading reading groups, or meeting with students.
“That’s going to be quite an exciting adventure,” Frappier said about McOuat’s project. “We hope that eventually we’ll be able to have students go and study in South East Asia and in China, and have them come back and tell us about their experience and enrich what’s happening in the world.”
The grants indicate that these projects are some of “the best research projects in the humanities in Canada right now,” Frappier said.
Students are also encouraged to engage in these projects. “Although it’s a faculty member that’s received this, it’s done in the King’s spirit of ‘we want to bring students along for the ride.”
