News

History professor Matthew Hayday will be featured on the CTV News Channel program Afternoon Express today at 2:30 p.m.
He will be discussing about the continued relevance of bilingualism and the official languages policy of the federal government. Hayday, who studies official languages in education, was a contributor to the book Life After Forty: Official Languages Policy in Canada. It examines the country’s Official Languages Act and discusses why, despite the act, bilingualism in English Canada is only slightly higher than it is in the United States.
     Watch the clip here
Hayday is currently researching the history of bilingualism in English-speaking Canada. He is also the author of Bilingual Today, United Tomorrow, which was a finalist for the Harold Adams Innis Prize, awarded to the best Canadian book in English in the social sciences. The award is administered by the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

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 Two official languages affirm pride in our past, prepare us for the future. BY SHIONA MACKENZIE, FRIDAY, JUNE 29, 2012

Along with national pride, controversies over bilingualism in Canada often surge around July 1. History professor Matthew Hayday frequently attends the annual “birthday party” on Ottawa’s Parliament Hill, where celebrations include the noontime playing of “O Canada” and flights by the Snowbirds aerobatics team. But he isn’t there just for fun; he is a keen observer of the symbolism connected with Canada’s identity, a researcher who focusses on issues of public policy, English-French relations, and federalism and identity politics in Canada. 

Read the rest of the story @Guelph

 Two official languages affirm pride in our past, prepare us for the future. BY SHIONA MACKENZIE, FRIDAY, JUNE 29, 2012

Along with national pride, controversies over bilingualism in Canada often surge around July 1. History professor Matthew Hayday frequently attends the annual “birthday party” on Ottawa’s Parliament Hill, where celebrations include the noontime playing of “O Canada” and flights by the Snowbirds aerobatics team. But he isn’t there just for fun; he is a keen observer of the symbolism connected with Canada’s identity, a researcher who focusses on issues of public policy, English-French relations, and federalism and identity politics in Canada. 

Read the rest of the story @Guelph

BY TERESA PITMAN for @ Guelph, MONDAY, JUNE 25, 2012
 
Think of them as the 19th-century version of TripAdvisor with one major disadvantage: the hotel and inn visitors’ books of that time period were kept on-site, so you couldn’t read warnings like the one above until after you checked in. History professor Kevin James is using the visitors’ books from several Irish inns and hotels to describe how people narrated their travel experiences. The project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
Read the rest of the story @ Guelph.

BY TERESA PITMAN for @ Guelph, MONDAY, JUNE 25, 2012
 
Think of them as the 19th-century version of TripAdvisor with one major disadvantage: the hotel and inn visitors’ books of that time period were kept on-site, so you couldn’t read warnings like the one above until after you checked in. History professor Kevin James is using the visitors’ books from several Irish inns and hotels to describe how people narrated their travel experiences. The project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
Read the rest of the story @ Guelph.

The Department's own Dr. Terry Crowley has been awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in recognition of his services to the community. The medal will be given at a Guelph Arts Council ceremony in the Fall of 2012. Congratulations from all of us!

The Department's own Dr. Terry Crowley has been awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in recognition of his services to the community. The medal will be given at a Guelph Arts Council ceremony in the Fall of 2012. Congratulations from all of us!

In Conversation with
JIAN GHOMESHI

Saturday September 15, 2012 at 4pm

Rozanski Hall room 104, University of Guelph

General Admission: $10/ticket; Students $5/ticketTickets
available at the door or in advance at www.ticketpro.ca or
The Bookshelf, 41 Quebec Street, Guelph

Oh, The Humanities!: Canada’s Language Czars Losing their Voice

By Kathryn Blaze Carlson for the National Post, May 30, 2012

Matthew Hayday remembers singing along to Angele Arsenault’s Bonjour, My Friend as it spun on his Fisher Price record player as a child. His parents had brought the album home for him, along with a bilingual boardgame he used to play with his sisters.

The record and the boardgame were both part of an educational kit called Oh! Canada, produced by the country’s first Commissioner of Official Languages and doled out for free somewhere in the order of two million copies. It was 1974 — five years after prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s government passed the Official Languages Act and enshrined Canadians’ rights to access government services in the language of their choice. The act tasked the commissioner with protecting the status of both English and French and, most explicitly, with conducting investigations into language-related complaints. (Read the story)