January 5, 2015 Message from IDC5 Organizing Chair Stefanie Ruel Welcome to IDC 2015! On behalf of the International Doctoral Consortium (IDC) 2015 organizing committee, I welcome you all to the official website for the Consortium. On a bi-weekly basis, I will be providing you updates on what the organizing committee has accomplished so far to make this a successful and enriching experience for you, and what exciting activities lay ahead for participants. Since the close of IDC 2014, the organizing committee from 2014 has handed over their knowledge and experience to the 2015 organizing committee. The 2015 committee, made up of student representatives from the IDC sponsor schools, have been hard at work getting the Consortium ready for June 2015. These volunteers have formed four sub-committees for IDC 2015: Program Schedule – Faculty – Mariana Paludi, SMU; Isabelle Krysa, SMU Program Schedule – Students – Elina Riivari, JSBE; Maarit Lammassaari, UEF; Vick Virtu, Nijmegen (RUN); Tuomas Kokko, JSBE. Special Outing – Chris Whynacht, U Mass; Adri Van Hilten, AU; Connie Graham, University of the Free State; Abhijeet Lele, BIMTECh Communications and Publicity – Annika Voltan, SMU; Adri Van Hilten, AU; Lucas Casagrande, UFRGS – Porto Alegre- Brazil The Program Schedule – Faculty sub-committee have exciting news to share: they have actively been working to build the workshop schedules with faculty who have agreed to support the Consortium. They also have secured the participation of our 2015 keynote speakers! Dr. Pushkala Prasad, Skidmore University, and Dr. Anshuman Prasad, University of New Haven, have graciously agreed to give the Keynote on Monday June 10th, 2015. They are internationally known for their separate and collective work in areas such as workplace diversity and multiculturalism, and postcolonialism (to name just a couple areas!). More updates to come in the ensuing weeks… so stay tuned! Stefanie (Ruel), Athabasca University Doctoral Student 2015 IDC Chair January 21 Update from IDC5 Organizing Chair Stefanie Ruel Following on with these bi-weekly updates, the Program Schedule – Students subcommittee has worked hard to put together a ‘user-friendly’ doctoral student approach to the IDC 2015. They have built in an early initial abstract submission and a final abstract submission format. This format allows students who need Visas to attend the Consortium in Canada to hear early on whether they have been accepted to present at their work at the Consortium – thereby helping to ensure the international experience of this Consortium. This unique format also allows first year doctoral students time to refine and acquire more knowledge through their course work, and then to apply it to their abstract submission. We are the only doctoral Consortium to allow knowledge to continue to grow and to be reflected in work accomplished so far! While this is challenging from an organizing perspective, we felt strongly that we needed to embrace the building of ‘emerging scholars’, including in the preparatory activities to this Consortium. The first deadline for initial abstracts – January 31st, 2015 – is fast approaching! So don’t hesitate to get your abstracts and registration forms handed in as soon as you can. Stefanie (Ruel), Athabasca University Doctoral Student 2015 IDC Chair