Stage One: Letter of Intent
Program Identification:
Human Rights and State Violence
Credential Granted:
B.A.
Proposed Start Date:
September 2015
Program Description:
Honours, Specialization, Major, Minor
(Faculty, School, Department)
The Human Rights and State Violence (HRSV) program is an interdisciplinary and
multidisciplinary exploration of the historical, political, economic, gendered, class
and racial structures of violence and forms of resistance and intervention through
the mobilization, institutionalization, and protection of human rights as well as
through direct action by or against states. The program combines historical and
contemporary examinations of the mechanisms of state coercion ranging from
humanitarian intervention to abuses of power. With historical and theoretical
grounding in mechanisms of violence and state intervention, students are equipped
to analyze and engage justice, human-rights based, and historical responses
including resistance, arts, and activism, decolonization and healing, social and
economic justice, international intervention and humanitarianism, United Nations
initiatives, as well as institutional and non-institutional forms of post-conflict peace,
justice, reconciliation, and memorialization.
1. Fit with the University’s and Faculties’ plans and priorities
The Human Rights and State Violence program maximizes existing resources and
expertise, representing tremendous efficiency of faculty and staff, and it allows for
the packaging of existing courses into a new and exciting program that has practical
import.
The proposed program will be administratively housed in the Department of Gender
Equality and Social Justice, with the participation of departments and programs in
the Faculty of Arts and Science and the Faculty of Applied and Professional Studies.
The chair of GESJ will be responsible for the HRSV budget line which will be
separate and distinct from GESJ’s budget. There will be a steering committee
comprised of members from participating departments. The key departments
involved in the planning and offering of the program are Gender Equality and Social
Justice, History, Political Science, and Social Welfare and Social Development. The
program also includes course offerings in Aboriginal Leadership, Anthropology,
Biology, Business, Classics, Criminal Justice, Economics, English, Geography, Native
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Studies, Philosophy, and Religions and Cultures. It will also dovetail nicely with the
proposed Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) program, providing relevant curriculum.
Human rights is a growing, popular field of study and has high attraction for
students. Uniquely, the HRSV program centralizes the history of state violence as
integral to understanding the evolution and practice of human rights. State violence
encompasses the myriad of actions carried out by states, whether directed against
each other, their citizens, or other sub-national agents. State violence is a permanent
feature of the contemporary world and is therefore integral to virtually every area
of modern scholarship regardless of national, geographical, or temporal context.
Thus, studying and understanding the mechanisms of state violence and human
rights creates informed global citizens and also prepares graduates for professional
engagement in a number of areas including law, conflict resolution and mediation,
teaching, public service, policy analysis, advocacy, activism, journalism, politics,
international development, humanitarian or refugee work, foreign service, and
national and transnational government agencies, as well as the military and law
enforcement.
There are also countless graduate programs in human rights or related fields,
including disability studies, peace and conflict studies, transitional justice, and
sexuality studies. Graduate students may also pursue human rights and state
violence specializations within traditional disciplines such as history and political
science.
The HRSV program will recruit new students to Nipissing University. There are
Human Rights programs at St. Thomas University, the University of Winnipeg, York
University, Carleton University, the University of Ottawa, and Wilfrid Laurier
University (Brantford). There are no universities in Canada offering programs
focused solely on state violence. Nipissing is the only university in the north to offer
a program in human rights and state violence, and it is this link that distinguishes
the HRSV program regionally and nationally. Our emphasis on the relationship
between human rights and specific forms of structural and acute state violence will
attract students committed to understanding state power, and the ways in which
states both protect and violate human rights in public and in private.
The program is organized around five themes of study: War, Atrocity and Conflict;
Law, Politics and Institutions; Social and Economic Justice; Diversity, Equality and
Persecution; and Colonization, Decolonization and Indigeneity. This is in keeping
with the strategic mandate of the university, as is the strong international
component to the program, seen especially in the first two themes of study. The
program will include an optional community service learning component (using
existing CSL courses in GESJ and SWSD), and students may elect to undertake their
service learning abroad. Students may participate in Nipissing University’s
international study programs offered in a variety of locations, and students will also
take field trips to memorials or museums when possible. All these opportunities will
allow students to gain an intimate understanding of human rights and social
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injustices by visiting the places they discuss in the classroom. The program also
provides a focus on colonization and the rights of Indigenous peoples through its
course offerings, which may be supplemented through relevant CSL sites. While
there is no formal research component to the program, students may conduct direct
research in the fourth-year honours seminar.
In summary, following Appendix J of the NU-IQAP Policy, the Human Rights and
State Violence program demonstrates:
Academic Fit and Relevance: this program strengthens and maximizes existing
course offerings, particularly those in small departments, and draws upon existing
faculty research and teaching expertise.
Interdisciplinarity: this program involves multiple departments and collaboration
between the Faculties of Arts and Science and Applied and Professional Studies. The
program is both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary in its approach.
Critical Inquiry Initiative: The curriculum has a strong international component with
optional community service learning that could potentially occur abroad. The
program will appeal to a broad range of students. In particular it is designed to
attract international students interested in the study human rights and Canadian
students interested in studying abroad as part of their program. International
students are an important constituency who can offer valuable insights and
perspectives that enrich the program.
Access for First Generation Students: Given the breadth of human rights and state
violence in people’s everyday experience, the proposed program has the potential to
attract first generation students who are exposed to these issues at the secondary
level or in their own lives. The multi- and interdisciplinary nature of the program
opens itself to a variety of learners. Outreach will occur through community service
learning placements, and through social and research events, such as a film series or
the honours seminar presentations, that will help to build community and
awareness. The engagement of First Nations, Métis and Inuit students may
additionally be strengthened through a curriculum that challenges ongoing
practices of colonization and seeks decolonization through methodological,
epistemological, and historico-political paths of critical inquiry.
Teaching and Learning Excellence: Through its inter- and multidisciplinary
approach, this program challenges students to think about the myriad nature of
violence and oppression through diverse theoretical and analytical perspectives.
The program rests on the imperative that learning from the past and the present
will encourage students to become active global citizens capable of identifying and
redressing human rights violations locally, nationally, and internationally. The
program has clear learning outcomes for students that will equip them for a variety
of different career paths. The program also envisions the possibility of collaborative
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teaching amongst faculty in order to further develop dialogue, interdisciplinarity,
and program cohesion.
Regional Need and Relevance: Human rights and state violence are pressing local
issues in a broad variety of contexts, including residential schools, Idle No More,
land rights, economic globalization, LGBTQ rights, and human trafficking, to name a
few. Existing community service-learning offered by GESJ and SWSD shows an
obvious demand for human rights-oriented service to the region. Moreover, English
History, Native Studies, and Political Science all offer courses relevant to local issues.
Environment and Sustainability: The interrelationships between environment and
human conflict, as well as the cultural diversity in epistemologies of land and
landscape, are integral to a critical understanding of human rights and state
violence. Environmental sustainability is wrapped into struggles for justice,
including gender justice and justice for Indigenous peoples, and the proposed
program offers many courses (particularly in Geography and Gender Equality and
Social Justice) that underscore this imperative. The university has a CRC candidate
in Environmental History and Geography who will contribute to this component of
the program.
2. Student demand and anticipated growth of the program
Given the existing popularity of the human rights and state violence-themed courses
at Nipissing University, we anticipate recruitment, including through double
majoring in the HRSV program, and external recruitment once the program
establishes itself. The most comparable program in the province, at Wilfrid Laurier
(Brantford), has 64 single honours students with a cohort of roughly 20 students
per year. They run three sections of Intro every year with one hundred students per
section. (There are 50 majors at Winnipeg, 40 majors at St. Thomas, and 315 majors
at Carleton). Judging by these comparator numbers, as well the number of majors in
Nipissing University’s core contributing programs, (GESJ 27; SWSD 56; History 191;
POLI 31), the program is anticipated to grow to twenty majors/honours students
per year.
The long-term sustainability of the program is guaranteed both in the general
growing popularity of human rights as a field of study and in the ways in which the
program lends itself well to double-majoring.
3. Current and proposed faculty and other required teaching and research
resources
There are approximately 85 existing courses listed in the HRSV offerings. While we
therefore do not offer a complete list of contributing faculty members, the main
faculty members involved in the delivery of the program include:
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Anthropology: Dr. Carly Dokis
English Studies: Dr. Kristin Lucas, Dr. Gyllian Phillips, Dr. Laurie Kruk
Geography: Dr. Kirsten Greer, Dr. James Abbott, Dr. Jason Kovacs (LTA), Dr. Dan
Walters
Gender Equality and Social Justice: Dr. Rosemary Nagy, Dr. Sal Renshaw, Dr. Wendy
Peters, Dr. Leslie Thielen-Wilson (LTA)
History: Dr. Hilary Earl, Dr. Stephen Connor (LTA), Dr. Gordon Morrell, Dr. Katrina
Srigley, Dr. Kirsten Greer, Dr. Catherine Murton-Stoehr (CASBU), Dr. Mark Crane
(CASBU)
Native Studies: Prof. Terry Dokis
Philosophy: Dr. David Borman
Political Science: Dr. David Tabachnick, Dr. Toivo Koivukoski, Dr. Herminio Teixeira
(LTA)
Religions and Cultures: Dr. Nathan Colborne, Dr. Susan Srigley
Social Welfare and Social Development: Dr. Larry Patriquin, Dr. Manuel Litalien, Dr.
Lanyan Chen
The stability and growth of the program will require one tenure-track position
dedicated to the Human Rights and State Violence program. This position ensures
the annual delivery of HRSV core courses without detracting from contributing
departments’ existing commitments to their own programs. The Department of
History will develop and offer annually the core introductory course. Given
History’s existing resources, the introductory course will provide experienced
seminar leaders with PhDs who will facilitate academic development through a
seminar experience in first year where students will learn critical engagement with
sources and writing skills. This also helps anchor student community and orient
them within a multi- and interdisciplinary program. Existing courses within GESJ,
SWSD and POLI will comprise core courses at the second and third year levels.
While POLI and SWSD already offer their core courses annually, GESJ is somewhat
constrained; to offer its second-year core course annually would detract from its
other human rights course offerings. The development of two other core courses, a
third-year theoretical critique of human rights and the fourth-year capstone
honours seminar, while certainly possible within existing faculty expertise and
interest, is, again, subject to teaching load and contributing program constraints.
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Current research support has included standard research and grant writing support
offered by Research Services and the library. No new research resources are
anticipated beyond these standard services.
4. Other resources required
The Human Rights and State Violence program requires an operating budget of
$5000 to cover costs such as photocopying, printing, office supplies, NipWorks or
International student assistants, a speaker series, library resources, and a general
departmental fund. The program does not require additional infrastructure, capital
space or student satellite locations.
5. Confirmed and potential external financial support
n/a
6. Possible and confirmed partnerships with other units and institutions
The Steering Committee for the development of this program includes
representatives from English Studies, History, Gender Equality and Social Justice,
Philosophy, Political Science, and Social Welfare and Social Development.
Additionally, the Departments of Sociology and Anthropology, Business, Classics,
Criminal Justice, Economics, Geography, Native Studies, and Religions and Cultures
have been contacted and their participation has been confirmed.
7. How might the resources required by the new program be made available?
The new position will serve “double duty” (if not triple duty) given the
multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary nature of the program. The new position is
an investment not only in Human Rights and State Violence, but also, depending on
the teaching portfolio of the hire, an investment in any programs in which the new
hire’s courses would be cross-listed. In other words, the hire should be seen as a
faculty-wide investment. Given the popularity of human rights programs at other
institutions, and the popularity of state violence-focused courses at Nipissing
University, and our anticipated recruitment of new students, the HRSV program
should provide an overall surplus to the University, and this surplus is anticipated to
grow over time.
MOTION: That ARCC recommend to the Arts and Science Executive to approve
the Stage One: Letter of Intent describing the proposed Human Rights and
State Violence Program.
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