Media Release

For Immediate Release

May 30, 2008

Saint Mary’s students to speak at international development conference

Four students from the International Development Studies (IDS) program at Saint Mary’s University will join a select group of international guest speakers this June when they make presentations at the national conference of the Canadian Association for the Study of International Development (CASID).

Students Robert Cameron, Cassandra Eberhardt, Brenda Estrada and Jessica Penner will make presentations at the conference, highlighting their research projects at Saint Mary’s. The theme of the conference is Thinking Beyond Borders – Global Ideas: Global Values. To be speakers at the conference, the students submitted summaries of their research projects outlining how their findings are relevant to the theme.

The conference will be held at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver June 6 to 7, as part of the annual mega-conference of the Canadian Federation for the Social Sciences and Humanities. 

The University’s Faculty of Arts is sponsoring the students’ travel to the conference. According to Dr. Esther Enns, Dean of Arts, the fact the students have been asked to make presentations at the prestigious conference speaks to the caliber of training provided the International Development Studies program at Saint Mary’s.

“It’s an important mark of success for this pioneer program in Canada,” said Dr. Enns, noting students graduating from the program will be the future workers in the international development “industry” – either as Canadians working abroad, or as international students taking knowledge and skill back home to make a difference in the development of their home countries.

The purpose of the conference is to explore a range of issues including poverty, homelessness, environment, militarism, inequality, violence, and exclusion. The conference aims to bring together IDS academics, policy-makers, students, aid workers, and social activists who share an interest in these issues, be it rural development, political science, international political economy, environmental studies, public policy, geography, economics, women’s studies or sociology. CASID hopes the conference will stimulate a critical, democratic, and fruitful dialogue.

The Canadian Association for the Study of International Development (CASID) is a national, bilingual, interdisciplinary and pluralistic association devoted to the promotion of new knowledge in the broad field of international development.

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For more information:

Blake Patterson
Public Affairs Officer
Saint Mary's University, Public Affairs
(902) 420.5514
E-mail: blake.patterson@smu.ca
www.smu.ca