Hello CER members and friends:

Many thanks to Sandy McAuley for his August Update on CER in which he has thankfully been Acting Director. I am very grateful to CER members for naming me as CER Director for the next 2 years. With full awareness of the financial and other challenges of building CER, I am excited to see how we can develop CER as a strong research centre. This is where I want to convey my gratitude and respect for Ray Doiron as the founding Director and to Carla DiGiorgio and Sandy as Directors who thankfully sustained CER's actitivies, including the Seminar Series and the Research Forum, website, and many projects that were funnelled through CER. It looks like in the last year, over $47,000 in external funds, plus more in internally funded projects, were generated related to CER projects. This is from the Joint Education Research Group, managing 2 journals, the PEITF contract, a conference and various small projects that were organized by former Directors. Kudos on this! It shows promise even if we need to sort out who is doing what, how funds flow through CER and what administrative funds are left to operate CER.

By way of introduction, I have a dual background in a health profession (occupational therapy) and adult education. With an M.Ad.Ed. from St. Francis Xavier U, and a PhD in education (adult) from Dalhousie, I look at the world broadly, with teaching and learning interests focused on the social organization of knowledge in enabling or constraining (disabling) the everyday engagement of marginalized adults in creating a just society. My main concerns are with the ongoing marginalization, alienation, deprivation and exclusion from meaningful 'occupations', very broadly defined as everything people do, particularly the historic exclusion of adults with mental health issues. Some of you may be interested in my sociological background in mental health/illness and in using the theory and method of institutional ethnography developed by Dorothy Smith and her colleagues at OISE and other places. I lived mostly in PEI between the late 1960's to the early 1980s (an Islander by Choice) and love being back in my house and community in Belfast.

My plan as incoming part-time Director (note my italics to contain expectations!) starts with sorting out finances and generating core funding. My commitment is to have a report to the Dean of Education, and to CER members on possible core funding options by October 31.

You will be wondering what a part-time Director with a background in adult education, which has not been a focus for CER to date, can accomplish as Director?

Here's what makes sense to me to start doing between August - October pending CER member engagement to shape up plans:

• sort out funding and office personnel, e.g., plans to reinstate office support in mid-September and to consider how a Faculty of Education Associate Director taking on service duties through workload negotiations with the Dean could not only contribute but provide important links with the traditional school-based education community at UPEI and around the Island
• meet with members of the Faculty of Education and the Operating Committee to listen to your vision for CER, your priorities before and after October 31, and your actual plans for linking your research with CER (and the financial & personnel implications of that), e.g., as time permits CER members and the Operating Committee might wish to help with identifying Seminar speakers, generating practical ideas on how to support research grant writing and grant management
• sort out the CER relationship with the Office of Research Development at UPEI - to avoid duplication & offer a 'value added' element for educational research through CER
• offer review/editorial support as time permits for those with grant submissions due in the Fall (as a former Dalhousie program Director, I am able to give overview feedback, and pick up on details in collaboration with researchers)
• start to sort out practical issues such as use of CER space

Of course with the full Senate review of CER pending, I would appreciate any support possible. I will also need your patience. :-)

Please watch for updates. I intend to keep you informed regularly - by e-mail to start. I tend to be at CER part of Wednesdays and Thursdays but that changes given meetings, etc.

I am excited about being Director and look forward to doing my best with your help to make CER a great success,

Liz Townsend