2004 Social Science Festival
Biographies of Guest Speakers

 
 

Graeme Decarie
Graeme Decarie grew up in Montreal, attended public schools and was kicked out in grade 11. He attended Sir George Williams (now Concordia) while employed as a Social Group Worker at the nearby YMCA. Not doing well at Sir George, he decided instead to go to Teacher's College. He taught History and English at elementary and high school for six years. He subsequently obtained his MA from Acadia University in New Brunswick and his PhD at Queen's University. He returned east to teach briefly at the University of PEI and has since 1971 taught history at Concordia University. He also worked also CBC Radio for about 10 years, and then at CJAD and has written short stories and columns for numerous publications including the Gazette and Reader's Digest. He is currently a columnist for the West Island Chronicle.

Phyllis Bailey
Phyllis Bailey is an activist and a native Montrealer. She has traveled toAfrica, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and Europe for various human justice causes. During the sixties, she did crime research in Nottingham for the British Home Office and later, during President Johnson´s War on Poverty, was Director of Neighbourhood Youth Corps in the South Bronx. She is a member of the Montreal-based Social Justice Committee which engages in Human Rights causes in Latin America. Although retired from teaching Sociology, Psychology and Humanities at Champlain College, she is still a very dynamic volunteer and activist for various social causes. A few years ago, she was awarded the Helen Caldicott Prize for Humanitarian Works.

Martine LeRoyer
Martine LeRoyer was a police officer in Montreal. In late 2001 she applied for a United Nations peace-keeping mission in East Timor. On March 3rd, 2002 Officer LeRoyer began an emotional and extraordinary experience that changed her life forever. Her tour of duty in East Timor is the subject of a new National Film Board documentary by Barry Lank entitled "Women on Patrol". After completing her nine-month assignment, Officer LeRoyer is once again "on the beat" in Montreal.

Eric Lamoureux
Eric Lamoureux studied at Concordia and at McGill universities and currently teaches History at Vanier. He has also done volunteer work with the Social Justice Committee in Montreal since 1995. Special interests: Social activism, African history, and Third
World studies.

Matthew Sossoyan
Matthieu Sossoyan has taught anthropology at Vanier College since 1999. As an undergraduate student in Anthropology at Université de Montréal, he participated in several archeological excavations near Valleyfield, Quebec (Native American history, prehistory of Quebec) and Vincennes, France (Middle-Ages). The more informal (but nonetheless real and not simulated) archeological digs he has conducted on the Vanier campus for the past two years are intended to illustrate the goals and methods of archeology, and to provide awareness and information about the 200 year-old history of the cultural environment of Vanier College.

Ricardo Dueñez
A San Diego, California native, Ricardo Dueñes is a graduate of Grossmont Community College (AA, General Education), UC Berkeley (BSc, Conservation of Natural Resources) and the University of Arizona (MSc, Watershed Mgt.). He has worked as a U.S. Peace Corps forestry volunteer in Tanzania; an Agroforestry Consultant in Zambia and Zimbabwe; a Project Manager and Planning Consultant in Mozambique; an Environmental Consultant/Educator in South Africa; a Sustainable Conservation Consultant in Tanzania, a program director in Malawi, and currently teaches Geography and Methodology at Vanier College.

Judy Ingerman
Judy Ingerman is a part-time teacher at Vanier College and a graduate student at Concordia University in the department of Sociology and Cultural Anthropology. She is in the process of completing her Master's thesis on a small-scale society in Papua New Guinea.

Sevak Manjikian
Sevak Manjikian has been interested in religion most of his life. Growing up in Saudi Arabia, he was surrounded by the rich textures of Islam. He has complemented this interest in religion by pursuing it at university. Sevak has a Bachelor's degree in Religious Studies from Queen's University; a Master in Islamic Studies from McGill University and is currently at the McGill Institute of Islamic Studies, preparing his PhD dissertation on Islamic Law in Canada .

The Raging Grannies
The Raging Grannies is a growing popular movement of grannies across Canada, the United States, England and Greece. They make spectacles of themselves and attract media attention to raise political awareness about issues such as peace, the environment and social justice. Their questionable fashion sense makes them hard to miss and their musical instruments of choice, tambourines and kazoos, doesn't help. These are with grannies with attitude and they have granted themselves permission to make the world a better place for grandchildren everywhere now and for generations to come.

Nancy Leclerc
Nancy Leclerc teaches Anthropology at Vanier College. She is a Mom and a graduate of Concordia University's. She is currently working on various articles for publication and she is on the Board of Administration of a non-profit advocacy group in Montreal for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans-gendered community (LGBT).

Evangeline Caldwell
Evangeline Caldwell is a member of Women's Studies and has taught Psychology at Vanier College since 1985. She currently serves as Coordinator of Coalition québécoise pour le mariage civil des couples de même sexe, Responsable of the Lesbian Issues Committee of Fédération des femmes du Québec and is on the Board of Directors of the Centre communautaire des gais et lesbiennes de Montréal.

Karen Tee
Dr. Karen Tee got her PhD in Psychology in California, taught for several years at Concordia University and has been teaching at Vanier College for the past thirty-five years. Her most recent special interest is the Psychology of love, relationships and sexuality and currently teaches a course on the subject. She also teaches a special Introductory Psychology course for high school students.

David Austin
David Austin is Director of the Alfie Roberts' Institute and has been a long-standing community worker in Montreal. He has worked for variety of organisations aimed at youth, particularly in the Black community. As a writer, he has been involved in numerous media projects. He attended the World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa in September 2001. At McGill, he studied Anthropology, African Studies, History and Political Science.

Harry Delvan
Harry Delvan is Coordinator of Youth Projects at La Maison d'Haiti. His interventions involve young people of Haitian descent who are on the street or involved in gangs. He studied Criminology at l'Université de Montréal and has been a youth worker for over 11 years. He collaborated in research with Mark Perrault leading to the publication of La Gang: une chimère à apprivoiser - marginalité et transnationalité chez les jeunes Québecoises d'origine afro-antillaisse. He offers in ethnic relations training to the community, to Police Technology programs at several cegeps and to the Montreal police force.

Hank Avery
Henry Avery has taught at the Eastern Townships for more than thirty years. He began his education in Iowa USA, and came to Canada and continued his studies at McGill Univertisy and Concordia University, and received his degree at Concordia University while teaching. He received the Frederic Johnson award from CRARR in 2001 for the advocacy and mobilisation work he did on Nigger Rock. In 2003 he received the an ward from Les Batisseurs du Quebec as a builder and a positive infleunce in our community. Because of his tireless work on the project in February 2003 the Quebec Immigration presented the Town of St-Armand with a plaque accepting the existences of Slaves in the region.

Tenzin Dargyal
Tenzin Dargyal is a Board Member and President of the Montreal branch of the Canada Tibet Committee. He coordinated the visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Ottawa. Born and raised in Canada, he has been a Tibet activist since he was a young teenager. Following the 1987 riots in Tibet, Tenzin participated with other young Tibetans in a five day, 200 kilometre march from Montreal to Ottawa. Since then, he has participated in many international conferences including the APEC People's Forum in Manila and the Tibet Support Group Conference in Berlin and he has worked as a TV journalist for CBC-TV producing two TV documentaries on Tibet. Tenzir Dargyal has travelled extensively throughout Tibet, China, India, and Nepal. His three years stay in China, working he as a sales executive for a television technology firm, gave him valuable insight into Chinese culture and a unique vision of how a peaceful resolution to the conflict between China and Tibet is possible.

Canada Tibet Committee:
The Canada Tibet Committee (CTC) is an independent non-governmental organisation of Tibetans and non-Tibetans living in Canada, who are concerned about the continuing human rights violations and lack of democratic freedom in Tibet. It seeks to stop the ongoing destruction of the Tibetan culture, to alleviate the suffering of the Tibetan people and to restore Tibet to its status as an independent state within the family of nations. The CTC is committed to the principle of non-violence and opposes the use of violence as a means of resolving conflict. The CTC recognizes the Tibetan Government-in-exile as the legitimate representative of the Tibetan people.

Daliso Chaponda
Daliso Chaponda was born in Malawi. He is a Creative Writing student at Concordia and a stand-up comic trying valiantly to remain in Canada after his student days end.. A sad story? Not so. Daliso brings a critical eye to all his experiences and skewers himself as well as Canada with his quick wit and sophisticated humour. His message: Don't Let Them Deport Me. Daliso first performed stand-up comedy at an open-mike four years ago. Since then he has appeared in CBC Television's Crossing The Main, The Geeks of Comedy and Dig Ya Roots. He performs regularly at the Comedy Zone and Comedy Works. In 2002 he mounted his first comedy one man show named Feed This Black Man, follwed thereafter by Don't Let Them Deport Me in March 2004.

Sugar Sammy
Sugar Sammy was voted the #1 stand up comedian in 2004 by the readers of The Montreal Mirror. He explores the dichotomy between his life in a conventional East Indian home and his experience in the entertainment industry. This can cross the cultural divide from arranged marriages to deviant sex and the ever changing multicultural society of Montreal. A Marianoplis graduate, he has spent years perfecting his comedy routines and making waves as a promoter in hip hop circles.


Gwynne Dyer
Gwynne Dyer has worked as a freelance journalist, columnist, broadcaster and lecturer on international affairs for more than 20 years. His main activities since 1973 has been his twice-weekly column on international affairs, which is published by 150 papers in some 35 countries. He is well known for a number of television documentary series. His seven-part War was aired in 45 countries in the mid-80s (including the Academic Award nominated episode The Profession of Arms). The accompanying book War won the Columbia University of School of Journalism Award in 1986. He has also worked on a four-part documentary series The Human Race (1994) and a three-part series on peacekeepers in Bosnia entitled Protection Force (1995). His award winning radio documentaries include The Gorbachev Revolution, a seven-part series based on Dyer's experience in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in 1987-90, and Millenium, a six-hour series on the emergence of global culture. Dyer's most recent book is Ignorant Armies: Sliding into War in Iraq, which was the number-one non-fiction bestseller in Canada in the spring of 2003. His most recent work, Future: Tense is published by McClelland & Stewart and Random House is publishing a new edition of his landmark book War this October.