FASS Forum 2025: Celebrating research excellence and faculty accomplishments

The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) faculty, staff, and friends, came together to celebrate the many accomplishments of the previous year in our annual event, FASS Forum.

FASS Dean, Laurel Weldon, opened the event with a positive and proud reflection on how FASS has been at the forefront of the last year. Together, FASS researchers have deepened our understanding and developed solutions for the challenges we have all faced including, the prevalence of artificial intelligence, the rise of anti-democratic forces and bigotry around the world, the ongoing challenges of inequality and climate change and reconciliation, and the growing pressures on our healthcare system and housing infrastructure.

Weldon commended FASS' academic excellence and research, its commitment to indigenizing curriculum and strengthening the learning of Indigenous languages, the launching of the new major in Urban Worlds and minor in Medical Humanities and Social Sciences, and the cultivation and encouragement of future leaders and change makers in its student body, and so much more.

Every year FASS Forum hosts a series of flash talks presented by numerous scholars within our faculty. These flash talks provide our academics a chance to showcase their research and engage colleagues in other fields—in just three minutes. This year’s topics ranged from the complex realities of intimate partner violence to education technology and language learning.

English professor and Director of the Centre for Scottish Studies, Leith Davis, presented the keynote for the event. Her areas of specialization include literature of the long eighteenth century, media history, cultural memory, and Scottish and Irish literature and culture. Davis is the author of several books and most recently published Mediating Cultural Memory in Britain and Ireland: From the 1688 Revolution to the 1745 Jacobite Rising. She is the recipient of the Royal Society of Canada Fellowship (2024), Amundsen Teaching Fellowship (2021), Cormack Teaching Award (2018), and FASS Dean’s Medal for Academic Excellence (2010).

FASS Forum concluded with a reception—an opportunity for colleagues and friends to catch up and enjoy wine, mocktails, and canapés. We look forward to the upcoming year, advancing our many research projects, our continued collaborations, and engaging with our students.