POTSDAM – The Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C., has awarded a $10,000 Faculty Enrichment Grant to two Clarkson University Humanities and Social Sciences faculty.

Visiting assistant professors Meredith A. Marchioni and Kolson Schlosser were awarded the grant to finance a student field study to Nova Scotia in May. The trip will also be supported by Clarkson's Center for Canadian Studies, which is directed by Martin D. Heintzelman.

The field study is an innovative and collaborative effort to provide students with hands-on experience using qualitative research techniques.

Nine Clarkson students will spend the first week of May travelling throughout eastern Nova Scotia, including Cape Breton Island, visiting small fishing villages, fishing museums, and the Sydney Tar Ponds.

They will conduct interviews with local fishers and other resource managers to ascertain attitudes about the historical decline of cod fisheries. The scope of their questions will include how life has changed as fishers have converted to lobster harvesting and other economic activity, including tourism.

The students will also engage in participant observation with lobster fishers, tour the Bedford Institute of Oceanography and talk to resource management specialists at St. Mary's University in Halifax.