Distinguished Research Award

The 2008 Distinguished Research Award was presented to Dr. James Struthers, Director of the Frost Centre for Canadian Studies and Indigenous Studies, during the morning Convocation ceremony on Wednesday, June 4.

“To summarize Prof. Struthers’ output, accomplishment, and peer respect through a listing of his publications, papers, and grants is one thing…But it is in coming to grips with how he has commanded and charted an important area of Canadian scholarship over the last three decades that the true measure of this Trent faculty member’s research can be grasped.”

These words, written by one of Dr. James Struthers’ colleagues, demonstrate why the Canadian Studies professor and director of the Frost Centre for Canadian Studies and Indigenous Studies at Trent is a worthy recipient of the 2008 Distinguished Research Award.

Prof. Struthers joined the Canadian Studies Department as a professor in 1978 after completing his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto. Since coming to Trent, Prof. Struthers has had a significant impact on building the national and international reputation of Trent’s Canadian Studies programs, at both the undergraduate and graduate level.

Prof. Struthers is the author of two books. His first book, No Fault of Their Own: Unemployment and the Canadian Welfare State, 1914-1941, has been described as“the most important scholarly work published in the last half century on the history of the Great Depression in the 1930s”. In recent years his research has focused on the history of policy responses to aging and long term care in Canada from the 1940s to the present.  In addition to his research work, Prof. Struthers has held a number of key administrative roles at Trent, including chair of the Canadian Studies Department. In 2006, Prof. Struthers was appointed director of the Frost Centre for Canadian Studies and Indigenous Studies.

Established in 1986, the Distinguished Research Award is given annually to a member of the Trent University faculty in recognition of outstanding achievement in research and scholarship.