Associate Professor Naomi Norquay and Associate Professor Pamela Millett have been awarded the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada’s (SSHRC) Partnership Engage Grants totalling approximately $50,000. The grants provide short-term and timely support for partnered research activities that will inform decision-making at a single partner organization from the public, private or not-for-profit sector.
Norquay will receive $24,893 for the Greenwood Cemetery Indigent Plot Reclamation Project which aims to research the names in Owen Sound’s Greenwood Cemetery’s historic register to provide more fulsome information about the people buried in the cemetery’s indigent plot. It is commonly understood that the indigent plot houses the remains of many members of Owen Sound’s most marginalized communities: the poor, the elderly and the homeless. What is less known is that the indigent plot houses the remains of many members of the historic Black community. The project is in support of a group of local citizens who have raised money to erect a monument in honour of the 1,241 people who are buried in unmarked graves. Norquay’s research partner is Grey Roots Museum & Archives, located in Owen Sound.
“It is important to expand Canada’s national historic narrative to include those whose lives and communities have escaped notice, or who have been deliberately silenced,” says Norquay. “The historic Black community in Grey County (in both rural areas and in Owen Sound) is an example of a community that has never had more than a cursory acknowledgement in history books and school texts. Many of this community are buried in the indigent plot. By doing a systematic and thorough search we hope to uncover their stories and add these stories to our national narrative.”
The stories uncovered will be made into digital narratives which will be housed on a publicly accessible website at Grey Roots.
Millett will receive $23,529 for her project Identifying barriers and facilitators to success in postsecondary education for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. The project is a partnership between the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association (CHHA) and Millett to identify barriers and facilitators for young adults with hearing loss to successfully navigate postsecondary education, from application to graduation. The objectives of this project are: 1) To engage deaf and hard of hearing young people in an exploratory research study using focus groups and an online survey. 2) To develop a research agenda on admission and accommodations practices in Canadian postsecondary education. 3) To involve and train deaf and hard of hearing students in research and knowledge mobilization, and; 4) To provide information for CHHA to support Canadian students.
“Today, with universal newborn hearing screening and advancements in hearing technology, over 90% of deaf and hard of hearing students communicate with spoken language and attend their local school; they do not use sign language,” says Millett. When they move on from high school to college or university, they face new challenges. “These students require different supports for postsecondary education than sign language interpreters, but what these supports should be, has not been well researched or defined,” says Millett.
Millett will be working with the Young Adult Network to disseminate information to students and parents, and continue to create support materials. Research findings will be used to inform advocacy efforts for CHHA in communicating with the government around issues of accessibility.
“The Faculty of Education has been very successful with the Partnership Engage Grant Program which is a very useful and adaptable research grant offered quarterly and aimed at the development of community partnership research,” says Heather Lotherington, Faculty of Education Associate Dean, Research. “I am delighted to share the recent success of Professors Millett and Norquay in their applications for a SSHRC PEG, and look very forward to hearing how their studies go.”