Things I've learnt after 3 weeks at Carleton...

1- driving around campus is the least efficient way to get anywhere.
2- no matter the time of day, the line up at the Starbucks in MacOdrum is always the same length : long!
3- no matter which direction you have to walk, it will be uphill.
4- the hallways in Paterson are either as quiet as a tomb, or as noisy as a rock concert. There's no in-between.
5- there is far more swearing in a government office than an academic office.
6- using the tunnels is both cool and a great way to get lost.
7- people on campus are very interested in helping you...and they're freakishly friendly about it.
8- some students are apparently here only to play Frisbee in the Quad...for 5 hours straight.
9- using a computer that doesn't have multiple layers of security and web blocking sensors is making me both nervous and exhilarated.
10- some students on the O-train are, um, shall we say a "bit ripe".

A new chapter...

After 16 years of the same old sights and sounds at 10 Wellington with Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development (ok, it's only been called that for the past 4 years, but no one says INAC anymore, right...) and as previously mentioned, I've uprooted myself and moved History Grinch into a new space in Paterson Hall at Carleton University.  

I must admit that I feel very fortunate to have this opportunity here in the History Department. Having been outside of the academic world and only occasionally looking into it, it's all a bit intimidating. Public Servants aren't renowned for taking risks or accepting change (remember, this is the guy who's had the exact same job for 16 years and who's resisted every outside attempt at getting me to change). To date, all my interactions with the folks here at Carleton have been excellent and incredibly welcoming (someone even wrote a great article about my upcoming residence... Thanks Nick!)

As this is just the beginning (literally! This is day 1 of 365), I'm still a bit nervous about all of this and what I'm doing here. I've created some pretty high expectations for myself (namely bridging the academic-public servant divide, and redefine how public policy is made...no pressure!), and some of my plan is still at the "back of a napkin" stage. We'll see where this all leads me.

All the same, I will be using these pages to recount my experience of "heading back to school" (I so should have gotten that Iron Man lunch box...) and trying to keep one foot here on campus and the other off in the Public Service.

Finding a new way...

As I've mentioned in the past, I've been on a very specific track with respect to my career: since the age of 12, I've wanted to be an historian working in the Public Service. That's it. Pretty straightforward and simple. Not in a university, not in a research firm, but in the Public Service. For the last 15 years, that's pretty much exactly what I've been doing. I research, I write, I present, I analyse, I discuss, I debate and I argue various points of history relating to my department as it impacts policy, programs, politics and relations. For most of these years, I've been a fairly content public servant (I must admit, being from a public servant family, I knew what I was getting into). I've long known the challenges and frustrations of government work: a huge bureaucracy and slow decision making, the weird balance between policy and politics, and that significant elements of my fate are in the hands of people who I'll never meet (which is, of course, no different than in any other workplace).

Of late, I've found myself questioning not only my place in the Public Service but also questioning what role my work as an historian plays in how things work around here. While I clearly identify as an historian, I also wear the hat of a "policy analyst" - that oddly generic and nebulous term meaning those who craft, design and assess policy. This duel life has been interesting because it's allowed me to use history, historical evidence and historical thinking to try to change and influence how government policy is crafted and understood. That being said, I've also been incredibly frustrated by the wide spread dismissal of history by my colleagues when they design new policies. There appears to be an inherent belief that History is only good to for "answering questions" and that it can't be a useful tool in helping craft better and more responsive policies. That's "in the past" I'm told, and "we need a new starting point, and not dwell on all the bad stuff". As I work in the oldest administrative institution in Canada (260 years and counting...) with issues that are based on centuries old policies and programs, I've never understood the reasoning behind these statements. How can we come up with new policies and programs if we don't understand how we got here in the first place? As I've argued for long hours with countless colleagues, we need to know the historical context of the issues at hand, as well as how they've evolved, what's been tried (and failed) before, and what are the trends that will impact the application of the policies being proposed. More than once have I wanted to smack my head against a wall in frustration. 

This frustration, coupled with a growing sense for a need to reinvent my role and my work (a task I undertake every few years to ensure that what I'm doing is relevant, useful and meets my interests and needs), has led me tackle this issue directly. As of late August and for the following year, I'm going to dedicate myself to the task of finding a way to demonstrate the inherent value of historical research and historical thought to the public policy making process. I realise that this also means stepping out of the frame of the Public Service and look at these questions from an outside perspective. This means that I'll be leaving my post here at AANDC (well kinda...I'll still be doing some things for the Department) and through the Public Servant-in-Residence program, joining the Department of History at Carleton University in Ottawa. There, I'll be leading a comprehensive study of the modern policy making process and seeking ways to enhance analysis through the use of historical research. Ultimately, the goal is to see if there's a way to redirect policy making towards an approach focussed on "evidence based" policy development. Only time will tell if I'll be successful.

As well as teaching a few classes at Carleton, I'll be commenting on my findings and my progress here (as well as during the upcoming ActiveHistory.ca/NCPH mini-con in October and hopefully at the NCPH annual meeting in Baltimore in March 2016). 

Public History, Public Service

For the past 16 years, I've been an historian, a government historian to be precise. Believe it or not, this was my actual career goal - to work in history within the confines of the federal Public Service of Canada. I've never wanted to be an academic or an historical research consultant. When I was 12 (back when I decided my career path...), I wanted specifically to work for Parks Canada, our agency responsible for national parks and historic sites. I even worked there for awhile as well as a few other departments before landing in my current position. By the time I was 26, my career goal was met and I was a government historian.

It didn't take me long to realise that what I thought my job as an historian should be didn't match up with what was expected of me. Where I thought I'd be doing core historical research and analysis of key moments of the history of my department, I quickly became involved with the development of policy, the assessment of programs and the elaboration of government positions. It has been a constant struggle to balance what the historical community would understand as "historian's work" and what government managers see as "policy work". Consequently, I have "historian's work" which includes historical research and analysis (and by this, I mean working on a specific historical research topic from the elaboration of the thesis through the research phase to the drafting of an article/report...just like all other historians), developing historical content for the department's website, developing and teaching history courses for government employees, responding to inquiries of an historical nature, and reviewing and commenting on historical research, as well as "policy work". In case you're not a public servant, policy work can be categorised as activities relating to the development of strategic government initiatives such as preparing briefing and presentation materials, writing discussion papers, and participating in discussions and meetings. 

It's important to note that I don't object to this dual role. I have an actual interest in how policy is developed and believe that the skills and abilities we cultivate as historians are beneficial to the policy making process. This also helps me find ways of using history to allow for a more profound strategic analysis. To paraphrase one of my colleagues, it's difficult to come up with good policy options if you don't know how you got into this mess in the first place!

As the years have rolled on, I've often stopped to ponder exactly what my role as both a Public Historian and as a Public Servant truly is, should be and could be (I should note that there's no such thing as a "public" historian in the Public Service as few understand the distinction - I'm just an historian and that's what it says on my business card). While there have been moments of great satisfaction and fulfilment from the work that I do, it is also punctuated with other moments of great frustration. There have been times when my work as an historian have been recognised as a valuable contribution while in others been told that History belongs in the past and it plays no role in a modern Public Service. For some of my colleagues, History is like a huge pot of soup and all you have to do is fish out the bits that you want - the rest of the time, the soup of history can just sit there unattended. This often leads to a dismissive attitude laced with a strong hint of criticism that historians are a waste of precious and limited resources (it should be noted that there are few government historians within the Public Service in Canada outside of Parks Canada and national museums - not surprisingly, as there appears to be an attitude that there's little value in having staff historians when you can simply hire a consulting historian).

I have also struggled with the unspoken attitude that being a generalist in the Public Service is preferred and that being a specialist is inherently negative. Historians are by definition specialists as we work in our specific fields of research and interest. As a government historian, I have tried to become as specialized as possible on the history of my department, the impacts of its policies as well as understanding and interpreting its legacy in a modern day context. I do this because I believe that an historian working within the public service is not only a gatherer of historical information who writes research reports but must also “translate” this historical information into something that can be used by other public servants. This can only be done through specialisation of research over an extended period of time. I am therefore always shocked when told that because I've spent 14 years doing the "same job" I am not a "well-rounded" public servant. I've been told several times that I'm limiting my career options by remaining "just" an historian or asked why I don't want to try something new (regardless of the fact that this is what I want to do). I believe that such an attitude is endemic to the public servants who believe that one must constantly be changing jobs so that you can "move up" while staying in the same box (to use good old government speak) makes you look unambitious and resistant to change. 

It's an odd feeling to realise that being an expert in a field is a strike against you...

Transition

For the past 5 years, I've lived here (well, this is what it looked like in 1902 courtesy of the LAC's fire insurance map collection...): 

In Ottawa, these few blocks are known as Mechanicsville. Most in the city only have a vague sense of where it's actually located. "Isn't that a bad part of town?" is a typical question when I say that it's the small neighbourhood around Scott St. just east of Parkdale. The area's reputation is one that, for a long time, was well deserved, and shared with the surrounding neighbourhoods. 

Today, just like the rest of the Hintonburg and West Wellington, this is a transition zone. This fairly broad area, covering everything north of the Queensway from Island Park Drive to the train line which is today the O-Train, has been developing at in increasingly fast pace. New shops and restaurants are replacing old ones, new people are moving to the 'hood, and new buildings are sprouting up, with dozens of new condo towers slated to be built.

Urban development, also called "gentrification" when its applied to struggling communities, must include the destruction or re-purposing of extant building stock. Sometimes, whole buildings or even entire blocks, are demolished to make way for new higher density buildings that mix residential with commercial. In other cases, specific historical features of a building are kept and incorporated into the new structure. 

The  Hintonburg-West Wellington-Mechanicsville zone is no exception. In the 500 metre radius around my house, there are examples of both of these approaches. On the corner of Scott and Parkdale, the entire block is slated for demolition (here are some details). Just a few blocks away at Stirling, the original building of the école St-François for boys, which until recently housed the Odawa Native Friendship Centre, will become part of another condo development but the original part of the school will be incorporated into the new construction. 


http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Luxury+condos+hold+city+proposes+builder+offices+into+former+Odawa+building/9133688/story.html - accessed 17-02-2014

Some of these proposed development projects have been strongly opposed by the community (you can have a look at the Hintonburg Community Associations comments on all the proposals here). Arguments range from the destruction of the community to developers ignoring the interests of residents to support for a new and modern residential units. From my perspective, cities are living entities. They grow, they change and they are in constant movement. Consequently, parts of the city must also change - buildings must disappear, brownsites must be cleaned, skylines must change. As has been witnessed in other North American cities, this rate of change is often done so very quickly, that public memory is also altered. We forget why streets are called "Bayview" as at it does view is an empty lot once used as a snow dump (answer: the shore line of the Ottawa River used be much further south than it is today). We forget why  a short stretch of road is called "Forward Avenue" on one side of Scott St and "Pinehurst Avenue" on the other (answer: Scott St was the dividing line between Ottawa and Hintonburg, therefore different municipalities, different names...).

As these sites are developed, I will use this space to document those buildings slated for development. Where I can find information, I'll write up a a short "bio" of the building and and post any historical images that I can find (I also plan on using the Historypin app to populate images of days gone by). Here's a photo I took last week of the early demolition of the St-François school/Odawa Centre:

Ultimately, I can't do this alone and I truly hope the community (#Hintonburg, #Mechanicsville, #Westwellington) will help out in whichever way it can. I can be reached via the Twittervers at @jp5morin.

Yes, you heard me, an historian...

Every now and again, someone will ask "and what do you do?" I always have the same short answer: I'm an historian. Invariably, I only get one of two reactions: 1- "oh..." with a blank stare showing that the hamster in their head is frantically trying to figure out a way to understand what that means; or 2- "wait? I thought you worked for government?"

With reaction 1, the topic of conversation quickly moves off towards another topic and never do we speak of my work again. With reaction 2, things are a little different. I always have to say, yes, I do work for government and I'm the departmental historian. Said person will then always say "I didn't know there were any historians in government". Well, there are, not many, but there are some scattered through a few departments and we have next to no contact with each other.

While I know that that we're few and far between, I've never really understood the surprised reaction upon learning that there are historians in government. Do people really think that their only habitat is the university and the museum (they never realise that historians in national museums are historians too...)? Maybe it's because of the fact that I was raised in the world of Parks Canada where we toured national historic sites on a regular basis or that I would meet the historians working there whenever I'd stop by my father's office. To me, government historians were normal. When I was 12, I decided that I was going to be an historian for the government (ok, I admit that's a bit weird...but I am a nerd andi was never cut out for academic life).

I'm rather perplexed that many still question the need to have historians in government - especially here in Canada where we're all about commemorating our history and celebrating our achievements. There seems to be a sense that having an historian on staff is a luxury and that the skills that an historian brings to the work place can easily be done by any average policy analyst. 

Being a government historian isn't like being an academic or consulting historian. I dont get to be "just" an historian - I'm also a manager, and policy analyst, and programme officer, and fact checker, and copy editor - but I'm always an historian first. It is who and what I am. 

These pages aren't just to be some random collection of thoughts and musings but rather be my interpretation of what it means to be a "government historian" here in Canada. 

Once more, into the breach...

OK, I'm going to try again. I said last time that I wasn't going to do this, but I can't fight the growing need within me to start it up again. 

So, here goes...I'm starting up a blog...again....for the third time. Hopefully, this time it will stick. At worse, all of this will just get deleted and vanish into the huge internet memory of Google.

And if you're now scratching your head at this picture, well, this is me...in sock puppet form.