^{[Dr. Boyd and the Acadia University Singers]}

When we think of historians, we often envision researchers sitting in an archive surrounded by old books and documents. While the written word is critical to historical analysis, Dr. Michelle Boyd has found another way to help students understand and experience the past - music.

An instructor in the Acadia School of Music, Boyd has always been fascinated by how humans interact with music and how that interaction has shaped our society. Interested in the history of Nova Scotia, she completed the first extended examination of the province’s 19th century music through a PhD dissertation (Toronto) on the socio-cultural context of music-making in pre-Confederation Nova Scotia. Within a transatlantic context, Boyd addressed the roles that music played as the region transitioned into a Canadian province.

As an accomplished pianist, Boyd understands how interaction with music can change its meaning, and like all historical scholarship, context is crucial. Like a military historian who walks old battlefields to experience the topography upon which long-dead soldiers fought, understanding the various ways that songs were preformed often changes its meaning and provides an appreciation of people’s emotional connection with the composition.

In 2015, Boyd became interested in the musical versions of John McCrae’s celebrated Great War poem “In Flanders Fields.” Researching for a class, she not only found that some 50 adaptations of the song existed but also that many differed from the version with which we are all familiar. By preforming these variations, McCrae’s poem took on new meaning. Boyd’s digital lecture (funded by a SIG Grant and a Harrison McCain Award) called The Larks Still Bravely Sing: Musical Settings of ‘In Flanders Fields’, which featured the Acadia choir singing as well as excerpts of performances by Paula Rockwell, was chosen for the Society for American Music's Digital Lectures Channel on youtube (one of the three lectures chosen for 2019).  With a second Harrison McCain grant and 25.55 funding, Dr. Boyd began preparations to take Acadia music students on a concert tour to the Great War battlefields of France and Belgium.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has temporarily suspended travel to Flanders, Dr. Boyd has used this delay to chart the Acadia University Singers’ transformation into a virtual choir. As social distancing has forced performers to re-imagine the ways that musicians collaborate, Boyd is using a special Acadia COVID-19 grant to understand if digital technologies can ease the isolation and sustain a choral community.

While many Canadian scholarly associations have cancelled their summertime meetings due to COVID-19, others have decided to go forward with virtual conferences. From June 12-15, the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada (ASAC) is holding its 2020 virtual conference and Acadia faculty and students are well represented. The ASAC, which was founded in 1957, brings together all those interested in research, teaching and management practices to promote and improve higher education in commerce and business as well as provide a forum for scholarly research. The large four-day conference showcases papers from Canadian academics and their colleagues around the globe, and Acadia is well represented! (Conference Program)

Presentations from research conducted on the Acadia campus can be found throughout the impressive program. In the “Business History division,” Dr. Ryan MacNeil will present a paper coauthored with students Santana Ochoa Briggs (BA Honours in Politics, 2019), Alisha Christie (BCD Honours in ESST, 2020), and Connor Sheehan (BBA in Entrepreneurship & Innovation, 2019) titled “Entrepreneurship is 'Beyond' History: Sensegiving via poetic antenarratives.”

In the “Case Division,” Dr. Conor Vibert was invited to give a special presentation on “Creating and using business video cases for teaching,” which he has based on a decade of experience creating, using, and disseminating video cases. He will also comment on research conducted with colleagues to understand student experiences with this style of case. Dr. James Grant will present his teaching case on “The Derailment: A Role-Playing Case of On-and Off-Duty Conduct(or).” Later, he will present a case titled “A Convenient Indian: A Postcolonial Examination of the Resignation of Canada’s First Indigenous Dean of a Law School.”

In the “Finance Division,” Dr. Igor Semenenko will explore “Climate Risk Impact on Cross-Border Acquisitions,” and also “Housing Finance: Impact of Heavy Interest Income Tax.” While in the “Gender & Diversity in Organizations Division,” a busy Dr. Grant will present his research paper on “On- and Off-Duty Conduct(or): A Feminist Examination of the Dismissals of a Railway Worker,” and a paper co-authored with Acadia alumnus Leslie Lewis (BBA Honours in Employment Relations, 2009) titled, “Women’s Careers in Academia: The Effect of Discrimination and Gendered Roles.”

In the “Management Education division,” Dr. Ryan MacNeil, Dr. Danielle Mercer-Prowse, and Academic Librarian (Vaughn Library) Britanie Wentzell will present on “Evidence, experience, and (instructional) design science: The case of a small, small business course,” while in the “Production & Operations Management division,” Dr. Hassan Sarhadi and Zhen Liu (BBA Honours, 2019) will give a presentation titled, “Risk-based Oil Spill Response Planning for the South Coast of Newfoundland.”

Dr. MacNeil, who serves on the ASAC Divisional Council, notes that this is a substantive national-level showing of scholarly work by Acadia’s faculty and students. The School of Business is particularly proud that two of the papers were based on Acadia BBA honours theses: Leslie Lewis’ thesis on gender and discrimination in academic careers and Zhen Liu’s thesis on oil spill response planning for Newfoundland. Most of the student papers at the ASAC are normally PhD-level work, MacNeil notes, and so it is remarkable achievement by both Leslie and Zhen.