JANICE MANCHEE, a first-year MJ student on educational leave from the Public Service Alliance of Canada, is the 2001 winner of the Kalmen Kaplansky Scholarship in Economic and Social Rights.
The $1,000-scholarship was presented at a reception in the art gallery in St. Pat's on Monday, with members of the Kaplansky family attending.
In nominating Ms. Manchee, MJ co-ordinator Cathy McKercher pointed out that Janice has spent much of her adult life working for economic and social rights.
Ms. Manchee completed a previous Master's degree at Carleton, in Canadian Studies, in 1984, writing her thesis on Women, Word Processing and the Labour Process. It examined the transformation of secretarial labour in the Public Service Commission, brought about by the introduction of word-processing technology.
Prof. Eileen Saunders, who supervised the thesis, recalls that it was ground-breaking work. Although a large body of work has since emerged on technology, "de-skilling" and the labour process, little primary research was available when Ms. Manchee began her study in the early 1980s.
Prof. Saunders, who wrote in support of Ms. Manchee's application to the Master of Journalism program, said she was struck by Ms. Manchee's commitment to link her intellectual work with her longstanding interest in equity.
Ms. Manchee joined the Public Service Alliance of Canada in the fall of 1984 as a technological change co-ordinator, a job that allowed her to live out that commitment. Four years later, she became a human rights officer with PSAC, where she was charged with conceptualizing, planning and implementing the Alliance's human rights goals.
In recent years she has become increasingly interested in the communications side of PSAC, and has written several handbooks and guidelines on fairly technical issues. In her letter of application to the MJ program, she succinctly captured an approach to communication that no doubt would have resonated with Dr. Kaplansky: "In order to communicate successfully, you must begin where the receiver is at."
Ms. Manchee hopes to move full-time into communications work. She also plans to write freelance articles, mainly in the areas of labour and equity.
Said yer loyal ed. (who taught basic reporting to Ms. Manchee last fall) in his self-interview for this item: "If Janice says she will do something, don't get in her way!"