survey from SSHRC on my funding

so in 2004 i was awarded a canada graduate scholarship (cgs) from the social sciences and humanities research council of canada in the amount of $17,500 for a year of my studies. not bad! i was hoping to get something more than a support bursary from ryerson the following year, but what can you do.

anyway, this morning i got a follow up email about a survey for scholarship recipients. a bunch of questions later (and there really were a lot of questions) i filled in the final "what are your comments?" box with the following response in an attempt to highlight a certain tendency and set of assumptions the survey (and in part the program) sshrc has about what grad research is. (so if they change funding in significant ways, particularly in ways i proposed, you have me to thank.) Anyway, my response is here:

"More funding needed to support graduate work that seeks to initiate autonomous research during grad studies, and continue it in community-based and non-profit settings following from graduation; the focus on "finding work" in this survey (and perhaps in the funding model more generally) cleaves a little too closely to the idea that grad work is merely another form of "job training," neglecting that this research may also lead to community/cultural leadership development, or other forms of social or collectivized knowledge production which exists outside a predominantly corporate domain."