Thank you for considering to support our work. For over 30 years, the Laurier Centre for Military, Strategic and Disarmament Studies (LCMSDS) has worked tenaciously to educate and inspire, and your contribution is absolutely vital to our ongoing success. Without public support, the valuable work of LCMSDS volunteers would be impossible.
By making a one-time gift or a regular monthly donation, your support will guarantee regular income which is one of the most effective ways for us to plan our operations while remaining flexible and independent. You can support our work by clicking this link to donate online, or by calling our office at 519 884 0710 (ext. 2080).
Below is a listing of our past and on-going projects which have been made possible through the generosity of our donors. By making a gift to LCMSDS, you’re contribution will go a long way in enabling us to hire and inspire students, while at the same time delivering our resources to the public.
Canadian Military History (Journal)
Canada’s flagship journal on military history and current military conflict began in 1992, one year after LCMSDS opened their doors. Working closely with the Canadian War Museum, the journal has always sought to bridge the gap between scholars and the general public. The journal provides an opportunity for many of today’s leading young scholars to publish their first article and also serves as a scholarly outlet for more seasoned academics. With a subscription list of over 500, Canadian Military History remains one of our foremost outreach programs.
Air Photo Digitization
We are happy to report that as of 9 August 2013 we have succeeded in scanning the vast majority of the air photo collection. The collection – which was used by 1st Canadian Air Photo Interpretation Section (IAPIS) during the campaign in Normandy and Northwest Europe – provides extensive coverage of First Canadian Army’s area of operation in Normandy, the coast north of the Seine in France and Belgium, much of the Netherlands, and the northern sector of the German Rhineland where Canadians fought in February – March 1945. Because the collection will be vital for future research, we are now working hard to design ways to offer our collection to the public on an online platform.
Our goal is to archive the collection online in an intuitive and highly accessible fashion. In order to produce for the public a quality archive, we have developed a student-employment program which will not only produce a quality online archive, but also give students hands-on training which will prepare them for future positions, and inspire research.
This program seeks to:
- reveal the value of our air photo collection to the general public
- hire students on a part-time basis throughout the school term
- train students practical archiving methods
- train students in building a website to store and display our collection
War & Memory Battlefield Study Tours
LCMSDS is renown for its battlefield study tour programs. These tours have brought hundreds of students and teachers to Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany to visit Canadian and international cemeteries, memorials, museums and battlefields. Years of generous support from our donors has made these tours possible, and most importantly for students, affordable.
In 2012, LCMSDS ran the ‘Cleghorn High School History Teachers Study Tour’ in partnership with the Gregg Centre at the University of New Brunswick. The tour provided bursaries to participants whom also had the opportunity to use the tour to obtain a B.Ed or M.Ed credit from UNB.
In 2013 and 2016, LCMSDS partnered with Wilfrid Laurier University’s Faculty of Arts to offer a study tour for a course credit. In 2013 eighteen undergraduate students and four graduate students toured select Canadian battlefields and cemeteries in an effort to gain a better understanding of the Canadian participation in the first and second world wars. In 2016, ten Laurier students (along with ten students from Nipissing University) traveled to Poland as part of a Holocaust field course where they toured the former Nazi camps (including Auschwitz, Belzec and Majdanek).
We will continue to work with the Canadian Battlefields Foundation and other organizations to promote this important example of active learning.