Scottish Studies

What Is Scottish Studies?

The generous endowment from Marion Alice Small to support a Scottish Studies program at the university will enhance the Faculty's dedication to multidisciplinary research and teaching. As well as a Scottish studies scholarship for a graduate student, the fund will sustain a faculty fellowship in Scottish studies and an annual public lecture delivered to the St. Andrew's and Caledonian Society of Victoria. In addition, the endowment will provide for the acquisition of materials to support Scottish studies at the University of Victoria's McPherson Library.

About Professor Marion Alice Small and Hugh Campbell Small


Hugh Cambell Small	Marion Alice Small

In celebration of her passion for all things Scottish, the late UVic Professor Marion Alice Small established the Hugh Campbell and Marion Alice Small Fund for Scottish Studies through a gift in her will.

Marion Alice Small died in Victoria on December 9, 2003. She was predeceased by her husband (Hugh) Campbell Small in 1994.

The gift is the largest single donation to the faculty of Humanities and the first donation designated to support the study of Scottish history and culture at UVic. The endowment will support a faculty fellowship, a graduate scholarship and Scottish books and resources for the library.

Marion Small was born in Saskatoon in 1920, and lived the first seventeen years of her life on a farm near Seamans, Saskatchewan. The family moved to Victoria in 1937 after the farm - in her words - "blew away". She graduated from Victoria Normal School and went on to receive an M.A. in Education from UBC.

In 1950 she married Hugh Campbell Small, a native of Glasgow Scotland. Campbell Small, who came to Canada in 1948, worked in the printing shop of the Glasgow Herald. He spent six years in the British Army during the war, landing in France on D Day plus two. He was a bit of a renaissance man with an eclectic range of talents and interests: he studies painting and cartooning, and was something of an expert in Scottish lore. Soon after they were married, he and Marion joined the St. Andrews and Caledonian Society in Victoria. Marion was actively involved in the affairs of the society and served as President on four occasions.

Marion gave generously to the university during her lifetime. She was a strong advocate for the arts and an active contributor to UVic faculty art exhibitions. Her work includes abstract pieces with layered geometric shapes and strong colour schemes, and charcoal and watercolour landscape paintings that depict the sweeping clear skies and contrasting yellow fields of the prairies. Her teaching career spanned more than 40 years and she retired from UVic in 1986.