By Kristy Strauss
From anti-Semitism in Canada to security certificates and civil liberties, undergraduate students in the Faculty of Public Affairs (FPA) had a chance to present their research topics to the Carleton community on Tuesday.
“We’re hoping the broader community gets to see the exciting, innovative and broad areas of research that FPA students are engaged in,” said Mira Sucharov, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science who co-organized the event.
The Undergraduate Student Showcase took place at the Discovery Centre on March 18 as part of FPA Research Month.
During the showcase, students presented their research interactively through poster boards and short documentaries.
Veronica Postolski, a fourth-year communications student, showcased her research on hacking and bio-hacking’s public benefits.
She says she got the idea from her media piracy class.
“I started thinking about how hacking has a stigma around it,” Postolski said. “But hacking is not necessarily negative.”
Rosalyn Stevens, a political science student, presented her research on access to child care for low-income families in Ontario and Quebec.
With a journalism background, Stevens says she has written in the past about low-income communities and the challenges they face.
Her research suggests that while Ontario’s subsidy program seems more beneficial than Quebec’s universal program in theory, in practice it is underfunded, not well-run and less sustainable.
“My ultimate goal is policy change,” Stevens said. “Understanding the idea that subsidies are better than universalism can re-adjust the focus and put more attention and more money into the system.”
Christine Ackerley, a journalism student, presented her topic about men and masculinity in beer advertising.
“We talk a lot in gender studies about portrayals of women, so it’s interesting to flip that around,” she said, adding that she hopes her research will get people to question advertisements they see all the time and look at them in a new way.
Ackerley also said the undergraduate student showcase was a great chance for faculty and students to get together and talk more about student research.
“We’ve never had this kind of opportunity before on campus,” she said. “It’s a cool testing ground to see if the ideas pan out in presentation, as well as to see if this works as a forum for showcasing ideas.”
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