Concordia program showcases scholars
Lisa Ndejuru works with survivors of genocide and war to create meaningful theatre and arts pieces.
Nadia Naffi wrote about cyberbullying, the rise in hate speech around the world and the Trump effect in Canada; William Robinson wrote about video gaming disorders.
They are three of the 10 speakers who will present at Concordia University’s Truth and Consequences program on Tuesday evening, showcasing the first cohort of the university’s Public Scholarship program.
They were awarded a $10,000 scholarship to become part of the prestigious program, and then trained in how to speak and write for the general public.
It’s part of an effort to make academic work more accessible to the general public, said Paula Wood-Adams, Concordia’s dean of Graduate Studies. The university partnered with the Montreal Gazette and scholars were tutored by editorial page editor Edie Austin on how to write opinion pieces for the general public. Tuesday’s event will be moderated by Montreal Gazette editor-in-chief Lucinda Chodan.
“The idea is to train top PhD students to be able explain and discuss their research in a way that is interesting and relevant to non-expert audiences,” WoodAdams said.
For the event, Ndejuru will read a poem she wrote and then talk about her work with survivors that spans 20 years.
Ndejuru was born in Rwanda and has worked with the Rwandan diaspora in North America for more than 20 years as an organizer, researcher and activist. She has also worked with other survivor communities.
Ndejuru said she values the program because it allows her to reach a much wider audience than she would if her work was limited to academic circles.
“In the (academic) environment, if you write something and two people read it, it’s amazing,” Ndejuru said. “It needs to matter beyond that small environment.”
Aside from writing opinion pieces for public news sites and engaging with the public in community outreach activities, the scholars have maintained a blog on Concordia’s website. The blog will be updated by those scholars until this spring, when the second cohort takes it over.
Wood-Adams said Tuesday’s event is the first chance for the public to hear from all the scholars at once. Each scholar will get five minutes to speak, and WoodAdams hopes people will continue the conversation at a reception to be held immediately afterward. Tuesday is a sort of graduation ceremony for the cohort, whose members officially give up the title of public scholars in May.
“I think (the scholars) are amazing,” Wood-Adams said. “They are all different, and they all have done such great jobs. And they’ve all learned important skills about how to communicate and represent themselves, so I think they ’re extremely well placed to go to the next step and get going on their careers.”
Naffi has already moved on to her next step, as she has successfully defended her thesis and is now teaching at the university.
Chodan, who helped select the winning candidates, said the research topics addressed by the scholars are important, and it’s equally important that the top thinkers in those fields are able to communicate their ideas effectively. “It can only be a good thing that people are paying attention to topics in such depth,” Chodan said.
“Academic research is an underpinning of how we develop and grow as a society.
Chodan said Stephen Hawking, who died on Wednesday, is a good example of someone who made academic research relatable to the general public.
Truth and Consequences will be held at the D.B. Clarke Theatre in the Henry F. Hall building Tuesday from 6:30 to 8 p.m.