The University of Winnipeg (U of W)’s research office is hosting an expanded Research Week from Nov. 14 to 17. Research Week is a recurring series of “workshops, conversations and fun” focused on building research skills and providing opportunities for U of W faculty and students to share their ongoing research with attendees.

Rachel Keijzer helped plan the week’s events and says the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted some of the typical opportunities for students to connect with professors.

She says “a lot of students aren’t aware” that their instructors and professors conduct research, and they’re “not aware that it’s something they can get involved in, too.”

Keijzer works as a program officer in the university’s Research Office and says research opportunities are especially beneficial for third- and fourth-year undergraduate students. Summer internships can help students form connections with industry partners and explore different aspects of their fields that aren’t reflected in the classroom.

All of the Research Week programming is free and open to the public. Skills-focused workshops will be held in room 2M70 of Manitoba Hall, starting at 11:30 a.m. each day.

At 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings, the theatre and film department will host “Student Cinefest” screenings of student work in Eckhardt-Grammaté Hall.

Daytime programming will close out on Friday with a screening and discussion of the short film Cripping Climate Adaptation: Disability Justice and Climate Change at 2:30 p.m. in Convocation Hall. The film is a production of the Prairie Climate Centre, which is housed in the U of W’s Richardson College for the Environment.

Two of Friday’s events take liberties to experiment with conventional formats. The first, “Freaky Friday: Flipped 3 Minute Thesis (3MT),” is a variation on the annual graduate-studies 3MT competition, where graduate students give brief presentations about their research to a panel of research and communication professionals.

For the flipped 3MT, six U of W professors will present their research to be judged by the winner, runner-up and people’s choice from March’s 3MT competition. Unlike in the competition, presenters will have full creative liberty to use props, sing songs or wear costumes.

Friday’s Cripping Climate Adaptation screening will expand on a traditional panel discussion format by including breakout groups focused on different topics relevant to the film, which explores the intersection of disability and the mobilization of climate research.

“It’s not so easy to respond to a natural disaster or worsening air quality if you also have a variety of different needs and you’re being disabled by your environment,” Keijzer says.

She says the breakout groups will each have a note-taker, so the contents of each discussion can be “synthesized” into material to inform future discussions and policy recommendations.

Dates, times and locations of each event are available at bit.ly/47lH4C2.

Published in Volume 78, Number 09 of The Uniter (November 9, 2023)