Research
Whether it is for an Honours, an Independent study, or as a course requirement, students can pursue research than engages the wider community.
This past year, two Religious Studies students bought a popular development indicator in eastern religions, the Gross National Happiness, to campus as part of their undergraduate research work. With the help of several awards and bursaries, the students travelled to Thailand to attend the World Youth Buddhist Symposium. Upon returning to Sackville, they conducted a survey on Gross National Happiness to determine how it might be incorporated into the everyday lives of people in the community, to evoke change from the ground up.
Other students in Sociology have conducted research on youth relations with the police in New Brunswick. One student, after having conducted summer work in a youth leadership program in Saint John, held focus groups with youth and discussed their relations with the police and what efforts they would like to see to make their community safer. One outcome was a policy brief of best practices and recommendations to the community.
Recent honours research in Geography and Environment included an analysis of water quality and pollution in New Brunswick lakes and rivers, outdoor environmental education and the planning and development of an outdoor classroom at a local elementary school, wetlands development in cooperation with Ducks Unlimited, place-based teaching and learning pilot studies, documentary film-making on education local students and families on proper recycling and composting practices. Several students have even stayed in the community after they have graduated so that they might continue to develop their projects and work with the community.
A Geography and Environment research methods class recently completed a comparative analysis of three Maritime university towns: Sackville, Antigonish and Wolfville and presented their results to the Maple League of Universities Group on measuring and maintaining positive relations between the university and the community.
