Daily Archives: March 15, 2012

Undergraduate Research Grant Advice

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Last semester, a group of students fell in love with the English seminar course “Cook the Books”. If you’re a regular reader, you might remember me blogging about some memorable class adventures and mishaps. We were so enthusiastic and passionate about how the course connected literature and food that we decided that we wanted to publish a cookbook that documented our learning journey. The project has come to be known as Cook This Book.

Late last semester, our team applied for an Undergraduate Arts and Science Research Grant. And got it. Now, we’re trying to balance school with publishing a cookbook, something we’ve never done before. It’s been challenging. Many of the people on the team are in their final year of study, applying to grad school, working either full-time or part-time and studying full-time or part-time. Although we were stoked to actually get money and support from the University of Toronto (keep an eye out for these opportunities by scanning department newsletters), there is a certain amount of pressure that comes along with such endowments. Basically, we have to come up with something impressive to show the school at the end of the school year that is fast approaching like a steam train in a black and white film from the silent era. Wait, that’s me tied to the tracks in this imaginary movie happening inside my head! I’m screaming for help! Only you can’t hear me!

I’m so thankful for lifeatuoft because I have a voice on here. I promise this won’t be a post where I have a complete breakdown due to stress. In fact, I’m going to give you tips on how to avoid getting into a similar undergraduate research grant situation that I am in.

Apply sooner rather than later. Our team applied close to the application deadline, mostly because we came up with the idea late during the fall semester (I mean, we had to experience most of the course to actually propose a cookbook that would document it). If you have a kernel of an idea that you want to propose (even as far away as next year), meet with a faculty member as early as possible to get their feedback. Waiting and writing an application close to a deadline is a lot of pressure. Let it sit in your head over the summer.

We made unrealistic deadlines. After we received the grant, our group met up and started making schedules. Soon, Winter Break passed. And now Reading Week has become a distant memory (oh, Belize, how I miss thee!). Now it’s crunch time. Not only to write material for the cookbook but essays, tests, exams, random assignments, presentations. Looking back, we were unfocused with our goals. It’s impossible to change the past but I wish we made more realistic deadlines because we’ve squeezed all of the work into a very condensed period of time.

Dedication should be rewarded. I’ve noticed at meetings there are some individuals who show up and do the work while others have decided to take a break, focus on school and come back at the end to contribute (and get credit) to the project. This doesn’t seem very fair to the people who have stuck by the project during the entire semester. If you are working with a team of students, it’s really not fair to pick and choose when and what you want to do, like swooping in during April to suddenly pick up where you left off early in the semester. If you’re getting credit for the project, you should stay committed to it through thick and thin. Trust me, we all have breaking points and want to quit, but it’s really not fair to the team if you decide to take a vacation when they need you the most. Our team is reviewing the roles and credit people are going to get when the cookbook is actually published as some members have really shown consistent dedication throughout the semester.

As we come to a close this semester, I really recommend you start thinking about potential research grant ideas over the summer and possible faculty members who can write you a reference letter. Do not wait last minute to get a start on an undergraduate research grant! Be aggressive in the summer and fall because the winter semester will manage to eat you up and spit you out!

Also, if you want to get involved in the cookbook, we’re looking for photographers, layout designers and illustrators. Check out our blog for more details and apply!

Erin 

 

 

An Atheist Love Letter to the Multi-Faith Centre

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Sometimes, when the lull of a conversation seems to set in, I like to ask tricky questions: “Is God dead?” is one of my favourites. Part of this is me being sneaky and believing that the only way to break a somewhat awkward silence is to introduce a more awkward question, so people can laugh at the absurdity, or occasionally jump in with an excited answer which seems “obvious, Jennifer, come on”. Part of this is hating small-talk, and kinda wanting to know how people will react to this question – for indeed, U of T is certainly a place where religious diversity exists in its near-complete, complicated, and exciting glory.

The Multi-Faith Centre, then, is an interesting social experiment. Imagine a church (synagogue, mosque, temple….) where absolutely everyone could come in, say/debate/declare/ritualize/practice/seek whatever it was they believed, and everyone else agreed to listen. Not to necessarily agree, but to give every voice a “yes, okay, maybe… but why?”. Imagine being an evangelical-Christian-turned-atheist, or atheist-turned-Muslim, or any other representation of complicated spiritual and existential journeys, and then sitting in a room full of other students – some certain in their beliefs, some intensely uncertain – and learning Buddhist meditation (as I have been, for the last 9 weeks).

There’s bound to be dialogue. Sometimes academic, but more often, words which are intensely personal and sometimes dwelling at the edge of the inarticulable.

Many (but certainly not all) of my deeply scientific friends are also deeply atheistic, and some of them ask me “why I care” about religious studies in the classroom, or about spending so much time at the Multi-Faith Centre otherwise. The truth of the matter is, we all have belief systems which (either ideally or practically) guide our actions and our conceptualizations of the world. We can choose to call these religions or not, but I know that in understanding the different ways people can think about living and dying, solving conflict, being meaningful to others, and about “people who are not like us”, the better I can understand how to not simply communicate, live, and love these people, but how they can maybe even teach me something about my own life and how best to live it.

Last night I attended the, “What if…. there were no religious/secular divide?” debate at Hart House, broadcast on CIUT 89.5 fm. Here was a discussion by a Professor of Religious Studies and the current president of the University of Toronto Secular Alliance about whether believers and non-believers can both reach enlightenment; the social implications of theocratic social values in a secular society; and the uses (utilitarian and otherwise) of religion across the globe.

What jumped out at me about it the most was the readiness of the participants to view religions (including secular belief systems) as not mere ideas, but ways of living. They reminded us how, regardless of faith, there are varying degrees to which individuals live according to their beliefs, and the universal challenges in carrying on living what we hope is a meaningful life, even without the answers that would provide us certainty that what we are doing is “right”. In contrast to the usual types of Huxleyian perennialism – “we’re all the same, beneath all of these faiths” – they also emphasized the importance of difference. We’re all engaging in an introspective, existential battle – but this battle is as unique as the individual who engages in it, and the context in which they have, do, and will live.

In seeking – something, anything – the unique vantage point of the time period in which we live, and the intense multiculturalism and religious diversity of 21st century Toronto has at least, for me, challenged my mind and opened my eyes to new ways of living. Since university is a time that, perhaps first and foremost, should be spent in the cultivation of critical thinking and the articulation of the self, I hope that other students who perhaps haven’t yet will seek out the Multi-Faith Centre and attend some of their events. A good way to learn of these is by joining their facebook page. I’ve found that at the very least, what you hear and see and do will be interesting. At the most, it might change, in some way, your life.

Sometimes worlds collide, but sometimes, they reveal to each other the parts of themselves that the others don’t yet seem to truly understand.

Jennifer