Installation by Cultural Studies students Kezia Elaschuk and Safeera Jaffer at the Okanagan Wine and Orchard Museum
For the second year, the Cultural Studies program at UBC’s Okanagan campus is offering a course that focusses on community engagement, where students have the opportunity to work in collaborative teams to complete projects that support the work of community partners.
This year professor David Jefferess has set up partnerships with Sncəwips Heritage Museum, the Ki-Low-Na Friendship Society, the Okanagan Wine and Orchard Museum, the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, and Lake Country’s Municipal Planning Office, Museum, and Public Art Commission.
In this course, students will be able to work on research projects in the areas of heritage and commemoration, community outreach and engagement, and education towards reconciliation, with topics that include colonial history and Indigenous resistance/resilience, the history of water “management” in the region, Japanese-Canadian Settlement, public and natural art, and artist communities.
Students enrolled in the course last year worked on some interesting and informative projects that demonstrate the skills they developed and the positive impacts they were able to make with their community partners.
Students Tessa Baatz, Chiara Mason and Emma McLeod presented an idea to the City of Kelowna that examines the positive impacts of parking spaces that are reclaimed for public recreational or beatification purposes. Read more about PARKLETS: Innovations in Urban Public Spaces.
Kezia Elaschuk and Safeera Jaffer researched the experiences of early Chinese and Japanese agricultural workers in the Okanagan and presented their finding in an exhibition at the Okanagan Wine and Orchard Museum. Read more about this project.
This course (CULT 499) is designed to provide students experiential learning based on the skills and knowledge of Cultural Studies scholarship. As such, students will complete a tangible research project that will be publicly disseminated, and they will acquire specific professional skills and experience suitable for inclusion in letters of application, resumes, and/or curriculum vitae.
In order to enroll in CULT 499 Community Engaged Research in term two this year, students are required to submit an application that includes a resume, description of related skills and experience as well as a letter of interest. The deadline for applications is September 22, 2017.
For more information, please contact the course instructor, David Jefferess. david.jefferess@ubc.ca.