QPIRG internship coordinator Sara Teitelbaum PHOTO: OWEN EGAN

Real world research

KIRSTIE HUDSON | In coordinating community-based research internships with McGill students, the Quebec Public Interest Research Group (QPIRG) is closing the gap between academia and non-profit community organizations. The internship program aims to give student research, usually relegated to a dusty shelf once it's been marked, a practical place outside of the University. A student-run organization dedicated to social justice and environmental concerns, QPIRG's mandate is to encourage students to become involved in community activism, says Sara Teitelbaum, QPIRG's internship coordinator. "The internship program makes links between the community as a whole and McGill -- it gives students a chance to take their theoretical knowledge and put it into practice." The internship program actively solicits non-profit community organizations for research proposals that could be applicable to university course work or independent study for academic credit. Proposals range from designing a bike delivery system for a meals-on-wheels organization, to doing a history of campus community radio, to organizing a film festival for senior citizens. This semester there were over 30 internship opportunities available. Students across a wide variety of disciplines took advantage of the opportunity to put their research to practical use. QPIRG recruits its students by targeting specific courses and professors that match the internship proposal. Teitelbaum then travels to classrooms across campus, lobbying professors to let students take part and informing students of the program and project possibilities. "The more that communities are connected to the University, the better off we all are," says geography professor Tom Meredith. "I think the idea of the University existing in isolation is total nonsense and the internship program is a good way of making those bridges." Meredith's environmental studies seminar has had close ties to the QPIRG program, with his students working on a number of community-based research projects throughout the semester. "Students have a high social conscience and they do like to feel that they're participating in solving real problems," Meredith says. "We get a much higher level of enthusiasm and commitment through the internships than we do when we're giving artificially assigned academic exercises." Emma Mason, co-coordinator of Éco-Quartier Peter-McGill, set up an internship link with QPIRG to obtain student-based research on the water cycle -- how water moves in a natural chain from a gaseous state in clouds to rainfall to runoff in rivers to evaporation. Specifically, the Éco-Quartier team wanted to know how the water cycle is affected by urban development and other forms of human activity. The research will be translated into a manual Éco-Quartier could use for workshop presentations to high-school students. "We're going to use the information we get from students for something totally useful; it will provide the background and foundation for some of the things our organization is going to do," says Mason. "The principle of helping out groups in the community that are doing good work serves as a bit of extra motivation to do your own better quality work," says Dave Brophy, a student from Meredith's seminar who worked on the Éco-Quartier urban water cycle project. Brophy adds, "It's actually going to be put to use as opposed to just being stuck on your desk somewhere. [The internship] gave me a better idea of how this type of work is done in the real world." More students are becoming involved in the QPIRG program and Sarah Teitelbaum thinks the idea sells itself once students know about it. "Students are really looking for these kinds of opportunities."