On Wednesday November 20, 2013, Pamela Dickey Young’s undergraduate honours class (14 students) “Religion in the Public Eye” at the Queen’s University School of Religion linked to Nancy Nason-Clark’s graduate class (6 students) in the Department of Sociology at the University of New Brunswick on “Research Design” via Skype. Prior to the seminar, students were given two articles on Nancy Nason-Clark’s research to read.
The seminar began with students from each university introducing themselves to each other. Then Nancy Nason-Clark presented some aspects of her research program on religion and domestic violence with a focus on the different research methods employed in the collection of data from a variety of religious groups throughout Atlantic Canada. This was followed by a Q&A period with students from Queen’s. Next Pamela Dickey Youngpresented some of her research program on religion, gender and sexuality with a focus on the latest project, the Religion, Youth and Sexuality research which is still in progress. She presented some of the preliminary results of the analysis of data from an online survey. This time students from the University of New Brunswick engaged in a Q&A with Pamela Dickey Young.
Graduate students at University of New Brunswick then presented brief synopses of their research projects including an explanation – for those students at Queen’s planning to pursue graduate studies – about how they came to their research topics. The Queen’s students then had the opportunity to ask a few questions directly to the UNB students based on the presentations.
Pamela Dickey Young‘s students found the experience to be engaging and worthwhile, both in terms of hearing about Nancy Nason-Clark‘s research and in terms of helping them with ideas for their own professional development in their interactions with the University of New Brunswick graduate students.
In total the linked classrooms seminar took about 90 minutes to complete.