Coffey wins 3MT

Last week, eight Nipissing students competed in the university’s first Three Minute Thesis Competition (3MT), and Linda Coffey, a Master of History student, took home first place and tied for the People’s Choice Award for her work, titledRadio, Resistance, and Re-presenting History.Runner Up honours went to Imane Meddah, Master of Environmental Sciences, for her thesis, Identification and characterization of Ostariophysan alarm cues.
Also tying for the People’s Choice Award was Jamie Polesky, Master of History student, for From West to East: The History of Holocaust Denial.

Coffey takes home the $500 first place prize and is punching a ticket to the provincial finals at McMaster University on April 24.

Here’s a brief summary of Coffey’s work:
My research will examine CBC radio’s first national indigenous current affairs program, “Our Native Land.” The program was hosted and produced by an all-Aboriginal team and existed alongside emerging indigenous political movements of the 1960s and 1970s. “Our Native Land” featured indigenous news, entertainment, culture, politics, and history. My project will examine and analyze excerpts and episodes of “Our Native Land” from 1965-1975 and will demonstrate how the program subverted persistent racial stereotypes, resisted oppressive government policies, and re-presented the history of indigenous peoples previously presented from the perspective of a dominant white settler narrative. Completely ignored by historians, my study of CBC’s “Our Native Land” will open up new possibilities for research in the area of indigenous media and activism.

3MT® is a university wide competition for Masters and Doctoral students in which participants present their research and its wider impact in 3 minutes or less to a panel of non-specialist judges. 

3MT® competition was initially developed by The University of Queensland in 2008 to promote effective communication of research.  The success of the first Queensland competition prompted other Australian and New Zealand universities to run their own competitions, culminating in the first Trans Tasman competition held in 2010. 3MT® has spread internationally.

The challenge is to present complex research material in an engaging, compelling way, using only one slide. The three minute thesis competition provides graduate students with an opportunity to refine skills that can be transferred after graduation to diverse career paths.
Distilling research into a clear form, without over-simplifying or making overly-complex, and highlighting the wider implications of this research are important skills to carry into post-graduate employment and public service.