Three-Minute Thesis College Heat: College of Arts Graduate Students Explore Language, History and Teaching
What is Surzhyk and why is it important? How can we learn from past mistakes? How can the arts improve teaching in higher education?
All of these questions (and more) were recently answered by College of Arts (COA) competitors at the Three-Minute Thesis (3MT ®) College Heat on April 11, 2025, held in the Alumni and Heritage Centre in the Ontario Agricultural College at the University of Guelph.
Provoking Thought through Language Exploration
The COA portion of the College Heat began with a presentation by Stefanie Menezes, MA candidate, European Studies, who placed third in the COA Heat.
Throughout her talk, Nature vs. Nurture – The Question of Russian Language Dominance, Menezes discussed the languages of Russian and Ukrainian, challenging the idea that Russian overcame Ukranian. She suggested that a Russian-Ukranian hybrid language called Surzhyk came to be not because of Russian dominance but rather due to a natural combining of the two languages over time. She also explained that “nearly 1/5 of Ukraine in the 21st century declares that both Russian and Ukrainian are their native languages” and asked, “do we continue to look at the Russian language present in Ukraine as a marker of occupation [or as] an act of survival?”
Learning from Past Mistakes, Changing the Future
The next COA presentation, Institutional Responses to Indigenous Presence: Historical Developments at Trent, Toronto, and Guelph (1964–2021), was delivered by Sofia Mayer Piriz, MA candidate, History, who placed second in the COA Heat.
Piriz discussed behaviours of Trent University, the University of Toronto and the University of Guelph towards Indigenous Peoples in the context of reconciliation. Trent University was “the first university in Canada to have an Indigenous Studies program,” Piriz noted, explaining the university offered many initiatives to support Indigenous university students. She explained that Trent was “ahead of its time,” considering that until 1961, Indigenous students with status, who were legally recognized as being Indigenous, could not obtain a post-secondary degree without potentially losing their status, which also meant losing important rights.
While Trent supported Indigenous Peoples, the actions of the University of Toronto and the University of Guelph towards Indigenous Peoples were historically very harmful and offensive, Piriz noted. As we work towards reconciliation, we need to take action. “We have to dig deeper. We have to really look at our past. We have to think about the histories,” Piriz explained. Scrutinizing our past mistakes and doing everything possible to prevent repeating them in our daily lives and interactions is a key step towards reconciliation because, as Piriz remarked, “History is not just in history textbooks. It’s all around us.”
The Arts can Help Build Relationships in Conflict-Affected Classrooms
The last in the suite of COA presentations was delivered by Sophie Lane, PhD candidate, Critical Studies in Improvisation, who placed first in the COA Heat.
Lane’s presentation, Post-Conflict Pedagogy, and What the Arts Can Do, explored the importance of collaboration and using “arts-based methods” in teaching in higher education classrooms that are affected by global conflict.
“We need teaching methods that can handle conflicting perspectives and help us learn to negotiate more than one correct answer. And we need to take the arts seriously as an approach,” she commented.
Reflecting on her work with Koya University in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq which involved delivering art workshops, Lane explained, “we found that these arts-based methods were really good at fostering the kind of trauma informed teaching that is needed in these spaces. And we also found that it was a way for students from different backgrounds and experiences to create meaningful relationships.”
The College extends congratulations to all of the COA 3MT® College Heat participants along with best wishes for Lane, Menezes and all other competitors who will be moving on to the finals on April 24.