Dan Fumano: Political science for the 'non-expert'

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Thousands of very smart people gathered in Vancouver last week, and one of the important things they discussed was how to make their work simple enough for even journalists to understand.

The 2019 edition of the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences drew more than 8,000 attendees to Vancouver, including academics from 73 different scholarly associations, ranging from the Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Mathematics to the Canadian Society for the Study of Comics.

Academics presented papers on subjects as varied as the craft cider renaissance and computers that can read our feelings. As Postmedia reported Wednesday, one presentation from a team of education researchers argued the children’s game of dodge ball is an unethical tool of “oppression.” The dodge ball presentation in particular seemed to strike a chord with the non-academic crowd, and has been widely covered since then, including, last Friday, in the sports section of the Washington Post.

At the Canadian Political Science Association‘s (CPSA) conference this year, the theme was “Speaking Truth to People,” which means, the association’s website says, “making our research results accessible to the largest possible number of people.”

“At a time when those who enjoy positions of power and influence seem increasingly bent on distorting reality to suit their purpose and on presenting untruths as incontrovertible facts, the Programme Committee wishes to encourage participants to ponder the social responsibility political scientists have to speak plainly,” the CPSA website says.

On its own, an ivory tower sounds like it would be a pretty cool place. But people who use that term when speaking about academics generally don’t mean it in a positive way.

“I think it is an increasingly important part of the work for scholars, especially in the humanities and social sciences, to show the relevance of their work outside of academia,” said Steve White, an assistant professor of political science Carleton University and a director of the CPSA. “I think our research plays a role in generating better public policy, and promoting good citizenship.”

Explaining academic work and its relevance in plain language to the media — and through the media, to the public — is “something the academic community has gotten much better at, certainly,” White said. “But of course, it’s still a challenge.”

That’s one reason, White said, that the CPSA holds an event called the Three-Minute Thesis Competition. As the event’s name suggests, a group of graduate political science students took on the task of distilling months or years of research into three minutes, the length of a round in a boxing match and almost short enough for an average reporter’s attention span.

White chaired this year’s Three-Minute Thesis Competition, which took place last Thursday at UBC. The competition’s four finalists were to be judged by a five-member jury, like an academic Dragon’s Den, on a list of criteria including enthusiasm, clarity, and jargon-free language. The event’s terms of reference dictated the jury should include two political science professors, as well as three “non-expert members.”

My level of expertise deemed sufficiently low, the organizers of the contacted me recently and asked me to take part in the jury for this year’s competition.

I was joined by a pair of more expert jury members: Harold Munro, Editor-in-Chief of The Vancouver Sun and Province, and Sam Sullivan, the MLA and former mayor of Vancouver.

The jury, along with a room full of political scientists, heard from the four grad students who had advanced through the preliminary round to the finals.

We heard from Manon Laurent of Concordia University, who interviewed parents of children in China’s education system, researching the interaction between parenting and politics in the authoritarian regime. Andrew Mattan of Guelph University presented his research into candidates’ use of Twitter during last year’s Ontario election, and Mohsen Solhdoost of the University of Queensland in Australia presented on support from nations like the U.S. to non-state armed groups like the Syrian rebels.

After the scores were in, the winner was Concordia University’s Clayton Ma, who presented his research into support for the Liberal Party of Canada among visible minority voters.

Some academics are simply better at researching than they are at speaking or writing, said Richard Johnston, a UBC political science professor regularly quoted in the local and national media.

“A lot of academics are kind of obsessed by their work, and that tends to crowd out things like table manners,” said Johnston, who has spent more than 40 years as a professor.

“Academics as a group are, you know, a bit off in a dimension. It’s kind of the way we are. But then there’s a handful of us who are actually off in dimensions as well, but we can sort of summon ourselves and be reasonably straight with the press or the public. And I just decided, a long time ago, I seemed to be able to speak to the press and the public so I should. Because somebody has to.”

Certain academics exhibit more of flair for talking to the media. As another example, The Vancouver Sun and The Province archives show that a political-science professor at Simon Fraser University named Kennedy Stewart appeared in the newspapers’ pages more than 200 times, either quoted in stories or as the author of guest op-eds, in the 15 years leading up to 2011, when he was elected as a member of Parliament.

Stewart, currently on leave from SFU, did not appear at last week’s CPSA conference, but his wife — Jeanette Ashe, the chair of Douglas College’s department of political science — was set to present in a pair of sessions there last week.

Stewart has since found a new job at Vancouver city hall, and his name still regularly appears in this newspaper.

dfumano@postmedia.com

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