On Thursday, October 1st, students and faculty from across the Faculty of Arts gathered in the lobbies of the Leacock and McCall MacBain Arts Building for the second annual Faculty of Arts Showcase, an evening celebrating the curiosity, creativity and interdisciplinarity that defines an Arts education here at McGill.
“The second iteration of the Faculty of Arts Showcase was a great success,” says Dr. Laura Brassington, Director of the Office of Arts Education.
“It was a truly collaborative effort, and sincere thanks are owed to Associate Dean (Student Affairs) Heidi Wendt, Associate Dean (Academic) Erin Hurley, AUS President Keith Andre Baybayon and his Executive Team, the David M. Culver Centre: Arts Internship Office Manager Jade Perraud Le Bouter, Associate Director of Buildings Erin McDonagh, Theatre Technical Supervisor Kaelen Perchuk, and our fantastic students.”
Highlighting Academic and Extracurricular Experiences
From paid summer research internships to joining student associations to discovering the Faculty’s many creative and academic journals, the Arts showcase featured a variety of programming throughout the evening, highlighting the various experiential and interdisciplinary learning experiences available to students within the Faculty of Arts.
The evening kicked off with opening remarks from Dean of Arts, Lisa Shapiro, welcoming students, faculty, staff, and alumni to a new iteration of the Annual Faculty of Arts Showcase, which was previously held in Spring 2025. This year’s showcase integrated poster presentations from past recipients of the Arts Research Internship Awards (ARIA), as well as an open house style drop-in period at the offices of the Arts Internship Office in Leacock 307.
Roaming between the lobbies of the Leacock and McCall MacBain buildings, attendees were able to listen to former recipients of the Arts Research Internship Awards (ARIA) talk about their research experiences and meet with representatives of over 18 departmental student associations, representing the various disciplines of the Faculty of Arts, from French Literature, to Economics to International Development to Geography.
In Arts 160, the Showcase continued to highlight the various creative and extracurricular outputs of an Arts education at McGill. The room featured a display of beautifully crafted costumes from the Department of English’s Drama and Theatre program. Also in attendance, were student representatives from the Arts Undergraduate Theatre Society and the McGill Savoy Society, who shared their Society’s respective repertoires and discussed upcoming productions, and how students could get involved.
Discovering New Academic Paths Through Foundational Seminars
Later on, in Arts 150, the evening featured a roundtable discussion led by Professor Michael Fronda on students’ experience in the foundation year course, CLAS 199.
Catherine Bennett, U2 Joint Honors in Classics and History with a minor in Philosophy, was among three former students enrolled in CLAS 199 who took part in the roundtable discussion.
Catherine started off her journey at McGill as a U1 student wanting to study science, but she soon realized that the major she had originally picked wasn’t well suited to her and her future goals.
“It left me feeling a little lost, so I decided that in my second semester, I wanted to explore a wider variety of courses,” says Catherine. “I had already been planning to take CLAS 199 since I’ve always had an interest in Classics and the idea of a smaller seminar really appealed to me.”
“Taking Arts foundation courses in the second semester helped me realize that not only was I deeply interested in Classics but it would help me develop skills that I saw helping me succeed in my future goals,” says Catherine. “The foundation courses helped me explore a variety of potential concentrations and made me feel confident in picking Classics and History [as my majors].”
Given how impactful the seminar was in shaping Catherine’s learning experience at McGill, Catherine was eager to share her story with others who might have felt similarly to her.
“CLAS 199 is my favourite course that I’ve taken so far at McGill, so it was really exciting to get the opportunity to speak about it,” she adds. “I really enjoyed being able to share how great the course was, especially given that it had such an impact on the direction of my [studies] and I appreciated the opportunity to talk about how valuable first year seminars were to figuring out my path of study at McGill.”
Following the roundtable, discussions continued in Arts 150 with several other testimonials from students who were keen to share and showcase their experiences in their respective foundation year seminars.
Nasinya Patterson and Fabiana Abreu Salazar were among some of the students presenting that evening. They shared their perspectives on how their experiences in foundation year seminars helped them become more confident in their academic skills and discover new research interests.
Nasinya Patterson chose to enroll in ANTH 199: Anthropology of the Self, because it was a discipline that was familiar to her.
“My mom studied anthropology,” says Nasinya. “I come from a liberal arts focused family, and I was always interested in the behaviour of humans.”
The course’s small, seminar-style structure appealed to Nasinya as well. “I came from a small high school and I like group conversations,” she says. Now a U2, Nasinya is pursuing a Major in Psychology and a minor in Religious Studies.
Looking back on her experience taking the Foundation Year Seminar course ANTH 199, Nasinya remarks how the structure of the course, the readings and assignments were a welcomed and challenging surprise.
From reading the course texts aloud together in class, to close reading exercises breaking down what the author is saying, Nasinya notes almost every facet of the course was a formative learning experience.
“A lot of my presentation [at the Showcase] has to do with lack of technology,” says Nasinya. “We were encouraged to write as many notes as possible during the lecture part of the course, which for a lot of students was difficult [...] it was like a course on how to really absorb material.”
Her experience taking ANTH 199 has encouraged Nasinya to approach her courses and assessments in different ways.
“I think that this course has allowed me to stop looking at university assessments as just a way [to] get a good grade, and instead try to learn as accurately and thoroughly as possible by trying to break down the barriers between [myself] and the text," says Nasinya.
“I’m currently taking a course called Christian Ethics of Love right now, and we're reading texts like Plato and Aristotle,” says Nsinya. “I think it's really easy to bring modern context and impose them onto older texts, but this [anthropology course] has allowed me to be a little bit less judgmental when reading.”
U2 Linguistics student Fabiana Abreu Salazar was also among some of the students sharing their experience taking a foundation year course. Last year, Fabiana took LING 199: Language and Mind with Professor Michael Wagner.
Coming from the Québec CEGEP system with an established interest in linguistics, Fabiana was keen to pursue her studies at McGill with a Major in Linguistics and a Minor in Psychology, with the hope of pursuing further studies in speech pathology.
“[Speech pathology] is a career that interests me a lot because after learning a language from scratch a couple of times by now, I know the struggle of words not coming out the way I want them to,” says Fabiana.
Reflecting on her experience in LING 199, Fabiana recounts how the course and Professor Wagner’s instruction helped her better understand course readings and how to acclimate to university-level instruction.
“It is a course that people often take as one of [their] first courses in university, and when you're given readings from an academic journal, it may seem really scary for someone coming from CEGEP or high school that has never done an APA or MLA citation,’ says Fabiana. “[LING 199] helped in understanding how formatting works in a university paper, how you should present something, how you get used to assignments and deadlines in a way that gives you a little more responsibility [than high school or CEGEP].”
Talking about her experience during the Showcase was an important way for Fabiana to encourage other students to see that a field like linguistics isn’t an abstract thing.
“[Linguistics] is something that we use both consciously and unconsciously all the time,” says Fabiana. “It is all around us and it is a social thing as well. It helps us communicate things that are beyond just words.”
Spotlight on Experiential Learning
Throughout the lobbies of the Leacock and McCall MacBain Arts buildings, thirty past recipients of the Arts Research Internship Awards (ARIA) showcased their research projects ranging from topics like Socialist World Literature to democratic backsliding in Eastern and Central Europe to Early-Modern English Paleography.
“The Arts Showcase is a wonderful opportunity to connect with students who may be learning about the David M. Culver Centre: Arts Internship Office for the first time,” says Jade Perraud Le Bouter, Manager of the AIO. “As students explore the research and experiential learning opportunities available across the Faculty, we can showcase the breadth of opportunities supported by our office, including Arts Undergraduate Research Internship Awards (ARIA), international internships, or placements with local organizations.”
Throughout the evening, students also had the opportunity to speak with the AIO’s support team in their offices in Leacock 307, where they got to meet with AIO donors, hear internship testimonials from past interns, and speak to AIO staff about upcoming workshops and information sessions.
Reflecting on the feedback she received from students throughout the evening, AIO Manager Perraud Le Bouter remarks that many students enjoyed the opportunity to share experiences that had a meaningful impact on their academic and professional development with various members of the Faculty of Arts community, many of whom they might not have otherwise have met, had it not been for the showcase.
“They appreciated the chance to step back and reflect on everything they had accomplished while sharing their work with others,” says Perraud Le Bouter. “They also enjoyed learning about the research, internships, and projects their peers were pursuing across the Faculty, often leaving the event with new ideas, connections, and opportunities for experiential learning.”
To stay tuned for future information regarding the Faculty of Arts Showcase, make sure to follow the Faculty of Arts on X, BlueSky, Instagram and Facebook.
Learn more about the Office of Arts Education.
The AIO is currently accepting applications for internships in Vienna for Summer 2027 until October 25, 2026.
Consult future event programing from the Arts Internship Office here and follow them on Instagram for news regarding internship opportunities and upcoming workshops.