York University student Matteo Cerilli knew immediately what he wanted to do when he saw the list of DARE (Dean's Award for Research Excellence) research projects.
Drawn to a project led by Assistant Professor Tom Hooper, in the Department of Equity Studies, investigating protests that followed the 1981 Toronto bathhouse raids, Cerilli wanted to dig deeper into what happened after 150 police officers raided four gay bathhouses and arrested 186 men.
Cerilli’s research concentrated on the aftermath. The night following the raids, 3,000 gay people and their allies marched down Yonge Street to Queen’s Park, chanting “enough is enough.” Two weeks later, 4,000 people rallied at Queen’s Park demanding justice and an end to police violence. Speakers included feminists, labour representatives, immigrants, Black activists and other representatives of Toronto’s cultural mosaic.
“My role in the research project was to dig up all the records of these solidarities to prove that Toronto has always known that our struggles are connected, especially in a world where we’re pitted against each other,” said Cerilli, who just finished his degree in professional writing and creative writing, a double major, when he began his DARE research project.
Cerilli participated in the research through the Dean’s Award for Research Excellence (DARE), which allows LA&PS students to work with faculty on research projects over the summer, and offers hands-on experience, mentoring and a $5,000 stipend.
Funded by LA&PS, DARE has grown from supporting 30 to 60 students annually, with more than 400 applications each year. Applicants must be full-time undergraduate students enrolled in a LA&PS major or minor program with a GPA of 7.0 and 48 completed credits. Students design a project poster to exhibit at a public event in the fall that celebrates DARE participants. Cerilli’s 2023 research poster was a runner-up in Fall 2023.
The program benefits both students and professors: professors receive research assistance, while undergraduates gain rare mentorship and research experience in the social sciences and humanities.
“What I really like about DARE, it showcases really well, almost uniquely, the diversity of our research, the diversity of our Faculty, the diversity of our students,” said David Cuff, director, strategic research and partnerships, LA&PS. “Student participants come from all walks of life and many backgrounds, showing how our Faculty really does bring together research from all corners of the globe and research from all areas of study. From information technology to writing to history, social work, environment, disaster emergency management, public policy, politics, sociology, linguistics, DARE demonstrates the incredible breadth and impact of LA&PS.”
“There are so many different fields within LA&PS. Although we are a Faculty, we're larger than many universities in Canada and because of that we have a large complement of professors and students in our 20 departments and professional schools. We see posters and projects that reflect that broad scope.”
Ravi de Costa, associate dean research and graduate studies in LA&PS and an associate professor in the Department of Social Science, said the program benefits students, researchers and LA&PS.
“Students can choose what projects interest them. So, you get students from politics expressing interest in a human resource faculty member’s project or a project from social work, maybe something from administrative studies,” he said. “And then that cross-pollinates the faculty as well. You get these kinds of collaborations and relationships emerging that couldn't happen otherwise.”
DARE students have represented every program in LA&PS over the seven years of the program. De Costa believes that makes DARE the most representative program of the faculty’s research side.
“The early success of the program, in the enthusiasm, really obliged us to expand it as much as we could early on ... It was an obvious place for us to invest,” he said.
Cerilli said he benefitted in many ways from taking part in DARE. He learned about archives and how to pare down an enormous research topic. He discovered an unknown audio recording of a protest rally, earning a footnote in one of Hooper’s papers. Using his DARE stipend and part-time job earnings, he moved from Burlington to downtown Toronto. And he found a little bit of his identity.
“As a queer youth, learning your history is difficult – censorship makes it hard to find print evidence, not everyone grows up knowing older queer people, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic took away so many of our elders,” he said.
“I’m so grateful to have spent a summer sitting in all that history. It’s grounding.”
With files from Julie Carl