Love of learning animates “pinch hitter”by Robie Liscomb
“In class, my focus is on the students, not on the content,” says English department sessional instructor Dr. Susan Elderkin. “Content-driven courses are anathema to me and to my beliefs about education. Part of my role must be to teach individuals how they can best learn. I want my students to risk taking responsibility for their education while in my classes. Learning how to learn is my challenge to students and to myself.”
Not that Elderkin doesn’t take content seriously. She typically takes five or six hours to prepare for a 50-minute class.
Says one of her nominators: “she jokes that she over-prepares for classes and then takes only a Post-It note to class. Her classes, while highly planned, prompt students to respond to a literary text and then use those responses to build a highly complex group analysis of the poem or narrative. Only the most skilled instructors can draw this kind of sophisticated and complex response from students, rather than providing it to them.”
Hired for a replacement position in 1995, Elderkin has stayed on since then with a term-to-term sessional appointment. “I’m a bit of a pinch hitter,” she laughs. She’s been called on to teach 19 different courses over that time, across a very wide range of topics and time periods.
“Feedback about Dr. Elderkin’s courses is overwhelmingly laudatory,” says one nominator. Another, a student, wrote, “Her students always respond positively to her diverse pedagogical style, her sensitivity concerning historical, global and local politics and values, and her energetic personality (not to mention her fabulous sense of humour).”
Appreciation of Elderkin’s teaching is nothing new. Before coming to UVic she was awarded the Queen’s University Alumni Teaching Award.
“My views on teaching are selfish,” says Elderkin. “I love to learn and I’m inspired to continue to learn by my students.”
“Natural showman” brings chemistry alive
by Valerie Shore
He’s outspoken, unabashedly passionate about his work and loves to entertain a crowd — the bigger the better. And, oh yes, every now and then he wears a shocking green wig.
“I’m a natural showman, just give me a microphone and a crowd,” grins chemistry professor Dr. Reg Mitchell, one of three winners of a 2001 Excellence in Teaching Award from the UVic Alumni Association. “One of the joys of being a university professor is to stand up and spout in front of the class. I obviously enjoy the sound of my own voice, so to me, teaching is a pleasure.”
Mitchell, an organic chemist, has spent the last 28 years turning young minds on to the wonders of chemistry — both inside and outside the classroom. A firm believer that science is for everyone, his teaching credo is simple: make it clear, show how it’s relevant, and make it exciting. “If you’re just going to repeat what’s in the textbook, almost anyone can stand up and do it,” he says.
At UVic, where Mitchell developed and teaches two popular generalist courses — one for non-scientists — on chemistry in modern society, students consistently rank his courses as “awesome,” “exciting” and “excellent.”
To prepare, Mitchell spends a lot of time keeping up with chemistry issues in the news. “Whether it’s genetically modified corn in tacos or new drugs like Viagra, it’s chemistry in action out there,” he says. “I try to teach students how to detect nonsense in the news media so that they can make more informed decisions.”
For more than 25 years, Mitchell has been dazzling local school groups with the lively “Dr. Zonk” chemistry show, in which he dresses up as a mad scientist in a green fright wig. He’s also a longtime organizer of the Vancouver Island Regional Science Fair for kids, held at UVic every spring. And his regular guest spots on C-FAX radio help educate listeners about the role of chemistry in their everyday lives.
Among Mitchell’s other honours are: Academic of the Year (2000) from the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of B.C.; the Eve Savory Award for Science Communication (2000) from the Science Council of B.C., and the faculty of science Excellence in Teaching Award (1997–98).
Prof offers safe place for “feminists of all stripes”
by Robie Liscomb
“Compassionate and challenging.” That’s the theme running through descriptions of women’s studies professor Debby Yaffe’s teaching.
Nominators describe her classes as “truly a safe place for feminists of all stripes to articulate their point of view and challenge themselves and others.... She’s able to ensure that each student has her/his voice heard even in the heat of controversy and debate.”
“Though Debby has high academic expectations of her students and presents a serious and thorough analysis of the issues under consideration in her courses, she’s also a very humorous, open and approachable person,” says another nominator.
Yaffe’s roots are deep in grassroots feminism. She came to UVic in 1990 after more than 20 years’ involvement in the women’s movement, including service as co-ordinator of the Victoria Status of Women Action Group and 15 years’ involvement in the running of Everywoman’s Books, a Victoria collectively run, nonprofit feminist bookstore.
“She brings this kind of connection to community into her teaching and models brilliantly for women’s studies students the possibility of integrating education with larger social contexts and purposes,” says department chair Dr. Christine St. Peter.
Yaffe sees women’s studies at the intersection of two conflicting impulses — the radical activist impulse that challenges power structures (including those of the university and its claims to the disinterested pursuit of knowledge), and the scholarly impulse that challenges many activists’ facile assumptions while seeking to transform academic scholarship.
“At the crux of this fertile disequilibrium is the women’s studies instructor, who simultaneously upholds and problematizes academic
authority. I’ve found it profoundly disturbing and confusing to be in this position and, perhaps paradoxically, what I have to offer students is the way I honour my own confusion.
“I try to open areas of thought [for my students] — in essence to create problems where none previously existed for them — and then to refuse closure, urging them toward greater complexity in their analyses.”
Another student nominator sums it up: “Debby’s teaching is regarded not only as excellent, but life-changing.”