The Awards: 10

I am--once again--humbled to have been named to the Department of Psychology's Teaching Honour Roll (with Distinction) for all six of the courses I taught in Fall, 2013 and Winter, 2014.

I was also named to the brand-new Faculty of Science Instructors of Distinction Honor Roll. This award is decided upon by a secret cabal within each Department in Science. Or nominated by their peers, or something like that. You can check out my name (spelled correctly!) on the wall outside of CCIS 1-440, along with my Department of Psychology colleague Anthony Singhal and instructors from other Science Departments. Or  just check out this photo:

On the wall are also names on the new Students' Choice Honor Roll which is based on student evaluations. (The median student rating for every item on the USRIs must be at or above the 75th percentile--wow!) Congratulations to Sheree Kwong-See, Crystal MacLellan, and Anthony Singhal. No, I did not get on that honour roll, which shows that I still have work to do!

The new Lifetime Honor Roll included Prof. Charles Beck from psychology. Congratulations!

Why aren't you studying?

The Klawe Prize (Update)

OK, so you know how I say I'm not bragging about the awards I get? And if I were bragging, I'd show you a picture of my awards? Well, here's a picture of my Klawe award!

It's really hard to get a good picture of it, being all transparent and reflective. (Who wants to see my mug reflected in this beautiful award?)

It turns out that the award presented to me at the awards ceremony had two errors--and they weren't misspellings of my name (shock!). The original misspelled Kathleen W. Klawe's name (as "Kathlene"), and was apparently for "Outstanding Qualities in Graduate Mentoring" (as opposed to "Outstanding Qualities of Teaching Large Classes"). Oops.

It's taken a month to get a replacement, but it's all good now. In fact, they're letting me keep the original, incorrect award ("Use them as bookends" the nice lady at the Faculty of Science told me. LOL!) Nah. Maybe if I win another award, then I'll use them as bookends.

Why aren't you studying?

The Klawe Prize

I am honoured to be the 2014 recipient of the Kathleen W. Klawe Prize for Excellence in Teaching of Large Classes. Kathleen W. Klawe was a Professor of economics at UAlberta who taught many large classes. This teaching award was established by Prof. Klawe’s daughter, Maria Klawe, in honour of her mother, as explained in this article. (Dr Maria Klawe is a renowned academic in her own right.)

The Klawe prize is awarded in alternating years to instructors in the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Science. In Science, it had previously been won only by instructors in the Department of Chemistry.

Awards like this are very competitive; that is, many people apply. You have to submit a package, making the case why you think you deserve the award. I want to thank Prof. Elena Nicoladis and Kerry Ann Berrisford (Undergraduate Advisor, Science) in the Department of Psychology for putting together my application. I merely contributed my story--that is, my teaching philosophy document. (It sounds high-falutin’, but it just describes what I do, how I do it, and why.)

I’ve taught a lot of large classes in my career. How many, I don’t know. (What do you consider a “large class”? Over 100 students?) I never wanted the size of a class to be a barrier to learning. As a student, I took a lot of large classes. Some of those were good; some were great. I learned that it was possible to have a great in-class experience with an instructor who maybe took chances, pushed the limits of what they could do, and really loved what they were doing.

That’s not to say I’m a big risk taker, living on the edge; I talk (lecture) a lot. But I also do try to have hands-on experiences--even in big classes. For example, I assign self-management projects (in behaviour modification classes) and “virtual” computer-based labs (in perception, and cognitive psychology classes). Of course, these all have to be marked, so I also want to send out big thank-yous to the TAs who’ve dived in to the deep end and done a ton of marking this year (especially Jeffrey, Amelia, Yang, and Cheryl, with assistance from Cory and James).

I’m not a big spotlight hog, so it’s good that I don’t get to make an acceptance speech. I just want to say, thanks!

Why aren’t you studying?

Update: That's Associate Dean Glen Loppnow and me in the photo. I'm hoping some of his skill in teaching rubs off on me!

The Committees

What’s the one thing that the University runs on? Committees, you say? No, it’s actually money. But I’m glad you brought up the committees.

The workload of tenured/tenure-track academic faculty is expected to be 40:40:20 (teaching:research:service). That is, 40% of work time should be spent on teaching/prep work, 40% should be spent on research, and 20% should be spent on “service.” When I was first starting out, I didn’t know what that meant, either. Then someone told me it meant “volunteering,” which I thought meant, like, joining Uncles at Large or picking up litter in the river valley. Er, no.

In academic jargon, “service” means volunteering your time to participate on internal university committees (among other things). Without this volunteer work, the university would come to a standstill. Yup, even if we had so much money that we could build a Butterdome out of actual butter, everything would come to a crashing halt.

Here are some examples of committees on campus and what they do:

• Department Council: every teaching department gets together on a roughly monthly basis to discuss changes and updates to courses, the curriculum, the Calendar, programs, and admissions. In the Department of Psychology, all Academic Faculty belong to this, as do Faculty Lecturers, some administrative staff, and there are also undergraduate and graduate student representatives.
• Undergraduate Curriculum Committee: how does the Department Council make decisions about curriculum? Proposals are brought forward for a vote by this group within a department (instructors and admin staff) who look at current and future course needs, recommend the use of learning objectives in teaching, and do things like kill off popular courses (ahem).
• Department Screening Committee: if a Department is going to hire someone, this group has to go through the applications and narrow down the choices to a select few, who are then referred to a separate Hiring Committee, which will be involved in a formal interview process. You wouldn’t believe the qualifications of some of the people who apply for a position in psychology.
• Arts Council for Technology & Innovation: this group is “an advisory body to the Dean [of Arts], with broad representation, that guides the direction of how technology will support the teaching, learning, research and administrative needs of the Faculty.” Members also share information about IT needs. (ACTI is not to be confused with the Information Technology Committee (ITC), the Information Technology Enterprise Committee (ITEC), or the Information Technology Advisory Committee (ITAC), which are associated with the VP IT. LOL!)
• InSciTE/E visioning committee: This Faculty of Science committee is, well...I dunno. I don’t know what “InSciTE/E” stands for. Innovation something, science something, teaching something. This committee hasn’t met yet.

Well, anyway, all these committees have something in common. They’re all made up of volunteers, giving their time to ensure that the University continues to move forward, innovates, and deals with challenges and opportunities at many different levels--from departments, to faculties, to central administration, and even cutting across those levels.

Oh, there’s one more thing those committees I listed above have in common: I’m on all of them--even though I don't have to be (my contract does not explicitly require service, but I like to contribute anyway). Now, I gotta go and prep for an upcoming meeting.



Why aren't you studying?

Update 3/26/2014: OK, now this is getting out of hand. In the past week, I've now been placed on two more committees: Intro Psych Textbook Review Committee and SCI 100 Future Planning Committee.