Following adjudication by the University Teaching Awards Committee (UTAC), the Vice-Provost (Learning Initiatives) is delighted to acknowledge seven exceptional individuals for their outstanding work as educators and community builders.
Their outstanding achievements and steadfast focus on service to students are making a positive impact on the university and the wider community.
William Hardy Alexander Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching
is an assistant lecturer with Community Service Learning in the Faculty of Arts.
In 2019, he earned his Ph.D in Cultural Studies from the ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥, with research centring on the connection between comedy and multiculturalism within Canadian communities.
He has instructed a range of courses on various subjects, including community engagement, cultural studies and pedagogy. His primary interest lies in enhancing accessibility and equity in post-secondary education, particularly through collaborations between universities and communities.
Surrounded by a family of caregivers and teachers, Jay brings that ethos into his own practice by fostering learning spaces where students feel safe to stretch, stumble and grow, recognizing that personal and academic lives are always intertwined.
He approaches teaching as a relational practice — one that creates connections among students, the university, community collaborators and himself. He takes joy in supporting students as they translate academic ideas into community impact, particularly when they grapple with uncertainty, respond to new challenges and reflect on the difference they’re making.
“Everything I do in the classroom is designed to give students a glimpse of their contributions to the campus and community, present and future,” Jay says.
is an assistant lecturer of Literature and Creative Writing (WRITE).
She began work in English and Film Studies as a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow studying ecopoetics and decolonial pedagogy. Erina approaches writing, literary studies and research as forms of discovery and dialogue, and applies herself to curating classroom communities as sites of “radical possibility” (to quote author bell hooks).
An award-winning instructor and published writer, Erina is a fellow of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. In 2024, she published Trading Beauty Secrets with the Dead, a collection of lyric essays and poetics as feminist intervention within the nonsense verse tradition. She is currently conducting studies of decolonizing the classroom, and of trauma-informed writing workshops.
In June 2025, Erina will travel to Lisbon where she has been awarded a research-creation/artist residency and will undertake research at the Doll Hospital Bonecas, the world’s oldest surviving doll hospital, founded in 1830.
Her nascent research-creation project comprises an intersectional feminist study of the Doll Hospital’s founder, Dona Carlota, and investigation of the practice of recycling/healing toys within the broader context of ecological crisis.
Teaching Collaboration Award
Collaborative Teaching Across Communities: Allison Sivak is a faculty engagement librarian with Library + Museums and Lisa Prins is a manager, Adult and Community Education with the Faculty of Arts.
Since 2017, Allison and Lisa have brought their experiences, knowledge and enthusiasm as primary instructors and co-facilitators to deliver courses and learning materials on the university campus, within the Edmonton Institution for Women (a federal penitentiary) and to Edmonton’s inner city. Together, they have offered learning and knowing opportunities for hundreds of people. Their teaching goal remains focused on possibility that pushes against colonial conventions of knowing and learning.
They have co-instructed four for-credit classes, were instrumental in developing the ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ Walls to Bridges program, provided administration and facilitation support for several Walls to Bridges courses and have guest lectured in many other courses. With collaborators Jessica Thorlakson (Library + Museums) and Maddie Youngman, they have curated more than sixty packages of learning material for people incarcerated at the Edmonton Institution for Women (EIFW) through The Learning Club (TLC).
Their major collaboration is through an experiential Community Service-Learning (CSL) spring course: Uprooting Knowledge, Embedded Learning. Each time the course is offered, it has adapted and evolved.
This spring, with the support of a TLEF Enhancement Fund grant, they collaborated with Society of Northern ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ Printmakers (SNAP), artist Christina Battle, Cliff Cardinal and Boyle Street Community Services (BSCS) to create public art in the Boyle McCauley neighbourhood that invites conversations, engagement and play between neighbours.
Rutherford Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching
is a full lecturer in the Department of History, Classics and Religion with a cross-appointment in Science, Technology and Society Studies within the Media and Technology Studies Unit.
He specializes in the history of science and technology with a special focus on transportation, industrial and warfare technologies. During his time with the ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥, Lech has taught over 80 classes, receiving four major teaching awards and seven distinctions for excellence in undergraduate teaching. His classes are provocative, engaging and fun, as they bring the past, present and the future together.
His multidisciplinary pedagogy and teaching style are based on real-life experiences, and combined with hands-on examination of material artifacts of the past, is often described by his students as a ‘time travel’ experience.
In his lectures, Lech challenges the established version of the history of technology by de-Westernizing the subject and by questioning modern notions of progress and growth. In his courses, students are encouraged to test themselves by questioning pivotal concepts and approaches in the history of technology.
Provost’s Award for Early Achievement of Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching
is an associate professor and director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies in the Faculty of Arts.
Simone understands themselves as a mentor who guides students to become open-minded and conscientious citizens of their communities and the university. Simone does so by allowing students to actively shape their ongoing learning processes and creating spaces where they can rethink their approach to scholarship. Simone’s lessons balance their enthusiasm and sense of humour with an element of seriousness that signals their expectations and commitment to fostering intellectually meaningful conversations.
“I create a learning experience whereby students enter the classroom as their full selves while embracing the possibility of affecting and being affected. This necessitates openness to exploring new concepts, issues and cultures with unique traditions, norms and modes of communicating,” says Simone.
This approach to teaching and learning challenges students to confront structures of social inequity and develop ways of addressing these problems with the tools that are available to them and learn new ones.
is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education - Elementary Education.
Her research interests focus on applied linguistics, working with linguistically diverse student populations, families and communities to advance social justice in language and literacy education.
Since joining the Faculty of Education, she has taught courses such as Language Arts in Elementary School and Methods in the Teaching of English to Multilingual Students, where she has had the privilege of working alongside students from various streams of the Bachelor of Education program, including the mainstream BEd program and the Aboriginal Teacher Education Program (ATEP).
Sonya’s teaching philosophy is rooted in the belief that meaningful learning happens when students feel valued, respected and understood. She strives to create a classroom climate that motivates learners, encourages critical thinking and prepares them to become thoughtful and engaged individuals.
She believes that education should foster an awareness of how students’ identities shape their experiences and learning. Sonya strives to create an inclusive, engaging and effective environment where diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds are not only acknowledged, but actively integrated into the curriculum.
Demonstrating her commitment as an educator, Sonya states, “I aim to cultivate an inclusive atmosphere that values the richness of student backgrounds, fosters critical thinking and empowers students to become agents of change.”
The recipients of the 2025 Awards for Teaching Excellence were recognized at the Festival of Teaching and Learning in May.