Faculty of Arts 2020 Teaching Awards Announced
The 2020 Faculty of Arts annual teaching awards have been announced. Arts congratulates the award winners on their commitment to students, higher learning and quality instruction.
Faculty of Arts Outstanding Professor Award
The Outstanding Professor Award is given to a professor in the Faculty of Arts who has best demonstrated excellence in teaching, outstanding research and who has an exemplary record of service.
Dr. Roisin Cossar
This year’s winner, Dr. Roisin Cossar, Professor, Department of History, has excelled in all of these areas. Dr. Cossar is the Director of the Medieval and Early Modern Studies program in the Faculty of Arts and a research affiliate with the Centre on Aging.
She is described by her colleagues as “one of the most innovative and effective teachers at the University of Manitoba” and “one of North America’s foremost Medieval Scholars”. In 2019-2020 she received a SSHRC Insight Grant for the study of “Seasonality and the History of Late Medieval Christianity”.
Dr. Cossar has a longstanding record of service to the University and the discipline. She is a respected member on committees for the Department of History and the Faculty of Arts, and has been a member of the University of Manitoba Senate and the boards of the University of Manitoba Institute for the Humanities (UMIH) and the Centre on Aging, to name a few.
In addition, she is a past winner of teaching excellence awards, a skillful archival researcher, academic author and editor, a generous mentor to graduate students, research trainees and new faculty and an appreciated scholar with an “enthusiastic and informed commitment to the humanities”.
Faculty of Arts Award in Internationalization
The Award in Internationalization is given to a faculty member who promotes an increase in students’ awareness of international culture, perspective and issues. Examples might include courses integrating international experience, teaching material based on research in other countries and facilitating international student exchange.
Dr. Lori Wilkinson
This year’s recipient is Dr. Lori Wilkinson, Professor, Department of Sociology and Criminology and Director of the Immigration Research West research group. Dr. Wilkinson’s fields of specialization include immigration and refugee studies, anti-racism and survey and qualitative methods.
Dr. Wilkinson works to promote and increase students’ awareness of international cultures, perspectives, and issues and has an outstanding record of research and collaboration on issues of pressing global importance. Her research on refugees, displaced peoples, international students and the challenges facing their resettlement is woven into her courses, allowing students to benefit from learning about these globalized problems from the perspective of one of its leading scholars. Her teaching challenges students to think about issues facing the voluntary and involuntary movement of peoples from a global perspective. Dr. Wilkinson’s commitment to globalized, experiential learning is evident through her work with MITACS students, her mentoring of graduate students conducting international themed research and her promotion of international experiences for her students.
Dr. Wilkinson shares her knowledge as a board member of the Immigrant Centre Manitoba, is a key contributor and researcher with the Association of Canadian Studies and the COVID-19 Social Impacts Network established in early 2020 and in June 2020 received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to study how COVID-19 impacts populations of Indigenous, racialized persons and newcomers in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. In March 2020, as a Conference Co-chair, she planned to welcome close to 1000 researchers, policy makers and representatives from community organizations working in the field of immigration and settlement from across Canada and around the world to the National Metropolis Conference here in Winnipeg when it was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Faculty of Arts Teaching Excellence Awards
Professors and instructors in the Faculty of Arts engage in the excitement of learning and motivate students to challenge their current thinking and to develop their abilities for critical thinking and analysis. Following a nomination and selection procedure, the following faculty members received the Excellence in Teaching Awards for 2020.
Established Faculty: Dr. Dana Medoro, Professor, Department of English, Theatre, Film & Media
Sessional Instructor: Bryce Offenberger, Department of Political Studies
Graduate Student: Melanie Braith, Department of English, Theatre, Film & Media and Tasheney Francis, Department of Linguistics