Western announces 2022-23 teaching award recipients

April 24, 2023

Katrina Moser, Sara Mai Chitty, Beth Hundey and Hawlii Pichette

The course development team for Connecting for Climate Change Action (L to R): Katrina Moser, Sara Mai Chitty, Beth Hundey and Hawlii Pichette. (Christopher Kindratsky/Western Communications) The team also includes Serena Mendizábel and contributors from the Centre for Teaching and Learning and Western Technology Services/ITRC. Notes from story written by Keri Ferguson.

The 2022-2023 Western Awards for Excellence in Teaching have been announced, honouring seven faculty members and a collaborative course development team who redesigned a climate change action course for the department of Geography and Environment.

The recipients, selected by the Senate Committee on University Teaching Awards, are being recognized for their “outstanding contributions to the academic development of students.”

Among those honoured are the Course Development Team for Geography 2133: Connecting for Climate Change Action. The team received the Vice-Provost (Academic Programs) Award for Excellence in Collaborative Teaching. The award was established to recognize instructors whose exemplary collaborations in university teaching enhance student learning.

Course creators: Prof. Katrina Moser, department chair, geography and environment; Beth Hundey, curriculum specialist and professor, geography and environment; Sara Mai Chitty, curriculum and pedagogy advisor, Office of Indigenous Initiatives; Serena Mendizabal, graduate research collaborator, geography and environment; and course artist Hawlii Pichette.

Contributors from the Centre for Teaching and Learning and Western Technology Services/ITRC: Aamir Aman, Gelila Ayele, Minhal Farrukh, Bridget Koza, Kosuke Maeda, Joshua Matthew, Jodie Roach, Ramon Sanchez, Joshua Swarath, Luis Velez Rizo and Corey Vercauteren

Climate change is a complex global problem exacerbating social and economic injustices across the planet. Successful solutions require innovative thinking and a dramatic societal shift.

The recipient team recognized this innovation lies in enhancing student learning through a two-eyed seeing approach that braids together Indigenous Knowledge and Euro-western Science. Through a highly collaborative effort, they worked to create a blended undergraduate course, first offered to 150 students across more than 10 faculties in fall 2022.

Prior to this redesign, the course focused on climate literacy and was based solely on Euro-western science. Now, the nominators write, “it embodies meaningful collaboration across campus, with partners ranging from students to multimedia designers, artists, developers and subject matter experts.

“The course has a huge impact on student learning and is a model for embedding Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing for impact that will be felt locally and globally.”

This marks the third time members of Social Science have received the Vice-Provost (Academic Programs) Award for Excellence in Collaborative Teaching. Michael Dove and Michelle Hamilton, from the department of History, received the award in 2018, and Andrew Walsh and Ian Colquhoun from the department of Anthropology were the inaugural recipients, in 2017.

Read the full story on Western News to learn about all the award winning educators honoured in 2023.