Teaching excellence is honoured at all levels at Ryerson, and the Faculty Teaching Awards program in particular allows the community to celebrate exemplary faculty. Creating a high-quality teaching and learning environment is one of the key elements of the university’s success as articulated in the current academic plan, Shaping Our Future.

“The 16 faculty who are this year’s recipients have distinguished themselves as educators with a passion for teaching and learning,” said John Isbister, interim provost and vice-president, academic. “Ryerson’s culture of teaching excellence continues to develop as a place where students are provided with new, creative and innovative learning opportunities.”

Recipients will be recognized at a luncheon on March 21, and then on April 4, award winners will receive their certificates at the second annual Ryerson Awards Night, an event celebrating excellence and acknowledging faculty and staff achievements.

The 2013 Faculty Teaching Award recipients are:

Chancellor’s Award of Distinction

Congratulations to Jean Golden from the Department of Sociology in the Faculty of Arts on being awarded the 2013 Chancellor’s Award of Distinction. This award is conferred on an educator who is an exemplary model of lifelong career commitment to teaching, learning and educational leadership.

Jean has been a human-rights pioneer and an educational leader at Ryerson for four decades. At the forefront of equity initiatives, she has helped advance Ryerson’s mission of being an inclusive educational environment, where teaching and research address changing societal and student needs. Jean challenges students and colleagues to examine their preconceptions and privileges, and to use their university education in meaningful ways. Her classes and interactions achieve the most important outcome learning can impart – a feeling of personal confidence and shared responsibility for making a difference in the lives of others.

President’s Award for Teaching Excellence

This award recognizes a Ryerson educator who has demonstrated continuing teaching excellence and who has made contributions to advancing teaching and learning at Ryerson.

The 2013 recipient of the award is Eric Kam from the Department of Economics in the Faculty Arts. Eric has an extraordinary passion for teaching which is evident in his development of curriculum and innovative pedagogical approaches. His teaching is distinguished by putting theory into practice with examples of real global economic issues, and he constantly adapts his courses to new technologies. He has an outstanding and sustained record in undergraduate and graduate teaching, whether teaching a graduate course to 30 students or introductory economics to 300. Eric’s excellence in teaching is recognized by students who consistently rate him as “one of Ryerson’s best.”

The Provost’s Experiential Teaching Award recognizes a Ryerson educator who has advanced teaching and learning with a particular focus on experiential learning. The 2013 recipient is Lorraine Janzen Kooistra from the Department of English in the Faculty of Arts.

As the Department of English’s founding undergraduate program director, Lorraine was the catalyst in creating and implementing Ryerson’s new and Ontario’s most distinctive English BA; its innovation is to combine the best of traditional university-level literary studies with cutting-edge opportunities for experiential learning and digital humanities research and training. Her own teaching emphasizes hands-on learning involving poetry and both visual and digital texts. Lorraine has inspired students to successful future studies, scholarships and careers, and led her colleagues to pursue distinctive experiential teaching through her work as a program builder and course developer.

The Provost’s Innovative Teaching Award recognizes a Ryerson educator who has advanced teaching and learning through educational innovation. The 2013 recipient is Said Easa from the Department of Civil Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science.

Said’s work as director of quality assurance has made a lasting and positive impact on Ryerson. He led engineering faculty through the rigorous CEAB accreditation process, which gave his fellow teachers improved assessment and learning outcome systems. In the classroom, Said encourages his students to think critically, to solve practical problems, and to see linkages between academia and industry. His capstone course gives them hands-on experience in working for a client – from proposal to product – in a format that keeps up momentum and interest, and gives students constant, evolving feedback. In his pursuits of new methods of teaching, from workshops on learning outcome assessment to the implementation of new technologies, Said is generous with his discoveries both with his peers and the larger teaching community.

Deans’ Teaching Awards

These awards recognize Ryerson educators who have demonstrated continuous teaching excellence and achievement in instruction, as determined by their respective faculties. The 2013 Deans’ Teaching Award recipients are:

• Faculty of Arts: Claustre Bajona, Department of Economics; Ben Dyson, Department of Psychology
• Faculty of Communication & Design: Marsha Barber, School of Journalism; Wendy Freeman, School of Professional Communication
• Faculty of Community Services: Yvonne Yuan, School of Nutrition; Elizabeth Allemang, Midwifery Education Program
• Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science: Lamya Amleh, Department of Civil Engineering; Ramani Ramakrishnan, Department of Architectural Science
• Faculty of Science: Catherine Beauchemin, Department of Physics; Robert Gossage, Department of Chemistry and Biology
• The G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education: Pascal Murphy, Community Services
• Ted Rogers School of Management: Else Grech and Gil Lan, Ted Rogers School of Business Management