The Institute

The Institute for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning seeks to “encourage, facilitate and support the engagement of Mount Royal University faculty in teaching-learning related scholarship, and to advance the existing body of research in this area … to build a culture of scholarship related to teaching and learning, cultivate communities of practice, and encourage interdisciplinary collaboration in this area … [and] assume a leadership role in building the profile of the scholarship of teaching and learning provincially and nationally.” (Proposal for Establishment of the Institute for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 13 October 2008)

Nexen Scholars

The Institute for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning is happy to announce that Nexen Inc. has invested $1 million, over five years, to support the Teaching and Learning Scholars Program, now named the Nexen Scholars Program. Nexen has supported Mount Royal University in the past and is proud to continue enhancing educational opportunities through this donation.

Also, we are proud to announce the 2012 Nexen Scholars, competitively selected faculty who will spend the next year working on inquiry projects supported by the Institute for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. The 2012 Nexen Scholars are:

• Maria Victoria Guglietti, Department of Journalism, Faculty of Communication Studies
• Sally Haney, Department of Journalism, Faculty of Communication Studies
• Margy MacMillan, Library
• Bev Mathison, Department of Child and Youth Studies, Faculty of Health and Community Studies
• April McGrath, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts
• Amanda Williams, Department of Journalism, Faculty of Communication Studies

Nexen's Pierre Alvarez and Richard Gale from the Institute for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at Mount Royal University celebrate the company's $1 million donation to the Nexen Scholars Program.

Read the full news release.

News from the Institute

On Thursday, November 10, 2011 Stephen Brookfield (Distinguished University Professor at the University of St. Thomas and internationally acclaimed author of Radicalizing Learning, Discussion as a Way of Teaching, and Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher) spoke from the Roderick Mah Centre for Continuous Learning. The topic covered was titled Radical Learning for a Just World, which Stephen describes in this way:

"Most discussions of the term ‘radical’ begin by saying it means getting down to the roots of something to discover its essence. In this sense, radical learning would be learning in tune with education’s essential purpose and mission. But what comprises the roots of the field depends very much on whose history is being consulted. For every historical example of mechanics institutes or worker cooperatives one could cite counter examples of education for cultural genocide or for the education of an officer class of an occupying army. The question is whose roots we are getting back to and whose purposes and practices we seek to rediscover. For Stephen Brookfield the radical purpose and practice of education is concerned to organize education for, and encourage learning about, the creation of democracy in political, cultural and economic spheres. Political and cultural democracy entails learning how to recognize and abolish privilege around race, gender, status and identity; economic democracy entails learning how to abolish material inequality and privilege around class. Both, in turn, entail the collective determination of how societal resources are to be used for the common good; in shorthand terms, socialism."

For more information, contact the Institute. (View Poster)