丁香园AV

Jen Marchbank鈥檚 stellar teaching record has earned the professor in the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women鈥檚 Studies a 2019 丁香园AV Excellence in Teaching Award.

Marchbank considers teaching to be a privilege and wants her students to leave her classroom informed, excited, and enthusiastic to learn more.

鈥淚鈥檝e always been a strong advocate that an academic鈥檚 job is to teach, because if we don鈥檛 teach, we don鈥檛 have students and we don鈥檛 have revenue, so there鈥檚 no place for us to conduct our research,鈥� she says. 鈥淚鈥檓 also a strong advocate for putting our most talented teachers in the early classes so that students get a sound grounding across the board.鈥�

One student鈥檚 comments sum up the general tenor of responses to Marchbank鈥檚 approach to teaching, describing her as 鈥減atient, understanding, enthusiastic, accessible鈥攐ne of the best profs I鈥檝e ever had.鈥�

Rather than separating teaching, research and community activism into silos, Marchbank intertwines the three. Her own community-based research into the politics of care, gendered violence, refugee settlement, LGBTQ history and gender variant youth informs her teaching and helps her students to realize the potential of experiential learning and action for social justice.

For example, graduate students in one of her courses conducted a commissioned research project that resulted in the commissioning agency, DIVERSEcity, receiving funds to create a new service for LGBTQ refugees in Surrey, B.C.

She has also involved her graduate students in a series of LGBTQ oral history exhibits that she spearheaded for Surrey City Hall. And as director of She Talks, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering young women, she asks her students to help with programming for a weekly radio talk show she produces.

Marchbank is always seeking ways her students can demonstrate successes beyond just exams and essays.

鈥淚f I can get students to engage, that鈥檚 what it鈥檚 all about,鈥� she says. 鈥淚鈥檓 not about students rote learning. I try to devise my courses and assignments in ways that students can show off what they do understand.鈥�

Her creative course content and assignment options include film analysis, short-answer final exams, art work, poetry and zines鈥攅ven videos of interpretive dance. Given that students live in a multi-media world, she uses a range of media to enhance their learning. One innovative method saw her send lecture slides to classes in advance via Twitter so students could listen to her rather than take notes.

鈥淚t was my attempt to get my lecture material into their phones so when they鈥檙e looking at their phones they might actually one day also look at my lecture materials,鈥� she jokes.