Dear Colleagues,

Dr. Lynne Honey’s term as Director of the Office of Teaching and Learning Services is coming to an end, and so to help me coordinate renewal in that unit with other senior academic searches underway, Dr. Honey has requested that her awarded sabbatical, deferred now for more than two years, begin on January 1, 2021.

I am very grateful to Dr. Honey for stepping in to assist in Teaching and Learning. Activist scholarship is very important to some members at MacEwan, but we have the freedom across the academy to pursue many approaches to pedagogy. Under her leadership, Teaching and Learning Services has come again to offer a wide range of programming that appeals to the interests and responds to the needs of all instructional colleagues across the University. She also mobilized her talented team to help us transform our course offerings in response to the pandemic, setting the course for a MacEwan that is even more resilient in the face of our challenges.

As we move through the autumn, I will announce interim leadership for the unit. Karen Keiller has been providing decanal oversight for Teaching and Learning Services and, having consulted with President Trimbee, I have decided to make permanent that arrangement. Moving forward, the next Director in that unit will likely be appointed as an Associate Dean, giving greater emphasis to a position that will work with Dean Keiller and me in coordinating the unit’s operations with the General Faculties Council’s new Teaching and Learning Standing Committee.

This move also allows MacEwan University to reposition Dr. Lynn Wells’ vacated leadership role as an Associate Vice-President, Students. President Trimbee and I share the opinion that the Students and Teaching portfolio had grown too large, and we have an opportunity before going to market next week to focus our search for someone who will assume responsibility for the student experience outside the classroom.

In the meantime, please do take this opportunity to thank Dr. Honey for her work and to wish her a productive sabbatical.

Sincerely,

Dr. Craig Monk
Provost & Vice-President, Academic