Profs in Commons

After dropping out of two universities in the space of three years, both in the first year, got the message that engineering and university was probably not for me. It was with some anxiety then, not only my own, but of friends long graduated, and family, when I stopped working to return to university a decade later. My main concern this time, was not struggling to see myself as an engineer, but would I be able to study Sociology in Swedish. I had lived in the Sweden for five years and achieved the language proficiency to attend university, and I was determined not to drop out again. In my first year I would start reading textbooks a week before the start of classes. The readings were tough. However, I recalled all the times I had overcome similar steps in learning Swedish. In my first year I cared about only one grade – pass. I asked professors questions both inside and outside of class, I made friends to study and play with, and my grades improved and the rest is history so to speak. Third time lucky! I returned to the UK for graduate school where I researched youth transitions, the ways in which young people make their way from education to work, or from education to work and back to education. It was something I already knew and had thought quite a bit about.

I am a Lecturer in the Family Studies minor which is part of the Department of Sociology. This year, I am teaching FMST 210: Family Context of Human Development and FMST 316: Human Sexuality. I received my PhD in Human Development and Family Studies from Oregon State University (OSU) where I remained as an Instructor for 18 years. While at OSU, I typically taught introduction to families and human sexuality courses with enrollments from 400-600, resulting in an estimated 45,000 students who took my courses. Cultivating personal growth in students is the central tenet to my teaching. I hope that their experiences in my courses help them to have a better understanding of themselves as individuals as well as facilitate successful and satisfying intimate and familial relationships.

I have an M.A. in art history from Universität Leipzig, Germany, an M.A. in English from UBC, and a Ph.D. in English language studies from UBC. I have also studied at Carleton University in Ottawa.

My research interests include genre theory, forms of public address in social and political movements in Canada, discourse analysis of research writing, as well as late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Canadian literature.

I teach intermediate and senior undergraduate courses here at the VSE, focusing on how we can use economic intuition, modelling, and data analysis to understand the world around us. My pedagogical research includes developing undergraduate researchers, experiential learning, community-engaged learning, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. My economic research areas include applied microeconomics, and industrial organization.