Profs-in-Commons

Profs-in-Commons is part of the Profs-in-Spaces network, a UBC wide project that seeks to increase meaningful engagement between students and professors outside of the classroom. Since fall 2016, the Chapman Learning Commons has been part of the Profs in Spaces community, embedding professors’ office hours in the pavilion spaces (the Learning Lounge and the Centre for Writing and Scholarly Communication) on level 3 of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre.

The office hours take place alongside other academic support programs–Science Peer Academic Coaching, Kinesiology Peer Academic Coaching and the Centre for Writing and Scholarly Communication. The intention is that multiple academic supports delivered by a combination of professors, TAs, and student leaders, will lead to innovation in holistic approaches, learning support, and interdisciplinary dialogue.

Regardless of the classes they are teaching, our Profs-in-Commons welcome students from any discipline to stop by.

Fall 2020- Profs-in-Commons Online Coffee Chats

Meet virtually with a Prof-in-Commons! These one-hour group sessions are a space for you to ask questions and learn insights about different aspects of university life.

October 21, 5:30-6:30pm PST: Pumpkin Spice Coffee Chat: Connecting with your Professors
Click here to register!
Professors have different personalities that each of us, as students, can gravitate towards. When it’s something we’re not used to, reaching out to profs can be a bit spooky! How do you become comfortable reaching out to your professors about grad school applications, career advice, personal issues or circumstances that affect your learning, or time management? Using analogies from fantasy series in theme with Halloween, Dr. Robyn Pitman from the Department of Sociology will share her advice about how to connect and build relationships with your professors, to help you succeed as a student.

Additional Online Support
Questions about Medical Sciences, Biostatistics, and STAT 200 to 461? Contact Dr. Behzad Azarmju (behzad.azarmju@ubc.ca)!
Questions about Public Health, Gender and Health; or Case-Based Learning, Portfolios and Communications in the medical undergraduate program? Contact Dr. Farah Shroff (farah.shroff@ubc.ca)!
Please check back here for more updates!

Office Hours

Learning Lounge | Level 3 | IKBLC

Centre for Writing and Scholarly Communication (Writing Pavilion) | Level 3 | IKBLC

Our Profs-in-Commons

Dr. Mike Borkent

Mike teaches academic writing and comics studies in the Arts Studies in Research and Writing program. With a background in literature, cognitive studies, and biology, Mike builds interdisciplinarity into his courses, to showcase how knowledge developments and genres vary by discipline, even while sharing interests in works like comics and graphic novels. His research focuses on developing analytical frameworks for multimodal literature (especially comics) through insights from cognitive studies of image and language comprehension, while drawing on a range of other literary and cultural interests.

Dr. Mi-Young Kim

Mi-Young Kim earned her Ph.D. in Language and Literacy Education at UBC and M.A. in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her dissertation topic as well as her main research focus is on academic socialization of second language learners, particularly those who studied English as a foreign language and are from a different academic culture. Her other research and teaching interests include sociolinguistics, especially on the topic of identity and ideology of language learners, academic writing, translation, TESL, English for Academic Purposes (EAP), among many others.

Dr. Jonathan Otto

Jonathan Otto holds a doctorate in geography with a focus on development and environmental justice. As a Lecturer in Arts Studies in Research and Writing (ASRW), he draws on the concepts of writing situation, genre, and disciplinarity to challenge his students to embrace research and writing as social and political practices.

Dr. Nazih El-Bezre

Nazih El-Bezre has a PhD in Writing Studies from McGill University. His dissertation focused on the social, cultural, and writing experiences of international graduate students in Canadian universities. His research interests include: rhetorical genre theory, writing across the curriculum/in the disciplines, literacy transfer, identity construction, and intercultural rhetoric. His professional experience includes teaching academic writing in the U.S and Canada, translating, tutoring, and developing writing workshops.

Dr. Pam Kalas

Pam is originally from the South of Switzerland and studied biology at the University of Geneva, about five hours West of her hometown. Although for her Master’s she would have really loved to do research on the genetics of dogs, she settled for fruit flies. In 2000, she moved to Vancouver to do her PhD (where she also used the fruit fly as a model organism), and after graduating just never left. Pam has taught a number of courses in the Biology and Science One Programs since 2009, including BIOL121, BIOL140, BIOL234 and 334, BIOL 335, BIOL 337, BIOL463, and the biology component of Science One. She is also an Integrated Sciences mentor and, since last summer, the director of the Combined Major in Science Program. What Pam likes the most about her job is the interaction with students. In Pam’s words “I find that I learn from them as much as they may learn from me!”

Dr. Neil Armitage

Neil did all his studies in Europe, attaining a Bachelors and Masters degree from Uppsala University, and a PhD from Manchester University in the field of cultural cosmopolitanism. Neil is a Lecturer in Sociology at UBC, and this will be his third year as a Prof-in-Commons. In the space, along with TAs, he holds his office hours for SOCI 102 and SOCI 200. When the weather permits, Neil can be found wandering campus with students and fellow profs on a #profwalk, and when not, instructing students how to knit a waterproof toque during ‘Knit n Knatter’. He enjoys going for runs, swimming, and walking his puppy, Polly.

Dr. Steve Wolfman

Steve is excited to continue his recent trend toward larger and larger spaces to replace the ‘office’ in ‘office hours’. Along with having taught a dozen or so different computing courses, Steve also studies computing education, raises one pre-school and one pre-teen girl, plays board games, cooks, bikes, and wears many T-shirts with wolves on them.

Dr. Robyn Pitman

Robyn is new to the Prof-in-Commons this year. Robyn is a Lecturer in Sociology at UBC who primarily teaches in the Family Studies minor. She has been teaching at the undergraduate level for 8 years at various institutions. Outside of her teaching experiences, Robyn is also a mental health clinician and has experience working in community counseling agencies, family health teams, and a private psychotherapy clinic prior to joining UBC in July 2018. She regularly draws upon her clinical experiences in her courses to highlight concepts in “action”. In her free time, Robyn enjoys hiking, scuba driving, crossfit, and eating good food.

Dr. Behzad Azarmju

behzad.azarmju@ubc.ca
I teach at the Faculty of Medicine. I hold a Physics and Mathematics Diploma and a Medical Degree, trained and worked at teaching hospitals outside Canada focusing on Traumatology, Surgery, and Diabetes. I can help students in Health Sciences and Biostatistics (including Medical Sciences, Biostatistics, and STAT 200 to 461).
At the Faculty of Medicine, I accompany freshmen medical students in their learning as they train to be doctors. I am excited about seeing the first students, as family physicians in clinics. I take the same steps with them, while they are being exposed to the cases which are essentially simulations of the actual scenarios that have been experienced by the patients in an emergency room, a rural clinic, a family practice, or a teaching urban medical office. An important aspect of our journey together is to ensure that we are learning how to practice CanMEDS.
University and communities’ resources are important especially when it comes to transitioning to university life. I have been preparing lessons that would help make the most of the resources and potentials from which university students will benefit. They are – directly or indirectly – related to your health and well-being which eventually matters most. Talk with me if you feel you need guidance or encouragement from a mentor or a teacher.

Dr. Farah Shroff

farah.shroff@ubc.ca
Dr Farah Shroff works in the Department of Family Practice and the School of Population and Public Health in the UBC Faculty of Medicine; she has also taught courses in the Department of Political Science. The emphasis in her research is on visioning and developing Health for All. Her main areas of research are holistic health, health services research and community development within a social justice framework. Her research is predicated on the notion that all people, regardless of ability to pay, have a right to health and health services. She has an ongoing interest in the role of global social movements in creating better conditions for health. She also has a particular interest in ayurveda, yoga, meditation and other forms of health promotion and disease prevention. Her book, The New Midwifery: Reflections on Renaissance and Regulation, an edited collection, was published in 1997. Since then, Dr. Shroff has written about innovations/transformations in women’s health, HIV/AIDS, health policy, nursing issues, registered massage therapy, global health and more. She also writes poetry and literary reviews. Her teaching style is active, employing movement, theatre techniques, experiential activities and more.
She has a longstanding commitment to global health status improvements and has worked in Kenya, Nigeria, Guatemala, Mexico, Costa Rica, India, Thailand and many other countries. She is the Founder and Lead of Maternal and Infant Health Canada, a collaborative which works to improve the health of women and children through education, research and innovation.