UNews - Dr. Kristine Alexander

U of L students create innovative programming for Galt Museum

caroline.zentner — Tue, 04 Jun 2019 17:51:41 +0000

Two ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge students completing Applied Studies courses have developed unique tools to help educate school children about local history.

Ashley Henrickson (MA ’19), museum educator at the Galt Museum & Archives, and Dr. Kristine Alexander, associate professor of history and Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Child and Youth Studies, supervised LaRae Smith and Benjamin Weistra, both Education students, as they completed Applied Studies courses last semester. Their projects involved working with museum staff to research and produce new educational programming for school groups visiting the Galt.

“Recent scholarship about teaching and learning in higher education has shown that the opportunity to work on community-engaged research projects produces enormous gains in terms of student engagement and retention,” says Alexander. “The U of L’s Applied Studies program is a model in this respect, and it has been a real pleasure to be able to watch Ashley, LaRae and Ben work together to connect historical research, cutting-edge technologies and museum education.”

From left to right are Dr. Kristine Alexander, Ashley Henrickson, LaRae Smith and Benjamin Weistra.

Smith’s project, sponsored by Farm Credit Canada, was about the Great Depression in southern Alberta. Smith, with guidance from Henrickson, developed a simulation that’s like a board game.

“The game, which is designed for Grade 5, is played in a number of rounds and, in each round, students choose what crops to plant and which agricultural techniques to implement,” says Henrickson. “The students analyze newspaper articles and photographs from the 1930s to help inform their choices. Their farms are then hit by a number of travesties which affected Alberta farmers, including drought, grasshoppers and low market prices. Finally, the emotional reality of life in the Great Depression is driven home by sharing the stories of local families who lived through the period. LaRae collected these stories through oral history interviews.”

“As the ideas for this simulation started flowing and it began to take shape, I couldn’t help but get increasingly excited for the launch of this program,” says Smith. “I can’t wait for students to be able to come and experience firsthand what it was like as a farmer in southern Alberta during the Great Depression. It was a very rare opportunity to get to spend so much time on a single lesson plan and dive right into the fine details. I feel lucky to have been able to partner with the Galt Museum on this project and I am excited to see how students react to the program.”

Smith’s Great Depression simulation is still in the building stages but is expected to launch in September.

“LaRae’s work has been amazing,” says Henrickson. “I had envisioned the Applied Study being a jumping-off point for the research and the game, but she was so effective that it was nearly a finished product at the end. She’s also a very talented teacher.”

Weistra’s project focused on Ukrainian-Canadian internment in the First World War, a topic that’s part of the Grade 3 curriculum.

“There was an internment camp here in Lethbridge, although many people don’t know a lot about it,” says Henrickson. “Ben researched the camp in Lethbridge, located where Exhibition Park is now, and the camps in Banff because people from Lethbridge went there.”

Several prisoners escaped from the Lethbridge camp in 1916 using shovels, an auger and a fan to dig a tunnel under the fence. These tools are now held in the Glenbow Archives and therefore cannot be easily accessed by Grade 3 classes in Lethbridge. Ben examined how technologies like augmented reality, photogrammetry and 3D printing can be used to bring replicas of these objects to local students.

“This project not only made me realize the potential of using 3D/AR/VR technology in my future teaching adventures and other history projects, but also led to great connections at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, the Galt and Agility,” says Weistra. “It also led to other great experiences like taking part in the Agility pitch competition. As a student with Ukrainian heritage, it also makes me proud to be able to take part in a project like this which helps bring light to a darker and lesser-known part of Ukrainian-Canadian history.”

U of L Agility, a student-centred program that focuses on innovation, provided valuable support for Weistra’s project by sharing knowledge about virtual reality and 3D printing. He also won the Agility Pitch Competition with his idea and now the Galt is waiting for the outcome of a grant application to help with the costs of digitizing the objects.

As part of their learning, Weistra and Smith presented their projects during the recent Institute for Child and Youth Studies symposium and have each won scholarships as a result.

“LaRae and Ben were spectacular students and they made significant contributions to the museum,” says Henrickson. “We are very excited that both of them are working with us again during the summer. I am also very thankful to Dr. Alexander and the U of L for supporting these projects.”

Kaitlynn Weaver found her niche in Child & Youth Studies

caroline.zentner — Wed, 29 May 2019 21:53:55 +0000

When Kaitlynn Weaver (BA ’16) walks across the stage to receive her Master of Arts, she’ll do so knowing she took every opportunity available to learn and develop as a person and as a scholar.

“What has made my master’s experience so great are the people I’ve met here and elsewhere and the opportunities I’ve been given,” she says. “My supervisor, Dr. Kristine Alexander, and my committee (Drs. Caroline Hodes, Jan Newberry and Amy von Heyking) actively sought opportunities for me in places I wouldn’t even have thought to look. The level of investment they had in me, my experiences, my ability to network, to gain confidence in myself, my research and my public speaking skills has been so valuable. The last three years have been so formative for me in ways that I can’t even explain.”

Originally from Rocky Mountain House, Weaver followed in her older sister, Sarah’s, footsteps in continuing her education at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge. Right from the start, Weaver felt at home at the U of L.

“I was able to shadow Sarah as a university student over my spring break in high school,” says Weaver. “I sat in on a philosophy and a sociology class. I was excited and engaged and the philosophy professor asked me questions in class and had me participate like I was a university student. That was really impactful and being here has been awesome.”

When she first arrived in 2012, Weaver studied New Media. As part of the U of L’s liberal education requirements, she also took a class in sociology.

“I really liked it and I liked the way they were talking about people’s identities and power structures, and I wanted to pursue it further,” she says. “I decided to switch my major to sociology and do a minor in Women & Gender Studies, which was a huge part of my university experience.”

As she was nearing the completion of her bachelor’s, Dr. Carol Williams (Women & Gender Studies) asked her if she was considering graduate school and told her that Alexander, who’s also a Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Child and Youth Studies and director of the U of L’s Institute for Child and Youth Studies (I-CYS), was looking for graduate students.

Weaver knew she wanted to focus on youth during graduate school, as she had been a volunteer at the Boys & Girls Club of Lethbridge and District and had completed an independent study about youth unemployment with Dr. Muriel Mellow. She obtained a Canada Graduate Scholarship through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), which later led to receiving a Michael Smith Foreign Studies Supplement Award.

“When I started my master’s, I was a graduate assistant for a project called Elders of the Future, which was a 10-year project on Blackfoot child-rearing practices in southern Alberta,” says Weaver. “I was asked to run children and youth programming to create photos and artworks for an eventual exhibit at Casa.”

The project, a collaboration between the Opokaa’sin Early Intervention Society and I-CYS, celebrated the resiliency of local Blackfoot communities through their family and child-rearing practices. Weaver worked with children and youth at Opokaa’sin and helped organize events around the exhibit.

“I got to work with Blackfoot youth and children at Opokaa’sin and that’s not something I would have otherwise been able to do,” she says.

The foreign studies award allowed Weaver to spend three months studying at Rutgers ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Camden in New Jersey, the first American institution to have a childhood studies department. Supervised by Dr. Lauren Silver, Weaver lived in Philadelphia, just across the Delaware River from the university, from January to April, 2018. She attended Silver’s classes and met other faculty members in the department.

“I grew more as a person and as a professional in those three months than I ever have in my life,” she says. “I was completely taken out of my comfort zone and immersed in a different lifestyle. I presented in a class, got to talk to every professor in the department and gained lifelong friendships.”

For her thesis, Weaver spoke to Faculty of Education alums, asking them to focus on their childhood experiences and their experiences being adults. Her thesis, titled “Growing the Finest Teachers Possible”: Theorizing how Young Teachers Challenge, (Re)produce, and are Subject to Discourses of Childhood, Adolescence, and Adulthood, examined the expectations of new teachers and the reality they found in the classroom.

“These teachers focused a lot on their own experience as educators and expected a lot more freedom and autonomy in their classrooms to “shape” the children they’re working with,” Weaver says. “They found out that actually, just because they’re adults and just because they’re educators, doesn’t give them complete freedom. The expectations of adulthood and the realities didn’t really match up.”

Now setting off on her life as a professional, Weaver continues to be involved with youth. She recently began employment with Family and Community Support Services (Barons-Eureka-Warner) and the Boys & Girls Club of Lethbridge and District.

“It’s a partnership position funded by the Government of Canada. It’s a full-time position and I work in southern Alberta rural communities and get youth from Grades 9 to 12 involved in volunteering and civic engagement in some way.”

Two U of L professors receive renewed Canada Research Chair funding

caroline.zentner — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 21:35:01 +0000

Dr. Kristine Alexander, a ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge history professor, and Dr. Locke Spencer (MSc ’05, PhD ’09), a U of L experimental astrophysicist, will continue their leading-edge research with the renewal of their Tier 2 Canada Research Chair funding.

The renewals were part of a recent announcement, made by the Honourable Kirsty Duncan, minister of science and sport, about significant investments in the Canada Research Chairs Program to attract and retain some of the world’s most promising researchers. In addition to providing more than $156 million for 187 new and renewed chairs from the most recent competition, Duncan announced an investment of $210 million over the next five years to add 285 new chairs. The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) is also providing $6.8 million in new funding for research infrastructure for 28 chairs at 18 institutions.

"Our government is committed to promoting equity and diversity within research and to supporting the next generation of research leaders,” says Duncan. “These prestigious Canada Research Chairs are improving the lives of Canadians and pushing the boundaries of human knowledge, helping ensure a bright future for Canada.”

The renewal of $500,000 over five years for Spencer will allow him to continue to advance far-infrared instrumentation for upcoming space missions. He will be directly involved in the development of the Canadian contribution to the European/Japanese Space Infrared telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (SPICA). The funding is accompanied by $150,000 from the CFI’s John R. Evans Leaders Fund to develop astrophysical instrumentation to explore the universe’s far-infrared region.

“I am very excited that this renewal of my research chair has taken place at this time as we prepare to move to the new Science and Academic Building,” says Spencer. “I am very grateful to my colleagues in Arts & Science, Physics and Astronomy, and Dr. David Naylor's Astronomical Instrumentation Group in particular, for their support and encouragement. I am incredibly grateful to the variety of students who have been (and remain) along for the ride and have helped to explore this space.”

Alexander’s research chair renewal of $500,000 over five years enables her to continue conducting historical research looking at the effects of colonialism, imperialism and armed conflict on children and adolescents. She uses interpretive methods from across the social sciences and humanities to better understand how the lives of young people have been shaped by warfare, colonialism and material inequalities tied to gender, geography, ability, class and race.

“I’m thrilled that my renewal application has been approved, and I appreciate the support I continue to receive from my colleagues and students at the U of L,” says Alexander.

The funding allows Alexander to continue to ask important questions about young people, colonialism and war, while providing research and training opportunities for U of L students through the interdisciplinary Institute for Child and Youth Studies. She is currently working on multiple books about young people, globalization and war, and is organizing a workshop about global histories of youth to be held in Lethbridge in July, 2019. The workshop will feature cutting-edge research by U of L graduate students and scholars from around the world.

U of L history professor wins national book award

caroline.zentner — Wed, 11 Jul 2018 16:21:25 +0000

The Girl Guides, the world’s largest voluntary organization for girls, has its roots in the early 20th century, a time of rapid social change when more than a few adults were wringing their hands about the future. Girl Guide programs were designed to give girls a taste of the freedom they were clamouring for, but also maintain the idea that women were primarily wives and mothers.

This complicated picture emerged when Dr. Kristine Alexander, associate professor of history and Canada Research Chair in Child and Youth Studies at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, began the research for her book Guiding Modern Girls: Girlhood, Empire, and Internationalism in the 1920s and 1930s (��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of British Columbia Press, 2017).

Alexander, who is also director of the U of L’s Institute for Child and Youth Studies, recently received the Wilson Book Prize for this work, which was one of more than 70 books nominated for the $10,000 award. This academic honour, awarded by the Wilson Institute for Canadian History at McMaster ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, recognizes the best book that makes Canadian historical scholarship accessible to a wide and transnational audience.

“I was thrilled and also honoured to be recognized by my peers in this way,” says Alexander. “In Canada and other parts of the world, historians have tended to focus primarily on national stories. These national histories are valuable, but as a scholar whose work investigates questions related to childhood, empire and globalization — and as a citizen of our interconnected 21st-century world — I have come to see that it is important to look beyond national boundaries as well.”

In Guiding Modern Girls, Alexander uses the early history of the Guide movement in Canada, Great Britain and India to ask big questions about girls, citizenship, and the global social order during the years between the two World Wars. The Girl Guides were founded by Robert Baden-Powell, who also established the Boy Scouts, in England in 1909 and the organization quickly spread to other countries.

“The Guide movement was established at a time when the social order, established gender roles and the future of the British empire appeared to be under threat,” says Alexander. “This was also a moment characterized by the militant suffrage movement and falling birth rates across the Western world.”

Another related force at play after the First World War was the rise of the flapper. These young women pushed the boundaries of what was considered acceptable behaviour by wearing short skirts, bobbing their hair and listening to jazz. The older generation worried about the future of society and children in particular.

“These youth organizations were adult attempts to shape the future by providing a gender-specific type of character training that offered a combination of freedom and control,” she says.

Alexander looks at Girl Guides from the perspectives of the organization and the girls who were Guides. She examined official handbooks and periodicals but she also wanted to know what the girls themselves thought.

“I did find some log books, photo albums, scrapbooks and diaries and those were some of the richest and most rewarding sources to work with, partly because they give a sense of individual personalities and their responses — which were not always positive — to Guide programs,” she says.

Alexander found that the Girl Guide movement was complex and often contradictory in ways that had to do with gender.

“The Girl Guide program emphasized citizenship, training modern girls to be future voters, and teaching them bravery and lifesaving skills,” says Alexander. “But that co-existed with an older belief that girls needed, above all, to learn to be good mothers, wives and homemakers.”

Alexander became interested in girlhood and youth organizations when, as a graduate student, she conducted research into how adults have tried to shape children’s understanding of behaviour and what it means to be masculine or feminine. Another factor that motivated Alexander to write the book was her belief that girls’ history is just as important as boys’ history and the bigger questions about political, imperial or economic history can’t be understood if girls and young women are left out of the story.Guiding Modern Girls grew out of Alexander’s doctoral thesis and was almost a decade in the making.

“It’s my name on the cover, but the book only exists because of the support I’ve received from a number of individuals and institutions,” she says. “My research and writing were enriched in all kinds of ways by conversations with my mentors, colleagues and students.”

Raising Spirit project receives Canada 150 grant

caroline.zentner — Wed, 22 Feb 2017 17:08:07 +0000

The Raising Spirit project by the Opokaa’sin Early Intervention Society, and supported by the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Institute for Child and Youth Studies (I-CYS), has received a Canada 150 grant worth $10,000 that will allow it to undertake a series of workshops that will culminate in a public exhibit at Casa in September.

“The purpose of the exhibit is to showcase the creative work of southern Alberta Blackfoot children and youth,” says Dr. Erin Spring, a post-doctoral fellow with the I-CYS and Raising Spirit project manager. “They’re not only going to be creating the exhibit in terms of doing the art, they’re also going to be curating the exhibit. It’s going to feature their voices, their stories, their creative capacities.”

From left to right are Kaitlynn Weaver, Tesla Heavy Runner, Dr. Jan Newberry, Amy Mack, Taylor Little Mustache, Dr. Erin Spring and Hudson Eagle Bear.

The Canada 150 Grant, awarded by the Community Foundation of Lethbridge and Southwestern Alberta, is designed to encourage participation in Canada 150 activities and to inspire a deeper understanding of the people and places that shape the country. Raising Spirit is a project to help ensure Blackfoot history, language and values endure and help build future generations. The Canada 150 funding will be directed toward a series of art workshops for Blackfoot children and youth.

“It’s kind of a sub-project within Raising Spirit called Elders of the Future,” says Kaitlynn Weaver, a master’s student working with Dr. Kristine Alexander, a history professor and one of the principal investigators on the Raising Spirit project.

For older youth, Weaver organized a zine workshop that focused on art as a form of activism and resistance. Three- to six-year olds participated in a storytelling and art workshop. A collage-making workshop for older youth is scheduled for March and others will be held at Opokaa’sin, the U of L and Casa. As part of the curating exercise, youth will learn how to mat and frame a photo and how to create an exhibit.

“Our exhibit will mark the anniversary of Confederation by celebrating the resilience of Indigenous families and communities. It speaks to colonialism but also is a way of looking forward and talking about reconciliation, resurgence and resilience to show that their community is strong, that their culture is strong and that their people are strong,” says Spring.

During the exhibit, the digital library created from the Raising Spirit project will be launched to the public, along with a mobile application for the library. In addition to the materials generated from the Elders of the Future workshops, the library will contain photos from principal investigator Dr. Jan Newberry’s photo elicitation project and people’s responses to them, and storytelling sessions with elders and youth at Opokaa’sin.

Raising Spirit has been supported by funds from the Urban Aboriginal Knowledge Network, PolicyWise for Children and Families and the U of L Office of Research Services. Funding from the Summer Temporary Employment Program enabled the hiring of two Blackfoot high school students, Tesla Heavy Runner and Hudson Eagle Bear, as ethnographers and curators.

Along with Newberry and Alexander, Tanya Pace-Crosschild (BSc ’98), executive director at Opokaa’sin and member of the U of L Board of Governors, has served as a community principal investigator. She is joined by Francis First Charger, project elder, and Dr. Michelle Hogue, research consultant and U of L professor in the First Nations Transition Program. Others who have been involved in the project include Ashley Henrickson, a master’s student; Taylor Little Mustache, an undergraduate student; and Amy Mack, lead researcher.

UNews - Dr. Kristine Alexander

U of L students create innovative programming for Galt Museum

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