UNews - Dr. Shelly Wismath

U of L recognizes volunteer contributions for National Volunteer Week

caroline.zentner — Fri, 05 Apr 2019 22:35:46 +0000

Raising the National Volunteer Week flag gives the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge the opportunity to thank the students, staff and alumni who volunteer their time not only to ensure the success of many U of L events and programs, but also to help organizations in the broader community.

Since 2013, the U of L has partnered with Volunteer Lethbridge to encourage volunteerism on campus. UVolunteer, which is administered by the School of Liberal Education, employs a cooperative education student each year to inform students and engage them with volunteer opportunities in the community.

“One of the four pillars of liberal education is community and civic engagement. We encourage students to be involved in their communities as volunteers, participants and changemakers,” says Dr. Shelly Wismath, dean of the School of Liberal Education.

Students are picking up on that message. From the start of the semester last September until the end of February, UVolunteer had more than 300 new student registrations and those students contributed nearly 2,200 hours of their time. Their contributions were worth more than $50,000 to the local economy. They were matched with diverse organizations ranging from Big Brothers Big Sisters of Lethbridge to the United Way.

This year’s UVolunteer program coordinator is Paige Hutchinson, a fourth-year anthropology student.

Paige Hutchinson, photo by Clasual.

“Every year our numbers for the UVolunteer program are growing; more students are signing up and they’re recording more hours,” says Hutchinson. “In my opinion, students are volunteering so much more than what’s being recorded. Often, students don’t know what they’re doing is volunteering. They’re just doing it because they enjoy it or want to help out.”

The benefits of volunteering extend to both the organization and the volunteer, Hutchinson says. Local non-profit organizations are behind a host of services that benefit the citizens of Lethbridge and they couldn’t do their work without volunteers. Volunteers get the chance to make a difference, gain experience, build connections and maybe even find full-time work opportunities. Typically, they volunteer because they want to, not because they want acknowledgement.

“A lot of volunteers go unrecognized. Their efforts aren’t always noticed by the general public,” says Hutchinson. “I think it’s awesome there is National Volunteer Week and that so many people participate.”

Alumni also play an active role in volunteering; in 2018, 650 alumni gave their time to the U of L through special events and programs, creating connections with the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ and the larger community. Their involvement highlights the U of L’s Be a Bright Light campaign, which is part of the larger Shine campaign to increase engagement opportunities for alumni and community members and raise $100 million to propel the entire region forward.

As part of National Volunteer Week, Volunteer Lethbridge will unveil the winners of the Volunteer Excellence and Volunteer Recognition awards on Wednesday, April 10 at the Leaders of Tomorrow Award Gala.

U of L establishes School of Liberal Education

caroline.zentner — Tue, 18 Apr 2017 16:24:38 +0000

Solving complex problems facing the world today takes the expertise of professionals who can think critically and broadly. The Ebola outbreak of 2014-2015, for example, came under control with the involvement of not only doctors and nurses, but also scientists, researchers, developers, policy makers and an anthropologist who knew cultural beliefs about the dead were helping spread the virus.

The response to the Ebola outbreak illustrates a liberal education approach and the need for workers to have broad skills and knowledge and an ability to apply them to problems like Ebola and global warming, the Zika virus, feeding the world’s population, poverty and the lack of drinking water.

Liberal education can be defined as an education that provides breadth across disciplines, the ability to connect and integrate knowledge across disciplines, the opportunity to learn critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and civic engagement. Students with a grounding in liberal education, which incorporates liberal arts and the sciences, are better prepared to solve problems in the 21st century and to succeed in future careers.

Fifty years ago, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge adopted liberal education as its primary philosophy for teaching and learning. Concerned that the focus had narrowed to only requiring students to take courses from several disciplines, Dr. Andy Hakin, vice-president (Academic) and provost, called for a review of liberal education in 2014. The review has resulted in the establishment of a School of Liberal Education, a decision approved by the U of L Board of Governors on April 13.

“The School of Liberal Education will create a solid organizational structure to ensure our students and communities benefit the most from our teaching, learning and research,” says Hakin. “The development of a School celebrates our ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ’s founding philosophy for teaching and learning adopted 50 years ago.”

“It’s wonderful and I think it’s a very natural evolution of the last three or four years’ work on liberal education and of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ’s development and history,” says Dr. Shelly Wismath, a professor and leader of the Liberal Education Revitalization Team. “It’s time we came back to the more philosophical approach to liberal education. It’s very timely; we need critical thinking and evidence-based reasoning now more than ever to address complex issues in the world.”

Dr. Shelley Wismath, centre, discusses a problem-solving exercise with students as part of a Liberal Education class.

After extensive consultations, the team concluded the best way to move forward was to form a School of Liberal Education. The Liberal Education Program currently has four full-time instructors and is part of the Faculty of Arts & Science. As the number of Liberal Education courses offered has increased over the years, so too has enrolment, thus creating demand for upper level Liberal Education courses. The creation of a school provides opportunities to expand beyond the Faculty of Arts & Science and integrate liberal education programming throughout the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ.

“A big part of this is educating our students and our communities that, at university, you learn to think carefully and well about all the important issues of our time,” she says.

The School will officially come into being on July 1 and its primary responsibility will be to deliver liberal education programming and teaching. As a formal school, other opportunities can also be explored, such as promoting liberal education to faculty, students and community members, offering dual credit courses to high school students, offering critical thinking workshops and facilitating teaching and research connections across campus.

Global Citizenship Cohort demonstrates diverse interests

caroline.zentner — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 19:38:31 +0000

Students in this year’s Arts and Science Global Citizenship Cohort stepped up to help out. Their projects included everything from volunteering at the Soup Kitchen to getting involved in the Oldman Watershed Council (OWC) and signing a water charter.

“The theme for the Cohort was water, sustainability and social justice,” says Dr. Shelly Wismath, co-ordinator for the Global Citizenship Program and instructor for the Cohort’s seminar course, Lib Ed 2150. “They got to pick their project for the course. We had some environmental science majors who were keen on water issues. Others in the humanities and social sciences were really interested in social justice issues. They all got really got engaged and they bonded, too. One of the main goals of the cohort was to provide first-year students with this built-in support group from day one.”

One group created rain barrels for the Campus Roots Community Garden and another worked with the YWCA on an event called Attire to Inspire, which provides grad dresses to women who can’t afford the cost of a new dress. They also volunteered at the Lethbridge Soup Kitchen, preparing and serving food.

As part of their class project, Adebowale (Debo) Adeneye, at left, and Paris Ellis talked about volunteering with Attire to Inspire. The YWCA program provides grad dresses to high school girls without an outfit for their big day.

Paris Ellis and her group were inspired by a speaker from the OWC. They met with the OWC, signed the Southern Alberta Water Charter 2017 and volunteered to survey the state of the Oldman River near Taber and take water samples to be tested for bacteria and pesticides. Ellis says the Cohort and project helped students connect.

“I definitely think it brought a lot of us together. The friends that I did my project with, four of us have the same major and we all have pretty much the same classes. It was nice because you could walk into class and know people,” says Ellis. “It was a lot of fun.”

Another group wanted to reduce the number of plastic water bottles being bought. Their project involved getting a water dispenser for refillable bottles in ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Hall. They raised enough funds to buy the dispenser, which should be installed in Section C on the 6th floor stairwell sometime this summer.

Other student projects involved: calculating a water footprint; conducting a food audit comparing the cost and nutrition of food bought at Urban Market and at a grocery store; volunteering at an assisted-living facility; and volunteering with the Lethbridge Therapeutic Riding Association. Some students elected to write papers or create posters and they tackled subjects like social issues facing Aboriginal people in Canada and the threat of further development in the Jumbo Valley near Invermere.

For his project, Andrew Buckman delved into the reasons why people give to charities and how some charities operate.

“A lot of people are doing it just for show and they don’t have a practical way of accomplishing things. They want to make a difference but they don’t really know how to do it,” he says. “Others just add titles behind their names by joining a lot of things but it’s impossible to really be involved in everything.”

Student Refugee Program gets a strong start at the U of L

caroline.zentner — Tue, 14 Feb 2017 19:00:00 +0000

Abdullah Mouslli didn’t want to become one of the lost generation whose life and future was limited because of the civil war in Syria. He’d seen it happen to his friends, their lives cut short when they joined rebels because their families had no money to send them to university and good work opportunities were few and far between.

After he graduated from high school in Damascus, Syria in 2012, Mouslli enrolled at Damascus ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ to study architecture.

“I studied there for one semester but it wasn’t safe at all, especially for young men at the age of 18 and 19. There is mandatory military service in Syria so if you are at that age, you are probably going to be taken for the military service,” he says, adding that young men who are studying can delay their military service. “When I graduated it was very chaotic so they could stop you at any checkpoint. They tell you that your documents are fake and they take you into military service. It happened to lots of guys.”

Members of the WUSC committee at the U of L pose for a photo with Abdullah Mouslli, a student refugee from Syria. From left to right are Farah Rajan, Mouslli, Jamie Lewis, Elise Pundyk and Taylor Myndio.

Mouslli moved to neighbouring Jordan to continue studying architecture. He was in his second semester when a rocket tore through his family’s pharmacy in Al-Bukamal, destroying the store and his family’s livelihood along with it. He had to drop out of university because his family could no longer afford to pay for his studies.

“It’s a crazy war. I don’t actually know who bombed that building because you can’t even know who is who and which is which,” he says.

Mouslli, now 22 years old, is the youngest of six children. He was born in Al-Bukamal, a rural city in eastern Syria close to the Iraq border. His father, a pharmacist, died in a vehicle crash when Mouslli was only a few months old. An uncle, who still lives in Syria and is like a father to Mouslli, took over managing the family’s pharmacy and real estate businesses. When Mouslli was nine, his family moved to Damascus. His three older brothers were of university age; two had moved to Damascus and another to Jordan to pursue post-secondary education. And just like his brothers, Mouslli had grown up believing he would be able to attend university.

“After I dropped out of university, it was really hard for me,” he says. “When I was a kid, I never thought of money as an obstacle towards my education. All of my family got university degrees so I thought it would be like a piece of cake. I thought that the only hope for me was applying for scholarships. I applied for any scholarship I saw.”

Meanwhile, halfway around the world, Elise Pundyk was studying Art History and Museum Studies at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, and could not get the image of Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian boy who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea after his family fled the war in Syria, out of her mind. Jamie Lewis, who was in her first year of studies at the U of L and part of the Global Citizenship Cohort, was similarly affected.

“I had an overwhelming feeling of helplessness,” says Lewis. “It was at the height of media coverage regarding the Syrian refugee crisis. For so many of us, I think it put a human face onto this abstract political concept that we hadn’t been able to previously understand to its full extent. Having this visual was a spur for a lot of us.”

She spoke to Dr. Shelly Wismath, her professor in the Global Citizenship Cohort, who in turn referred her to Dr. Anne Dymond, a professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts. Dymond and Chaplain Erin Phillips were instrumental in establishing the U of L Refugee Action Committee, which was focusing its efforts on bringing a Syrian family to Lethbridge.

Dymond and Pundyk had begun to explore the possibility of starting a local chapter of a national student organization—World ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Service of Canada—that helps refugees through its Student Refugee Program (SRP). At least 20 students had indicated an interest in helping the Refugee Action Committee and together they founded a WUSC committee at the U of L. In short order, they elected an executive and got to work fundraising the roughly $26,000 they would need to bring a refugee student to the U of L for one year. They’d been told it usually takes a couple of years to establish a successful local committee and get the necessary funds in place.

Pundyk and Grace Wirzba, the first WUSC co-chairs, talked to ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ administrators, the U of L International office and the U of L Refugee Action Committee. The President’s Office supplied funding to assist with housing and food, Paul Pan of the International Office helped secure significant funding from the west-side Scotiabank, which matched funds raised at the annual International Dinner, and Lethbridge Family Services - Immigrant Services lent their expertise in the process of welcoming a refugee. The WUSC committee held a bake sale, a bottle drive and a movie and pizza night. When Scotiabank matched the donations from the silent auction at the International Dinner, they knew they had reached their goal and pulled it off in four months.

“There were lots of tears at the International dinner,” says Farah Rajan, a WUSC member.

The committee, with 15 active members, is now focusing on an upcoming referendum that will be held in conjunction with the U of L Students’ Union elections sometime in early March. The referendum will ask students to support a levy of $2 per semester to fund one refugee student per year at the U of L.

Back in Jordan, Mouslli was applying for scholarships, including the WUSC Student Refugee Program. He also completed a diploma in multi-media at a community college in Jordan and volunteered with international organizations. His last position put him in contact with people from all over the world and, since English was the official language in the office, he improved upon the English he’d learned in public school. Most of his family members lived nearby, including his mother, sister and two brothers—his two other brothers live in Germany. After he had to drop out of university, relatives offered to loan him money to continue his education. Mouslli turned down the offer because he felt he wouldn’t be able to repay the loan if he stayed in Jordan. He explains that Syrians are not allowed to work in Jordan but the government often looks the other way. Jordanian employers hire Syrians illegally and pay them lower wages. He says his brothers, one is a pharmacist and the other has a master’s degree in finance, earn about half of what a Jordanian citizen in the same job would earn.

Mouslli pinned his hopes on getting a scholarship and he was accepted into the WUSC SRP. Last August, he left Jordan bound for the U of L to study new media.

WUSC members and Mouslli share a laugh.

Lewis and Pundyk were part of the group waiting to meet him at the airport.

“We had no idea what to expect. We knew his first name and we knew he had good enough English to get through the WUSC and governmental screening processes but we didn’t know how his conversational English would be. We didn’t know if he was an outgoing person or an introvert. We knew nothing,” says Lewis. “He walked into the airport and it was like the most wonderful, happy experience. He was so energetic. He’d been travelling for 27 hours and he was chatting with all of us.”

Lewis, Pundyk, Wirzba and other members of WUSC helped Mouslli settle in, taking him shopping for groceries, to the mall and to a pancake breakfast for his first taste of maple syrup.

“It was so much fun to find out how much I had in common with this person from a completely different background and place. Yet, it’s like he fit right in. He became a part of our little WUSC family immediately,” says Lewis. “It was just so smooth.”

“When I knew I was going to Canada, I educated myself to avoid cultural shock and yeah, it worked,” says Mouslli. “The thing I was most shocked about was landing here in a small, tiny city. For me, it’s like a village but for Canadians it’s like the third biggest city in Alberta. I’m not used to walking the street and it’s empty.”

He admits he first thought he wouldn’t stay beyond a year but now he’s planning to complete his degree. The quiet means fewer distractions from his studies and living in Lethbridge is more affordable than in a large city.

“For me it’s a life-changing chance. It’s not just to study; it’s also to be in Canada where there is equality and you’re not being treated as a third- or fourth-class citizen,” he says. “I feel that I can actually get a student loan because I know that I’ll be able to work afterwards and pay it back. For Canadians, it’s a nightmare to take a student loan but for me it’s a golden opportunity.”

Mouslli has already found a job working part time as an interpreter. He plans to be financially independent by the fall so he can cover his living expenses and take out a student loan to cover tuition costs.

“Adjusting here wasn’t a problem. I think it’s all about the values. It’s not about where you are from or your religion or your race. It’s about the values you share and I share lots of values with Canadians.”

Dr. Shelly Wismath receives prestigious 3M National Teaching Fellowship

caroline.zentner — Tue, 07 Feb 2017 22:46:23 +0000

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge professor Dr. Shelly Wismath can count herself among the best university teachers in Canada. She is one of 10 university teachers to receive the 3M National Teaching Fellowship, an award that recognizes exceptional teachers in post-secondary education.

Dr. Jan Newberry, Wismath’s nominator and U of L anthropology professor, describes her as a “teaching ninja” who possesses a subtle and diplomatic style.

“Shelly has served as mentor and inspiration to me and to many other colleagues and students,” Newberry wrote in her letter of nomination. “She represents the best of what teaching can be as a career, a vocation and a model for life and learning.”

Wismath spent many years as a mathematics professor and researcher in abstract algebra. In 2009, she moved to the Liberal Education program and began focusing her research on the scholarship of teaching and learning. She played a key leadership role in building and sustaining the U of L Teaching Centre and became the inaugural Board of Governors Teaching Chair in 2007. Wismath is currently spearheading the revitalization of Liberal Education. In addition, Wismath initiated and secured funding for the long-standing Women Scholars Speaker Series.

“My reaction was stunned silence on the phone. I couldn’t believe it,” says Wismath. “It’s a huge honour to be in that group. I love teaching; it’s always been a part of what I do. It’s amazing to have that kind of recognition.”

Wismath’s philosophy of teaching arises from her experience in both mathematics and liberal education. She combines the logical reasoning and search for pattern that characterizes mathematics and the critical thinking and problem solving that mark liberal education into a philosophy that hones in on how people think, learn and reason.

“My goal is to share with my students the interactive process of asking questions and formulating and testing out answers, and engaging in vibrant discussion to learn more about ourselves and the world around us,” she says.

Wismath works hard to build relationships with her students so they feel comfortable in the learning environment and the approach works. One student wrote “I recall the many thought-provoking articles she assigned with the hopes that we, as students, would question the content of. She did not want us to merely read and accept blindly what the authors had argued, but to come to our own conclusions and situate the information within our own understandings of the world.”

“The great thing about teaching is that we learn as much from our students as they learn from us and that’s been really true for me in the last few years with a problem-solving course I designed,” she says. “That course has been the capstone of my teaching career. I’ve learned that you don’t teach people problem solving. You facilitate their learning. It was a steep learning curve for me but the students were just tremendous. They taught me a lot and were very generous with their reflections, their attention and their thoughtfulness about their learning.”

Wismath also credits the U of L for providing her with the flexibility to continue her education and to pursue topics she’s passionate about.

“The U of L has been a great place to nurture teaching as well as research,” she says. “I’ve been very lucky to have had the flexibility that I’ve had to spend time on teaching instead of research at certain points in my career or to combine them or to take on projects.”

The 3M National Teaching Fellowship brings several opportunities. In addition to becoming a life member of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education and the Council of 3M Teaching Fellows, Wismath will be invited to attend the annual conference in Halifax and a teaching and learning retreat. This is the second time a U of L professor has been awarded a 3M National Teaching Fellowship. Dr. Patricia Chuchryk, a sociology professor, received the award in 1999.

UNews - Dr. Shelly Wismath

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