UNews - Department of Archaeology

Archaeology professor, Dr. Shawn Bubel, recognized as 2020 Distinguished Teaching Award winner

trevor.kenney — Wed, 21 Oct 2020 16:09:24 +0000

Employing a philosophy of teaching students on their terms, Dr. Shawn Bubel (BSc ’96) has found a way to bring out the best in her students, igniting a passion for archaeology and an even broader desire for lifelong learning.

Dr. Shawn Bubel’s career path is testament to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ’s liberal education focus.

An archaeology professor in the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Department of Geography and Environment, Bubel is the winner of the 2020 Distinguished Teaching Award. She is being honoured as part of this year’s Fall 2020 Convocation celebration.

Bubel’s career path is testament to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ’s liberal education focus because it was during her undergraduate years at the U of L where Bubel, initially a chemistry major, changed her degree path to explore archaeology through an individualized multidisciplinary major. Her master’s and PhD studies took her to Belgium and the experiences from which she flourished have been incorporated into her teaching today.

A believer in a well-rounded method of course delivery, Bubel employs traditional in-class techniques of lecture, assignments, papers, presentations and peer-to-peer learning, and enhances the student experience with a keen focus on experiential learning. Having lived it through her own educational journey, she understands that students who are fully immersed in the methods or material being taught embark on their own path of discovery.

The highlight of her classes are field schools at archaeological dig sites, her ultimate experiential learning opportunity. There, Bubel allows her students to fully immerse themselves in field and laboratory research. And while they learn every aspect of the archaeological experience, from the mundane to the extraordinary, they also learn about themselves.

Bubel understands her students learn in different ways and bring different sensibilities to her class, which she strives to meet by creating a safe, inclusive and supportive classroom environment. She respects and values their participation in classroom discussions and uses these opportunities to both teach her students and learn from their questions and comments.

By creating a safe place for expression, she invokes a greater understanding of the liberal arts philosophy and the multidisciplinary nature of archaeology. In the end, it enhances her ability to help students find their voice as critical thinkers who are able to problem solve, explore new ideas and push boundaries. She sees learning as a lifelong pursuit, and in addition to teaching discipline specific material, gives students the tools to navigate and succeed regardless of the career path they choose.

Bubel’s infectious enthusiasm for her craft extends to the greater community, where she frequently engages in outreach initiatives. She is equally comfortable introducing the concepts of archaeology, paleontology and geology to K-12 students as she is in a broader public forum — always eager to inspire and promote curiosity.

The Distinguished Teaching Award was established in 1987 to recognize the importance of teaching to the philosophy and goals of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ.

McGeough uncovering lessons from our past

trevor.kenney — Wed, 14 Sep 2016 21:58:05 +0000

Dr. Kevin McGeough (BA ’96) relishes his fall semester Archaeology 1000 class more than any other. He also realizes it comes with the unique pressure of living up to the expectations of his eager first-year students.

“I love it because these are people in their first semester of university, and if they signed up they probably always wanted to take archaeology,” says McGeough. “So it’s easier for me in some ways than other professors because people have already bought into this subject as being interesting. I have the job not to lose them as opposed to catch their attention.”

Dr. Kevin McGeough kicks off this year's PUBlic Professor series on Thursday, Sept. 22.

Archaeology is inherently interesting, associated with a certain cool factor propagated by films and media and McGeough is happy to take advantage of that to discuss his research and what it can teach modern society. He will open the popular PUBlic Professor Series on Thursday, Sept. 22, 7 p.m. at Lethbridge City Hall by presenting, ‘I met a traveller from an antique land’: The Archaeology of Progress, Decline and Collapse.

“It’s part of what I think is our obligation as professors,” he says of public outreach initiatives such as PUBlic Professor. “We can’t always make our research accessible in ways that are meaningful but we should always be trying to do so and archaeology is one of those disciplines that is evocative and garners a lot of public interest and imagination. So we need to think about that and do our best to communicate our work back to everybody.”

His outreach involves some myth busting, breaking down false impressions people may have of the discipline.

“I think the biggest misconception is the importance of the artifact to archaeology and that comes from films and television where people are depicted as desperate for acquiring the artifact. And really, the artifact is just one small piece,” says McGeough.

He describes the opening scene from the original Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the hero navigates a series of hair-raising traps and barriers in order to recover a gold idol.

“For an actual archaeologist, the gold idol wouldn’t really be that interesting at all, rather all the traps and the whole context that surrounds the idol is what’s really interesting to us,” he says. “It also comes from a museum context where people have probably experienced archaeology and where artifacts are often treated as pieces of art. But the thing itself is meaningless if you don’t have the full context.”

A U of L alumnus, McGeough went on to master’s and doctoral studies at Harvard and the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Pennsylvania respectively before returning to teach at the U of L in 2003. He’s been in Lethbridge ever since but has conducted field work throughout the world, including extensive research in the Middle East.

He sees archaeology as much more than digging up the past.

“Our contribution is we have evidence for this vastly huge sum of the human past,” he says. “It’s not only the actual data but also all the models that come out of us thinking about the past, how things have changed, advanced, progressed. We haven’t always been this way, what we see today hasn’t always been normative, so that shifts the focus. You have this longstanding change over time mixed with an understanding of other experiences and you begin to realize our way of life hasn’t always been, nor will it continue as we expect it might.”

He also looks at how people use archaeology to make arguments about the present, how this is both legitimate and can also be cause for concern. One need only look at today’s Middle Eastern issues, political conflict throughout the globe and even the curious politics of former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s pursuit of the long lost ships of the Franklin Expedition.

“It makes you ask, whose history is important? What was he saying politically about northern sovereignty, because it’s very strange for a leader of state to make an archaeological announcement?” asks McGeough. “When we are telling these narratives of the past, what are we embedding in there, what kind of politics are we arguing for, either overtly or subversively?”

McGeough’s PUBlic Professor talk is the first in this academic year’s six-part series that will also feature presentations from Dr. Roy Golsteyn (biological sciences), Dr. Goldie Morgentaler (English), Dr. Janay Nugent (history), Dr. Kent Peacock (philosophy) and Dr. Stacey Wetmore (chemistry & biochemistry).

All events are free and open to the public and no RSVP is required. Seating is limited and guests are encouraged to arrive early.

McGeough brings archaeology to the masses

trevor.kenney — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 17:42:30 +0000

Popular cinema loves to delve into the world of archaeology for fantastical storylines that tease our fascination with history and titillate our sense of discovery. But is archaeology similarly enamored with film and its portrayal of historical science? And if not, how can archaeology, and the rich historical information it gleans, be accurately presented to the general public?

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge associate professor Dr. Kevin McGeough (geography) has studied these questions in the past, researching the relationship between popular cinema and archaeology. Connecting with the general public is something that McGeough sees as a priority, and this manifests in another project on which he is working; editing The Intimate Lives of Ancient People series. Here, experts of various regions and time periods explore what they know of the close relationships between people in a variety of world cultures.

"To my mind, this type of public outreach is an important component of archaeological work and one that is often left to documentary filmmakers and journalists rather than the specialists themselves," says McGeough.

In this video, McGeough talks about his involvement with the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, a relationship that started in kindergarten, and how important a role the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ plays in the southern Alberta community.

McGeough is taking archaeology to the masses

trevor.kenney — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 17:00:12 +0000

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge professor Dr. Kevin McGeough (geography) has studied these questions in the past, researching the relationship between popular cinema and archaeology and, along with his wife, Dr. Elizabeth Galway (English), how it is manifest in children's literature. Now, McGeough is involved in a far-reaching project that attempts to present academic archaeological/historical information to the general public.

The ABC-CLIO Encyclopedia of World History is due to be published this year and McGeough has played a significant role in its production, editing four of its volumes.

"This encyclopedia represents the combined efforts of literally hundreds of historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, art-historians, and other scholars (including about 20 faculty and graduates of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge) to present world history to a non-specialist audience," says McGeough. "Our goal has been to create a trustworthy source for high school and undergraduate history instructors and students, which provides up to date information that can be readily understood."

McGeough adds that the project intends to, "present a coherent and inclusive exploration of world history while avoiding the Eurocentric biases and progress narratives that have been typical of previous world history approaches."

Connecting with the general public is something that McGeough sees as a priority, and this manifests in another project on which he is working; editing The Intimate Lives of Ancient People series. Here, experts of various regions and time periods explore what they know of the close relationships between people in a variety of world cultures.

His current work on how archaeological information has been disseminated and used by non-archaeologists stems out of a ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Research Fund (ULRF) research grant, titled Navigating Identity on the Nile.

"I am researching what 19th century non-specialists would have known about the ancient Near East and how they made sense of that knowledge in relationship to their own identities," says McGeough.

He describes how the re-discovery through archaeology and philology of the cultures of the ancient Near East was destabilizing to European conceptions of the world.

"The recognition that once mighty empires, like those of the Egyptians and Assyrians, had long ago collapsed, led to the realization that the British and French empires might one day share the same fate," says McGeough.

By examining intellectual and popular culture of the 19th century, McGeough gains a whole new perspective on the role archaeology played in reconstructing the past.

"Archaeology became a key component of the colonial enterprise and the 'rescue' of artifacts of ancient civilizations from the control of the Ottoman and Muslim inhabitants of the Near East became an important justification of imperialism," says McGeough.

Through the exploration of a variety of media, such as stage performances, panoramas, fairs, museums, periodicals and popular novels, for example, he gains a greater understanding of how non-specialists may have interacted with ideas about the ancient Near East. Many of the extraordinary storylines involving archaeologists in today's popular culture grow out of these 19th century traditions and carry with them various Victorian presuppositions about ancient societies.

"By examining the cultural roles that Near Eastern archaeology played in its formative years, I hope to gain a better understanding of the cultural roles of Near Eastern archaeology in its present practice."

UNews - Department of Archaeology

Archaeology professor, Dr. Shawn Bubel, recognized as 2020 Distinguished Teaching Award winner

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