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| New professor Jeff Pierce goes back-to-school shopping in the bookstore. (Nick Pearce Photo) |
September at 麻豆传媒 often feels like one first impression after another, as students get to know their peers, their professors and all the quirks of their new home.
That experience is equally shared by Dal鈥檚 newest faculty. Some of them have spent the summer adjusting to life in Halifax; others arrived to campus only days before their first batch of students did. Some come from far away; others from just down the hall. But sitting down with a handful of new faculty to chat, one finds that their first impressions of 麻豆传媒 tend to be remarkably similar: that of a place where their research and teaching is enhanced by a supportive and welcoming community.
鈥淚 immediately felt a sense of congeniality at the school,鈥� says Heather Castleden, new to Halifax and the School for Resource and Environmental Studies. 鈥淭here was genuine warmth from all of my new colleagues, both when I interviewed and when I arrived here on campus.鈥�
Dr. Castleden brings to 麻豆传媒 expertise in socio-political dimensions of natural resource management, with a particular focus on community-based participatory research partnerships with First Nations in Canada. This fall, she鈥檒l be teaching graduate courses on Indigenous Peoples and natural resource issues, as well as research methods. Key to her teaching approach, she explains, is bringing a variety of perspectives into the classroom and taking the class into the community. She connects her other research interests in ethics and health research to environmental studies. 鈥淭he way I see it is that when you鈥檙e working with Aboriginal Peoples, environment and health issues can鈥檛 be separated,鈥� she says.
Debbie Martin would likely agree. Her research explores Aboriginal Peoples鈥� changing relationships to food and how those relationships influence health, with her doctoral research having focused on the Inuit-M茅tis peoples in southeastern Labrador. She鈥檚 not an entirely new face to the School of Health and Human Performance鈥攕he completed both her Masters and PhD programs here鈥攂ut this year she鈥檚 joining the Dal faculty full-time and teaching classes in multicultural health promotion, research and evaluation methods, and health promotion theory.
鈥淚t鈥檚 strange for me because I鈥檓 still kind of a student too,鈥� she says, noting that she鈥檒l be defending her doctoral thesis this fall. 鈥淚 still have a sense of what it鈥檚 like to be a student, running around in the first few weeks. But it鈥檚 exciting for me to now be on the other side and try to bring something different to the classroom.鈥�
Every new faculty member has their own take on why Dal feels like a good fit for them. Like her peers, Estelle Joubert of the Department of Music cites the sense of community on campus, but also the school鈥檚 theatre and film studies programs. They form good connections with her research interests in 18th century opera, opera on film, and music history, the latter of which she鈥檚 teaching the first-year course in this fall.
鈥淚 have the opportunity to introduce students to current topics in musicology, from ecomusicology, to music and politics, to the historical performance movement 鈥� it should be exciting鈥� says Dr. Joubert, who comes to Dal after two years as a postdoc at the University of Toronto following her DPhil degree from Oxford.鈥� She鈥檒l also be teaching a music theory course 鈥� she鈥檚 a trained pianist and harpsichordist 鈥� and a graduate seminar on opera and politics open to non-music majors.
You won鈥檛 find Jeff Pierce in the classroom much this fall. He鈥檚 spending his first term getting his research lab established in the Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science before he teaches computational physics in the winter. Having just completed his postdoctoral work at NASA, his research is helping better understand how human-generated particles in the atmosphere 鈥� aerosols 鈥� affect our climate. It鈥檚 a big uncertainty in our ability to predict climate change and what we can do about it,鈥� he says.
With his bicycle in tow, Dr. Pierce came to 麻豆传媒 after interviewing at four other schools.
鈥淲hat set Dal apart was that everyone here seemed genuinely happy,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hey all seem to have healthy lives outside of work, and that work-life balance is really important to me. Halifax is just the right size of city too 鈥� lots of good food and music 鈥� and everyone here at Dal has been so supportive. I really hope I get the chance to keep working here for some time to come.鈥�