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Celebrating the 2024 Humanities Faculty and Staff Award Winners

September 19, 2024

The Humanities staff and faculty awards recognize those who make outstanding contributions to the Faculty’s mission and community.

Recipients of these awards have distinguished themselves by advancing the Faculty’s mission to enrich human dignity, provoke critical inquiry, engage myriad voices and inspire innovative expression.

It is with great pleasure that we honour and celebrate Loren Gaudet (Academic and Technical Writing Program), Tim Personn (Academic and Technical Writing Program), Li-Shih Huang (Linguistics, SLLC), Pierre-Luc Landry (French and Francophone Studies, SLLC), Silvia Colàs Cardona (Hispanic and Italian Studies, SLLC), Tracy Underwood (Indigenous Studies), Theresa Gallant (Faculty of Humanities Dean's Office), Moustapha Fall (French and Francophone Studies, SLLC) and Adrienne Williams Boyarin (English). 

Early Career Excellence in Research Award

Loren Gaudet (Academic and Technical Writing Program)

Loren Gaudet's recent publications and grant-funded work reflect her experience designing and teaching ATWP's first Indigenous-exclusive academic writing course (a section of ATWP 135), as well as her expertise in the rhetoric of health and medicine and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Her work in support of Indigenous students is a model for the faculty: she has published two articles on the topic (one co-authored with Lydia Toorenburgh) and has shared lessons from her courses across campus to create pathway programs and further community-centred approaches to learning. Her wider publications are positioning her as a leading Writing Studies scholar in Canada.

Tim Personn (Academic and Technical Writing Program)

Tim Personn is an expert on the novelist David Foster Wallace. His recent monograph Fictions of Proximity: Skepticism, Romanticism, and the Wallace Nexus (2023) breaks new ground by telling the story of contemporary authors and thinkers around Wallace. Beyond this, his list of publications, in both English and German, include public-facing work as well as translations, editing, book chapters, journal articles, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. A former Vanier scholar and winner of the REACH Gillian Sherwin Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching, Tim’s research profile is impressive for its balance with other academic and pedagogical achievements.

Engaged Scholar Award

Li-Shih Huang (Linguistics, SLLC)

Li-Shih Huang, who also won the Research Excellence Award in 2023, has fostered deep connections with international students, Indigenous language teachers and learners, and, most recently, Syrian refugees arriving in Canada. Since 2015, her SSHRC-funded project, "Syrians Learning English for Employment in Canada" (SLEEC) has supported large numbers of English-language learners and teachers.

Outstanding Graduate Supervision and Mentorship Award

Pierre-Luc Landry (French and Francophone Studies, SLLC)

Since arriving at UVic in 2019, Pierre-Luc Landry has served a full term as a Graduate Advisor, supervised 14 MA theses, and is actively supporting 8 others. As his nominator put it, "He has shown himself to be a tirelessly supportive mentor, an innovative instructor, a key contributor to his field, and a creative and indefatigable Graduate Studies director."

Global Engagement Award

Silvia Colàs Cardona (Hispanic and Italian Studies, SLLC)

As former Chair of Hispanic and Italian Studies and Chair of the new School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, Silvia Colàs Cardona's unwavering commitment to fostering international collaborations and global perspectives in the Faculty of Humanities has included coordinating study abroad programs, developing a course in partnership with the University of Barcelona, establishing UVic as a SIELE and DELE centre, and contributing to UVic's Global Engagement Academic Group.

Staff Excellence Award

Theresa Gallant (Faculty of Humanities, Dean's Office)

Theresa Gallant has distinguished herself as an extraordinarily diligent and capable staff member who manifests good-humoured enthusiasm for her work. Her knowledge of policies, procedures and process is unparalleled. She deftly guided the Faculty through the budgetary crisis in 2022 and budget cuts in 2023 and 2024. The caliber of her work in a very demanding position sets a dauntingly high standard of achievement and the Faculty has benefited greatly from her excellence.

Həuistəŋ Award

Tracy Underwood (Indigenous Studies)

Tracy Underwood's extraordinary contributions to advancing the Indigenous Plan include her teaching excellence in Indigenous Studies 101: Indigenous Foundations and Indigenous Studies 450: Indigenous Studies in the Field. The committee also recognizes her curriculum development of Indigenous Studies 100, her Indigenization of space, her lived experience, and her ability to give clarity and a deeper understanding of difficult issues regarding colonization and reciprocity.

Teaching Excellence Award

Moustapha Fall (French and Francophone Studies, SLLC)

Moustapha Fall brings a positive and encouraging energy to the classroom that fosters deep student engagement through student-centred pedagogy. His inclusive classroom practices are supportive of diverse student perspectives and learning styles. Incorporating his global perspective and Senegalese heritage in courses in French and Francophone Studies, especially French 265: Global French Connections, he creates a learning atmosphere that is stimulating, inclusive, and transformative.

Research Excellence Award

Adrienne Williams Boyarin (English)

Over the past five years, Adrienne Williams Boyarin has published a monograph on Jewish women in medieval women, recognized as a paradigm-shifting study. Her publications also include some of the top journal titles in her field and chapters in the leading presses in the world. Her digital project, Medieval Anglo-Jewish Women: 1154-1307, is the only project to offer information on Jewish women in the Middle Ages, introducing 817 women. She has also overseen ten issues of the journal Early Middle English.