2024 CPSA Prize for Teaching Excellence

Winner: Dr. Valérie Vézina (Kwantlen Polytechnic University)

Excerpt from jury report: Dr. Vézina is a passionate teacher with a strong service to her community, as demonstrated by her engagement at her departmental and wider institutional levels. The letters of accolade demonstrate excellence in teaching and paint a picture of a dedicated teacher with her students’ interests at heart, as well as a deep commitment to inclusion and equity in the classroom. This is notably reflected in her project to develop an open resource textbook on political ideology. This last initiative, which includes non-Western perspectives, is testimony to both her commitment to diversity and inclusivity, and to making higher education accessible to students. The evidence of the innovative elements she brings to her teaching, including experiential and role-playing activities, have left lasting impressions on her students and colleagues. She has also provided exemplar mentoring by including her TAs as coauthors in her projects, and by tailoring their task to their professional and academic goals. As a bilingual teacher, she clearly understands the struggles of students to feel belonging. Her involvement in her immediate community is reflected in her teaching, as she mobilized created new courses at memorial University on Labrador and Newfoundland that are still taught to this day testify. Her passion seems infectious and clearly has hooked many of her students! Finally, her love for and excellence and leadership in teaching shines in her statements.