On behalf of the University Teaching Awards Committee, I’m thrilled to announce the incredible recipients of the 2023 Provost's Award for Early Achievement of Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. These two faculty members are recognized for their outstanding early-career achievements in teaching and research, and service to students, the university and the community at large.
Filsan Ahmed Youssouf, Campus Saint-Jean, PhD
Filsan Ahmed Youssouf is a Faculty Service Officer at Campus Saint-Jean (CSJ) and one of the few Black women teaching physics at the University of Alberta. She brings her lived experience from a family focused on mutual support in Djibouti to her work with CSJ’s High School to University Transition Program which helps students from under-represented groups transition to university life. The physics lab she leads is one of the university's few certified-gold Green Spaces. She also introduced an EDI component into the physics lab curriculum, creating a space for students to learn and recognize the biases present in science to create a safe and welcoming learning environment. In the community, she holistically promotes science education in French through open days, science fairs, and experimental activities for high school students, which also function as outreach initiatives for minority communities.
Willow White, Fine Arts & Humanities - Augustana Campus, PhD
Willow White is a feminist literary historian and assistant professor of English and Indigenous Studies at the University of Alberta’s Augustana Campus. She is a proud citizen of the Métis Nation of Alberta, and an active leader in the Augustana campus community from the founding of the Indigenous Collective that brings Knowledge Keepers and notable Indigenous speakers to campus, serving on Augustana’s Indigenous Engagement Advisory Committee, which recently celebrated the seventh anniversary of Wahkohtowin Lodge, and representing Augustana on the Vice-Provost Indigenous Programming and Research’s Indigenous Advisory Council. In the classroom, all of her teaching is attuned to advancing the U of A’s EDI and Indigenization policies as she fundamentally believes that EDI and decolonization make courses better for all students.
The recipients of the 2023 Awards for Faculty Excellence will be recognized at our annual Celebrate! Teaching. Learning. Research event, happening this fall.
Join me in congratulating our 2023 recipients on this well-earned honour.
Verna Yiu
Provost and Vice-President (Academic)