Students rave about their profs
Three credits are just three credits until a student pushes the boundaries of the classroom — and if they’re lucky, they’ll find professors pushing alongside them.
Fourth-year JMSB student Patty Gilmore was impressed when she took one of marketing professor Gad Saad’s classes. A person to whom she attributes profound intelligence and a sarcastic sense of humour, Saad challenged Gilmore and her classmates to think and learn beyond the scope of the class. “He just blew everybody away,” she said.
For third-year political science student Jonathan Elston, that teacher was Diane Fulton of Applied Human Sciences.
“I had the opportunity to work with her after taking her class and I thought she was very articulate. She treated her students professionally, but was also very caring,” Elston said. She was also approachable, and even brought her students candy during an exam. This thoughtfulness, coupled with good intuition and an impressive list of qualifications made Fulton stand out for Elston.
“I just loved speaking to her after class and just picking her brain,” he said.
Second-year student Allison Smith felt as though she was just floating around unfulfilling history classes until she encountered professor and Canada Research Chair in public history Steven High.
The co-founder of Concordia’s public history department along with Elena Razlogova, High strives to record people’s oral histories as a source just as legitimate as written texts. With classes addressing working class public history and the civil rights movement, High takes an eclectic approach to education.
Now a public history specialization student, Smith is deeply inspired by High. “I have become passionate about oral and public histories because of him,” she said. “He’s shown that everybody’s story is worth being recorded.”
Professor and Principal of the Simone de Beauvoir Institute Lillian Robinson was also very eager to hear people’s stories, and encouraged students to share them. For fifth-year women’s studies student Lina Harper, this experience was invaluable.
“She had a total understanding of women’s lives and realities, and she made room for students’ realities,” Harper said.
Robinson passed away Sept. 20 after a long battle with cancer, but inspired generations of women’s studies students — and women outside the Institute— with her life story.
“She was part of that movement that women’s studies is always trying to recapture,” Harper said. “She was a living witness to women pioneering for change in the 1970s.”
She described Robinson as someone who always celebrated the academic, activist and general achievements of the Concordia community, and was instrumental in establishing the university’s Peace and Conflict Resolution series.
Though Harper interacted with Robinson since enrolling in women’s studies, she actually only took one class with her, last winter.
“That’s the last class she ever taught,” she said. “I’m glad I had the chance.”