The Faculty of Arts is pleased to announce that five faculty members have been awarded the Killam Teaching Prize for 2019-2020. The Killam Teaching Prize is awarded annually to faculty nominated by students, colleagues and alumni in recognition of excellence in teaching.
Veta Chitnev, Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies
Originally from Moscow, Veta Chitnev teaches Russian language courses and coordinates all sections of Russian 100, 200, 300 and 400 in the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies.
She is also responsible for student placement (transition between Russian junior and senior level courses). Her areas of specialization are teaching Russian as a second language, pedagogy, and curriculum development and design.
Her other interests include intercultural studies and educational psychology.
Stan Floresco, Psychology
Dr. Stan Floresco is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and an Investigator at the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health at the University of British Columbia.
His research focuses on neural circuits that facilitate different forms of learning, cognition and executive functioning. His work attempts to model how the normal brain solves certain types of problems, and then use this information to clarify the mechanisms that may underlie the impairments in cognitive and emotional functioning associated with these disorders.
Kerry Greer, Sociology
Dr. Kerry Greer is the Undergraduate Chair and an Instructor in the Department of Sociology. Kerry works to increase opportunities for experiential learning in her courses and in the department, support students transition into university, and works to develop tools and resources to help guide students into their future careers.
Her goal is to ensure that Sociology majors have the tools and skills they need to take their next step —whether that is going to graduate school, a professional program, or entering the labour market.
Gregory Mackie, English Language and Literatures
Dr. Gregory Mackie specializes in Victorian and Modernist literature, drama, and book history. His monograph Beautiful Untrue Things: Forging Oscar Wilde’s Extraordinary Afterlife (2019) examines a lost archive of Wilde forgeries that flooded the rare book market in the 1920s.
He is also an Associate Faculty member with the Critical Studies in Sexuality Program, and serves as faculty acquisitions advisor to UBC Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections department. He also curates exhibitions at Rare Books, the most recent of which is “A Queer Century, 1869-1969.”
Qian Wang, Asian Studies
Qian Wang is the Director of the Chinese Language Program at Asian Studies and teaches non-heritage Mandarin Chinese language courses at UBC. Her main research interests are on the teaching and learning of Chinese as a foreign language.
She is particularly interested in non-heritage learners’ acquisition of tones and especially Tone 3 in the learning of Mandarin Chinese. She is also interested in discovering innovative ways to teach traditionally difficult Mandarin Chinese segments in the classroom setting. Combining her training in linguistics and her passion for language teaching, she is devoted to the application of linguistic theories to language classrooms.
