The Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) recently welcomed Dr. Erica Meiners to Trent University as one of two inaugural distinguished visiting teaching scholars. Professor Meiners is the author of several books and a faculty member at Northeastern Illinois University specializing in education, justice studies, and gender and sexuality studies. 

Prof. Meiners was busy during her time in Peterborough connecting with all members of the Trent community. She met with undergraduate student leaders representing a number of clubs, groups, and movements, where the discussion focused on the topic of creating equality for all, and was a lecturer for a community talk focused on placing the child at the heart of the targeted criminalization debate.Approximately 75 students from area high schools also interacted with Prof. Meiners on the topics of social justice, inequality, and collective movements.

“Teaching is always about learning, but my time at Trent University with curious high school students and their teachers, committed undergraduate organizers and community members, and thoughtful scholars and staff, offered a powerful reminder that the work of the university is to be fully in the struggle - for the long haul - to build the communities we know we need,” Prof. Miner said about her time in Peterborough. “With a commitment to social justice and to engaging the campus and surrounding communities, the CTL is building relationships, sharing tools and analysis, creating community and raising provocative and necessary questions about what it means to be teaching and learning in our communities.”

The CTL will welcome a second distinguished visiting teaching scholar later this month when Dr. Nicola Simmons, profesor in the department of Graduate & Undergraduate Studies in Education at Brock University, will be the keynote speaker at the annual Teaching Spa event on May 25. 

For more information about the visiting teaching scholar program or the CTL, please visit trentu.ca/teaching.