#Introducing the 2021 3M National Teaching Fellowship Award Winners

The only full-time faculty member in her department, Ann Braithwaite has grown her program from a minor in women’s studies to a thriving and innovative major in diversity and social justice studies. Her influence has shaped women’s and gender studies at universities across North America, both through her co-written textbook that radically redefines how we think about teaching introductory courses and as a highly sought-after reviewer for programs that want to redefine their curriculum. Both at her own university and beyond, she publishes, presents and gives workshops on rethinking the arts, decolonizing the curriculum and embedding good principles for equity, diversity, and inclusion in our classrooms.

Her courses have inviting and challenging titles such as “Identities and Place,” “Love and Labour,” “Monsters, Freaks, Zombies, and Cyborgs,” “Race and Whiteness.” Students complete “selfie projects” that ask them to reflect on the connection between identity and place; later in their academic careers, they design and give workshops for government employees on accessibility or research and design their own course outlines. Her students are true partners in knowledge creation. Her colleagues suggest that Ann Braithwaite is an extraordinary colleague; someone who works with “infectious and generative joy to build questioning and inclusive communities.”