Celebrate Teaching Speaker Series Kick-Off: “Teaching Inside” with Dr Kirsten McIlveen and Dr Fenn Stewart
Join us Friday, October 2, 1pm to celebrate teaching at CapU! (Sign up here)
The word is out: we have exceptional instructors amongst us and it’s time to shine the light on their contributions to our Cap U teaching and learning community. The Celebrate Teaching Speaker Series brings together faculty from across our community to talk about their own experiences, reflections, and insights from their teaching practice, followed by discussion and food (when in person). These events will offer opportunities to connect with colleagues from across all five faculties and offer a space to learn with and from one another.
We are excited to announce our first session on Friday, October 2, 1:00pm – 2:30pm in LB 322.
Dr Kirsten McIlveen and Dr Fenn Stewart: “Teaching Inside: Organizational and Operational Challenges of Bringing Post-Secondary Education into the Prison”
In this discussion, Kirsten and Fenn will reflect on how the experience of teaching at Fraser Valley Institution (FVI), a federal women’s prison in Abbotsford, BC, has influenced their respective practices as educators and researchers, with specific attention to questions around accessibility and trauma-informed teaching. Kirsten and Fenn will share their experiences of the organizational and operational challenges of post-secondary prison education, in an era of austerity budgets (which hit community-engaged learning programs particularly hard), and highlight inside and outside students’ descriptions of what the program offers (beyond the course curriculum).
Dr. Kirsten McIlveen (Geography) is the coordinator of the CapU Prison Bridging Program. Since 2019, CapU faculty have taught courses at FVI. In this program, “outside” students from CapU travel to FVI to study with incarcerated “inside” students, learning together, and earning university credits in Geography, Creative Writing, English, and Sociology. Dr. Fenn Stewart (English) is an instructor in the program, having taught ENGL 217: Literature on the Edge at FVI in the spring 2026 term.
Here is the registration link to sign up.
We can’t wait to gather and celebrate with you!
If you know of someone you think we should be honouring, or if you would like to be a part of this series, please reach out to Lydia lwatson@capilanou.ca or Bettina bettinaboyle@capilanou.ca.
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