By Cassandra Hendry, TLS Staff Writer
Erik Stephenson, a professor teaching for the Bachelor of Humanities program, knows what it’s like to be a young student at Carleton thrown into the complex and often confusing world of philosophy courses; he completed his undergraduate degree here. As someone who can put himself in his students’ shoes, he wants to help.
“You can’t think when you’re scared,” says Stephenson, one of Carleton’s 2016 New Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award winners.
“You’ve got to put [students] at ease somehow. Cracking jokes, keeping things light, and smiling. I firmly believe that these little things are just as important to know as the latest and greatest pedagogical approaches.”
Stephenson teaches the history of philosophy, a subject that even he admits can be challenging. But having grappled with these ideas himself, he knows how to guide students through his courses.
“My goal is to leave no one behind. Everyone makes it safely ashore,” he says. “That means going over the points that I’ve come to recognize as difficult for students, or even me, to grasp. My job is to make it accessible and simple.”
Stephenson does this by breaking down concepts in class slowly and interacting with his students rather than simply transferring information. He mostly forgoes technological aides such as PowerPoint in favour of the traditional ‘chalk and talk’ method, which he finds suits his relatively smaller, seminar-style classes.
Another tool Stephenson uses is something he has plenty of: enthusiasm.
“What I get over and over on course evaluations is that they appreciate the passion and enthusiasm, and how it seems I have a knack for breaking complex arguments down into simple bite-sized forms,” he says.
That enthusiasm translates into letting students know he’s always available for consultation no matter how small their issue may be, and giving plenty of helpful feedback not only about submitted assignments but for students’ reading and writing skills in general.
His passion for guiding his students was the basis for a writing boot camp Stephenson initiated with fellow humanities professor Greg MacIsaac. They found that students were coming out of high school with little knowledge of academic writing, so they created an intensive tutorial to help students improve their writing skills and make academic-level connections in the material.
For Stephenson, what drives him to be present for his students and to help them strive for excellence, not only in his course but also throughout their university careers, is simple.
“I just really enjoy what I do,” he says.