Editorial: Volume 5(2)

We are pleased to share with you our ninth issue of Imagining SoTL—Volume 5(2). This issue is based on papers developed after the 2024 Symposium for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, where we returned to our home in Banff, Alberta. The theme of the conference was “Leading Through SoTL.” Our opening keynote speaker, Dr. Sarah Bunnell, Director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning and an Associate Professor of Psychology at Elon University, gave a presentation entitled “Leading with and Through SoTL: How a SoTL Mindset Can Transform Institutions, Our Students, and Ourselves.” Dr. Joshua Hill, Associate Professor of Education at Mount Royal University, provided the closing keynote entitled “The World Needs SoTL: Collective Leadership for Dynamic Times.”

There are four articles in this issue, demonstrating the range of topics we have come to expect from our submitters. The first is an exploration of “Decolonizing Public Speaking” from Carlos de Cuba, Cheyenne Seymour, and Poppy Slocum, from City University of New York, which considers how to “honour linguistic and cultural diversity while maintaining academic rigor.” In the second paper, student Liv Taylor along with professors Mandana Sobhanzadeh and Nicholas Strzalkowski from Mount Royal University, discuss results of their survey investigating “Social Identity and Nature of Science Knowledge at the Undergraduate Level.” Carolyn Bjartveit and Simran Kandola, also from Mount Royal University, explore an experience of students as partners in “Tightrope Walking.”

As always, we had Pop-Up Poetry as an integral part of the conference. Annik Bilodeau, from the University of Waterloo, explores this experience in her creative response submission entitled “The Reluctant Participant.”

While she is given credit on the website, I would like to highlight here the work of colleague and photographer Dr. Sarah Hewitt, who has provided another stunning photo for our cover from the Banff area. We are so fortunate to have had this beautiful work as part of our journal from the beginning.

I hope you enjoy the issue.

Dr. Michelle Yeo
Editor-in-Chief
Imagining SoTL