Dr. Jordan Stouck
Dr. Jordan Stouck is currently the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies. She is an Associate Professor of Teaching in the Department of English and Cultural Studies, teaching English and Communications and Rhetoric. Her recent research has been focused on multilingual learning and graduate writing.
Dr. Stouck shared some insights on her research and teaching practices here at UBC Okanagan.
What brought you to UBCO?
I came to UBCO in 2009, excited both to return to British Columbia where I’m from and to participate in the rapid development of the Okanagan campus. For me, the move has brought so many opportunities to work with great people and shape innovative programming.
Tell us about your research interests.
My area is writing and composition studies, and most recently the development of programming in Communications and Rhetoric. In teaching, my primary objective centres around giving students a voice to participate in research through better understandings of professional audiences, purposes, and knowledge-making conventions. I’m also in the Educational Leadership stream so my research focuses on scholarship of teaching and learning related to blended delivery, graduate writing, and, most recently, culturally and linguistically inclusive approaches.
How did you know you wanted to be a professor?
I wasn’t sure I did want to be a professor until after my Master’s degree. At that point, I took a year away from studying and realized that I missed teaching and research. It wasn’t always a smooth path, but I am grateful for that “gap” year which gave me perspective and a renewed focus going into my PhD. In fact, as Associate Dean Undergraduate, I’ve seen how students – like I did – can really benefit from time away to identify priorities and assess where they want to be.
What kind of learning experiences do offer your students?
I regularly teach English 109, 112 and now Communication (CORH) courses. All of my courses are workshop-based, encouraging students to develop their research writing skills in a hands-on way. While I have taught first year composition many times, I never find it repetitive because of the practice-based classes and student interaction. I sincerely want every student to leave my course with an appreciation for the language and writing styles that they have encountered there.
Tell us about a recent project that you are excited about.
I am currently a team-member on two projects that question the values embedded in university-level writing instruction. One project is looking at culturally and linguistically inclusive approaches to writing and composition, considering what we value when we create or assess a piece of writing and how academic communication can become more inclusive. A lot of this work is embedded in the Communications and Rhetoric certificate and now minor that we are developing. Connected to this, I am a team member on a second project, led by Dr. Kerrie Charnley, developing a land-based Indigenous writing guide. This resource, intended for Indigenous post-secondary students, links writing practice to Indigenous methodologies and both fills a gap in existing resources as well as contributing to the rethinking of current approaches. Both the Communications programming and Indigenous writing guide are supported by ALT funding.