Secondary education professor named faculty's first Vargo Teaching Chair

University of Alberta secondary education professor Cathy Adams has been awarded the 2018 Vargo Teaching Chair, becoming the first Faculty of Education member to be so honoured since its establishment in 2003.

Vargo Teaching Chairs at the University of Alberta were created to foster excellence in teaching at the University. This program is committed to support individuals demonstrating innovative and creative teaching methods which enhance learning by undergraduate and graduate students.

Adams’ research program draws on links between phenomenology, pedagogy, philosophy of technology and media scholarship to addresses digital technology integration across K-12 and post-secondary educational environments, ethical and pedagogical issues involving digital media in schools, and K-12 computing science curriculum and pedagogy.

“Dr. Adams’s outstanding international reputation, her consistent excellence in teaching, and her leadership and research excellence positioned her to be selected as the recipient of this prestigious award,” said Dean of Education Jennifer Tupper. “I have been deeply impressed by her work to date, and with her proposed project to create a suite of critical digital citizenship activities—a timely and important undertaking in light of the ubiquity of fake news in the post-truth era we are living in.”

The Vargo Teaching Chair is named for the late Dr. Jim Vargo, a University of Alberta alumnus (’68 BA, ’70 MEd, ’72 PhD) and former professor. A much-loved and respected scholar, he taught for 23 years at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine.