Nicola Simmons, Assistant Professor of Education, and Tim O’Connell, Professor of Recreation and Leisure Studies, won two of this year’s 3M National Teaching Fellowships.
Brock profs earn top national
3M awards By Maryanne Firth
BROCK UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS Tim O’Connell and Nicola Simmons have been honoured with this year’s coveted 3M National Teaching Fellowships. Considered Canada’s most prestigious prize for teaching excellence at the university level, only 10 are given out nationwide each year. It was announced in February that O’Connell, Professor of Recreation and Leisure Studies, and Simmons, Assistant Professor of Education, would be recognized with the award for their outstanding contributions to education. O’Connell was humbled by the honour, but quickly acknowledged his students, colleagues and Brock’s administration who have impacted his classroom success. “It really is a group effort,” he said. “I don’t think you can be a good educator without having great people to work with. There are a lot of people behind this.” O’Connell, who joined Brock in 2006, has received significant praise for co-founding the BaseCamp leadership program, where novice students with little experience in outdoor recreation are teamed
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with senior students for five days of hiking, canoeing and rock climbing to help foster student success and confidence. It’s a model that has been adopted as a best practice by other Canadian universities. Simmons, in the Department of Graduate and Undergraduate Studies in Education, has also made her mark on the country’s educational landscape. She established Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Canada, chaired the Educational Developers’ Caucus, and served as vice-president for the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Simmons, who began her post-secondary teaching career in 1986, continues to use innovative methods to engage students. Her approach may lead students to rewrite a course reading as a free verse poem, build with Lego in order to consider the connection be-
Tim O’Connell, Professor of Recreation and Leisure Studies, assists student Patrick Miller during a BaseCamp rock climbing trip.