Mimi Gellman Wins 2023 West Coast Teaching Excellence Award

Artist and ECU faculty member Mimi Gellman is the recipient of a 2023 West Coast Teaching Excellence Award (WCTEA).

The prestigious award, which celebrates excellence in university teaching, was launched in 2021 by the BC Teaching and Learning Council with support from BCcampus.

“Mimi is an enormously giving and generous faculty member,” says Diyan Achjadi, Interim Vice-President Academic + Provost. “Her grace, her gentleness, her ability to bring Indigenous knowledge into the university in a way that’s generative and exploratory and supportive of community is amazing. She is there for students in every way, at all times. These qualities are endemic to how Mimi approaches the pedagogical process. She is a truly inspiring educator, and I could not be happier to see her recognized for her work.”

Mimi’s extraordinary impact on her students — and on pedagogy at Emily Carr more broadly — also points to the vital importance of a well-resourced Teaching and Learning Centre that is able to support faculty development and teaching, Diyan adds.

Each public post-secondary institution in BC and the Yukon can forward up to two nominees annually for consideration. Five awards are given each year. Mimi, an Ashkenazi-Anishinaabe Métis visual artist and educator, is an associate professor at ECU. She was selected by colleagues earlier this year alongside faculty member Jamie Hilder after an open call for nominations from the ECU community.

“I am honoured to be nominated in the company of so many fine educators across B.C. and the Yukon, and humbled to have my work singled out for this recognition,” Mimi says. “We have entered an era where radical pedagogical transformation is essential to responsibly address the accelerated complexity and challenges of our times and to advance social and systems changes that are required for us to thrive together as a community of Nations.

“As an Indigenous educator, it is significant for me to receive this peer support and acknowledgement of the importance of Indigenous pedagogical and methodological innovation in post-secondary education in Canada – a recognition of a way of teaching that encourages wholism and wonder, kindness and generosity, creative resilience, personal observation and accountability, and co-operation and relationship-building above all else.”

In a short essay accompanying Mimi’s nomination, Mimi elaborates on her teaching philosophy. She describes how acknowledging the full humanity of her students is fundamental to supporting their learning goals.

“My primary job as an educator is to inspire wonder and excitement, to motivate my students to have the courage to embrace the unknown and the agency to forge their own unique learning paths,” she writes.

“My pedagogy focuses on the protocols of ‘biskaabiiyaang,’ an Anishinaabe word loosely translated as, ‘never leaving any part of yourself behind.’ My classes begin with a teaching that recognizes that knowledge acquisition requires one’s whole being, the mind, body and spirit to be present. As an instructor, I model the attributes of compassion, kindness and integrity, encouraging students to engage with each other with dignity and open-mindedness, acknowledging that difference is a welcomed gift.”

Mimi’s nomination also includes several letters of support noting Mimi’s empathy and dedication, as well as her “profound” impact throughout the ECU community via her “vibrant” teaching, studio, scholarly research, and publication practices.

“When was the last time someone asked you how your heart is? For me it was on a Tuesday morning at 8:30 in my Indigenous Presence class,” writes artist, designer and 2023 BFA student Nevada Lynn. “Dr. Mimi Gellman starts every class by asking her students to answer this simple question. The result? Her classroom is a safe space where students can honestly communicate how they feel and what they think.”

“Mimi is the kind of mentor that uplifts people and makes them thrive by being present, accessible, and focused,” writes designer Pat Vera, a former MDes student of Mimi’s and current ECU faculty member. “Her teachings and example of virtue, rectitude, generosity, justice, honour and truthfulness are indelible marks that will stay with me forever. To honour her incredible teaching, I now have the responsibility to pass these values and teachings to my future generations of students, and to my own children.”

Read a recent feature article in Montecristo Magazine about Mimi's collaboration with ECU faculty members Randy Lee Cutler and Ingrid Koenig on their Leaning Out of Windows project.

Scroll down to find links to more stories about Mimi’s work in the ECU community and beyond.