Chantal Meda
The University of Ottawa’s Excellence in Education prizes recognize educators of exceptional quality, who provide outstanding teaching while maintaining a solid research program. Profiles of each of the seven prize winners in 2006 will appear in the Gazette
over the coming months.
Professor Sharon Cook is an educator of exceptional quality. A nationally prominent historian within the Faculty of Education, Cook is one of this year’s recipients of the University of Ottawa’s Excellence in Education prizes.
Focusing on women’s history, Cook specializes in examining pedagogical models throughout history. Her research examines how women’s stories are represented in historical records and archival documents, and how these stories can be placed in a formal history course.
Bridging popular and scholarly women’s history, Cook attempts to make this knowledge more accessible to a new generation of readers, unfamiliar with women’s history. She demonstrates the important role that non-academic women have played —and continue to play — in the construction of women’s collective memory.
Throughout her career, Cook has explored ways in which pedagogy can help students understand and interpret history. She encourages students to develop their own academic approaches in order to engage and participate within the community.
“Teaching excellence is primarily about motivating students to help themselves be a success within a broader community,” Professor Cook explains. “Part of student success, I believe is rooted in effective curriculum linked to the community.”
It is this sense of community that remains central to her personal and professional life. As one colleague describes, “Dr. Cook has a unique ability to build bridges between the University and the community, combining academic knowledge with knowledge of the requirements of practice in vastly differing contexts.”
Cook credits community as an element that sustains her professional work. “My scholarly production, like that of most academics, has involved a good deal of individual effort through the research, writing and publication process,” she says. “However, without the support of the broad scholarly community, this would have been both a lonely and impoverished undertaking.”
According to Cook, “effective educators and academics must forge partnerships of a wide variety with those around us. Not the least of these sustaining relationships must be with our students.” It is this belief that has encouraged the development of strong bonds with her students.
Described by many as a passionate lecturer and gifted teacher, one former student, now a teacher, recalled Professor Cook’s influence. “Her passion to see students learn and her desire to produce teachers who would teach those students is evident in the legacy she has left in her students and teachers.”
