You wonāt see them wearing Dalympics T-shirts and taped to telephone poles for Shinerama. But there are dozens of professors new to Dal who are lost in the stacks at the Killam or inquiring desperately about what time Tim Hortons closes.
Dalnews introduces you to a few of the faculty frosh behind the lectern in your classroom:
Scott Macmillan
Department of Music
In the Department of Music, the new guy is an old hand. Scott Macmillan is one of the Atlantic regionās leading musicians, known for his astounding versatility in the fields of classical, pop, jazz, blues and Celtic music.
Equally at home behind the podium, in the studio or strumming a guitar, Mr. Macmillan is in demand as a music director, performer, conductor, arranger and producer.
And now as a teacher too. A Dal grad with a degreeĀ double major inĀ math and music, Mr. Macmillan will teach guitar one-on-one to several students and lead the guitar ensemble. But heās most looking forward to teaching The Guitar: History and Techniques (), a class designed as an elective for non-music majors.
It sounds noisyāstudents of varying musical ability bring their guitars to class and spend the majority of the time simply playing. They learn strumming, basic chords and the history behind plucked instruments.
āI love it,ā assures Mr. Macmillan. āAll the students are so keen to learn. A big reward for me is seeing all the light bulbs switch on.ā
Through the fall, you can catch Mr. Macmillan with his 12-piece jazz ensemble Scott ānā the Rocks every other Monday at Staynerās Wharf on the Halifax waterfront. As one-half of The Guitar Wizards, heāll also perform with Brian Doyle for several dates next month in Cape Breton.
D'Arcy Gray
Department of Music
Bongos, congos, timpanis, glockenspiels and marimbas. Percussionist DāArcy Gray plays anything you hit.
āI canāt wait to get my fingernails all dirty down in the basement of the Dal Arts Centre,ā says Mr. Gray, another new face in the Department of Musicās staff room.
After 20 years based at McGill University in Montreal ā first as a student, then as a teacher ā heās returned home to Nova Scotia. Heās been on the road a lot, working as a soloist and teacher in Canada, the United States, Europe and South America. After all that travel, he says heās looking forward to āsettling down a bit.ā
At pilipiliĀž», heāll teach percussion students one-on-one and lead the percussion ensemble. He also plays with the Fredericton-based Motion Ensemble, an eclectic chamber music group, and suddenlyLISTEN, a collective of artists brought together by cellist Norman Adams.
āItās wonderful to be back and reconnecting with old friends,ā says Mr. Gray, originally from the Amherst area.
Matthew Schnurr
International Development Studies
When Matthew Schnurr says heās passionate about teaching, the glint in his eye tells you he isnāt exaggerating. On the eve of the first day of the academic year, he was raring to get into the classroom.
Heās already anticipating an exercise heās prepared for the class Environment and Development (): a simulated negotiation at a meeting of the Convention of Biological Diversity. Students will assume the roles of different stakeholdersācountries, multinational companies, NGOsāand prepare position papers on whether the conversion of land for bio-fuel production should be encouraged or not. Lately, bio-fuel (food crops such as corn and soybeans converted into fuel) has been seen as both environmental savior and villaināit all depends on your point of view.
āItās a really great way to achieve a very thorough discussion of all the issues involved,ā he says of the exercise which isnāt planned until later in the term. He is also teaching Community Development (INTD 3104).
Heās willing to take risks with his teaching, mixing in debates, role playing and games to shake up the typical lecture format. āBy attempting things that are a little unconventional, you take the gamble that some things will fall flat. But, on the other hand, some will hit home and become memorable.ā
With a focus on Africa, his research is about āconnecting contemporary development to its history.ā The Toronto native recently defended his PhD thesis dissertation at UBC, on the political ecology of agricultural failure in South Africa. āThatās what fascinates me, to examine environmental problems through a political lens.ā
Alexander Treiger
Religious Studies, Department of Classics
Good luck if you want to add a Religious Studies class to your timetableāmany of them are full or getting there fast. And thatās going to keep new professor Alexander (Sasha) Treiger hopping.
This year, heās teaching Intro to Western Religions (), Islam (), Judaism () and Sufism (RELS 3012).
With religion continuing to dominate the newsāfrom Sarah Palinās religious-based politics in the U.S. to ongoing religious tensions in the Middle Eastāitās no wonder students are signing up and wanting to learn more.
āOr they may be religious themselves and want to know more about their religious traditions and their cultural background,ā explains Dr. Treiger.
But he adds the academicās interest in religion is different from the believerās interest, who is wondering how religious texts and rituals apply to his or her life. āAs an academic, I am trying to understand the concerns of the people who wrote the text. Why was it written? What does it reflect? What kind of society does it come from? There are many, many questions to explore.ā
Born in Russia, Dr. Treiger has a BA (Arabic and Islamic Studies) and MA (Comparative Religion) from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his PhD (Near Eastern Studies) from Yale University. His research interests lie in Islamic studies.
Michelle Adams
School of Resource and Environmental Studies
Michelle Adams finds it both intimidating and inspiring that she occupies the office of her mentor, the recently retired Ray CotƩ.
āWhen someone says, āOh, youāre the new Ray,ā I cringe. I mean, he has shoes this bigā¦ā she indicates a Michael Phelps foot span with her hands, āand I have little feet.ā
It was Prof. CotĆ© who lured her away from the private sector and into the halls of academe. After seeing him lecture, she started taking classes at pilipiliĀž» and then took on a PhD investigating why businesses were reluctant to invest in clean technologies when they would lessen environmental damage and save on the bottom line.
As an environmental engineer, she spent much of her time figuring out how to clean up sites after theyād been contaminated. The idea that waste could be regarded as a fuel source or a raw material for another company just wasnāt anything she saw in practice.
āWhat a concept: donāt create it in the first place. Whatever you want to call itāwaste, pollution, contaminationāsomeoneās paid for it at the front end. So from a business standpoint, you have to figure out how to get economic value from the material you used to dump down the drain.ā
Prof. Adams is teaching some graduate level courses as well as acting as the interim director of the Eco-Efficiency Centre.
Darryl Whetter
Creative Writing program, Department of English
As a creative writer, the journey is often painstakingly slow. You write a few words, scratch them out, write them again and then think of something even better to replace them with.Ā
No wonder then that it took Darryl Whetter more than 10 years to write his debut novel, The Push & the Pull (Goose Lane Editions). Itās fitting that his book is a road story taken on a touring bicycle; the saddle sores are worth it in the end.Ā
Encouraging students to be editors is as integral to the creative process as the actual writing. Thatās what Dr. Whetter advises as the new creative writing professor in the English department.
Heās thrilled to be teaching Creative Process (), a class open to students of all disciplines that focuses on creativity in a wide variety of artistic expressions, such as writing, painting, music, dancing, mathematics and advertising.
āIām looking for a radical willingness for students to revise and revise and change,ā he says, calling writing āthe art of difference.ā
Besides teaching this fall, the cycling professor is running for the Green Party in the Halifax riding during the October 14 federal election.