Dr. Ailsa Craig is known as an award-winning teacher and as someone committed to connecting communities through shared hopes and ambitions. What might not be known, however, is that Dr. Craig’s approach to community building evolved out of an interest in poetry.

As an undergraduate, Dr. Craig studied sociology and creative writing at York University. This led to graduate research at New York University that, on one level, focused on how poets go about building careers in a cultural industry. But this generated questions that resonated on an even deeper level.

When writers commit to a career in poetry, there isn’t a guaranteed income. There’s no promise of recognition. There’s no clear path to success. Yet despite these hardships and unknowns, poets get up every day and dedicate themselves to the artform.

Dr. Craig wondered, “How is it people are so passionate about this thing that doesn’t have the usual expected payoffs? How do people commit to these kinds of central life activities?”

One of the things Dr. Craig realized through this work is that a community can’t solely be defined by the struggles or crises it faces. A community is built and defined, as Dr. Craig says, “on the ways people reach for joy.”

This is the understanding that is carried forward in Dr. Craig’s work as an educator, a university leader and an activist.

Dr. Craig joined Memorial’s sociology department in 2006 and has created and taught courses on the sociology of sexuality and the sociology of disability.

In 2015, Dr. Craig and Charlie Murphy were the central co-founders of Quadrangle NL, a charitable organization that has built a 2SLGBTQIA+ community centre in St. John’s. As a registered charity, Quadrangle is a place where individuals and organizations can share space, resources, ideas and support.

The following year, Dr. Craig received the President’s Award for Outstanding Teaching (Faculty) and the Glenn Roy Blundon Centre’s Teaching and Learning Award for advancing accessible and equitable learning.

 

Dr. Ailsa Craig received the President’s Award for Outstanding Teaching from Dr. Gary Kachanoski in 2016. Photo from the Gazette.

 

For Dr. Craig, professors are a part of a cross-generational community that can help students shape their future. It’s about building bridges that create a network of people and supports both within and outside the university. Dr. Craig says, “Sometimes students don’t know they have that net. But those are the nets that catch us when we fall.”

Over the years, Dr. Craig has served as the head of the sociology department, as associate dean (curriculum and programs) for the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and in 2021 was appointed interim dean of the faculty.

Dr. Craig has also co-chaired the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Working Group, and has worked with the Research Advisory Committee on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and with the Continuing Education Steering Committee.

In 2022, Dr. Craig was appointed special advisor to the president on continuing education and has worked to make Memorial’s vast array of continuing education offerings more visible and accessible to the wider public.

For nearly 20 years, Dr. Craig has helped people seek self-definition and fulfill their own stories within active and compassionate communities.  

This tireless and dedicated work stands as a testament to the idea that a community is not just measured by its breadth, but by the depth of its commitment to helping individuals reach for what really matters.