Tess Burke

Dr. Elizabeth Yeoman, professor in the Faculty of Education, is this year’s recipient of the President’s Award for Outstanding Graduate & Post-graduate Supervision.

She has supervised 1 postdoc, 12 doctoral students (5 of her own and on committees for 7 others), 43 master’s students and numerous teaching interns. She has also been involved in mentoring and co-supervising internationally as a visiting professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China and University of La Rioja in Spain and teaching interns in Dominica and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, WI.

“The importance of listening to your students, helping them narrow their focus and not being too directive are principal facets of my style of supervision”.

Dr. Yeoman’s own research reflects the passion for teaching and collaboration she demonstrates in her supervision to her students. Working with others, she promotes social change and cultural awareness through the work she undertakes.

Her current research, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) is a collaboration with Innu elder and environmental activist, Elizabeth Penashue, to develop a manuscript from Dr. Penashue’s personal diary. The book (forthcoming in April 2019 from University of Manitoba Press under the title Nitinikiau Innusi: I Keep the Land Alive) is a firsthand account of Innu history by an Innu woman who was an inspiring leader through perhaps the most tumultuous and challenging times her people had ever known. Dr. Yeoman is working on a second book about the editing and translation work she undertook with Dr. Penashue.

She recently completed a documentary film, Honk If You Want Me Off The Road, with colleague, Sharon Roseman (Anthropology). The film follows people trying to get around St. John's in winter with the challenges of the highest snowfall levels in Canada and very limited sidewalk snow removal.

As Dr. Yeoman has discovered, research opportunities transpire serendipitously. Knowing what you’re passionate about, what sparks your curiosity is essential. As a supervisor it’s the investigation of what people learn from cultural intersections in their daily lives that she is interested in supervising.

“I feel lucky to have been involved in such a diversity of fascinating projects and honoured to have worked with so many wonderful students. It means a great deal to me to know that my students nominated me for this award. I have mixed feelings about awards but, in accepting, I am recognizing the generosity and kindness of the students who nominated me.”