As one of SFU’s most outstanding graduate students from the Faculty of Education, Dr. Ann Wilson is being recognized with the award of the Dean of Graduate Studies Convocation Medal. On behalf of SFU, we congratulate Dr. Wilson on her outstanding achievements.
Dr. Ann Wilson is receiving two significant awards this year: A Convocation Medal for her achievements in her EdD program and an honorary degree from Kwantlen Polytechnic University for her significant contributions to her community since 1992.
Dr. Wilson’s 25 years of experience as the Director of Program Development at the Phoenix Drug and Alcohol Recovery and Education Society greatly shaped her dissertation, Joining Learning and Making: A Practitioner’s Retrospective Auto/biographical Account of How Inquiry Can Contribute to Social Justice Efforts in a Community.
Her work shows how qualitative research, especially critical reflection and inquiry, can contribute significantly to the efforts of community-based organizations towards social justice.
The socially innovative prototypes developed by Dr. Wilson and her colleagues at the Phoenix Society demonstrate that citizens are able to recover and fully participate in the social, economic, and political life of their communities, and that research-informed social innovation has not only improved the individual lives of the citizens she serves; it has also enhanced community wellbeing.
Her supervisor, Dr. Suzanne Smythe, calls Dr. Wilson’s work at the Society “the lifeblood of the theoretical and analytic work she carried out in her thesis.”
As the Director of Program Development for the Phoenix Drug and Alcohol Recovery and Education Society, Dr. Wilson was responsible for the design, delivery, and evaluation of the core programs that comprise the Society’s strategic mandate in support of its mission and vision.
Dr. Wilson says, “I am grateful to Dr. Suzanne Smythe, my Senior Supervisor, and Dr. Heesoon Bai, who supported and challenged my wayfinding through a complex inquiry project where scholarship and everyday practice were joined, where theories were put to work to bring new ideas and institutions together, and where the insight and wisdom of citizens whose lives are most impacted by inequality, were included as valued partners.”
- Dissertation: Joining Learning and Making: A Practitioner’s Retrospective Auto/biographical Account of How Inquiry Can Contribute to Social Justice Efforts in a Community
- Supervisor: Suzanne Smythe
- KPU: Phoenix Society’s Wilsons awarded honorary degrees from KPU
- Convocation Medal Award Winners 2017
Writer: Danika Wong
courtesy: Simon Fraser University.