My teaching and mentoring work has taken different forms over time, but it has been consistently focused on helping students think clearly, write deliberately, and understand how institutions shape what counts as legitimate knowledge.
Graduate writing and academic development
Since 2019, I have worked as a Graduate Writing Advisor at the University of Alberta, supporting graduate students across disciplines. Most of this work happens outside credit-bearing courses and focuses on writing as a process rather than a product.
My work includes:
- One-to-one writing consultations with graduate students at all stages
- Non-credit workshops on thesis and dissertation writing, journal articles, and grant proposals
- Sessions on argumentation, structure, and revision strategies
- Practical guidance on academic integrity and responsible uses of generative AI
Much of this work responds to recurring problems: unclear claims, overloaded prose, anxiety about evaluation, and confusion about expectations that are rarely made explicit. I approach writing support as a way of helping students make decisions about audience, evidence, and structure, not as a form of editing or remediation.
Credit teaching (past)
Earlier in my career, I taught undergraduate sociology as a sessional instructor at the University of Alberta and Concordia University of Edmonton.
Courses I taught included:
- Sociology of Deviance and Conformity
- Sociology of Religion
- Introductory Sociology
- Criminology
- Social Psychology
- Social Studies of Surveillance
These courses reflected my research background in religion, nonreligion, social regulation, and moral boundary-drawing, but they were designed primarily to help students develop sociological ways of thinking rather than to specialize early.
Mentoring orientation
Across teaching and writing support, my mentoring style has been shaped by a few simple commitments:
- Treat students as capable thinkers, not empty vessels
- Make institutional expectations visible rather than mystified
- Separate clarity from polish
- Take students’ intellectual and practical constraints seriously
I am less interested in producing a particular kind of academic than in helping people understand the systems they are working within and make informed choices about how (and whether) they want to participate in them.
For details on my research and publications, see the Writing page. For professional history, see my CV.