Welcoming the 2024–25 Acting Senior Director of the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning

The Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning welcomes Dr. Derritt Mason, PhD, to the Acting Senior Director role while Dr. Natasha Kenny embarks on a year of administrative leave. In their role as Senior Director, Dr. Mason will provide academic and administrative leadership and mentorship for the TI’s team of faculty, staff and graduate students while also advancing the strategic vision of the TI and ensuring alignment with the Academic Innovation Plan and UCalgary’s Ahead of Tomorrow goals. In partnership with units across UCalgary, they will continue to build strong relationships, communities, and networks, while continuing to strengthen the TI’s leadership in teaching and learning within and beyond UCalgary. 

Dr. Derritt Mason is Associate Professor in the Department of English, where their primary teaching and research areas are children’s and young adult literature, gender and sexuality, and cultural studies. Dr. Mason brings strong scholarly work to his research and teaching endeavours, and through the past two years has made significant contributions through his work as an Educational Leader in Residence (Online and Blended Learning) at the TI. As an Educational Leader, he created the ten-episode, peer-reviewed podcast 3QTL: Three Questions About Teaching and Learning, and collaborated on the “Lessons Learned During COVID-19” report.

Dr. Mason’s recent educational leadership work fits well with his continued contributions to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, including publications in the journals Pedagogy and Teaching and Learning Inquiry, as well as keynote and organizer contributions to the 2023 Conference on Postsecondary Learning and Teaching. His excellence in teaching and learning in the classroom has also been recognized, as he has received both a Students’ Union Teaching Award and a Faculty of Arts Award for Outstanding Teacher (both in 2021).

Dr. Mason has also demonstrated dedication and excellence through his research, as the author of Queer Anxieties of Young Adult Literature and Culture (UP Mississippi 2021)—which won the Children’s Literature Association Honor Book Award—and the co-editor, with Kenneth B. Kidd, of two essay collections: Alt Kid Lit: What Children’s Literature Might Be (UPM 2024) and Queer as Camp: Essays on Summer, Style, and Sexuality (Fordham UP, 2019), which won the Children’s Literature Association Edited Book Award. Dr. Mason’s other research on young people’s media and culture has appeared in journals including ESC: English Studies in Canada; Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures; Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture; and The Lion & the Unicorn, and he also recently finished serving a term as President of the Association for Research in Cultures of Young People (ARCYP) and co-chair of ARCYP’s conference.

Please join me in this warm welcome to Dr. Derritt Mason as Acting TI Senior Director for 2024-25. I also share many thanks to Dr. Natasha Kenny for her ongoing academic and administrative leadership as TI Senior Director and the values of courage, compassion, and collaboration in teaching and learning she continues to cultivate. As Dr. Kenny embarks on her one-year leave, we will continue to cultivate these values and uplift strong teaching and learning at UCalgary through this upcoming year.

-- Wendy Benoit, Interim Vice-Provost (Teaching and Learning)