Dr. Richard Gale

Dr. Richard Gale

Dr. Richard Gale is still getting used to popping loonies in the parking meter, saying "zed", not "zee", and navigating his way around the Douglas campuses.

But he is already a well-known and much-anticipated presence at Douglas where he has recently assumed his role as Visiting Scholar for the 2007/08 academic year.

Dr. Gale comes to the college from a five-year term as Senior Scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in Stanford, California, an institution with which Douglas has been professionally affiliated for many years. Last February, Gale lectured at Douglas, where his cutting-edge ideas on teaching and learning at the post-secondary level clearly touched a nerve among the capacity - crowd of more than 150 members of the Douglas community.

"We pay too much attention to how we teach and too little attention to how students learn," says Gale. "We need to pay more attention to what college and university students learn, and how they learn, and why they learn."

"We have a tendency to think about research and teaching as two separate pools or two separate worlds," says Gale. "But as many Douglas faculty can attest, we can also apply the skills we have as researchers and as disciplinary scholars to research in the classroom."

Dr. Gale was attracted to the college in part because of the critical mass of individual faculty at the college who are already at work on research projects analyzing what and how they are teaching, and what and how their students are learning. During his tenure at the college, Dr. Gale will work with faculty to support their research and scholarship into teaching and learning at Douglas, and bring together other like-minded researchers from across the province and from around the world.

"Douglas College is now a co-leader in the Carnegie Academy of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Institutional Leadership program with Carleton College, in Minnesota, one of the top-tier, private liberal arts colleges in the U.S. and there are more and more of those kinds of opportunities that can happen and should happen," says Gale, who sees Douglas as one of a handful of leaders in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning within the province and across the nation.

The timing of Dr. Gale's appointment could not be more opportune as he describes the changing political landscape in the U.S. and Canada as the greatest challenge for educators and institutions over the next decade. He argues that "now is the time for educators to really grab the reins and decide that the determination of how students learn, and why students learn, and what can be done to improve student learning is something that we as educators keep in our hands.

"But in order to convince the world at large - whether it's students who might come into the program, or parents who might be sending their kids into a program, or provincial institutions - we need data. It's the data that is going to convince. And it is the data about student learning at Douglas that we are really starting to generate."

Vice President of Education Dr. Jan Lindsay is delighted to welcome Dr. Gale to the college. "We are very pleased to have such a distinguished scholar share his ideas, experience and expertise with the Douglas community. Dr. Gale"s leadership in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning will help us to build evidence-based research on student learning at Douglas, and to continue in our mission to provide the best learning experience and the best learning environment for our students."

Indeed, it was precisely this history of responsiveness to the needs of students and the needs of the community that was key to Dr. Gale assuming his appointment at Douglas College.

"Douglas is the kind of college connection that I've always wanted to find. It represents for me one of those ideals that I've always had in the back of my head: a higher education institution that is not only a part of a community, but also works to support the community."