Retired teacher Margaret Epoch (‘77 BPE, ‘97 BEd, ‘02 MEd) picks up a binder and leafs through it, stopping several times to point to news articles that detail global projects her former students took part in. They did everything from random acts of kindness—driving into a town and sweeping the walk or handing out flowers—to fundraising for students in other parts of the world.

University of Alberta alumna Carla Cuglietta (’01 BEd, ’01 BPE) says helping people has been woven into her sense of purpose from early on, which informed her childhood notions about what she wanted to be when she grew up.

“I’ve always wanted to be a teacher,” Cuglietta says. “The reach, the platform a teacher has to encourage others to get involved in serving others is pretty big. That was quite appealing to me at a young age.”

In a province like Alberta, where major universities are relatively few and far between, it can be tough to pursue your chosen career path while staying in your community. Enter the off-campus collaborative program.

When we first planned this issue of illuminate celebrating “enterprising educators”, we could not have imagined that we would be publishing a week after the worst natural disaster in Canadian history hit the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo.

We know that many of our students, alumni and colleagues, both past and present, have ties to Fort McMurray and our thoughts are with all who have been affected by the wildfires.

When Dan (BEd ‘87) and Carla Cavanagh (BEd ‘94) purchased Delmar College of Hair and Esthetics in Calgary in 2010, the numbers were promising.

It was a thriving business, and the husband and wife team were excited about the prospect of owning a company that required many of the skills they’d honed over several years as educators.

If you’ve had the pleasure of working with Farha Shariff (BEd ’99, PhD ‘12) or being a student in one of her classes in the Faculty of Education, you know that this dynamic educator isn’t one to slow down.

Raised by educators— her mom is a University of Alberta Education grad—Shariff sees education as less of a career path and more of a way of life. With a philosophy built on elevating the people around her, Shariff is nothing short of motivational, in and out of the classroom.

The rich, often complicated interactions between teachers and students provide endless fodder for filmmakers. In anticipation of the 2016 Academy Awards, we asked Katherine Koch, head librarian at H.T. Coutts Education Library, to give us her top 10 list of movies about teachers.

The rich, often complicated interactions between teachers and students provide endless fodder for filmmakers.

In anticipation of the 2016 Academy Awards, we asked Katherine Koch, head librarian at H.T. Coutts Education Library, to give us her top 10 list of movies about teachers.

Sean Lessard refers to his return to Edmonton as a kind of homecoming, even though he hails from the Montreal Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. Maybe it’s because Lessard, who joined the University of Alberta Faculty of Education’s Department of Secondary Education this January, has a knack for creating a sense of community wherever he pursues his research and pedagogy involving Indigenous youth.

It is my pleasure to share the fall issue of our faculty magazine with you, our community of Education alumni located all over the world.

With 2016 just around the corner, it is natural to look back at the past year—a year of successes and transitions—while also looking to the future.