Join us for the Brave Conversations Speaker Series: Season 3, Session 1 - March 23, 2026
AnneMarie Dorland
Dear colleagues,
Please join us as we kick off Season 3 of Brave Conversations in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. This series is a collaboration with University of Calgary's Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning, where we bring together an international slate of scholars to discuss ideas at SoTL's edges. This season explores the many ways that risk can be understood, taken up, and experienced by those engaging in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL).
Risk-taking is often framed in celebratory terms — entrepreneurial, innovative, bold. While this can be a positive rendering, we want to trouble that familiar narrative. What might open up if we invited our community to think about risk in more pluralistic, more nuanced ways? How might our understanding of risk-taking, innovation, and failure in SoTL change when we look through an intersectional lens? What if we centred the lived experiences of those for whom “taking a risk” is not an abstract intellectual exercise, but something that carries real professional, personal, or emotional stakes?
For this first event of our three-part online series, J Overholser, Dr. Brittany Lindsay, Dr. Lisa Taylor and Dr. Erika Smith will discuss the ethical, relational, and emotional dimensions of SoTL, considering how an ethic of care might act as both a buffer and a catalyst for risk-taking.
Season 3, Session 1: The Ethics of Care in SoTL: Exploring Care, Support, and Compassion in SoTL
As a part of the larger 2026 Brave Conversations series — which explores and critically questions what it means to take risks in SoTL — this panel will examine how we can support ourselves and each other and build communities that sustain rather than deplete those doing brave SoTL work. This conversation foregrounds the ethical, relational, and emotional dimensions of SoTL and considers how an ethic of care might act as both a buffer and a catalyst for risk-taking.
Session 1: The Ethics of Care in SoTL
Date & Time: March 23, 2026 (9:00 AM MST)
Register now to receive the Zoom link for this online session!
Panelists
Dr. Brittany Lindsay, PhD (she/her)
Brittany Lindsay, PhD, is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Psychology at the University of Calgary. Her teaching, service, and research focus on postsecondary mental health and wellbeing broadly. Her primary research areas explore understanding and reducing the stigma towards mental health challenges and suicide thoughts and behaviours.
J Overholser, PhD Candidate (ze/zir, they/them)
J Overholser is a PhD candidate and sessional instructor in the Sociology Department at the University of Calgary. Their doctoral research focuses on the intersections of gender, queerness, popular culture, and fan communities. Their teaching approach and pedagogical research focuses on accessibility and inclusion within academia–both for students and educators.
Dr. Lisa Taylor (she/her)
Lisa M. Taylor, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Education at Mount Royal University. Lisa's research focuses on working to understand health and wellness experiences of students and teachers using systems thinking and health promotion in education frameworks. Lisa’s teaching centres on teacher wellness, physical and health education, as well as land-based learning for pre-service teachers.
