Teaching

Contact Information

Work email: alex@alexandrapett.com

Personal email: alexandra_pett@hotmail.com

Mobile phone: 250-889-9287

Mailing address: Available via Contact

Objectives

1. Challenging work as mentor, teacher, researcher, and editor
2. Selling art pieces
3. Building an audience.

Summary

• Ph.D. in English
• Recent experience in conference presentations and planning
• Book and scholarly publications
• Extensive teaching experience in Canadian universities, primarily in English literature, writing and speaking, composition, speech, life writing, history of ideas, mythology, and general studies
• One year as assistant professor and tenured professor.
• Fulbright scholar
• Leadership and administrative experience as Associate Dean in Arts at Mount Royal University
• Two chairing experiences: Chair of English Department at Mount Royal College and Chair of Arts and Science at University Canada West

Education

Ph.D., University of Calgary, 20th-century American fiction, dissertation on Edith Wharton

M.A., University of Calgary, British fiction, thesis on Virginia Woolf

B.A., English, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Additional Education and Training

Fulbright Summer Scholar Program, New School University, New York: “Reading America: Construction of Identities in American Literature and History,” 2001

International scholars involved in on-site work and seminar exchange

TESL/TESOL Certificate, Oxford Seminars, University of Victoria, Victoria, November 2005

Graduate of the Academy for Leadership and Development, 2004, The Chair Academy

Workshops in outcomes-based curriculum, focused on general education and assessment as learning, Alverno College and Kings College, United States

Work Experience

University Canada West: 2007 to Present

Victoria and Vancouver campuses, full-time appointments, sessional teaching, and course teaching, both online and face to face

Program Chair, Arts and Science, University Canada West, Victoria and Vancouver, summer 2010 to 2012

Full-time teaching position, University Canada West, Victoria and Vancouver, BC, 2008 to 2011

Sessional teaching positions, University Canada West, online and face to face, Vancouver, BC, 2011 to present

Extensive work as writing coach for UCW in Vancouver with international BCom, BA, and MBA students

Work included editing, research ethics committee participation, SOAR program support for new students, MBA thesis preparation, Graduation Essay Project support, and faculty advising for international Model United Nations

Yorkville University, Online, Vancouver, BC

1. Curriculum development: two courses in composition and communications, and one course in workplace fiction
2. Face-to-face course delivery at Vancouver Yorkville University: BUSI 1073, Business Communications
3. Online course delivery: Workplace Fiction, ENGL 250; Research and Composition, ENGL 101; and Professional Communication, ENGL 150

Committee Work

Curriculum Committee

Academic Council

Program development and resubmission documents for degrees

Faculty Professional Development Committee

Library Committee

Arts representative for English articulation meetings, BCCAT, ten years

Courses Taught at University Canada West

• Business Communications and Academic Writing, MBA 501, MBA students
• Writing and Composition, English 100
• Writing and Critical Thinking, English 102
• Business Communication, COMM 140
• Writing for the Media, COMM 203 and COMM 402
• Communications Theory, COMM 200
• Writing for Specific Audiences, COMM 201
• Narrative and Fiction, ENGL 105
• Capstone Essay Course, BA and BCom
• Research Methods for BCom and MBA students, MDCM

Mount Royal College and University

1. Full-time administrative position as Associate Dean, Faculty of Arts, and Coordinator, Collaborative Programs with Athabasca University, Mount Royal University, Calgary, AB, 2002 to 2005
2. Chair, English Department, Mount Royal University
3. Tenured faculty member of the English Department, Mount Royal College and University, eighteen years

Three-year member as Associate Dean on Deans’ Council

Policy review committee member

Chair of Arts Council

Member of campus curriculum committee, including curriculum rewriting in outcomes

Member of Arts Curriculum Committee

Coordinator, Professional Writing Program, Mount Royal College, two years

Courses Taught at Mount Royal College and University

• Technical Writing and Communications
• Composition and Writing Skills
• Novel and Short Story
• Poetry
• Women and Autobiography
• Twentieth Century American Literature
• Women’s Literary Traditions
• Journal Writing
• Short Fiction

Additional Academic Appointments

Two-year term-certain appointment at the University of Calgary

One year as assistant professor in the English Department at the University of New Brunswick

One-year term-certain position at Douglas College in New Westminster, BC

Two-year term-certain appointment at the Alberta College of Art and Design

Full-time faculty position at Olds College, Olds, AB, four years

Coordinator of Liberal Arts, faculty representative on Academic Council, president of faculty association, and member of faculty professional development committee

Publications and Presentations

Walking in a Cactus Garden, full-length novel set in Baja, Mexico, to be published in 2026

“From Short Story to Case-Based Learning: Workplace Fiction and the Aftermath to COVID-19,” Private Degree Granting Universities Association, online conference, October 1, 2021

“Writing and Reading Fiction Behind the Lines: Creative Learning on the Home Front,” book chapter in Teaching in the PostCOVID-19 Era, edited by Fayed, I. and Cummings, J., Springer, 2020

“No One Way: Teaching International Students to Write,” Private Degree Granting Universities and Institutes Association Inaugural Conference, Vancouver, October 2019

“Returning from the Land Called War: Francis Itani’s Deafening,” conference paper, World War One and Canadian Literature, University of Ottawa, August 2014

“Poster for a New Chile: Intimacy and Traumatic Recreation in Isabel Allende’s ‘Our Secret,’” conference paper, American Comparative Literature Association, Vancouver, BC, April 2011

Transforming Selves Under the Gaze of Others: Evolving Traditions in Life-Writing, book about Canadian and global autobiography, including metanarrative, Victoria, BC: Abbot’s View Press, 2006

“Noor’s City of Light: Occupied Paris, 1943: Suburban Landscape in The Tiger Claw by Shauna Baldwin,” conference paper, Association for Commonwealth Language and Literature, York University, May 2006

“Prairie Crossings: Intercultural Relations and Canadian Fiction,” Proceedings of the Cultural Studies Conference in Semerang, Central Java, Spring 2005

“Childhood’s Imaginary World: Margaret Laurence and Manawaka,” West Virginia University Conference on Imaginary Places, September 2005

Paper on Nancy Houston’s An Adoration and Heinrich Boll’s The Clown, and conference organizer, Nancy Houston Conference, Mount Royal College, 2004

“A Canadian’s Perspective of American Literary Studies,” Journal of Indo-American Studies, Vol. 1, 2002

“Thomas King’s ‘Borders’: The Difficulty of U.S./Canada Crossings,” Textura, Revista de Educacao, Ciencias Humanas e Letras, second semester of 2001, No. 5, 35–41

“Writing and Painting under the Gaze: Emily Carr’s Growing Pains,” West Virginia University Philological Papers, 2001, Vol. 48, 54–67

About Alex

Dr. Alex Pett has taught English and communications in Canadian universities and colleges from coast to coast. She lives on Vancouver Island and commutes to Vancouver for face to face teaching and professional activities. Her interests are painting, researching, reading, writing, beach walking, and hiking.

See the list of below of what she could do for you:

• journal and diary writing workshop facilitating;
• demonstrating memoir and life writing, technical and business formats for written and speaking projects;
• mentoring for living the artist’s life, which has been well documented by Julia Cameron and devotees.