{"id":18012,"date":"2019-08-28T09:00:18","date_gmt":"2019-08-28T16:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=18012"},"modified":"2019-08-27T10:06:20","modified_gmt":"2019-08-27T17:06:20","slug":"know-your-profs-julian-gunn-on-the-importance-of-a-little-mystery-the-horrors-of-comma-splicing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2019\/08\/28\/know-your-profs-julian-gunn-on-the-importance-of-a-little-mystery-the-horrors-of-comma-splicing\/","title":{"rendered":"Know Your Profs<\/em>: Julian Gunn on the importance of a little mystery, the horrors of comma splicing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Know Your Profs<\/em> is an ongoing series of profiles on the instructors at Camosun College. Every issue we ask a different instructor at Camosun the same 10 questions in an attempt to get to know them a little better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you have an instructor who you want to see interviewed in the paper? Maybe you want to know more about one of your teachers, but you\u2019re too busy, or too shy, to ask? Email editor@nexusnewspaper.com today and we\u2019ll add your instructor to our list of Camosun teachers to talk to. We\u2019ve got your back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This issue we talked to English instructor Julian Gunn about bat costumes, plagiarism, and the magic of teaching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. What do you teach and how long have you been at Camosun?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I teach English: academic writing, technical writing, and literature. When I teach literature, I usually teach English 164, Indigenous Literatures, which I love; I also taught a course called Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (in Literature), which was a lot of fun. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Camosun\u2019s Julian Gunn (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

2. What do you personally get out of teaching<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teaching is magic. Bringing a roomful of people together through discussing ideas and engaging with literature is real live magic. There\u2019s nothing like it.
\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. What\u2019s one thing you wish your students knew about you?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing. I prefer to be a creature of mystery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. What\u2019s one thing you wish they didn\u2019t know about you?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I suspect that they would take me more seriously if they hadn\u2019t seen me wandering around campus in a bat costume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. What\u2019s the best thing that\u2019s ever happened to you as a teacher here?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are two things, and they\u2019re connected. Getting to know and work with colleagues in English and Indigenous Studies has been brilliant, and collaborating within the English department\u2019s Indigenization Working Group is a hugely inspiring ongoing project. If I had to pick one thing that was the best, I\u2019d say it was getting to teach English 164, Indigenous Literatures, since that\u2019s how all the rest came about. I feel ridiculously fortunate.
\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. What\u2019s the worst thing that\u2019s ever happened to you as a teacher here?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any time I find a case of plagiarism, my heart sinks beneath the ground. Anything else that goes wrong might be embarrassing or awkward in the moment, but I usually learn something from it that I can apply next time, like \u201cexplain things better,\u201d or \u201clizards don\u2019t like chalk dust.\u201d
\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7. What do you see in the future of post-secondary education?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see things to be excited about and things to worry about. I\u2019m excited about Camosun\u2019s commitment to Indigenization. I\u2019m excited about bringing creative approaches into the classroom, including strategies inspired by Dr. Martin Brokenleg\u2019s thinking on Indigenous pedagogy\u2014his work was recommended to me by my colleague Sandee Mitchell.
\n My worries are pretty standard. I worry about the erosion of the humanities and the corporatization of education. I don\u2019t think learning or the student is served by treating this deep, complex human process as a commodity. Reading books makes your brain better. Education is a right. The usual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8. What do you do to relax on the weekends?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, in the fall I\u2019ll be DMing a Dungeons and Dragons<\/em> campaign.
\nI listen to a lot of podcasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9. What\u2019s your favourite meal?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brunch, of course.
\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10. What\u2019s your biggest pet peeve?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have an unreasonable loathing for comma splices, and I\u2019m not even just saying that because I\u2019m an English instructor. Please cease splicing. That is all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Know Your Profs is an ongoing series of profiles on the instructors at Camosun College. Every issue we ask a different instructor at Camosun the same 10 questions in an attempt to get to know them a little better. Do you have an instructor who you want to see interviewed in the paper? Maybe you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18014,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,235],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus","category-august-28-2019"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18012"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18015,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18012\/revisions\/18015"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}