UVic Teaching Mission

Our mission is to inspire, support and promote excellence in teaching and learning university-wide in order to enhance the educational experience for everyone.

50 Great Moments
Learning and Teaching Centre
Three decades of encouraging excellence and innovation in teaching

Established in an effort to enhance teaching effectiveness at UVic, the Learning and Teaching Centre (LTC) first opened its doors in 1981, operating out of a small office in UVic’s Law faculty and growing into a university-wide resource to support the mission of excellence and innovation in teaching and learning.

“Our goal at UVic is to inspire teachers and learners alike,” says LTC director Teresa Dawson (Department of Geography). “As a top-notch comprehensive research university, our faculty, instructors and teaching assistants bring their cutting edge research ideas into the classroom setting to engender creativity and critical thinking amongst our exceptional students, who then in turn frequently offer new perspectives on scholarly questions."

The LTC, located on campus in the Harry Hickman Building, takes a leadership role in nurturing this extraordinarily rich instructional environment, in which there is a wonderful opportunity for learning on all sides. A wide range of integrated programming supports: academic units in program curricular design and redesign; faculty and instructors in their professional development in teaching; TAs and graduate students in their preparation for future careers; and graduate and undergraduate students in their academic success particularly through The Writing Centre and The Math and Stats Assistance Centre. The LTC also administers the Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Awards program, first launched in 2009 to provide support for 100 exceptional undergraduates annually, drawn from every department on campus, to gain direct research exposure as part of their learning experience at UVic. The latest additions to programming include coordination of the Learning without Borders curriculum development fund and the International Commons in the Library, due to open in Fall of 2013.

In 1987, the LTC's longest-serving director (himself among the inaugural recipients of Canada’s 3M Fellows awards for national teaching excellence) advocated for an annual UVic Teaching excellence award. The resultant Harry Hickman Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching has subsequently inspired many other awards—every individual faculty or division now has one, as do instructors and TAs--to celebrate the extraordinary instruction, which remains at the heart of UVic's identity. A wide range of granting programs also support teacher and student success through funding that includes making possible a vibrant interdisciplinary scholarship of teaching and learning community.

Neil Gold, former dean of UVic Law, helped found the centre and was its first director. VisitThe Ring, UVic’s community news source, for Gold’s recent reflections on teaching excellence at UVic for a third of a century:http://bit.ly/Pss5Hj.

Also available is a UVic YouTube video of several award-winning teachers sharing best practices:http://bit.ly/T6D3H8.

Ethical Principles in University Teaching

As our mission statement clearly says, the University of Victoria and LTC strive to provide our instructors the support they need to be successful in their teaching. Besides all of the resources available on this site, we also provide this link to Ethical Principles in University Teaching developed by the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. These principles were developed and are endorsed by winners of the national 3M teaching award that are named on the cover page. Please use these principles as professional guidelines to provide the best educational experience possible to our students. Best Principles for Teaching