Student Spotlight – Trudy Keil

In December, our Faculty received news that six of our graduate students have been chosen for the SSHRC Doctoral Fellowships/Canada Graduate Scholarships (CGS) Competition. Our spotlight today is shining on 3rd-year PhD student Trudy Keil (BHK ’98, UBC; BEAD’05, MEd’15, UofR), one of the six competitors.

Trudy has been teaching with Regina Public Schools for 15 years. She currently teaches English as an Additional Language at Campbell Collegiate. Through her teaching experiences Trudy developed “an intense desire to improve teaching and learning conditions in Saskatchewan” which led her to pursuing a doctoral program in education.

“As an EAL teacher, advocating for students has long been an essential part of my job. Amidst education budget cuts and policy decisions that have harmed teachers and students, it was apparent that I needed to expand my advocacy beyond the school walls.” says Trudy.

Further, a successful experience with her master’s thesis, defended in 2015 entitled, “An Action Research Study: EAL and Content Teachers Collaborating to Support All Students at a Secondary School,” strengthened Trudy’s interest in doing more research: “I developed respectful and productive relationships with colleagues, learned a great deal about how to best support all students, and came to realize how much I enjoyed the research process,” says Trudy.

For her PhD dissertation, Trudy is exploring teacher activism within formal professional associations and through grassroots efforts. Inspired by her teaching experiences and teacher activism within and beyond the union, Trudy hopes “to inspire and empower Saskatchewan and Canadian teachers to view themselves as impactful political actors and, at the same time, draw widespread attention to the value of democratic, public education. It is important to conduct research on how teachers challenge dominant discourses because their successes can offer leadership and hope.”

Trudy’s dissertation research is supervised by Dr. Pamela Osmond-Johnson and committee members Dr. Christine Massing, Dr. Michele Sorensen, and Dr. Andrea Sterzuk. “I am extremely grateful to have such an amazing team of strong, female leaders supporting me in this journey,” says Trudy.