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.
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This issue we talked to English instructor Julian Gunn about bat costumes, plagiarism, and the magic of teaching.
1. What do you teach and how long have you been at Camosun?
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.
2. What do you personally get out of teaching?
Teaching is magic. Bringing a roomful of people together through discussing ideas and engaging with literature is real live magic. There’s nothing like it.
3. What’s one thing you wish your students knew about you?
Nothing. I prefer to be a creature of mystery.
4. What’s one thing you wish they didn’t know about you?
Well, I suspect that they would take me more seriously if they hadn’t seen me wandering around campus in a bat costume.
5. What’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you as a teacher here?
There are two things, and they’re connected. Getting to know and work with colleagues in English and Indigenous Studies has been brilliant, and collaborating within the English department’s Indigenization Working Group is a hugely inspiring ongoing project. If I had to pick one thing that was the best, I’d say it was getting to teach English 164, Indigenous Literatures, since that’s how all the rest came about. I feel ridiculously fortunate.
6. What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you as a teacher here?
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 “explain things better,” or “lizards don’t like chalk dust.”
7. What do you see in the future of post-secondary education?
I see things to be excited about and things to worry about. I’m excited about Camosun’s commitment to Indigenization. I’m excited about bringing creative approaches into the classroom, including strategies inspired by Dr. Martin Brokenleg’s thinking on Indigenous pedagogy—his work was recommended to me by my colleague Sandee Mitchell.
My worries are pretty standard. I worry about the erosion of the humanities and the corporatization of education. I don’t 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.
8. What do you do to relax on the weekends?
Well, in the fall I’ll be DMing a Dungeons and Dragons campaign.
I listen to a lot of podcasts.
9. What’s your favourite meal?
Brunch, of course.
10. What’s your biggest pet peeve?
I have an unreasonable loathing for comma splices, and I’m not even just saying that because I’m an English instructor. Please cease splicing. That is all.