The term ‘born to teach’ applies to few educators as accurately as it does to Jan Lashbrook Green, this year’s recipient of the University of the Fraser Valley’s (UFV) Teaching Excellence Award.
The honour arrives just in time for Lashbrook Green, who retires this spring after dedicating the last four decades to the field of education.
A former UFV Library and Information Technology (LIBIT) student who then taught in the program for 13 years, she humbly empathizes with the rigors of pursuing post-secondary education.
“I love to teach, and the more I teach the more I try to encourage my students to keep asking questions, because I don’t know everything,” she said.
“I’ve sat in that class. I know the challenges.”
Just because she has a rich history of teaching and originally studied with different technologies, doesn’t mean she’s tied to traditional models. She encourages the use of smartphones in class, and values quality online learning which maintains interpersonal connections and nourishes community and critical thinking.
She believes deeply in the very core of LIBIT training, saying, “You can’t make informed decisions if you don’t have good information.”
After graduating with a Bachelor of Education from the University of British Columbia in 1972, Lashbrook Green taught elementary school in Victoria before taking time off to start her family. She resumed her education with UCFV’s Library amd Information Studies diploma in 1998 before returning to UBC for her Master of Library and Information Studies in 2001. She worked as both a library technician and a librarian at the Surrey Public Library before joining UFV for a stint as a sessional instructor in 2001, then as permanent faculty in 2002.
Over her years at UFV, Lashbrook Green dedicated tremendous amounts of time and effort to mentoring faculty and establishing new procedures and policies to support students.