Mark Dolson recipient of 2020 WUSA Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award

Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Dr. Mark Dolson was a Lecturer in the School of Public Health and Health Systems and is an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology. His research and teaching expertise lie in ethnographic study of medicine, health, and social determinants of health.

His nominators complimented his engagement with his subject matter, his design of deliverables around deep learning, and his ability to make students feel seen and heard even in an online setting. The assessment of his chair in the Anthropology department shared that students have described Dr. Dolson as the best professor they have ever had, that his teaching philosophy has changed their perspective on life, and that he possesses an ever-present empathy and compassion for students. Similarly, students in the School of Public Health and Health systems described Dr. Dolson as a compassionate and compelling instructor. For instance, he was described as providing the most valuable class experience they had ever had. Dr. Dolson’s consistently high teaching scores in both the School of Public Health and Health Systems and the Department of Anthropology hold across many different course formats and align with his high rate of student endorsements when students were given the opportunity to endorse his nomination.

Finally, the evidence of Dr. Dolson’s teaching can be seen in the growth of enrollments in one of the courses he has taught consistently, Anthropology  202. As his Anthropology department chair says, “students talk”; the average enrollments in his sections have seen marked growth since he began teaching this course. Dr. Dolson shows passion for his work, compassion for his students, and results that reflect both. It is WUSA’s honour to present Dr. Dolson as our nominee for the Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award.