Jaye Fredrickson Award for Teaching Excellence

The Jaye Fredrickson Award for Teaching Excellence is the highest teaching award offered at NorQuest College. The peer-nominated award upholds our mission and values by honouring teaching excellence.

Award recipients must demonstrate a record of professional competence in teaching exemplified by:

  • engaging learners through exemplary facilitation
  • supporting learners through advocacy
  • using innovative pedagogical approaches
  • developing learning-centred curriculum materials
  • employing fair evaluation
  • demonstrating scholarship

Named for NorQuest College’s former Vice President, Academic, the Jaye Fredrickson Award for Teaching Excellence was established to honour the legacy of teaching excellence that Fredrickson inspired. It honours an individual who engages learners through exemplary facilitation, supports them through advocacy and utilizes innovative approaches to education.


2021 recipient: Dr. Dana Wight

Dr. Dana Wight is our 2021 Jaye Fredrickson Award winner. She is an English instructor in the college’s newly formed Faculty of Arts and Sciences, teaching English literature and composition to students from almost every program at NorQuest. The eclectic nature of her students certainly informs Dana’s engaging approach to teaching and learning. “I like to open the discussion so that students can come into the fold from wherever they are,” says Dana. “I want to encourage them to share not only their reading experiences but their life experiences.”

Dana’s passion for teaching and inclusivity certainly have made an impression on her students. “I have always struggled with school,” says one first-year student, “so to have Dana as a teacher was very empowering. Reading and writing are not scary for me anymore.”

Ironically, for a teacher who is so accomplished, Dana never saw herself as someone who would lead a classroom. “I was terrified at the prospect of teaching,” she says with a grin. “Once I got there, it was like a weird, out of body experience. Within the first five minutes, I felt completely at home. I was so excited to share my love of reading, writing, and learning with my students. And I never looked back.”