2025 Kelly Outstanding Teaching Award Winners
Foundational to the Royal Roads Learning, Teaching, Research Model is a strong commitment to educational excellence from dedicated scholar-practitioners. The Kelly Outstanding Teaching Awards, established in 2005 and revised in 2015 to include new categories, recognizes Royal Roads faculty, associate faculty and facilitators who are deemed to be representative of outstanding teachers, and who make a positive contribution to the overall health and culture of the university.
As vice-president academic and provost, it gives me great pleasure to announce the recipients of the 2025 Kelly Awards.
Kelly Outstanding Teaching Award: Trina White
The recipient of the Kelly Outstanding Teaching Award is Trina White. White, associate faculty in the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, impressed the selection committee with how she brings the practical real world to the classroom. As a passionate instructor, she is committed to student success. She supports students both in the classroom and outside of it, providing mentorship alongside teaching and using real world problems in the class for students to work on. She is educating students to be leaders in the industry and evolving her teaching practice over time, going from traditional lectures to more blended, activity-based classrooms.
New Teacher Award: Dr. Karly Nygaard-Petersen and Stephen Roughley
The dual recipients of the New Teacher Award are Dr. Karly Nygaard-Petersen and Stephen Roughley. Nygaard-Petersen, associate faculty in the School of Business, impressed the committee with her ability to blend strong instructional design with lived professional experience and dynamic class delivery. She makes students feel seen, heard and supported, and co-creators of learning, being responsive to feedback from students and able to bring complex concepts to life with real world examples. She connects on a deeper level with students, reflecting on the tensions in teaching, showing humility and a growth mindset. She iterates and learns and adapts, recognizing that no learning experience is the same and is constantly evolving her teaching.
Roughley, associate faculty in the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, impressed the committee with how he creatively uses many tools and styles to promote student learning, confidence, and experience. He has grounded the learning in theory and practice to show real world context, creating a safe, inclusive, collaborative learning environment. He cares about getting to know students and using feedback to grow and improve, which was empowering for students and helped to build their confidence. He brings his experience to the classroom and is able to reflect on different things to try in order to get better at teaching and also allowing students to engage and participate. He uses bold themes and approach as well as meaningful reflection on the practice.
Outstanding Workshop Facilitation Award: Ann Perodeau
Ann Perodeau has been chosen as the recipient for the Outstanding Workshop Facilitation Award. Perodeau, associate faculty and Professional and Continuing Studies facilitator, impressed the committee with her commitment to her students and her willingness to be authentic and vulnerable. She is able to demonstrate and explain complex systems and is highly engaging and passionate, showing commitment and giving a feeling of presence in the online environment to the students. She shows humility and recognizes self as dependent on others, respect for the land acknowledgement and deep reflection.
Team Teaching Award: Dr. Michelle Hamilton-Page and Dr. Patricia Stukes
The recipients of the Team Teaching Award are Dr. Michelle Hamilton-Page and Dr. Patricia Stukes. This team, both associate faculty in the School of Humanitarian Studies, impressed the committee with their ability to guide discussions on difficult and emotional topics while highlighting intersectionality and multiple perspectives. They create memorable learning experiences, building on each others’ strengths to be more than a sum of the parts.
They teach difficult and emotional topics, balancing humour, strength and vulnerability and using humour to gently tease and build each other up. They have an obvious joy of working together and how they complement each other. They have a deep respect for students, modelling how to show care and respect and commitment for each other.
The committee would also like to acknowledge all nominees in each category for their superb contributions to teaching at RRU. Members of the committee carefully reviewed all submissions and, without exception, were very impressed with the quality, depth and passionate commitment to teaching evident within each of the nominees’ materials, making the task of the Committee very challenging.
Many thanks to Ken Jeffery (Chair), Bree Claude (student representative), Dr. David Black, Dr. Heather Hachigian, Dr. Pedro Marquez, Dr. Mickie Noble and Dr. Russ Wilde for serving on this year’s selection committee.