Welcome Dr. Lara Campbell, Associate Dean, Undergraduate Programming, Learning and Teaching, and Student Experience

The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences is pleased to welcome Dr. Lara Campbell to her new role as Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programming, Learning and Teaching, and Student Experience. Campbell began her appointment in September 2020, taking over from Catherine Murray who served in the position for four years.

Campbell comes from the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies where she served as department chair for five years. With a PhD in History from Queen’s University and a Bachelor of Social Work from McMaster University, she came to SFU in 2004 to teach undergraduate and graduate courses in North American women’s and gender history, feminist theory, and the history of social protest in North America, to name a few.

Having been recognized for her outstanding teaching efforts on several occasions, Campbell was awarded the Lesley Cormack Teaching Award in 2010 and the Dean’s Medal for Excellence in Academic research, teaching, and service in 2015.

Campbell’s past research has focused on how the meanings of welfare and citizenship shifted in the 1930s, as well as how unemployment and humiliating relief policy shaped the lives of unemployed families in Ontario. Her research efforts were recognized though the National Capital Committee on the Scholarship for the Preservation and Dissemination of Women’s History (Marion Dewar Prize, 2011). She received two Honorable Mentions for her first book, Respectable Citizens: Gender, Family, and Unemployment in Ontario’s Great Depression, from the Canadian Women’s Studies Association (2011), and the Canadian Historical Association (2010). Her most recent book (A Great Revolutionary Wave: Women and the Vote in British Columbia) was published in spring 2020 and explores the history of the suffrage movement in the province.

Beginning her term as associate dean amidst the context of a global pandemic, and while instructors and students work to adjust to the challenges of remote learning, Campbell welcomes students to the Fall semester with warmth and encouragement.

“Many students are starting their degrees at the same time I’m starting my new role as associate dean of undergraduate programming at FASS. It’s my job to ensure their learning experience is as fulfilling as possible.”

Check out Campbell's video welcoming new students to FASS!