Welcome from the Dean

                                                                                                                                                              A Welcome from the Dean of Education, Brock University

Journey with us in and around the beautiful Brock University campus as we welcome you, our new and returning graduate students, in the Joint PhD in Educational Studies in DSI and DSII during the month of July 2025.

We acknowledge the land on which Brock University was built is the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe people, many of whom continue to live and work here today. This territory is covered by the Upper Canada Treaties and is within the land protected by the Dish with One Spoon Wampum agreement. Today this gathering place is home to many First Nations, Metis, and Inuit people and acknowledging reminds us that our great standard of living is directly related to the resources and friendship of Indigenous people.

If you want to know what I am thinking, give me a pen.

If you want to know my conceptual conundrums, walk and talk with me.

Brock University is situated on the Niagara Escarpment which has been a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve since 1990. With a network of walking trails, a variety of plants, animals, shrubs and trees, being on the land inspires your creativity and tickles your imagination as you go back to the future or forward to the past. With evenings and break time to spend outdoors, fully occupy the moment you are in.

Make the most of your time with us at Brock. Take in all that is set before you and chew on all that comes your way. Identify all that you find resonance with but pay special attention to what doesn’t. Exploring why that is so, will draw you into the depths of your assumptions, challenging your ways of knowing, doing, and being, and open a door of endless possibilities.

I look forward to meeting you and seeing what happens when you open the door.

Sincerely,

Mary-Louise Vanderlee, Dean of Education