Jillian Garrett

Communications - Chair

jgarrett@okanagan.bc.ca

Office E Building 421
Kelowna Campus

250-762-5445 ext. 4283

I have been a professor in the Department of Communications at Okanagan College since 2007. I primarily teach professional writing and communication, rhetoric and persuasion, and visual communication and culture.

My teaching philosophy centres the importance of learning to learn, of recognizing that critical awareness is integral to our lives. It helps us to better understand social, political, and cultural contexts—both within and outside of our own experiences. I hope my students come to appreciate that the ability to think critically, creatively, and independently, as well as to communicate clearly and persuasively, provide the tools through which we negotiate understandings of ourselves, of others, and of the world around us.


Credentials:
PhD, English/Cultural Studies, University of Alberta (ABD)
MA, English, University of Alberta
BA (Hons.), English, University of Calgary
BA, Art History, University of Calgary


Learning to learn requires a safe space that celebrates diversity and models inclusivity. My classes honour the fact that each student is at a different stage in their learning journey, and some of those journeys have had more roadblocks and pit-stops than others. Whether one is an Honour Roll or Dean’s List student; an English Language Learner still advancing their skills; someone with diversabilities or disabilities that may pose barriers to learning; a mature student who is adjusting to being back in school after years away from academia; a person who has faced economic, discriminatory, or other systemic barriers to accessing post-secondary education; or some combination of these and many more besides; a classroom that is inclusive, accessible, decolonized, and anti-racist enables every member of the learning community not only to improve their skills in communications theory and practice, but also to become more critical, confident, independent thinkers, not to mention more thoughtful and accepting people, too.