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Dr. Joel Heng Hartse, Senior Lecturer and Director, Graduate Programs in the Faculty of Education, has received an Excellence in Teaching Award, recognizing his sustained commitment to student learning and success.

Heng Hartse was nominated for his dedication to students and the impact of his teaching on the development of their academic skills. The selection committee also noted his repeated nominations for the award, reflecting a consistent record of excellence in teaching.

Thoughtful, responsive, and intellectually engaged, Heng Hartse’s approach to teaching is rooted in dialogue, inquiry, and a willingness to explore uncertainty alongside students. His work in language, writing and academic literacy reflects a belief that teaching is not separate from scholarship but closely connected to the questions students and educators take up together in the classroom. 

We spoke with Heng Hartse about what this recognition means to him, how his research shapes his teaching, and why he sees learning as a collaborative intellectual endeavour.

Q: What does receiving this award mean to you at this point in your teaching career?

A: I’m very grateful to the students who nominated me, and it feels wonderful to be recognized by my peers at 51ÁÔÆæÈë¿Úthrough this award.

Lecturers devote considerable time and energy to teaching, so it is meaningful to have that work acknowledged. It also feels like a vote of confidence from both colleagues and students, especially when I’m sometimes unsure whether my occasionally outside-the-box teaching is effective. My teaching tends to be highly improvisational and responsive, so I’m glad students respond well to that approach.

Q: How has your research on writing and language shaped your teaching approach?

A: I often tell my students that language teaching, the field I’ve devoted my pedagogical and scholarly career to, is an encounter with otherness. As such, it is an endeavour shaped by tension, responsibility, uncertainty, and ambiguity.

That is something I love about language teaching and learning, and really about all teaching and learning: the sheer act of will, hope and faith involved when a person ventures beyond what feels natural or familiar and begins to explore other ways of speaking, writing, meaning and even being.

As a faculty member at SFU, I get to do this work with students every day, and I’m grateful to be a co-participant in it.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to share?

A: When we’re in the classroom, I understand myself and my students to be engaged in the same intellectual endeavour, facing inquiry questions together.

In my scholarship, I ask many of the same meta-questions I ask of my students, and over the years, this has led to many fruitful projects involving students (or created for their benefit). These include SSHRC-funded research on students’ beliefs about the ethics of private tutoring and the use of AI in academic writing; a course on academic integrity that culminated in an ; and a free open-access textbook created for my Foundations of Academic Literacy course during COVID.

To me, there is very little separation between teaching, educational leadership, innovation, and scholarly inquiry. I see it as a collaborative effort with students.