Dr. Heather Smith

Dr. Heather Smith
Professor, Department of International Studies
PhD & MA (Queen's)
BA (Alberta)

Email:  heather.smith@unbc.ca

Heather A. Smith is Professor of Global and International Studies at the University of Northern British Columbia. She is the recipient of the 3M National Teaching Fellowship (2006), the Canadian Political Science Excellence in Teaching Award (2012), a two time recipient of the UNBC Excellence in Teaching Award, and a 2018 BCcampus Scholarly Teaching Fellow. Most recently, she has been a a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Political Science at Dalhousie University (2018-2020). In her most recent administrative position, she was the Director of the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology at the University of Northern British Columbia (2012-2018).  Other teaching and learning activities include: Facilitator for the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) International Collaborative Writing Group on personal narrative and autoethnography (2019), Regional Vice-President Canada of ISSOTL  (2016-2019) and founding co-coordinator of the ISSOTL Fellows Program (2017-2019).

She has published in both the scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) and in the many areas related to Canadian foreign policy.  Among her most recent teaching and learning publications are: “Unlearning: A Messy and Complex Journey with Canadian Foreign Policy” International Journal, (2017), Vol. 72(2) and with Roselynn Verwoord (2020), “The P.O.W.E.R. Framework: Power Dimensions Shaping Students-as-Partners Processes” in Sophia Abbott and Lucy-Mercer Mapstone (eds) The Power of Student-Staff Partnership: Revolutionizing Higher Education. She also has a forthcoming edited volume with David J. Hornsby, Teaching International Relations in an Age of Disruption with Palgrave Press.

Her long history of publishing in Canadian foreign policy included the edited volume with Claire Turenne Sjolander and Deborah Stienstra, Feminist Perspectives on Canadian Foreign Policy, (Oxford 2003), and her edited volume with Claire Turenne Sjolander, Canada in the World: Internationalism in Canadian ForeignPolicy, (Oxford, 2013). Forthcoming research in Canadian foreign policy includes, with Tari Ajadi, “Human Security and Feminist Foreign Policy Compared” in International Journal, (September 2020) and “The Myth of Canada as a Non-Colonial Power” with Liam Midzain-Gobin, in American Review of Canadian Studies (in press).

Courses Taught:

INTS 302 - Canadian Foreign Policy
INTS 308 - Gender and International Studies
INTS 377 - Redefining Security
INTS 490 - International Studies Capstone
INTS 701 - State of the Discipline

Research Interests:

  • Canadian Foreign Policy
  • Critical and feminist pedagogies
  • Scholarship of teaching and learning in International Studies
  • Gender and Canadian Foreign policy
  • Decolonizing Canadian Foreign Policy