Ph.D., Department of Comparative Studies at The Ohio State University
MA., University of Wyoming
MA., University of Sheffield
B.A., University of East Anglia and the University of New Mexico
Drew is an interdisciplinary teacher and scholar with a focus in Comparative Literature, Environmental Humanities, and Visual Culture. He also has a background in North American diasporic and Indigenous literatures, urban ethnography, and journalism.
Drew came to Yukon University from Thompson Rivers University where he worked primarily on the Williams Lake campus with learners from local Secwépemc, Tŝilhqot’in and Dakelh communities. Previously he taught in the Department of Comparative Studies at The Ohio State University and at the University of Wyoming where he spent multiple summers teaching and advising in a preparation program for first-generation university students from rural and Indigenous backgrounds.
Drew teaches Composition, Literature, Environmental Studies and a number of upper level humanities courses. He worked with students, elders and the wider community to design a new Indigenous Literature course for Yukon University which takes a multi-textual approach to story telling. This project explored ways to forefront place, dignity and respect in the study of Indigenous literary texts, and to connect the curriculum with local Yukon First Nations cultures, languages and concerns. He also teaches courses on ‘The North in Literature’ and ‘Literature and the Environment’ using distance technology and has been working to offer more humanities electives remotely to improve access for learners in Yukon communities. This has included a successful series of COIL ‘virtual student exchanges’ with a university in Mexico, as well as a new initiative to extend online Yukon U English courses to University of the Arctic members.
In 2024 Drew was selected to design an exemplar course for the Laera Institute at the University of the Arctic on ‘Representations of the Circumpolar North’. This course can be adapted, elaborated and taught by UArctic member faculty throughout the Circumpolar region. In May 2024 he traveled to Arctic Congress in Bodø, Norway to present on this work and learn more about Circumpolar education.
https://laerainstitute.org/resources/exemplar-courses
As a researcher in the USA Drew worked on issues surrounding urban policy and homelessness while based in an emergency shelter in Colorado. His doctoral dissertation comprised an ethnographic study investigating attitudes towards mobility and housing loss and the ways in which cultural stereotypes of homelessness influence urban policy:
https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/etd/r/1501/10?clear=10&p10_accession_num=osu1417675567
Current research interests include visual culture in the Canadian north, questions of curriculum design in remote and Indigenous education settings, and the role of interdisciplinarity in the future of the humanities.
Drew is a keen trail runner & backcountry skier, avalanche skills instructor and ski patroller at Mt. Sima. He is an Avalanche Practitioner level member of the Canadian Avalanche Association and has previously served on the board of the Yukon Avalanche Association as well as working part-time for Avalanche Canada’s Yukon field team. https://www.avalancheassociation.ca/members/?id=46480419
Originally an Irish & British national, and more recently a Canadian one too, Drew and his family have lived in the territories of the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council and Kwanlin Dün First Nation since 2018 and love to call the Yukon home.
Recent papers and presentations:
“Representations of the Circumpolar North in Literature, Film & Popular Culture : A U Arctic exemplar course.” Arctic Congress 2024 in Bodø, Norway, on the panel: “Educational Innovation for the Circumpolar North: Tertiary and Postgraduate Education”. May, 30th, 2024.
“Learning in a Good Way: Collaborative Course-Design, Emergent Curriculum and Indigenous Literatures in the Yukon”, American Studies Association annual conference, Montreal. Quebec, November 2023.
“Gradual Indigenization, Rapid Internationalization: (Post)colonial Alliances, Translingualism & Trauma-informed Literature Studies in the Canadian North” The Canadian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences 2020, Western University, London, Ontario, 2021.
Emergent Curriculum & Trauma-informed Learning: Co-Designing an Indigenous Literature Course in the Yukon. S’TEṈISTOLW̱ Conference 2021 hosted by The Centre for Indigenous Education & Community Connections, Camosun College, Victoria, BC.
Work currently under peer review:
Chapter:
Collaborative Design for Learning: Indigenous Narratives, Community Engagement & Curriculum co-creation in a Yukon Post-Secondary Context
Article:
“Challenge of the Yukon: Visual Identity & Subsurface Narratives in the Phantasmagoric Klondike“