Learning, Teaching and Leadership

It has been a while since I have blogged. Life has been non-stop this year, but I wanted to take a moment to share some good news. I have been promoted to the rank of Professor, effective July 1, 2024. A few months back, I was also named as the Werklund Research Professor, which is a prestigious research chair in the Werklund School of Education.

I have long had a passion for integrity and ethics. I am grateful to have an opportunity to focus on ethics in my scholarship, advocacy, and leadership. The Werklund Research Professorship is a prestigious research chair, internally funded through the philanthropic generosity of Dr. David Werklund, the named patron of the Werklund School of Education. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time anywhere in the world that a research chair role has focused on academic and research integrity. I am honoured to take up this work to advance scholarship related to ethics and integrity in higher education.

I was a first-generation student. Neither of my parents finished high school. When I was a child, my mother drilled into me that there was nothing more important than getting an education, working hard, and being independent. I have written about this, and part of my early life here. I started working when I was 15 and my first job was in a grocery store. When I first applied to university after graduating from secondary school, I had no idea how to go about filling out the application. Like many first-in-family students, I did not even know what questions to ask. I received modest scholarships throughout my studies, but I also worked, often at multiple part-time jobs, to pay the bills (including tuition), buy books, and put food on the table. I wasn’t something that I felt was a hardship, it was just something I did.

The promotion to full professor comes after 30 years of teaching at the University of Calgary. From 1994 to 2016, I taught on contract as a sessional instructor. After 22 years of precarious employment, I secured a tenure-track role in 2016. In 2020, I was promoted to associate professor with tenure. When considered in the context of the entirety of career, advancements are neither quick, nor easy. For more than two decades, I worked on semester-to-semester contracts, never knowing for sure if I would be employed in the following term until the contract actually came through. I established and successfully ran a consulting company that I maintained for twenty years, serving clients in industry, non-profit, and government. I enjoyed that work (mostly), but there were many aspects of running a business that I was horrible at.

There are plenty of things I am not good at, but I have always excelled at writing, reading, and synthesizing large amounts of information. I love working with students and I am well suited to online teaching and graduate supervision. I have not always had the luxury of being able to do work that I am good at and I recognize that it is a privilege to have a job where I can use my talents. For me, being a professor more than a job, though. It has been a lifelong dream. The reality of higher education is much harsher, more exhausting, and outright merciless than I ever imagined, and yet, I still want to be here.

One reason for this, is that there is much work to be done to preserve and sustain ethics and integrity in science, scholarly publication, teaching, learning, and educational administration. Generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) has brought new twists on perennial challenges. Systemic barriers to academic success persist and there is plenty of research to show that corrupt and unfair systems can contribute to academic and research misconduct. Although I am interested in helping individuals uphold academic integrity, it is a fool’s errand to ignore the systemic inequities, barriers, and discrimination that are embedded into educational systems that perpetuate harm.

As I reflect back and plan forward, my goal now is to focus on doing what I can to leave the higher education system better than I found it. I plan to do this by raising awareness about systemic ethical issues and advocating for change to benefit students and staff, particularly those from equity-deserving groups. I look forward to continuing and expanding international collaborations (especially with colleagues at CRADLE Deakin University, where I hold the role of Honorary Associate Professor) and mentoring and supervising doctoral students, along with teaching and serving in leadership roles in the coming years.

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Sarah Elaine Eaton, PhD, is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary, Canada. Opinions are my own and do not represent those of my employer.

Sarah Elaine Eaton, PhD, Editor-in-Chief, International Journal for Educational Integrity