Politics makes for strange bedfellows, they say, and if anyone can verify that statement, it’s Dr. Faron Ellis
The Lethbridge College instructor has pulled the sheets back to reveal more about Canadian politics and those who practice the art than many others currently involved in political science in the country.
Throughout his career, Faron has engaged in what he calls “an exercise in myth busting,” enjoying a certain amount of pleasure in goring various sacred cows. He’s not shy about providing analysis that is often at odds with conventional wisdom. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons journalists so often turn to him for insight into the vagaries that define Canada’s political landscape.
Faron takes his politics personally and he’s not afraid to call it as he sees it. That can be a refreshing approach in a media blitz of repetitive sound-bites and pontifications. Sure, he’s recognized as a leading expert on the former Reform party, but Faron doesn’t see himself as a big-c Conservative. He’s really more of a libertarian, believes our governments are too big, and our taxes too damn high.
Ask him. He’ll tell you. And he might even encourage you to join him and live by his credo that “dissent is essential because it makes good things better and bad things crumble.”
One thing that never crumbles for Faron is his passion for research and the desire to share what he learns. Having published ‘The Limits of Participation: Members and Leaders in Canada’s Reform Party’ in 2005, he continues to forge ahead to create what he envisions as a trilogy of books chronicling recent developments in Canadian conservatism. The second volume will cover the Canadian Alliance and the final will analyze the new Conservative party.
“Aristotle said that drama occurs in three acts, and who are we to argue with him,” he says with a wry smile.
It’s that desire to share and inform that Faron brings to the classroom. It also helped earn him a 2007 Lethbridge College Student Association and Faculty Association Teaching Excellence Award. (See sidebar below.)
“I really enjoy a multifaceted approach to my work,” Faron says of his various roles. “I love the full, scientific, scholarly research, the journals with all the stats and jargon. But I don’t just want to talk to political scientists. There’s a variety of audiences that I want to talk to, whether it’s a classroom full of students or (CBC News anchor) Peter Mansbridge.”
A love for doing it all also sees Faron busy as the director of the Citizen Society Research Lab, a full service polling and public opinion research endeavour that started as a Local Government class project during the municipal election of 1998. Under Faron’s direction, students created and conducted a telephone survey to predict the results.
“We predicted who would win, but more importantly, I realized it is possible for students to collect scientific data while developing all kinds of technical and analytic skills.”
An added benefit was seeing students’ moves beyond their “comfort zone” as they were introduced to the wide diversity of perspectives “that is the reality of measuring broadly based public opinion.”
“In a very real way, it forces them to shed the myopic belief that ‘everyone thinks like me.’”
Now, nine years later, the lab has conducted more than a dozen polls on public policy issues, including municipal elections, accurately predicting outcomes for the 2001 and 2004 mayoral races, and the always contentious downtown parking issue. More significantly, the projects evolved into Social Science Research Methods, a class that addresses formal research techniques. The class is a core requirement for three of four new liberal arts majors offered at the college and for a series of programs for Athabasca University (AU) students who earn their degrees on the college campus.
Bridging two aspects of Lethbridge College philosophy, the programs offer an academics-based education that produces grads who are in high demand in the workforce. Faron says his students are gold in the eyes of many employers, thanks to the critical reasoning abilities they take away with their diploma, and many quickly move into management positions.
The four majors are an addition to the college’s General Studies program, and it should come as no surprise that Faron was part of the team that came together to create the offerings.
“We were given the opportunity to design diploma majors that are academically rigorous and strive to develop students’ communications, numeracy, critical thinking, and analytical skills; in other words, a classical liberal arts program.”
The new majors include Cultural Studies, English, Psychology-Sociology, and Canadian Studies, which is Faron’s main area of interest, along with the research and citizenship aspects of the larger program. Graduates not only earn a liberal arts diploma that prepares them for a variety of careers, but one that is also designed to provide credits at Alberta universities should students decide to pursue further post-secondary education .
“We believe we are providing students with one of the best two-year liberal arts undergraduate experiences in the country.”
It’s a claim that’s tough to deny when stated in his straight-forward, hold-no punches manner. That’s Faron. Tell it like it is and let the chips fall where they may. It’s a style that serves him well in both dishing out the goods on Canada’s political scene in a media interview and in the classroom, where he could never be mistaken for boring lecturer.
Colleen Bains, an AU student who took Faron’s research methods class on the way to finishing her business administration degree at age 50, says she appreciated his salty style and uncompromising academic ethics, which helped her develop skills that go hand-in-hand with other aspects of her education.
“He’s an inspiration. Faron’s just awesome. He’s not only fair, he’s honest, trustworthy and down-to-earth. He has his soul in what he’s teaching, and he wants to pass that along to you,” she says.
Faron shares an equal appreciation for the opportunity to share with his students. He is quick to credit many of his college colleagues for their contributions to his success, adding that “for Lethbridge College, the best is yet to come.
Faron’s Write Stuff
- Contributed chapters to last five editions of the Canadian Election books produced by his colleagues at Carleton University after each federal election
- 25 academic publications in such venues as the Canadian Journal of Political Science and the international journal Party Politics
- Author of 35 newspaper and magazine articles
- Author of The Limits of Participation: Members and Leaders in Canada’s Reform Party, published by the University of Calgary Press in 2005
- Lead author of first brief edition of Parameters of Power: Canada’s Political Institutions – a recently published Canadian government textbook, published by Thomson Nelson
Students thrive through class challenges
Faron Ellis is a man driven by a passion for his field of study and by an expectation for students to find the passion that drives them.
His students learn and thrive in his class and their appreciation for their instructor led to Faron being recognized this year with a Lethbridge College Faculty Association and Student Association Teaching Excellence Award.
“Faron is completely fearless when it comes to challenging his students,” says Lindsey Routhier, one of two recent honours General Studies honors who nominated Faron for the award. “It is my opinion that post-secondary education should be full of challenges and opportunities to examine one’s ideologies rather than the learning of facts to regurgitate for exams.”
Kalen Hastings, the college’s first Canadian Studies graduate who also nominated Faron, agrees.
“While examining issues in a fearless and analytical manner, he also respects the dignity and beliefs of others.”
Both students agree their classroom experience was exceedingly rewarding and has helped to prepare them to be better thinkers, writers and researchers.
“Unconstrained by a rigid teaching philosophy,
Faron has the unique ability of maximizing the individual talents of students,” Kalen says. Faron may march to the beat of his own drum, but he teaches his students to keep in step with their own evolving philosophies.
