THE ADVOCATE VOL. 80 PART 5 SEPTEMBER 2022
725
PETER A. ALLARD
SCHOOL OF LAW
FACULTY NEWS
By Heidi Wruck*
PROFESSOR JOHNNY MACK RECOGNIZED FOR PUSHING “BEYOND THE
BOUNDARIES OF COLONIAL PEDAGOGY”
In recognition of his exceptional teaching, Peter A. Allard School of Law
professor Johnny Mack was awarded this year’s George Curtis Memorial
Award for Teaching Excellence (the “Curtis Award”) and UBC’s Killam
Teaching Prize. “As an Indigenous scholar and teacher, I work to interrupt
the conventional stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and our relations
to law by centering Indigenous ethics,” says Professor Mack. “I do not
expect to be rewarded, so being recognized and singled out faculty-wide for
excellence in teaching is immensely heartening and meaningful.”
The Curtis Award is presented annually to an Allard Law faculty member
who has been nominated by their students. UBC’s Killam Teaching Prize is
presented to professors across the university who have been nominated by
their faculty in recognition of excellence in teaching.
Professor Johnny Mack is from the Toquaht Nation (Nuu-chah-nulth) and
is an assistant professor at Allard Law. His teaching, which focuses on
Indigenous legal orders and Canadian Aboriginal and treaty rights, employs
a critical decolonial ethic, emphasizing the social and historical context surrounding
the relationship between Indigenous law and Canadian law. In a
word, Professor Mack describes his teaching as “intersubjective”. “A nerdy
word, I realize, but what I mean is that I try to invite the students into a
shared intellectual and critical space where we can identify key concepts or
tensions in the law and process them together,” he explains. “I do not really
know how to preside over students and lecture—I do much better coming
beside them as a guide and interlocutor.”
* Heidi Wruck is the communications manager at the Peter A. Allard School of Law.