Mark Canada, Ph.D.
Speaker
Drawing on both my scholarly interests and my experience in higher education, I have addressed numerous audiences inside and outside the academy. Topics include student success, the provost's role in higher education, information literacy and "fake news," and a wide range of literary and historical topics, from Edgar Allan Poe to the Lewis and Clark expedition.
As a frequent speaker for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and the Becoming a Provost Academy, I have delivered several talks on student success, the provost's role, and related topics. In February 2018, for example, I gave the keynote address on the provost's role in student success at a banquet for provosts at AASCU's Academic Affairs Winter Meeting in San Antonio.
Other presentations in these other settings include "The KEY to a Fulfilling Career" (AASCU, 2018), "Transformative Learning for All" (High-Impact Practices in the States Conference, 2018), "Focusing on the Whole Student" (AASCU, 2017), "Developing a Faculty Focus on Student Success" (BAPA, 2017), "A Faculty Fellows Approach to Investigating and Disseminating Student Success Strategies" (AASCU, 2017), and "How to Make the Professional Experience Plan (PEP) Work for You" (BAPA, 2016).
My scholarly and pedagogical work on journalism, literature, truth, and information literacy has proved timely, given the recent crisis of truth in the media. As a result, the Higher Learning Commission invited me to give a talk on "fake news" at its annual conference in Chicago in April 2018. I have spoken on related subjects in a variety of other settings, including scholarly conferences and a panel discussion for high school and college students. My presentations in this area include "Rebecca Harding Davis, Journalism, and 'The Story of To-Day'" (Joint Journalism Historians Conference, 2011), "Truthful Hoaxes: Poe, Literature, and the 'dirty newspapers,'" (Edgar Allan Poe Conference, 2009), and "Turn East, Turn Complacent: Mark Twain's Journalistic Decline" (Western Literature Association, 2008).
I also have given numerous scholarly presentations in other areas of expertise, including Edgar Allan Poe's psychology, Thomas Wolfe's writing process, and teaching lexicography.
Finally, I enjoy speaking to general audiences on a variety of topics in literature, history, and more. A regular speaker for the Indiana University Alumni Association, I have lectured on Edgar Allan Poe for Mini University, Benjamin Franklin for Winter College, and Frederick Douglass for the Lifelong Learning series. Other presentations for general audiences include "Building and Launching the Corps of Discovery" and "Into the Great Blank & Back Again" for a Lewis and Clark cruise on the American Empress, as well as "H. L. Mencken: The Great Iconoclast" for UNC-Chapel Hill's Adventures in Ideas series.
Selected Presentations
Edgar Allan Poe: America's Dark Genius
IU Alumni Association
October 2021
"Into the Great Blank & Back Again"
Lewis and Clark cruise on American Empress
September 2019
Opening Plenary, AASCU Academic Affairs Summer Meeting (with Mike Caulfield, et al.)
July 2018
"Teaching Lexicography"
Biennial Conference of Dictionary Society of North America
June 2017
Lewis and Clark
Indiana University Lifelong Learning
March 2022
Lewis and Clark cruise on American Empress
September 2019
"Protecting and Pursuing the Truth in the Post-Truth Era"
Higher Learning Commission Conference
April 2018
“H.L. Mencken: The Great Iconoclast”
Adventures in Ideas series
June 2008
Benjamin Franklin: Scientist, Diplomat, Author--and Role Model?
Indiana University Winter College
January 2022
Edgar Allan Poe: America's Dark Genius
Indiana Public Libraries
January 2021
Panelist for "A Night With Poe"
Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library
October 2020
State University System of Florida Trustee Summit (with Joe Glover and Paul Marthers)
November 2018
Innovative Educators
September 2017