Associate Professor Will Letts

Dr Will Letts is the Associate Dean Academic, in the Faculty of Arts and Education.

I am an inspirational and aspirational leader who builds and sustains teams to achieve in collaborative, consultative and creative ways.  I have served the university as a Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Sub-Dean Learning and Teaching, Head of School, Head of Campus, Provost of CSU Ontario, Associate Dean Courses, Associate Dean Academic and now Acting Executive Dean. I am an active researcher and supervise Research Higher Degree students. I recently obtained a Graduate Certificate in University Leadership and Management and was awarded a Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. In my work and day to day interactions – both formal and informal – I embody and enact CSU’s core values:

Insightful    I am a learner, a teacher and researcher seeking new knowledge and skills, and new uses of existing knowledge and skills, offering new ways of looking at things to enrich not only specific disciplines but also our professions and our communities.

Impactful    I am a transformational leader who is values-driven and culture-focused, building and sustaining vibrant, productive and collegial cultures that animate CSU’s values and ethos. I am a leader who inspires team members to strive for and do their best. My leadership enacts and affirms the notion that ‘together we are better’.

Inspiring    My guiding ethos is that ‘our learning is our work’; that by attending to our own learning, in formal and informal ways, in small or large measure, and individually and together, we are engaging in our core work.

Inclusive At the core of who I am as a leader, a colleague and a person is an unwavering commitment to acting in ways that honour and evidence the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion.   I work to bring these commitments to life because I believe that in diversity there is strength.

Research

• Hub School partnership with Dennison College, funded by the NSW Department of Education, exploring ways to improve professional experience for all stakeholders\
• Interrogating the intersections and disjunctures between queer theory and science education, with Steve Fifield
• Exploring and understanding the public pedagogies of blackface: Post-racial ideologies, ‘unapologetic whiteness’, and the production of white racial identity, with Jennifer A Sandlin

University Committee - Academic Senate

• Academic Senate
• Academic Portfolio Leadership Team
• Equity and Diversity Committee

Faculty and School of Teacher Education

• Faculty Board, Chair
• Faculty Courses Committee
• Faculty Assessment Committee

Professional Service

• Co-editor, Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 2013 - present
• AERA
• HERDSA
• 2MCE Community Radio Board, Chair

• Higgs,J., Letts, W., & Crisp, G. (Eds.). (2019). Education for employability (Volume 2): Learning for future possibilities. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Brill Sense.
• Letts, W. (2019). University employability agendas, targets and strategies. In J. Higgs, W. Letts, & G. Crisp (Eds.), Education for employability (Volume 2): Learning for future possibilities (pp. 21-36). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Brill Sense.
• Letts, W. (2019). Pursuing employability: A journey more than a destination. In J. Higgs, W. Letts, & G. Crisp (Eds.), Education for employability (Volume 2): Learning for future possibilities (pp. 81-88). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Brill Sense.
• Crisp, G., Higgs, J., & Letts, W. (2019). The employability agenda. In J. Higgs, W. Letts, & G. Crisp (Eds.), Education for employability (Volume 2): Learning for future possibilities (pp. 3-12). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Brill Sense.
• Crisp, G., Higgs, J., & Letts, W. (2019). Where to next with the employability agenda? In J. Higgs, W. Letts, & G. Crisp (Eds.), Education for employability (Volume 2): Learning for future possibilities (pp. 263-272). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Brill Sense.
• Higgs, J., Crisp, G. & Letts, W. (Eds.). (2019). Education for employability (Volume 1): The employability agenda. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Brill Sense.
• Crisp, G., Letts, W., & Higgs, J. (2019). What does this all mean for higher education? In J. Higgs, G. Crisp, & W. Letts (Eds.), Education for employability (Volume 1): The employability agenda (pp. 219-228). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Brill Sense.
• Letts, W. (2019). Facing global challenges: One university seizing employability opportunities. In J. Higgs, G. Crisp, & W. Letts (Eds.), Education for employability (Volume 1): The employability agenda (pp. 61-72). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Brill Sense.
• Letts,  W., & Fifield, S. (Eds.) 2019. STEM of desire: Queer theories and science education. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Brill-Sense Publishers.
• Fifield, S., & Letts, W. 2019. Prolegomenon: Queer theories and STEM education. In W. Letts & S. Fifield, S. (Eds.) STEM of desire: Queer theories and science education. Rotterdam: Brill-Sense Publishers, due out December 2018.
• Fifield, S., & Letts, W. 2019. Queering science education without making too much sense. In W. Letts & S. Fifield, S. (Eds.) STEM of desire: Queer theories and science education. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Brill-Sense Publishers.
• Zundans-Fraser, L.,& Letts, W.(2019). School-university partnerships: Strengthening professional experience relationships. Transform – The Journal of Engaged Scholarship, 4, 50-52
• Letts, W. 2016. Camp Disney: Consuming queer sensibilities, commodifying the normative. In J. Sandlin & J. Maudlin (Eds.).  Disney, culture and curriculum. London: Routledge.
• Fifield, S. & Letts, W. 2014. [Re]considering queer theories and science education. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 9, 393-407.