Dr. Nancy Dudley, Senior Instructor, BSc, MSW, PhD

Background:

My degrees include the following: BSc. (Nursing, University of Minnesota); MSW (University of Calgary); and PhD (University of Victoria). I have been Instructor and Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Social Welfare, University of Calgary from 1974-1983, and following the completion of my PhD, I have been Instructor in the Faculty of Education. Additionally, I was a part-time counsellor at Calgary Family Services from 1974-1983 and 1984-1990. Since that time I have maintained a small private practice focusing on counselling women.

Teaching:

While in the Faculty of Social Welfare I instructed courses on child development, sexuality, introduction to Social Work, counselling methods, and practicum. During the years I have been an instructor in the Faculty of Education I have facilitated courses on child development, relationships between home and school (Early Childhood Education Program), communication skills, transpersonal psychology, sexuality, working alliance, adult development, practicum (APSY), and professional seminar 1, case tutorial, professional seminar 4, inclusive practice case, and special topics (MT Program). I have also instructed courses on mind/body/spirit integration and maternal & child health in the Faculty of Nursing(University of Calgary).

Research:

My research activities have primarily been in the service of my own professional development and in serving students' learning needs, whether through course development or joining with them during their MSc thesis work. Over the past several years I have supervised theses on the following topics: intimate relationships as spiritual practice; inquiry into long-term yoga practice; participant voices on qualitative research experience; transformation through the cancer experience in individuals with diverse spiritual/religious backgrounds; lived experience of women with fibromyalgia; prayer as healing during serious illness; experiences with horses that facilitate spiritual growth; perspectives of clients on their healing journeys; living with early onset psoriasis; experiences of adult daughters of mothers with breast cancer; relationship to the land and well-being; and mothers' self-transformations in graduate school in mid-life. Qualitative research methodologies, including phenomenological/hermeneutic, heuristics, heuristic self-search inquiry, and hermeneutics were utilized in these studies. My own current work is focusing on the use of films in teaching.

Service:

Throughout my adult life I have served as an active volunteer; in earlier years my volunteerism was in the community, from working in pre-school settings, to being involved in social action groups, and finally, to helping develop a resource centre for complementary and alternative healing modalities. Recently, my service has been centred in the university, having served on a number of committees. I have also been especially active in program development and professional development for the MT Program.