For many years, Geraldine Voros worked as a sessional teacher, which allowed her to maintain her career while still leaving time both to care for her aging mother, and to raise her two daughters. (Both daughters are now professionals, learning to strike their own work-life balance.)

Geraldine’s personal story gibes with her areas of professional expertise, such as the historical and contemporary role of women in Canadian families, issues concerning women’s paid and unpaid work in Canada, the challenges of raising the next generation with courses on Canadian children and Canadian adolescents as well as courses on health studies, illness and identity and the practice of well-being in everyday life.

She tries to teach McMaster students the way she’d want someone to teach her own daughters – bringing out their passion and desire to learn, and challenging them to critically evaluate and question conventional thinking.

Because much of the subject matter in her courses centers on inclusiveness, she feels a particular responsibility to reflect this same value in her teaching methods.

Geraldine has had many influences and seen the profession change in many ways over her four decades of teaching.

Currently, she focuses on team-based, experiential learning. For Geraldine, working in teams has value beyond developing collaboration skills: it also allows her to draw out quiet and shy students, providing them with a safe space where they can trust that their ideas and questions will be valued and welcomed.

In every way she can, Geraldine presents lessons in ways that connect theory to everyday life. She equips students not only with knowledge, but also with the wisdom to become well-informed citizens who think positively about the future.