Professor John Dwyer is a recently retired Professor in the Department of Humanities. His research interests are the Scottish Enlightenment and Eighteenth-Century Sentimentalism. He has published extensively on the philosopher Adam Smith and the novelist Henry Mackenzie. He believes that love for and continuing expertise in one’s subject matter is the foundation for great teaching. For most of his career, he has worked primarily as a university administrator in a wide variety of posts. He organized, developed and led many workshops on teaching and learning at York in addition to being a regular columnist on university pedagogy in York University Publications.

Research Interests

Professor John Dwyer is a recently retired Professor in the Department of Humanities. His research interests are the Scottish Enlightenment and Eighteenth-Century Sentimentalism. He has published extensively on the philosopher Adam Smith and the novelist Henry Mackenzie. He believes that love for and continuing expertise in one’s subject matter is the foundation for great teaching. For most of his career, he has worked primarily as a university administrator in a wide variety of posts. He organized, developed and led many workshops on teaching and learning at York in addition to being a regular columnist on university pedagogy in York University Publications.

Research and Publications

Professor John Dwyer's primary research interests are the Scottish Enlightenment and Eighteenth-Century Sentimentalism. He has published extensively on the philosopher Adam Smith and the novelist Henry Mackenzie, author of the sentimental classic The Man of Feeling. Major publications include The Age of the Passions:An Interpretation of Adam Smith and Scottish Enlightenment Culture (Edinburgh, 1998) and Virtuous Discourse: Sensibility and Community in Late Eighteenth-Century Scotland (Edinburgh, 1985). He has also written books on Canadian business history and critical skills.

Teaching and Educational Philosophy

He believes that love for and continuing expertise in one’s subject matter is the foundation for great teaching. One builds on that structure by engaging the interest and developing the critical faculties of one’s students. Great teachers seem to have the ability to make the invisible visible for their students. He feels that he has done a good job when his students become independent learners or colleagues in learning. Good teaching never stands still. The most important educational discovery of the late twentieth century is the contribution that cultural diversity, different learning styles and the exchange of ideas can make to the teaching and learning environment. The interdisciplinary framework of the Humanities provides an idea structure for managing difference and diversity as well a dynamic and challenging environment for marrying teaching and research in the postmodern age.

Service to the University and Community

For most of his career, he has worked primarily as a university administrator in a wide variety of posts. For example, he worked as a special assistant to York’s Vice-President of External Affairs and to the Dean of York’s business school. He served as an Associate Director of University Advancement at McMaster University and as an independent consultant to many of Ontario’s universities and colleges. For several years, he held the position of Associate Director of York’s Centre for the Support of Teaching and was responsible for most of its day-to-day operations. He organized, developed and led many workshops on teaching and learning at York in addition to being a regular columnist on university pedagogy in Core and the York University Gazette.

Of course, he has also paid dues on Divisional committees, especially Teaching and Learning and Promotion and Tenure Committees in the Divisions of Social Science and Humanities.

Degrees

PhD, University of British Columbia
MA in History, University of British Columbia
MA in Education, University of British Columbia
BA, University of British Columbia

Research Interests