Dr. Jessica Riddell    Jarislowsky Chair of Undergraduate Teaching Excellence

Official Bio:​

Dr. Jessica Riddell is a Full Professor of Early Modern Literature in the English Department at Bishop’s University (Québec, Canada). She is a Member of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) and holds the Stephen A. Jarislowsky Chair of Undergraduate Teaching Excellence; in this capacity, she leads conversations about systems-change in higher education that shift the focus from resilience to human and ecological flourishing.

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In her research, teaching, leadership, and administration, she facilitates dialogue at the national and international levels about how universities fulfil their public purpose.

An award-winning educator and scholar, Dr. Riddell has published on Shakespeare, institutional culture change, inter-institutional collaborations, experiential learning, and inclusive high-impact practices. Her book Shakespeare's Guide to Life, Hope, and Learning (University of Toronto Press, 2023), co-authored with Dr. Lisa Dickson and Dr. Shannon Murray, was nominated for the Gordon Book Prize. Her most recent book, Hope Circuits: Rewiring Universities and other Systems for Human Flourishing (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2024), addresses the fragmentation and instrumentalism in contemporary higher education and issues an expansive call for institutional reinvention and renewal of the social contract. In 2025, Hope Circuits won the prestigious Society of Professors of Education Book Award.

Dr. Riddell has long been a philosophical figure in the higher education sector and a respected insider-advocate for shaping systems for human benefit. As the founder of the Hope Circuits Institute, she facilitates collective sense-making for boards, senior leadership teams, senates, and various departments and offices across university campuses. At a time marked by indictments of higher education, her work invites people, communities, and institutions to engage in strategic planning around governance, relational wellbeing, student success, learning and teaching innovation, advancement, campus-wide engagement, and departmental or divisional renewal. In addition to retreats, book clubs, workshops, and other forms of professional development, Dr. Riddell hosts hope summits, consults on policy development, and facilitates roundtables that offer an antidote to sector-wide mission drift at a moment when publicly funded social institutions are under siege.

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Dr. Riddell is a leading intellectual at the intersection of the humanities and higher education. She is one of Canada’s most prolific public scholars on the role universities play in a civil, just society and regularly convenes conversations about how education shapes creative democracy. As an interdisciplinary researcher, she is engaged in knowledge creation across diverse fields—from Shakespeare to transformative learning, inclusive high-impact practices, systems and design thinking, and collective sense-making.

Dr. Riddell has a robust leadership portfolio in higher education and serves on several boards, including the Board of Directors for the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U); as a Board Member of the Society of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE); VP Quebec for Senior Women Academic Administrators of Canada (SWAAC); and as a member of the Research Advisory Board for Future Skills Centre. She has also served on the 3M National Fellows Council and as VP Canada for the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. She currently sits as a three-term Governor on the Bishop's University Board of Governors and a two-term Senator on the Bishop's University Senate.

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She has received research funding from SSHRC, ECQ (Entente Canada–Québec), and STLHE, and has been awarded innovation funding from the McConnell Foundation, The Jarislowsky Foundation, CEWIL (Canadian Experiential Work-Integrated Learning), and the Business Higher Education Round Table (BHER).

Dr. Riddell was awarded the William and Nancy Turner Award for Teaching Excellence (2011–2012) at Bishop’s University, received the 3M National Teaching Fellowship in 2015, was the recipient of a D2L Innovation Award for Teaching and Learning in 2022, and won the inaugural Most Engaged Faculty/Staff Member award from Forces Avenir—Quebec’s highest recognition in higher education—in 2022.

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Dr. Riddell convenes conversations in the public sphere and builds a shared belief that systems-change work is only possible when we act in communion with others, guided by the core values of equity, justice, and empathy. Her work moves us beyond the “way it has always been” into new spaces where universities can be on the frontlines of social and economic renewal.