Thank you for commemorating Lisa through the E. Lisa Panayotidis Graduate Scholarship in Interdisciplinary Education Research
Dr. E. Lisa Panayotidis joined what was then the Faculty of Education in 1997 as a post-doctoral fellow after completing her doctoral degree at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. She studied the intellectual history of the impact of the Arts and Crafts Movement on Ontario Education. Prior to this, she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a major in art history and fine art at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and a Master of Arts in art history at York University. Her research focused on the socio-cultural histories of students, professors, and universities in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Canada. In 2013, she shared her work on the history of student initiation rituals on western Canadian campuses as part of the Werklund School of Education's Engaging New Ideas in Education speaker series. In addition to her socio-cultural research, Lisa explored reflective practice and contemporary issues and debates in visual arts teacher education, curriculum theorizing, and historical thinking.
A deep interest in examining contemporary art practices and particularly the social and cultural function of art and artists in the school system led Lisa to collaborate with numerous professional and community stakeholders concerned with improving critical art pedagogies and curricula in the classroom. Throughout her career Lisa received numerous research and publication awards including the CAFE Publication Award for her co-authored book Provoking Conversations on Inquiry in Teacher Education (2015) as well as the Canadian History of Education Association English-Language Article Prize, and History of Education Review Literati Network Award for Excellence, for her article “The Mythic Campus and the Professorial Life” (2011).
Dr. Paul Stortz created this award in memory of his late wife. Lisa was his muse, confidante, sounding board, partner, mentor, and best friend. Her passing was a huge personal, academic, and scholarly loss. Lisa continues to be greatly missed by community and university members, colleagues, students, her numerous close friends, and family.