Working as a clown may not seem like an obvious steppingstone towards a career in academia.
But Ann-Louise Davidson says her early career as a children’s performer informed her later work as professor in Concordia’s Department of Education.
“I was always sad that the kids who were the most privileged had access to clowns for their birthdays, but the underprivileged kids did not because their parents could not pay for it,” she recalls.
“So I would be a clown in public places, to offer this to a broader audience. That’s the background thinking from which I operate.”
Davidson wears many hats at the university, including as Concordia University Research Chair of Maker Culture (Tier 2), associate director of the Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture and Technology and director of the Innovation Lab.
“Progressive education is my theme,” she says.
