Brescia Faculty Profiles with The Buzz - Second February Edition: Dr Edward Bell
Dr. Edward Bell’s office sits in Ursuline Hall, overlooking the rest of Western’s expansive campus. Filled with plants and artwork, Dr. Bell’s office has a relaxing atmosphere. Overlooking his desk is a collection of colourful paintings his wife, an artist, drew; on the wall adjacent to his door is a woodcut of Trail, B.C., where Bell grew up. Dr. Bell has taught at Brescia for 31 years and has grown to be a respected professor of Sociology. In his own words, Bell has been at Brescia “longer than most of the furniture”, which adds respectability to his name. While he teaches methodology and statistics, Bell’s recent research focuses on political psychology and behavioural genetics, including studies on twins.
Dr. Bell grew up in Trail’s, B.C., “tucked into that southeast corner” of British Columbia, near the U.S. border. Bell hopped all over Canada for his education, starting in the University of Victoria for his undergrad, then the University of Alberta for his master’s, McGill for his Ph.D., and then a post-doctoral fellowship in Calgary. Bell spoke very highly of his education and the climate he went to school in, especially about the University of McGill, where he met and married his wife.
However, Bell isn’t just an academic. Before he went to university, he toured in a rock band in B.C. and Alberta. He also describes himself as a “big-time jogger”, saying that he sometimes goes for runs as early as 6 in the morning, although he’s recently switched to a treadmill rather than jogging in the dark. He also enjoys yoga and meditation and is a large sports fan. His favourite teams are the Toronto Blue Jays for baseball, and the Edmonton Oilers, for hockey. In fact, his love of baseball is something he shares with his wife – they’re both huge fans of the Blue Jays!
When Dr. Bell came to Brescia around 30 years ago, he was drawn to the “physicality” of Brescia, saying – “I remember coming in a cab up the street here, and looking and seeing the building in which we are now and saying that is a beautiful, grand building. It’s just so beautiful.” Bell describes himself as someone who loves to be surrounded by nature, hence all the plants in his office. When Bell came to Brescia, the campus was even more green than we see it today. Instead of Ivey, a cornfield decorated the bottom of the hill. Where the residence building sits today, there was “green space”.
Dr. Bell would describe sociology as “an essential component of our efforts to understand human beings and human groups and human interaction.” He describes it as something that goes beyond “disciplinary boundaries” – as something that touches every aspect of academia. A sociologist might look at historical records, psychology statistics, criminal justice records, and so on to look at how humanity functions. Bell himself is specifically looking at how someone’s political orientation goes past how we vote and reaches intense parts of us – from our sense of humour to where we find our hope. “So, for example, if you ask people where they get their hope in their lives, conservatives are more likely to say, well, from spiritual things like God, liberals are less likely to do that,” Bell said in explaining this to me.
Bell is motivated by many things, from getting positive feedback to just simply being curious – “Being a teacher and a researcher, I get to learn new stuff all the time, right. So I'm motivated to learn new things because I get a certain thrill from that I got certain nice feeling. And also, not just learning things, but just kind of finding things out or over discovering things for lack of a better term.” As an established professor at Brescia, this desire to learn has reflected positively on his students, his work, and his research.