Tony Noble
Professor
he/him
Department of Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy
Professor Noble is very accommodating to students and you can tell he very much cares about his students. Professor Noble is the only professor I know who came to the tutorials to help students individually and answer questions the students may have, and he has come to every tutorial to help! He also makes himself available for office hours which I am truly grateful for and have taken advantage of. He also opens office hours the day before the midterms and final exams until the last student leaves for any last-minute questions and help. The best part is his lectures! They are amazing with great demos and keep the class engaged! This, for me, is very supportive of my and others' mental health because a lot of us may realize that physics can be a very tough course, but Professor Noble really cares about our success and helps as much as he can and teaches physics in such a way that it will make people love it!
Anonymous Student
Mental health impacts our emotional and psychological states and defines how we respond to things like stress and anxiety. It influences how we feel, impacts our motivation, and affects our interactions with others. Having good mental health is not an avoidance of the stressors in life, but having learned to recognize and cope with them, or to work through them with appropriate supports.
As a professor and researcher I strive to create an environment for the students in my classes and research groups that is as comfortable as possible. I find that students entering the system are far too preoccupied with attaining the highest marks possible, despite the fact that when they graduate they will have earned their degrees and can practice their passion, and the world will neither know or care about the exact marks they attained along the way. Bumps along the road are to be expected. Having a healthy work-life balance is far more important than excelling in every deliverable. To this end I work with students to try to de-stress them around their performance anxieties, but rather get them to focus on being comfortable and confident with their own learning. One of the things I have found very valuable when teaching the very large first year classes is to attend all the tutorials. This makes it possible to have regular conversations with the students, to better understand where they are struggling. I also make myself readily available before all midterms and exams in an open space where students feel supported and connected to their peers. I find students typically overwhelmed at the idea of knocking on a professor’s office door will attend these more open sessions much more readily. I advocate strongly for the destigmatization of mental health, and refer often to the resources that are available, and when asked I have accompanied students to mental health clinics when they were too nervous to make that first step on their own. I understand the stresses of University life can be a bit overwhelming for some students and work hard to recognize students in need of help, and provide that to them.
--- Dr. Tony Noble