User:Geo Swan/Arlette Zinck

Arlette Zinck is a Professor of English in Edmonton, Alberta. She is the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at King's University College. Zinck has been an English professor for over twenty years.

She has specialized in "16th and 17th century literature, including John Bunyan, John Milton, early women's writing, spiritual autobiography, and epic poetry."

In 2008, Zinck started corresponding with Guantanamo captive Omar Khadr, a Canadian youth, who faced charges before a Guantanamo military commission. Khadr's lawyer, Dennis Edney, had been an invited speaker at a conference her Christian college had convened on "Invisible Dignity". Zinck has described how questions Edney raised triggered a challenge among her colleagues and the student body, and she took the lead in corresponding with Khadr. Zinck would eventually lead a team of colleagues in designing a course of study Khadr could pursue from his prison cell. Zinck would later praise Khadr's intelligence, fairness, sense of humour, and willingness to work hard. Khadr, in turn, would describe his studies and his correspondence with her as one of the bright spots in his life in detention. Khadr has expressed the desire to study at her Christian college.

On May 29th, 2013, Khadr was moved from detention in Kingston, Ontario, to another institution in Edmonton, which placed him close to both Zinck, and her college, and to Edney, his lawyer.