Centering Centers

In the second of our new To Improve the Academy (TIA) partnership episodes on Centering Centers, Associate Editor, Liz Norrell (Associate Director of Instructional Support at the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at the University of Mississippi), Marina Smitherman (Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Dalton State College in Northwest Georgia and Editor in Chief of TIA) and Megan Robertson (Educational Developer at Simon Friesen University in British Columbia, Canada, and Associate Editor with TIA), speak about the forthcoming call for assistant editors to join the team – a brand new role they hope will expand pathways into journal editorship and lower the bar for those who may not be sure they want to make a multi-year commitment. They also discuss the joys and challenges of the role and dig into specific topics like fixing the peer review system, developmental editing, and supporting authors to bring out their best.

Chris Hakala talks with Dr. Leslie Alvarez about her move from psychology to educational development. Dr. Alvarez recounts her work with marginalized students and its impact on her path to faculty development, highlighting the role of equity in teaching. She discusses building a faculty development program and her transition to a director role amid the pandemic. Dr. Alvarez's experience underscores the importance of teaching centers in promoting inclusive education and meeting academic challenges.

Today’s episode features Jovan Groen (Western University), Carolyn Ives (Thompson Rivers University), and Veronica (Roni) Bamber (Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh), who talk about their recent To Improve the Academy article, “Evidencing the value of educational development: Charting a course on the waves and winds of change,” which they wrote with coauthors Carolyn Hoessler (Thompson Rivers University), Corinne Laverty (Queen’s University), and Klodiana Kolomitro (Queen’s University). This international group traces its roots back to a Canadian group of educational developers. They wanted to keep working and writing together, and eventually invited in Roni Bamber from Scotland. Their piece provides a RUFDATA-inspired framework for evidencing the value of centers for teaching and learning.

This is the first episode of our new partnership between the journal and Centering Centers. We hope to pull back the curtain on the journal for our listeners, especially about our authors' research and experiences publishing in our journal. We look forward to bringing you monthly conversations with our authors, reviewers, editorial team, and board members.

Chris Hakala and JT Torres talk about operating a center with very limited human resources. JT is a center of one, and in that role, he is working to build relationships, create educational development opportunities and support faculty and student teaching and learning. He does this by developing relationships. In the episode we discuss how JT is able to be so successful in an environment that is different than many in the higher ed world. 

In this episode, Liz Norell shares her educational developer journey and discusses plans for the forthcoming partnership between Centering Centers, a POD Network podcast, and To Improve the Academy, its flagship peer-reviewed journal.

Dr. Liz Norell is Associate Director of Instructional Support at the University of Mississippi's Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. Prior to joining UM, Liz spent more than two decades in higher education as an instructor and (for a brief time early in graduate school) working as a digital communicator in a university marketing office. She spent more than a decade working as an adjunct instructor at a variety of institutions in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex and in middle Tennessee before spending seven years in a tenure-track role at a Tennessee community college. During that time, she developed a strong interest in pedagogy and the scholarship of teaching and learning. She is the author of the forthcoming book from the new OU Press series edited by Jim Lang and Michelle Miller, The Present Professor. In her role at UM, she'll be working with faculty to design, execute, and publish their own SoTL projects, as well as engaging with the breadth of teaching center activities (workshops, book clubs, consultations, etc.). She divides her time between Oxford, Miss. and Monteagle, Tenn. Her partner teaches math and computer science at the University of the South (Sewanee). They have two kids, two dogs, and a very calm existence. Liz reads voraciously and loves to travel.

In this episode of Centering Centers, Diane Boyd shares how she guided faculty through the pandemic by first having them connect to their core values before diving into new teaching modalities. She explains how articulating one's values provides an internal compass when navigating challenging situations--keeping you grounded in your strengths and priorities, and she emphasizes the importance of self-care and preparation as ways to support oneself in this work.

Diane E. Boyd serves as the Associate Dean of Faculty Development and Mary Seawell Metz ‘58 Executive Director of the Faculty Development Center at Furman University in Greenville, SC. Diane leads equitable course design, organizational learning, and holistic professional development programs throughout the academic life cycle. Her recent publications include research on threshold concepts in course design and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, leveraging pandemic pedagogical insights for long-term educational equity, and increasing agency and reducing burnout via values-infused programming for mid-career colleagues.

In this episode, Joan Zaretti from Bryant University, Karen Hopkins from Auburn University, and Josh Luckens from Wentworth Institute of Technology discuss their experiences creating playful and play-based programs and activities aimed at engaging their campus and building community. They share strategies for cultivating a sense of belonging, purpose, and trust among students and faculty through the joy of play.

Josh Eyler, acclaimed author of How Humans Learn, delves into the pivotal role of storytelling in teaching, learning, and educational development and some of the systemic issues around grading practices tackled in his upcoming book, Scarlet Letters. He offers reflections and stories about his own developmental journey leading different CTLs and shares insights and inspiration for others engaged in educational development and institutional change.

Josh Eyler is Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning and Director of the Think Forward Quality Enhancement Plan at the University of Mississippi, where he is also Clinical Assistant Professor of Teacher Education. He previously worked on teaching and learning initiatives at Columbus State University, George Mason University, and Rice University. A sought-after speaker for his expertise about the science of learning and about compassion in education, especially in connection with students, grades, and mental health, he has spoken at college and universities across the country. Eyler is the author of the book How Humans Learn: The Science and Stories behind Effective College Teaching (West Virginia University Press, 2018), which Book Authority named one of the “100 Best Education Books of All Time”. Called a “splendid repository of ways to rethink how we teach college” by the Los Angeles Review of Books, it was named a “Book of the Year” in the Chicago Tribune. His second book is forthcoming from Johns Hopkins UP in 2024. Scarlet Letters: How Grades are Harming Children and Young Adults, and What We Can Do about It, is about one of the most urgent issues in education today, grading and alternative assessment.

Mary Wright is the Associate Provost for Teaching and Learning, Executive Director of the Sheridan Center, and a Research Professor in Sociology. She is a former president of the POD Network in Higher Education. Before joining Brown, she served as Director of Assessment at the University of Michigan's CRLT. She holds degrees in sociology and higher education administration from Princeton and the University of Michigan.

In this episode, we speak with Stacy Grooters, the current President of the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network in Higher Education. Stacy shares her vision for leading POD, reflects on its history of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, and discusses how educational developers can advocate for higher education.

Stacy Grooters is currently the Executive Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Boston College and the President-Elect of the POD Network. She earned her PhD in English literature, with a concentration in Women’s Studies, from the University of Washington, where she also taught in the departments of English, American Ethnic Studies, and Women Studies. She then spent eight years at Stonehill College, a small liberal arts, Catholic college in Massachusetts, where she founded the Center for Teaching and Learning and co-directed the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program. Stacy’s research focuses on the ways that commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion are practiced within the field of educational development. Her 2014 article, “Tracking POD’s Engagement with Diversity,” analyzes 35 years of POD conference sessions and journal articles to track changes in how questions of diversity have been taken up by the field. Her current project seeks to define what it means to be an “equity-minded educational developer” and identify the pathways that educational developers take towards growing an equity-minded practice.

What is the role of a graduate student in a center for teaching and learning? Does it vary by institution or are there predictable patterns that we as educational developers can use to craft job descriptions, direct projects, and provide opportunities for growth through assessment and reflection?

This episode is hosted by Yianna Vovides from CNDLS and features an interview with Haya Jalal.

In this episode, Holly Parker from the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Vermont speaks with Leigh Wright, Associate Professor of Journalism and Mass Communications at Murray State University and Ciera Cornelison, Instructional Designer at the University of Alabama about their experiences and thoughts on alternative grading practices. They discuss how these approaches can promote a more nuanced and personalized understanding of student learning beyond mere numbers and letters.

What is the role of a graduate student in a center for teaching and learning? Does it vary by institution or are there predictable patterns that we as educational developers can use to craft job descriptions, direct projects, and provide opportunities for growth through assessment and reflection?

This episode is hosted by Laura March and Yianna Vovides from CNDLS and features interviews with:

• Stefanie Chae
• Pulkit Goyal
• Nikisha Kotwal
• Oluwafikayo Odugbemi 
• Kathleen Waterston

What is the journey to educational development like? What are the challenges and opportunities that come with starting out as a new faculty developer? This episode is another installment of our PODFest episodes featuring a conversation between April Tallant, Senior Educational Developer at Coulter Faculty Commons at Western Carolina University; and the POD Network's DRI Committee Co-Chair, Yianna Vovides, Senior Director, Learning Design & Research at Georgetown University's Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS).

How do we make SoTL accessible (and not scary) to new faculty?

This episode features a lively and engaging conversation between Maria Gallardo-Williams of North Carolina State University, Nancy Chick of Rollins College, and Erin Garcia of Auburn University on the topic of introducing faculty to SoTL. It was recorded as part of the PODFest event hosted by the DRI committee on December 1st, 2022.

Professors are expected to have extensive expertise in their fields of study in order to qualify to teach at the post-secondary level, but can graduate coursework in quantum mechanics or X-ray crystallography prepare you to be a supportive advisor and an inclusive educator?

Ashley McNeill, Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Springfield College in Springfield, MA, and Elizabeth McDonald, Instructional Designer at The University of Alabama, discuss faculty preparedness for teaching (or lack thereof) for new STEM educators. It’s important for new faculty, particularly in STEM, to be introduced to Centers and other resources intended to help them navigate their new roles as educators, mentors, and academic advisors. Traditional training in a STEM PhD program famously lacks opportunities to be exposed to this aspect of a professor’s work, particularly at large R1 institutions where many graduate students receive their training from professors whose responsibilities largely focus on grant writing and research. Ashley and Elizabeth review several approaches to learning more about student needs in the classroom, course design, and adapting assignments to classrooms of different sizes. Perhaps even more importantly, Ashley and Elizabeth spend some time talking about connecting with your students and teaching them to engage meaningfully in their STEM education.

A PODFest Collaboration

Host, Ashley S. McNeill, Springfield College

Elizabeth McDonald, University of Alabama

Is it time that your teaching center started its own podcast? That’s the question that brought four POD Network colleagues together in a breakout session at PODFest 2022 to talk about teaching center podcasts. What goals might a teaching center podcast have? How would you know if you were meeting those goals? And how would your center go about planning and producing a podcast? This episode features a lively conversation between two teaching center podcast producers, Derek Bruff of the University of Mississippi and Tom Pantazes of West Chester University of Pennsylvania, and two colleagues interested in starting new podcasts, Karen Skibba of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Jasmine Parent of McGill University. They discuss podcasting as an educational development tool as well as practical strategies for starting and sustaining a teaching center podcast.

I do not know which to prefer,   

The beauty of inflections   

Or the beauty of innuendoes,   

The blackbird whistling   

Or just after.   

In this episode of Centering Centers, guest host Derek Bruff talks with Jessica Riddell, professor of early modern literature and the Stephen A. Jarislowsky Chair of Undergraduate Teaching Excellence at Bishop’s University in Quebec, Canada. Jessica is also the executive director of the Maple League of Universities, which is not, in fact, a group of Canadian super-heroes, but rather a consortium of four small universities that have banded together to support quality undergraduate education. Jessica shares her journey into the field of educational development, how collaboration across institutions can support the missions of those institutions, what she’s learning in her new position on the board of directors of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, and how she manages to get so much stuff done in her week.

“I want my people to look like the experts they are, because I want them to be treated as colleagues, even though we are a service organization.”

In this episode of Centering Centers, guest host Derek Bruff talks with Shawn Miller, director of Learning Innovation at Duke University. Shawn’s unit combines faculty development, instructional technology, online program management, and more. Shawn shares how Duke Learning Innovation came to be and how the unit continues to integrate these different functions, and he provides strategic advice for centers for teaching and learning who are navigating the academic technology landscape.

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

In our last episode, we learned about ChatGPT with Cynthia Alby. Today we are diving deeper into the ethics of AI and how we as educational developers might best support the conversations happening across our campuses.

To guide us in this conversation, we are speaking with Dr. Kevin Yee, Director of the Faculty Center at the University of Central Florida. Kevin has held numerous faculty and leadership positions at a range of institutions through his career including USF, Duke, Iowa, Pomona College and UC Irvine.

His research interests within pedagogy are wide, and have included student motivation, study skills, and various emerging technologies for teaching. He is currently co-editing a book of case studies on the intersection of VR and ethics in the college classroom.

Resources Mentioned: 

Today on "Centering Centers", we are speaking with Cynthia Alby,  who is Professor of Teacher Education and Faculty Director of Georgia College Journeys, in Milledgeville, Georgia, USA. She shares her perspectives on ChatGPT and how it can catalyze needed change in the teaching landscape of  higher education.

Today on "Centering Centers", we are speaking with Teresa Focarile who is the Associate Director for Educational Development at the Center for Teaching and Learning, and Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Theatre, Film and Creative Writing at Boise State University. We discussed the many-layered approach they are implementing to support adjunct faculty's professional learning as well as job satisfaction. 

Today on "Centering Centers", we are speaking with Tom Laughner who is the Director of the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center Teaching and Learning center, in Memphis, Tennessee. 

Our conversation explores his work supporting faculty in the health professions and the successful micro-credentialing program called the Medallion Program.

Today on "Centering Centers", we are speaking with Dana Grossman Leeman who is the Senior Associate Director of the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning at Tufts University. We discussed her experiences, noticings and wonderings from attending the POD conference in person in Seattle this fall.

This is episode 29 of the CC podcast. This is the next installment in our chapter on SoEd. Our guest is Dr. Laura Baecher. Laura is an Associate Professor of TESOL at Hunter College (which is part of cuny system)  and she is a leader in their Academic Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching.

We know Laura as the founder and co-host of the centering centers podcast and that is the focus of this episode: how it started, how it's going, and where it might go in the future.

This is Episode 28 of the Centering Centers Podcast. I’m your host for this episode, Lindsay Doukopoulos. I serve as Associate Director for Educational Development in the Biggio Center at Auburn University. I also serve as co-chair of PODs Digital Resources and Innovations committee. This episode is the next installment in our chapter on the Scholarship of Educational Development and today I’m thrilled to speak with Anna Flaming.

Anna L. Bostwick Flaming is Director of the Center for Teaching in the Office of Teaching, Learning & Technology and affiliate faculty in the Department of Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies at the University of Iowa. Anna’s interests include inclusive teaching, active learning, course design, the Scholarship of Educational Development (SoED), the history of higher education, and the history of gender. She is chair of the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network in Higher Education’s Scholarship Committee, which supports the POD Network’s strategic goal of “advancing evidence-based practice.”

Our conversation covers topic ranging from the value of multi-disciplinary perspectives in the scholarship of educational development to the power-dynamics of CTL vocabulary choices to the way in which considerations of positionality and inclusion inform the work of the POD Network's Scholarship Committee and its subcommittees. 

Julie Timmermans is a Senior Lecturer in the Higher Education Development Centre at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. Julie is a teacher, researcher, and academic developer with experience facilitating learning in various universities and countries, including Canada, Japan, France, and now, New Zealand. Her research interests focus on academic development and threshold concepts. Julie has been a co-editor of the International Journal for Academic Development since 2020. 

In this conversation on the Scholarship of Educational Development, we speak with Julie Timmermans to learn how her experiences in multiple institutions and across countries has informed her work and her perspective as one of the Co-Editors of the International Journal for Academic Development.

Should educational development seek to define itself as a discipline? What are the urgent conversations around our research and practice? Is the academy improving? 

This is the first episode of our 5th season of Centering Centers which focuses on the Scholarship of Educational Development and I’m thrilled to welcome Laura Cruz today who will give us an overview of the SoED landscape.

Laura Cruz is an associate research professor of Teaching and Learning Scholarship

At Penn State's Schreyer Institute of Teaching Excellence. In addition to authoring numerous articles and launching and leading multiple Centers for teaching and learning, she has served as editor on academic journals including To Improve the Academy and recently co-authored a book that many folks in our listening audience might value in called “Taking Flight: Making your Center for Teaching and learning soar” which synthesizes research and provides practical guidance for running centers of teaching and learning. 

This is part 2 of Episode 23 of the Centering Centers podcast. This is the second half of our interview with Dr. Arshad Ahmad, Vice Chancellor of LUMS, which is the top raked university in Pakistan.

In part one of our conversation, Dr. Ahmad shared his journey from a professor of Accounting who struggled with his teaching to 3M National Teaching Fellow - Canada’s most prestigious recognition of teaching at the post-secondary level to director of the MacPherson Institute at McMaster University and now to the ultimate leadership role at LUMS. 

In part two, he shares concrete ideas, strategies, and actions he has taken as Vice Chancellor that are informed by his previous role as an educational developer and faculty members. His story provides an answer to the question of what happens when you an educational developer in charge of a major institution with the resources to enact meaningful change--without giving too much away, amazing things happen. His story is of interest to all educational developers but will be particularly inspiring to those on the path to provost, president, or other distinguished leadership positions in higher education. 

Dr. Ahmad completed his PhD in Educational Psychology at McGill University and was a Professor of Finance at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada for over 20 years. In 2014, he was appointed Vice-Provost, Teaching and Learning and Director of the MacPherson Institute at McMaster University. He also held academic leadership positions as Chair of Teaching and Learning Canada, President of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, and Vice President of the International Consortium of Educational Developers. In 1992, he was awarded the 3M National Teaching Fellowship--Canada’s most prestigious recognition of excellence in educational leadership and teaching at the post-secondary level. His research interests include student evaluations of teaching, approaches to teaching, teaching philosophies and student partnerships. In 2018, he became the sixth Vice-Chancellor of LUMS University.

This is episode 23 of the Centering Centers podcast. This is the first of a two part interview with Dr. Arshad Ahmad, Vice Chancellor of LUMS, which is the top raked university in Pakistan.

In part one of our conversation, Dr. Ahmad shares his journey from a professor of Accounting who struggled with his teaching to 3M National Teaching Fellow - Canada’s most prestigious recognition of teaching at the post-secondary level to director of the MacPherson Institute at McMaster University and now to the ultimate leadership role at LUMS. His story is of interest to all educational developers but will be particularly inspiring to those on the path to provost, president, or other distinguished leadership positions in higher education.

Dr. Ahmad completed his PhD in Educational Psychology at McGill University and was a Professor of Finance at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada for over 20 years. In 2014, he was appointed Vice-Provost, Teaching and Learning and Director of the MacPherson Institute at McMaster University. He also held academic leadership positions as Chair of Teaching and Learning Canada, President of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, and Vice President of the International Consortium of Educational Developers. In 1992, he was awarded the 3M National Teaching Fellowship--Canada’s most prestigious recognition of excellence in educational leadership and teaching at the post-secondary level. His research interests include student evaluations of teaching, approaches to teaching, teaching philosophies and student partnerships. In 2018, he became the sixth Vice-Chancellor of LUMS University.

This is Episode 22 of "Centering Centers", a POD Network podcast that explores the work of Centers of Teaching and Learning and the vision and insights of educational developers in higher education. We are speaking with Tracy Zou (@ZouTracy) who has worked as an educational developer at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and who has now transitioned back to a faculty role as an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong. In addition to teaching, she is an associate editor of IJAD – the International Journal for Academic Development and an editorial member of Asian Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning as well as a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Our conversation centers on the lessons learned in the shift from faculty to developer and back, as well as the importance of fostering collaboration and critical friendships with people who not only support but challenge us to think and do things differently. And why those connections are so important to grow and sustain one’s teaching.

Connect with Tracy on Twitter - @ZouTracy

Acknowledgement: Part of this sharing is based on the findings from the research project Professional Development at a Meso-level: Conceptual Development and Impact Analysis funded by the Research Grants Council of the government of HKSAR (Project no. 17609318).

In this episode, we speak with Stephanie Doscher, Director of the Office of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) at Florida International University, and Eva Haug, who works as Educational Advisor for Internationalisation of the Curriculum and COIL in the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. Our conversation focuses on their leadership of COIL programs at their respective institutions, the challenges and opportunities of recruiting and developing faculty to participate, as well as approaches for assessing impacts of the program on students, faculty and developers like themselves. Finally, they share the unique cultural experiences and motivations that brought them together and sustain them as leaders and as professional collaborators in this effort to, as Stephanie eloquently put it, "connect faculty and students across the borders of difference."