The Office of Academic Affairs established the Center for Teaching Excellence in the fall of 1999. In 2006 the name of the Center was changed to the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) in order to reflect a broadening mission and a fuller understanding of the crucial interdependence between effective teaching and successful learning. The Center is located in Old Main 109.
The mission of the CTL is to empower faculty in their teaching, research and service by cultivating a campus culture that is grounded in a relationship with a broader community and values pedagogical, disciplinary, and program-based inquiry in support of student learning. The CTL provides professional development opportunities for faculty to engage with the theoretical and pragmatic aspects of teaching and learning, sponsors an annual research boot camp and a faculty learning community on the scholarship of teaching and learning, and promotes community outreach and engagement. Additionally the CTL administers the annual faculty awards, conducts classroom observations, directs a New Faculty Orientation program, hosts an annual teaching conference, and maintains a library of resource books related to a variety of teaching and learning topics. Housed within CTL are the Writing Across the Curriculum and Service Learning programs.
The work of the CTL is organized around a model of engaged scholarship which is founded on the principle that academia and communities have a “reciprocal relationship with a community that adds value to the community and the scholar’s discipline” (Franz, 2009, p. 35). This model (depicted below) identifies six points of practice at which faculty engage in scholarship: discovering and developing new knowledge (research), disseminating new knowledge and changing learning (teaching), and changing behaviors and conditions (outreach). These points of practice are central to the programming of the CTL.
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