Recentering Through Change

The Center for Faculty Excellence (CFE) is the third iteration (by name) of American University’s faculty development center. Still, the name is far from the only element of change throughout the Center’s history. In fact, I will argue that change has not only been frequent but necessary for the Center to provide sufficient support to our faculty at any given time and context. For the last 19 years, I have been privileged to follow this journey closely from within the Center and will share parts of this story below. All facts and quotes reflect a combination of the Center’s Annual Reports, file archive,  and my own experience.

What is now known as the Center for Faculty Excellence was launched in May 1998, about 10 years after then-Assistant Provost Ann Ferren convened a series of committees to study the possibility of creating such a center. The creation of a “Teaching-Learning Center” was specifically called for in AU’s 1997 Strategic Plan, expressed in a sentence that resonates with the themes at the core of today’s Center, nearly 30 years later:

“A Teaching-Learning Center will be established to serve as a base for a strong and diversified teaching development program. It will support new and existing teaching-learning approaches, foster interdisciplinary inquiry; develop the uses of media and technology in teaching, offer grants, develop supervision skills for experiential learning, increase rewards and recognition for effective teaching, and develop programs to enhance the ability of faculty to teach a diverse student body that includes U.S. minorities and international students.”

The 1998 Annual Ann Ferren Teaching Conference made the establishment of a teaching center the principal theme. A few months later, then Provost Neil Kerwin appointed Jack Child from the Department of Language and Foreign Studies as the founding Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence.

An article about the impending launch of the teaching center in the March 1997 issue of American Scene (from the American University Archives)

The Center’s initial mission was to “assist American University faculty in developing their teaching skills, especially those using computers and the Web.” Run by a team of two (the Director and the Assistant Director), key programs included new faculty orientation, a faculty mentoring system, the development of a teaching resources manual, programs encouraging faculty to use “computer-based educational technology” (including a beta launch of Blackboard), the Annual Ann Ferren Teaching Conference, and the Greenberg Seminars for Effective Teaching.

These programs remained at the core of the Center’s activities when John Richardson from the School of International Service became the Center’s Director in January 2002. A few months later, then President Ladner and then Provost Kerwin approved a reorganization that significantly expanded the Center’s portfolio. This included assigning responsibility for many advanced technology support services and computer labs to the Center, and introducing wide-ranging training of not only faculty, but also students. With this expansion, Blackboard Support services, Research and Technical Support Training (including the Social Science Research Lab), the New Media Center (providing video-editing services and a media lab for faculty and student use), and Audio-Visual Support were added to the Center’s responsibilities. In addition, the Faculty Corner was created—a lounge located in the Hurst 204 suite, which provided a faculty-only space during daytime and evening hours, and had a widely used laptop and equipment loan program.

With this growth in responsibilities, the Center’s mission expanded to “providing teaching, learning, professional development and advanced technology support services to AU faculty and students,” and the Center’s staff grew significantly in the following years, to eight full-time staff members along with several graduate student fellows. It was during this time that I first came into contact with the Center, initially (between 2004 and 2007) by enrolling in the Greenberg Seminars for Effective Teaching, through which I also attended my first three Ann Ferren Teaching Conferences. I joined the Center as a Graduate Fellow in 2007, working evening shifts in the Faculty Corner, and became a full-time staff member in 2009.

The Center’s second Director, John Richardson, cuts the Ann Ferren Conference 20th Anniversary cake with Ann Ferren and Milton Greenberg–both instrumental to the creation of the center 11 years earlier (Photo from CTE file archive)

Following the transition in leadership in the summer of 2009 from John Richardson to Bill DeLone from the Department of Information Technology & Analytics, AU’s then Provost Scott Bass, who had set a goal to elevate research at AU to bring it to an R2 status, requested that the Center increases its research support efforts by building them into its mission. This also resulted in the name change to CTRL (the Center for Teaching, Research & Learning), and a new mission to “facilitate, support and celebrate excellence in teaching, research, learning, and academic leadership.” To achieve this expanded mission, the Center partnered with the Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Research to deliver a variety of research support programs, such as faculty research panels and training in research technology and methodology. The Center also introduced a new faculty award that highlighted the blending of teaching and research and a Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (SoTL) Award sponsored by former Provost Milton Greenberg. During this time, new faculty orientation was expanded with the AU Entrée Program: a two-year onboarding program for 1st and 2nd year full-time faculty. To further align the Center’s activities with the new focus on research, and following a university-wide reorganization of technology support services, Bill DeLone, in the summer before leaving as Director, oversaw the transfer of the services and staff responsible for the Blackboard support, the Audio-Visual support, and the New Media Center to the University Library. The work in the months preceding this split is forever memorialized in my computer file system in a folder labeled “Divorce.”

When becoming Director in 2011, Naomi Baron from the Department of World Languages and Cultures reframed the Center’s mission as being “American University’s catalyst for inspiring, mentoring, and celebrating faculty in their roles as teachers and researchers.” Under her leadership, the Center expanded research-related programs and initiatives, including the creation of a virtual computer lab and a high-performance computing cluster, the introduction of research consultations, the introduction of Qualtrics for survey research, and the Partners in Writing Program (offering writing groups and writing spaces). It also strengthened its attention to teaching-related programs. These included the creation of a campus-wide syllabus template, a series of teaching resources, a handbook for peer observations, the piloting of the Partners in Teaching Program (an ad hoc mentoring program), and the launch of the Faculty Summer Institute (now known as the May Faculty Workshops). The Center also introduced the Ann Ferren Curriculum Design Award, sponsored by former Interim Provost Ann Ferren. At the same time, new capabilities of emerging instructional technologies paved the way for initiatives such as the Mobile Learning Initiative, collaboration with the University Library on the Open Educational Resources (OER) Initiative, and a growing set of workshops on the use of instructional technology in the classroom.

After Naomi Baron stepped down in 2017, the Center was briefly led by Christine Chin from the School of International Service, who took on the role as Interim Dean of SIS only a month into her tenure as Center Director. The Center underwent a year of big change under Interim Director Jill Klein of the Department of Information Technology and Analytics, with a complete reorganization that involved eliminating all existing staff positions and creating new ones, as well as a complete redesign of the Center’s space in Hurst Hall. At the same time, the Center effectively ceased its student research methodology support program, which, after having been part of the Center’s portfolio since 2002, moved to the Library Research Commons. During this year, the Center introduced three notable new programs—piloting Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) on Culturally Sustaining Classrooms, launching one-on-one teaching consultations, and introducing the Faculty Fellows Program.

After Kiho Kim from the Department of Environmental Science was appointed Director in 2018, the Center greatly expanded its role in AU’s Inclusive Excellence work, including the introduction of Faculty Learning Communities for department chairs and program directors, as well as a variety of faculty programming on inclusive pedagogy. This time also saw the origins of the Course Design Institute, mid-semester feedback services, and support for teaching portfolios. During the 2020 COVID pandemic, the Center played a significant role – partnering with the University Library, Instructional Designers, and many others around campus – in supporting faculty through the transition to fully online teaching within a matter of weeks. This accomplishment, perhaps more than any other in the Center’s history, shows the importance of agility and adaptability to sudden changes around us.

The importance of a nimble Center attuned to the needs of the faculty was once again at the forefront, particularly as we faced challenges such as the emergence of generative AI, the enrollment cliff, and increasing polarization at university campuses.

By the time Kiho Kim stepped down in the summer of 2023, I had been employed at the Center in various roles. During that time, I had experienced one name change, four logo changes, six directors, sixteen academic years, and several rounds of significant transformation, and so it was with gratitude and joy that I accepted the offer to step in as Interim Director. In the two years that followed, the Center was re-envisioned to adopt a faculty-empowered and holistic model of faculty support, encompassing teaching, scholarship, leadership, mentorship, and career development. At the same time, the importance of a nimble Center attuned to the needs of the faculty was once again at the forefront, particularly as we faced challenges such as the emergence of generative AI, the enrollment cliff, and increasing polarization at university campuses and in society writ large. The launch of the Center for Faculty Excellence (CFE) that came out of this re-envisioning also brought back some of the programs lost to the pandemic, such as the Partners in Writing Program, and a reincarnation of the Faculty Corner, which we now call The Third Place. The Center also returned to its roots in another significant way: a renewed connection to the Faculty Senate, with the creation of a Faculty Advisory Committee that serves both as a conduit to the faculty and units, and as a sounding board for ideas for the next chapter of the Center. At its first two meetings in the spring of 2026, the Committee helped select the new Center’s first cohort of Faculty Associates and finalized its new mission:

The Center for Faculty Excellence cultivates opportunities for professional growth and innovation in teaching, scholarship, service, career advancement, and leadership for AU faculty.

This has been an extraordinary journey. I am excited about what comes next as we embark on our second year, equipped with a model that blends shared governance with faculty leading and learning from one another, while expanding our collaborations with partner units around campus and continuing to create opportunities for faculty to connect and build community. The articles published in this first issue of the CFE Beat exemplify the vision of our new Center as one that embraces change as an opportunity for re-imagination.

Author Profile

Anna Olsson is Assistant Vice Provost of the Center for Faculty Excellence. She has worked at the Center (and its predecessors) since 2009 and also holds a term faculty position in SPA’s Department of Government, where she has taught Comparative Politics since 2006. In addition to her work at the Center, she co-chairs AU’s International Faculty & Staff Community Group.