Centering Centers, Episode 71

In this episode of Centering Centers, we talk with Anna Santucci (University of Virginia), Barbara Bird (Ohio Wesleyan University), and Jayln Parker (Colorado Technical University) about their roles in launching and leading the new POD Perspectives Conference Reporters initiative. Anna, who guided the transition from POD Speaks! to POD Perspectives, shares the vision behind reimagining this publication as a platform for multiple voices in educational development. Barb reflects on serving as Lead Reporter for a team of five at the 2024 POD Conference, while Jayln describes her first POD experience as a Reporter and how it helped her find belonging in the field. Together, they highlight how the initiative both amplifies conference insights for broader audiences and creates meaningful entry points for new and seasoned members alike.

• Explore the POD Perspectives page to read the most recent Conference Reporters special edition.

• Learn about opportunities to contribute to POD Perspectives—anyone can sign up to be a reviewer and/or submit a proposal for a future paper.

• Keep an eye on the page for the upcoming call for 2025 Conference Reporters (to be posted soon).

Anna Santucci

• Associate Professor and Associate Director, Center for Teaching Excellence, University of Virginia

• Senior Lecturer, Teaching and Learning Enhancement, Centre for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL), University College Cork, Ireland

Anna has very recently joined the University of Virginia’s Center for Teaching Excellence. Her international collaborations and research interests include intercultural teaching and learning, participatory arts pedagogies, trans-disciplinarity, and educational development for higher education transformation grounded in principles of love, hope, equity, justice, reflection, relational co-creation, and dialogue.

Barbara Bird, PhD, is Director of Teaching, Learning, and Innovation at Ohio Wesleyan University. She is the inaugural Director of Teaching, Learning, and Innovation at OWU. In the newly endowed position, Bird oversees the strategic design and implementation of faculty support programs, grants, and services on teaching effectiveness, engaged learning, and curricular innovation at Ohio Wesleyan.  At the 2024 POD Conference, she served as Lead Reporter for a team of five POD journalists.

Jayln Parker (she/her), MA Learning Sciences, is a Faculty Development Facilitator in the Teaching & Learning Center at Colorado Technical University, where she designs and implements professional development programs that advance evidence-based practices, foster inclusive teaching, and support faculty in their scholarly and professional growth. Her interests include advancement of faculty scholarship, writing, and exploring the role of podcasts in the scholarship of teaching and learning. Jayln attended her first POD Conference in 2024, serving as a POD Reporter.

Transcript of the Episode

This episode of Centering Centers explores how educational developers are responding to the rise of generative AI in higher education. The conversation touches on faculty creativity, student learning, ethical tensions, and the importance of building AI literacy across disciplines. It’s a thoughtful look at how AI is reshaping teaching, learning, and the work of educational development itself.

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What happens when we stop focusing on grades and start focusing on learning? In this episode of Centering Centers, we explore the practice of ungrading in higher education. Our guests reflect on how traditional grading systems can undermine motivation and share insights into alternatives like specifications grading, feedback-centered approaches, and project-based learning. Along the way, they discuss the challenges and opportunities of shifting mindsets and systems toward more meaningful, learner-driven education.

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This episode explores the transition from faculty member to educational developer, highlighting how past experiences as students and instructors shape approaches to faculty support. They share insights into the challenges of course design, the value of community, and the ongoing learning required in their new roles. The conversation emphasizes how educational development work can help faculty reconnect with the purpose and joy of teaching.

This episode is part of our series elevating the voices of New Educational Developers. It was recorded in July, 2024 as part of the Institute for New Educational Developers hosted by Temple University.

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Today’s episode features Elizabeth Dickens (University of Virginia) and Nausheen Shafiq (University of British Columbia) in discussion of a manuscript on curriculum developers in educational development, which is under review at To Improve the Academy. 

This is the fifth episode of the partnership between To Improve the Academy 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 regular conversations with our authors, reviewers, editorial team, and board members.

Visit us at TIA: https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/tia/

Today’s episode was co-hosted by Liz Norelland Megan Robertson, who serve as co-editors of To Improve the Academy. It was recorded during the “Making Change, Taking Space” virtual gathering organized by disabled educational developers in June 2024.

Today’s episode features Bill Pilny, Benjamin Brock, and Stephanie Laggini Fiore in discussion of their recent To Improve the Academy article, “Impacts of campus disruption on educational developers’ role-identity and teamwork.” The authors apply the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (or DSMRI) to the work of educational developers during the disruption of COVID-19 on our campuses. They present case studies of educational developers during that time and distill themes across the cases. 

This is the fourth episode of the partnership between To Improve the Academy 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 regular conversations with our authors, reviewers, editorial team, and board members.

Visit us at TIA: https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/tia/

And the article we discuss today at: https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/tia/article/id/4263/

Today’s episode was hosted by Liz Norell, associate director of instructional support at the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at the University of Mississippi. Liz is co-editor-in-chief of To Improve the Academy, along with Megan Robertson (Simon Fraser University) and four assistant editors: Ebony Aya (Macalester College), Anna Bostick Flaming (University of Iowa), Will Hennessy (Algonquin College), and Jessi Hill (Worcester Polytechnic Institute).

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Dr. Kim Case, Senior Advisor for Organizational Culture to VCU's Chief Diversity Officer and Vice President for Inclusive Excellence. Dr. Case is a tenured professor of psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University and previously served as VCU's inaugural Director of Faculty Success in the Office of the Provost. Dr. Case’s work blends her roles as a social justice educator, faculty developer, and mentor with a passion for inclusive pedagogy and anti-racism training. She’s also the author of several books on teaching about privilege and intersectionality. In this interview, she shares her insights on how social justice scholars navigate and transform academia.

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Dr. Liza Bolitzer is an experienced researcher, teacher and project manager dedicated to advancing teaching and learning in higher education. She uses qualitative methods to study how college faculty, institutional leaders, and higher education professionals can advance college students' academic learning. She has shared her work in Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, the Review of Higher Education, the Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice and The Journal of Faculty Development.

As an Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership at Kean University, she teaches graduate level courses on qualitative methods and educational leadership and collaborates with her faculty colleagues on advancing support for doctoral students.

Adrianna Kezar is the Dean’s Professor of Leadership, Wilbur-Kieffer Professor of Higher Education and Director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California. Dr. Kezar holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in higher education administration from the University of Michigan and a B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles. She joined the faculty at USC in 2003 after serving at the University of Maryland and George Washington University as a faculty member.

Dr. Kezar is a national expert of change and leadership in higher education and her research agenda explores the change process in higher education institutions and the role of leadership in creating change. Adrianna’s change and leadership research has been used by government agencies, accreditation bodies, foundations, state systems, consortium, and individual campuses to forward change agendas and initiatives and me leadership research has been used to design leadership development among national associations, consortium of colleges, and campus-based leadership programs. She also regularly consults for campuses and national organizations related to her work on diversity/equity/inclusion, non-tenure track faculty, STEM reform, collaboration, and governance. She is an international expert on the changing faculty and she directs the Pullias Center’s Delphi Project on the Changing faculty and Student Success.

She is regularly quoted in the media related to her research including: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today, The Atlantic, PBS, NPR (national and local stations), Al-Jazerra, Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, among others. Kezar is a national expert on change, governance and leadership in higher education.

Dr. Kezar is well published with 25 books/monographs, more than 130 journal articles, and over 100 book chapters and reports. Recent books include: Shared Leadership in higher Education: Responding to a Changing Environment (2021) (Stylus Press); The Gig Academy (2019) (Johns Hopkins Press), and Administration for Social Justice and Equity (2019) (Routledge).

She has acquired over $22 million dollars in grant funding and has worked on grant-funded projects exceeding $35 million dollars on a variety of projects to fundamentally improve higher education.  She is currently principal Investigator for the PASS Project: A mixed methods study of a comprehensive college transition and success program for low income students funded by The Buffett Foundation.

She is an AERA fellow and has received national awards for her editorial leadership of the ASHE-ERIC report series from ASHE, for developing a leadership development program for women in higher education from ACE, and for her commitment to service learning from the National Society for Experiential Learning.

Transcript

Today’s episode features Jane Hammons (The Ohio State University), who talks about her recent To Improve the Academyarticle, “Academic librarians as educational developers: Overview, case study, and discussion.” An academic librarian who offers faculty-facing information literacy workshops, Hammons argues that educational developers may have untapped allies in instructional librarians. Her article offers an example of one such partnership and a robust discussion of how identity can impact how educational developers and librarians conceptualize these partnerships.

This is the third episode of the partnership between To Improve the Academy 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 regular conversations with our authors, reviewers, editorial team, and board members.

Visit us at TIA: https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/tia/

And the article we discuss today at: https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/tia/article/id/4263/

Today’s episode was hosted by Liz Norell, associate director of instructional support at the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at the University of Mississippi. Liz is co-editor-in-chief of To Improve the Academy, along with Megan Robertson (Simon Fraser University) and four assistant editors: Ebony Aya (Macalester College), Anna Bostick Flaming (University of Iowa), Will Hennessy (Algonquin College), and Jessi Hill (Worcester Polytechnic Institute).

Transcript