Overview

Boston University seeks applications and nominations for the position of Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL). The Director provides strategic leadership, vision, and management for a vibrant and dynamic Center that partners with faculty, departments, schools/colleges and other offices around campus to improve teaching and learning and foster research-based curricular and pedagogical transformation, including increased adoption of inclusive pedagogies across the University.

As a key leader in Boston University’s expanding teaching and learning ecosystem, the Center for Teaching and Learning “understands teaching as an intellectually stimulating and critical practice, driven by inquiry, experimentation, reflection, and collaboration,” in the words of its mission statement. This young organization offers its next director opportunities to shape a mission and chart new approaches to engaging faculty in research-based practices that will further advance the intellectually challenging, student-centered education Boston University offers students and that can distinguish Boston University’s Center for Teaching and Learning.

The Director reports jointly to the Associate Provost for Digital Learning & Innovation and the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Affairs. Digital Learning & Innovation (DL&I) comprises three units: The Center for Teaching & Learning (CTL), the Digital Education Incubator (DEI), and Educational Technology (EdTech). In addition to collaborating daily with those units within DL&I, the Director of CTL partners closely with the units in Undergraduate Affairs, the Associate Provost for Graduate Affairs, and the Assistant Provost for Academic Assessment to inspire, coordinate, support, and assess pedagogical and curricular development. This will include working with key stakeholders and units to help lead and synthesize the University’s increased commitment to ensuring the full participation of a broad diversity of students, including those historically underrepresented in the academy, those from other countries, those who live with intellectual and/or physical disabilities, those who are first in their families to attend college, those who are from low socioeconomic backgrounds, among others. Further, the CTL has played a major role in the implementation of BU’s first university-wide General Education Program, the BU Hub, which is transforming the undergraduate curriculum both on the Boston campus and at BU’s sites abroad. CTL will continue its key leadership position under the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Affairs in working with the BU Hub team to support faculty in the program’s ongoing implementation (through 2020), and its assessment and evolution.

Responsibilities include:

• Creating a vision for the next phase of the Center’s development and identifying and prioritizing its core initiatives in collaboration with the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Affairs, the Associate Provost for Digital Learning & Innovation, the Deans and faculty of BU’s 18 schools and colleges, and other teaching and learning partners. This would include identifying strategies to engage the expertise of BU’s outstanding faculty to advance teaching and learning on campus, abroad, and online;

• Providing vision, leadership and management for the Center staff of six, a host of collaborations around campus, partnerships with other universities, and a full roster of Center activities;

• Assessing current programs and developing new programs in collaboration with faculty in the schools/colleges and other partners to advance teaching and student learning and measure their effectiveness;

• Continuing to build a central resource of media-rich materials that promote effective, inclusive teaching practices, support faculty innovation, and foster a community of engaged teaching practitioners;

• Significantly advancing inclusive excellence in education with the goal of bolstering the full participation of all students, faculty and staff, in collaboration with key stakeholders and units, including the Associate Provost for Diversity & Inclusion;

• Developing appropriate training in effective teaching for Teaching Fellows and Postdocs, in collaboration with the Associate Provosts for Undergraduate and Graduate Affairs;

• Collaborating with peer directors in the Educational Technology and Digital Education Incubator units to achieve DL&I’s innovation and transformation goals;

• Ensuring the ongoing assessment of instructional innovations and curricular reform in collaboration with the Assistant Provost for Academic Assessment;

• Facilitating the development of excellent proposals for external grants for research and curricular/pedagogical innovations, and overseeing their administration.

Qualifications

The successful candidate will have:

• Ph.D./Ed.D. and a minimum of 8 years of relevant academic experience including a leadership role, preferably within a center for teaching and learning;

• Thorough knowledge of evidence-based teaching practices and emerging trends in pedagogy and educational technology;

• A record of success working with faculty at all levels, across all disciplines, and, preferably, in all modes of instruction from face-to-face to hybrid to online;

• Demonstrated leadership and expertise in developing initiatives to foster inclusive excellence;

• Excellent inter-personal skills and a talent for working well with partners to inform and advance their goals for teaching and learning;

• Experience fostering and sustaining learning communities to advance curricular and pedagogical experimentation and the sharing of effective teaching practices;

• An ability to work proactively and to communicate and coordinate well with other units;

• Experience creating change that is sustainable.

Compensation

Boston University will provide a competitive compensation and benefits package appropriate for a position of this scope, stature, and level of responsibility.

The University

Boston University, a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), is one of the leading private research and teaching institutions in the world, with two primary campuses in the heart of Boston and programs around the globe. Chartered in 1869, the University is home to more than 34,000 students from over 130 countries, 375,000 living alumni, 10,000 faculty and staff, and 17 schools and colleges.

From its inception, Boston University has been committed to access and inclusion, admitting students of all races, religions, and genders. Since that time, the University has prided itself on the heterogeneity of its constituents as a primary means by which we define our collective excellence, as reflected in both our mission statement and diversity statement. Currently, BU’s student body is 26 percent international, 13 percent Black or African American and Hispanic or Latino, and 13 percent Asian-American. With renewed commitment to ensuring that a multiplicity of people are able to enter the University as full, valued, and respected participants, “We seek to cultivate an atmosphere of respect for individual differences...” in all of our endeavors, teaching and learning primary among them.

Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of the Boston area’s largest employers. The Charles River Campus, the university’s main campus, is located along one of the busiest thoroughfares in the City of Boston, and the city long has been considered one of the United States’ best cities for quality of life, fitness, and jobs. The growth of BU over the last forty years is profound, as it has evolved from a regional university with a focus on undergraduate and professional education, to an internationally-recognized, residential research university that performed more than $400 million of sponsored research last year.

Applications

Interested candidates’ applications, consisting of a cover letter, resume, and list of references should be submitted through Boston University’s Human Resources web site at https://www.bu.edu/hr/careers/. Review of applications will begin in April 2019 and continue until the position is filled. References will be contacted at the finalist stage of interviews.

Boston University is committed to fostering a diverse university community within a supportive and respectful environment. We believe that diversity is essential to our success as a leading research university with a global reach and that it is an integral component of excellence.

Boston University prohibits discrimination against any individual on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, or because of marital, parental, or veteran status. Boston University strongly encourages minority group members, veterans, disabled individuals, and women to apply for positions for which they are qualified and that are of interest to them.