The Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA) has appointed three Hope College faculty members to key roles within a new program focused on enhancing student learning and achievement.

The GLCA has named Dr. Thomas Ludwig, who is the John Dirk Werkman Professor of Psychology, Dr. Joanne Stewart, who is a professor of chemistry, and Dr. Scott VanderStoep, who is a professor of psychology and chairperson of the department, as GLCA Teagle Pedagogy Fellows.

The 20 Fellows were chosen through a selective process of nomination and application.  They are distinguished not just by their knowledge of research on human learning and pedagogical technique, but also by their strong interest in working with faculty colleagues within and across GLCA member colleges to enhance liberal arts teaching and learning.

Teagle Pedagogy Fellows will have key roles in the development of a new consortial program, called the GLCA Lattice for Pedagogical Research and Practice, created with funding from the Teagle Foundation.  The Fellows will engage with interested faculty members on their own campuses and at other GLCA colleges, helping to generate heightened interest and momentum in exploring different modes of pedagogy to enhance student learning and achievement.

The GLCA Lattice project will connect interested faculty on a given campus to a larger consortial community of interest centered on liberal arts teaching and learning.  The Teagle Pedagogy Fellows will help achieve this result in part through a series of campus, regional, and consortial colloquies on pedagogical research and practice.  These events will draw together faculty members from different colleges to compare challenges and consider approaches that hold promise in improving learning in the liberal arts, within and across academic disciplines.

In face-to-face as well as follow-up digital exchanges, Fellows will serve as resources and sounding boards to help other faculty members consider potential approaches to enhance teaching, and in some cases to support formal projects that apply principles from research on learning to the design and implementation of alternative pedagogies.  The dialogue among Fellows and their GLCA colleagues will provide a mutual benefit as faculty members of several campuses work to enrich the state of thinking and exploration in liberal arts pedagogy.

The GLCA’s president, Richard Detweiler, noted that, “Our vision for this pilot program is to establish the foundation for a sustaining GLCA center for pedagogical research and practice.  We are confident that the skills and knowledge our Teagle Pedagogy Fellows bring to this collaborative initiative will help us achieve that goal.”

Founded in 1962, the GLCA is a non-profit organization governed by 13 selective liberal arts colleges in the Midwest, which in addition to Hope include:  Albion, Allegheny, Antioch, DePauw, Denison, Earlham, Kalamazoo, Kenyon, Oberlin, Ohio Wesleyan, Wabash, and Wooster.   Its purpose is to strengthen and extend education in the tradition of the liberal arts and sciences. GLCA often works conjointly with similar associations of liberal arts colleges to enhance the strength and vitality of member institutions.