To understand what the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) does at The University of Texas at Dallas, the first step is to understand what it does not do.
It does not simply place highly regarded teachers in front of a group and anoint their proclamations as gospel, even if students sing their praises.
“Understanding teaching and learning is not understanding who’s good and who’s bad – we don’t do that,” said the CTL director, Dr. Karen Huxtable-Jester, associate provost and professor of instruction in psychology in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS).
“We get people learning from each other and being reflective about what they do, generating evidence of what’s effective instead of just saying, ‘The students seemed like they liked it, so that’s good enough.’ We have to do better than ‘I can see it in their eyes.’”
And CTL does not present that evidence as all-encompassing.
“It’s not best practice as much as it is context-appropriate practices,” Huxtable-Jester added. “What’s going to work in your situation? Because what’s best in somebody else’s situation might not be right for you at all.
“We’re helping people become reflective practitioners who are thinking, ‘Did this work? Did it not work? Why? What do I do differently next time?’ As much as we can, we try to help them document that so they can make evidence-informed decisions based on their own evidence, not just the research evidence, which, of course, is the starting point.”
Those two protocols aptly frame CTL’s mission and focus. Yes, it’s about teaching … and learning.
Huxtable-Jester was named associate director when the CTL was created in 2015 by Dr. Inga H. Musselman, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, while she was Acting Provost. The first director, Dr. Paul F. Diehl, was hired from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he had started a center for teaching and learning after establishing himself as a renowned political science scholar with a specialty in international conflict.
Musselman told attendees at the introductory event, “We’ve been talking over many years about starting a center for teaching and learning at UT Dallas. The vision was for a center steeped in educational philosophy and pedagogy that also incorporates technology and practical instruction.”
The vision lives on with what Dr. Salena Brody, a CTL associate director, calls “pedagogical magic.”
“Part of what we’re doing,” Brody said, “is helping share the great ideas and the magic that people have in their classrooms with the rest of us. We don’t pretend to be the experts on how to do everything right. What we are good at is finding people all across campus and showcasing the great things they’re doing.
“We’re very relational. When we meet a gem on another team, we build on those relationships. We have real relationships with people who are the real deal.”
Huxtable-Jester was named director and associate provost in 2022 and has maintained Diehl’s philosophy of serving different levels of need among faculty, staff, postdoctoral students and graduate students.
“Even though things have changed quite a bit since I’ve taken over, we’re still thinking in terms of multiple-level programming,” she said. “What a senior-level faculty member needs is very different from somebody who is just starting out. Faculty who are just starting out do need things that are very similar to what grad students need, but they’re still different populations.”
Brody likes to call CTL “the little engine that could,” and she and CTL’s other associate director, Dr. Carol Cirulli Lanham MA’09, PhD’11, leave no doubt who the engineer is.
“Karen is just an incredible expert on all things teaching,” Cirulli Lanham said. “She knows every book, every strategy. She’s always an excellent resource.”
Huxtable-Jester also knows how to use her resources.
“Karen is so supportive,” Brody said. “I can’t say enough wonderful things about having a director who says, ‘Yes!’ The bottom line is that if this is going to help support our students and help support our faculty, let’s find a way to do it.”
The trio’s academic credentials inspire similar confidence in what CTL is doing. All three are fellows in The University of Texas System Academy of Distinguished Teachers and have won numerous UT System and UT Dallas teaching awards.
Huxtable-Jester, who joined the UT Dallas faculty in 2000, also won The University of Texas System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award in 2013, was recognized as a Piper Professor by the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation in 2019 and, from BBS, received the Excellence in Teaching Award in 2005 and Seniors’ Choice Award in 2009.
Brody, like Huxtable-Jester a professor of psychology in BBS, earned two major honors in 2022: the UT System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award, the UT Dallas President’s Teaching Excellence Award in Undergraduate Instruction. She also received the Aage Møller Teaching Excellence Award from BBS in 2021.
Cirulli Lanham, a professor of sociology in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences (EPPS), recently was named a Fulbright specialist by the U.S. State Department. She will spend five weeks this fall at Deakin University in Australia working on a project called Co-operative Virtual Learning Across Borders.
She also won the UT Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award in 2021, the EPPS Outstanding Teaching Award for Online Teaching in 2019, the UT Dallas President’s Teaching Excellence Award in Online/Blended Instruction in 2018 and the EPPS Outstanding Faculty Award in 2011, and she even has an award named after her: EPPS began the Carol Cirulli Lanham Online Teaching Award in 2020 and made her the first honoree.
The CTL leaders have something else in common: Their affection for working together is matched only by the joy they find in teaching. It is more than their calling. It’s who they are.
“I love this,” Cirulli Lanham said. “This is my passion.”
That passion is exuded through every CTL event, right down to the creative names.
“I think the beauty of CTL is that it creates space for community among faculty and graduate students and staff who are interested in teaching and learning,” Brody said. “It’s nice to have a physical space together, but it’s also about sending the message over and over again that we are here to support you in doing the thing that you are great at doing.”
Huxtable-Jester’s passion for teaching was noticed years ago, making her CTL roles almost expected. Word got back to her that people were saying. “Karen keeps talking to people about teaching all the time. Maybe she should have an official role.”
She’s still making sure the steady drumbeat of teaching tips reverberates across campus. Her aim is to make UT Dallas a prime example of what Dr. Corbin Campbell uncovered when she wrote Great College Teaching: Where It Happens and How to Foster It Everywhere.
“She found that it’s at those teaching-intensive places,” Huxtable-Jester said. “You can find it, and you certainly can find it here at UT Dallas.”