Teaching Centers Aren’t Dumping Grounds

Since the establishment of the first teaching and learning center in 1962, growth of similarly dedicated centers on university campuses has been exponential. Recent research suggests there are more than 1,200 such centers, following a variety of naming conventions and with responsibilities differing depending on the academic climate and culture of the institution.

Despite these differences, it’s clear that most centers have the potential to make positive, long-lasting changes to teaching and learning: In fact, heading into the latter half of the 2010s, teaching and learning centers were at a reputational high. They weren’t only gaining more credibility as assets for teaching excellence, but were becoming “an integral component” in bringing about change across different areas of the university.

The expansion of centers was so impressive that many centralized entities branched off into subsidiaries, with targeted coaching and initiatives for specific schools. Experts on pedagogy, curriculum and technology at these centers became important partners in making decisions that impacted the classroom, helping to improve the faculty and student experience.

In March 2020, however, the world changed. And so did the role of many people working in teaching and learning centers. When the pandemic hit, the best-laid plans of teaching and learning centers went out the window. Instead of focusing on strategy and innovation, it was a fire hose of emergency implementation that left teaching and learning center staff viewed more as customer service representatives than as experts in education.

Four years later, some centers are still playing catch-up. Some teaching and learning center staff are still trying to regain their footing as proactive planners instead of members of a retroactive cleanup crew. Some have lost their identity all together and are an amalgamation of what everyone else tells them they are. It’s time to diagnose the issues and hit the reset button.

The Issues

• “Solutionitis” is a sickness. If you’ve never contracted “solutionitis,” consider yourself fortunate. It’s a terrible disease plaguing higher education, and it’s contagious. Solutionitis is when one jumps to a solution (a tactic) before understanding the problem. So often, solutions are handed down to teaching and learning center staff to act upon without consultation from those who know the field best.

Teaching is both an art and a science. Doing it well means using research to inform decisions that impact faculty and students—which is what those working at teaching and learning centers know how to do. By contrast, many leaders who hand down directives to center staff have no formal teaching education, which can be frustrating to those who are expected to do the work but had no say in the work’s inception.

A related issue is the focus on more instead of on effectiveness and efficiency. Spoiler: The answer to something not working isn’t to do more of it, or to create different versions of what didn’t work the first time. Yet there is a growing trend of asking teaching and learning centers to create more workshops, more one-pagers or more training when attendance was dismal for initial sessions, or when the original documents went untouched.

• Catastrophic cleanups. “Send it to [insert name of the teaching and learning center here]” is a common refrain from higher education leaders who don’t know what to do with a problem, want to delegate the problem, or don’t want the person actually responsible for the problem to have to worry about it and/or thinks that person has better things to do. And these issues to clean up are often sent at the last minute and expected to be completed yesterday. They may even be unrelated to the core responsibilities of teaching experts.

What leadership doesn’t realize, however, is that every time this happens, it perpetuates a narrative that a teaching and learning center is a dumping ground and communicates a lack of respect for the jobs the center staff are supposed to do.

While teaching and learning center staff may be ready to help, that doesn’t always mean they feel good about the help they are providing, especially if it involves grunt work. More importantly, with many centers having bandwidth issues already, having staff use their limited time and energy on tasks that someone else didn’t prioritize takes away from the work of proactive planning for teaching and learning success.

• A need to replenish respect. Higher education job platforms are filled with openings at teaching and learning centers across the country. According to Mary C. Wright’s Centers for Teaching and Learning: The New Landscape in Higher Education (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023), a lack of strategy, a failure to integrate centers into the pursuit of larger institutional goals and a lack of support from the top are just some of the reasons why teaching and learning centers may not be reaching their potential or keeping talent. All these issues point to a lack of respect for the expertise and skill levels of teaching and learning center staff.

Many teaching and learning scholars have Ph.D.s. or Ed.D.s. They are published authors and sought-after conference speakers. They are award-winning faculty directors or chairs. They should not be perceived as customer service reps, information technology help desk operators, spreadsheet and PowerPoint gurus, or personal assistants to faculty or other staff members.

How to Hit the Reset Button

• View teaching as a scholarly activity. No matter if the institution is a research-based one, if its teaching ranks are filled with adjuncts, professors of practice or tenured faculty, teaching should be viewed as a top priority and an exercise in continuous improvement. If a university holds classes, there needs to be emphasis on learning how to teach well. Otherwise, those working in centers aren’t going to be used to their potential, nor will their skill sets be fully valued.

Deans, provosts and presidents need to constantly encourage buy-in, participation and engagement with teaching and learning centers. They need to share information about workshops, coaching opportunities and training, and set expectations with faculty, staff and administrators that working with center staff isn’t wholly optional. Instead, it should be expected that they collaborate with experts on the aspects of their jobs that involve teaching and learning on an ongoing basis, with accountability for meeting certain touch points and milestones.

Deans, provosts and presidents of universities also should set the tone for how faculty and other staff members should work with center staff. They need to set positive examples for everyone else, encouraging faculty and staff to work with their teaching and learning center colleagues in meaningful ways befitting of their experience and expertise—e.g., including them in conversations about curriculum reviews and new initiatives around digital transformation of the classroom—rather than adjacent ways that take staff away from their core purpose (see the aforementioned mention of IT support, PowerPoint gurus, etc.).

Additionally, deans, provosts and presidents can elevate the research publications, speaking engagements and media articles by and about those at teaching and learning centers. The contributions of these pedagogical leaders should not be afterthoughts. And promoting the research contributions of those responsible for teaching and learning is a great way for prospective students to gain insight into how instruction is valued and to encourage engagement with the teaching and learning center by faculty.

• Autonomy to be change agents. Just as professors of different fields are given high regard for their knowledge in specific areas (and are not micromanaged in their classrooms), center staff should be given the same leeway to determine programming and offer suggestions and counsel without jumping through hoops to get funding and approvals, or having to navigate the subjective opinions of those who are not similarly trained. To improve teaching and learning, center staff need to feel empowered to take reasonable risks, make important decisions and do meaningful work. Further, they need to feel valued and regarded for what they do best, which comes from recognition, consultation and elevation.
• Provide a seat at the table. Pedagogical and educational technology experts should be invited to participate in any meetings that touch curriculum or educator development. Taking this one step further, leaders of teaching and learning centers should be leading discussions around diversity, equity, inclusion and justice practices; trauma-informed teaching; curriculum design; course evaluations; faculty observations; curriculum mapping; syllabi review; and technology adoption and integration (to name a few areas). If involving center staff isn’t possible at the onset, they should be consulted before any final decisions are made.

Also, it’s important to note that many experts in teaching and learning are not naturally yes people. They are why people. This can be aggravating for higher education leaders who want to execute first, think later. (Or those with egos who don’t necessarily like to hear the word “no.”) Speaking generally, pedagogical experts are analytical creatures who want to do it right, not necessarily fast (though they are usually speedy in getting the work done). Whenever possible, plan early and often for initiatives that involve teaching and learning center colleagues.

• Redirect remediation. Universities should have designated departments that handle heavy administrative tasks or tech support. And center directors should feel empowered to push back or decline work that takes staff away from the jobs they were hired to do.

To ensure centers are not constantly working on ad hoc items, center directors should discuss staff roles with appropriate senior leaders, ask about priorities involving educator development and curriculum, and put together a strategic plan at the start of every academic year (with input from their teams) to present to key stakeholders. Plans should include collaborative initiatives, accountability and measurement structures, and clean lines delineating who is responsible for what within the plan.

Finally, center directors should share the benefits of the plan in presentations targeted at specific audiences, while allowing for flexibility and potential changes in direction. When interdisciplinary-oriented people understand the end goal—and the path to achieve it—there is less room for ambiguity and misperception along the way.

Implementing these recommendations will help teaching and learning centers reach their full potential. By treating teaching and learning center staff as the true experts that they are, the result will be better trained faculty, more satisfied students, more external recognition for academic programming and less turnover of center staff.