UW System Cluster for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning History, Structure, Activities

Structure and Activities

The UW System Leadership Site includes a Coordinator (Renee Meyers), office support, a Communication and Project Specialist (Katina Lazarides), an Executive Committee, and an Advisory Committee. The Advisory Committee is comprised of one representative from each of the UW System campuses. The Executive Committee is comprised of the CIPD director (Tony Ciccone, UWM), the OPID director (Lisa Kornetsky, UW System), the SoTL Project Director (Bill Cerbin, LaCrosse) and the Coordinator (Renee Meyers, UW-Milwaukee). Email communication systems have been developed so that the executive committee, the Advisory Committee, the SoTL-grants group, and the virtual communicators on each campus can be in contact easily. In addition, visits by members of the Leadership Site executive committee occur when requested by campuses.

Through a grant from AAHE (written by the LS Coordinator, and matched by OPID), the LS has coordinated a set of SoTL projects that are taking place in three disciplines. Titled the “SoTL in the Disciplines” project, this project brought together faculty from several campuses in three disciplines, English, Communication, and Women’s Studies, to develop and carry out a SoTL research project. In Fall 04, the three groups met in Milwaukee to discuss possible projects. In Spring 05, the groups are working on the projects as pilots (or as complete projects), with the goal to complete the projects by the end of the following year (05-06). It is expected that these projects will result in public (hopefully published) articles or book chapters. Campuses involved in this project come from Oshkosh, Superior, Madison, LaCrosse, Eau Claire, Green Bay, Extension, Parkside, Stevens Point, Milwaukee, and the Colleges. View the Leadership Site organization chart in MSWord or Adobe .pdf.

National, System, and Campus Connections

The UW System SoTL Cluster is connected on at least three organizational levels: national, system, and campus levels.

At the national level, all twelve of the national Clusters (including our Cluster) are connected to both AAHE and Carnegie through conferences, speakers, and websites. Both Carnegie and AAHE sponsor a national conference each year that the Clusters are expected to attend, and where reports of SoTL research within the Clusters are showcased. The UW System Leadership Site is one of these twelve national Clusters. Currently, our involvement with these other clusters includes discussions with representatives from each cluster at national conferences twice a year. We also are sharing blog space with another cluster this year to discuss teaching/learning issues online. In addition, we have access to all of the national Cluster’s SoTL websites.

At the System level, OPID is instrumental in providing funding for SoTL projects on each campus. In addition, it provides funding for the Leadership Site, and its system-wide activities. OPID also works to connect campus SoTL activities to the wider System initiatives and goals. At this System level, the Leadership Site works to connect faculty with interests in SoTL from across the campuses, to provide information to campuses on SoTL initiatives, and to increase awareness of SoTL on campuses when needed.

At the Campus level, each campus has individual members or teams of faculty who are working on SoTL projects. For the past two years (2003-04, 2004-05) each campus has been working on a SoTL project funded from OPID grant monies. Some of these projects include training and involving faculty in SoTL work, engaging in student-faculty SoTL research partnerships, connecting technology with student learning, investigating how critical thinking can be used to promote student learning, and connecting SoTL to the Scholarship of Engagement, among other projects. View the organization chart showing the Leadership Site's relationship to CASTL (Carnegie Academy for Teaching & Learning) MSWord or Adobe .pdf.