This spring, Augustana College welcomed the Center for Engaged Learning, Teaching and Scholarship (CELTS). The center was created as a part of the college’s Bold & Boundless strategic plan and will supersede Augustana’s Center for Faculty and Enrichment (CFE), which is phasing out this semester.
CELTS is aimed to support the professional development of both faculty and staff, providing training to professors on how to best work in classrooms. The CFE has been a part of Augustana for many years, assisting faculty through activities such as a mentoring circle during their first year teaching.
Associate Psychology and Neuroscience Professor J. Austin Williamson served as the director of CFE and said this fall, the center will transition into CELTS to serve all educators on campus. Williamson directed the program while teaching, but he said CELTS will have one full-time faculty member to focus on the center.
“We’ll have different programs for how faculty will learn new ways to teach different things in the classroom,” Williamson said. “Maybe they want to get better at teaching or writing, maybe they want to get their students to participate more or maybe they want to get their students to learn better study strategies.”
In line with Bold & Boundless, Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs Dianna Shandy said CELTS will serve all educators on campus and help align the institution as a whole. She said the college’s strategic plan prides itself on maximizing the potential of individuals on campus, focusing on the continued growth of faculty.
“Plan one of the strategic plans is focused on engaged learning. The second is about maximizing individual potential, so being student-ready, and then the third is on connection through partnership,” Shandy said. “So, just being aligned with the strategic plan, it just helps everyone strongly grow in the same direction.”
On Dec. 5, 2024, Augustana hired Erin Kempker to serve as the director of CELTS. Kempker started on Feb. 3.
Before coming to the college, Kempker spent her entire career as a professor for 16 years at Mississippi University for Women, in Columbus, Mississippi. In her time at Augustana so far, she said she’s had the opportunity to meet with many staff members as well as students.
Kempker said the center was established to better train faculty and staff in the classroom. Many professors may not have received training about how to work in the classroom, but with CELTS, they will now receive that training at Augustana, she said.
“We don’t really think about the fact that faculty, a lot of times, are not trained to teach. They come up through their disciplines, and they are researchers and scholars,” Kempker said. “When you come to a liberal arts campus, they’re from R1 institutions frequently, and the way they were taught is often a lot different than the way we want them to teach on a liberal arts campus.”
