UW-Stevens Point
Professor of History 
Wisconsin Teaching Fellow, 2012-2013
Wisconsin Teaching Scholar, 2016-2017
Co-Director, Wisconsin Teaching Fellows & Scholars, 2021-2026
Embodying Hope, Play, and Connection!: My SoTL Journey and WTFS
As I reflect on SoTL in my educator career, I am transported to my childhood and my first understandings about the power of teachers and the process of learning. My desire to teach and to employ SoTL as a practice that speaks to global social justice stems originally from my upbringing in an economically impoverished area in the south suburbs of Chicago, IL. If new questions in “equity-minded SoTL” include asking “what’s your story,” “how does context matter,” and “why SoTL,” then the narrative of my journey to and through SoTL begins in this time and place. Infamous for ongoing racial tensions, gang and drug violence, corruption, four times the state rate for violent crimes especially against women, and several contaminated EPA Superfund Sites next to schools and playgrounds, this place taught me about the life-changing role of teachers and the gift of learning as an embodiment of hope. Although there were times that I was acutely aware of the realities in my learning environment, such as losing my sixth-grade classmate to gun violence, most of the time learning provided a safe haven, an escape, a chance to imagine a different future. My second-grade teacher, Ms. D. Jackson, was the first one I can remember saying that learning is about changing our minds, choosing a different path, taking new actions if we wanted different results. Ultimately, I believe I am drawn to the work of SoTL as a way to reach students where they are and to empower them to employ learning for their own transformative journeys.
Unfortunately, like many of us who received degrees from research institutions, I did not emerge from graduate school fully equipped with a solid grasp on evidence-based best practices in teaching and learning. After 10+ years of hearing that “the point of a discipline is to discipline,” my recently Ph.D.’d self struggled with a deep case of imposter syndrome. Eventually, I worked to transform my insecurities and self-doubt into a rally cry for challenging the conventions of my academic disciplines by placing an authentic sense of care for students at the center of my approach to teaching. OPID’s WTFS Program played a crucial role in providing me with not only the tools and techniques for how to develop my own “signature pedagogy” based on embodied learning and feminist praxis, but most importantly a community of like-minded SoTL scholars with whom I felt seen, nourished, and connected! When I first decided to apply to be a Fellow for 2012-2013, I was a new mom still not sure I belonged in a History Department, uneasy about my tenure and promotion status, and at times crying in my office while discreetly pumping breastmilk and balancing the pressures of a 4/4 teaching load. I longed for some sort of professional development that could help me embrace and indeed actually enjoy my choice of working at a teaching heavy (i.e., not necessarily teaching centered) small state school instead of regretting that I did not accept job offers at well-funded liberal arts schools or even at a R1 institution. Little did I know WTFS would prove to be exactly what I needed at precisely the right moment in my career and life!
WTFS as my gateway to SoTL became a window into a new world of possibilities both personally and professionally that included new career moves, international travel opportunities, heartwarming partnerships, close-knit friendships, and a whirlwind of dreams and imaginings that now play a major part in helping me feel fulfilled! My first SoTL project as a WTFS Fellow proposed to investigate embodied learning as a gendered intervention in the World History classroom. Like many tenure-track History jobs for “non-Western” specialists at the time, my position required me to teach World History as a standard general education survey. But I found myself frustrated and frankly uncomfortable with the available textbook materials as well as the “grand narratives” approach to this course. The WTFS application in 2011 asked participants to pose a specific SoTL research question based on Randy Bass (1999) and his ideas on identifying a “teaching problem” as the start of a SoTL inquiry. My initial question echoed the broader struggle of feminist historians: “is it merely enough to talk more about individual women in the past or should the study of women and gender change fundamentally how we ‘do’ and thus teach History?”
I joined my first Faculty College (2012) at Richland Center with great excitement and openness to learn from experts within the UW System and beyond. I met the amazing WTFS Co-Directors Cyndi Kernahan and Aeron Haynie who would become my mentors for this year and for so much more. It was their enthusiasm, guidance, and encouragement that would lead me to apply for the Co-Directorship later in my career, a move that altered and enriched my life in previously unimaginable ways! I also met my WTFS cohort, which included Katia Levintova of UW-Green Bay, a simply incredible thought partner, positive energy force, and motivator. As a result of our time in WTFS, she became an important outside reviewer for my promotion process, an editor of a SoTL volume that published my research (Staudinger and Levintova eds. 2018), and a co-collaborator on a multi-institutional study on inequitable gender dynamics within the field of SoTL (Barske et al. 2020).
Faculty College also introduced me to a host of outstanding educators and researchers! I was honored to attend highly impactful workshops by David Voelker, Regan Gurung, and Suzanne Burgoyne. Burgoyne’s interactive theatre-based movement workshop offered me concrete examples of how I might implement embodied learning practices as a meaningful form of “play” in a History classroom. And the evening performance by the UW Madison First Wave Hip Hop and Urban Artists scholarship students inspired me to try new embodied ways for students to explore intersectional identities and to develop cultural and historical empathy.
Returning to my campus, my WTFS project granted me permission to break from the standard “sage on the stage” model to embrace “uncoverage” of historical thinking and multiple perspectives (Calder 2006). Embarking on a journey of SoTL research that questioned disciplinary assumptions and epistemological ways of knowing helped to liberate me from an oppressive sense of obligation to “cover” the dominant Eurocentric androcentric narratives of World History. From Burgoyne’s workshop, I adapted theatre techniques such as establishing shared guidelines of interaction at the beginning of the course as well as strategies such as the “Columbian Hypnosis” and “Image Theatre/Tableau” from Augusto Boal (2002). These movement techniques represent postcolonial interventions applicable to several case study examples in World History, but also as a means for exploring the “signature pedagogy” of gender studies that includes a focus on “participatory learning, validation of personal experiences,” and “attention to affect” (Hassel and Nelson 2012, p. 145-146).
Embedding feminist praxis in my pedagogy also served as an empowering way to reconcile the tensions I felt between my content research and my teaching especially at the 100 level. Why couldn’t I teach like I researched? Returning from a recent research trip to Okinawa, Japan, the summer before my first WTFS experience, I recall feeling frustrated that my research and teaching personas felt disjointed, disconnected. On the ground in Okinawa, I am deeply embedded in my ethnographic fieldwork serving as a participant observer who must earn her place by learning, playing, or literally dancing alongside her informants (Barske 2003; 2010; 2015). SoTL challenged me to apply this same approach to how I perceive learning and the role of a teacher—maybe my role should be to learn alongside my students as co-conspirators, to play with them, to help them choreograph the embodied actions that allow them to make sense of their contemporary worlds by applying historical and cultural empathy to other times and places?
My second experience with WTFS as a Scholar (2016-2017), afforded me the opportunity to explore the high-impact practice of “Global Learning” in a First Year Seminar designed to excite students about studying Japan. I benefitted immensely once again from the support and direction of WTFS Co-Directors Cyndi Kernahan and David Voelker who both encouraged me to seek “wise interventions” (Walton 2014) to foster growth versus fixed mindset actions in the classroom. My SoTL project utilized “growth mindset” activities to help students feel more comfortable and open to global learning experiences.
Inspired by the idea of bringing my research to teaching and working alongside students to promote Japanese studies, the project linked growth mindset and global learning to a student-led community-based project. The students hosted an international film screening of the Japanese anime film From Up On Poppy Hill (2011) set in post-WWII Yokohama, Japan. The film grapples with the complex realities of wartime legacies that linger as the country strives to rebound and rebuild in preparation for the 1964 Olympics. Students conducted original archival research, created culturally appropriate flyers and posters to advertise the event, produced tri-fold brochures contextualizing the film historically within modern Japan, and served as ambassadors hosting the event free for the campus and broader community. In addition to building community, students articulated sentiments that encapsulated the very point of “why” I seek to embed evidence-based interventions into my teaching; one wrote “by embracing a growth mindset, we are able to become more than we thought we were.”
As a result of my second WTFS experience, I sought additional professionalization training and opportunities to accept new leadership roles on my campus and beyond. I became certified as a Laughter Yoga Leader by the international organization founded by Dr. Madan Kataria (2020) of Mumbai. I completed Level 1 of Spring Forest Qigong, a program created by the renowned teacher Chun-yi Lin (2019). Lin’s work draws from his childhood surviving China’s Cultural Revolution, which provided him with powerful first-hand examples of how we all possess the capacity to become healers for ourselves and others.
Based on my SoTL work, I also incorporated embodied practices as a faculty leader and facilitator. I became Chair of the General Education Committee, historically a contentious shared governance group that decides general education requirements, vets new course proposals, and assesses the program as a whole. As an extension of this role, I served as a representative to the Higher Learning Commission during UWSP’s accreditation renewal process and as a co-chair of the strategic planning group focused on “enhancing the learning environment and experience.” While leading the campus through a difficult curricular revision, I hosted summer workshops where we engaged with SoTL literature on high-impact practices to ground our ideas in evidence-based research. I also opened every session and our regular standing committee with embodied moments of breathing, stretching, laughter, or qigong movements. When I received an award for Excellence in Service, my colleagues commented that the use of these SoTL-based techniques altered the tone, meaning, and consensus-building potential of our work together!
I continued to integrate a SoTL research agenda as a key component of my educator career, which helped to secure significant funding for me to return to Okinawa, Japan. Sadly, as the COVID-19 pandemic restricted travel to Japan, my trip for the Summer of 2020 was cancelled and the funding was pulled indefinitely. At the same time, I faced new challenges in my professional and personal worlds. Having lost one parent just before the pandemic, I became the primary caregiver to an aging disabled parent who came to live with my family. While we all struggled to balance the new expectations of the pandemic world, I asked myself daily: how am I going to juggle teaching online, helping my third grader make-up for content lost via e-learning, and find the energy/patience to care for a parent with memory issues without losing my own mind? It was from within this particular context that I once again sought solace in the SoTL world and decided to apply for the WTFS Humanities Co-Director position.
The first months in this new position were marked by ever emerging changes and continual pivoting to move all WTFS signature programming online. But I realized quite quickly that the real joy of this job, the joy that would pull me through and rescue me from the socio-cultural malaise of professional isolation, was the chance to collaborate with my Co-Director Heather Pelzel (UW Whitewater) under the careful support of our mentor OPID Director Fay Akindes (UW System)! I cannot express in words how much these two incredible humans have enriched, enhanced, and in ways saved my life! At a time when we were all longing for connection, Heather and Fay became the rays of light that raised me up and helped me to imagine, dream, and hope for the possibility of new futures.
Having never met in person, Heather and I jumped into developing a working process and relationship that would allow us to connect virtually in meaningful and substantial ways with WTFS participants and each other. We cultivated “mindful moments” of embodied practices to open and conclude all of our virtual interactions. I shared adaptations of my techniques and Heather showed her true colors as a “biologist with soul” who seems always ready with poems in her pocket, grounding body scan activities, or soothing guided meditations. And when we all finally met in person for Winter Institute 2022, it was like a family reunion—you could feel the energy and excitement in the group as the 2020-2022 WTFS cohort finally engaged face-to-face.
In this cohort, I enjoyed working with accomplished SoTL scholars such as Nicholle Schuelke (UW Superior), Jessica Van Slooten (UW Green Bay), and Sarah Riforgiate (UW Milwaukee). Additionally, I developed a special bond with fellow historian Andrey Ivanov (UW Platteville) whose SoTL project necessarily became more about sharing with students in the U.S. and abroad the realities of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. He wanted them to understand the context behind the harrowing tale of relocating his parents to Wisconsin as they were forced to flee their family home in Kyiv. This cohort was truly something special that we cherished—and we closed down a bar or two in Madison, WI just longing for more time to share our stories and to connect as humans!
Once Heather and I collaborated in person, like two dancers finding the partner with whom you want to choreograph new steps, we embarked on a journey of bringing our style to a signature program that was already well-established nationally and recognized internationally as a unique SoTL training ground. Based on input from the OPID Advisory Council subcommittees, we were charged with infusing an “equity-minded” lens into the WTFS program and resulting SoTL projects. This charge pushed us to consider all aspects of what it might mean to embed equity at each step in the process, product, and performance of a SoTL project. With the help of former WTFS Co-Directors such as Nancy Chick, we began questioning every level of our understanding of SoTL and how equity could not be a simple add and stir “extra,” it would have to change the very nature of the field. For us and our WTFSers, it changes the kinds of SoTL questions we ask, the data we seek, the methods of gathering said data, the way we include students as collaborators, how we analyze results, the way we “go public,” and once again how we emphasize “why” we SoTL!
Well at this stage in my narrative, I must quote my grandmother, a gas brazer who served in the Women’s Auxiliary Corps during WWII, “to make a long story short…,” Heather and I have embraced this charge and made it our own. We were inspired immensely by Dr. Lisa Brock to explore how we could link equity-minded SoTL to broader social justice work. We leapt at the rare chance to engage in professional development together by attending the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network in Seattle, WA (2022), where we were inspired by teacher scholars such as Bryan Dewsbury (2017; 2020) and Mays Imad (2020; 2024). We brought back to our program ideas for how to infuse social justice themes through activities such as “hope scrolls” as a counter action to “doom scrolling.” We presented on our original collaborative techniques for facilitating equity-minded SoTL trainings at the ISSOTL Conference in Utrecht, Netherlands (2023), and French Lick, IN (2024), at POD in Chicago (2024), and at the international Improving University Teaching conference in Milwaukee (2024). And now we have our eyes set on presenting at ISSOTL 2025 in Aotearoa (NZ) and maybe someday co-editing our own volume of WTFS equity-minded SoTL projects (fingers crossed).
At the same time as we reach internationally, back home in the Universities of Wisconsin System, we became the unofficial “camp counselors” at Faculty College, now held at Elkhart Lake, WI, for instructors to retreat, relax, and rejuvenate! This year’s focus on celebrating 25 years of SoTL will offer us a chance to commemorate all of the amazing contributions to the larger field that started on our local campuses. And we will be ready with more fireside games, craft boxes full of motivational surprises, and collaborative “pedagogy of play” activities for university teams to connect and play together! As we prepare to hand over the torch to new WTFS Co-Directors, I am simply “whelmed” with emotions about how much this program, the field of SoTL, and most importantly the people I have met mean to me! There is something magical about it, which I might call inexplicable, but Heather says: “Magic does not just happen–it takes witches with good spells!” So, on that note, I end with a “thank you” toast to 25 years and to everyone connected with OPID, WTFS, and SoTL within Wisconsin and beyond. I invite you all to imagine Heather and me at the top of the Eiffel Tower (en route to ISSOTL in Utrecht of course), holding glasses of champagne, me waxing teary-eyed and toasting “to love, to life, to friendship,” and the biologist with soul, still a pragmatist, adding “and to SoTL!” It is SoTL after all that brought us all together, and SoTL that gives me hope for a lifetime of learning through connections and play!
Works Cited (by other authors):
Bass, Randy. 1999. “The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: What’s the Problem?” Inventio 1(1) February: p. 1-10.
Boal, Augusto. 2002. Games for Actors and Non-Actors. 2nd edition. London: Routledge.
Dewsbury, Bryan M. 2017. “Context Determines Strategies for ‘Activating’ the Inclusive Classroom.” Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education 18 (3).
Dewsbury, Bryan M. 2020. “A Chance at Birth: An Academic Development Activity to Promote Deep Reflection on Social Inequities.” Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education 21 (1).
Hassel, Holly and Nelson, Nerissa. 2012. “A Signature Feminist Pedagogy. Connection and Transformation in Women’s Studies.” In Chick, Nancy L., Aeron Haynie, and Regan A. R. Gurung eds. Exploring More Signature Pedagogies : Approaches to Teaching Disciplinary Habits of Mind. Sterling, VA.: Stylus Publishers.
Imad, Mays. 2020. “10 Leadership Strategies in Times of Uncertainty.” Women in Higher Education 29 (5): 9–15.
Imad, Mays. 2024. “Intersections of Trauma: War, Systemic Racism, and Higher Education.” Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning 56 (1): 31–37.
Kataria, Madan. 2018. Laughter Yoga : Daily Practices for Health and Happiness. New York: Penguin Books.
Lin, Chunyi. 2019. Head-to-Toe Healing : Your Body’s Repair Manual. Eden Prairie, MN: Spring Forest Qigong.
Staudinger, Alison Kathryn and Ekaterina M. Levintova, eds. 2018. Gender in the Political Science Classroom. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.
Suzuki, Toshio, Hayao Miyazaki, Keiko Niwa, Geoffrey Wexler, Gillian Anderson, Sarah Bolger, Beau Bridges, et al. 2011. From up on Poppy Hill. Directed by Goro Miyazaki and Gary Rydstrom. Snelson (John) Collection (Library of Congress). [Tokyo, Japan]: Studio Ghibli.
Walton Gregory. 2014. “The New Science of Wise Psychological Interventions.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 23(1): p. 73-82.
Biography:
Valerie Holshouser Barske serves as the current Humanities Co-Director for the Universities of Wisconsin System Wisconsin Teaching Fellows and Scholars Program. She is also a Professor of History and Coordinator of International Studies with teaching and service commitments in Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. Barske received her Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultures with disciplinary emphases in History and Anthropology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2009. Her ethnographic fieldwork and archival research on female performance activists in Okinawa, Japan has been funded by a Fulbright IIE Fellowship, a Blakemore Foundation Fellowship, and a Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Research Fellowship. Barske also received a UW System Fellowship with the Institute for Research in the Humanities. As a scholarly teacher, she combines anthropological theories of embodiment with feminist pedagogical practices into her own “signature pedagogy” for teaching History and International Studies. Barske employs embodied learning as an inclusive strength-based approach that helps students to co-construct “brave spaces” for taking new actions, to think with and through movement, and to explore epistemologies that valorize affect, agency, and intersectional subjectivities. Most recently, she continues to adapt the “pedagogy of play” in the classroom as “asobi pedagogy,” but also in professional facilitation and collaboration.
SoTL Related Publications:
2020 “SoTL and the Gendered Division of Labor on our Campuses: A Case for More Equity and Change in Professional Values,” Barske et al. with Ekaterina Levintova, Darci Thoune, and Valerie Pilmaier, in Holly Hassel and Kirsti Cole eds. Academic Labor Beyond the College Classroom: Working for Our Values. New York: Routledge, p. 137-152.
2018 “Thinking through Movement: Embodied Learning as Feminist Pedagogy for the Social Sciences,” in Ekaterina Levintova and Alison Staudinger eds. Gender in the Political Science Classroom, Indiana University Press SoTL Series, p. 237-262.
2012 “Women and Japan’s Political Economy,” in Japan Focus Course Readers no. 4, Laura Hein ed. The Asia-Pacific Journal (November): p. 1-141.
SoTL Related Conference Sessions:
2024 “Re-Invigorating Relationship-Rich Educational Development through Equity, Embodiment, and Mindfulness,” Workshop Co-Presenter, Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network Annual Conference, November 11, Chicago, IL
2024 “Re-Imagining SoTL through Equity, Embodiment, and Mindfulness,” Workshop Co-Presenter, International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) Annual Conference, October 31, French Lick, IN
2024 “Applying an Equity Lens to Transform a SoTL-Based Professional Development Program,” Workshop Co-Presenter, Improving University Teaching (IUT) International Conference, August 2, Milwaukee
2023 “Institutional Context Matters for Equity-Minded SoTL Research: Professional Training Strategies for Faculty Developers,” Workshop Co-Presenter, International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) Annual Conference November 9, Utrecht, Netherlands
2023 “Decolonizing the Classroom: Designing Policies for Equity and Diversity” Roundtable Co-Presenter, UWSP Teaching Conference “Teaching for Social Justice,” January 20, Virtual
2023 “Practicing Hope: Instructor Burnout as a Social Justice Issue” Keynote Co-Presenter, UWSP Teaching Conference, January 20, UWSP
2022 “Introducing Dr. Lisa Brock” UW System OPID Faculty College, May 31, Elkhart Lake, WI
2022 “Critical Race Theory’s Restorative and Transformative Power” Moderator, OPID Spring Conference on Teaching and Learning, Panel Discussion on the Keynote by Gloria Ladson-Billing, April 29, Virtual
2022 “Equity-Minded Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (SoTL): Creating a Community for All Disciplines” Co-Presenter, OPID Spring Conference, April 29, Virtual
2022 “Innovative Digital Pedagogies” Moderator, OPID Spring Conference SoTL Presentations, April 29, Virtual
2022 “Student Mindsets and Perceptions” Moderator, OPID Spring Conference SoTL Presentations, April 22, Virtual
2022 “Mindfulness and Persistence” Moderator, OPID Spring Conference SoTL Presentations, April 22, Virtual
2021 “Closing Reflection: Equity-Minded Pedagogy” Faculty College Reflection on Stephen Brookfield’s “What Does It Mean to Teach for Equity?” May 21, Virtual
2021 “Refresh with Joyful Intentional Laughter: Laughter Yoga and Community Building in the Virtual Classroom” Organizer and Co-Presenter with Natsumi Iwamoto and Kaitlyn Nichols, OPID Spring Teaching Conference, April 9, Virtual
2021 “Reflecting on SoTL—the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning” Roundtable Co-Facilitator with Heather Pelzel, OPID Spring Teaching Conference, April 9, Virtual
2021 “Closing Plenary” Co-Facilitator with Heather Pelzel, OPID Spring Teaching Conference, April 23, Virtual
2021 “Embodying Compassion, Embracing Laughter: Building Community in a Virtual Classroom through Laughter Yoga” Session Organizer and Co-Presenter with Judi Olsen, CITL Annual Teaching Conference, January 15, UWSP
2019 “SoTL and the Gendered Division of Labor on Our Campuses” (Co-Presenter) 4W Summit on Women, Gender, and Well-Being, April 13, UW Madison
2019 “HIPs, SoTL, and the UW System Merger,” Invited Roundtable Participant, 4W Summit on Women, Gender, and Well-Being, April 12, UW Madison
2018 “Growth Mindset Interventions and Teaching First Year Seminars on Japan,” (Presenter and Organizer) Panel Session: SoTL and Teaching Asia, Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs, October 19, Metropolitan State University, MN
2017 “Gender Issues Teaching in Traditionally Male-Dominated Social Sciences: Student Perceptions, Gender Identities, Feminist Pedagogies, and Empowerment,” Conference Panel 4W Summit, April 28, UW Madison
2017 “Not Yet, But Soon: Growth Mindset and Enhancing Perceptions of General Education in a First Year Seminar,” Poster Session, UW System OPID Spring Conference on Teaching and Learning, UW LaCrosse April 20
2013 “Producing Historical Knowledge: Embodied Learning in the World History Classroom,” Poster UW System OPID Spring Conference, April 18-19, Madison
SoTL Related Workshops and Facilitations:
2025 UW System WTFS Co-Director, Winter Institute “Pedagogy of Play for Equity-Minded SoTL” January 5-7, Fluno Center Madison, WI
2024 “Conversation with Jose Antonio Bowen-Teaching with AI Book Discussion,” Moderator, UW System Webinar Series “Teaching and Learning in a Generative AI World,” December 13, Virtual
2024 UW System OPID Advisory Council Meeting Workshop, Co-Facilitator “Reflecting on Collaboration” September 26, Hilton Garden Inn Madison, WI
2024 UW System WTFS Co-Director, Summer Institute “Equity-Minded SoTL Entry Points: SoTL as Innovative Disruptor in a Three Horizons Model?” June 10-14, Pyle Center Madison, WI
2024 UW System Faculty College, Co-Facilitator and Co-Organizer, “Rethinking/Redesigning Student Assignments” May 28-31, Elkhart Lake, WI
2024 UW System WTFS Co-Director, Winter Institute “Equity-Minded SoTL Presentations: Product, Process, and Performance” January 7-9, Fluno Center Madison, WI
2023 UW System WTFS Co-Director, Summer Institute “Applying Social Justice and Equity-Minded Approaches to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning” June 12-16, Pyle Center Madison, WI
2023 UW System Faculty College, Co-Facilitator and Co-Organizer, “Teaching and Learning with a Social Justice Lens” May 30-June 2, Elkhart Lake, WI
2023 Co-Director, WTFS Winter Institute, “Hope Still Matters: Making Equity-Minded SoTL Public” January 8-10, Madison
2022 Co-Facilitator, Early Career Workshop for STEM Instructors “Modeling Equity-Minded Teaching: Inkshedding and Inclusive Syllabi” UW System Alliance for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Advancement in STEM, October 25, Wisconsin Dells, WI
2022 Co-Director, WTFS Winter Institute, “Presenting SoTL and Beyond” Co-Director with Heather Pelzel, January 9-11, Madison
2022 UWSP Team Leader, UW System Faculty College “Teaching and Learning with a Social Justice Lens” May 31-June 3, Elkhart Lake, WI
2020-2022 Chair, Ad Hoc Curricular Redesign Committee for International Studies, UWSP
2021 Co-Director, WTFS Summer Institute, “Equity-Minded SoTL,” June 7-11, Virtual
2019-2021 Co-Chair, Strategic Planning Thematic Working Group “Enhancing the Student Experience,” Focused on HIPs, Inclusive Teaching, and Underserved Populations, UWSP
2019-2020 Faculty Fellow Facilitator, Faculty Learning Community on Best Practices for Enhancing Retention in the Classroom, Center for Inclusive Teaching and Learning, UWSP
2019-2020 Chair, Teaching and Learning Workgroup, School of Humanities and Global Studies, UWSP
2019 Facilitator, Small Group Instructional Diagnosis (SGID) for CITL, UWSP
2019 Co-Organizer, Faculty Development Workshop: Redesigning the History Major, UWSP
2019 General Education Representative, Higher Learning Commission Campus Review Criteria 3-4 “Teaching and Learning,” UWSP
2018-2019 Chair General Education Committee, Curricular Redesign, UWSP
2018 Facilitator, General Education Summer Working Group “Reimagining the Liberal Arts,” UWSP
2010 Co-Organizer, FYS Teacher Training and Workshop “Identifying and Prioritizing Student Needs” Facilitated by Southwest Center for Teaching Excellence, UWSP