Constance Cook Editor

Constance Cook has served as Executive Director of CRLT since 1993. She was named Associate Vice Provost for Academic Affairs in 2006. Prior to becoming the Director of CRLT, Connie was the executive assistant to the president of the University of Michigan and, from 1987-1990, Connie was coordinator of the FIPSE (Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education) Comprehensive Program at the U.S. Department of Education. Before going to Washington, Connie was an associate professor at Albion College, where she chaired the political science department. At CRLT, her focus is on institutional transformation (i.e., creating a culture of teaching at a research university), a topic on which she has been writing and lecturing for more than a decade. Her scholarship concerns strategies for pedagogical improvement (e.g., action research, the scholarship of teaching and learning, curricular reform, and multicultural teaching and learning). As Executive Director, Connie coordinates new initiatives at CRLT and represents both CRLT and the broader University community on issues of teaching and learning. She also coordinates professional development programs for international higher education leaders. Connie is Clinical Professor of Higher Education at the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, as well as adjunct associate professor of political science. She received her B.A. from Barnard College, her M.A. from The Pennsylvania State University, and her Ph.D. from Boston University—all in political science. Her two books concern American political interest groups: Lobbying for Higher Education: How Colleges and Universities Influence Federal Policy (Vanderbilt University Press, 1998), and Nuclear Power and Legal Advocacy: The Environmentalists and the Courts (D.C. Heath/Lexington Books, 1980). Matthew Kaplan Kaplan is CRLT's managing director. He focuses on university-wide initiatives (e.g., Provost's Seminars on Teaching, assessment and re-accreditation, evaluation of teaching) and external projects, such as a Teagle Foundation grant to improve writing and critical thinking. He also co-directs the LSA Teaching Academy and oversees the Thurnau competition, the University's highest undergraduate teaching award. He received his Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he worked at UNC's Center for Teaching and Learning for three years before joining CRLT in 1994. Matt has published articles on the academic hiring process, the use of interactive theatre as a faculty development tool, and the evaluation of teaching, and he co-authored a chapter of McKeachie's Teaching Tips on technology and teaching. He has co-edited a volume of New Directions for Teaching and Learning on The Scholarship of Multicultural Teaching and Learning (Jossey Bass, 2007) and edited two volumes of To Improve the Academy (New Forums Press, 1998, 1999). He was a member of POD's Core Committee from 1998-2001. Lester P. Monts is the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Senior Counselor to the President for the Arts, Diversity and Undergraduate Affairs, and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Music, University of Michigan.