Staffing and Presented at Southeast Regional Conferences

This session will describe lessons learned from the perspective of a public institution's creation of a "new" academic technologist role. The process included the willingness of IT leadership to innovate to improve teaching and learning, paying attention to best practices, promoting assessment to inform decision making, and nourishing a collaborative culture in support of faculty development. We will share our early experiences with defining and implementing the directorship.

Launched in January 2006, the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) at the University of South Carolina is located in the heart of campus in the Thomas Cooper Library. Enabling the wise use of new technologies to enhance student learning and providing synergy to campus teaching support activities through a systems approach are two of the CTE's five stated goals. To achieve these goals, the CTE created a new associate director position for teaching technology excellence.