Presentation Description
The post-pandemic period offers opportunities to explore flexible working conditions, novel ways of using technology to accomplish our academic missions, gains in increasing job satisfaction and productivity, and more effective ways for instruction. Students are questioning the value of higher education and are instead looking for ways for credentialing and seeking alternative pathways toward an education (i.e., not necessarily taking the standard courses toward a major). There are workforce needs that are not being met by our graduates to include interdisciplinary team skills; diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility mindsets; entrepreneurial thinkers; and creative and critical-minded problem solvers. In exploring opportunities to rethink higher education, we must consider what has served us well for the last two centuries: student experiences, faculty presence and engagement, intellectual community of scholars, and our impact and interaction in our local communities.

Presenters:

Ann Gates – Senior Vice Provost of Faculty Affairs

Clifton Tanabe – Dean of the College of Education

Beth Brunk-Chavez – Dean of Extended University

Larry Lesser – Professor of Mathematical Sciences and former CETaL director

Dr. Ann Quiroz Gates is Senior Vice Provost of Faculty Affairs at the University of Texas at El Paso, where she holds the AT&T Distinguished Professorship. She also served as the Chair of the Computer Science Department and Associate VP of Research and Sponsored Projects. Gates is the Executive Director of the Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions, one of NSF’s National INCLUDES Alliances a nationally recognized network focused on the recruitment, retention, and advancement of Hispanics in computing. Gates serves on the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities Advisory Committee on Faculty Affairs and the NSF Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering. She was a founding member of the NSF Advisory Committee for Cyberinfrastructure, served on the Board of Governors of IEEE-Computer Society, and was a member of the Naval Research Advisory Committee. Gates received the 2021 Alfredo G. de los Santos Jr. Distinguished Leadership Award, 2015 Great Minds in STEM's Education award, CRA’s 2015 A. Nico Habermann Award, 2010 Anita Borg Institute Social Impact Award, and 2009 Richard A. Tapia Achievement Award for Scientific Scholarship, Civic Science, and Diversifying Computing. In 2005, she received the University of Texas at El Paso Chancellor Council’s Award for Outstanding Teaching

Beth Brunk-Chavez, Ph.D. is Dean of Extended University at the University of Texas at El Paso. Extended University supports Professional and Public Programs; the Center for Instructional Design; The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute; and UTEP Connect, UTEP’s suite of fully online degree programs. She is professor of Rhetoric and Writing Studies and has served in several other administrative roles at UTEP including Director of First-Year Composition and Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. A member of the inaugural class of University of Texas System Academy of Distinguished Teachers, Dr. Brunk is also a recipient of the University of Texas Academy Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award. Dr. Brunk has served on several national boards, task forces, and committees and has published in the areas of online teaching and learning, online collaboration, student retention and persistence, and serving diverse student populations. She has served on nearly 40 dissertation committees and chaired 23 of them. She is PI, co-PI, or supporting staff on several recently awarded grants and gifts from the Department of Education, American Public and Land-Grant Universities, the University of Texas System, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, and HCA. Dr. Brunk holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Texas at Arlington, A Master of Arts in English from the University of Texas at El Paso, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mass Communications/Advertising from New Mexico State University. She previously taught at James Madison University.

Starting his 19th year at UTEP, Dr. Larry Lesser is a UTEP Distinguished Teaching Professor, a Professor of Mathematics Education in the Mathematical Sciences Department, and was the director for 3 years of UTEP's teaching center (CETaL). Dr. Lesser's teaching is informed by diverse life and work experiences, including state agency statistician, statistical consultant, high school math department chair, textbook author, journalist, songwriter, poet, and father of a December college graduate. Lesser's teaching has yielded awards within and beyond his discipline, ranging from the state level (e.g., UTEP's most recent winner of a Minnie Stevens Piper Professor award) to the regional level (e.g., the Mathematical Association of America's Southwestern Section) to the national level (e.g., last summer's winner of the Waller Distinguished Teaching Career Award from the American Statistical Association). Lesser has also won awards for his songs and poetry and connects even those passions with STEM education, such as in his recent NSF grants. His most recent prize was at the 2022 Electronic Conference on Teaching Statistics, for his activity on teaching culturally relevant probability, inspired by UTEP's strategic advantage of its people's distinctive diversity. Dr. Lesser's current teaching project is co-leading the major redesign of the math department's biggest course (MATH 1320) for Reimagining the Core. For more Lesser, see https://larrylesser.com or read the long interview about his career in March 2020 Journal of Statistics Education.

Clifton S. Tanabe proudly serves as the Dean of the College of Education and Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Foundations at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). He has a Ph.D. in Educational Policy Studies and a Law Degree, both from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Prior to arriving at UTEP, Dr. Tanabe served as a faculty member and Chief of Staff at the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM), where he also Directed the Leaders for the Next Generation program and Co-Directed of the Hawaii Education Policy Center. He started his academic career as an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse (UWL), where he founded and Co-Directed the Research Center for Cultural Diversity and Community Renewal. His scholarly interests include higher and K-12 education law and policy, educational and political philosophy and educational access, and his publications can be found in Teachers College Record, Philosophy of Education Society, Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education, Educational Change, and Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal. From the beginning and at its core, Dr. Tanabe’s work has centered on leveraging the transformative power of education to improve individual and community outcomes.