Together, we shape the future of education—this is the mission embodied by The Institute for the Advancement of Higher Education, or AdvancED. AdvancED was created by Provost C. Cybele Raver in late 2023 to revolutionize how Vanderbilt faculty teach, transcending the traditional constructs of education and reimagining learning experiences for Vanderbilt students around the world.
The purpose of AdvancED is to leverage the collaborative potential of three university functions: online and lifelong learning, pedagogical support and educational technology. This required the merger of Vanderbilt’s Office of Digital Education and the Center for Teaching into a single unit that is home to more than 20 staff managing the university’s portfolio of online and hybrid degree programs, lifelong learning, teaching and classroom support, and education technology, including the Brightspace help desk.
The move was a leap of faith, according to Vice Provost Tracey George, who oversaw the transition. “On the one hand, we had this explosion in opportunity in digital education and technology, and on the other, we had 35 years of vital faculty classroom support via the Center for Teaching. In a community this collaborative, we could no longer ignore the links between learning innovation and pedagogical training and support.”
Vital support for the university’s core mission
For many faculty, their first experience with AdvancED occurred in a previous iteration, the Center for Teaching. That work continues under one of the institute’s two core teams, the Office of Education Design and Development, which is led by Jennifer Wilson, an alumna who joined Vanderbilt after successful stints earning tenure and directing teaching programs at two universities. The OEDD team works to provide faculty with pedagogical development as well as to advance the technology and services required to help Vanderbilt’s teachers thrive in a shifting academic landscape—especially in terms of education technology and instructional design for online and hybrid modalities.
“Our team has worked hard to build this legacy of teaching excellence into a robust support system that reaches more faculty at pivotal milestones in their careers,” Wilson said. In its first year as OEDD, the team established fresh partnerships with the College of Arts and Science, Blair School of Music, School of Medicine, School of Engineering and School of Nursing to host 49 faculty workshops. AdvancED staff welcomed 569 faculty to the highly interactive sessions, which are designed to promote conversation and collaboration as much as they do training.
Like the former CFT, one-on-one consultations remain a core focus of the team. OEDD holds an average of 75 sessions per quarter with faculty from across the university, ranging from graduate students and New Faculty Teaching Academy participants to consultations with long-standing faculty. AdvancED understands that each classroom presents a unique opportunity, and one faculty member described how AdvancED staff “were able to understand and to speak to my STEM topic, helping me find a perfect balance between designing a growth-oriented grading system and still providing explicitly clear benchmarks that my students are more accustomed to.”
Even faculty who have never attended an AdvancED workshop or consultation have likely interacted with the team via Brightspace. The online classroom management tool was a game changer for Vanderbilt’s faculty and students during the COVID-19 pandemic and remains an essential component of campus life. AdvancED’s EdTech team plays such a pivotal role that faculty like Peabody’s Kristen Tompkins consider staff like Michael Coley to be “like family.” In FY24, the team fielded 1,213 user inquiries with an average response time of just 48 minutes, highlighting the team’s dedication to ensuring faculty receive timely, effective support, thus laying the groundwork for continued growth and innovation. The team also provides faculty with a comprehensive menu of resources to tailor tech tools to each faculty member’s needs.
Expanding Vanderbilt’s global reputation
Where OEDD shines in high-touch, one-on-one and classroom settings, AdvancED’s Office of Learning Innovation is reaching learners around the world through the Vanderbilt Online brand of online and hybrid degree programs, certificates and microcredentials. The unprecedented success of Vanderbilt’s Coursera offerings has led to more than $1 million in revenue quarterly, representing more than 2.5 million new learners for Vanderbilt’s participating faculty. In addition to featuring local AI experts like Jules White and Jesse Spencer-Smith on Coursera, AdvancED is also promoting AI integration on campus by facilitating and enabling the launch of Amplify, Vanderbilt’s proprietary generative AI tool, which boasts an impressive 98 percent favorability rating among faculty, staff and student users.
AdvancED’s most detailed offerings, however, are its online and hybrid degree programs, which are produced by the team’s in-house instructional design and media teams in partnership with Vanderbilt faculty. AdvancED staff also handle all related marketing, recruiting, program assessment and project management. These degree-granting programs provide a full Vanderbilt experience, complete with admissions counseling and student support services, to adult learners with full-time work and personal commitments. An early success is the Online Master of Legal Studies, which AdvancED launched from scratch in 2023 in partnership with the Law School. The university currently administers 11 online programs across Nursing, Medicine, Engineering, Law, Peabody and Divinity, as well as a host of online courses and certificates. Several new academic programs and nondegree offerings are in the works, from Engineering to Peabody College and the Warren Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery.
The team’s visionary approach to workplace-focused credentialing was nationally recognized with a grant by the UPCEA, the online and professional education association. UPCEA selected Vanderbilt as one of 10 institutions to take part in their project, “Building Capacity, Expanding Pathways: Accelerating the Growth of Credential Innovation in Higher Education.” The consortium, supported by a grant from Walmart, was a yearlong project supporting universities to accelerate their own efforts to produce noncredit microcredentials directed toward their local, regional or statewide business communities. AdvancED leveraged this partnership to innovate the School of Nursing’s new Post-Master’s Nursing Certificates.
In its first year, AdvancED has significantly increased its scale and scope. From one-on-one consultations with faculty to an online audience of millions, AdvancED has become the key bridge between Vanderbilt’s core teaching and learning functions. “AdvancED is partnering with Vanderbilt’s incredible faculty to give students at every age and stage of life the training they need to stay ahead of the curve,” said Mallika Vinekar, director of AdvancED’s Office of Learning Innovation.
As AdvancED begins its second year, it welcomes Associate Provost Catherine Gavin Loss to its leadership team to further enhance its mission. “We’re deeply connected to our campus community while expanding our global reach to introduce new lifelong learners to Vanderbilt,” Gavin Loss said. “In many ways, AdvancED is the perfect metaphor for Vanderbilt in the 21st century: a close and collaborative academic community with a bold vision for teaching and learning. I hope you’ll join us.”
