Why Study the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning?

"[A Ph.D. candidate who plans to be a teacher] must know his field and its relation to the whole body of knowledge. It means too that he must be in touch with the most recent and most successful movements in undergraduate education, of which he now learns officially little or nothing. How should he learn about them? Not in my opinion by doing practice teaching upon the helpless undergraduate. Rather he should learn about them through seeing experiments carried on in undergraduate work by the members of the department in which he is studying for the degree."

• Robert Maynard Hutchins, President, University of Chicago, 1928

SoTL at Quinnipiac calls for a collaboration among faculty, administration, staff and students in initiating and igniting systematic reflection, research and conversation about teaching and learning that is made public, ending the tendency towards privatization in teaching, and establishing the scholarship of teaching & learning as legitimate research that is as institutionally valued as traditional disciplinary scholarship.

In summary, the purpose of SoTL at Quinnipiac is to support the development of a scholarship of teaching and learning that: 1) fosters significant, long-lasting learning for all students; 2) enhances the practice and profession of teaching; 3) brings to faculty members' work as teachers the recognition and reward afforded to other forms of scholarly work; 4) renew faculty teaching and professional development; 5) deepen collegiality among all sectors of the university community; and 6) feature Quinnipiac’s values and mission as the embodiment of academic life at the university, thereby enhancing Quinnipiac’s reputation for excellence in educational.