Observers of educational development at Waterloo will know that we’ve had a teaching centre onsite for 40 years. Christopher Knapper was the founder of the Teaching Resources and Continuing Education (TRACE) unit in 1976, which kept the same name until the 2006-2007 academic year, at which point a merger with Learning and Teaching Through Technology (LT3) and Learning Resources and Innovation (LRI) led to the formal creation of the Centre for Teaching Excellence pretty much as we know it today.
I think I’m feeling rather wistful and nostalgic at this point because our Senior Instructional Developer for Blended Learning, Jane Holbrook, retires this week. We can hardly believe this to be true, but true it is. I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge Jane’s work with LT3 and CTE. It’s difficult for me to accept that this marks nearly 10 years since CTE’s inception, and the occasion of Jane’s retirement is cause for reflection about where we’ve come and where we’re going. Mainly, though, it’s an opportunity to appreciate Jane’s contributions to scholarship in the areas of blended learning and educational development, as well as her commitment to supporting our Waterloo teaching community over many years.
Jane started teaching courses in Biology here around 1989, but in or around 2001, prepared a report for Tom Carey in LT3 about a new model of support for educators in Waterloo’s six Faculties. The result? Our much-praised and oft-copied Faculty Liaison model. Jane took up one such role, for Science, and others followed soon thereafter. I can remember looking at LT3 first from my vantage point at Trent’s Interactive Learning Centre, and later from Guelph’s Teaching Support Services, with a certain amount of envy — in large part because of this model.
I was very happy to join CTE, then, and to work directly with people whose efforts and processes I’d admired from afar. I was not disappointed. In the 9 years I have worked here as a Senior Instructional Developer, I have relied on Jane as a source of wisdom, especially as I learned the ropes of managing other people and managing multiple projects.
Jane is a model of honest, astute, intelligent leadership. She never shies away from difficult conversations, always provides incisive input on university-wide and CTE committees or as a personal mentor, and pulls more than her share of administrative weight at one of Canada’s largest teaching centres. I aspire to emulate her level-headed, savvy, and caring approach towards both people and projects.
Working on blended learning initiatives, Jane has applied her considerable creativity and scholarly approach in ways that have helped many professors to think differently about their practice, and indeed change that practice in ways that increase learning for many generations of students to date, and many more to come.
Thank you, Jane, and all the best in your own next steps. I am thrilled to be working alongside Mary Power, your replacement in the SID role, and will also miss you enormously.
