Currently, I am serving as the Director of the Malone Center for Excellence in Teaching after wrapping up a turn as Interim Chair in the Department of Theatre following a period of exceptional leadership and programming growth under the previous Chair. We find ourselves at the beginnings of a next phase- new building, new accreditation, and new world. I had the privilege to serve as Faculty Senate President for the 2020-2021 academic year, representing the needs and interests of the university Faculty to Administration working to find mutually beneficial and sustainable solutions to present and longer term challenges. A Costume Design colleague at another institution who served the role herself remarked that the flexible communication skills required in Costume Design make us uniquely valuable as collaborative leaders. I'm really excited about this new role in the Malone Center since I think people are interesting, and facilitating learning spaces supportive of unique perspectives can reveal such valuable data for UX and XD in learning and creative environments. Systems for learner feedback and data-based instructor action lead to high quality, high success learning environments in the same way collaborative communication between Theatre creators can lead to life-changing magic for the audience! Under COVID, I've found revisiting the student's relationship to instruction and reviewing student achievement and engagement metrics leads to designing effective solutions for diverse learning styles. During Fall of 2020, I had a special opportunity to be certified in Online Teaching by Quality Matters funded by a university grant seeking to pilot certification- leaders no doubt thinking ahead to futures that will include online instruction as a feature. Learning about pedagogical and andragogical best practices was invigorating for me in a time that could have felt fallow for a live performance designer. Always looking for more opportunities to learn about learning- in November of 2022 I finished as part of the inaugural cohort of Odyssey Works’ Experience Design Certificate Program with a group of 12 other practitioners from diverse industries. The ten-month program teaches the user-centered approach Odyssey Works has developed in their 20 years of practice as well as providing a mentored path towards an individual research and design presentation of a proposed application in each participant’s field. Please visit my portfolio website to learn more about those projects.