Dear colleagues,
UMBC is thrilled to welcome Matthew “Matt” Trevett-Smith as the incoming director of the Faculty Development Center beginning on June 29. Matt joins us from the University of Delaware, where he served as the director of the Center for Teaching and Assessment of Learning (CTAL) since 2019.
Matt is an educational developer with over 15 years of leadership experience at research-intensive universities. He specializes in faculty development, CTL capability building, and the navigation of shared governance to drive institutional excellence.
At the University of Delaware, he served as a pivotal leader reporting to the Office of the Vice Provost for Academic Programs and University Initiatives, coordinating university-wide initiatives including the strategic response to Artificial Intelligence for teaching and UD’s Foundational Course Initiative, which has transformed gateway curriculum for over 17,000 students and counting. He recently co-chaired the Provost’s Task Force on Learning Goals & Assessment, leading a collaborative effort that achieved a 90% alignment of Program Educational Goals across all undergraduate and graduate degree-granting programs.
Previously, Matt served as the founding director of the Center for Teaching & Learning at Boston University. In this role, he built the center from the ground up and played a critical strategic role in the rollout of the BU Hub, the university's inaugural pan-university general education curriculum. His career also includes leadership roles at the University of Virginia’s Center for Teaching Excellence.
A cultural anthropologist by training, Matt holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from the University at Buffalo. His leadership is guided by the “Equity-Excellence Imperative”; the belief that institutional excellence is only realized when we proactively broaden pathways to success. He is an active leader in the Association for Undergraduate Education at Research Universities (UERU) and was recognized as an Adobe Digital Literacy Thought Leader in 2018.
I want to thank Kerrie Kephart for her thoughtful and effective leadership as the interim director of the center. I greatly appreciate her insightful contributions, including spearheading a self-study that provided a roadmap for the center’s future. Please join me in thanking Kerrie for her service to the FDC and UMBC as she returns to her role as an associate director for the center.
Lastly, I also want to thank co-chairs Kyung-Eun Yoon and Sarah Leupen for leading the search and the numerous committee members for their hard work and dedication that culminated in a successful appointment.
Sincerely,
Ana Oskoz
Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs