Shaping what it means to lead through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Students, administrators, professionals, and academics who engage in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) often focus on inspiring meaningful change in higher education. Since I started at the Taylor Institute this past September as an Educational Development Consultant specializing in SoTL, I’ve witnessed the incredible impact of catalysing connections between teaching, learning, and scholarship at the University of Calgary. I’m thrilled to play a role in how these impacts are extending across and beyond our campus.

One place where I’ve seen the impact of such SoTL connections was during the 2024 Symposium for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Banff, AB. For the first time, the University of Calgary proudly partnered with Mount Royal University and the Symposium Chair, Dr. Michelle Yeo (Professor and Director of the Mokakiiks Centre for SoTL) on this well-known event, and supported the opening keynote presentation on the conference theme of “Leading Through SoTL.” Alongside the thirty-three other University of Calgary students, academics, and administrators who participated in the Symposium, I was impressed by the breadth of research and educational topics explored by this engaged community of scholars. Through pre-conference workshops, presentations, roundtable discussions, and poster presentations, our commitment to SoTL in a broad range of areas was clear.

"The University of Calgary is honoured to join our colleagues in conversations about this important work. We are committed to exploring and shaping what it means to be “Leading through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning."

- Natasha Kenny, Senior Director, Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning

The University of Calgary’s strong presence at the event provided an opportunity to share the large suite of open access online resources in the Taylor Institute’s (TI) resource library with the wider community, including the SoTL learning module recently created by Mindi Summers, Brian Gilbert, Jaime Alvaro Paredes Paez, and Chene Redwood. The module and its resources provide a valuable introduction to the field, research ethics considerations and strategies for how to design a SoTL project. Derritt Mason, Acting Senior Director of the TI, extended an invitation to expand upon our partnerships and share new SoTL interests and insights across areas during the upcoming Conference on Postsecondary Learning and Teaching on April 28-30, 2025.

I can see this theme of connection manifesting in the leadership happening at many different levels of our university. During my collaborative workshop, we explored how to harness knowledge mobilization and translation processes to engage diverse audiences and influence policy or practice (see more on these topics in “Connecting the dots between knowledge mobilization and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning”). Looking to advance scholarship in disciplinary and transdisciplinary contexts – especially those involved in teaching and learning – I was reminded of the leadership role that UCalgary has played as the first Canadian signatory of the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) and by explicitly including Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in its academic criteria (see p. 9 of the GFC Academic Staff Criteria & Processes Handbook). 

Discussing these issues with participants from across the Canadian higher education landscape, I recognize the ways that SoTL can advance change, and how leadership in these spaces at UCalgary can provide a model for pathways at other institutions. 

Our work partnering and collaborating across disciplines and between institutions in shaping what it means to lead through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning is gaining momentum. I’m looking forward to continuing to collaborate across our campus to catalyze beneficial and impactful changes in teaching, learning and scholarship.