Weaver named director of Jane B. Nord Center for Teaching + Learning

By Michael C. Butz

Kari Weaver PhD will serve as the director of the Cleveland Institute of Art’s Jane B. Nord Center for Teaching + Learning when it opens for the 2022–23 academic year.

Weaver is a scholar whose research and practice centers on fostering excellence in teaching and learning. Through her research, she seeks to understand complex issues of equity-focused initiatives in higher education. Her interests include curriculum design, diversity education, critical pedagogies, and interpersonal processes of trust, empathy and humanization.

She has designed and led courses for undergraduates, graduates and continuing adult learners, spanning topics from art history to student success and issues of diversity in higher education. She has published several chapters and peer-review articles on issues related to equity and inclusion in higher education, including food insecurity, critical whiteness, experiences of queerness and religion, equity in assessment practices, and difficult dialogues.

Weaver earned her doctorate in Higher Education and Student Affairs from the University of Iowa in Iowa City; a master’s degree in Modern Art History, Theory, & Criticism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and a bachelor’s degree in Art History from the University of Iowa.

“We are so excited to launch the Jane B. Nord Center for Teaching + Learning under Kari’s leadership,” says CIA President + CEO Kathryn Heidemann.

Announced in February, the Jane B. Nord Center for Teaching + Learning will serve as a resource hub and incubator to advance CIA faculty members’ skills in teaching, instructional design, learning assessment and whole student support as well as bolster the College’s ongoing efforts to ensure its curriculum and teaching methodology are inclusive, socially responsible and continuously improved.

The Jane B. Nord Center for Teaching + Learning is a key outcome of CIA’s 2020–25 Strategic Plan and helps lay the groundwork for a long-range vision for the College. It will serve CIA’s approximately 50 full-time faculty and 60 adjunct faculty members and join the estimated 2,000 other teaching and learning centers at higher education institutions across North America.