The Andrew W. Mellon Center for Faculty and Curriculum Development is designed to enhance academic excellence throughout the IWU campus.  Its resources and facilities offer support to the campus faculty as they pursue their work as teachers, scholars and curricular innovators.  Center programs encourage reflective discourse and the sharing of views and experiences among faculty, as they relate to issues involving the theory and practice of teaching, course development, academic program design and scholarly inquiry.  The Center’s activities are coordinated by Irv Epstein, the Associate Dean of the Faculty and Zahia Drici, the Associate Dean of the Curriculum.

Because the activities and programs involving faculty development and curricular innovation are inextricably linked, both Associate Deans and their staffs work closely together so as to provide faculty with multiple levels of support that are intrinsic to professional development and programmatic curricular innovation.  However, their responsibilities can be roughly divided into these two realms.  The office of the Associate Dean of the Faculty is responsible for administering travel and internal grants involving scholarly activity and curricular development, external grants, and faculty leaves.  Under the direction of the Associate Dean of the Faculty, on and off-campus workshops and programs in support of faculty at all stages of their professional careers are coordinated.  Links to online resources, academic centers and organizations can be found on our external links page

The Associate Dean of Curriculum holds administrative responsibility for coordinating the university general education program, May Term, off-campus programs, the Writing Center, university-wide writing programs, and interdisciplinary programs.  She is deeply involved in all university initiatives concerned with  enhancing the strategic assessment, planning and development of curriculum, diversity, globalization, and sustainability, and student/faculty research.  A detailed explanation of the work and responsibilities of the two Deans can be found through accessing their respective links.