Dear colleagues,
I am pleased to announce that effective May 1, 2021, Brad Wuetherick will assume a five-year appointment as Associate Provost, Academic Programs, Teaching and Learning. In this newly established role, Brad will provide strategic leadership, vision and coordination for the teaching and learning mission at UBC Okanagan.
Brad joins us from Dalhousie University, where he served as Executive Director, Learning and Teaching, for the past eight years and as a senior team member in the Office of the Provost and VP Academic. As Executive Director, he oversaw the growth and transformation of the Centre for Learning and Teaching, including the creation of an Enrichment Program for Teaching Assistants, a Faculty Certificate in Teaching and Learning and the creation of portfolios focused on diversity, inclusivity, internationalization and indigenization.
Of Métis ancestry, Brad served as co-chair of Dalhousie’s Indigenous Council for the past five years, championing a number of key Indigenous initiatives on campus. Brad helped establish Dalhousie’s Indigenous Studies and Elders-in-Residence programs. He was also part of the team that created Dalhousie’s Indigenous Strategy focused on the establishment of Dalhousie as the medical-doctoral research university of Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq.
Brad’s legacy at Dalhousie includes work related to the implementation of a framework for the holistic evaluation of teaching; the development of guiding principles for planning the future of online and extended learning on campus post COVID-19; and the creation of an accessibility strategy to foster an inclusive and equitable learning environment.
An internationally recognized scholar of teaching and learning in higher education, Brad has been an investigator on nearly $5 million in externally funded research projects, including a project supporting Indigenous student pathways into health research (funded by CIHR) and a SSHRC Knowledge Synthesis Grant supporting a systematic review of online medical education. He has more than 40 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and more than 200 invited or peer-reviewed presentations, workshops and keynotes at conferences and institutions nationally and internationally. His research has focused on topics such as undergraduate research and pathways into research (particularly for Indigenous students); mentorship, equity and student success; the scholarship of teaching and learning; and academic development. In recognition of his global impact in the area of teaching and learning, Brad was recently appointed as a Fellow with the US-based John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education—the first Canadian to receive this appointment.
Prior to his work at Dalhousie, Brad served in roles related to teaching and learning, undergraduate student affairs, continuing education, experiential learning and undergraduate research at the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Alberta. During the past decade, he also served a term as Vice-President for Canada on the Board of Directors for the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and as Chair, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning on the Board of Directors for the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.
I would like to extend my gratitude to the search committee and to the many staff and faculty who contributed to this search. I would also like to thank Heather Berringer, Chief Librarian and Associate Provost, Learning Services, and Tanya Forneris, Interim Academic Lead, Centre for Teaching and Learning, who have provided stewardship of the teaching and learning portfolio during the transition.
Sincerely,
Ananya Mukherjee Reed
Provost and Vice-President Academic
UBC Okanagan
