The Dean’s Teaching Seminar Series celebrates our faculty's pedagogical innovation, classroom excellence and scholarship of teaching and learning.

These seminars provide a dedicated space to showcase the creative ways our faculty are overcoming modern classroom challenges, enhancing the learning experience for VCU students.

Purpose and Value

The College of Humanities and Sciences strives to foster a culture where teaching excellence is shared and celebrated as a collective achievement. The series highlights faculty who have developed compelling strategies to:

• Overcome challenges: Solve persistent obstacles in student engagement, accessibility or course delivery.
• Enhance experience: Implement high-impact practices that spark curiosity and deepen student belonging.
• Increase outcomes: Demonstrate measurable improvements in student success and mastery of complex material.

Scalability and Community

A key focus of this series is scalability, highlighting interventions and innovations that can be adapted across disciplines. The series is likewise a hub for collaboration as we learn more about how our faculty are reaching for excellence in the classroom. 

The seminar sessions typically consist of two-to-three brief presentations designed for a general faculty audience, followed by a collaborative discussion.

Call for Presenters 

The College of Humanities and Sciences invites applications from faculty across all ranks to present at the upcoming Dean’s Teaching Seminar Series. Following the model of the Dean's Research Seminar Series, we seek faculty who are doing amazing things in the classroom. We are looking for presentations that showcase innovative, transformative and scalable teaching practices.

We invite proposals that highlight a specific teaching breakthrough. Your proposal should briefly address:

• The challenge: What specific hurdle to student learning or engagement did you encounter?
• The innovation: What interesting and compelling strategy or tool did you implement to address it?
• The impact: What evidence (qualitative or quantitative) shows that this enhanced the learning experience or improved outcomes?
• The ripple effect (scalability): How might a colleague in a different department adapt your approach to their own classroom?

The application form is available here. For questions, please contact Chris Burdett at clburdett@vcu.edu. 

 Eligibility

All full-time CHS faculty are eligible to apply. We particularly encourage applications that demonstrate a commitment to the College’s mission of providing foundational knowledge and 21st-century skills to a diverse student body.

 Presentation Format

Selected faculty will deliver a 15–20 minute presentation designed for a broad audience of colleagues, followed by a Q&A session aimed at cross-disciplinary exchange.

 Application

Submit an abstract of no more than 500 words which addresses each of the four criteria outlined above. In addition, include an updated version of your CV. The application form is available here.