About CELT

​The Center for Engaged Learning and Teaching (CELT) was established in 2011 with a broad mission to enrich student learning through engagement inside and outside the classroom. Over its first several years, CELT's work evolved as some of its original areas of focus found new homes within the University and the Center increasingly focused its work on supporting faculty and teaching excellence. This evolution was reinforced by the 2015 President's Task Force on the Undergraduate Experience, which identified CELT as an important resource for strengthening teaching at Tulane.

CELT's faculty development role continued to grow. In 2018, the Center launched Sparking Success, its annual faculty development conference, bringing together Tulane educators and colleagues from other institutions to share ideas, practices, and approaches to teaching. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced an abrupt move to remote instruction in Spring 2020, CELT led Tulane's efforts to prepare faculty for online teaching, rapidly developing and delivering training, consultations, and resources to support the transition. The following academic year, CELT established its three-course Graduate Pedagogy Education program and articulated the core purpose that continues to guide its work: to create meaningful learning through exceptional teaching.

Over time, CELT has continued to deepen and broaden its support for educators at all career stages and across appointment types. Its faculty development work includes workshops, individual consultations, peer observations, faculty learning communities, course and assessment redesign institutes, grants, and opportunities to engage in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). Collaboration is central to this work, allowing CELT to draw on expertise throughout the University and partner with colleagues to address teaching and learning challenges that extend beyond any single office or discipline.

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence provides one example of that responsiveness. Beginning in spring 2023, shortly after the public release of ChatGPT, CELT began offering programming to help faculty understand and respond to the rapidly changing role of AI in higher education. As the technology and the questions surrounding it have evolved, CELT's work has evolved with them, moving from early conversations about generative AI toward deeper consideration of course and assessment design, student learning, and the role of faculty in an AI-influenced world.

More than fifteen years after CELT first opened its doors, the Center continues to grow and change alongside the educators it serves. What began as a broad initiative to foster engaged learning has evolved into a community centered on teaching: a place where Tulane educators can find support, learn from one another, experiment with new approaches, and continue developing their teaching throughout their careers.