The University of New Mexico’s Center for Teacher and Learning (CTL) has added two new assistant directors, Jennifer R. Pollard and Magdalena Vázquez Dathe, as part of its Teaching Support Program.
Each will work together to develop workshops and projects to improve campus-wide teaching and learning for UNM faculty and instructors. The pair will also provide one-on-one consulting, peer observations, and mid-semester feedback for anyone who wants it.
Meet Dr. Jennifer R. Pollard, a longtime educator with a passion for higher education.
She has served in education roles ranging in location from the University of Michigan to the University of the West Indies, to now, New Mexico. Pollard will focus on supporting instructors and teaching assistants while incorporating their unique needs, as well as keeping workshops updated on current teaching trends. She is looking forward to serving CTL through a focused lens of personal and professional identity development.
"I am very excited to discover, learn about and help make more visible the strong pedagogical practices that already exist in departments across UNM," Pollard said.
Meet Magdalena Vázquez Dathe, a long time Lobo. In addition to serving in this leadership role, she will continue to work as adjunct faculty in the Department of Language, Literacy and Sociocultural Studies, College of Education and Human Sciences (COEHS). She has spent the last 20 years honing UNM student leadership, success and academic development on and off-campus. Expect her work at CTL to support learning and teaching programming opportunities for UNM instructors and students. She will also provide insight on interdisciplinary and cross-racial approaches, as well as antiracist, critical intersectional models in education and studies of transformation in teaching.