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Last modified: Thursday, June 28, 2012

Beth Kern named associate director of IU's FACET, director of Mack Center for Inquiry

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 28, 2012

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Beth Kern has been named associate director of the IU Faculty Colloquium on Excellence in Teaching, said John Applegate, IU executive vice president for university regional affairs, planning and policy. Kern, Indiana University South Bend associate professor of accounting, will also have responsibility for the Mack Center for Inquiry on Teaching and Learning. Her three-year appointment begins July 1.

Beth Kern

Photo by Chris Meyer

Beth Kern

Print-Quality Photo

The IU Faculty Colloquium on Excellence in Teaching, or FACET, is a community of faculty at IU dedicated to and recognized for excellence in teaching and learning. The Mack Center, administered by FACET, seeks to develop effective strategies for enhancing teaching and learning through the research of Mack Fellows and other faculty.

Kern's research in the scholarship of teaching and learning has been published in a number of journals, including the international Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Issues in Accounting Education and Journal of Accounting Education. She has received numerous teaching awards, including the Herman Frederic Lieber Award, the Indiana CPA Society Outstanding Educator Award and several Trustees' Teaching Awards. Kern has served as president, vice president and trustee of the American Taxation Association.

"FACET has become widely recognized at Indiana University as both a way to recognize excellent teaching and a means to provide networking and programs that support the scholarship of teaching and learning," Applegate said. "It is a unique organization at IU in its ability to bring together faculty from all eight campuses. As associate director of FACET with responsibility for the Mack Center, I am sure that Professor Kern will make valuable contributions toward enhancing educational excellence across the university."

"The Mack Center will play an increasingly important role in FACET's efforts to extend the dialogue about teaching and learning beyond future local, national and international disciplinary boundaries," said Robin Morgan, director of FACET and professor of psychology at IU Southeast. "Beth has been a charter fellow at the Mack Center since 2003. Hers is an informed and enthusiastic voice in our ongoing conversation about the scholarship of teaching and learning, and she has a marvelous vision for the Mack Center."

Describing her vision, Kern writes: "I was first drawn to SoTL (scholarship of teaching and learning) out of curiosity to see if some of the innovations I was trying in the classroom really did enhance student learning. Anecdotally, they seemed to do so and seemed to make learning accounting more enjoyable. But the empiricist in me wondered what types of students were helped? What kind of learning was enhanced? I was an accountant, not an educational psychologist, so I had a considerable amount of learning on my own to do in order to effectively engage in SoTL. That investment and its subsequent 'dividends' ended up being a highly enjoyable research excursion, one that has lasted the better part of 15 years."

FACET was founded in 1989 as an all-university initiative to advance teaching excellence across IU. FACET advocates for pedagogical innovation, inspires growth and reflection, cultivates the scholarship of teaching and learning, and fosters personal renewal in the commitment to student learning.