Boston College’s Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE), designed by Lavallee Brensinger Architects, opened for its inaugural semester in the fall of 2014. The facility serves as the administrative headquarters and laboratory for innovational exploration of Instructional Design and eTeaching Services (IDeS) and the Faculty Microcomputer Resource Center. These formerly scattered program offices now sit adjacent to the existing Connors Family Learning Center, centrally located in O’Neill Library at the heart of the Main Campus. The new CTE provides a range of advanced tools to Boston College faculty and graduate student teachers to explore, test, and improve upon evolving pedagogical innovations and technologies. As awareness and use of the facility increased throughout the fall, the university looks forward to the center’s continued growth throughout the second half of the school year.
A major benefit of the new CTE, said CTE Director John Rakestraw, is the consolidation of resources. “A lot of universities and colleges have a center for teaching as well as a center for academic technology,” said Rakestraw. “But there is real value in having all those aspects and functions in one place. As the use of technology in academia continues to grow, it’s all the more important that alongside the technological resources is the expertise and interest in pedagogy, the very language and philosophy of teaching.”