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Our Mission

The Claremont Colleges Center for Teaching and Learning serves as a hub for both practical teaching support and meaningful discussions about teaching as an intellectual endeavor. We aim to create a vibrant and interconnected teaching community by offering valuable resources and programs that enhance the effectiveness of teaching. Through our initiatives, we further the colleges’ mission by building both individual teachers’ and the institutions’ capacity to strengthen inclusive, student-centered pedagogy. We support both student and faculty success. 

Our goals are to:

  1. Promote a community culture of life-long learning and commitment to effective teaching. 
  2. Enable and support faculty and instructional staff to learn about, implement, and advance evidence-based, student-centered, inclusive teaching and learning practices and technologies in every stage of their careers.  
  3. Build and maintain a supportive community for teachers at the colleges, where instructors can share their teaching, receive feedback, and learn from each other.
  4. Advocate for and support Claremont College institutional units promoting equity and inclusion in both student learning and faculty/staff experience.

In pursuit of these goals the CTL:

  1. Develops opportunities to learn about evidence-based, student-centered, inclusive teaching and learning practices and technologies. 
  2. Celebrates and amplifies impactful teaching practices in our community by creating opportunities for instructors to share evidence of their teaching development.
  3. Connects faculty, departments, committees, and other campus groups, and serves as a central resource on teaching-related needs.
  4. Supports existing and emerging campus initiatives related to effective teaching and inclusive excellence. 

 

Why is this mission important?

  1. Teaching is core to the mission of the colleges, but faculty may have little to no training in teaching, and no requirements for continuing education in it, even as teaching needs change.
  2. The classroom is not a closed system. The Claremont Colleges benefit from rapid, contextual response to emerging issues on campus or in the broader educational landscape.
  3. Teaching support can fortify instructors and institutions against threats to inclusion of different student/faculty/staff identities and academic freedom.