Nancy O'Neill joined the Kirwan Center in February 2016 and currently serves as the Executive Director, shaping the Kirwan Center’s strategic direction and leading its work. At the Kirwan Center, she leads Systemwide projects related to student success as well as capacity-building initiatives with and for faculty development leaders across the System. She also supports Kirwan Center initiatives that directly engage faculty, including efforts to scale and sustain the use of open educational resources and to promote the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL).
Prior to being at USM, she served as the Director of the Center for Excellence in Learning, Teaching, and Technology at the University of Baltimore from 2012 to 2016. While at UBalt, her work focused on supporting faculty innovation in teaching as well as curriculum development and alignment, student learning assessment, and institutional effectiveness. In her last year at UBalt, she helped guide the University’s general education reform and institutional assessment efforts ahead of re-accreditation. Before moving to Baltimore in 2012, Nancy spent a decade at the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), contributing to national projects related to high-impact practices, undergraduate curriculum and quality, assessment, institutional renewal, and diversity and equity initiatives.
Nancy earned a doctorate in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania, a master’s degree in American Studies and a master’s degree in College Student Personnel from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a bachelor’s degree in journalism and social criticism from the University of Buffalo. Her dissertation examined faculty use of open educational resources (OER) in relation to the content and teaching affordances made possible by open licensing. She can be reached at cai@usmd.edu.
Jennifer Potter (she/her) serves as the Associate Director at the Kirwan Center, and leads alternative credentialing, digital accessibility, and Generative AI initiatives. Jennifer joined the University System of Maryland (USM) after more than 16 years at Towson University, where she earned her PhD in Communication and Culture from Howard University in 2008. At Towson, she most recently served as Chair and Professor in the Department of Communication Studies and as the Faculty Mentoring Fellow in the Faculty Academic Center of Excellence at Towson (FACET). Throughout her career, Jennifer has led numerous initiatives aimed at enhancing student engagement through high-impact educational practices.
Among her key contributions, Jennifer spearheaded the development of a capstone course, created a Residential Learning Community (RLC) for students passionate about advocacy, established a department-wide undergraduate research program, and launched a Public Communication Center that used a peer mentoring model to support public speaking across campus. She was also instrumental in expanding Study Abroad opportunities and supported efforts to develop Comprehensive Learner Records and micro-credentialing pathways for students. In 2023, Jennifer co-led a successful initiative as part of the M.O.S.T. Institutional OER Grant Program, creating an entirely OER-based Public Speaking curriculum. This project resulted in accessible student materials, faculty teaching resources, and supplemental content that supported improved public speaking skills campus-wide. A strong advocate for inclusive education and social justice, Jennifer has facilitated the Dialogue@TU program, served as a trained Inside-Out Prison Exchange instructor, and earned certification as a mediator through the Social Justice Mediation Institute. In recognition of her commitment to mentorship, Jennifer received the University System of Maryland Board of Regents Faculty Award for Mentorship in 2024, honoring her impact on both students and faculty throughout her career.
Dr. Kelly Elkins, Professor of Chemistry at Towson University, is leading efforts to support the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) out of the Kirwan Center for the 2023-24 academic year. A forensic chemist, Dr. Elkins’ research includes advanced DNA sequencing methods and the detection and analysis of new psychoactive substances and counterfeit drugs. She has also published SoTL research developing course-based undergraduate research (CURE) courses and looking at methods for teaching professional ethics in forensic science. Additionally, she has served as a fellow with FACET (the Faculty Academic Center of Excellence at Towson), consulting with Towson University faculty around presenting and publishing on teaching practice. Dr. Elkins will be supporting the inaugural cohort of Elkins SoTL Fellows (named for former University of Maryland President, Wilson H. Elkins, no relation) in their SoTL projects, and consulting with USM centers for teaching and learning to learn more about their efforts to support SoTL at the institutional level.
