The Kirwan Center is pleased to announce that, following a nationwide search, Dr. Nancy O’Neill has accepted the position of Executive Director of the Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation. Dr. O'Neill joined the Kirwan Center in February 2016 and has served as the Acting Director since May 2022, 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. 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 where her dissertation examined faculty use of open educational resources (OER) in relation to the content and teaching affordances made possible by open licensing. Additionally, she has a master’s degree in American Studies, 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.
Please join us in welcoming Nancy to this new role!
