Dr. Chelsea Chandler, Ph.D. serves as the Director of the Center for Faculty Excellence (CFE). Chelsea is an experienced educator who is passionate about justice, equity, and inclusion at the intersections of teaching, learning, and curriculum design. Chelsea has taught in a variety of settings including K-12, higher education, and informal education programs. 

Prior to joining the CFE, Chelsea held multiple positions in higher education. Her higher education teaching experience began with her appointment as an Assistant Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at Concordia University Chicago. She co-led the Curriculum and Instruction program and taught graduate teacher education courses on topics such as curriculum theory and design, culturally sustaining and responsive pedagogy, foundations of education, and teacher action research. Her experiences designing courses for different modalities at Concordia University led her to pursue career opportunities in the field of Learning Experience Design (LXD).

As a Learning Experience Designer, Chelsea focused on assisting University of Michigan faculty in the design of open, online courses and led her team in faculty development focused on inclusive course design and pedagogy. During her time at U-M, Chelsea also team taught a year-long Learning Experience Design lab course and mentored students during their residency with the Center for Academic Innovation.

Chelsea’s research interests include inclusive pedagogy and course design, curriculum development, and teaching and learning in online, hybrid, and face-to-face environments. She regularly presents her research at national conferences, publishes in academic journals, and is a member of the National Center for Institutional Diversity's Diversity Scholars Network at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Chandler holds a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Toledo, as well as a Master of Education in Teaching and Learning from BGSU. 

Holly Barber is an Instructional Designer with over 18 years of experience in higher education, with a video production background. At BGSU, Holly focuses on helping faculty design their courses in alignment with their learning outcomes as well as offering a variety of professional development workshops. Prior to working in higher education, she was a video editor for a Cleveland Indians weekly TV show called “Indian’s 411” and has worked for NBC 24 and WOUB. She has produced educational videos and specialized in educational technology at Owens Community College. While at OCC, as an Instructional Designer, she became Apple Certified and created educational resources for their iTunes University program. Her passion is in emerging technology within higher education as well incorporating videos for Active Learning and the Flipped Classroom model.

Dr. Kristen Hidinger serves as an Instructional Designer in the Center for Faculty Excellence. As an Instructional Designer, Dr. Hidinger consults with faculty and facilitates workshops regarding online and remote pedagogy, course design, collaboration, and community building in online learning environments. Prior to joining the Center for Faculty Excellence, she served as a Student Success Coordinator and as a Retention Specialist for non- and post traditional student populations. Stemming from her experiences as an online learner and practitioner, Dr. Hidinger’s research interests include peer interaction, community building, and culturally inclusive pedagogy in online and remote learning environments. Dr. Hidinger has a Master’s degree in Equity and Diversity in Education from the University of Nevada, Reno and a Doctorate in Higher Education Administration from Bowling Green State University.  

As the CFE Program Coordinator, Sally Thelen coordinates faculty development initiatives and CFE events and collaborates with CFE team members on program development and evaluation. Sally has extensive classroom experience, having taught English as a Second Language (ESL) in higher education settings, adult learning environments, and K-12 schools in the United States and internationally for almost twenty years. In addition to her classroom experience, Sally has served as an Assessment Specialist at University of Michigan's Michigan Language Assessment (MLA) and at Lourdes University. At Lourdes, she led institutional accreditation efforts, coordinated academic and cocurricular assessment activities, and supported faculty and staff in assessment development. Sally is committed to fostering an inclusive classroom experience for all learners and supporting faculty in the implementation of equitable instructional and assessment practices. Sally has a Master’s in Education in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from SUNY University at Buffalo and a Master’s in Arts in Educational and Instructional Technology from Western Michigan University.

Kristen Funk serves as a Graduate Assistant in the Center for Faculty Excellence. In her role, Kristen works with marketing for all CFE events and logistics of facilitating workshops. Before joining the Center for Faculty Excellence, Kristen served as the Graduate Coordinator of Student Organization Development at BGSU. Kristen has experience in advising, student conduct and case management, student activities, and event planning from experiences working in the Office of Student Engagement, Office of the Dean of Students, and Life Design at Bowling Green State University. Kristen has extensive experience planning, coordinating, and implementing events at institutions of higher education. She has a passion for aiding in removing barriers to student success and lifelong learning. Kristen has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Clinical Psychology from Walsh University and is currently pursuing her Master’s in College Student Personnel at BGSU.

Krys is a doctoral candidate in the Rhetoric and Writing Program whose dissertation focuses on student accommodation inspired by their experiences as a chronically ill person. They taught an introductory public speaking course for three years at the University of Findlay and one year here at BGSU. Later, they became the coordinator for the Cross-Cultural Conversation Connection Program between 2020 and 2022. While on fellowship during the 2022–23 academic year, they presented at a variety of conferences (including the Conference on College Composition and Communication in February 2023) and facilitated several brown bag talks.

Outside BGSU, Krys works with Dr. Aimi Hamraie and other critical access scholars within the Critical Design Lab, “a multi-disciplinary arts and design collaborative centered in disability culture and crip technoscience”. In particular, the subproject Krys works with explores emerging vocabularies used within disabled, neurodivergent, blind, and/or Deaf/hard-of-hearing communities.

Krys graduated from BGSU with a BA in Communication and dual minor in Chinese and Japanese in 2016. They earned an MA in Rhetoric and Writing from the University of Findlay in 2019.

Additional interests include the following: chronic and invisible illness, healthcare inequity, mortality, multilingualism, neurodivergent pedagogy, and popular culture/representation.

Debipreeta Rahut is a Doctoral Student and Graduate Teaching Associate at the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. She completed her Master of Arts in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Calcutta and her Bachelor of Arts with Honours in English Literature from Scottish Church College, Kolkata, affiliated to the University of Calcutta in India.

At Bowling Green State University, she has served as an instructor of record for COMM 1020: Introduction to Public Speaking and worked as a Teaching Assistant for COMM 3030: Persuasive Communication. At present, she is working as an instructor of record for COMM 3030: Persuasive Communication and as a Teaching Assistant for COMM 2010: Communication Theory. Besides, she has volunteered as a Teaching Assistant for two Online Asynchronous Courses - MDIA 4670/MC 5670: Gender, Media & Culture and COMM 4080/MC 5080: Intercultural Communication. She also has experience working on an NSF Grant (Award No. 1760389) with the BGSU ALLIES team as an Online Learning Designer and Research Assistant in the summers of 2022 and 2023 respectively, where she assisted them in designing, developing, and revising online training modules for faculty and faculty administrators on allyship and inclusive leadership principles and practices with a focus on gender equity.

Debipreeta’s research interests include Gender and Technology, Social Media Activism, Digital Culture, Migration Studies, Feminist Studies, and Postcolonial Studies. She is passionate about inclusive and intercultural pedagogy and strives towards engaging with her students in a respectful and cooperative manner. Debipreeta’s teaching philosophy is aligned with feminist pedagogy, enabling the classroom as a space for open and critical discussion towards learning, decentering power thereby facilitating a conducive environment for effective teaching-learning.