The Excellence in Teaching Program

Barbara J. Millis became the second Director of the UNR Excellence in Teaching Program (ETP) on July 1, 2004 after serving for nine years as the Director of Faculty Development at the US Air Force Academy. Prior to that—beginning in 1982—she worked in faculty development at the University of Maryland University College. Barbara received her Ph.D. in English literature from Florida State University.
She is well-known in faculty development circles and is a sought-after workshop presenter and speaker/keynoter. This past year, for example, she offered keynotes at the IDEA Chairpersons Conference, the Undergraduate Microbiology Education Conference, the 2004 Colloquium on Change in Accounting Education, and Lilly East and Lilly North Teaching Conferences. She has offered workshops at over 300 colleges and universities including many overseas.

Barbara has published numerous articles on topics such as cooperative learning, classroom observations, the teaching portfolio, microteaching, syllabus construction, classroom assessment/research, focus groups, academic assessment, and academic games. Oryx Press published in 1998 a book, co-authored with Philip Cottell, Cooperative Learning for Higher Education Faculty. In 2002 Stylus Press published Using Simulations to Enhance Learning in Higher Education, co-authored with John Hertel. A second book in the series on academic games will follow. The IDEA paper series published Enhancing Learning-and More!-through Cooperative Learning, available here. At the U. S. Air Force Academy, Barbara won both a teaching award and a research award. In Fall 2002 she loved being a Visiting Scholar at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand. Since coming to UNR, she has become a Senior Associate with the Teaching, Learning, Technologies Group sponsored by the American Association of Higher Education and will offer this spring a series of webcasts on teaching, learning, and assessment.

ETP Staff:

Lori McClelland

Lori McClelland has been with the Excellence in Teaching Program since 2003, and is a longtime member of the university community, having come from the Secretary of State’s office in 1982. She is currently working on her degree (one class at a time), and her hobby is raising and showing dogs. Her kennel is one of the top 3 in the nation, and has won numerous awards - both nationally and internationally. The current #2 AKC agility Australian shepherd for 2004 & #3 AKC agility Australian shepherd of all time is from her kennel.

Gosia Samojlowicz

She is an international graduate student from Poland currently obtaining her MBA diploma at the College of Business Administration at UNR. She gained her first Master's degree in Economics in 2002. Creativity, love for risk, never-ending curiosity for exploring new places tossed all together on high in a blender - well, that is basically her.

Scott Parker

Scott Parker is a doctoral student in Political Science.

Joel Luckemeyer

Joel is currently attending UNR as an undergraduate and has changed his major three times in three semesters. In spring of 2005 he will start taking classes for speech pathology. Hopefully this major will stick for him. Joel was born in Reno and has lived in the area all his life. He graduated from Galena High School in 2003. Joel is a big sports fan. He finds much enjoyment playing in two different slow pitch softball leagues.