Nancy Chism

Biographical Sketch
Nancy Van Note Chism

Nancy Van Note Chism is Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Associate Dean of the Faculties at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. In this role, she provides leadership for central services supporting faculty and academic staff as teachers and scholars. She is also Professor of Higher Education at Indiana University. Previously, Dr. Chism was Director of Faculty and TA Development and Adjunct Associate Professor of Educational Policy and Leadership at The Ohio State University.

She has been involved in directing or participating in several major funded projects, including the National Consortium on Preparing Graduate Students as College Teachers (Pew Charitable Trusts), The Ohio State Cluster Preparing Future Faculty Program (Pew Charitable Trusts), and the Rigorous Research in Engineering Education and Gateway Engineering Education Programs (National Science Foundation). She is Past President of the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education, an organization devoted to improving college teaching, and in 1998 received the Spirit of POD award from that association.

Dr. Chism is the author of Peer Review of Teaching (1999) and editor or co-editor of five other volumes, the latest of which is The Importance of Physical Space in Creating Supportive Learning Environments (2002). She has authored or co-authored numerous book chapters and journal articles on teaching and learning in higher education and developing faculty and teaching assistants as teachers, with particular emphasis on multicultural teaching and program evaluation. She has made many presentations nationally and internationally on teaching and learning issues in higher education, including invited addresses at universities and conferences, and consults regularly with campuses on improving college teaching and evaluating improvement efforts.

Dr. Chism teaches courses in professional development and teaching and learning in higher education as well as qualitative research methods. She has chaired or participated on the committees of many graduate students at Indiana University and The Ohio State University, primarily in the areas of student learning or teaching and teaching development in higher education.

Dr. Chism was a key collaborator in two programs that won Certificates of Excellence in the 2002 and 2003 Hesburgh Awards, a national faculty development competition. At Ohio State, she was named Ameritech Faculty Fellow in 1997, and received the Outstanding Teaching Award of The Ohio State University College of Education, the Outstanding Service Award of the Graduate Student Association, and the Distinguished Service Award of the Graduate School. At Indiana University, she was elected to the Faculty Colloquium on Excellence in Teaching, the university’s teaching academy, in 2004, was selected as the IUPUI Outstanding Faculty Woman Leader in 2004, and won the Joseph T. Taylor Award for Excellence in Diversity Award at IUPUI in 2005.

Her degrees are from Fordham University (B.A. English), Smith College (M.A.T. in English and Education), and The Ohio State University (Ph.D. in Educational Policy and Leadership).