Before joining UCC, Anna was Faculty Development Specialist in the Office for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning at University of Rhode Island (USA), where she led an array of consultation services, Justice & Equity educational resources, Inclusive Excellence initiatives, and High Impact Teaching programs to foster educators’ agency as reflexive practitioners. Anna holds a BA in Modern Languages (Padova, Italy), an MA in English (Nottingham, UK), and a PhD combining Italian Studies and Theatre Arts & Performance Studies (Brown University, USA). During her doctoral studies she was also Visiting Scholar at Dickinson College, and she served for several years as Graduate Teaching Consultant within Brown’s Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning.
Anna’s international and transdisciplinary work critically promotes interculturality, equity and justice in higher education via co-creation, reflection, agency, and authentic partnerships. Her scholarship, teaching practice, and collaborations focus on critically inclusive pedagogies informed by applied theatre, performance activism, language education, and intercultural teaching and learning. Her publications appear in venues such as Research in Drama Education, the Scenario Journal for Performative Teaching, Learning and Research, the Journal of Excellence in College Teaching, the Journal of Faculty Development, Teaching and Learning Inquiry, New Directions in Teaching & Learning, and the International Journal for Academic Development.
Highlights about Anna's recent areas of interest include: Democratic Belonging as Informed Citizenry (POD session at AAC&U 2022); Intercultural Educators’ Ethical Practice Across Disciplines (Scenario Journal); the role of acknowledgement in transformative Faculty Development programs for Inclusive Teaching that center truth and racial healing (Journal of Faculty Development); exploring discomfort, co-creation, trust, self-awareness, and empathy in her contribution to the Deep Teaching Residency (DTR) curriculum; Listening to the Sound of Silence in Supporting Instructors' Transitions to Remote Teaching During COVID-19; Educational Development for Collective Healing, Linguistic Justice, and Faculty Wellbeing (POD 2022, see also related Re-Energized framework published in JFD); Subverting Zero-Sum Paradigms” in Higher Education and supporting Values-Aligned Grading (POD 2023); trans-disciplinary dialogue, relationships, and communities in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (see 2024 special issue in Transformative Dialogues); Positionality in the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning; upcoming book chapters on “The Artistry of Teaching” and on “Performing higher education: Improv is/as radical co-creating;” and her 2023 keynote at the Mt Royal Univ SoTL Symposium (Canada) entitled “Growing Together: Liminal Presence, Emergent Dialogue, and Cultural Action Towards Transformative Co-creation in Our Teaching and Learning Journeys.”
Anna believes in education for liberation, and in the powerful ways in which creativity and authentic relationships shape our collective journeys towards positive change. She interrogates power with honesty, values co-creation and shared knowledge, and advocates for systemically supporting equitable success for all teachers and learners. As a member of the CIRTL team she contributes her passion and expertise to UCC’s growth and success especially in relation to:
1) nurturing an evidence-based and intellectually-engaged teaching and learning community;
2) sustaining learning-centered teaching strategies that consider motivation, growth mindset, self-realization, empathy, embodiment, belonging, mattering, and affectivity;
3) facilitating multidisciplinary conversations that integrate culturally aware teaching and mentoring, with particular attention to the role played by educators’ own values and identities;
4) directing programmes that address holistic student success as well as the needs of educators as learners themselves;
5) supporting and maintaining local and global partnerships to pursue meaningful organizational change and advance Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.
Biography
Anna Santucci, PhD (she/lei/sie/ella) joined University College Cork in 2022 as Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Teaching and Learning Enhancement in the Centre for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL). She directs CIRTL’s MA program in Teaching and Learning for Higher Education and co-leads UCC’s contributions to Teaching & Learning efforts for the UNIC European University alliance. She brings to UCC her fervent vocation for Educational Development, her strong commitment to Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, her international experience within diverse Higher Education settings, and her dedication to promoting intentional, learning-centred, and evidence-based teaching across the disciplines. She cultivates these values locally and internationally in her current roles as vice-president of the All Ireland Society for Higher Education (AISHE), co-lead of an International Collaborative Writing Group for the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL), chair of POD Network’s Professional Development Committee and editor of its POD Speaks series, and Associate Editor of the International Consortium for Educational Development (ICED)’s International Journal for Academic Development (IJAD).Before joining UCC, Anna was Faculty Development Specialist in the Office for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning at University of Rhode Island (USA), where she led an array of consultation services, Justice & Equity educational resources, Inclusive Excellence initiatives, and High Impact Teaching programs to foster educators’ agency as reflexive practitioners. Anna holds a BA in Modern Languages (Padova, Italy), an MA in English (Nottingham, UK), and a PhD combining Italian Studies and Theatre Arts & Performance Studies (Brown University, USA). During her doctoral studies she was also Visiting Scholar at Dickinson College, and she served for several years as Graduate Teaching Consultant within Brown’s Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning.
Anna’s international and transdisciplinary work critically promotes interculturality, equity and justice in higher education via co-creation, reflection, agency, and authentic partnerships. Her scholarship, teaching practice, and collaborations focus on critically inclusive pedagogies informed by applied theatre, performance activism, language education, and intercultural teaching and learning. Her publications appear in venues such as Research in Drama Education, the Scenario Journal for Performative Teaching, Learning and Research, the Journal of Excellence in College Teaching, the Journal of Faculty Development, Teaching and Learning Inquiry, New Directions in Teaching & Learning, and the International Journal for Academic Development.
Highlights about Anna's recent areas of interest include: Democratic Belonging as Informed Citizenry (POD session at AAC&U 2022); Intercultural Educators’ Ethical Practice Across Disciplines (Scenario Journal); the role of acknowledgement in transformative Faculty Development programs for Inclusive Teaching that center truth and racial healing (Journal of Faculty Development); exploring discomfort, co-creation, trust, self-awareness, and empathy in her contribution to the Deep Teaching Residency (DTR) curriculum; Listening to the Sound of Silence in Supporting Instructors' Transitions to Remote Teaching During COVID-19; Educational Development for Collective Healing, Linguistic Justice, and Faculty Wellbeing (POD 2022, see also related Re-Energized framework published in JFD); Subverting Zero-Sum Paradigms” in Higher Education and supporting Values-Aligned Grading (POD 2023); trans-disciplinary dialogue, relationships, and communities in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (see 2024 special issue in Transformative Dialogues); Positionality in the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning; upcoming book chapters on “The Artistry of Teaching” and on “Performing higher education: Improv is/as radical co-creating;” and her 2023 keynote at the Mt Royal Univ SoTL Symposium (Canada) entitled “Growing Together: Liminal Presence, Emergent Dialogue, and Cultural Action Towards Transformative Co-creation in Our Teaching and Learning Journeys.”
Anna believes in education for liberation, and in the powerful ways in which creativity and authentic relationships shape our collective journeys towards positive change. She interrogates power with honesty, values co-creation and shared knowledge, and advocates for systemically supporting equitable success for all teachers and learners. As a member of the CIRTL team she contributes her passion and expertise to UCC’s growth and success especially in relation to:
1) nurturing an evidence-based and intellectually-engaged teaching and learning community;
2) sustaining learning-centered teaching strategies that consider motivation, growth mindset, self-realization, empathy, embodiment, belonging, mattering, and affectivity;
3) facilitating multidisciplinary conversations that integrate culturally aware teaching and mentoring, with particular attention to the role played by educators’ own values and identities;
4) directing programmes that address holistic student success as well as the needs of educators as learners themselves;
5) supporting and maintaining local and global partnerships to pursue meaningful organizational change and advance Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.