Dr. Stephanie
Whalen

Dr. Stephanie Whalen is a professor of English and interdisciplinary studies and has served as the faculty leader of the Academy for Teaching Excellence at Harper College since 2017, currently serving as director. As part of a collaborative team that supports faculty onboarding and professional learning, she has co-developed robust programs, including Communities of Practice, Level-II Adjunct Faculty Engagement, Small Group Instructional Feedback, and an array of inclusive teaching resources, such as an updated OSCQR rubric, Enacting Equity Course Review, Applying Equity Matrix planning tool, and the Equity Teaching Academy course series. Stephanie has extensive experience with the process of designing, implementing, and assessing faculty-led programs, such as Building Capacity for Hyflex, Redesign for Equity grant programs, and AI Immersion for Educators, as well as student-led programs, such as embedded peer coaching.  

Other topics of focus in professional learning are increasing transparency, supporting positive outcome expectancies, cultivating student awareness and ownership of engaged learning, designing and facilitating for neurodiversity, teaching in compressed formats across modalities, compassionate and empathic communication, and creating empowering environments for navigating controversial topics. Stephanie enjoys working with faculty and administrative co-leads and their teaching and learning teams to conceptualize, plan, implement, assess, evaluate, and refine programs and events that lead to improved experiences and success outcomes for students.