About Us

Founded in 2017, the Center for Teaching Innovation (CTI) supports Cornell University teaching community members, from teaching assistants and postdoctoral fellows, to lecturers, to professors, with a full complement of individualized services, programs, institutes, and campus-wide initiatives. We do this through confidential developmental consultations across the academic career span, roles, and disciplines. In addition to instructors, we team with departments, schools and colleges, and related units to create and sustain multicultural, rigorous, and vibrant learning environments. To catalyze academic innovation, our team brings a deep knowledge of educational research on teaching, learning, and technologies along with a spirit of curiosity and collaboration. The CTI reports to the vice provost for academic innovation.

Our Commitment to Antiracism

As always, in these extraordinary times, we explicitly confirm our steadfast commitment to accelerate Cornell University’s actions to be an inclusive institution.  We embrace the responsibility of ongoing internal critical reflection, dialogue, and action as individuals and as a center. And, we support the Cornell teaching community (our faculty, staff, and students) in their efforts to act as antiracists in creating and sustaining inclusive teaching and learning environments. Collectively, we strive towards equity and a system of higher education that is antiracist.


A Message from the Executive Director 

Photo of Rob Vanderlan, Executive Director

As a practice, teaching is both comfortingly timeless and refreshingly novel, and the 2023-2024 academic year promises new challenges and opportunities for student learning and growth. From introducing students into virtual worlds they could not otherwise experience, to understanding how artificial intelligence tools will change our understanding of what and how we learn, the world of learning is constantly evolving, and we must evolve with it, alongside our students. 

While innovative technologies can be cause for both excitement and healthy skepticism, we can take comfort that students will continue to come to Cornell to learn, to encounter new ideas, to grow into the world, just as faculty at Cornell will continue to meet students in the classroom, guiding them into a larger, more complex, and more challenging world. 

There are always novel ways to engage students in learning. At CTI, our team will continue to embrace both the timelessness and the dynamism of teaching and learning. We look forward to working with faculty colleagues to partner in meeting the challenges ahead.

Rob Vanderlan, Executive Director


Learn More About the CTI

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