Since June 2004, Saint Martin’s University has been an active participant in the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL). We began our institutional participation initially as a CASTL Cluster Leader in the “Scholarly Work in Learner-Centered Cluster.” Beginning Fall 2006, Saint Martin’s became part of the Cognitive Affective Learning (CAL) Leadership Cluster. Membership as a nationwide leader in these clusters has allowed us to experience first-hand the importance of focusing on activities that help faculty articulate how their classroom performance enhances student learning. We have benefited from this focused and systematic emphasis on the scholarship of teaching and student learning, with activities that have included faculty research projects; faculty retreats; faculty presentations of papers and workshops; and attendance at CASTL summer academies, CASTL colloquiums, and the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) Conferences. Through internal public presentations offered at the Friday Faculty Lunches, we disseminate these research projects, thus cultivating an environment that fosters good pedagogy based on practice and research.

At SMU, we share the Carnegie Academy for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning’s values of developing and disseminating knowledge about learning and teaching to enhance student learning in our classrooms. We realize that the students benefit the most from our CASTL participation; student learning remains in the foreground of our thoughts and practices. As a small University dedicated to teaching pedagogies that enhance student learning, we have considered teaching and learning an integral part of our mission for over a hundred years.