About
James DeVaney, associate vice provost for academic innovation and founding executive director for the Center for Academic Innovation, leads U-M’s academic innovation strategy and is responsible for a range of University-wide programs and initiatives designed to extend U-M’s academic excellence, expand the institution’s public purpose, and foster equity and inclusivity in higher education. U-M helps shape the future of higher education in data-informed ways by integrating in-person and online learning; developing flexible degree-based and shorter, targeted forms of education combined within and across disciplines; expanding educational credential frameworks, supporting lifelong educational activity; supporting student success and equity through the use of data-informed pedagogy and learner-centered technology; and with digital infrastructure that supports scalable and sustainable learning and engagement.
Leadership Team
James DeVaney, Associate Vice Provost for Academic Innovation and Founding Executive Director for the Center for Academic Innovation
Kaylee Shelton, Executive Assistant
Organization Chart
Note: staffing changes will not be reflected in the SPG-hosted org chart as quickly as in the lists above and below.
Center for Academic Innovation
James DeVaney, Associate Vice Provost for Academic Innovation and Founding Executive Director for the Center for Academic Innovation
The University of Michigan Center for Academic Innovation (CAI) is committed to bringing educational opportunities from the University of Michigan to a global network of lifelong learners. Through curricular innovation, tools for student success and equity, and educational research and analytics, the center is working toward a future in which education connects and empowers learners on campus and beyond to reach their full potential throughout their lives.
CAI’s vision is a future in which education connects and empowers learners everywhere to reach their full potential throughout their lives. To realize our vision, we make it our mission to collaborate across campus and around the world to create equitable, lifelong educational opportunities for learners everywhere. We invite academic units and campus partners to work with us to further our shared goals and develop the university’s blended future.
CAI develops online, hybrid, and blended learning programs; creates educational technology tools and platforms that support student success and equity; offers educational research and learning analytics services; creates extended reality experiences; and provides guidance through education and innovation policy support.
Center for Research on Learning and Teaching
Matt Kaplan, Executive Director
The Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT) is dedicated to the support and advancement of evidence-based learning and teaching practices and the professional development of all members of the campus teaching community. CRLT partners with faculty, graduate students, postdocs, and academic leaders to develop and sustain a university culture that values and rewards teaching, respects and supports individual differences among learners, and creates equitable learning environments in which diverse students and instructors can excel. CRLT carries out this mission through orientations, workshops, consultations, and learning communities for instructors; collaborations with departments, schools, and colleges; grants for innovations in teaching and learning; and the dissemination and pursuit of research. CRLT’s areas of expertise include equity-focused teaching, course design and curriculum development, evaluation and program assessment, incorporation of technology tools for teaching, and the use of applied theatre to address climate issues in classrooms and departments.
The James and Anne Duderstadt Center
Kati Bauer, Chief Operating Officer
The Duderstadt Center is a unique learning facility, created to support engaged and collaborative learning supported by advanced technologies. The Digital Media Commons (DMC) has responsibility for the overall operations of the Duderstadt Center (DC). Its role is stewardship, helping to coordinate the services provided by multiple partner organizations (including units from the College of Engineering; the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities; the Art, Architecture, and Engineering Library; the Millennium Project; the campus XR Initiative; and the Mujo Cafe) and seeing that the Duderstadt Center’s resources reflect the priorities of the DC’s Executive Committee for serving the academic community.
The DMC staff also provide specialist expertise to support the technologies, spaces, and curricular programs of the advanced digital media resources and studios in the DC.