General Scope

The activities of the CBS Office of Educational Scholarship and Practice (COESP) support not only the specific needs of the emerging BioEd Research Hub in the College but the full breadth of scholarship on knowledge transfer & community engagement, curriculum design, outcome assessment, course re-design, graduate success, student career counseling and academic integrity, all of which shape the success of educational programs in CBS.

Activities supported by COESP focus on scholarship within the biological sciences and provide a portal to other disciplinary-focused offices, institutes or groups within the university community. It provides access to and support for evidence-based enhancement of teaching and learning and educational research pertaining to the biological sciences that addresses the contemporary challenges facing the university, the college, and specific programs. To the extent that COESP activities address the needs and challenges of the college, it will be important that the steering committee of the COESP be informed by the priorities of the Associate Dean Academic.

Vision

To be recognized as the national leader in educational scholarship and practice in the biological sciences.

Mission

The mission of the COESP is to support and promote:
1. Evidence-based practice
2. Outcomes development and assessment
3. Biology higher education research

Values

Guiding all we do, our values include being:

1. Inclusive - we value including all of CBS, from students to faculty to administration
2. Accessible - we value our work being accessible to the community, and that might mean translating some of the jargon of SOTL (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning) into terms that are understood by biologists and applicable to biology education.
3. Responsive - we value responding to the community in a way that is useful, positive, and forward-thinking.
4. Evidence-based - whatever we do, we value responses that are based in evidence.  That evidence might come from the literature, or it might be evidence that we generate ourselves.