Team Academy

	Tara Gray, Ph.D., became the founding director of the Teaching Academy when it opened in January 2003. She is also an associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice, where she served ten years, after teaching economics for the previous ten years. Tara has won seven awards for teaching or service both on campus and nationally. She studies ways that faculty can improve their teaching and scholarship by working collaboratively. To this end, she teaches or helps teach one-time workshops as well as short courses at the Teaching Academy: Teaching Scholars, Teaching Portfolios, Tenure & Promotion Portfolios, Writing Groups, Scholarly Writing Retreat, Team Mentoring for New Faculty, Publish & Flourish, and Peer Coaching (a classrom observation program for teachers). Tara’s faculty development philosophy focuses on building community. You can reach Tara at 575.646.1013 or tgray@nmsu.edu.
	Jean Conway, M.A., is an associate director, joining the staff in 1990. Her specialty is distance education and visualization for learning. She contributed to the book, Teaching at a Distance with the Merging Technologies: An Instructional Systems Approach. She has also traveled extensively as co-presenter of the workshop, THE Distance Learning Workshop. Jean served at the Center for Educational Development for twelve years, including seven years as director of faculty development. She is responsible for coordinating events and activities to help faculty expand their teaching resources. The teaching seminars and teleconferences are Jean’s responsibility. Got an idea for a workshop? Let Jean know about it. You can reach Jean at 575.646.2496 or at econway@nmsu.edu.
	Shawn Werner, M.A., joined the Teaching Academy in 2012 as an associate director. From 2008–2011, she worked as a program specialist for the NSF ADVANCE-PAID grant at NMSU. This grant disseminated the ADVANCE mentoring program, department head training program, and promotion and tenure workshops across the state. She is now responsible for continuing the work of ADVANCE at the Teaching Academy through the coordination of ADVANCing Leaders, ADVANCE Mentoring Program, the Department Head Academy, and Promotion and Tenure Training. Her employment background includes a long history working in academia, including student advising and program coordination, as well as six years as an adjunct instructor for the Department of Communication Studies at NMSU. You can reach Shawn at 646-2583 or swerner@nmsu.edu.
	Sharon Lalla, Ed.D., joined the Teaching Academy in 2011 as a project manager and instructional consultant lead. She has served at NMSU as instructional technology manager, college assistant professor, and senior instructional lead since 2001. She is also a member of the graduate faculty and is a Quality Matters peer reviewer. Her administrative and teaching experiences have given her a practical understanding of implementation issues pertaining to elearning technologies that affect teaching to a diverse student body. Sharon is a recipient of an I.D.E.A diversity award, an author of Values Guiding Hispanics to Enroll and Depart from College: A Narrative Inquiry and a co-author of a book chapter entitled Digital Ecologies: Observations of Intercultural Interactions in Learning Management Systems. Recent workshops at the Teaching Academy and elsewhere include Practice Inclusion in Online Course Design, Ready Set Connect: Online, Quality Matters: Bringing it Altogether, Constructivism in Online Instruction, Creating an Online Syllabus, and Managing Content. In addition, Sharon coordinates the Let’s Talk Online Teaching series and teaches instructors how to use Canvas. You can reach Sharon at 646-5968 or slalla@nmsu.edu.
	Sandra Lujan is our business manager, joining the staff in 1995. She is the main contact for special events, which include contracting guest speakers and handling their reimbursements. She keeps us all on the straight and narrow by tending the Teaching Academy’s accounts, making sure billing is accurate and timely, and handling the Teaching Academy’s paperwork. She can be reached at 575.646.1591 or by email at salujan@nmsu.edu.
	Pat Cooper worked ten years for the Department of Nursing, and then joined the Teaching Academy as an administrative assistant in 2009. She performs the many unseen tasks that make events run smoothly and seem effortless. She is also in charge of staffing the front desk, greeting visitors to the Teaching Academy, checking out books and videos from the Teaching Academy library and managing many of the functions of our Registration database. She can be reached at 575.646.2204 or by email at pcooper@nmsu.edu.
	Mark Hohnstreiter, C.F.R.E., is the quarter-time advancement officer for The Teaching Academy. In this role, created in 2004, he assists the Academy in seeking philanthropic funds and helping to create better awareness for the Academy. Mark has been a professional fund raiser since 1982, including major roles at the University of Chicago, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Saint Louis University, Presbyterian Healthcare Foundation, and the University of New Mexico. He enjoys a part-time career as a landscape painter in oils. Contact Mark at 575.646.5655 or by email at mhohnstr@nmsu.edu.