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The Center for Faculty Development is thrilled to welcome Jay O’Toole, Associate Professor of Management, to the role of Provost’s Fellow for Faculty Development. In June, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Brian Payne initiated a call for this new faculty development position, and Dr. O’Toole was selected. In this role, Dr. O’Toole will enhance CFD resources and programming to support faculty in multiple ways, with a focus on helping them thrive as scholar-teachers. Provost Payne states, "Dr. O’Toole’s experience and skillset will be a valuable addition to our Center for Faculty Development. I look forward to working with him as we expand our offerings in support of mentoring and leadership development."

As part of taking on this new role, Dr. O’Toole agreed to an interview and offers critical insight below into his life, career, and vision for faculty development.

CFD: Tell us a little about your background. What drew you to academia and how did your trajectory lead you here to �Թϱ���?

JO: My journey to academia, like many others, was not linear. I started a company during my second year as an undergraduate at Miami University, sold it to my business partner upon graduation, took a job at Deloitte Consulting, accepted a job at a pre-IPO startup headquartered in Boston a year later, joined Teach For America as a high school teacher in Mississippi a year after that, started a nonprofit in 2004 that I managed on the side for the next 17 years, worked for almost four years as an educational consultant for the Institute for Research and Reform in Education, and then pursued and earned my PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Despite my meandering path to academia, I’ve always loved learning, and from an early age, I knew I loved teaching. By my third year at Miami, I knew I wanted to be a professor, but I also knew I wanted industry experience before I joined the academic ranks, hence the meandering path. My interest in being a professor was reinforced while teaching high school math, as I knew that being a professor would allow me to teach while also providing the autonomy of a path of continuous study (i.e., research). After earning my PhD at the University of Wisconsin, I served as an Assistant Professor at Georgia State University and then Elon University before joining �Թϱ��� in 2020.

CFD: How does your management background offer you insight into best practices in faculty development?

JO: My management background, combined with my experience at the Institute for Research and Reform in Education (IRRE), where I developed and delivered training and other initiatives aimed at improving instruction, has provided me with insight into best practices in faculty development and how to motivate and encourage personal growth and organizational change. One of the reasons IRRE recruited me was my experience as an entrepreneur and management consultant. IRRE’s leadership observed how I successfully applied many of the lessons I learned from my management experience to the classroom and also recognized that I was able to articulate a vision and inspire others to achieve goals previously deemed unreachable.

CFD: Talk to us about your teaching philosophy and how you feel about teaching?

JO: My teaching philosophy is based on three pillars of effective teaching—engagement, alignment, and rigor—and my three core values—curiosity, compassion, and justice. To engage students, I employ cooperative learning techniques that require them to take an active role in their own learning. I focus on taking the attention off the instructor and placing it on the students, offering a variety of intentionally designed educational activities that allow students to share ideas, provide feedback, and learn from one another and me in every class. To align my lessons and curriculum to advances in our understanding of the world and current events, I spend time reflecting on my lessons and how well they helped my students progress toward our learning objectives. I do this through both post-lesson journaling and post-semester syllabi assessments. To ensure rigor, I set and maintain high expectations for my students' achievements. I empower my students to achieve extraordinary results and learn more than they believe possible. As a professor, I serve as a role model for what I expect in and out of the classroom. I feel passionate about helping my students achieve their goals and believe that to do so, I must model what it is like to be a lifelong learner, I must hold myself to high expectations, and I must demonstrate to my students that I will do everything within my control to provide all students the best environment for learning possible.

CFD: What are your current research interests and projects?

JO: My current research agenda is dominated by a long-standing interest in organizational improvisation, specifically the extemporaneous design and execution of organizational action. A more recent focus is on racialized organizational theory, which highlights how organizations and organizational theories are embedded in material and social resources that can and often do perpetuate racial inequality. For example, my coauthors and I are currently advancing a research project that introduces the Paradox of Inclusivity to theorize how organizations symbolically promote inclusion while structurally enacting exclusion through race-neutral ideologies and standardized support structures and routines.

CFD: How excited are you about becoming the first Provost Fellow for Faculty Development? What ideas (vision) do you bring to the position?

JO: I could not be more excited about becoming the first Provost Fellow for Faculty Development, and I am incredibly grateful to Provost Payne and Vice Provost Pearson for their ongoing support of the Center for Faculty Development. The fellowship is another example of their genuine commitment to our faculty. I look forward to learning from and working with Drs. Finley-Croswhite and Abdous. My teaching practice has improved significantly over the last five years through their efforts with the CFD.

Our students inspire me every day. Many of them work regularly, if not full-time, care for children, parents, and grandparents, all while taking a full load of classes. Their commitment to bettering their lives through their education is something to be celebrated. What’s more, I see how our students motivate not just me, but many of us to be our best selves in the classroom. I see my role as the Provost’s Fellow for Faculty Development as an opportunity to help remind all of us of the incredible work we do and help share our successes and lessons broadly across the campus. The world is changing, and I am confident that if we remain committed to enhancing the lives of our students through education, regardless of the changes, we will continue to foster their successes and take pride in the work we do.

CFD: Before concluding, let’s also welcome Dr. O’Toole to the CFD Days of Teaching

Jay, thanks so much for this interesting interview. I want to remind our colleagues that you are offering a workshop during the upcoming CFD Days of Teaching Mini-Conference. Join Dr. O’Toole at 11:30am-12:30pm on September 30th for “Decision Frames and Having Difficult Conversations: Lessons from Teaching Management Courses.” This is a ZOOM event: 

Having difficult conversations is a skill that requires practice. Simply stating that we want our graduates to be insightful and prospective leaders who promote empathy, mutual understanding, and recognition of differences is not enough. It is crucial that we give our students the theoretical foundations and opportunities to practice engaging in difficult conversations, especially when ideological differences seem to be widening. During the workshop Dr. O’Toole will share lessons he has learned from teaching management classes and offer insights and ideas on how he has invited and encouraged students to actively participate in difficult conversations, both in synchronous and asynchronous learning environments.

We hope you can attend.