Who We Are
Kimberly K. Eby, Ph.D. – keby1@gmu.edu
Associate Provost for Faculty Development
Director, Center for Teaching and Faculty Excellence
Kim is a community psychologist with broad interests in domestic violence; violence and gender; and collaboration and community building in a variety of contexts, especially in interdisciplinary teaching and learning. A faculty member at Mason since 1996, she taught primarily in New Century College, an undergraduate integrated and interdisciplinary studies program. In addition to New Century College, she is a Women’s Studies faculty member and affiliate of the Department of Psychology. In 2002, she was awarded the George Mason University Teaching Excellence Award.
She has co-edited an interdisciplinary reader on violence and gender and written about faculty roles in interdisciplinary collaborative work; collaborative learning; pedagogical strategies in teaching about controversial and sensitive issues; and responding to the needs of domestic violence survivors. She was a consultant for the National Learning Communities Project and continues to present at national and regional meetings, as well as individual institutions on topics such as leading institutional curricular change, developing interdisciplinary curricula, faculty collaboration, working with student and faculty diversity, and other pedagogical issues.
Joshua Eyler, Ph.D. – jeyler@gmu.edu
Associate Director, Center for Teaching and Faculty Excellence
Josh specializes in medieval English literature, with a particular emphasis on Chaucer. He also has interests in medieval drama, disability studies, children’s literature, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Before coming to the Center for Teaching and Faculty Excellence in July 2011, he was an Assistant Professor of English at Columbus State University in Georgia, where he was also his department’s assistant chairperson as well as a former acting assistant dean. At Columbus State, Josh was the university’s nominee for a statewide teaching award twice (2008 and 2010) and was a finalist for the student-selected Educator of the Year award (2008 and 2009). He has published peer-reviewed essays on a wide variety of medieval texts, including Beowulf, the Knight’s Tale (with John P. Sexton), the Miller’s Tale (with John P. Sexton), Piers Plowman (with C. David Benson), and the N-Town cycle of mystery plays. His edited collection, Disability in the Middle Ages: Reconsiderations and Reverberations, was published by Ashgate in 2010. Josh is also interested in brain-based learning theories, and he is currently working on a project that uses cognitive neuroscience to explore the ways in which we learn about, understand, and teach the arts and humanities.
Ashleen Gayda – agayda1@gmu.edu
Administrative and Program Specialist
Ashleen graduated from George Mason University with a Bachelor of Arts in Art and Visual Technology, concentrating in digital art and animation with a minor in English. Prior to joining the Center for Teaching and Faculty Excellence in July 2008, she held positions of both mentor and student administrative supervisor at the Student Technology Assistance Resource Center while pursuing her studies. She is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Arts Management, concurrent with a graduate certificate in Special Events in Arts Management.
Bethany M. Usher, Ph.D. – busher@gmu.edu
Director, Students as Scholars Initiative
Associate Director, Center for Teaching and Faculty Excellence
Bethany spends as much time as possible in graveyards – she is a biological anthropologist who studies cemeteries from both osteological and archaeological perspectives to understand the social structure and health of past communities. Bethany directs the Students as Scholars initiative through the Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, and Research (OSCAR), and serves as an Associate Director of the CTFE. She is also a Councilor for Undergraduate Research Program Division of the Council on Undergraduate Research. Prior to joining the CTFE in January 2010, she was faculty at the State University of New York at Potsdam, where she established the Center for Undergraduate Research and served as its Director. At SUNY Potsdam, she was an Associate Professor of Biological Anthropology and past chair of the Anthropology Department. She has a long history of collaborating with undergraduate researchers.