Catherine Amelink serves as the associate vice provost and director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Virginia Tech. A lifelong educator, Amelink began her career as a high school social studies teacher. She has taught grades 9-12 and held a role as a middle school librarian. She has a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree in education with a focus on school library media from James Madison University, as well as a Ph.D. in education leadership and policy studies from Virginia Tech.

1. What made you interested in working in higher education?

I enjoy the opportunity to have a wide impact and work in a place that can transform students' lives. What attracts me to higher education is it isn’t only focused on classroom-based learning – it’s also about research and engagement. This larger purpose drew me into higher education.

2. Over the course of your career, what is your proudest accomplishment?

One of my proudest accomplishments is to be able to have the opportunity to apply research to practice and create teams doing innovative work in education. For example, we created innovation groups on the Virginia Tech campus and provided them with funding to address a specific problem they identify in the educational environment. Projects have ranged from how we get more faculty to pursue global education opportunities, how we can better support adjunct faculty, and how we can better assist faculty in providing classroom accommodations. This project is pulling together teams of interested faculty and administrators who want to explore these questions and come up with plans and action items to address them. To see some of these ideas come to fruition has been exciting.

3. What is your favorite part of your role at Virginia Tech?

It's definitely working with the people. The people that I get to work with in my office are committed to supporting the teaching and learning mission of Virginia Tech. I enjoy showing up every day to work with these folks. Likewise, being able to interact with talented faculty is an exceptional part of my role at the university.

4. What is a project you are currently working on that you are excited about?

I recently started a project where I'm working with some amazing thought leaders both in the United States and globally that are thinking about how to create and scale transdisciplinary learning opportunities for students. In these transdisciplinary learning opportunities, you bring together many different disciplines to think about big, sticky problems. The premise of transdisciplinary work is that you're also involving the community stakeholders challenged by these problems. It is such an amazing learning opportunity for students that allows them to develop complex thinking skills.

5. What projects would you like to work on with CECE in the future?

I would like to think about a project where we can bring local partners into the classroom, while also continuing to develop opportunities that allow students to work in their communities.

6. What do you like most about serving on the Vibrant Virginia council?

I like how I get the opportunity to learn about work that's being done in the community, region, and the state, as well as seeing its global impact. Also, I enjoy the fact that there's so many different stakeholders connected to CECE and involved on the board.

7. What is the best advice you’ve ever received?

The best advice I've ever received is don't take yourself out of the running. If you're in a place where, for example, you want to apply for a new position or take advantage of a different opportunity, that can be uncomfortable. Sometimes, you want to exit before you've given it a try. It might be the case that the job doesn't come through, but you're better off going through the process and learning new things about yourself than taking yourself out of the running.

8. What is a fun or surprising fact about you?

My sons and I have a goal to visit as many national parks as we can. These trips started when they were young. I took them to a lot of the underground caverns in Virginia, including Luray, Endless Caverns, and Dixie Caverns. Most recently, we’ve been to Glacier National Park in Montana. I often take my dog on those road trips with me. She's a wire fox terrier named Jersey Girl, a reference to my home state.

9. Any podcast recommendations for a long road trip?

On one of our recent road trips, my son introduced me to MeatEater Trivia. We've learned a lot about the outdoors from that podcast, and it has introduced us to a lot of cool places to go visit.