Speakers
Dr. Joshua Eyler
Ariadne’s Thread: Finding Our Way Through Challenging Times by Focusing on Human-Centered Learning
Higher Education finds itself at an inflection point right now. Internal and external pressures, ongoing crises, and existential questions about our mission threaten to derail our central focus: working with students to help them build meaningful lives. We can find our way through the labyrinth of the moment by recentering our efforts to help students learn effectively. As we seek to find out more about the ways in which human beings learn, we often run into misconceptions and neuromyths that muddy the waters much more than they help us to understand what is happening when we learn something new. In this talk, we will explore some of these misconceptions and then look toward the science of learning for more productive answers by exploring intersections between anthropology, psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and educational research that can yield important insights into student learning–particularly in terms of curiosity, sociality, emotion, empathy, authenticity, and failure.
Dr. Joshua Eyler, Ph.D. is Senior Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning and Assistant Professor of Teacher Education at the University of Mississippi. He previously worked on teaching and learning initiatives at Columbus State University, George Mason University, and Rice University. Eyler is the author of Failing Our Future: How Grades Harm Students and What We Can Do About It, an indictment of the grading system in American schools and colleges―and a blueprint for how we can change it, and the acclaimed book How Humans Learn: The Science and Stories behind Effective College Teaching, which in 2019 Book Authority named one of the “100 Best Education Books of All Time”. Called a “splendid repository of ways to rethink how we teach college” by the Los Angeles Review of Books, it was named a “Book of the Year” in the Chicago Tribune. With his colleague Emily Donahoe, he has a new book called How to Grade: Alternative Models for the College Classroom under advance contract with Princeton University Press.
Dr. Tia Brown McNair
Delivering on Pathways to Promise: Intentionally, Inclusion, and Innovation
Fulfilling the promise of postsecondary student success requires approaches to teaching and learning that are intentional, embrace inclusion, and foster innovation. In this session we will explore strategies for designing learning environments where all students can thrive, grounded in evidence-based practices that promote engagement and academic excellence. You will experience how intentional curriculum design, inclusive pedagogies, and innovative instructional strategies work together to create clear and supportive pathways from enrollment to completion. Through real-world examples and collaborative dialogue, you will learn how to align your teaching and learning practices with institutional promises of opportunity, achievement, and lifelong success.
Dr. Tia Brown McNair is a nationally recognized leader on inclusive excellence, high-impact practices, student readiness, equity in student outcomes, and campus climate. She is a Partner at Sova, a company that facilitates transformative change through actionable strategies and practical implementation support. Prior to joining Sova, she was the Vice President in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Student Success and Executive Director for the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers. In her senior leadership position at AAC&U, she oversaw both funded projects and AAC&U’s continuing programs on inclusive excellence, high-impact practices (HIPs), student success, and campus climate, and directed AAC&U’s Summer Institutes on HIPs and Student Success, and TRHT Campus Centers. She is the co-author of From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education (January 2020) and Becoming a Student-Ready College: A New Culture of Leadership for Student Success (July 2016 and August 2022 Second edition). McNair is the editor of Strengthening Campus Communities Through the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Framework published by Routledge in June 2024. In March 2025, she received the Facilitator Award at Stetson Law’s 46th Annual National Conference on Law & Higher Education. NASPA, the association of Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, named McNair the 2024 recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to Higher Education Award. In May 2023, McNair received an honorary degree from Franklin Pierce University for her national work to dismantle a false belief in a hierarchy of human value.