The John M. Burns Conference on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning is co-sponsored each year by the Teaching, Learning, and Professional Development Center and the Teaching Academy. Named in honor of Dr. John M. Burns, who helped found the Teaching Academy, this conference is held each fall and features two keynote sessions from an invited teacher-scholar and a poster session from recipients of the Annual Lawrence Schovanec Teaching Development Scholarship Award. Past speakers include Noah Finkelstein, Bryan Dewsbury, Peter Felten, Claire Howell Major, Michele DiPietro, and Derek Bruff.

The 24th annual John M. Burns Conference will be held on Friday, October 17, 2025, with Dr. Ann Austin, Michigan State University.

Session information coming soon!

Keynote Speaker

Dr. Ann E. Austin is the MSU interim associate provost and associate vice president for faculty and academic staff affairs. She previously served as associate dean for research (2016-2021) and the interim dean of the college (2021-2022). As part of the Higher, Adult and Lifelong Education programs at MSU, she has been selected twice to hold the Mildred B. Erickson Distinguished Chair.

Austin's research concerns faculty careers and professional development, organizational change in higher education, teaching and learning in higher education, doctoral education, reform in STEM education, the academic workplace, equity and inclusion in academe and higher education in the international context.

She is a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the past-president of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), and she was a Fulbright Fellow in South Africa (1998). She currently co-chairs the National Academies’ of Sciences’ Roundtable on Systemic Reform in Undergraduate STEM Education. She was a founding co-PI/Leader of the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL), funded by the National Science Foundation, and was the principal investigator of an NSF-funded ADVANCE PAID grant to study organizational change strategies that support the success of women scholars in STEM fields. One of her current grants, funded by NSF, focuses on how networks of organizations are contributing to reform in STEM education, and another concerns improvements in teaching evaluation in higher education.

Her work is widely published, including her recent book with Sandra Laursen called "Building Gender Equity: Institutional Strategies for Change" (2020). Her publications also include "Faculty Development in the Age of Evidence: Current Practices, Future Imperatives" (2016); "Rethinking Faculty Work: Higher Education's Strategic Imperative" (2007) and "Educating Integrated Professionals: Theory and Practice on Preparation for the Professoriate" (2008), as well as other books, articles, chapters and monographs concerning higher education issues in the United States and in international contexts. In 2011, she wrote a commissioned paper for the Board on Science Education of the National Research Council entitled "Promoting Evidence-Based Change in Undergraduate Science Education."

She has worked with colleagues at the national and institutional levels on higher education issues in a number of countries, including Australia, China, Egypt, Finland, Malaysia, Oman, Thailand, the Philippines, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.

Recordings of Previous Sessions

*Please Note: While this conference is intended to be face-to-face, we may offer a virtual option for remote faculty. If you have a remote appointment, please email Molly Jacobs to request a Zoom link.