NISOD Conference on Teaching and Leadership Excellence

The twenty-sixth annual NISOD (National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development) International Conference on Teaching and Leadership Excellence will be held at the Austin Convention Center May 23-26, 2004. The conference is the largest international conference to focus specifically on the celebration of teaching, learning, and leadership excellence. NISOD's faculty, staff, and administrators from more than 400 community colleges and other institutions of higher learning, gather in Austin each May to support the highest standards of teaching and leadership excellence.

NISOD is the outreach vehicle and service arm of the Community College Leadership Program (CCLP). CCLP is a doctoral-level program at UT Austin, training community college presidents, vice presidents, and deans for 60 years. More than 15 percent of the nation's academic presidents, vice presidents, deans, and other college administrators are UT-CCLP graduates.

Karron Lewis, associate director for DIIA's Center for Teaching Effectiveness, organizes DIIA's involvement at the conferences and notes the benefits of UT Austin's presence at the NISOD seminars. "In the past five or six years, the CTE has been invited to set up a booth at the NISOD conference and periodically our staff have presented sessions, " said Karron. "The presence of DIIA at this year's conference will provide a new model for professional development units that will potentially be seen by over 1000 people. Faculty development programs are quite robust in community colleges and we have been invited by the director of NISOD to show the kinds of programs and resources that are available at a larger university."