I am delighted to announce that Dr. Nicholas Monk has been appointed Executive Director of the Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning, effective October 1, 2025. Nick steps into the role after the departure of Dr. Mary Wright in January. 

Nick comes to the Sheridan Center with a strong track record of advancing teaching excellence, fostering inclusive learning environments, and leading transformative initiatives that benefit both students and faculty. Most recently he has served, since 2019, as Director of the Center for Transformative Teaching (CTT) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), where he developed a range of initiatives including grant programs to support innovative teaching and faculty development programs and activities that have impacted thousands of students. He led the university’s rapid transition to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, supporting more than 1,000 instructors through comprehensive training and resource development. He has also led the CTT’s team in the development and implementation of diversity and inclusion initiatives aimed at closing equity gaps and fostering inclusive teaching practices across the institution.

Prior to his leadership at UNL, Nick co-founded and served in multiple directorial roles at the Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning (IATL) at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom. During a period of rapid expansion at the IATL, he played a pivotal role in establishing multiple interdisciplinary programs at Warwick, including new undergraduate degrees in Liberal Arts and Global Sustainable Development that exceeded recruitment targets by 150% in their first three years. He also contributed to the design of the Oculus, a state-of-the-art teaching and learning facility that showcases innovative, student-centered instructional spaces at the university.

Nick’s first job in higher education was as a postdoctoral researcher in CAPITAL (Creativity and Performance in Teaching and Learning), a joint collaboration between the University of Warwick’s Department of English and the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford. The project sought to use theatre performance skills and experience to enhance student learning. As part of the work, CAPITAL's activities were analyzed to further pedagogic understandings of how performance techniques can be effective in teaching and learning.

A literary scholar of the American West, Nick holds master’s degrees in English Literature from both the University of Warwick and Rutgers University, and a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature from the University of Warwick. He is particularly interested in modernity, its representation, and the resistance to it in the works of Leslie Silko and Cormac McCarthy. His understanding of teaching and learning is rooted in fiction, poetry, and performance, which influences his commitment to embodied, active, and experiential learning. 

As Executive Director, Nick will lead the Sheridan Center’s academic support, assessment, educational development, digital learning, and online program development teams as they continue their important work promoting a culture of evidence-based teaching at Brown in alignment with the University’s key strategic plans and campus priorities. He will support and enhance the center’s wide range of services and programs, including teaching support for all Brown instructors, digital teaching and learning, writing and English language support, tutoring, assessment, and an academic summer bridge program. In line with the center’s commitment to empower all teachers and learners at Brown, Nick will engage across Brown’s communities to create responsive programs and services for faculty, staff, postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduates. 

I want to thank the members of the search committee for generously giving of their time, energy, and institutional knowledge to help us fill this critical role. 

Finally, I want to extend my gratitude to the Sheridan Center’s directorial team for their collaborative oversight of the center while this search was underway. Thanks to their collective and ongoing leadership, the center has maintained its extraordinary support of our faculty, staff, and students during this interim period. 

Please join me in welcoming Nick to the Sheridan Center.

Sincerely,

Francis J. Doyle III

Provost