Limed: Teaching with a Twist
Season 3, Episode 9

Since January 20, 2025, a plethora of political activity and announcements have created instability and concern across the U.S. higher education sector, with ripple effects in the international landscape. In this episode, Denise Bartell, Senior Associate Vice President for Regional System Faculty and Student Success at Kent State University, Amy Johnson, Assistant Vice President for Academic Success at Old Dominion University, and Jessica Riddell, holds the Stephen A. Jarislowsky Chair of Undergraduate Teaching Excellence at Bishop’s University and author of Hope Circuits: Rewiring Universities and Other Organizations for Human Flourishing, join the show to have an open conversation about how higher education is being impacted by the political climate. Our conversation includes the battles around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, why higher education is worth fighting for, and seeds of hope to help us write a yet unwritten future with optimism. 

View a transcript of this episode.

Meet Our Panel

Denise Bartell is Senior Associate Vice President for Regional System Faculty & Student Success at Kent State University, where she facilitates strategic initiatives related to retention, completion, and student success with a focus on improving equity of outcomes for historically underserved students and empowering faculty as key stakeholders in this work. Her scholarship takes a systemic and explicitly relational approach, most recently exploring a reconceptualization of faculty development to utilize principles of high impact learning experiences and authentic engagement to create communities of transformation where members are empowered to transform public higher education as a tool for building a more just and equitable society. Denise earned a B.S. in Human Development & Family Studies from Cornell University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Human Development & Family Sciences from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Amy M. Johnson is a leader, practitioner, and scholar in general education, high-impact practices, and equity-minded, student-centered curricular reform, and she is the Assistant Vice President for Academic Success at Old Dominion University. She has overseen general education programs, implemented high-impact practices, offered faculty development workshops, and led curricular reforms at several universities.  Amy co-authored “Institutional and Instructional Humility for Equity-Forward Teaching and Learning” in Recentering Learning: Complexity, Resilience, and Adaptability in Higher Education; published “Marginalized and Minoritized in General Education: A Call for Better Implementation Design” in the Journal of General Education; has a forthcoming chapter titled “Transdisciplinary and Decolonial Frameworks for the Administration of General Education” in General Education in Higher Education; and has presented on her work at AAC&U, AGLS, and the Assessment Institute national conferences.  Amy serves on the Editorial Review Board for Experiential Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (ELTHE) Journal, the Board of Directors for Bringing Theory to Practice, and the Research and Scholarship Committee for the Society for Experiential Education. Amy received her PhD in history from Duke University and is the assistant vice provost for academic success and affiliated faculty in African American and African Studies at Old Dominion University. You can connect with here on LinkedIn.  

Jessica Riddell is a Full Professor of Early Modern Literature at Bishop’s University and holds the Stephen A. Jarislowsky Chair of Undergraduate Teaching Excellence. As founder of the Hope Circuits Institute (HCI), she drives systems-change in higher education, focusing on governance, leadership, and student success. In a landscape rife with indictments of broken systems, her work invites people across the post-secondary ecosystem to co-create blueprints for meaningful rewiring that centers justice, equity, and access. Her 2024 book, Hope Circuits: Rewiring Universities and Other Organizations for Human Flourishing (McGill-Queen’s Press), offers a roadmap for this transformation. A recognized leader, scholar, and educator, she serves on multiple boards and has received numerous awards and grants for teaching and leadership, including the 3M National Teaching Fellowship (Canada’s highest recognition of educational leadership), the D2L Innovation Award (the highest recognition of innovation in partnerships), and the Forces Avenir award (Quebec’s highest recognition of teaching excellence in higher education).

Episode Credits

This episode was hosted and edited by Matt Wittstein, and produced by Matt Wittstein in collaboration with the Center for Engaged Learning. 

Artwork: Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash (locker)  

Original music: Kai Mitchell 

Resources Related to this Episode

Center for Engaged Learning Resources

Inclusive Pedagogy in Practice

Counterstory Pedagogy

Other Resources

Battiste, Marie. 2019. Decolonizing Education: Nourishing the Learning Spirit. Purich Publishing Limited.  

The Boyer 2030 Commission. 2022. The Equity-Excellence Imperative: A 2030 Blueprint for Undergraduate Education at U.S. Research Universities. Association for Undergraduate Education at Research Universities. Available at https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/books/boyer2030/report.pdf. 

Heather McGhee. 2021. The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. One World.  

Riddell, Jessica. 2024. Hope Circuits: Rewiring Universities and Other Organizations for Human Flourishing. McGill-Queen’s University Press.