The 2025 – 2027 Center for Engaged Learning Seminar will be led by Ashley J. Holmes, Susan Hrach, Lauren Kearns, and Phillip Motley. 

Ashley J. Holmes

Ashley J. Holmes is Associate Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning at Oregon State University. She leads the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) in supporting effective, innovative, and scholarly teaching that engages students in meaningful learning experiences. Ashley’s research focuses on place-based learning, high-impact practices, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. She recently published the monograph Learning on Location: Place-Based Approaches for Diverse Learners in Higher Education (Routledge / Elon University Center for Engaged Learning, 2023), which provides a framework for deepening student learning through place-making practices of writing, walking, and civic engagement. She also has published books, articles, and chapters in writing studies. 

Headshot of Susan Hrach

Susan Hrach is the author of the 2022 Silver Nautilus Award-winning book Minding Bodies: How Physical Space, Sensation, and Movement Affect Learning (WVU Press, 2021). As an undergraduate, she spent a year studying at the Universität Innsbruck, Austria, which shaped her lifelong interests in world literature, translation studies, and global education. Her experiences teaching internationally inform her on-going research and practice. Since 2012 she has served as director of the Faculty Center and professor of English at Columbus State University in Georgia. Recognized by the University System of Georgia with a statewide Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Award, she has also served as 2022-23 Fulbright Canada Distinguished Research Chair in SoTL. 

Headshot of Lauren Kearns

Lauren Kearns is a Professor of Dance, the Interdisciplinary Coordinator of Dance Science, former Department Chairperson, and the Founding Coordinator of the BFA Dance Program and the BS Dance Science Program at Elon University. She is a published scholar, a certified and registered yoga teacher at the E-RYT 500 level, a registered somatic dance educator with ISMETA, and is a Balanced Body comprehensively trained Pilates educator. Kearns has presented her creative and dance science research at national and international dance conferences since 2000 and taught at Dance Ireland in Dublin, Ireland, as part of their Healthier Dancer Days in 2018, 2020, and 2022. She is the author of Somatics in Action: A Mindful and Physical Conditioning Tool for Movers, published by Handspring Publishing and released in October of 2017. Her most recent creative project was a residency at Murate Arts District in Florence, Italy, resulting in a site-specific dance piece and dance film, in the summer of 2024.  

Headshot of Phillip Motley

Phillip Motley is Professor of Communication Design and Director, Graduate Programs for the School of Communications at Elon University. His research interests include pedagogies of design and experiential learning, especially service-learning and social innovation. He is a co-author of An Introduction to Visual Theory and Practice in the Visual Age, a co-editor of Redesigning Liberal Education: Innovative Design for a Twenty-First-Century Undergraduate Education, and has published his scholarship in peer-reviewed journals including Communication Teacher, Teaching and Learning Inquiry, Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, New Directions for Teaching and Learning, and Journalism and Mass Communication Educator. Professor Motley received his MFA in Industrial Design from North Carolina State University and his BA in Fine Art from Davidson College.  

Seminar participants also will work with two CEL Student Scholars as partners throughout the three years.