Dr. Alan Wright has been appointed Acting Dean, Faculty of Education and Academic Development, for a one-year term beginning January 1, 2015. He will continue in his current role as Vice-Provost, Teaching and Learning, including oversight for the Office of Open Learning during this time. The search for a new permanent dean of the Faculty of Education and Academic Development has been put on hold while the faculty undertakes re-organization related to changes to Ontario faculties of education mandated by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. 

Dr. Wright’s career has spanned the educational spectrum. He began as an elementary school teacher and subsequently worked in curriculum development and teachers’ professional development at the board and provincial level for 15 years before making the transition to supporting and leading change in higher education. A past winner of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education's (STLHE) Chrisopher Knapper Lifetime Achievement Award,  Wright has a strong record in teaching, research and publication. As past chair of the STLHE Publications Committee, he was the chief editor and one of the founders of the widely used STLHE Green Guide series, producing nine monographs on post-secondary teaching and learning between 2001 and 2009. From 2001 to 2006, he was a co-investigator on a project studying the evolution of the teaching profession in Canada, supported by a $2.5 million Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grant. Under his leadership, the University of Windsor team successfully competed for and completed five 2013-14 Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities' Productivity and Innovation Fund grants on teaching cultures, teaching evaluation, inter-institutional course development, large-class learning technologies, and educational leadership totalling $1.3 million. Wright is a graduate of Mount Allison University, New Brunswick (BA, English and French Literature); McGill University, Montreal (Education and MA degrees); and Université de Montréal (PhD in Foundations in Education).