Dr. Middleton is an Academic Strategy Consultant at ACUE. Her almost 20-year career in Higher Education has focused on experimental, high-impact teaching practices and environments that create transformative learning for both students and faculty. As a professor, administrator, and scholar, Middleton’s work has attended to the core values of liberal education and identified new approaches to foreground their enduring relevance. Great teaching, she contends, is the cornerstone of that project, and she is delighted to contribute her expertise and learn from her colleagues along the West Coast.
Middleton founded the Center for Academic Innovation and Creativity at Mount Saint Mary’s University, Los Angeles—a federally-designated Hispanic Serving Institution, primarily for women. In that role, she designed and implemented a portfolio of professional development opportunities and pilot programs to support both faculty interests and institutional strategic initiatives. In addition, she was Principal Investigator for two W.M. Keck Foundation undergraduate education grants; these fund innovative, scalable models that promote the success and excellence for underserved, underrepresented students. Prior to her work at The Mount, Middleton served in a variety of roles at The College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York: tenured Associate Professor of English, Department Chair, and Interim Dean for the School of Arts and Humanities. She also co-founded the college’s first faculty development program.
As a second-generation educator, Middleton began her education at the back of her mother’s classrooms. She earned a BA in Literature, Language Theory, and the Creation of Meaning from the experimental Johnston Center for Integrative Studies at the University of Redlands. She holds a MA and PhD in English, with a concentration in Literature and Philosophy, from the University of Notre Dame.
