EiRP 2023
Professor Kathy TAKAYAMA
Kathy TAKAYAMA, the founding Executive Director of the Center for Professional Development and Inclusive Excellence (C-Hub) at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), is the 2023 Educator-in-Residence (EiR) Scholar. With more than 25 years of experience, she has led systemic transformations for capacity building to foster impactful, inclusive, and productive educational environments in higher education. She will actively engage with CDTL and NUS from October to November 2023.
During this period, Kathy will deliver the EIRP Public Lecture titled Cultivating Resilient Ecosystems Through New Paradigms of Mentorship and Leadership. Additionally, she will lead workshops, engage in dialogues with the NUS staff and student community, and participate in various campus activities. Moreover, Kathy looks forward to interacting with the NUS community and welcomes meetings with colleagues and administrators interested in discussing specific education-related matters. To arrange for an engagement with Prof Kathy TAKAYAMA, whether as a group or individually, please reach out to our EiRP coordinators, Dr Kiruthika Ragupathi and Ms Neo Shermin.
About Kathy TAKAYAMA
Kathy Takayama is the founding Executive Director of the Center for Professional Development and Inclusive Excellence (C-Hub) at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST). With extensive experience spanning over 25 years, she has led systemic transformations for capacity building to develop high-impact, inclusive, and productive educational environments in higher education. Holding degrees from esteemed institutions including Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Rutgers Medical School, she has received accolades such as being selected as the first international Carnegie Scholar by the Carnegie Foundation and serving as President of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL). Throughout her career, she has held key positions at prestigious universities like Brown University and Columbia University, focusing on teaching and learning enhancement. Kathy's expertise extends to promoting equity and inclusion in STEM fields and fostering resilience through innovative approaches like theatre-based praxis. At OIST, she spearheads comprehensive programs for professional development, mentoring, and equity building across the university community. For more details on C-Hub's initiatives, visit: https://groups.oist.jp/c-hub
Click here for a detailed bio that provides insights into her diverse experiences and her contributions.
Research Interests:
Kathy’s research interest areas include: (1) institutional capacity building and change; (2) inclusive mentorship; (3) scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL); (4) STEM education; (5) diversity, equity & inclusion; and (6) women’s leadership.
EiRP Public Lecture 2023
Cultivating resilient ecosystems through new paradigms of mentorship and leadership
Date: 17/10/2023 (Tuesday), 9.30am - 10.30am
Venue: University Hall Auditorium
Target audience: NUS Faculty and Staff
Synopsis: Higher education is riding an era of global, transdisciplinary opportunities punctuated by cycles of trends and uncertainties, national, international, and socioeconomic pressures, and ongoing competition. What is the implicit promise that we make as citizens of our university ecosystems? Faculty, administrative leaders, and students all have a role in their intentionality toward a culture of inclusion and resilience.
This presentation will challenge the audience to re-envision the enactment of leadership and mentorship toward our belief that every person can and should be given the opportunity to flourish. Excellence is engendered through belonging and the belief that one’s contributions are valued. To envision belonging, we must recognize barriers in the ecosystem of our classrooms, curriculum, policies, and practices. How do we remove the boundaries to what might be experienced by some students as exclusive domains or spaces, and foster learning as an engaged and unbounded process?
EiRP Workshop 2023
The development of mentoring structures and constellations
Date: 19/10/2023 (Thursday), 10:00am - 12:00pm
Venue: CDTL Dewey Room
Target audience: NUS Faculty and Staff
Synopsis: This workshop will explore the multiple facets of academic and research mentorship, and peer mentorship. Mentor-mentee interactions are dynamic and evolve in relation to the needs or contexts for both mentee and mentor. While traditional mentoring training focuses on generalized best practices, such fixed frameworks can introduce underlying assumptions and unintended biases. We will explore mentorship taxonomies and mentorship approaches that are relevant to specific situations in relation to our own strengths, backgrounds, and communication styles. We will also discuss what it means to create a climate of trust and belonging, and how to cultivate agency in both mentees and mentors to grow their mentoring networks.
EiRP Student Dialogue 2023
Developing your mentoring networks
Date:
18/10/2023 (Wednesday), 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Venue: University Hall Auditorium
Target audience: NUS Students
Synopsis: This dialogue session with students will enable students to think about holistic approaches to support their mentoring needs in relation to all aspects of their career, life, and well-being. I hope that students can develop skills to feel empowered in validating their identities, sense of belonging, and self-agency not only during their academic careers but in their ongoing journeys.