Michelle Miller

We had high hopes and expectations for Michelle Miller, and she exceeded them. In bringing speakers to campus, we look for people who avoid the extremes of being overly fluffy or stuffy, and Michelle hit the sweet spot perfectly. There's no question that she is a rigorous academic who knows her cognitive psychology and scholarship of learning and teaching well, but she's also very practical and accessible. We also appreciated that she modeled the very kinds of pedagogical practices she advocated, making her presentation interactive, even with hundreds of participants. Frankly, to us it also meant a lot that we sensed Michelle is a kindred spirit who genuinely believes in the power of education to lift and better lives. And on a personal level, working with her was delightful! She was generous with her time and gracious in all her interactions as we prepared for her presentation to our faculty. We should note that we had contracted with Michelle to visit our campus in June 2020, and then the pandemic hit. We debated whether to postpone her appearance until a time when we could gather face-to-face again, or whether to proceed with an interactive online webinar. Given our faculty's interest in figuring out how to adapt to the current technological challenges as well as possible, we went ahead with the virtual meeting, and we're really glad we did. Over 300 faculty members participated, and their feedback was overwhelmingly positive. With the help of some of our team, Michelle was able to field multiple questions and many faculty members were able to participate. One sent an e-mail raving about Dr. Miller's visit, calling it "informative, engaging and extremely timely!" We are very grateful we didn't postpone hearing from her until we could do it in person. We recommend Michelle most highly as a speaker and a collaborator!