Faculty and Staff
- Director, Dean Adams
- Instructional Designer, Ken Silvesteri
- Instructional Designer, Shihua Brazill
- Research Resources Coordinator, Nika Stoop
- Business Operations Manager, Nina Mondré Schweppe
- Faculty Associates

Director
Dean oversees and implements faculty development programs in coordination with other academic areas, including orientations, workshops, discussion groups, mentoring opportunities and several grant programs offered through the MSU provost’s office. He has been a faculty member inthe MSU College of Arts and Architecture's School of Art since 2010. From 2017 to 2019, he was associate dean of the college and in February was named acting dean. Adams is also the co-founder and co-director of the International Wild Clay Research Project, an interdisciplinary teaching, learning and research endeavor in the School of Art. In addition, Dean was the VP for Programming for Integrative Teaching International from 2011 to 2016. He has a Master of Fine Arts degree with an emphasis in ceramics and drawing from the University of Iowa, as well as a master’s degree from the University of Iowa and a bachelor’s degree from MSU.
Learn more about the International Wild Clay Research Project

Instructional Designer
Ken helps advance teaching and learning at MSU by providing instructional support to faculty through workshops on pedagogy and use of instructional technologies, one-on-one consultations, faculty learning communities, and online training courses. In addition, he coordinates programs to connect faculty to resources and each other such as grants to attend teaching-related conferences, teaching-related awards, and the Early Career Faculty Mentoring program.

Instructional Designer
Shihua provides instructional support and guidance to faculty through workshops on inclusive teaching strategies, emerging instructional technology tools, and online training courses and programs. Additionally, she develops training for MSU faculty to teach online and hybrid courses. She also works with faculty in groups or individually to provide support and guidance for course design using Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles and accessibility best practices.

Research Resources Coordinator
Nika provides publications support and comprehensive grant proposal services to the faculty community. These services include, but are not limited to, holding workshops on conducting funding searches, understanding funding agency requirements and the grant writing process, science writing, direct assistance on proposal submissions, and guidance before, during, and after the proposal submission to satisfy university and funding agency criteria.

Business Operations Manager
Nina oversees the operations and provides support for CFE activities. She manages the logistics for CFE events and workshops, the communications platforms – email, registration, calendars and website – and interfaces with Fiscal Shared Services and the Budget Office to manage CFE finances. Nina is also teaching faculty in the Honors College and Liberal Studies.
Center Associates
