The Teaching and Learning Center Staff
(Listed alphabetically)

Dr. Leora Baron
Director
702-895-2294
E-mail Leora

Leora's work with the TLC comes after a professional career that has included: a faculty position at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; nearly 20 years of K-12 principalships; executive career development; the directorship of academic/corporate partnerships; and entrepreneurial education. Her professional philosophy draws this experience together and holds that faculty development is holistic wherein teaching, scholarship, and service are intertwined and mutually supportive. The programs she has developed and directed are likewise eclectic in nature, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary in approach, and geared toward providing present and future faculty with multiple tools for professional success.

Leora holds degrees in English, Journalism, Linguistics, and Education from UMass, and among her own areas of scholarship are information literacy, part-time faculty, non-traditional students, and the integration of learning technologies into the teaching/learning matrix. She is a member of the Core Committee ("board") of POD -- the Professional & Organizational Development Network in Higher Education -- and chairs its Publications Committee, overseeing national faculty development publications such as To Improve the Academy and the Higher Education Advocate. She also edits the Creative College Teaching Journal published by the TLC.

 

Keoni Everington
E-Learning Coordinator
702-895-5954
E-mail Keoni

Prior to joining the TLC, Keoni Everington had served for four years as the Distance Learning Coordinator and WebCT Administrator in the Department of Distance Learning at Winthrop University in South Carolina. Mr. Everington has recently completed the Distance Education Certificate program at the University of West Georgia. Prior to his work in Distance Education, he worked in the following capacities: a Technology Specialist training faculty at Winthrop University in educational technology, a marketing manager for an Internet company in Sunnyvale, California, and an English teacher at two universities in Beijing, China. He has an MBA from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, a BA Degree in International Studies from Miami University of Ohio, and a Webmaster Certificate from York Technical College. He recently lead a group of Winthrop university students on a study abroad course to Beijing, China.

 

Jeremy Houska
Graduate Intern
702-895-2293
E-mail Jeremy

Jeremy first became interested in the scholarship of teaching and learning soon after his baccalaureate work in Psychology at the University of La Verne. His coursework in cognitive and social psychology coupled with his leadership experience led him to the classroom and the laboratory. He first worked as a research assistant for the Los Angeles Unified School District's Program and Evaluation and Research Branch. Soon after, during his graduate work in Experimental Psychology at California State University San Bernardino, Jeremy taught test prep and English at the ACI Institute. Now in his final stages of doctoral work in Experimental Psychology, Jeremy has been the instructor of record for 5 years. Courses such as General Psychology, Research Methods, Experimental Psychology, and Social Psychology are his favorite teaching assignments. Jeremy has been honored for his teaching, having been awarded the Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award (2004) at California State University, San Bernardino, the TLC GA Excellence in Teaching Award (2007), and most recently as the 2008 Part-Time Instructor of the Year for the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Nevada State College. His current research on teaching investigates recall for syllabus information and subsequent compliance with course policies. Jeremy has been a long-time fan of TLC workshops, attending as a member of the Graduate Student Professional Development Program in College Teaching and working toward a Foundations in Learning Technologies Certificate.

 

Debbie Porrello
Office Manager
702-895-2293
E-mail Debbie

Debbie Porrello, a long time resident of Las Vegas, has been the Teaching and Learning Center office manager since its inception in 1999. She manages the work flow for the TLC office and supervises production of TLC workshop materials. Debbie’s many responsibilities include managing the TLC’s database, handling workshop registrations, allocating expenses, and formatting the UNLV Creative College Teaching Journal for printing.

 

Salley B. Sawyer, Ph.D.
Learning Technologies Specialist
702-895-2260
E-mail Dr. Sawyer

Salley Sawyer’s diverse background includes managing the distance learning programs at Central Michigan University and West Texas A&M University, holding a tenure track faculty position at Northern State University in South Dakota, and producing public affairs programming at Connecticut Public Radio. At Northern State University, Salley was part of a faculty team that developed the curriculum for a graduate program in eLearning. One of Salley’s favorite classes to teach was Case Studies in Instructional Design in which she asked students to write their own cases. “I really liked the way that process seemed to mesh the students’ everyday lives with the instructional design concepts they needed to develop,” she explains.

Having completed her Ph.D. in Instructional Technology at the University of Georgia, Salley has made presentations on topics related to technology usage in faculty members’ teaching practices at the annual conferences of the Association of Educational Communications and Technology, the Texas Distance Learning Association, the American Educational Research Association and the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education. Salley co-authored a paper entitled Defining a Simple Sequence for RLO’s published in the 2004 Learning Technology newsletter. In her current work with the UNLV Teaching and Learning Center, Salley says, “I’m striving to create workshops in which people discover that they can be creative when using technology-based teaching tools and can find strategies that will help engage students in their own learning process.”

 

Michael Wilder
Learning Technologies Specialist / Web Developer
702-895-2258
Online Resources
E-mail Michael

Destiny has led Michael on a dual career path of both education and technology.  The result is a hybrid individual with skills and perspective from both fields. He worked as teacher and trainer in a variety of environments, serving, among other positions, as Blackboard administrator, Online Learning Specialist, and college faculty (web design, web-based multimedia, networking, programming, desktop publishing, essential computer applications, and much more). Michael specializes in web-based education and the educational use of open-source technology. He has presented at major conferences, and has consulted to schools districts and colleges. Michael received his B.A. in English from UCLA, and received his master's degree in Educational Leadership, with emphasis on computer-based education, from Gonzaga University.