Andrea Beach

Photo of Andrea Beach
Andrea Beach
Co-Director and Professor of Higher Education Leadership
Office: 
(269) 387-1725
Location: 
000E Walwood Hall, Mail Stop 5288
Mailing address: 
Center for Research on Instructional Change in Postsecondary Education
Western Michigan University
1903 W Michigan Ave
Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5288
Education: 
  • Ph.D., Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education (HALE), Michigan State University, 2003
  • M.A., Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education (HALE), Michigan State University, 1998
  • B.A., Russian Language, Michigan State University, 1995
Teaching interests: 
  • Higher education history, policy and adminstration
  • Organizational climate and leadership in higher education
Research interests: 
  • Faculty work and faculty development
  • Teaching and learning in post-secondary education
  • Instructional change and innovation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)
Bio: 

Co-Director Dr. Andrea L. Beach is a Professor of Higher Education Leadership.  She founded and was Director of the Office of Faculty Development at WMU from 2008-2015.  She received her Master’s degree in Adult and Continuing Education and her PhD in Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education (HALE) from Michigan State University in 1998 and 2003, respectively.  Her research centers on organizational change in higher education, support of innovation in teaching and learning, faculty learning communities, and faculty development as an institutional change lever. She is a co-author of Creating the Future of Faculty Development:  Learning from the Past, Understanding the Present (Sorcinelli, Austin, Eddy & Beach, 2006), and is lead author on a 10-year follow-up to that work, Faculty Development in the Age of Evidence: Current Practices, Future Imperatives (Beach, Sorcinelli, Austin & Rivard, 2016). She has been PI and co-PI on several NSF-funded grants focused on instructional change strategies that have produced articles and book chapters on instructional change strategies, as well as instruments to self-report instruction and academic department climate for instructional improvement.  She is most recently director of a $3.2 million project funded by the US Department of Education’s First in the World program to undertake, document, and measure outcomes of institutional transformation aimed at improving the persistence and academic success of students from low-income backgrounds.