The Office of Faculty Development (OFD) is excited to announce the inaugural cohort of Mid-American Conference Academic Leadership Development Program (MAC ALDP) Fellows. Congratulations to:
- Christina Metevier, Associate Provost for Academic Programs, Mount Ida Campus Academic Programs
- Michelle Trim, Senior Lecturer II of Computer Science
- Kofi-Charu Nat Turner, Department Chair and Professor of Teacher Education & Curriculum Studies
- Grant Wilson, Department Head and Professor of Astronomy
“I am very excited about this new program, which provides additional opportunities for our faculty to both pursue leadership opportunities and lead projects that provide significant insights into a range of questions important to our campus,” said Fouad Abd-El-Khalick, provost and senior vice chancellor for academic affairs. “UMass Amherst’s four inaugural MAC ALDP Fellows are amazing colleagues who have taken on ambitious projects that will have significant impacts for stakeholders across campus.”
Launched in 2017, the mission of the MAC ALDP is to identify, develop, prepare, and advance faculty as academic leaders in the Mid-American Conference universities. Each year, up to four outstanding individuals will be selected to serve as UMass Amherst MAC ALDP Fellows under the mentorship of associate provost of faculty development, Angela de Oliveira.
“This inaugural cohort of MAC ALDP Fellows is incredibly impressive. Their individual projects will advance career readiness and job placement of our students, contribute to AI literacy, and enhance faculty well-being. Each of these projects will tangibly support our campus’s work for the common good. I’m excited to partner with each of these exceptional faculty leaders to foster their growth, development, and success, as well as the success of their projects,” shared Angela de Oliveira.
The MAC ALDP nomination and application process will commence annually in January. More information on the fellowship can be found on OFD’s website.
2025-26 MAC ALDP Fellows:
Christina Metevier, Associate Provost for Academic Programs at the Mount Ida Campus, will lead the design and launch of a one-week immersive internship exploration program for first- and second-year undergraduates. Designed to expand access to experiential learning, especially for first-generation and underrepresented students, the program will help participants connect academic theory with applied work in real-world settings across a range of industries. Through academic reflection, employer engagement, and professional skill-building activities, students will explore potential career paths while developing leadership competencies and clarifying academic goals. This initiative aligns with UMass Amherst’s strategic focus on inclusive excellence and high-impact practices and aims to build scalable pathways that prepare students for experiential learning opportunities and meaningful post-graduate success.
Metevier oversees academic programming, curricular expansion, experiential learning, student success, and faculty support for the Mount Ida Campus. A committed educator and leader, she also serves as Senior Lecturer II in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences (PBS). Previously, she directed the Linking Employment and Academic Development (LEAD) program on the Mount Ida Campus, an innovative initiative that integrates curricular and co-curricular experiences to prepare PBS students for careers related to Psychology. Metevier earned her PhD in Neuroscience and Behavior from UMass Amherst in 2006 and joined the faculty in 2010. From 2014 to 2022, she served as the Associate Undergraduate Advisor in PBS, during which time she founded the Psychology Career Fair in 2017, a signature event enhancing student awareness of professional opportunities, and created a peer mentoring program to support undergraduate students in navigating academic challenges, building community, and preparing for post-graduate success. Her dedication to student mentorship and advising was recognized in 2017 when she received the Outstanding Advising Award. As a first-generation college graduate, Metevier brings a deep commitment to academic innovation, inclusive excellence, and the success of all students. In September 2023, she was appointed to her current position as Associate Provost for Academic Programs at the Mount Ida Campus.
Metevier shares, “I’m honored to be selected as a MAC ALDP Fellow and excited to lead a project designed to help students, especially those early in their academic journey, connect classroom learning with real-world application across a range of professional fields. By bridging academic theory and hands-on experience, the program will support deeper career exploration and foster leadership development. This project also aligns with UMass Amherst’s strategic emphasis on high-impact, inclusive educational practices.”
Michelle Trim, Senior Lecturer II of Computer Science, will work to identify a shared understanding of what is meant by “AI Literacy” at UMass Amherst through a collaborative approach. As various generative AI tools and techniques continue to proliferate, we can work together to recognize the knowledge, critical reasoning, and practical awareness required for graduates to engage with these new tools in effective and ethical ways. Beginning with the shared principles identified by the Joint Task Force on Generative AI, this project will culminate in a working description of AI Literacy along with associated examples that various disciplines can use to build from in setting their own expectations for AI literacy in their programs.
With over 20 years in higher education, Michelle Trim’s career has included faculty appointments at small selective private, rural public, and research focused public institutions. She is a broadly trained academic with degrees in technical communication and computational social science. At UMass, she was among the first class of Teaching for Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity (TIDE) fellows in 2016 and of the Public Interest Technology (PIT) fellows of 2022, was awarded the College Outstanding Teaching Award in 2019-2020, and the Faculty Peer Mentoring Award in 2021. She most recently served at UMass Amherst as Chair of the Faculty Senate Rules Committee and as a Chancellor's Leadership Fellow focused on AI Education on campus. She teaches courses in informatics and on the social impacts and ethical considerations of computing in the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences. Her scholarship focuses on the impacts of computers on society and interdisciplinary approaches to teaching data literacy. She is the current chair of the Association of Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computers and Society (ACM SIGCAS).
Trim shares, “Generative AI may have disrupted higher education across the globe, but it does not have to determine what education means at UMass. We can choose to shape our engagement with this technology in ways that embody our shared values of mutual respect, academic integrity, responsible practices, and excellence in education and research. I look forward to engaging the diverse energy of our campus community in this project.”
Kofi-Charu Nat Turner, Department Chair and Professor of Teacher Education & Curriculum Studies, will work on a project titled “Cultivating Faculty Well-being for the Common Good at UMass Amherst.” This project aims to create a campus-wide system of support, expanding on the successful Dynamic Mindfulness (DMind) sessions used in the College of Education since 2016. The goal is to align with the UMass Strategic Plan to foster a healthier community by focusing on the physical, mental, spiritual, and social wellbeing of faculty. Using a collaborative approach with the Office of Faculty Development (OFD) the project will develop and implement several initiatives. These include establishing Faculty Peer-Support Communities, creating a Faculty Wellness Hub, and adapting a student-focused program to train Faculty Peer-led Meditations. The project will be carried out in three phases: research and planning, implementation tailored to specific college needs, and evaluation. The ultimate goal is to use the project’s findings to institutionalize wellbeing as a permanent part of leadership development at the university.
Turner is the grandson of distinguished civil rights leader Caffie Greene and has written the first biography about her Caffie Greene and Black Women Activists: Unsung Women of the Black Liberation Movement published by Routledge Press. Brought up by activist parents in the San Francisco Bay Area and alongside his grandma in South Central L.A., Dr. Turner first found a spiritual foundation to his activism as a student of Africana Studies studying abroad in Ghana. Today all his work seeks to engage and support historically underserved youth, pK-12 teachers, and administrators utilizing mindfulness and other embodied practices to heal the intergenerational trauma associated with white body supremacy.
A community engaged scholar and ceaseless seeker of knowledge, Dr. Turner’s research and courses span the areas of language and literacy practices of culturally and linguistically diverse urban adolescents (particularly African Americans) in school and non-school settings; racial justice/reparations in education; hip hop culture; and emergent technologies. He received degrees from Harvard and Brown University and was trained in dynamic mindfulness (DMind) at the Niroga Institute (Oakland, CA) an organization he continues to collaborate with, facilitating DMind with youth in the Jersey City and Holyoke, MA public schools.
Dr. Turner has also served as the College of Education’s Leadership Fellow coordinating a Dynamic Mindfulness & Contemplative Pedagogy Initiative and has participated in the Mellon Faculty Leadership Development Program: Building Academic Leaders Intro Track sponsored by Five College Inc., the Healthy Relationships at Work Fellowship cohort with Dr. Emily Heaphy, and the LEAD+ (Leadership Enhancement for Academic Departments) series.
Turner shares, "As a MAC ALDP Fellow I am looking forward to collecting information on practices in departments and colleges which support faculty wellbeing and identifying best practices offered by peer institutions. I am excited to collaborate with the Office of Faculty Development (OFD) to implement a pilot well-being program and a plan for broad-scale adaptation for faculty campus-wide."
Grant Wilson, Department Head and Professor of Astronomy, aims to improve job placement outcomes for Astronomy undergraduates at UMass Amherst by building stronger connections with industry partners and more clearly communicating the data science, problem-solving, and technical skills students acquire through the Astronomy major. The initiative includes identifying regional companies aligned with student competencies, updating advising materials, performing a curricular mapping that explicitly identifies translational skills, and proposing a cultural shift within the department to better support diverse career pathways.
Wilson is a Professor and Department Head in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He earned his Ph.D. in Physics from Brown University in 1998, where he studied cosmology by developing instruments to measure the oldest radiation in the Universe. He went on to conduct postdoctoral research at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and the University of Chicago. Since joining UMass Amherst in 2001, Professor Wilson has shifted his focus from early-Universe cosmology to the astrophysics of galaxy and star formation. He is a recipient of the College Outstanding Teacher Award, has discovered hundreds of new galaxies using the AzTEC camera, and currently serves as Principal Investigator of the TolTEC camera on the Large Millimeter Telescope.
Wilson shares, “I’m honored to be selected for the MAC ALDP fellowship. This opportunity allows me to explore new ways to connect our students’ strengths in data analysis, critical thinking, and scientific problem-solving with meaningful, diverse career paths beyond academia. I’m excited to help broaden the career opportunities available to our majors.”