Gary Brown
Academic Director and Codirector of Research
Gary Brown is the Academic Director and co-Director of Research for the Association of Authentic, Evidence & Experiential-Based Learning (AAEEBL). He was previously Associate Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at Portland State University where he had responsibilities for assessment, faculty development, and online learning. Preceding his service at PSU, Gary was at Washington State University for 20 years where his worked ranged from helping develop WSU’s Writing Program, Center for Teaching and Learning, Office of Educational Assessment, and he developed programs in instructional design and multimedia composition. At WSU Gary also taught composition, media, and graduate courses in Program Evaluation. Preceding moving to the northwest, Gary served with the faculty in the Department of Rhetoric and Writing Studies at San Diego State.
Gary has been involved with assessment of educational innovations and educational technologies since the mid 80s. In the 90s at Washington State, Gary directed the development of one of the early learning management systems and was among the first to put surveys online as director of the WSU Silhouette Project, known internationally as the award winning Flashlight Online. Gary has also been a National Learning Communities fellow, a leader on a FIPSE funded project for assessing and promoting students’ critical thinking. And Gary was an early portfolio pioneer in both writing assessment and as chair of Microsoft’s ePortfolio Higher Learning Consortium.
Gary has received NSF grants for development and assessment of hands-on & collaborative learning in Chemical Engineering and Health Sciences. Gary has also worked with a variety of professional associations on the assessment of outcomes and costs of educational practices and innovations, and served for many years as the assessment editor for Innovate, one of the first peer-reviewed online journals. Gary has received seven awards for best research, and he was a recipient of the Pacific Northwest’s first annual award for Teaching, Learning, & Assessment. With AAC&U, Gary has been involved with ePortfolios, the VALUE project, and the Quality Collaboratives exploration of Lumina’s Degree Qualification Profile.