J. Elizabeth Clark is a higher education leader, writing scholar, and pedagogical innovator whose career sits at the intersection of transformative pedagogy, curriculum design, and faculty development. For over two decades, she has pursued a single driving question: how do we design learning experiences that meet students where they are and take them somewhere new?
That commitment has shaped Clark's work at LaGuardia Community College–City University of New York, where she is a Professor of English and Writing Program Administrator, and where her students are among the most linguistically and culturally diverse in the nation. At LaGuardia, she was part of the founding team of what has become a nationally recognized ePortfolio program, and has served in multiple leadership roles for the program. She has led the design of project-based learning curricula for Liberal Arts majors, directed both the Writing Program and the Accelerated Learning Program, and regularly leads year-long professional development seminars that move faculty from individual practice toward collective, inquiry-driven work.
Outside LaGuardia, Clark brings that same commitment to national conversations about learning design and faculty development. A faculty member at WPI's Project-Based Learning Institute since 2016 and a longtime faculty member of AAC&U's Institute on Engaged and Integrative Learning (IEIL), she brings both theoretical grounding and hard-won practical experience to questions of curriculum design and pedagogy that scales.
As Associate Editor of the International Journal of ePortfolio and a contributor to Paul Gaston's AAC&U volume General Education and Liberal Learning, her scholarly work has long examined the design of learning environments that ask students to think, reflect, and integrate. Her research on writing and technology has appeared in Computers and Composition, and her op-ed on high-stakes writing assessment was published in The New York Times.
Clark's scholarship and leadership increasingly focus on what it means to teach and to learn in a rapidly changing technological landscape. As the Humanities Disciplinary Lead on CUNY's Lumina-funded Building Bridges of Knowledge AI Project and Co-Lead of LaGuardia's GenAI team, she works at the intersection of human-centered pedagogy and emerging technology. Her open educational resource, Textual Transformations: An Introduction to AI for Composition 101, a nine-unit curriculum released under a Creative Commons license, is freely available for adoption by any instructor or institution.
She is, at heart, a teacher who believes that the best learning creates space for inquiry and room for genuine growth, and that those two things, given enough room, change everything.
Areas of Practice
Writing
I’m an active writer from the practical to the theoretical to the imaginative. Writing curriculum or writing new worlds: I aim to put the best words in the best order.
Leadership
Building consensus and working collaboratively are hallmarks of my leadership style. I like to build strong, healthy groups who problem-solve and innovate together.
REflection
How do students make meaning of what they learn? Reflective writing is a space for both synthesis and meaning making and it’s critical to the learning process.
Teaching
Teaching is at the heart of everything I do whether it’s English 101, Introduction to Kidlit, scuba diving or pandemic teaching 1st grade science over Zoom.
Writing program administration
The WPA team at LaGuardia takes the lead on curriculum, assessment, pedagogy workshops, and administrative tasks in the Department of English.
Learning mindsets
I work hard to establish a sense of belonging in my classes and to embed growth mindsets in my courses and assignments.
Technology
Much of my research and teaching explore the connections between emerging technologies and writing, considering how technology shapes the written word.
Integrative Learning
I believe that we learn best when we make connections between areas of study, personal experiences, professional experiences, and our passions.
scuba diving
Scuba Diving combines my love of writing, teaching, science, & technology all in one place. I’m a passionate environmentalist striving to do my part to save the ocean.
“I’m very conscious of the fact the directing career has taken some odd turns. Maybe there’s enough bulk where I’m now pigeonholed in the ‘eclectic box.’”