Last year, Brown University announced that Mary Wright would begin a new venture in early 2025.
If you’re anywhere near or around the world of CTL, you probably know (or know) Mary Wright. Her 2023 JHU Press publication, Teaching centers: the new landscape of higher educationa must-read for every university leader. Mary, along with Tracie Addy, Bret Eynon, and Jaclyn Rivard, has also collaborated with Johns Hopkins on a forthcoming book (2026) that will review continuity and change in the field of educational development over 20 years.
So it was big news earlier this year when Mary moved from her position as associate provost for teaching and learning and executive director of the Sheridan Center at Brown University to become professor of educational scholarship at the University of Sydney. Mary has been in her new role for over six months, so it’s a good time to see how things are going.
Q: Please tell us about your new role at the University of Sydney. What does a faculty appointment in Australia constitute in terms of teaching, research and administrative responsibilities?
one: As in the United States, faculty appointments (here referred to as academic appointments) vary widely between and even within institutions in Australia. In my role, I serve as a Horizon Educator, an education-focused academic role in which 70% of the time is spent on education, 20% on scholarship, and 10% on leadership or service-related activities. As in my previous experience of over 20 years in the United States, I am still an academic developer (called an educational developer in the United States), which means that education most frequently involves teaching and mentoring other academics as learners.
I am an E-level scholar, similar to the full professor role in the U.S. (the trajectory starts at A-level and includes associate lecturer and postdoctoral researcher, then goes through B-level [lecturer]C level [senior lecturer]Class D [associate professor] and E-Class [professor].)
There are many differences between higher education in the United States and Australia, but I will highlight two here that are relevant to CTL staff. First and most importantly, in the United States, educational developers are often positioned as professionals. In Australia, many universities treat this work on an equal footing with other academics. I feel this adds significantly to the credibility and value of academic development.
Secondly, professional learning around teaching is a required part of many academics’ contracts, either initially or for ‘confirmation’, and it is built into their workloads. I was initially worried that this would cause a lot of backlash, but I’ve yet to find that to be the case. I now find this to be a fairer system for students (and academic success) than the (mostly) voluntary approach in the US.
Q: Moving from Rhode Island to Australia is a big move. What was it about the University of Sydney that attracted you to this university? Why did you make this big change at this point in your career?
one: Three factors attracted me to the University of Sydney. First, I was attracted to what they call organizational honesty. The institution was very open, but not where they wanted it to be in terms of teaching and student experience; they wanted to be a different kind of institution. They also have a very clear theory of change that fits nicely into the metaphors I’ve written about elsewhere: the need for convening and community building (hubs); supporting individual professional development (incubators); developing evidence-based practices such as teaching scholarship (sieves); and promoting the value of teaching and learning through recognition and rewards (temples).
Specifically, the University of Sydney has invested in more than 200 new Horizon Educator positions, education-focused academics appointed as education leaders. Part of my role is to work with this amazing group of academics to advance their own careers and deliver on the institution’s ambition to make teaching more effective. To anchor this work at a macro level, the University of Sydney has also been working hard to develop and launch a new Academic Excellence Framework, which provides a clear pathway for recognition and reward in education, in addition to other aspects of the academic role.
The University of Sydney also makes significant grant investments to advance the scholarship of teaching and learning, which has been a long-standing interest of mine but is often done ‘beside the desk’. My responsibilities include working with people, projects and practices to promote SoTL.
In addition to university strategy, I was attracted by the opportunity to work with Adam Bridgeman and colleagues in the university’s central teaching department. Educational Innovation has been doing very interesting high-level work around AI and assessment and overall professional learning to support academics, but like many CTLs it has been struggling to advance an increasing number of institutional goals since COVID-19. Since I have previously held leadership positions in the CTL field, I felt I could contribute in this area as well.
Q: Moving from a university leadership role to a faculty role is attractive to many of us in the non-faculty education community. (Although I know you also held a faculty position at Brown University). Can you share some advice for those who want to follow in your footsteps?
one: For some context, I started my career in the early 2000s working professionally and occasionally part-time at CTL. I became a research scientist at CTL, then transitioned to CTL Director in 2016 and served as an affiliated faculty member (mainly staff/administrative role). In 2020, I moved into a senior management role (again, my primary role was professional). So, I wear a lot of hats.
Three factors contribute to role reversal. First, I love writing, and while academic writing rarely “comes into play” in this series of positions, I think it helped me take the next step. Second, it is important to read a lot to understand the vast literature on teaching and learning. I think this adds value to both my work with individual academics (helping them get published) and my work on committees, where there is often some literature to cite on the current topic.
Finally, I think professional associations can be very helpful in building bridges and networks, especially for those considering an international transition. In the United States, the POD Network is the main source of support. Now, before applying for my current role, I subscribed to the HERDSA (Higher Education Research and Development Association of Australia) newsletter and participated in one of their mentoring programs. I also served as ” International Journal of Academic Developmentwhich exposed me to articles about academic development in Australia, and I received some generous and wise advice about job search from IJAD colleagues in Australia and New Zealand.
