Lights, Camera, TEACH! The Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning brought a taste of Hollywood to campus on Feb. 19 with a special event celebrating Yale’s digital education programming and the faculty who share their teaching with the world. This was one in a series of events organized around the Center’s tenth anniversary, recognizing its decade-long impact at Yale and beyond.
“Yaliewood” celebrated the production, innovation, and collaboration that bring Yale’s teaching to a global audience. Through engaging interactive sets, attendees peeked behind-the-curtain at the production behind instruction and caught a glimpse into the world of online course creation. Guests practiced reading a script from the teleprompter, composing the perfect on-screen outfit, capturing the best energy to keep viewers engaged, and even dabbled in the art of video editing. The event opened with a special ceremony honoring Yale faculty Dr. Timothy Snyder, Dr. Laurie Santos, Dr. Michael Wininger, and Dr. Eva Garen for their significant contributions to digital education, which have made an impact on the world.
For the last 20 years, the Poorvu Center’s Digital Education and Broadcast teams, in partnership with University faculty and academic leadership, have managed or supported over 180 online offerings ranging from individual non-degree classes to degree granting programs. Many of these offerings are available to the world free of charge as part of Yale’s commitment to making learning more public. In 2022, Dr. Timothy Snyder partnered with the Poorvu Center to bring his lectures, “The Making of Modern Ukraine,” to a public audience on YouTube. Available with translation in Ukrainian and Russian, these lectures have been viewed nearly 10 million times around the world.
Since partnering with online course provider Coursera in 2014, over 12 million people have engaged with Yale’s online offerings through the platform, with the top ten most popular courses attracting an average 940,000 learners each. Yale’s Coursera courses are offered at no cost, including Dr. Laurie Santos’ “The Science of Well-Being” which has amassed a global enrollment of more than 4 million students. What began as an online course quickly transitioned to a residential, in-person offering – and the most popular course at Yale!
During Yaliewood, Dr. Eva Garen and the Environmental Leadership and Training Initiative (ELTI) team were honored for their impact through the Tropical Forest Landscapes non-degree program that provides practical, field-ready training to environmental scientists in over 70 countries. Now in its sixth year, this certificate program has become a model for other non-degree programs at Yale.
While the event was a recognition of the faculty and staff who make it possible for Yale’s teaching to be shared with the world, acknowledgement was also given to the Center’s impact on teaching and learning across the University. While accepting his ceremonial star on the Yaliewood Walk of Fame for his pragmatic delivery of tangible content in the popular Biostats primer for Public Health students, Dr. Mike Wininger credited the Poorvu Center with helping him become a better teacher. Last year, he was honored with a 2024 Distinguished Teaching Award from the Yale School of Public Health, and he praised colleagues in the Poorvu Center with helping to make this possible.
The decision in 2014 to integrate digital education into the Poorvu Center redefined the traditional model for collegiate teaching centers and paved the way for the Center’s innovative, pioneering approach over the past decade. “This intentional decision by Yale leadership made clear the University’s belief that online teaching and residential teaching were two sides of the same coin,” remarked Lucas Swineford, Executive Director for Digital Education at the Poorvu Center. “Exceptional teaching was exceptional teaching, whether it was being delivered in a classroom or over a modem.”
Celebration of the Poorvu Center’s tenth anniversary and sustained global impact will continue through the end of this academic year with additional events planned this spring. For more information, visit poorvucenter.yale.edu.