Jodi Eastberg Named Executive Director of Center for Academic Excellence

September 21, 2017

Jodi Eastberg, Ph.D., professor of history, has been named executive director of Alverno College's Center for Academic Excellence. The appointment was effective August 1.

In this new role, Eastberg will provide leadership for Alverno's Center for Academic Excellence (CAE) and partner with Alverno faculty and staff to provide opportunities for high-achieving students to get the most from their college education. Launched in fall 2015, the CAE offers student-faculty research fellowships, intensive courses, conference and study abroad experiences and fellowships, seminars, and the Doherty Scholars program. Data shows that students who engage in academically rigorous programs and co-curricular opportunities have significantly higher success reaching their educational goals. Alverno's CAE provides multiple opportunities for this type of individualized and high-impact academic engagement.

Because of the Center's strong focus on meaningful research opportunities, Eastberg will also oversee the Alverno College Research Center for Women and Girls. With a focus on providing research that supports the understanding and improvement of the lives of women and girls, the Research Center for Women and Girls will provide another platform for the substantial in-depth academic opportunities that will allow high-ability students and faculty researchers to engage directly with the community.

Eastberg began teaching at Alverno in 2005 and most recently served as chair of the history department. In 2014, she and a colleague developed and led an interdisciplinary course on coastal cities that studied Milwaukee - investigating the ways culture, economic development, political dynamics and the environment are affected by its location on the water. The semester culminated in a trip to coastal cities along the Baltic Sea: Gdansk, Poland; Copenhagen, Denmark; and Kalmar and Malmö, Sweden. Eastberg was promoted to professor in May 2017.