Nirmal Trivedi is Assistant Director for Teaching, Learning and Technology at the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) at Boston College. For the past 10 years, he has worked closely with faculty from various universities and institutions to improve teaching practices for students at the undergraduate level. A graduate of BC’s English PhD program, Nirmal went on to teach at Georgia Tech where he led the university’s First-Year Seminar program for several years. He went on to lead Kennesaw State University’s award-winning First-Year Seminar program for five years, where he was awarded a national teaching award and received statewide recognition for curricular innovation.
Core to Nirmal’s approach is the assumption that students are willing and excited to learn from faculty that they trust. Building that trust takes time and patience as well as an awareness about the prior learning experiences of students.
As a researcher, he has a unique profile that integrates his work in the disciplines of English and American Studies with the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL). As an American Studies scholar, he focuses on race and American imperialism, World Literature, and narratives of trauma in wartime. He has published in the Journal of Transnational American Studies, borderlands, and the Journal of Asian-American Studies.
As a SOTL scholar, he writes about improving retention and graduation rates through high-impact practices, which require applied, hands-on learning experiences and have positive “compensatory” effects for students from historically underserved populations. He has published in eSource for College Transitions, Improve with Metacognition, and the Journal of Effective Teaching in Higher Education.
