Needs Assessment and Beyond in the Setup of Centers for Teaching and Learning Excellence: An-Najah University Center as a Case Study

An-Najah University recently established a center for excellence in learning and teaching (CELT) in collaboration with Northwestern University. The main goal of the center is to support the university’s transition to a more learner-centered, technology-assisted environment. This paper focuses on the CELT Teaching Fellows Program, a program to build leadership capacity in learning and teaching. It also reports on key challenges which the center encountered when it began to engage with the university and its response to those challenges which included: i) developing a participation strategy, ii) creating multi-specialist teaching fellow teams, and iii) responding to macro-intervention requests.