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As of Monday, November 9th, Linda Hasunuma, the CAT’s Associate Director of Teaching and Faculty Success, will transition to the position of Director of Strategic Initiatives and Partnerships at Temple University’s office for Institutional Diversity, Equity, Advocacy, and Leadership (IDEAL). Since Linda joined the CAT in 2020, she has been a fierce advocate for ensuring the inclusion of voices too often excluded from or marginalized in academic spaces and our field of educational development. Linda has led and contributed to initiatives that have pushed not only the CAT but our entire field in new directions, naming barriers faced by faculty, students, staff and educational developers, and creating avenues for participation that will bear dividends for years to come.
During her time with the CAT, Linda brought extraordinary sensitivity and a deep familiarity with scholarly work on creating inclusive educational spaces for students, faculty and staff to a range of programming. Since 2020, Linda has co-led the Can We Really Talk? series with David Brown, Executive Director for Community Impact and Civic Engagement, and Valerie Dudley, Director of Inclusive Education & Engagement. Offered three times semesterly, the series invites faculty and staff to share perspectives on sometimes difficult topics and to build community both within and across identities and experiences. Linda was a key contributor to many signature programs at the CAT, including the Provost’s Teaching Academy and Teaching for Equity Institute, and she was central to building and sustaining the Student Experience Project at Temple. She brought her background as a political scientist to the creation of resources and programming on teaching during times of social and political upheaval and incredible empathy and social awareness to many workshops and consultations on managing difficult situations in the classroom.
Linda's advocacy on behalf of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students, faculty and staff included the creation of programming and resources at the CAT and beyond. Linda spearheaded the formation of the AAPI Faculty and Staff Affinity Group at the peak of the anti-Asian hate crime wave that accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic. She tirelessly mobilized participants and stakeholders and helped organize meetings and events that drew together an unprecedented number of Asian-American and Pacific Islander voices from both the main campus and the health sciences campus. Dr. Sean Yom, professor of political science, shares of her work with the Affinity group: 'It was her inclusive style of leadership that helped us rally around common issues, such as fighting for greater visibility and addressing student concerns. In essence, Linda is one of the key reasons — indeed, the key reason — why the group exists at all. She's indispensable in myriad ways!'
Linda has the true gift of making those she interacts with feel seen. This, along with her capacity to listen thoughtfully and identify just the right teaching intervention or relational strategy prompted many faculty, staff and graduate teaching assistants to seek her out for one-on-one consultations. She created a safe and welcoming space for anyone who needed to talk about the nuts and bolts of teaching or the more delicate nuances of interactions in our learning spaces and departments. Through her many meaningful and often transformative meetings with instructors, she built a network of connections across the university—patient, assiduous and powerful community-building that has bolstered the CAT's efforts to share research-based teaching practices with faculty throughout the institution.
In addition to her contributions at Temple, Linda has been a force for positive change in the field of educational development. In 2025, she co-edited Perspectives of Educational Developers of Color (Routledge) with Derina Samuel, Amanda Valdespino, and Sara Mazrouei. The volume collected essays sharing the stories, experiences and wisdom of diverse educational developers and is a unique contribution to the literature in our field. Linda co-founded the Journal of Diversity and Equity in Educational Development (JDEED), a platform for ongoing dialogue about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) in educational development. These noteworthy accomplishments grew out of her leadership on matters related to DEIB in the POD Network, the national association for educational developers.
On top of all this, Linda has been a great colleague! We at the CAT have all benefited from her friendship and mentorship. As Director of Strategic Initiatives and Partnerships at IDEAL, Linda will continue to build networks at Temple and beyond that foster greater belonging for students, faculty and staff.
Please join us in thanking Linda for her incredible work and in wishing her the best of luck with this new chapter!
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