Julia Williams

Julia Williams is professor of English and Executive Director of the Office of Institutional Research, Planning, and Assessment at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, Indiana, USA.  She joined the faculty of the Humanities and Social Sciences Department in 1992, then assumed duties in the Office of Institutional Research, Planning, and Assessment in 2005. Throughout her career at Rose-Hulman, she has blended her work in the classroom with work in assessment. She was the founder of the Program in Technical Communication at Rose-Hulman, a campus-wide effort to improve students' written and oral communication skills in a variety of courses.  In 1995 she joined the effort to create and implement the RosE Portfolio System, an online portfolio assessment tool that is still in use today as the RosEvaluation Tool.  Evidence of student learning from the RosEvaluation is used by the Institute and academic programs to measure student learning and to direct curriculum improvements.  She has been active in the use and assessment of tablet PCs in the classroom, and she has collaborated with faculty and staff in projects such as the Rose-Hulman Leadership and Educational Development (LEAD) Program and the national RosEvaluation Conference.  She has also given invited talks and workshops both in the US and abroad, in Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, and Qatar. 

In 2011, she and a team of 7 Rose-Hulman faculty developed the Making Academic Change Happen Workshop, a three-day workshop focused on helping faculty develop and deploy change management skills. The MACH 3-day Workshop is offered annually, while customized "mini-MACHs" have been provided at national conferences like the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) and the Women in Engineering Programs and Advocates Network (WEPAN).   The MACH team currently provides support to recipients of the National Science Foundation "Revolutionizing Engineering and Computer Science Departments" program (through an EAGER grant), equipping them with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform effectively as change agents.  

Williams's publications on change leadership development, assessment, and engineering and professional communication have appeared in the Journal of Engineering Education, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, Technical Communication Quarterly, Proceedings of the American Society of Engineering Education Conference, and The Impact of Tablet PCs and Pen-based Technologies in the Classroom, among others.  She is the recipient of the 2015 Schlesinger Award for Outstanding Service to the IEEE Professional Communication Society, the 2010 Sterling Olmsted Award (ASEE Liberal Education/Engineering and Society Division), the 2007 Council for Higher Education Accreditation Award, the 2007 HP Technology for Teaching Award, and the 2005 Microsoft Research Award.  She is also the recipient of the 2008 Rose-Hulman Board of Trustees Outstanding Scholar Award and the 2004 Humanities and Social Sciences Department Outstanding Researcher Award.