Professor of Earth Sciences Robert Hawley has been named director of the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning, effective July 1. 

Hawley, a glaciologist who joined Dartmouth in 2008, has served as chair of the Department of Earth Sciences, program director for Arctic system science at the National Science Foundation, and president of the cryosphere sciences section of the American Geophysical Union. As director of DCAL, he will continue to teach and lead the Glaciology Lab.

“In addition to deep institutional roots, Bob has a wealth of proven leadership experience and, importantly, a very genuine passion for teaching and learning,” says Erin DeSilva, interim director of DCAL and associate provost for digital and online learning. “He also has been a great mentor and friend to other educators during his time at Dartmouth, as his own teaching has evolved.”

Scott Pauls, interim dean of undergraduate education, who led DCAL from 2018 to 2025, was part of the faculty advisory team involved in the selection process.

“Bob is really well suited for the job, and I think he’ll be a great leader,” says Pauls, who has known Hawley for two decades. An “amazing” and empathetic educator, he is known for his innovative approach to teaching, which helps students “build community and a sense of place and a sense of belonging,” Pauls says.

Pauls also noted that Hawley is joining DCAL at a turning point, when AI “has the real potential to completely upend how we approach pedagogy.”

“Bob’s a good person to grapple with that, or grapple with that with us,” he says.

DCAL, based in Baker-Berry Library, aims to enrich teaching and learning on campus and elevate Dartmouth as a national leader in liberal arts education. It promotes evidence-based, learner-centered teaching, offering programs and resources to anyone engaged in teaching at Dartmouth, many created in partnership with Learning Design and Innovation. Among those are grants, guidance, and tools related to teaching and generative AI. 

Last year, DCAL hosted 67 workshops with a total attendance of more than 700 instructors from across the divisions. DCAL has also been heavily involved in discussions about artificial intelligence at Dartmouth.

Given its gigantic impact on teaching and learning, generative AI “has been a major focus of the resources, programs, and opportunities we are providing,” DeSilva says. “Our goal is to support educators to consider and experiment thoughtfully with GenAI as a teaching and learning tool—identifying ways to preserve academic integrity while expanding access to interactive and tailored supports.”

Hawley’s ongoing collaboration with DCAL started a decade ago, when a Gateway Initiative course grant helped him transform his large introductory Earth science course from a lecture format into an active learning experience. It also transformed how he views his role as a teacher, both in and out of the classroom.

“The learning that needs to take place doesn’t necessarily have to take place by me telling students things,” says Hawley, who also leads a section of the off-campus program The Stretch, a hands-on introduction to field techniques in the Earth sciences. “Teaching and learning are, by their very nature, a human interaction. Having that human interaction, and having a faculty member who cares about you as a person, is really meaningful.”

As director, he aims to expand DCAL’s reach on campus and continue to cultivate cross-disciplinary dialogue about teaching and learning, leaning into Dartmouth’s strengths as a university. 

“Education is not just the process of information exchange. In the world of Massive Open Online Courses and AI, you don’t need a place like Dartmouth to do that,” Hawley says. “But Dartmouth is ideal for producing learners who continue to learn after they’ve finished their degrees, and who achieve a growth mindset.”

Taken together, Dartmouth’s small size, world-class research programs, and faculty commitment to involving students in their research add up to rich opportunities for experiential learning, he says. “We therefore launch our undergraduates into the world with this experience of being part of the research enterprise, the scholarly enterprise, that most undergraduate students never get.”