Dr. Gwen Tarboz

Dr. Gwen Athene Tarbox serves as Director of Scholarly Teaching in the Center for Integrated Professional Development at Illinois State University, where she also holds an appointment as Professor of English. She leads a team that supports faculty, staff, and graduate instructors in evidence-based teaching and learning, working collaboratively with partners across the institution. She represents Illinois State in university, national, and international educational organizations, including the POD Network Directors Group. 

PhD English

Purdue University

MA Modern Literature

Purdue University and Queen Mary, University of London

BA Political Science and English

University of Michigan–Flint

Gwen brings more than two decades of experience in faculty development and academic leadership to her work. Before joining the University, she directed the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at the University of Connecticut and the Office of Faculty Development at Western Michigan University. Across these roles, she has designed new-faculty orientation, early-career and mid-career certificate programs, and workshops spanning the full range of teaching and learning practice, including the impact of Artificial Intelligence on pedagogy.  

Gwen’s scholarship examines children’s literature, comics texts, and other popular culture artifacts that have shaped American identity. She is the author of Children's and Young Adult Comics (Bloomsbury, 2020) and The Clubwomen's Daughters: Collectivist Impulses in Progressive Era Girls’ Fiction, (Routledge, 2000), a Choice Award winner, and she is co-editor, with Dr. Michelle Ann Abate, of Graphic Novels for Children and Young Adults (University Press of Mississippi, 2017).