Tara Kishbaugh

Dr. Tara L.S. Kishbaugh, Inaugural Dean of Faculty and Student Success, appointed July 2025. Dr. Kishbaugh was appointed Inaugural Dean of the School of Sciences, Engineering and Nursing at EMU in July 2019, after being chair of the biology, chemistry, and environmental science programs for six years. During her role as dean, Dr. Kishbaugh collaboratively founded the Center for Teaching & Learning, hired and onboarded more than fifteen faculty and several staff members, and collaborated to achieve initial ABET accreditation of the engineering program. Tara is a first-generation college student who holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Wheaton College, a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Dartmouth College, and was a Dreyfus Teaching postdoctoral fellow at the University of Massachusetts, North Dartmouth. Dr. Kishbaugh has over twenty years of experience teaching organic, general, medicinal, and environmental chemistry, as well as seminars on ethics, land use, and food chemistry. As co-PI on an NSF CCLI grant, Tara incorporated the use of new equipment into project-based labs and developed a rubric to assess non-content, higher-order cognitive learning, and understanding of the nature of science in research or project-based labs.  As co-PI on an NSF IUSE grant, Tara recruited and worked with embedded peer tutors to enhance learning in chemistry courses, completed a year-long diversity-responsive teaching professional development opportunity, and mentored faculty in STEM Scholarship of Teaching and Learning projects.  Dr. Kishbaugh was PI on an NSF SSTEM grant, which provided scholarships to two cohorts of seven students, wrap-around supports including three types of mentoring, and assessed their motivation for science after a place-based learning intervention.

• EMU STEM Scholars Engaging in Local Problems. Kishbaugh, T.L.S.; Tian, E.; Showalter, D.; Barge, S. AAAS NSF 2022 S-STEM Symposium, September 30- October 1, 2022.
• STEM Scholars Engaging in Local Problems. Tian, E.; Showalter, D.; Kishbaugh, T.L.S.; Barge, S. ASEE 2022 Conference: Excellence through diversity. Minneapolis, MN, June 26-29, 2022.
• Inclusive Teaching in the Classrooms:  Beyond the Little Red Teaching Toolbox to Socio-Cultural Apprenticeship. Leaman, L.; Kishbaugh, T.L.S. JMU Annual Diversity Conference, March 19, 2021. 
• From Decoration to Meaningful Narratives: what can organic chemistry students do with mechanisms? Dronov, A; Kishbaugh, T.L.S. Annual Meeting Virginia Academy of Sciences.  James Madison University, May 29, 2020.
• Transforming Teaching: Moving Faculty from "Neutral" to Equity in Teaching.  Kishbaugh, T.L.S.; Leaman, L. Diversity, Equity, & Student Success Conference: Engaged Inclusivity: Perceptions, Realities, & Aspirations, an AACU Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, March 28-30, 2019

• Attending to T&L: Sociocultural faculty development for diversity-responsive SoTL.  Kishbaugh, T.L.S.; Leaman, L. SoTL Commons Conference, Savannah, GA, January 24-25, 2019. 

• Faculty Identity Development for Culturally Responsive Teaching. Kishbaugh, T.; Leaman, L. 10th Annual Understanding Interventions Conference: The Decade Ahead, Baltimore, MD, March 2-4, 2018.
• Improving retention through teaching strategies and peer tutoring. Cessna, S.; Kishbaugh, T. 254th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Washington, DC, August 20-24, 2017.

Building and Maintaining a Collegial Department, 2018 Workshop for Department and Division Chairs, Minneapolis, MN, May 22-24, 2018.

• Organized a symposium on Increasing Retention of Under-represented Students in Chemistry for the ACS national meeting, August, 2017.
• Ad-hoc reviewer for Higher Education Pedagogies, Current Organic Chemistry, Letters in Drug Design and Discovery, Studies in Natural Product Chemistry and American Chemical Society- Petroleum Research Fund Undergraduate Research Proposals
• At-large member of the Shenandoah Resource Conservation & Development Council 2011-2013

• National Science Foundation, S-STEM: STEM Scholars Engaging in Local Problems $649,996 (award ID: 1741937). PI: T.Kishbaugh, Co-PI: S.Cessna, D. King, D. Showalter, E. Tian (1/2018-1/2023).
• 2016-2017 Senior Leadership Seminar of the VA Network for Women in Higher Eduction.
• Faculty-Led Institutional Transformation for Teaching Diverse Learners in STEM — A National Science Foundation IUSE grant , $299,967 (PI: Cessna, Co-PIs: Kishbaugh, Leaman, Showalter) 2016.
• VDACS: “Sustaining Organic Blueberry Production: Analysis of Practices and Assessing Outcomes.” Program director: Roman J Miller. Co-PI: S. Cessna, T.L.S. Kishbaugh. (11/2011-10/2013)
• National Science Foundation, Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement. Promoting learning through authentic and relevant research experiences in environmental monitoring and remediation across ten chemistry and biology laboratory courses Co-PI with S. Cessna, L. H. Leaman, M. Siderhurst, and D. Graber Neufeld. 2009-13.

• American Chemical Society
• Eastern Mennonite University’s Institutional Representative to Virginia Network, part of the ACE Women’s Network

Modern Leadership: Reflections & Tools for the Wise Leader, William & Mary Washington Center, Spring 2023

Trauma, Resilience in Higher Education Conference, April 2023, online

Teaching, Learning, & Technology Conference, May 2023, online

Mental Health First Aid Training, August 2022

Assessment 101, JMU Center for Assessment and Research Studies, online, June 13-17, 2022

ACE Va Network State Conference, Roanoke, Va, June 2022

EMU Strategies for Trauma Resilience and Awareness,- Level one, Fall 2020

Academic Council 2020-present

CoChair of Center for Teaching & Learning Committee, 2021- present

Provost Council 2019-present

President's Cabinet 2019-present

DNP Oversight Board 2019- present

Faculty Status Committee 2019-present

Pre-Professional Health Sciences, ongoing