Biography

Brooke Hessler, Ph.D. teaches online, multimodal courses at California College of the Arts (CCA) and is currently serving as a faculty development specialist and Scholar in Residence at StoryCenter, a California-based international educational nonprofit organization, where she is researching accessible and inclusive pedagogies for online students. From 2016 to 2022, Brooke served as CCA's Director of Learning Resources, managing a virtual hybrid Learning Resource Center (LRC) team of faculty and student peer educators. The LRC's microcredential-based student success referral and tutor-training program was selected as an exemplar in the 2021 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report on Teaching and Learning.

Brooke began experimenting with educational technology and Universal Design for Learning in the 1990s as a technical communicator at American Airlines. While in graduate school, she became an early adopter of online learning platforms (back when Blackboard was free to teachers and customizing the interface involved choosing buttons in Grape or Banana) and began moonlighting as a program development consultant, adjunct faculty member, and beta tester for online writing instruction and certificate programs at universities in Texas, Florida, and California.

Brooke’s affiliation with EDUCAUSE began c. 2001 with an invitation to join a TLT Group roundtable, where Ed Ayers’ presentation on collaborative digital history (The Valley of the Shadow project) inspired a career-changing commitment to community-engaged multimedia partnerships. As Eleanor Lou Carrithers Chair of Writing at Oklahoma City University she co-founded the Virtual Archives Project at the Oklahoma City National Memorial Center and Museum, a 14-year collaboration deputizing college students as digital curators and interpreters. As a faculty mentor and media artist with the Berkeley-based Center for Digital Storytelling / StoryCenter, Brooke has co-facilitated digital storytelling workshops on four continents and trained hundreds of students and educators in the uses of digital narratives for community-engaged learning and intercultural dialogue. 

Brooke has chaired Accessibility working groups for the Online Writing Centers Association (OWCA) and the 2023 International Digital Storytelling Conference, and is a member of the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP). She served as a panelist for the 2023 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report on Teaching and Learning.