Michael D. Gillespie is the Director of the Faculty Development and Innovation Center and Professor of Sociology at Eastern Illinois University. 

At the FDIC, I strive to work alongside my peers and share how teaching and learning are not opposing forces, but are incredibly entwined. Teaching is a form of leadership - and at the end of the day, it is simply about helping another human being to learn.

My research interests in the scholarship of teaching and learning focuses on experiential and active learning, alternative assessment strategies, student learning objectives, and statistical literacy and quantitative reasoning.

To the FDIC, I bring extensive experience in program design, evaluation, and assessment, as well as program and policy analysis, and training in mentoring and leadership. 

I also have the honor to teach the required applied statistics course in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology. This course, for which students most often only enroll because it is a program requirement, is therefore met with much anxiety and skepticism by Sociology and Criminal Justice majors.  However, integrating statistical literacy with a pirate, props, M&M chocolate candies, and real world applications, I seek to develop an appreciative, but critical eye toward social statistics that, in hopes, lives and breathes outside of the classroom. 
 
I am inspired by bell hooks, Paulo Freire, and Parker Palmer, and teach sociology and statistics with a critical pedagogical orientation. I have a passion for education, statistics, sociology, and working with my peers in faculty development and empowerment.

Working with a diverse group of students and faculty who have their own biography, struggles, and passions is inspiring.  When these worlds collide, as Carl Sagan writes, ‘something incredible is waiting to be known’.   

"I am hopeful, not out of mere stubbornness, but out of an existential concrete imperative" ~Paulo Freire