UW News

February 28, 2008

Celebration of the life of Don Wulff planned March 10

A celebration of the life of Donald H. Wulff will be held at 2 p.m. March 10 in the Walker-Ames Room.

Wulff, director of the Center for Instructional Development and Research (CIDR), associate dean in the Graduate School and affiliate member of the graduate faculty in the Department of Communication, died Feb. 16.

A recipient of the Thorud Leadership Award in 2007, Wulff had worked at CIDR for the past 23 years. He was raised in Montana and started his teaching career in a high school there, but in his mid-30s he entered the doctoral program in speech communication at the UW. He first came to CIDR as a graduate student in 1984. His dissertation, unsurprisingly, was on teaching effectiveness. He interviewed past winners of the UW’s Distinguished Teaching Award to learn what made them effective.

What he found out was that effective teachers are able to balance the content, the students’ needs and expectations and their own needs and expectations in ways that allowed them to achieve their teaching/learning goals.

Wulff was the author of several books on issues in higher education, including Aligning for Learning: Strategies for Teaching Effectiveness and Paths to the Professoriate. He is a former president of the Professional Organization and Development Network in Higher Education and has provided national leadership and service in higher education in a number of other roles.

Gifts in Wulff’s memory can be made to the Donald H. Wulff Fund for Advancing Teaching and Learning, which will be administered by CIDR to support students, staff and faculty in research, travel and other activities that advance the scholarship of teaching and learning at the UW. To contribute to the fund, or to read memories of Wulff shared by his colleagues, go to http://depts.washington.edu/cidrweb/Don  

CIDR asks that people who are planning to attend the life celebration RSVP to Brenda Kelly, bjkelly@u.washington.edu.