Our Story

The iELITE project was founded in 2016 by a group of faculty members and specialists with the goal to strengthen Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) training in The Grainger College of Engineering. Supported by grants from the Strategic Instructional Innovation Program (SIIP) and the Provost’s Initiative for Teaching Advancement (PITA), a graduate course (ENG 598 – Teaching & Leadership) has been created and offered since 2017 to provide pedagogical training and professional development for new GTAs. By 2020, we have trained over 780 GTAs and reach a steady enrollment of 280 graduate students per academic year.

We believe teaching skills are highly transferable to any career that our graduate students will embark on after graduation. By offering an integrative training on pedagogy and leadership, we are preparing our GTAs to become better teachers of today and better leaders of tomorrow.