National Institute forAbout Us
The National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE) is a community-based, non-profit initiative that helps liberal arts colleges and universities explore and implement digital technologies. Our mission is to catalyze innovation to advance liberal education in the digital age. We are centrally concerned with the integration of technology into teaching and learning, strategic approaches to managing technology infrastructure on small campuses, and the impact and implications of emerging technologies for liberal education.
NITLE: A Brief History
The National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education is now headquartered at Southwestern University and has been led by its current executive director, W. Joseph (Joey) King, since May 2009.
NITLE was established in September 2001, through a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. It operated as a grant-funded initiative until December 2005, and was originally charged to stimulate collaboration between selected liberal arts colleges and to act as a catalyst for the effective integration of emerging and newer digital technologies into teaching, learning, scholarship, and information management.
In January 2006, NITLE joined with three other Mellon-funded instructional technology initiatives: the Center for Educational Technology at Middlebury College, the Associated Colleges of the South's Technology Center (based at Southwestern University), and the Midwest Instructional Technology Center, which was led by the Great Lakes Colleges Association and the Associated Colleges of the Midwest. This unified national initiative was headquartered at Ithaka Harbors until May 2009.
NITLE has two past executive directors: Clara Yu, who later served as the 12th president of the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and Jo Ellen Parker, now president of Sweet Briar College.