Office Hours with John Gardner
Discover a new take on remote and distance learning from someone who utilizes data to design programs responsive to student needs. Brower’s work innovates a static system to redesign programs to support nontraditional student populations.
Guest Bio
Aaron Brower is the founding Executive Director for the University of Wisconsin Extended Campus, and the Senior Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at the UW System. UWEX has built a national reputation for award-winning innovative online programs for adults and professionals. Among UWEX’s innovations is the UW Flexible Option, the first-in-the-country (and still only) competency-based educational program run throughout an entire statewide system.
From 2012-2018, Brower served as Provost of UW-Extension (and Interim Chancellor of UW Colleges and UW-Extension during 2014). From 2007-2021, he was UW-Madison’s Vice Provost for Teaching & Learning. Brower remains a tenured professor at UW-Madison’s School of Social Work. Brower earned a dual Ph.D. in Psychology and Social Work in 1985 from the University of Michigan.
Brower has written 5 books, more than 50 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and received over $18M in grants to support his work. His scholarship demonstrates the academic and social outcomes produced when colleges blend in- and out-of-class learning – engaging the whole university to support the entire student. His current work develops a new educational approach that allows people to customize the unbundling and rebundling of education and training throughout their lives.
