Dr. Amy Arnold
Assistant Director
Passionate about supporting underserved students, Dr. Arnold designs, builds, and assesses online courses to improve the learning outcomes and experiences for this distinct population. She leads the center’s faculty development by providing subject matter expertise on college success and experiential learning. She comes to the Student Success Center from the Calhoun Honors Discovery Program having served in the role of postdoctoral research assistant and collegiate assistant professor after completing her Ph.D. in instructional design and educational technology. She also obtained prior experience as a data analyst for the NSF grant, Professional Engineering Pathways: A Longitudinal Study of Early Career Preparedness and Decision-Making that explored data from multiple educational institutions regarding the steps that undergraduate engineering majors take towards not only identifying their career goals, but also their effort and decision-making to acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and attitudes as they transition to achieving their chosen career goals.
Accustomed to close collaborations with faculty, Dr. Arnold has worked on multiple grant proposals across disciplines and won “one of the best papers presented” at the 19th International Conference on International Education and Information Systems, Technologies and Applications via the International Multi-Conference on Society, Cybernetics and Informatics (IMSCI 2021) for the paper, Towards an integrative professional and personal competency-based learning model for inclusive workforce development while on the CHDP faculty team. This background informs her design approach for integrating transferrable skills into instruction that learners can carry with them beyond their time here at Virginia Tech.
Originally from rural East Tennessee, Dr. Arnold has a long history of supporting learners’ academic pursuits first as a public and academic librarian and over a decade as an instructor serving undergraduates. She received her M.L.I.S. from The Florida State University and her M.A. in English Literature from East Tennessee State University. Mentoring is her favorite aspect of working with students. She is thrilled to be a part of the innovative Student Success Center team. When not working, she enjoys exploring the New River Valley with her family as well as practicing her craft as a writer.