About Us

Ph.D. | Executive Director

Michelle O'Malley spent nearly 20 years as faculty in the Linguistics department at OHIO before transitioning to administration and the role of Executive Director of Experiential Learning. O’Malley is a trained speech & language scientist and sociolinguist whose teaching and research is focused on language use/variation as well as the role of Place in the language forms we use and what these forms reveal about our connections to Place. She is also the architect of the OHIO Place Initiative, a curricular and pedagogical driver at OHIO University. 

O’Malley’s office leads the university’s coordinated strategy for Experiential Learning by focusing on three main areas of development and partnership: student curriculum, faculty/staff development, and community and alumni engagement – all in support of OHIO University’s Dynamic Strategies and its efforts at teaching and research excellence. 

Collaborations with faculty are designed to build a strong faculty cohort trained in place-based, community-engaged teaching and to expand consistent, high-quality Experiential Learning opportunities that connect academics with professional and civic experiences. 

For students, efforts are focused on expanding and enhancing curricular and co-curricular opportunities anchored in place-based, community-engaged pedagogical approaches to experiential learning that prepare students to be content-informed, civically engaged professionals and citizens.

MFA, ABD | Director of Experiential Curriculum Integration

Courtney Kessel is a mother, artist, academic, and administrator living and working in Athens, Ohio. She serves as Director of Experiential Curriculum Integration where she collaborates with faculty and campus partners to expand experiential learning, support reflective teaching practices, and advance student success.

Kessel also teaches BFA Art + Design seniors and brings a practitioner’s perspective to her work in curriculum design and faculty development. Her scholarly and creative interests in experiential learning are deeply informed by her own interdisciplinary art practice, which centers reflection, process, collaboration, and applied learning.

Kessel is an interdisciplinary artist whose work has been exhibited and presented nationally and internationally. Through sculpture, performance, photography, video, and sound, her practice makes visible the often-unseen labor of motherhood. Her long-running performance In Balance With (2010–present) explores collaborations with her daughter as a living, evolving relationship. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Interdisciplinary Arts and holds an MFA from Ohio University and a BFA from Tyler School of Art.