Jason S. Todd, Ph.D.

I've been teaching both students and faculty how to create portfolios and eportfolios for many years, but I have a bad tendency to ignore my own portfolio. The process of updating this portfolio, as it should, challenges me to think about my growth as a teacher over the years and my sometimes hesitant transition into an administrator. When I last updated this portfolio, I had said that my most specific goal for the following years was to work more closely with students on research. While I still hope to do so, that research will take a different form now that I am a full-time administrator focusing on professional, faculty, and institutional development. However, having developed two popular classes that engage students at the transdisciplinary level, I hope to find in those classes students who want to explore those topics (dystopian and cyberpunk media) in greater depth with me, even as I attempt to make greater in-roads in the world of the scholarship of teaching.

The Short Story ( words)

Jason S. Todd is the Director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development and Kellogg Professor of Teaching at Xavier University of Louisiana. He has also served as the Faculty Director of the Core Curriculum, Program Director for the Digital Humanities, QEP Director, and Writing Center Director. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Southern Mississippi in 2006 and his undergraduate studies at Webster University in 1996. His short stories and articles have appeared in journals such as Southern Literary Journal, Southern California Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Fiction Weekly, and Xavier Review. Todd has taught and developed courses in American literature, comics and graphic novels, and genre fiction. He is the instructor of the popular transdisciplinary courses Dystopias, Real & Imagined and Cyberpunk, the Postglobal & the Posthuman. He also serves as contributing editor for the Xavier Review, Liaison Co-coordinator for the POD Network's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, and troop leader and merit badge counselor for Scouting America. In 2023, he was awarded the Norman C. Francis Award Faculty Excellence Award in Teaching.

Close up of me at the Farmer's Market

My poetic look, circa 2007

Photo Credit: Melanie Todd

Close up of me with a beard

My executive look, circa 2014

Photo Credit: Bart Everson

The Norman C. Francis Faculty Excellence Medallion

2023 NCF Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award Winner

Close up of me with long hair

My grunge look, circa 2022

Photo Credit: Connor Elsea

Close up of me in a suit

My Eurotrash look, circa 2023

Photo Credit: Jason Todd

The Less-Short Story

I studied creative writing at Webster University in St. Louis with T. M. McNally, graduating in 1996. After a brief stint as an "Electronic Media Specialist" for the Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod, I pursued graduate degrees at the University of Southern Mississippi's Center for Writers, where I studied under Frederick Barthelme, Steven Barthelme, and Mary Robison, earning my master's in 2003 and doctorate in 2006.

My career in academia began at Southeastern Louisiana University, teaching first-year composition. I then joined Xavier University of Louisiana as Writing Center Director, managing tutors and overseeing a program for first-year students. Later, I became Xavier's first Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) Director, implementing the "Read Today, Lead Tomorrow" program, which significantly impacted the university's curriculum and culture.

From 2015 to 2021, I served as the Associate Director for Programming in Xavier's Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development. During this time, I restructured faculty development workshops and streamlined key processes. Notably, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I helped develop the award-winning #LearnEverywhereXULA (#LEX) course, training faculty in effective online teaching methods.

From 2021 to 2024, I served as the Program Director of the Digital Humanities program and the Faculty Director of the Core Curriculum. In those roles, I managed core classes, chaired the Core Governance Council, and oversaw curriculum development and assessment.

In 2024, I returned to the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development as Director.

My fiction writing career began in 2002, inspired by an encouraging rejection from the Atlantic Monthly's fiction editor. Since then, my work has appeared in various literary journals, both in print and online. I'm currently working on a novel about a private investigator searching for his ex-girlfriend's missing father.

I live north of New Orleans with my family, including an ever-changing menagerie of pets, on land originally inhabited by the Bayougoula and Choctaw peoples.