Dr. Riley Caldwell-O’Keefe joined Santa Clara University as the inaugural CTE director in December 2025. Dr. Caldwell-O’Keefe is developing the CTE to expand pedagogical support for faculty across departments and colleges at SCU through faculty-driven programming and initiatives that support equity-minded, evidence-based course and curricular design.
Riley earned their doctorate at UC Santa Barbara in theatre studies with a feminist studies emphasis. Their global performance studies training, engaging theory and practice from across disciplines, combined with more than twenty years of experience in college classrooms, shapes their approach to teaching and learning as relational, reflective, and responsive. Their current research projects explore how our teaching and learning can more effectively foster equitable human thriving.
Please reach out – there is no pedagogical idea or question too big or too small.