Sean Michael Cox

Higher education rarely follows a predictable path, and few careers illustrate that better than the journey of Sean Michael Cox, Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Bay Atlantic University. Nearly three decades ago, his career began as a full-time professor before a department chair role led him toward university administration. Cox describes his transition as partly “happenstance.”

A return to his alma mater, the University of Delaware, opened the door to international education, where he spent two decades leading international projects, institutional development, and extramural funding. Later, in Turkey, he was tasked with the build up of an international profile across academic centers in China, Germany, Canada, the U.S., and Italy. One of those centers ultimately became Bay Atlantic University.

That history shaped his approach when he moved from Istanbul to Washington, D.C., during Bay Atlantic University's institutional accreditation process. He initially took on an interim dean role before a restructuring led him to the Center for Teaching and Learning. His experience in creating new academic and administrative units made him a natural fit for a role and The Center for Teaching and Learning became a significant part of the university's effort to formalize processes, establish common standards, and prepare faculty for a changing academic environment.

Faculty members receive training on university policies, teaching expectations, syllabi, learning management systems, online education, attendance, and other academic practices. The Center provides a common source of guidance for full-time, half-time, and adjunct faculty, which reduces the burden on department chairs and creates greater alignment across departments. Students benefit because they encounter familiar academic expectations even when they move between different faculties and courses.

That institutional foundation matters even more amid intense competition for international students. Shifts in global student mobility, higher costs, tighter U.S. immigration policies, changing work opportunities, and growing competition from Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and emerging European education markets have altered the landscape. Large universities retain powerful brand recognition and established career pathways, so a smaller institution must give students compelling reasons to choose it.

" Our expectations for teaching and service are ultimately about our students. We want every faculty member to understand how their work, grounded in our mission and values, contributes to meaningful learning, student success, and the achievement of our institutional learning outcomes. "

Cox sees one answer in what BAU calls its ‘new generation university’ approach: career-aligned education that connects students with professional experience. Practitioner faculty bring expertise from government, cybersecurity, international organizations, think tanks, and other fields into the classroom. BAU’s Washington, D.C. location further supports field-based learning, with courses taking students to the U.S. Capitol, political party headquarters, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and other real-world settings. Industry certifications in cybersecurity, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence add another practical edge, allowing students to prepare for industry exams alongside their coursework.

Recent developments have pushed the university from policy creation toward faculty education and student preparation. The Center offers annual training on AI in the classroom and continues to add new material as the technology evolves. Cox wants students to move beyond using AI simply as an editing tool and learn to use it as a research and creative resource without becoming dependent on it. As an example, ‘An Introduction to Generative AI and Prompt Engineering’ gives students early exposure to the technology, while faculty development focuses on how students can use AI to support their education.

Three structural priorities define the next stage of this work: AI literacy, practitioner expertise, and multimodal education. For example, ECON 505, a graduate level course shared by several programs, combines mostly asynchronous learning with an intensive Friday-through-Sunday in-person experience, allowing students to retain flexibility while working directly with professors and classmates.

The philosophy behind these efforts is consistent engagement. Academic excellence requires regular dialogue among administrators, faculty, and students, followed by continual review and revision. Brown bag lunch sessions (held online despite the name) give faculty an open forum for concerns and ideas, while changes to in-service training formats help increase participation and value. External conferences, professional resources, articles and emerging trends also extend faculty development beyond the university itself.

For Cox, the lesson extends beyond any single initiative: universities cannot simply put a system in place and expect it to remain effective. They have to keep listening, learning, revising, and adapting. For him, that constant engagement is what keeps faculty competent and students prepared for what comes next.