Shanta Varma

Shanta Goswami Varma is a tenured associate professor in the Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Technology in the College of Education and special advisor to the chancellor for distance education and collaborative partnership at Auburn University at Montgomery (Ala.). She has over 20 years of experience in national and international higher education. At the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College, which is now the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, she established various academic partnerships with graduate and research institutions. Her experiences in India, at SUNY Empire State College, and at University at Houston-Clear Lake, along with her previous positions, brought her close to her passion (i.e., teaching, making education accessible, scalable, and affordable through distance education). Varma’s areas of research interest and expertise include e-learning, online teaching, partnership building, program development and implementation, marketing and outreach, faculty training and development, regulatory and accreditation requirements, open educational resources, curriculum and instruction, recruitment, and retention.