Meet Our Team
Catherine Sybrant is the Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL). In this role, Catherine collaborates with diverse stakeholders across the university to advance program excellence. Central to this role is the design and delivery of faculty development opportunities that support instructors to explore and advance their teaching practice.
With over 25 years' experience in teaching, learning, and development roles in vocational, corporate, and higher education environments leading diverse stakeholder project teams, Catherine respects the work that every person contributes to an organization's success and seeks to create opportunities for individual personal and professional growth. At HPU, CTL’s focus is faculty success, which indirectly benefits student success.
Catherine earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Liberal Arts from Hawai'i Pacific University, a Master of Arts degree in Adult Education and Training from University of Phoenix Online, and certifications in human resources and Quality Matters.
Shayna Katz is an Instructional Designer with HPU’s Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) team. As a member of CTL, she works to design and develop online and hybrid learning, including collaborating with faculty in planning courses and facilitating faculty course-creation processes. Additionally, she assists in program evaluation and quality assurance, working with her team to organize and implement data-driven strategies for ongoing program fidelity.
Shayna has worked in education since 2008 with experience in teaching, designing learning experiences, researching, providing professional development and project management. Through her experiences, she has found that setting the groundwork to promote student self-determinacy and classroom community is essential to enhance learning in face-to-face, hybrid and online classrooms.
She holds an MA in Spanish and Latin American Literature and Culture with a focus on pedagogy at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, an Advanced Graduate Certificate in Second Language Studies in Spanish Applied Linguistics, and a certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language. As a lifelong learner herself, she is currently a PhD student in Learning Design and Technology.
Avree Ito-Fujita is an Instructional Designer with HPU’s Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL). In addition to supporting the CTL team's instructional design and professional development services, Avree works with the Doctor of Physical Therapy Program on course building and maintenance.
Avree has worked in the higher education field since 2011 with various roles in instructional design, teaching, research, publishing, and program management. Her experiences with training tutors for an online tutoring program led to an interest in instructional design, and she now collaborates with faculty to develop courses across all modalities to produce clear and accessible learning paths.
She holds Bachelor of Arts degrees in Creative Media, English, and French, and a Master of Arts degree in English from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Avree is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in English at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.