Director

Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler

Director of CRGE

Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler is the founding director of the Center for Research on Global Engagement (CRGE) and a professor of psychology at Elon University. A developmental psychologist, Maureen studies early childhood learning in sociocultural contexts and global learning and mentoring in higher education. Her research on global engagement encompasses intercultural learning, community-based global learning, and mentoring undergraduate research in global contexts, among other topics.

Sociocultural Contexts of Development

In Maureen’s family, education was highly valued and her parents worked hard to support their three daughters’ educational and career goals. Her mother was an elementary school reading teacher and fostered a love of reading and discovery of new people and places through books. Maureen’s father emigrated to the United States from the Netherlands, and through his stories and occasional visits to the large family in the Netherlands, she developed an early fascination with her Dutch heritage, as well as her maternal grandparents’ Italian heritage. She studied abroad in Dijon, France as an undergraduate at Wake Forest University, and her experiences studying the language and culture, and conducting undergraduate research abroad in a French preschool, led to her lifelong career goals of studying young children’s behaviors in sociocultural contexts and exploring and facilitating intercultural and global learning in higher education.

Exploring young children’s informal learning has been Maureen’s primary area of teaching and research for over 30 years. Working with undergraduates to conduct, present, and publish this work has been one of her greatest joys as a teacher-scholar-mentor. These studies have ranged from examining children’s inquiry-based learning, supported by parents in a variety of activity contexts, to outdoor and risky play, and a cross-cultural exploration of “the good childhood” in the U.S., Denmark, and the Netherlands.

In addition to on-campus courses such as Early Childhood Development and Children in the Natural World, Maureen has taught off-campus short-term courses and semesters abroad for over 25 years, including in London, Florence, Copenhagen, and Hawai’i. An example of the most longstanding course is Hawai’i, Nation or State: In Search of Hawaiian Identity.

Originally developed in the 1990’s with colleague Jeffrey Pugh, the Hawai’i winter term course (2025 class pictured below at a Hawaiian Immersion School) explores the complex social, historical, religious, and cultural contexts of Hawai’i. The students and professors analyze Hawaiian identity as portrayed in ancient and modern traditions and stories through the writings of Kanaka Maoli, Native Hawaiian teachers, scholars, and activists. The winter term course is a mix of community engagement, cultural visits, and students’ research projects.

Students’ critical thinking, global citizenship, and cultural humility is assessed through the Global Engagement Survey, as well as through course assignments. This is one example of many such research projects related to global engagement.

As seen elsewhere on this website, in her role as CRGE director, Maureen fosters faculty and staff development of research related to high-quality global learning experiences and facilitates collaboration with partners from around the world.

Mentoring Matters

Maureen is especially proud of her work as a teacher-scholar-mentor, and has mentored over 100 students in undergraduate research. In her scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) projects, she explores the integration of mentoring with high-impact practices such as global learning and undergraduate research. This work has been a primary area of focus during her tenure as CRGE Director.

Maureen directed the university Honors Program from 2008 to 2013 and at this time, became interested in the academic study of mentoring relationships in support of undergraduate research. This led to becoming a co-leader of the 2014-2016 research seminar on Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduate Research with the Center for Engaged Learning. She also served as Interim Associate Provost of Academic Excellence from 2020 to 2022 and led an institutional self-study on Mentoring for Learner Success in the inaugural cohort of the American Council on Education’s Learner Success Lab. To continue developing and sharing this extensive research on mentoring, Maureen is a co-editor of the web text Mentoring Matters, “a systematic inquiry into why mentoring relationships, specifically, matter in relationship-rich higher education.” 

Maureen is a co-editor of the AAC&U publication Mentored Undergraduate Research in Global Contexts: Integrated High-Impact Practices for Student Success (2024) and the volume Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduate Research (CUR, 2018). She is also co-editor of a forthcoming edited open-access volume on Mentoring Undergraduate Research in Global Contexts, with Dawn Whitehead of AAC&U. Maureen has co-edited special issues and co-authored articles for Elon’s open-access online journal, Perspectives on Undergraduate Research Mentoring.

In recognition of her accomplishments, Maureen was honored to receive the Ward Family Excellence in Mentoring Award in 2011 and the Elon University Distinguished Scholar Award in 2018.

Personal Interests

Maureen, pictured below with her son Cooper, husband Russ, and daughter Alex, enjoys spending time with her family and especially loves their annual Thanksgiving week at Emerald Isle, N.C. She enjoys traveling, cooking, good food and wine, outdoor walks, and yoga and Pilates classes.