Meet the AIM Team

Dr. Jenn Caputo is a professor in Exercise Science and has been part of the MTSU community since 2000. In the past, she served as coordinator of the Exercise Science programs and interim director of faculty development at the LT&ITC. She has been active in mentoring faculty and students for the past 25 years. Jenn is an active researcher in the scholarship of teaching and learning and also serves as a mentor in the Leadership & Diversity Training Programs for both her national and regional professional organizations.  

Dr. John Lando Carter began his teaching career in 2008 as an ELA and creative writing teacher. He is now an associate professor in the Assessment, Learning, and Student Success Ed.D. program at MTSU. His co-authored book Teaching Signature Thinking: Strategies for Unleashing Creativity in the Classroom was published through Routledge in 2022. His forthcoming co-authored book From Getting Started to Graduation: A Student Guide to the EdD will be published through Myers Press. 

Dr. Julie Myatt is Director of Engage and Professor of English. She holds degrees from Tennessee Technological University (B.S. in Secondary Education, M.A. in English) and the University of Louisville (Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition). She teaches English and Public Writing and Rhetoric courses. She previously held leadership positions in the English department, serving as Coordinator of GTAs in English and as Co-Director of General Education English.  

Myatt organized the Peck Symposium for nearly a decade, bringing together leading Writing Studies scholars, members of the MTSU community, area English Language Arts teachers, and faculty from universities across the region to discuss current research on writing and its implications for teaching. She is the immediate past Co-President of WPA Midsouth, an affiliate of the Council of Writing Program Administrators. Myatt was instrumental in establishing MTSU’s Celebration of Student Writing and in promoting relationship-rich education initiatives at MTSU.  She is a 2025-2026 Provost’s Fellow.

She is a recipient of an MTSU Foundation Award for Outstanding Teaching in General Education and the June Anderson Center National Women’s History Month Trailblazer Award. Her publications appear in Bad Ideas about Writing, Composing Feminist Interventions, and Failure Pedagogies.  

Dr. Jennifer Vannatta-Hall is the Director of the MTSU Center for Teaching & Mentoring and Professor of Music Education. She holds degrees from the University of Illinois (Ed.D.) and Middle Tennessee State University (B.M., M.A.). She has over 27 years’ experience as a professional educator and taught Kindergarten through 8th grade music in both Rutherford County and Franklin Special School Districts. Vannatta-Hall has served in various leadership roles for the School of Music as Assistant Director (2019-2020), Associate Director (2023-2025), and Interim Director (2020-2023) and continues to teach undergraduate and graduate courses in music education. She is also a co-chair for MTSU’s 2035 Strategic Plan, campus liaison for the Tennessee Arts Academy, and Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors for the Dow Street Community Music School.

Vannatta-Hall has presented workshops and conference sessions all over the United States and was a visiting professor of music at Hangzhou Normal University in China in March 2019. She frequently conducts and adjudicates choral festivals. She is certified through the master level of the Orff-Schulwerk approach to music education, the Smithsonian Institute’s World Music Pedagogy, and Modern Band/Music Will. Her research interests include teacher efficacy and general music in elementary and secondary school settings. Her book, Music Teaching Self-Efficacy in Early Childhood Teacher Education, was published in 2013.