In 1996, the Center for Teaching opened its doors in two retrofitted hotel rooms in the Iowa Memorial Union. Today, the Board of Regents-approved Center has grown to include six full-time staff and two graduate research assistants as well as undergraduate clerical support. The Center for Teaching also hires and trains multiple graduate teaching fellows and several undergraduate students-as-partners consultants. The Center's professional staff serve on numerous boards and task forces across campus, teach in several departments as affiliate faculty members, and are nationally recognized in their field.   

Established as part of the Office of the Provost, the Center was founded to support the teaching mission of the University of Iowa. In collaboration with the Graduate College and other stakeholders, the Center was involved in the development of the New Teaching Assistant Orientation and later in the founding of the UI chapter of the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, & Learning (CIRTL). In collaboration with ITS and the Office of the Registrar, the Center also helped to found the TILE (Transform, Interact, Learn, Engage) program. As a leader in the establishment of service-learning at Iowa, former Center director Jean Florman created two week-long institutes to support the design of service-learning courses. The Center for Teaching's Jean C. Florman Honorary Lending Library, which includes robust resources related to service-learning as well as a wide array of books on other teaching and learning topics, is named in her honor. 

In 2014, the Center was a founding unit of the ITS Office of Teaching, Learning & Technology. During that time the Center launched the Early Career Faculty Academy, the Course Design Institute, and several other initiatives that continue today. Center staff were founding members of the UI First Gen Task Force, the Path Forward Student Success Committee, and the ACE Task Force.   

During the 2021-2022 academic year, the Center for Teaching celebrated its 25th anniversary with a guest talk by Randy Bass, vice president for Strategic Education Initiatives and professor of English at Georgetown University. Two videos, including a 25th anniversary celebration and a video featuring interviews with all of the past directors of the Center were also created.   

In 2023, the administrative home of the Center moved back to the Office of the Provost to further support the University of Iowa’s strategic plan goal of supporting excellence in teaching and learning. In 2024, the Center held the inaugural Rocklin Teaching & Learning Speaker series, featuring guest Tracie Addy, associate dean of Teaching and Learning at Lafayette College and director of the Center for the Integration of Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship. The series is named in honor of Dr. Tom Rocklin, the Center for Teaching’s founding director who served the university in various capacities for more than 30 years before retiring in 2017.   

The experts in the Center have developed highly regarded programs that support instructors across their academic life cycle including robust tailored programming for graduate teaching assistants and early career faculty. The Center’s current programs and initiatives include the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) program, the Inclusive Teaching program, the Faculty Communities program, the Students as Partners program, and more. Other areas in which the Center staff specialize include organizational development, course and curriculum design, instructional teams, experiential learning, and mentorship. Center staff partner on several strategic projects supported by the university’s Public-Private Partnership (P3) Strategic Initiatives Fund and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) inclusive excellence grant.   

The assistant provost for teaching & learning and the director of the Center for Teaching reports to the associate provost for undergraduate education.