CESME was inaugurated in February of 2004 as a special program of GVSU's Honors College. Several workshops and intensive short-courses were held that year, including two one-week workshops on Process-Oriented Guided-Inquiry Learning sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and offered to faculty from colleges and universities. In May of 2005, the University Academic Senate recommended that CESME be implemented as a University program, and CESME began operating a regional Field Center for the NSF Chautauqua Short-Course Series for College Teachers. The program is an annual series of forums in which scholars at the frontiers of the sciences and education fields meet intensively with college science teachers. In 2008, CESME offered its first workshop series in education advancements for college faculty in the Great Lakes region, offered by GVSU faculty. The program was presented in cooperation with the Pew Faculty Teaching and Learning Center and the Steelcase Corporation.