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New to WCU? Start Strong with These Two Faculty Programs

by | Aug 1, 2025 | Blog, Faculty Development Workshop, Learning Community, Teaching and Learning

Start your WCU Journey with Momentum

Starting a new faculty or teaching position can be both exciting and overwhelming, but you don’t have to navigate it alone. Whether you’re looking to sharpen your teaching practice, build connections, or chart a path toward tenure, two programs offered through the Coulter Faculty Commons (CFC) are designed to support you from year one.

🌱 Faculty Forward

Faculty Forward is a supportive program designed specifically for early-career faculty who want to build a strong foundation in teaching. Faculty Forward is open to faculty and instructors in years 1-3 at WCU.

Through a series of interactive sessions during your first semester, you’ll explore effective, evidence-based strategies to create engaging learning environments, foster student success, and grow your teaching confidence. You’ll also connect with peers from across campus who are on a similar journey – because good teaching doesn’t happen in isolation.

Facilitators:

  • Alesia Jennings, PhD – Chemistry Instructor, CFC Faculty Fellow
  • Anabel Livengood, PhD – CFC Senior Educational Developer

Fall 2025 Meeting Dates
Thursdays | 11:00 am – 12:15 pm

  • August 28
  • September 18
  • October 9
  • November 6
Sign up for Faculty Forward!

🤝 Faculty Mentoring

The Faculty Mentoring Learning Community is a year-long program that empowers new tenure-track faculty to thrive across all areas of academic life.

Rooted in an evidence-based learning community model, the FMLC offers an inclusive, interdisciplinary space where experienced faculty mentors guide you through collaborative growth and goal setting. You’ll explore essential topics like:

  • Promotion and tenure

  • Engaged and effective teaching

  • Scholarly and creative development

  • Work-life integration

  • Building successful mentoring relationships

Each cohort’s experience is tailored to their specific needs, making the learning community both personal and practical.

Facilitators:

  • Resa Chandler, PhD, Associate Professor, CFC Faculty Fellow for Mentoring
  • Derek Becker, PhD, Associate Professor

Fall 2025 Meeting Dates
Mondays | 3:30 – 5:15 pm

  • September 8 (2-hour meeting)
  • September 29
  • October 27
  • November 17
  • December 1
Apply for Faculty Mentoring!

Excellence in Online Teaching (EOT) Cohort Starts September 2

by | Jul 30, 2025 | Blog, Canvas, Faculty Development Workshop, Learning Community, Online Learning

Join Us for the Excellence in Online Teaching (EOT) Basics Course!

The Coulter Faculty Commons is excited to invite you to our Excellence in Online Teaching Basics course this September. This 4-week, asynchronous course is hosted on Canvas and features 5 self-paced modules:

  • Foundations of Online Learning
  • Introduction to Teaching Online
  • Best Practices in Course Design for Online Learning
  • Facilitating Effective and Engaged Online Teaching
  • Synthesis of Teaching Online

Each module requires 1-2 hours to complete, allowing you to progress at your own pace. The course includes 4 assignments and 4 facilitated discussions to enhance your learning experience.

Whether you’re new to online teaching or have prior experience, this course offers valuable insights and a great opportunity to share your tips and tricks with fellow educators. Not sure if the EOT cohort is for you? Contact Scott Seagle at seaglej@wcu.edu to help you get started.

Register for the EOT September Cohort!

Jumpstart Your Semester with the CFC: Week Zero is Here!

by | Jul 21, 2025 | Active Learning, Assessment, Blog, Canvas, Faculty Development Workshop, Teaching and Learning

Week Zero

Looking to start the semester with confidence? The Coulter Faculty Commons (CFC) is launching a brand-new initiative this fall: Week Zero, a series of practical, faculty-focused sessions running the week before classes begin from August 11–15.

Designed to help you hit the ground running, Week Zero offers workshops on assignment design, Canvas, accessibility, and active learning. Whether you’re completely new to teaching or you’re looking to brush up on your teaching toolkit, there’s something for everyone.

Flyer for Week Zero with an illustration of an open book pointing to a rising sun. The text says "Get ready for Fall with the CFC, August 11-15, in-person and virtual"

With just four weeks to go until kickoff…

… now is the perfect time to:

Sign up for sessions that spark your interest

OR

Schedule a consultation with the CFC team if you’d like more tailored support

Register for Sessions
Week Zero Schedule
Schedule a consult

We hope to see you there!

2025 SoTL Design Institute Ignites Faculty Innovation

by | Jun 5, 2025 | Blog, Faculty Development Workshop, Professional Development, Research, Scholarship of Teaching & Learning, Teaching and Learning

In May, the Coulter Faculty Commons hosted the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Design Institute at the Waynesville Inn & Golf Club, bringing together faculty from across disciplines to explore how classroom questions can become publishable research.

Led by SoTL expert Dr. Laura Cruz (Penn State) and supported by Western Carolina faculty panelists Susan Braithwaite (Health Sciences), Chip Ferguson (Engineering and Technology), and Katharine Mershon (Philosophy and Religion), the Institute offered sessions on framing meaningful research questions, research design, and Institutional Review Board (IRB) considerations, all in service to excellence in teaching and learning. The agenda focused on helping participants align their curiosity with methods that transform everyday classroom practice into evidence-based inquiry.

Many left energized by the realization that any teaching curiosity could become a SoTL project. “It is fantastic to know that there are experts in the CFC who can help with design,” one attendee noted. 

Faculty are already planning classroom changes, emphasizing metacognition, involving students in research, and using SoTL to guide innovation. The Institute planted seeds that will grow into engaged classrooms and impactful scholarship. Participants will be supported by the CFC throughout the summer with personalized coaching sessions and into the fall through a Write and Learn Collaborative, designed to help them implement classroom innovations, share progress, and support one another through dedicated collaboration and focused writing time. For more information about SoTL, please contact April Tallant atallant@wcu.edu.

Registration Open: Faculty Forward Program Spring 2025

by | Jan 14, 2025 | Blog, Collaborative Learning, Discussions, Educational Development, Faculty Development Workshop, Pedagogy

The Coulter Faculty Commons is excited to offer our expanded Faculty Forward Program again this Spring!
All faculty members in their 1st-3rd years at WCU are eligible. Faculty Forward is a learning community designed to help new faculty boost their teaching self-efficacy while connecting with their colleagues across campus. Topics for the spring include methods of instruction including dynamic lecturing, discussions, and collaborative learning.

Meetings will be held on select Thursdays from 12:45-1:30 PM. Our first meeting will be held Jan 30. If you are in your 1st-3rd years at WCU and you are interested in joining us, please register. Read more about Faculty Forward and if you have questions, contact Faculty Forward facilitators Dr. April Tallant (atallant@wcu.edu) or Dr. Alesia Jennings (acjennings@wcu.edu). 

“Feeling Seen and Appreciated”: Student Feedback Preferences

by | Sep 8, 2022 | Be Present-Mindful, Blog, Faculty Development Workshop

Guest Bloggers: Candy Noltensmeyer and Lisa Bloom

Feedback is an integral part of the learning process. Many studies have examined feedback from the instructor’s perspective to enhance student learning. However, there is less research assessing how students perceive different types of feedback and their usefulness. 

Feedback is often a struggle for professors as it can be quite time consuming. Additionally, faculty are often left not knowing whether students have reviewed the feedback. On the other hand, some of us have heard students complain about the lack of feedback from professors. This leads us to wonder what kind of feedback students actually want.

Well, we asked students the question, and they responded with only minimal reminders to complete our survey!  We asked students about 3 specific types of feedback, written, audio, and video, and what they liked, disliked, and how each type made them feel. Additionally, we asked them to rate whether the feedback was engaging, easy to access, and easy to understand. Participants from courses in Education, Communication, and Integrated Health Sciences responded to Likert-type questions on a scale of 1-5 as well as open-ended questions.  

What we learned

Overall, students reported a preference for video feedback. While accessibility and understanding were ranked slightly higher for written feedback, video and audio closely followed. Students struggled a bit with accessing audio files. Students mentioned that replaying audio and video files was a bit cumbersome when searching for specific feedback, while they preferred the ease of skimming written feedback. But when it came to engagement, students really preferred video feedback. Most striking is the overwhelming number of comments about feeling connection and care from the feedback, audio and video in particular.

Topic Audio   Video   Written  
The Feedback was… Mean Broad Agreement Mean Broad Agreement Mean Broad Agreement
Engaging 4.40 86% 4.59 91.9% 4.12 78.7%
Easy to Access 4.05 76.2% 4.65 91.9% 4.67 93.9%
Easy to Understand 4.51 90.7% 4.68 91.9% 4.52 92.9%

Here is what the students told us.

Audio feedback

“It made me feel proud of my work and happy to do such a good job on it. I enjoyed hearing the professor’s enthusiasm.”

“I liked how I was able to hear your tone and it was much easier to understand compared to reading off feedback (sometimes it’s confusing on paper).”

“I enjoyed hearing my professor’s voice- especially with this course being delivered in an asynchronous, online fashion. I enjoyed the verbal insights!”

“It felt much more personalized. Rather than a few words, or sentences that seem pretty generic, the audio feedback really gave me that feeling that my work was being read and analyzed.”

Video feedback

“The video feedback just made me feel more seen and appreciated.”

“It made me feel like I was one on one with the professor and sometimes is hard to come by in college.”

“During COVID, it has been weird to not be able to see my professors’ faces, so it was nice to be able to fully see their faces. It also felt more personal and somewhat like a conversation even though the professor was the only one talking.”

“Made me feel like a student rather than just a number with a generic response.”

Written feedback

“I understand that professors can’t write a book of feedback every time they grade something, but it just never feels like enough to go off of. It feels like I am getting the bare minimum amount of help.”

“It feels detached from my work and I feel like there is not as much effort with written feedback.”

 

In summary, students do appreciate feedback.  They are looking for feedback not just regarding an assessment of their performance and how to improve, but feedback is also a vehicle for relationship building.  As you are grading your students’ work, consider the audio and video feedback options afforded by Canvas.  We found these options to take only a little extra time, and the results were definitely worth it. The benefit comes in building strong relationships with students which translates into more engaged learning and positive classroom environments.  Students perceived feedback as evidence that they have been seen, heard, and regarded as individuals amongst a sea of others.  So, while you might be swimming in ungraded assignments, remember, that your feedback has the potential to be the life preserver that keeps a student engaged. Â