Faculty Forward: A Learning Community for New Faculty
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, 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.
Spring 2026 Meeting Dates: Wednesdays | 10:15 – 11:30 am
Sign up: Faculty Forward – Spring 2026
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January 28 – Building and Promoting Community
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February 18 – Understanding Student Learning
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March 18 – Teaching Methodologies
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April 8 – Making Sense of Student Evals
Facilitators:
- April Tallant, PhD – CFC Director
- 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
Facilitators:
- Alesia Jennings, PhD – Chemistry Instructor, CFC Faculty Fellow
- Anabel Livengood, PhD – CFC Senior Educational Developer
2022-2023 Successes
- Participating faculty showed a statistically significant increase in teaching confidence scores.
- Increased cohort size by 100%.
2023-2024 Successes
- Presented A Kick-start for First Year Faculty: The Faculty Forward Program at the UNC Learning and Technology Symposium and published proceedings in the UNC System Learning and Technology Journal.
- Increased faculty interactions by from previous year by 17.5%.
2024-2025 Successes
- Published Anchors Away: Building Community, Mindfulness, Equity, and Reflection, an article about our six-anchor engagement model, in Scholarly Teacher.