A Letter to Faculty: January 2025
January 23, 2025
Dear Faculty Colleagues,
Congratulations! Your first week of spring semester classes is under your belt! Never forget that you play a transformative role in your students’ lives. Each and every day you help make our Wake Forest community stronger and better through your teaching, research and engagement. This month’s letter highlights the ways the Provost’s Office strives to support you.
With the inauguration of the new presidential administration on Monday and the opening of the 119th Congress, we are tracking a number of legislative issues that have the potential to impact higher education. Please know that our Government Affairs team is working with others in higher education and with the elected officials who represent us and their teams to understand and prepare for the anticipated changes. We will quickly share information as we secure it.
Supporting Faculty Research and Scholarship
Kimberley McAllister, Vice Provost for Research, Scholarship, and Creativity, and Mary Muchane, Assistant Provost for Faculty Development, in collaboration with Associate Dean for Research and Community Engagement Rebecca Alexander, have continued the assessment of our support for research and scholarship that was started last year by Keith Bonin. The recent reorganization of the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP) to incorporate the grants and contracts managers (GCMs) is allowing us to standardize the services that GCMs provide and enhance training and support for these key members of our research community.
In addition, to address the evolving needs of our community, we have updated the Creative Research Activities Development and Enrichment (CRADLE) program for the current academic year and are designing a new program for the 2025-26 academic year that will greatly expand support for searching and applying for funding opportunities.
We are also focusing on preparing for the 2026 implementation deadline for expanded research security regulations outlined in National Security Presidential Memorandum 33 (NSPM33) and in the CHIPS and Science Act. To that end, Carl Taylor, Vice President of Academic Engagement from IPTalons, will serve as our interim Chief Research Security Officer. Carl and his team are working with several WFU working groups to assess cybersecurity, foreign travel security, research security, and export control guidance and training. Updates to policies and training within these areas will be announced on the ORSP website in the coming months.
As I described in my last letter, we are embarking on a visioning process for the Strategic Framework academic areas of distinction to identify aspirational goals for Wake Forest as a leader within these fields. Dates for the visioning sessions for the Neuroscience and Society and Environment and Sustainability areas are set and will be announced soon. I want to encourage all of you to participate in multiple sessions/topics. Together, our collective vision and creativity will generate a roadmap that will guide our community for years to come.
Meanwhile, you are encouraged to apply for the ORSP-sponsored pilot research grants and collaborative pilot grants; the next deadline is Friday, January 31 at 5:00 pm. Also know we want to increase the visibility of your academic achievements! Please send news of any honors/awards/fellowships, publication or book acceptances, news coverage, or participation in major meetings to Stephanie Hudson. Lastly, ORSP will rapidly communicate any governmental policy changes that might impact current or future research grants on the ORSP website. Questions or concerns should be directed to Lori Gabriel, Director of the ORSP,or Vice Provost McAllister.
Supporting Experiential Learning
Transformational teaching and scholarship at Wake Forest is dependent upon strengthening our experiential learning pedagogies, curriculum, and student engagement as we conveyed through the Strategic Framework (Aims 1.2 and 2.1).
As the first step toward realizing our ambitions for our Experiential Learning Center, the university selected “Engaged Learning, Empowered Futures: WFU’s Experiential Approach” for WFU’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) last May. This fall, supported by Anne Hardcastle, Associate Provost for Academic Affairs, more than 40 faculty participated in an experiential learning workshop and charrette, out of which a QEP Steering Committee was formed.
The committee is co-chaired by Rebecca Alexander, Professor of Chemistry and Associate Dean for Research and Community Engagement in the College and Shannon McKeen, Professor of the Practice and Executive Director of the Center for Analytics Impact in the School of Business. We need and want more input and feedback from all faculty on this critical pillar of our Wake Forest education. When the committee reaches out very soon for more support and guidance, please engage with them.
Wake Forest will submit the fully developed QEP to SACSCOC in January 2026 as part of our reaffirmation process. Implementing this QEP will be our first major institutional step in realizing our experiential learning aspirations.
Supporting Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom
You may have noticed President Wente’s and Inside Wake Forest’s mentions of our upcoming campus conversations about freedom of expression and academic freedom. During the next month, you’ll see videos exploring views about free expression from people around campus, and we are creating resources to support conversations and among student, faculty, and staff groups.
Over the last six months, a group of faculty and staff, appointed by me and chaired by Matthew Phillips, Associate Provost for Strategic Initiatives, drafted a clear, university-wide statement about freedom of expression and academic freedom. The new statement is intended to embrace the whole campus community as a commitment to free expression in a safe and inclusive community, and is informed by research into Wake Forest’s history, peer school approaches, and contemporary perspectives.
You will have opportunities to offer feedback on this draft statement during a comment period beginning in late February. Additional resources, including a discussion guide to facilitate conversations and a feedback tool, will be released in mid-February. The theme at this year’s Founders Day, to be held on Thursday, February 20, at 4:00 p.m. in Wait Chapel, is freedom of expression and academic freedom and will include an address reflecting on this theme by Andy Klein, Dean of the School of Law. We hope you will join us there.
Supporting All Faculty
The Provost’s Office is dedicated to university-wide faculty support. We always welcome your questions, feedback, and insights. To that end, you have asked us about current support for our international faculty, staff and students. Our Center for Immigration Services and Support (ISS), under Vice Provost Kline Harrison, is staying abreast of any governmental policy changes which might impact our international students and scholars and ensuring that they are kept informed. If you have any questions or concerns, contact our ISS Center Director, Nathanial Lynch, at lynchn@wfu.edu.
We also recognize that the university is full of resources and support systems but they can be difficult to track down. We have created an up to date electronic University Resources & Services Guide that gives you all this vital information. Please peruse it, and tell us what you like and don’t like about it, and what might be missing, so we can make improvements. The work that you do is exciting, important and transformational; it is also complex, time consuming and demanding. Our goal is to support your commitment to our core mission.
Best Regards,
Michele Gillespie
Provost