Magnolias Project 2019 Application Period Now Open

To All Wake Forest Faculty:

We invite you to enhance your teaching and engagement with sustainability issues by participating in the Magnolias Curriculum Project May 15-16, 2019 on the Wake Forest campus.  No prior experience with sustainability-related issues in the classroom or in research is necessary, and faculty at all ranks and career stages are welcome.

This innovative approach to curricular change, modeled on the nationally renowned Piedmont Project at Emory University, provides faculty with an intellectually stimulating and collegial experience to pool their expertise.  Faculty who would like to develop a new course module or an entirely new course that engages issues of sustainability and the environment are encouraged to apply.  

The workshop will explore how we can meaningfully integrate sustainability—broadly defined—into our classrooms.  Although we start by taking a close look at Wake Forest University and the larger Piedmont region, we invite participants to engage in local-to-global comparisons.  

The Magnolia Project kicks off with a two-day workshop (May 15-16) that will offer opportunities to extend research and teaching horizons across disciplines and create new networks with fellow colleagues. Following the workshop, faculty participants prepare discipline-specific course materials on their own over the summer. Participants receive a stipend of $500 upon completion of a new or revised syllabus.  

Project participants agree to:

1. Read some materials prior to the workshop
2. Participate in the full 2-day workshop on May 15-16, 2019
3. Commit time during the summer to prepare or revise a syllabus and submit it in August
4. Re-join colleagues in the fall to discuss their insights and experiences.

Interested? Applications will be accepted until April 24th.  

• Send a short (one-paragraph maximum) description of how you imagine you might change an existing course, or develop a new one, that will incorporate environmental and/or sustainability issues to Kim Couch couchkm@wfu.edu.  Please include your name, departmental affiliation, phone number and e-mail address.

Want to know more?

Browse the Magnolias or Piedmont Project websites for example syllabi and faculty statements: Join a community of faculty searching for new ways to engage issues relevant to their fields!