Magnolias Curriculum Project

Exploring Sustainability Across the Curriculum

Since 2012, we have invited Wake Forest faculty to enhance teaching and engagement with sustainability issues by participating in the annual Magnolias Curriculum Project. 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. 120 Wake Forest faculty members have gone through the workshop, which has been held annually since 2012 (excluding COVID years).

This innovative approach to curricular change, modeled on the nationally renowned Piedmont Project (Emory University), provides faculty with an intellectually stimulating and collegial experience to pool their expertise.

The workshop explores 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 Magnolias Project kicks off with a two-day workshop each May that offers 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. They reconvene in the fall to discuss their insights and experiences. Participants receive a stipend of $500 upon completion of a new or revised syllabus.

2024 Magnolias Curriculum Workshop

The spring 2024 Magnolias Curriculum Project workshop took place May 22 – 23, 2024. The two-day workshop allowed 13 faculty members representing 12 academic departments and programs to explore sustainability across the disciplines.

Read about this year’s cohort

Project participants agree to:

1. Read some materials prior to the workshop.
2. Participate in the full 2-day workshop.
3. Commit time during the summer to prepare or revise a syllabus and submit it in August.
4. Report back to the group in August.

Book List

Each cohort of the Magnolias Project has contributed to this list of books that they have found relevant in teaching sustainability-related courses.

Course Listing

The Wake Forest faculty offer many courses that stimulate and facilitate learning for sustainability. A snapshot of the course inventory is pictured below. Click here for the full inventory of courses.

Faculty Testimonials

The Magnolias Curriculum Project was a truly amazing experience and I urge everyone to consider participating! Rather than completely overhauling my courses or substituting chemistry curriculum with sustainability topics, I learned how to enhance my teaching methods by looking at existing content (and assignments, activities, readings, etc.) through a sustainability lens. This subtle yet powerful shift in perspective ensures that students not only learn chemistry but also understand its impact on the environment and society. By introducing – even if just incrementally – the importance of sustainable practices within the framework of traditional chemistry topics, and by tapping into the vast array of resources and learning spaces already available on our campus, I believe we can make the learning process more relevant and engaging for our students, and I am excited to try this after having completed the Magnolias Curriculum Project workshop.

Christa Colyer, professor in the Department of Chemistry

In spite of entering the program with low energy levels after a grueling Spring Semester, it is a testament to the program that I exited it energised and with renewed enthusiasm. It was wonderful to move between periods of individual ideation and collective/ partnered ideation with our peers, all from diverse specialisations, yet all having shared purpose. Much like a writer’s retreat is a space to develop rough ideas into a full paper, the Magnolias program was a space for ideating and shaping new teaching ideas in the wide realm of sustainability and connecting us with those on campus who share these ideals. It was two days well-spent, re-centering me in the “why” of the work and allowing a parting of the clouds when it came to the many ideas I had in my head pre-program. If issues of sustainability, broadly defined, resonate with you, take the time to attend and allow the resonance to take actionable form, in community with like-idealed people. It was fun. And, the food was good too!

Fatima Hamdulay, assistant teaching professor in the Entrepreneurship Program and the Program for Leadership and Character

The Magnolias workshop was a great place to meet other faculty and learn about all the resources we have at WFU to help us engage students and community stakeholders in learning about sustainability. I would, hands down, recommend it to anyone who has ideas of innovations they want to implement in their courses but lacks the dedicated time and/or connections to make it happen. The staff at the Office of Sustainability are fantastic resources that can connect you to the right people to provide students with the experiential learning opportunities they expect to find at WFU.

Tricia Clayton, associate professor in the Department of Engineering