Academic Affairs News

Dear Colleagues:

I’m delighted to welcome everyone to the fall 2021 semester at Western Kentucky University.

To my faculty and staff colleagues, I’m grateful for your ongoing commitment and hard work to ensure the success and safety of our students. It’s an honor to begin the semester with you as provost. Since my start in the role on July 6th, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many members of our WKU community, and I look forward to meeting many more of you during the fall semester.

The agility with which faculty responded to the pandemic demonstrated both their responsiveness to our students and their dedication to the craft of teaching. WKU instructors showed equal parts compassion and innovation as they faced challenges of accessibility, inclusion, and engagement. Over a thousand nominations for the CITL Teaching Honors submitted last year showcase exactly this. As we look to a new semester with our past experiences still fresh in our minds, it is prudent to ask how we will use what he have learned about ourselves, our students, and teaching. I hope that flexibility and intentional innovation remain central principles of WKU instruction. Inspired by best practices they witnessed on our campus last year, the CITL team has composed a webpage on resilient teaching. May this page serve as an ongoing testament and guide to the resilience of WKU faculty in the classroom. As we and our students collectively face what the future brings, I know that CITL remains your champion and partner, and is eager to welcome you to their events and individualized consultations. 

I am excited about the thirteen academic Living Learning Communities that are furthering WKU’s commitment to student success and innovative teaching. Over twenty LLC faculty fellows from all five academic colleges will deepen students’ intellectual engagement and personal development by delivering a blend of academic and extracurricular activities designed to foster community building and student learning. If your department is interested in becoming involved with the LLC program, please contact marko.dumancic@wku.edu.

I am very pleased to announce that new awards and calls for Research & Creative Activities Program (RCAP) and Faculty-Undergraduate Student Engagement (FUSE) internal grants are again being accepted after the FY21 pause. These internal grants provide faculty and staff with opportunities to generate and disseminate new knowledge and discoveries, provide enriching opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students, and allow for submission of competitive external grants. The Office of Research and Creative Activity will be in touch with faculty in the coming weeks. The plans for Quick-Turn Around Grants (QTAG) will be forthcoming.

It is an honor and a privilege to be part of Western Kentucky University at this very special juncture in its history. These are challenging times for higher education and our world, but together we will grow and succeed in our mission to educate students, create knowledge, and provide service to our community and beyond.

Sincerely,

Robert "Bud" Fischer
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs