2024 Faculty and Staff Grants

eunice hu teaching class

The Program for Leadership and Character offers four sources of funding for faculty and/or staff efforts to support Wake Forest students’ development as leaders of character. These programs include: 1) Departmental Grants; 2) Course Development and Redesign Grants; 3) Travel for Interdisciplinary and Community Engaged Learning (TICEL) Grants; and 4) Co-Sponsorships.

Departmental Grants
Course Development & Redesign Grants
TICEL Grants
Co-Sponsorships

Departmental Grants

Departmental grants fund creative faculty and staff efforts to provide leadership and character development opportunities to students and/or develop their own expertise as character and leadership educators. Major gifts from Lilly Endowment Inc. and the Kern Family Foundation fund this program.

Who may apply: Faculty or staff from WFU departments, programs, centers, etc.

Grant amount: Up to $3,000 per year

Example uses of funds:

Key Dates

Information Sessions:

There will be two information sessions to learn more about the program, learn strategies to incorporate character, and ask questions.

Grant requirements

For more information:

Apply

Course Development and Redesign Grants

Course Development and Redesign Grants compensate faculty for spending significant time during their summer breaks to 1) deepen their expertise in character-development pedagogy and 2) generate a new course or revise an existing course to better support students’ growth as people and leaders of character. Grant awardees attend a 3-day in person summer workshop hosted by the Program for Leadership and Character in partnership with the Center for the Advancement of Teaching. In the weeks following the workshop, grant awardees give and receive peer feedback for their character development learning outcomes, assessments, and activities before submitting a syllabus and final grant report in late summer. Grant awardees will also have an option to participate in a year-long community of practice for character education (participation is a benefit but not a requirement of the CDRG program). Applications are encouraged from faculty who wish to approach character-development from a variety of disciplines, professions, traditions, or perspectives. Applicants who received grants last year may apply again, though priority will be given to first-time applicants. Major gifts from Lilly Endowment Inc. and the Kern Family Foundation fund this program.

Grants are available in two forms:

Who may apply: Any WFU faculty 

Requirements of the grant include:

For questions about the event or application process, please contact lcconfer@wfu.edu.

Apply

Travel for Interdisciplinary and/or Community Engaged Learning (TICEL) Grant

The Program for Leadership and Character welcomes requests for funding from any graduate or professional school faculty person whose courses 1) involve travel and 2) help students develop the virtues and competencies needed to solve complex social problems. 

The overarching goal of the Travel for Interdisciplinary and Community Engaged Learning (TICEL) Grant is to educate professionals who recognize complex social problems in their communities, feel motivated to address those problems, and possess the professional competencies and personal virtues to address them. These problems–like high maternal mortality rates, economic immobility, food deserts, etc.–transcend any one profession’s normal institutional scope (i.e. the court system for attorneys, healthcare systems for physicians, congregations for clergy). Resolving them requires collaboration across professions. 

Hands-on, experiential learning activities beyond the classroom setting can support students’ development as leaders with the needed collaborative problem-solving capacities. However, these learning experiences can be expensive, involving costs for transportation, lodging, food, etc. The TICEL grant exists to offset the cost of these learning activities for WFU professional and graduate students. Faculty apply for funds to cover expenses resulting from students’ travel (including the faculty person’s own travel expenses). These funds can be paid to students in the form of stipends (as a form of financial aid) or can be used to pay directly for the costs of learning activity (for instance, paying for hotel rooms during a weekend trip).

Key Grant Dates

Selection Criteria

In order to perceive priority consideration, applications should meet the following criteria (the Program for Leadership and Character will entertain applications that contain only some of the criteria below):

1. Virtue Development Learning Outcome, Activities, and Assessment

The activities supported through the funds enable students’ growth as leaders of character. The course has at least one virtue learning outcome with two or more aligned learning activities and at least one assessment for gauging students’ growth toward the learning outcome. This year, the Program especially welcomes applications focusing on the development of honesty and authenticity.

2. Engagement with the Program’s Key Pedagogical Concepts and Practices 

The proposal reflects engagement with key pedagogical concepts and practices of the Program for Leadership and Character. See “Resources” folder.

3. Interdisciplinary and/or Interprofessional Engagement

The funds support learning activities that enable professional school students to learn with and from students and professionals outside of their home school (law, business, divinity, medicine, etc.). Especially welcome are courses that are cross-listed or fulfill a requirement outside of the instructor’s home discipline.

AND/OR

4. Community Engagement

The funds support learning activities that enable students to engage communities outside of their profession’s normal institutional settings. In this context, “community” refers to a group of people connected by a shared concern or identity (a shared language community, a neighborhood community, etc.).

5. Regional Connection

While proposals that would support national and international travel will certainly be considered, proposals which enable travel in the Southeast United States are particularly welcome, as these projects may be more easily repeated. 

6. Accessibility

The funds significantly increase students’ economic ability to participate in the learning activities. They defer a high percentage of the costs students would otherwise bear to participate in the course’s activities.

7. Efficiency 

Funding requests show a concern for fiscal responsibility and cost minimization. 

Responsibilities of Grant Awardees

  1. Read 1-2 articles or chapters in the “TICEL Resources” folder.

OR

  1. Meet with a Program staff person (Nancy Winfrey, winfreyn@wfu.edu, for law faculty, Elizabeth Whiting, whitinge@wfu.edu, for other faculty) to discuss application before submitting. 
  2. Submit application by clicking or tapping on the button below and filling out the form.
  3. Submit post-travel reporting packet including the following materials: cost sheet outlining how funds were spent; short descriptions of learning activities; documentation of learning activities (slide decks, PDF of article, essay assignment sheet, etc.); short description of assessment tool; documentation of assessment tool (rubric, pre- and post-survey, etc.); and a short reflection on what the applicant learned about character education from implementing TICEL activities.
Apply

Co-Sponsorships

Co-sponsorships fund creative faculty, staff, and student efforts to provide leadership and character opportunities through conferences, speaker series, and other events. Major gifts from Lilly Endowment Inc. and the Kern Family Foundation fund this program.  

Grant amount: $250-$1000

Key Dates: Requests reviewed at the first of every month

Please apply 30 to 60 days before your event for best consideration. 

For more information, contact Kathleen Stimely (mckeekl@wfu.edu).