As we turn the corner into the final week of classes, many of us are looking forward to the respite that mid-May often brings. This year, we are likely to receive important news about the future of our institution at a time when the world around us, and the teaching in our classrooms, is becoming ever more complex.
Of particular note on this front are the challenges artificial intelligence continues to present to our teaching, to student learning, and to society at large. Those challenges have given our recent conversations about "experiential learning" new, existential gravity. As Randy Bass, Vice President for Strategic Education Initiatives and Professor of English at Georgetown, has argued, this is the moment to explore "the ways that the emerging centrality of experience and relational learning should support the project of ensuring the (re)humanization of education in the era of accelerating change."
On Friday, Bass will join us to deliver a keynote and facilitate workshops at our second annual Teacher-Scholar Forum. He will be joined by Jessie Moore from Elon University and Lexie Cooper from North Carolina State University, each facilitating advanced sessions for those who have been doing this work for some time. Most meaningfully, 26 of your Wake Forest colleagues will be sharing the work they've been doing in the classroom to inspire us in a moment when inspiration seems to be in short supply.
We know this is a period when many of us are running low on energy, but we hope all faculty and staff will take time to join us for at least part of the day, and to bring along a friend. You can register for individual sessions via the link below. Those who have already registered will receive an email later today with their schedule. If your plans have changed, we ask that you follow the instructions in that email to update your registration to make room for others who have not yet registered.
When Stacie Petter and I worked to make the Teacher-Scholar Forum an annual event, we hoped it would be a space to address common challenges and learn from experts on higher education. But the primary goal has always been to build and sustain the relationships that make Wake Forest a deeply human place. Every academic year has its own texture of challenges, but we can always end by coming together with our colleagues, reminded that we are never doing any of this alone.
Betsy
