Teacher-Scholar Forum 2026
On Friday, May 1st, Wake Forest will host the 2nd annual Teacher-Scholar Forum from 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM in Farrell Hall. This year’s Forum, sponsored by the Office of the Provost and supported by the Center for the Advancement of Teaching, will explore experiential learning. The conference will open with two plenary addresses: the first by Georgetown’s Randy Bass, and the second introducing the community to Wake Forest’s new framework for experiential learning. Participants will then have the opportunity to engage with peers in disciplinary-based panels, workshops on various modes of experiential learning, and working sessions to help them integrate these ideas into their own courses and contexts. We encourage you to join us for the full day of conversation and collaboration with colleagues from across campus.
Below you will find a broad outline of the schedule, and you can now register here.
Wake Forest is committed to providing universal access to all of our events. While advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accommodations, we will do our best to meet any needs you share in the registration process. Should you have any questions about what is possible, we encourage you to reach out to Megan Hobbs at .
Schedule
Friday, May 1st
Check-In & Breakfast
8:30 AM-9:00 AM | Farrell Hall, Hall of Excellence
Beyond Preservation: Rehumanizing the University from the Inside Out
9:00 AM-10:15 AM |Broyhill Auditorium
Speaker: Randy Bass
This talk explores the ways that institutions can move beyond incremental improvements toward true paradigm shifts, distinguishing between sustaining innovations that preserve existing structures and transformational innovations that enable an emerging ‘Human Flourishing Paradigm.’ Drawing from Georgetown University’s 12-year “Designing the Future(s) of the University” initiative, and the broader higher education landscape, Bass explores how universities can navigate transformative change at a moment when placing human experience, relationships, and complex problem-solving at the center of education is more important than ever. This rehumanization is not about going back to an older educational model, but needs to engage some long standing binaries and biases in order to move past preservation to renewal.
Deacs Do: Engaged Learning, Empowered Futures
10:30 AM-11:30 AM | Broyhill Auditorium
Speakers: Rebecca Alexander & Shannon McKeen
This session provides a comprehensive look at the current experiential learning landscape at Wake Forest, highlighting the innovative work already flourishing across our campus. We will discuss how the Prepare-Engage-Reflect framework will be used to deepen these student opportunities, while inviting you to envision how your own teaching and research can help shape our upcoming Deacs Do initiatives.
Lunch
11:30 AM-12:30 PM | Farrell Hall, Founder’s Living Room
Concurrent Session 1: Disciplinary Panels
12:30 PM-1:00 PM | Farrell Hall, various rooms
Choose the panel that best fits your discipline (or your interests) in these short but content-rich sessions.
Experiential Learning in the Humanities
Panelists:
Diego Burgos
Meredith Farmer
Luke Johnston
Jessica Richard
Experiential Learning in the Arts
Panelists:
Kevin Frazier
Cagney Gentry
Rudy Shepherd
Christina Soriano
Experiential Learning in the Social Sciences
Panelists:
Shannon Brady
Justin Esarey
Megan Manassah
Dani Parker-Moore
Experiential Learning in STEM
Panelists:
Patricia Dos Santos
Sheri Floge
Mike Gross
Sarah Mason
Experiential Learning in Graduate and Professional Education
Panelists:
Shannon McKeen
Scott Schang
John Senior
Concurrent Session 2: Domains of Experiential Learning
1:10 PM-2:10 PM | Farrell Hall, various rooms
Getting Started: Community-Engaged Teaching
Speaker: Allison Walker
How do you design a course that meaningfully connects academic content to community engagement? In this session, Allison Walker, Director of Community Partnerships and Experiential Learning in the Office of Civic and Community Engagement, will share practical guidance on how to get started with community-engaged teaching, from building reciprocal partnerships with community organizations to structuring assignments that integrate scholarly inquiry with real-world contexts. Walker will also discuss the support available through her office, including the ACE Fellows program, which provides sustained mentorship for faculty designing community-based courses and research projects. Participants will come away with a clearer sense of how to approach community-engaged teaching in ways that serve both their students and their community partners.
Getting Started: Mentored Scholarship
Speaker: Wayne Pratt
What does it take to build a productive mentored scholarship partnership with an undergraduate student? In this session, Wayne Pratt, Professor of Psychology and Director of the URECA Center, will share practical guidance on how to get started with mentored scholarship, from identifying and recruiting students to structuring a project that is both rigorous and developmental. Participants will come away with a clearer sense of how to design a mentored scholarship experience that advances their own scholarly agenda while fostering genuine intellectual growth in their students.
Getting Started: Project-Based Learning
Speaker: Randy Bass
Project-based learning asks students to do something deceptively simple: work together on problems that matter, in conditions that resist tidy answers. In this session, Randy Bass, Vice President for Strategic Education Initiatives and Professor of English at Georgetown University, will introduce participants to the foundational principles of project-based learning and share examples from his own work at Georgetown, where he has led university-wide curricular experiments using project-based approaches to connect academic study with real-world contexts. Bass has delivered the opening keynote at WPI’s Institute on Project-Based Learning for over a decade. Participants will come away with a clearer sense of what project-based learning looks like in practice, why it matters in this moment, and how to begin thinking about it for their own courses and programs.
From One to Many: Designing Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences
Speaker: Alexandra (Lexie) Cooper
While one-on-one mentored research is a high-impact experience for students, demand exceeds the available positions, leaving students without this opportunity. This session explores Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) as a model for expanding student access to research. In a CURE, entire classes engage in science practices to address research questions with unknown outcomes and real-world relevance. Tailored for faculty who are already supervising undergraduate researchers, we will discuss how to design a CURE, including how to create research questions that scale, develop research tasks for the classroom, and produce assessments that align with doing research.
Concurrent Session 3: Implementing Experiential Learning
2:20 PM-3:20 PM | Farrell Hall, various rooms
From Concept to Implementation: Designing an Experiential Unit or Project
Speaker: Kristi Verbeke
Ready to move from ideas to action? Building on the morning’s shared understanding of experiential learning, this interactive session focuses on designing a single experiential unit or project within an existing course. Participants will outline a feasible plan and identify key considerations, such as reflection, scaffolding, and assessment, while gathering ideas and feedback from colleagues.
Building a Fully Experiential Course
Speaker: Karen Spira
Building on the foundations of experiential learning explored earlier in the day, this hands-on workshop shifts from theory to design. You will begin sketching a course intentionally structured around experiential learning, considering alignment among outcomes, activities, reflection, and assessment. Through guided prompts and peer conversation, you’ll leave with greater clarity and next steps for continuing your course design process.
Making Learning Visible: Assessment Strategies for the Experiential Classroom
Speaker: Jessie Moore
When students learn by doing—collaborating with community partners, conducting research, or working in teams on other real world projects—their learning can be powerful, but figuring out how to assess it fairly and meaningfully is one of the hardest parts of the job. This session is for faculty who are already teaching experiential courses but find themselves struggling to capture what their students are actually doing and learning — whether that means evaluating a student’s growth as a collaborator, assessing the process of inquiry rather than just the final product, or finding ways to give meaningful feedback when every student’s experience looks different.
Designing for All Learners: Accessibility and UDL in Experiential Learning
Speakers: Jackie Friedman and Anna Parker
Experiential learning — field work, service learning, studio courses, clinical placements — introduces accessibility challenges that go beyond what standard classroom accommodations can address. This advanced session focuses on applying Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles to ensure all students can participate meaningfully, from community-based projects for students with social anxiety, physical accessibility of field sites, sensory sensitivities in lab or studio environments, and socio-economic barriers in time-intensive rotations. During this interactive workshop, presenters will also provide practical tips and campus resources suggestions to support faculty.
Building a Classroom Mentor’s Toolkit: Instructional Strategies for Guiding Science Practices
Speaker: Alexandra (Lexie) Cooper
Teaching students to navigate the unknown is rewarding – but difficult. Join us for an interactive session on supporting students through the “messy” parts of science, from interpreting real data to navigating experimental failure. Designed for faculty who teach inquiry and CURE courses, this workshop explores how to reimagine research mentorship for the classroom. You’ll leave the session with practical instructional strategies for helping your students navigate these scientific challenges.
Making Meaning from Our Experience: A Guided Reflection with Randy Bass
3:30 PM-4:00 PM | Broyhill Auditorium
In this closing session, Randy Bass will lead participants through a structured reflection on the day’s discussions. The session is designed to help attendees surface key insights, identify a concrete next step for their teaching, and hear what colleagues are taking away. By engaging in the same process of pausing, reflecting, and making meaning that has been discussed throughout the day, participants will have the opportunity to leave with new ideas and actionable commitments.
Reception
4:00 PM-4:30 PM | Farrell Hall Terrace