Teaching & Advising

In a move designed to deepen and diversify its engagement in professional development for teachers, Charlotte Teachers Institute has formed a new educational partnership with Johnson C. Smith University to support classroom teachers in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. Through CTI seminars led by UNC Charlotte and JCSU faculty, CMS teachers learn new content, work collaboratively with other teachers, and develop new curricula for their students.

Michèle Bissière, professor of French, is the golden jubilee recipient of the Bank of America Award for Teaching Excellence. Presented annually since 1968, the award is one of UNC Charlotte’s most prestigious accolades, recognizing a talented faculty member. Bissière’s outreach has been so diverse and extensive that she is considered the face of French at UNC Charlotte.

Faculty members who demonstrate significant impact within and beyond their classrooms can be recognized with one of UNC Charlotte’s top honors – the Bank of America Award for Teaching Excellence. Finalists for this award include four College of Liberal Arts & Sciences faculty. They are Michèle Bissière, Scott Fitzgerald, Kirk Melnikoff and Coral Wayland.

In her book, “Thomas Wolfe and Lost Children in Southern Literature,” scholar Paula Gallant Eckard calls upon Thomas Wolfe’s evocative and autobiographical novella “The Lost Boy” as a touchstone for her analysis of a group of contemporary southern novels. She draws upon her writing and research to enliven learning for her students.

UNC Charlotte students work together to prepare a giant red balloon for liftoff. They have attached a camera to the balloon’s string to take aerial photographs of the UNC Charlotte campus that they will use to create a map. Through exercises like this one, students in the geography class on spatial thinking gain hands-on experience that expands their understanding of the concept, which offers a geographic perspective on how objects, processes and phenomena relate to each other in time and space.

In recognition of their exceptional teaching, Ashley Bryan, Nishi Bryska and Ian Marriott have received the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences’ Excellence in Teaching Awards for 2017. Dean Nancy A. Gutierrez and the awards committee chairs commended the honorees and award finalists for their innovation, creativity and focus on engaging students in scholarship and research.

Hollywood writer and producer Calvin Brown Jr. is serving as the 2017 Africana Studies Artist-in-Residence from March 13-March 23, 2017. Brown, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill graduate and native Charlottean, Brown will guest lecture in classes, meet with students in a brown bag question-and-answer session, and work with select students to produce a short film on the history of the Africana Studies Department.

The soldier’s face has faded in the World War II photograph, falling victim to the ravages of time. Yet, even as the picture has turned cloudy, the image of her father has grown sharper in Barbara Presnell’s mind. Presnell, an award-winning documentary poet and essayist, has captured the story of her father William G. Presnell in her Blue Star collection, published earlier this year by Press 53 in Winston-Salem.

The Department of Psychology received The Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching for 2016, in recognition of the department’s efforts to improve students learning and outcomes, through the collective responsibility of faculty members for maintaining high-quality teaching.

Writing is foundational to the overall success of all UNC Charlotte students. When faculty in the University Writing Program started discussing changes to the first-year writing curriculum, the focus was on discovery of the best way to provide knowledge and support.