2026 Annual Report

2025-2026 Annual Report

The Center for Literacy Education (CLE) is proud of its accomplishments in its second full year of existence. They include:

• The Center for Literacy Education (CLE) is proud of its accomplishments in its second full year of existence. 
• Continuously updating the CLE website
• Recruited and retained faculty/staff for the CLE Advisory Committee
• Continued recruiting Affiliated Faculty/Staff 
• Revised Grant Assessment Form with specific evaluation metrics for use by CLE’s Research Associate for Assessment & Evaluation based on feedback from 2024-2025
• Collaborated with the CLE Executive Committee to approve faculty, staff, and student grants
• Worked with our program coordinator and CLE Executive Committee to review, vet, and award grants to WFU faculty, staff, and students
  • Student Research Grant (n=6)
  • Event Sponsorship Grant (n=3)
  • Books Grant (n=4)
  • Professional Development Grant (n=1)
  • Collaborative Project Grant (n=1)
  • Community Partnership Grant (n=6)
  • Interdisciplinary Teaching Grant (n=1)
• Awarded grants to faculty, staff, and students totaling more than $20,000 
• Hosted two Innovation Incubator & Idea Exchange Forums with approximately 30 affiliated total faculty/staff from across the university in attendance
• Held the second annual Visiting Scholars Speaker Series & Community Networking Conference
  • Topic: “Hold the Phone: Exploring the Intersections of Screen Time, Brain Health, and Learning”
  • Hosted 18 speakers across six panels who engaged in meaningful dialogue on topics related to screen time, brain health, and learning across various fields including but not limited to neuroscience, education, literacy, technology, aging, neurology, physical health, mental health, pediatrics, psychology, communication, and philosophy
  • Included areas of literacy focus such as digital literacy, health literacy, media literacy, information literacy, visual literacies, and family literacy
  • Strategically connected with Wake Forest University’s neuroscience and society initiative
  • Included scholars and practitioners sharing important research and information in a manner that was accessible for public consumption at an event that was open to the public.
  • Included 26 university and community co-sponsors: Office of the Provost, Department of Education, Wake the Arts, Documentary Film Program, Center for Bioethics, Health, and Society, Department of Philosophy, Skip Prosser Literacy Program, School of Professional Studies, Office of Civic and Community Engagement, Center for the Advancement of Teaching, Department of Sociology, Department of Psychology, Center for Learning, Access, and Student Success, Department of Communication, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, University Counseling Center, Program for Leadership and Character, Department of Health and Exercise Science, Lifelong Learning Program, EDU Student Leadership Council, The Humanities Institute, National Endowment for the Humanities, Bookmarks, Kaleideum, Forsyth County for Grade Level Reading (FC4GLR), and Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools
  • Included panelists and moderators from Wake Forest University, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Belmont University, Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, University of North Carolina Greensboro, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, University of South Carolina, Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, Winston-Salem State University
  • Content provided on the conference website for viewing after the event
• Hosted 12 Teacher Professional Learning courses 
  • The Wake Forest Center for Literacy Education sponsors professional learning for K-12 educators. These courses are intended to bring literacy to life for local public school teachers and school leaders through the use of interactive teaching, experiential learning, and place-based education. Using a lifelong learning approach through short enrichment courses taught by Wake Forest faculty, staff, and community partners, these non-credit bearing courses focus on meaningful professional learning around topics in literacy education designed specifically to encourage and empower K-12 public school teachers and administrators to apply what they have learned to their own classroom and school environments.
  • Included topics of disciplinary writing, multimodal literacy, data literacy, STEAM literacy, maker literacy, information literacy, civic literacy, storytelling/film literacy, literacies of strength, Shakespeare/drama literacy, character education/literacy, and media literacy
  • Included instructors from the Wake Forest Department of Education, Department of Theatre & Dance, Documentary Film Program, Program for Leadership and Character, School of Professional Studies, Reynolda House and Gardens, WakerSpace, Worrell Professional Center, Z. Smith Reynolds Library, NC Council of the Holocaust, and Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools.
  • Utilized campus and community locations such as Kaleideum, WakerSpace, Wake Downtown, MUSE, Reynolda House, Reynolda Gardens, Brookstown, Davis House, Tribble Hall, and Scales Fine Arts Center.
  • Led two summer focus groups to gather lessons learned and feedback from participants 
• Collaborated with Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools on a teaching professional development curriculum planning project entitled “Preparing Secondary ELA Teachers to Teach Foundational Reading Skills in the New Standards”
• Hosted award-winning young adult authors A.S. King and Chris Crutcher as part of an interdisciplinary teaching grant supporting Dr. Alan Brown and adjunct faculty member Heather Barto Wiley (EDU 101: Issues and Trends in Education) as part of a broader collaboration with Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools and Bookmarks
• Hosted Brian Li, financial literacy educator and expert, who led workshops for First in the Forest scholars and Winston-Salem TEACH residents at Wake Forest University
• Collaborated with university partners on events such as the ISLSP/CIBER Business Language Conference, Leadership in Education Speaker Series, edCamp336, WordsAwake5!, Closed for Democracy, Resistencia Film Festival, and Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival World Tour
• Provided funding support for Servant Leader Interns from Wake Forest Freedom School to receive professional development in Knoxville, TN
• Sponsored 2025 Bookmarks Festival Closing Keynote: Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro
• Planned Fall 2026 faculty/staff move to Alumni Hall, including offices for the CLE Director, Program Coordinator, Research Associate/Grant Writer, and Literacy Specialist
• Hired and trained a new CLE Program Coordinator, Kat Liddle

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