2019-2021 Mellon ACE Fellows Selected
The Office of Civic & Community Engagement is excited to announce a new class of Academic and Community Engaged (ACE) Faculty Fellows with a focus on the engaged humanities for the 2019-2021 academic years. The engaged humanities cohort is possible through generous grant funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Humanities Engaged: Generating Learning, Remaking Community, supports community partnerships for engaged teaching and research in the humanities at Wake Forest.
“ACE fellows are integral to the work of the Office of Civic & Community Engagement, connecting students to community projects through their teaching and offering academic knowledge in the service of community outcomes,” explained Shelley Sizemore, Director of Community Partnerships and the ACE Fellows program. “We are excited to welcome this new cohort to continue this great work.”
The ACE Fellows program ethically promotes and sustains community engaged teaching, research, and scholarship through the development of faculty as public intellectuals connecting their work with community needs and projects.
For over 20 years, the ACE Fellowship has supported faculty at Wake Forest University through the development of service-learning courses for undergraduate and graduate students. Many of Wake Forest’s most engaged teachers have emerged from the ACE fellows program over its history. This legacy serves as the underpinning to each new ACE Fellows class.
Please learn more about this select group of Wake Forest faculty, the 2019-2021 Mellon Ace Fellows.
2019-2021 Mellon Ace Fellows
Meredith Farmer
Assistant Teacher Professor, Core Literature
Dr. Farmer teaches courses in both American Literature and the Environmental Humanities that encourage students to think about the relationships between literature and our communities. Students in her course on Environmental Destruction work on group projects that will eventually include community partners. And students in her course on Slave Narratives, Global and Local, will be working with people at Old Salem Museum and Gardens to help develop their “Hidden Town” project, which aims to make hidden histories of the roles that slaves held in our community far more visible.
Francisco Gellegos
Assistant Professor, Philosophy
Dr. Gallegos teaches and does research in the areas of phenomenology, philosophy of emotion, and Latin American philosophy. As a teacher, he is constantly experimenting with new ways to get students to appreciate the real-world relevance of what is being discussed in class. Together with Dr. Ivan Weiss (Journalism), he launched the Truth and Authenticity Lab in 2019, in order to support the work of individuals both on- and off-campus who are using the tools of multimedia documentary to examine the philosophical questions generated as the ancient ideals of truth and authenticity face unprecedented challenges in the digital age.
Seth Hayden
Assistant Professor of Counseling/Clinical Mental Health Program Coordinator
Dr. Hayden focuses on the integration of practice, research and theory in relation to the career development of military-associated individuals, He has provided career support to veterans experiencing homelessness residing at Veterans Helping Veterans Heal in Winston-Salem. Prior to his time at Wake Forest, he established a relationship with the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center in Virginia to offer career and personal counseling to active duty service members and veterans afflicted with a traumatic brain injury. He is currently working to create a career development resource in Winston-Salem that utilizes an empirically-supported, career development approach to assist veterans with a service-related injury.
Raisur Rahman
Associate Professor, History
In both his teaching and research, Dr. Rahman engages with questions of inter-community relations, cross-cultural encounters as well as multiple facets of diversity in societies across India and South Asia. Always keen to explore ways of understanding the role of diverse communities in our immediate surrounding on issues of global import and in the spirit of the engaged liberal arts, Dr. Rahman is interested in enhancing student learning in his classes by way of community engagement and developing a richer understanding of the interplay between the local and the global.
John Senior
Director of the Art of Ministry, Assistant Professor of Practical Theology and Religious Leadership, Director of the Collaborative for Religious Leadership
Dr. Senior directs the School of Divinity’s Art of Ministry program, which includes its field education curriculum. His research and teaching focus on pastoral formation for ministry, field-based learning, ministry leadership in both ecclesial and public settings, and the role of theological education in preparing leaders for a wide variety of institutional contexts. Trained in Christian ethics and the sociology of religion, Senior is also interested in political theology and ethics and earth-centered approaches to ministry and the moral life. He is the author of A Theology of Political Vocation: Christian Life and Public Office (Baylor University Press, 2015) and is currently working on a book project on emerging patterns and practices of leadership in ministry. Senior is an ordained Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Ivan Weiss
Assistant Professor of the Practice, Journalism
Ivan Weiss is an Assistant Professor of the Practice in the Journalism Program. He is a documentary filmmaker, writer, and photographer. His documentary work has explored such themes as integration and the civil rights movement, experimental music, and urban gentrification. His films include “The Education of Ida Owens” about the first African-American woman to receive a Ph.D from Duke University, “Nazoranai: A documentary” about an improvisational sound trio, “Leaving Traces” about photography and minor league baseball, and “Festival: A Month in Durham” about a changing city as seen through the lens of three music festivals. Check out more of his work here.