College of Arts and Sciences

Catamounts, you never cease to amaze me. The way you showed up to make one day possible was inspirational, especially in our inaugural year of this all-in giving day! 

The initial numbers are in, and we are excited to share that 1,058 donors contributed over $260,000 on One Day for Western. And we're still counting. These gifts will enable amazing projects to materialize, life-changing trips to be taken, and critical programs to continue their good work throughout our community—and it’s all because of your generosity. We cannot wait to share these impact stories with you over the next several months so you can see your investment in action. 

Thank you to everyone who gave, shared, or elevated our message on One Day for Western. We are beyond grateful for your support.

Go Cats! 

Thankfully,  

Rebekah B. Cheney 

Director of Annual Giving

Catamounts, you are SHOWING UP for One Day for Western! To ensure we maximize as many challenge gifts as possible, we're upping our donor goal to 1,000! Here's what we have left to complete before midnight:

Student Affairs

• 5 donors left to hit “per donor” challenges
• $9,325 in challenge dollars left to match

POTM

• $12,175 in challenge dollars remaining

Athletics

• 250 donors left to close out all “per donor” challenges

Belcher College of Fine and Performing Arts

• 36 donors left to close the per donor challenge
• $3,308 in challenge dollars left to match

Brinson Honors College

• 46 donors to go

College of Arts and Sciences

• 7 donors to go for Cherokee Programs Advancement Fund
• 14 donors for Literary Festival fund
• 31 donors for CAS Dean’s Fund
• $2,579 in challenge dollars for FOREST

College of Business

• Matches are completed, but more donors are needed to hit the 75 donor goal

College of Education and Allied Professions

• $44 left to go in challenge dollars

College of Engineering and Technology

• $250 left in challenge dollar

College of Health and Human Sciences

• 11 donors left for MAP Health
• $900 in challenge dollars for Speech and Hearing
• $3,675 in challenge dollars for Dean’s Fund

Hunter Library

• 223 donors to go to realize the $500 match

Other challenges:

• Monica Henson ’84: 83 donors to go (out of 84-donor challenge)
• Kae Livsey: 72 donors to go (out of 75 fac/staff donor challenge)

Thank you so much for all your advocacy and support; you help make one day possible for our students!

Prospect Cullowhee is donating $400 for each renewed or new lease signed on One Day for Western: March 29, 2023! 

As a reminder: donations will be made by Prospect Cullowhee to the tenant’s priority area of choice. Thank you again to Prospect Cullowhee for their partnership!

If you have questions on how you can take advantage of this offer, just visit the Prospect website or call 828-226-4865.

Chancellor Kelli Brown is excited for One Day for Western and we hope you are too!

Thank you in advance for your generosity and advocacy, Catamount Nation - today and every day. Let's make our very first One Day for Western a day to remember. GO CATS!

In support of One Day for Western, Prospect Cullowhee is donating $200 for each renewed or new lease signed by March 29, 2023. The donations will be made by Prospect Cullowhee to the tenant’s priority area of choice. We are grateful for their partnership and cannot wait to see what students are excited to support on One Day for Western! 

If you have questions on how you can take advantage of this offer, just visit the Prospect website or call 828-226-4865.

Through our range of academic programs, the Western Carolina University College of Arts and Sciences teaches students to think critically, to analyze information, and to communicate effectively. We prepare our students for a rapidly changing workforce and to be intellectually, socially, culturally, and professionally engaged citizens and leaders who contribute to and promote the sustainability of local and global communities.

No matter what academic program, the College of Arts and Sciences endeavors to equip our all students with a broad base of high-impact practices during their course of study at WCU. Some of these high-impact practices include field trips, trips to conferences, study away/abroad experiences, and engaged learning activities like Model UN. These travel-related experiences are designed not only to enhance student learning, confidence-building, and professional development, but they also allow students to have new experiences through travel. Our faculty and staff have found these experiences to be critical for our students, and we seek to provide these experiences across our curricula and at a low or zero cost to our students.

While funding exists for learning-related travel at WCU, increases in demand and student enrollment have strained existing programs and funding streams. Even when coupled with additional programs through the Provost’s Office, gaps remain when attempting to fund as many opportunities for as many students possible. To foster more high-impact practices and student travel, the College of Arts and Sciences will begin to offer applications for money towards learning-related travel to faculty and students. These funds will be distributed as the College of Arts & Sciences Student Travel Fund and students who are traveling for activities related to any of our programs would be eligible to receive funds. 

Thank you for supporting the College of Arts and Sciences on One Day for Western and beyond!

WCU’s Department of Anthropology and Sociology is the home of our renown Forensic Anthropology program. In addition to the classroom education they provide, the department also administers the Forensic Osteology Research Station (FOREST). The FOREST is a willed-body human decomposition facility and is one of fewer than 10 such facilities in the world. The experiences and research generated by the FOREST is critical not just to the students and faculty at WCU, but also the broader forensic science community. With published research and features in national media like the New York Times, the FOREST adds to the knowledge base of forensic archaeology, taphonomy, search and recovery efforts for human remains, and human skeletal biology.

In the 15 years since its creation, the FOREST has established itself as a national leader in research and training of human decomposition, as well as an extension of the green burial and death positive movements, but challenges remain. Many newer facilities now exist around the country and the demand for research into human decomposition continues to grow. At the time the FOREST was started, WCU had 72 students majoring in Forensic Anthropology; now, there are over 200. Likewise, FOREST has seen a doubling of willed-body donations over the past five years, creating more demand on the time and resources of the department and their faculty and students. In order to continue to keep pace with the discipline, it is crucial that the FOREST develop a philanthropic base.

Forensic Anthropology at WCU is seeking to establish an activity fund to ensure the long-term success of their experiential learning and research efforts at WCU. Philanthropic investment will prove to be the margin for success for these programs. By investing in infrastructure and providing research funding for faculty and students alike, the FOREST will be able to further burnish its reputation as a leader in forensic anthropology. This fund will make possible incredible strides in the output of the program, allowing the program to do things like ensuring that facilities and equipment stay cutting edge, students always have the proper protective/safety gear, and providing paid undergraduate research positions as well as funding for them to present their work at regional and national conferences.

Thank you for supporting FOREST on One Day for Western and beyond!

The Western Carolina University campus is situated within the ancestral homelands of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. At WCU, our work seeks to embrace and connect to this Cherokee landscape by engaging our community with the extraordinary indigenous identity and culture of this special place, known as Two Sparrows Place (adapted from WCU’s Indigenous Land Acknowledgment).

WCU’s College of Arts and Sciences honors this commitment in several ways. Our interdisciplinary Cherokee Studies program develops and coordinates initiatives and courses related to Native American and Cherokee culture, language, history, health, and environment, with the goal of promoting awareness and understanding of Cherokee and Indigenous issues. The program promotes long-term partnerships with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians for our mutual benefit in the spirit of gadugi. We also serve as resources for Native American students and Cherokee community development and revitalization.

The Cherokee Programs Advancement Fund provides necessary program support for undergraduate and graduate programs in Cherokee Studies and Culturally-Based Native Health, as well as graduate study in American History with a focus on Cherokee Studies. These degree paths as well as other college-level initiatives are an important part of WCU’s ongoing efforts to engage with our community and region.

Thank you for supporting the Cherokee Programs Advancement Fund on One Day for Western and beyond!

Western Carolina University's annual Spring Literary Festival has a long tradition of bringing established and emerging literary talent to our campus and region. It reflects WCU's commitment to providing the best humanities education possible to its students and to bringing the best of the arts to the mountains. Celebrating over 20 years in its current form, the festival grew out of WCU’s Visiting Writers Series, the oldest such series in North Carolina. While the area has a rich literary heritage all its own, the festival seeks to secure that heritage's place on the nation's literary stage by bringing local and national writers together.

Over the decades, the festival has grown in scope and now includes readings and discussions across many days and includes a competition for student writers as well, offering prizes for winners across categories like poetry, fiction, and literary non-fiction. WCU’s Department of English Studies, through the work of an appointed faculty director, coordinates the entire affair, ensuring that it attracts an incredible array of writers who not only come to highlight their own work, but also to work with students, providing an incredibly unique classroom experience available only here in Cullowhee. Additionally, all daily programming is offered free of charge, so students from across the campus can attend, as well as the local community.

The Spring Literary Festival has received support from several grantmaking agencies through the years, including arts and humanities councils. This fund has been vital for the viability of the festival, since it is made possible through outside funds. The Department of English Studies is utilizing One Day for Western to invite the WCU community to become part of the long-term success of the Spring Literary Festival. The investment of philanthropic donors will allow the festival to provide even more opportunities for WCU and its students, from paying honorarium fees for speakers and their participation in juried competition and workshops, to providing more events to the public, helping to establish WCU as the premier literary program in North Carolina.