Congratulations to the nine faculty members who participated in the pilot WBLE Faculty Fellows program in Fall 2025! 

Each participant designed or redesigned a class to integrate the WBLE definition and criteria, participated in four professional development workshops, and gave and received feedback on others' ideas throughout the semester in small groups and/or pairs. Their work contributed to our repository of work-based learning design examples to share with others. 

The Fall 2025 Program included four in-person professional development sessions with additional virtual activities to complete between sessions (about 40 hours total throughout the fall semester). Participants received a stipend of $3,000 for their time and participation. In exchange, they will share their learning at an event, workshop, and/or share materials for the online WBLE toolkit and course design repository on Microsoft Teams.

In-person session dates (Fridays 1–3pm):
9/19 – Session One: Introducing WBLE Examples & Best Practices
10/17 – Session Two: Recruiting and Relating to External Partners
11/14 – Session Three: Instructional Design Focus
12/5 – Session Four: Sharing Designs, Receiving Peer Feedback

Congratulations to the 2025-2026 WBLE Mini-Grant recipients!

In our first year of providing funds for work-based learning experiences, we received many more proposals than we were able to fund. Thank you to everyone who submitted a proposal, as each one enriched the WBLE program.

The following faculty were chosen to receive funds to support the design and/or implementation of new or enhanced work-based learning experiences for their courses:

Diana Gararreta-Aima / SPAN 494 Medical Spanish in the Community

Jennifer Lang-Rigal / SPAN 404 Spanish in the United States

Lori Gano-Overway / KIN 205 Introduction to Coaching

Cathy McKay / KIN 312 Profession of Teaching Health and Physical Education

Shana Meganck and Sunny Qin / SCOM 318, 396, 462 Bluestone Communications

Nathan Wright / CHEM 368L Biophysical Chemistry Lab

Anne van Leeuwen / PHIL 290 Philosophy Teaching Practicum: Doing Philosophy in K-12 Schools

Amy Strunk / MKTG 388 Omnichannel Retail

Brooke Rhodes / MKTG 410 Social Media Marketing

Krisztina Jakobsen and Melanie Shoup-Knox / PSYC 403 Applied Biopsychology Techniques: Salivary Hormone Analysis

Alex Rutt, Erich Sneller, Eric Imbrescia, and Liz Ochoa / ELED 332 Children and Science

Dennis Lo and Isaac Wang / ENG 421/CS 480 Digital Justice in XR

Plan for the 2026-2027 Course Design Institute and Mini-grant Application Cycle

• Applications for the Fall Course Design Institute will be due Sept. 4. Course design workshops will be held in the SSC Conference room 3211 on Friday, Sept. 18 from 1-3 pm, Friday, Oct. 16 from 1-3 pm, Friday Nov. 13 from 1-3 pm, and Friday, Dec. 4 from 1-3 pm. 
• Applications for Mini-grants will be accepted on a rolling basis with decisions made by committee in mid-fall, December, February, and April. 
• Individual consultations are available from Anna Maria Johnson (Associate Director for Work-Based Learning Experiences), Lori Gano-Overway (Center for Faculty Innovation Associate), and JMU Libraries Learning Instuctional Design consultants. 

Please discuss your proposal idea with your academic unit head (AUH) before applying. You will be asked to submit a brief proposal of your course idea.

Preference is given to proposals that:

1. demonstrate an understanding of what work-based learning experiences (WBLE) are at JMU, based on the definition and checklist at Work-Based Learning Experiences
2. demonstrate the likelihood of building long-term capacity and sustainability for WBLEs at JMU (ie. A course that is offered regularly versus a one-time course, or a proposal that demonstrates potential for scaling to multiple sections).
3. include an external partner (may be a nonprofit, business, industry, organization, or individual expert in the field; may include partners within JMU beyond the classroom)