The new university initiative, the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at Western Carolina University (SoTL at Western), is a powerful focus upon Western's central mission of continually improving student learning. SoTL at Western has my full and enthusiastic support and I encourage all colleges, departments and faculty to become involved in ways most appropriate and relevant for them. SoTL at Western has the potential to transform our academic community and push Western into greater regional, even national, prominence for the excellence of its faculty and the ways that faculty guide students in critical and creative learning experiences. SoTL at Western is another reason for us to be excited about Western's future.
Dr. John Bardo, Chancellor

"Ernest Boyer’s Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate, first published in 1990, encouraged universities to recognize four types of scholarship: discovery, integration, application, and teaching (the research and application of knowledge to improve the teaching- learning process). Faculty can endorse a teacher/scholar model that links scholarship to the students’ teaching-learning experience. The teacher/scholar model is an inclusive one that embraces all forms of scholarship, from basic research to the scholarship of teaching and learning. As teacher/scholars, Western's faculty have a central interest in learning how people learn and in making student learning more dynamic and effective, the goal of SoTL. 
Dr. Kyle Carter, Provost