Congratulations Class of 2020 from the WCU Alumni Family

Welcome to the Catamount Alumni family graduates from the class of 2020! We're so proud of you! Go Cats!  

Welcome to the WCU Alumni Family, Class of 2020

WCU Alumni from across the Catamount family welcome the newest graduates from the class of 2020.  

Alumni from Business Administration and Law Program elected as district judges across state

When the job description includes the words “your honor,” you know the role is one of importance. That certainly is the case for three alumni elected to state district court seats in the recent 2020 election.   

CEAP alumna rises to pandemic challenge as first-year teacher, wins county award

Salem Parris, a 2019 alumna of the College of Education and Allied Professions, was selected as Haywood County’s 2020 Beginning Teacher of the Year.  

First-Generation Student, Kenyatta Fortune Prospers in Graduate School

In December, Kenyatta Fortune will become a three-time graduate of Western Carolina University. Doing so didn’t come without facing significant challenges. “The dynamics are different,” Fortune said. “While the professors provide guidance, encouragement and support, the student is given full autonomy in setting personal timelines, meeting agendas and maintaining contact with milestone updates on their thesis research.”  

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Young Alumnus of the Month: Hank Henderson

For Hank Henderson 17’, there was never a question if he would stay engaged with Western Carolina University once he graduated.   

WCU launches Veterans and Military Alumni Society

Melissa Metcalf Le Roy believes her father, the late Oscar William Metcalf Jr., would have been the first to apply for membership in Western Carolina University’s new Veterans and Military Alumni Society. Metcalf, a decorated Vietnam War vet, died Oct. 18, at the age of 72 in Shelbyville, Tennessee. “He dearly loved Western,” said Le Roy. “He was proud of his alma mater, the opportunities it gave him. He went to college while working full time and raising a young family. The university supported him, and (his bachelor’s degree) really meant something.”   

Going Viral

The cover of the Fall 2020 publication of the Western Carolina University Magazine highlights a small portrait of the many ways the COVID-19 global pandemic has impacted our faculty, staff and students. Inside this issue, we take a look at how in times of adversity, our Catamount Community displayed innovation, creativeness and a willingness to support Western North Carolina.  

Winds of Change

In the midst of nationwide civil unrest, Western Carolina University renews its commitment to inclusive excellence. When Charity Leigh Moon Henry ’93 was studying theatre in the early 1990s, she had no inkling while on stage in what was then called Hoey Auditorium that she was performing in a building named to honor an individual who would have vehemently disapproved of her selection of a spouse and denied their multiracial children enrollment at her alma mater.