Karen Weathermon named top first-year student advocate

PULLMAN, Wash. – Karen Weathermon, long-time Washington State University faculty member, administrator and alumna, has been named a 2011-2012 Outstanding First-Year Student Advocate by the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition organization.

 

 

She will be recognized at the center’s Annual Conference on The First-Year Experience in February in San Antonio, Texas, where she will deliver presentation on assessment of WSU’s Common Reading Program for freshmen. Co-presenting will be Leslie Jo Sena, an instructor and member of the Common Reading Committee.

 

Weathermon is director of WSU’s Learning Communities and the Freshman Focus program. She co-directs the Common Reading Program with Susan Poch, associate dean of the University College.

 

“We are very pleased that Karen’s efforts to create an excellent academic experience for our first-year students is being recognized on the national scale,” says Mary F. Wack, WSU vice provost for undergraduate education and dean of the University College.

 

“Since 2006, Karen has built these into strong programs that impact virtually every freshman in Pullman. Both the Freshman Focus and the Common Reading programs blend faculty, residence hall staff, librarians and students into one large community focused on student learning and success. Course- and book-related activities take place both within and beyond classrooms,” said Wack.

 

As part of this effort, Weathermon has initiated numerous innovative faculty development initiatives.

“Through Karen’s efforts,” Poch said, “students have remarkable opportunities to better engage in academics, with faculty and the university as a whole.”

Weathermon earned her master’s and Ph.D. degrees at WSU with emphases in composition and rhetoric, and American literature. Her bachelor’s degree and secondary teaching certificate are from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma. Prior to her current positions, she was director of Writing Across the Curriculum in the WSU Writing Program, and held positions in the general education program.

 

In 2010, Weathermon was invited to be an inaugural steering committee member of the new Washington State Learning Communities Consortium. At WSU, she currently serves on the University Common Requirements general education committee, the Visual, Performing, and Literary Arts Committee (VPLAC), and the Academic Affairs committee. She also volunteers as president of Pullman’s Friends of Neill Public Library.

 

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