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Faculty

Purpose in the Classroom

As a faculty member, you likely teach with purpose every time you step into the classroom. If you’d like to bring a purpose workshop to your classroom, you can work with the Purpose Center to customize content relevant to your curriculum. Schedule a time to meet with someone from the Purpose Center to talk about goals and dates by emailing purpose@mail.wvu.edu.

Strengths in the Classroom

The Purpose Center has provided unique strengths-based workshops in more than 300 classes since the WVU Strengths platform launched in fall of 2022. If you’d like to incorporate strengths in your classroom, please contact us by emailing purpose@mail.wvu.edu. We can provide student codes for your classroom, as well as work with you to create a customized workshop for your students relevant to the content you’re teaching.

If you teach a first-year experience course, the Purpose Center has built an entire drive of resources and plug and play workshops for you to utilize with your students, as well as hosts training workshops on how to utilize these resources. For first-year experience resources, email Whitney Godwin at wgodwin@mail.wvu.edu.

Opportunities

Research Opportunities

Research is an on-going piece of our evaluation process here at the Purpose Center. We measure purpose and strengths in a variety of ways to help us better meet the needs of our audiences. If you’re interested in doing research related to purpose or CliftonStrengths®, please reach out to Whitney Godwin to learn more: wgodwin@mail.wvu.edu.

Personal and Professional Development Opportunities

If you are interested in digging more into your own strengths or self-discovery reflection, check out our one-on-one coaching opportunities and our Purpose Workshops for Faculty and Staff and Strengths Workshops for Faculty and Staff.

1:1 Coaching Opportunities

If you would like to dig deeper into your CliftonStrengths® assessment results, you can sign up to meet individually with a Gallup-certified Strengths Coach. This opportunity is free for WVU students, staff, faculty, and alumni.

Team Coaching Opportunities

Consider signing up for a team session individualized to your team needs. Sign up for a group session to learn more about how the individual strengths of your team work together to build strong community.

Workshops for Faculty and Staff

Strengths 101

Faculty and Staff 60 minutes

Learn some quick history and facts and then dive into some reflection and practical application for your top five strengths. We recommend this workshop ahead of attending others.

Read More: Strengths 101

Strengths 102: Theme Dynamics

Faculty and Staff 60 minutes

Explore your top five strengths and how they interact with each other to help you be successful. Look at how your top five strengths interact with strengths both similar and different from your own to help you build stronger partnerships.

Read More: Strengths 102: Theme Dynamics

All 34 Strengths Training

Faculty and Staff 90 minutes

This 90-minute training digs deeper into all 34 strengths. Learning more in-depth about all 34 strengths can help you build better partnerships with teammates and understand different communication and conflict-resolution perspectives.

Read More: All 34 Strengths Training

Week of Purpose: Purpose-Focused Yoga

Faculty and Staff 60 minutes

Wind down Week of Purpose with a free, relaxing, purpose-focused yoga session in the heart of the downtown campus! Certified Yoga Instructor and Gallup-Certified CliftonStrengths Coach, Julie Gruber, will lead this session in Woodburn Circle while also using purpose-based guided meditations to help you envision the impact you want to make on the world.

Read More: Week of Purpose: Purpose-Focused Yoga

Building the “Fun” Habit Workshop

Faculty and Staff 60 minutes

Evaluate how much time you spend pleasing, living, yielding, and agonizing. Brainstorm how to bring more fun into our life, and discuss the science behind why we are focusing on fun versus happiness.

Read More: Building the “Fun” Habit Workshop

Communicating Your Values

Faculty and Staff 60 minutes

Discuss the importance of communicating your personal values in a professional context at work to help you build trust, credibility, and rapport with your colleagues, students, and other university constituents.

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Creating Glimmers: How Full is Your Bucket

Faculty and Staff 60 minutes

Discover how to create glimmers—tiny moments of goodness and joy for yourself and others—and learn how these glimmers in combination with Don Clifton’s theory of “Bucket Filling” can positively impact your productivity, health, and longevity.

Read More: Creating Glimmers: How Full is Your Bucket

Strengths-Based Leadership

Faculty and Staff 60 minutes

Review your top five strengths and how they help you be successful as a leader. Adventure WV will facilitate an activity with reflection to identify how your strengths help you and where they maybe got in your way during the activity.

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Strengths-Based Feedback

Faculty and Staff 60 minutes

In this session you’ll learn how to more frequently give both positive and constructive feedback and how to incorporate strengths into daily performance and recognition.

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Strengths to Combat Imposter Syndrome

Faculty and Staff 60 minutes

Dig into how Imposter Syndrome shows up for you and how you can use strengths-based strategies to fight back against those feelings of inadequacy!

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Strengths to Minimize Overwhelm

Faculty and Staff 60 minutes

In this one-hour CliftonStrengths® workshop, we will dig into what motivates us to overcommit while learning techniques for aligning commitments with values and calendars. We will wrap up by learning strategies to set boundaries and say no.

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Strengths-Based Leadership Style and Effectiveness

Faculty and Staff 60 minutes

Learn more about different leadership styles, how your natural talents and abilities might lend themselves to certain leadership styles, and reflect through an activity hosted by Adventure WV on how you can continue to craft your unique leadership style.

Read More: Strengths-Based Leadership Style and Effectiveness

Strengths and Study Abroad

Faculty and Staff 60 minutes

Help students explore how their strengths contribute to their communication style, how to leverage their strengths to manage conflict, and utilize the team grid to understand others in the group, build partnerships, and find roommates for the trip.

Read More: Strengths and Study Abroad

Dr. Crystal Smith

Bloomsburg, PA Teaching Professor in Animal & Nutritional Sciences

Top 5 Strengths

Achiever®, Strategic®, Activator®, Relator®, Significance®

Purpose is what drives me both when the road is easy and when it is riddled with challenges that need to be navigated. I am very driven, strategic, and action oriented so my strengths are on full display when pursuing my purpose or helping those around me achieve theirs.