Leslie Wingard Cunningham Associate Provost for Faculty Development and Professor of English and Africana Studies

Washington Hall
540-458-4875
lwcunningham@wlu.edu

Leslie Wingard Cunningham is Professor of English and Africana Studies and the Associate Provost for Faculty Development. A specialist in African American literature, film, visual art, and religion, she earned her B.A. from Spelman College and her M.A. and Ph.D. from UCLA. She completed fellowships at Haverford College, Princeton University, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Williams College. As a senior leader in academics, Wingard Cunningham is a member of the W & L provost's office team focused on supporting faculty as they balance and advance their research, service, scholarship, and teaching. She also coordinates efforts to strengthen diversity, equity, and inclusion across Academic Affairs.

Her professional help for faculty emphasizes inclusive pedagogy, the recruitment and retention of diverse scholar-teachers, and special programs and projects. She serves on the President's Council, co-chairs the University Committee on Inclusiveness and Campus Climate (UCICC), and oversees the faculty directors of the DeLaney Center, the Roger Mudd Center for Ethics, and the Office of Community Based Learning.

Wingard Cunningham's book, The Arts and Acts of Faith, is forthcoming from the University of Georgia Press. Her articles are in Religion & Literature, American Quarterly, Religion and the Arts, Political Theology, Christianity & Literature, and South: A Scholarly Journal. She spent the first half of her career as English Professor, English Department Chair, and Dean of the Faculty at the College of Wooster in Ohio.