We hope you enjoy this series where we meet and get to know employees from across campus. Would you like to be featured? Contact us at campusnews@csufresno.edu.

Name: William Hardaway
Title: Instructional Designer
Department: Center for Faculty Excellence
Academic Degrees: Associate of Arts, Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, and a Master of Arts in Educational Leadership

How long have you worked at Fresno State? 13 years

What is your most notable accomplishment in your field, and why was it important? I published a thesis on Design Thinking as a Tool to Address Inequities in Higher Education.

What are you most passionate about in your field and why? I think we assume creativity is either natural or reserved for certain folks and we have only just started to unpack creativity to understand its benefits and its pitfalls.

What is a memorable moment you had at your job? A memorable moment was taking a resilient teaching course with faculty and other instructional designers working across the CSU system.

What is a memorable moment you had in class? There were so many memorable moments in my courses. One of the most memorable was my first day ever in a college course and I realized the news did not report facts. A professor showed us coverage of the same story about a conflict in Iraq across several news outlets. Up until that point, I did not consider bias in the media.

What do you like to do for fun in your spare time? I like to write fiction, create art, or play basketball.

What is something interesting about you that most people don’t know? My entire hometown of Waelder, Texas can fit all its citizens into the Save Mart Center 12 times.

Is there something else you would like to share that was not asked? I am excited about this new role as an instructional designer which will combine my years of institutional knowledge in higher education with my research on design and creative problem-solving. I hope to work with faculty who want to design engaging and inclusive curriculum and classroom experiences for their students.