Quad View: As seen from the Alumni Office

I should have posted a message on the blog letting you know we’d be going dark for a couple of days. Though my household’s first love is Wake Forest, its second love is the Los Angeles Dodgers. So we made the pilgrimmage to my family’s home in Phili to take in Game 2 of the NLCS - the Dodgers lost, but we had fantastic seats down the 3rd base line, replete with a Phillies fan in a dredlock wig heckling Manny Ramirez, who was only about 20 feet away from us. My husband also got nicknamed “LA Guy” buy the good people of Section 139 with us, as he was the only one in sight wearing an LA hat. Thankfully the ribbing was good natured.

This is a reminder to all alumni and parents in the Phili area - if you haven’t been to a Phili sporting event lately, make sure to go. You typically get not only a good showing from the sports team, but great theatre too watching the fans : )

And in just the 4 days that I was gone, The Dash is starting to bloom in its fall colors. For those of you who were devotees of the Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, I was reminded this weekend that Hobbes referred to the fall colors on the trees as “nature’s fireworks.” An apt description. The trees on the Quad are turning, and the tops of the trees are a deep and rich auburn color. There’s ample TP in the trees too, from the post-Clemson Quad rolling. The stadium and the fanbase looked really impressive on TV - the “Black Out” was a nice touch. Go Deacs!

It is very, very calm out my window. I only see one student poking along the sidewalk. Admittedly, it’s in between classes, so you would not expect huge traffic, but today is supposed to be almost 80 and its sunny and gorgeous. Normally I would expect to see a little more action, but then again, midterms approacheth.

Got some great news today - Luke Russert, son of beloved newsman Tim Russert, will be on WFU’s campus tonight covering a viewing of the Presidential Debate. Details below.

Luke, if you ever read this, I loved your dad. As a matter of fact, when my son was born, I’d gone into labor on a Saturday night, and I was happy that I did not progress quickly, because I got to spend the morning watching Meet the Press (then NFL countdown and a Panthers game). So in my own strange way I feel like I shared something special with your dad!

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Wake is gathering students in Carswell Hall, Room 111 Tuesdaynightfor the Second Presidential Debate. The event will begin at 8:30 p.m. with a pre-debate program/lecture/discussion moderated by Ross Smith.

Tim Russert’s son Luke Russert, who reports for NBC and MSNBC, will be there starting at 8:30 p.m. to talk with Wake Students about the debateHe will interview students throughout the debate.

We had a great meeting of the College Board of Visitors last week. They heard updates on the strategic plan, the campus master plan, our financials, mentoring - you name it, we covered it. This board, like most of our volunteer boards, takes very seriously its commitment to making WFU the best it can be. It was my first official meeting with them and I am pleased to say they are all great folks.

Today I had this odd thing happen on campus. I was walking on the Quad near Poteat/post office and the wind was blowing just right and there was this odd, faint, hot, slightly sweet smell. I knew I knew what the smell was but it took me a second to get my mind around it. And then it hit me - fabric softener sheets! Someone in the bowels of Poteat was doing laundry and the dryer air was venting out to the Quad - or maybe venting elsewhere but the wind caught the scent and carried it to the Quad. I suddenly was transported back to my own college days of hauling laundry to the laundry room and praying there would be enough washers and dryers to do the small mountain of laundry I had. Ahh…good times.

Midterms are rapidly approaching and I probably need to send my advisees a quick email to tell them not to panic: ) but to study and prep and do all they need to do to stay current on their reading. That first set of midterms is always scary for the freshmen - and parents, if you’re reading this, your kids will sound pretty stressed until they get through them. But fall break is just around the corner too, and they will get a chance to refresh and renew themselves. And moms, sending cookies to your students is never a bad idea. They all love care packages from home. Just a thought : )

I am going to be out of pocket for a couple of days. I work with the College Board of Visitors and they are having their meeting tomorrow and Friday. So I have time for just a few reflections now and will catch up later Friday.

There was a brisk wind at the end of the day and it looked like a brown ticker tape parade. Not sure which kind of trees line most of campus, but they have thin leaves like fingers - and they were coming down in huge bunches as the wind blew, almost confetti-like. What most people don’t know is that in the early part of the morning, some of our facilities people are armed with leaf blowers to clean off the sidewalks and Quad. With a lot of leaves and wind falling, it’s a task worthy of Sisiphus (take that, Classics majors! I threw you a mythology reference).

As I was driving around campus with my little one in tow, we happened past Starling Hall, our admissions bldg. I chatted with a couple of the folks there - and they said application numbers are up. They looked happy and also a little tired.

Finally, there is going to be an Octoberfest tomorrow on the Mag Patio - big sign hanging off Reynolda to advertise it. The College Democrats are hosting a VP Debate Viewing party in Shorty’s at 9 pm tomorrow in Benson. I sent an email to the College Republicans asking for their viewing opportunities but am waiting to hear back from them.

Not sure if technically you can call this weather Indian Summer - since it’s still September after all - but it is warm and sunny and really lovely out. Looking out my window toward Manchester Quad and the Bostwick-Collins-Johnson dorm trio, I see two young men playing baseball. I guess since it’s just 2 people, it’s technically just catch. One of the guys is really hamming it up, spitting into his glove and trying to look very official.

There is starting to be a hint of fall leaves on the trees, just a couple of pokes of brown and dark orange on the top of the skyline. Give us another few weeks and it ought to be a glorious collage of fall colors. Many of you remember driving down Reynolda Road, past Reynolda Village and Graylyn and Reynolda House - it’s a stretch of road where the tree branches overhang the road, so the effect is a canopy. In the fall, I’d argue it’s one of the prettiest stretches of road in our state.

I took a WFU Travel Program trip a few years back to Provence, France. Our hotel was located in Aix-en-Provence (Aix is pronounced like the letter X) and Aix boasts the Cours Mirabeau, which is arguably one of the prettiest avenues in France. Same basic idea - huge trees that provide shade over a wide vista of road.

While on that trip, our tour guide told us that the reason the French have so many symmetrical tree-lined streets is because they were planted centuries ago - pre cars or air conditioning - so that the buggies with produce had shade as they were being pulled from the farm into town. Kept the groceries from getting spoiled. Not all bad.

There endeth the lesson in French tree planting - but its a good reminder that there are a whole host of excellent educational trips WFU offers. They are open to alumni, parents, friends - if you like WFU, you are welcome to travel with us! Info is available on http://www.wfu.edu/alumni/kiosk/travel/travel.html

Beyond what students refer to as the “Wake Forest bubble” - their feeling of insulation from some of the events beyond campus - there is a great deal going on in our world, both globally and locally. The upcoming election is on a lot of people’s minds, but also the fracas on Wall Street. We have a good deal of alumni, parents, and friends in the Northeast, and many of them involved in finance or real estate lines of business. We are thinking of them.

This morning, the Winston-Salem Journal announced that Wachovia, once one of the largest companies in W-S, is being bought by Citigroup. We have a lot of Wake Foresters who work at Wachovia - fewer in W-S now than there used to be, and certainly a bunch of folks in Charlotte. I hope that all those in the WF family are OK.

Forgot to mention that as part of the activities of the weekend, some of our WFU sports legends will be inducted into our Hall of Fame. Here they are:

Former coach Dave Odom, Randolph Childress (’95) and Tim Duncan (’97), Olympic triathlete Hunter Kemper (’98), former Deacon golfer Len Mattiace (’90) and former New York Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi (’63). (Special props to Hunter - he is in my husband’s college football pool and Hunter routinely stomps most of us in there. His family is bringing a group to see his induction, which is extra nice).

Fantastic article in the W-S Journal about Randolph Childress, Tim Duncan, and Dave Odom and their 1995 ACC Championship: http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2008/sep/26/260000/true-team-spirit/sports/ A must-read for all those who bled black and gold at that amazing tournament.

I am sad that Randolph is not able to be here for this. He is my All Time Favorite Best Deacon Ever (with no disrespect intended for the rest of our amazing athletes). And I have met him and his great wife and kids and he is even nicer a human being than he is an iceman on the court. Hate to miss him.

It’s too early for Christmas carols, but it would not be wrong to say “the weather outside is frightful.” It is wet and gray and very windy - and the rain goes between a constant light drizzle and a full-on pelting rain. Ick.

On to good news: as part of Family Weekend, our Parents’ Council meets (they are the volunteer board that helps serve as ambassadors and liaisons between WF parents and the administration). As part of their meeting, they had a dynamite program of speakers lined up, including the president, provost and dean of business. Select soundbites and highlights:

President Hatch: mentioned the excitement of being the only team in the nation that has two #1 ranked sports - field hockey and soccer. Go Deacs! He also talked about our unique role as a “Collegiate University” and how the world of higher education is increasingly moving toward being research universities and the ’scholar-teacher’ model (which prizes research above all) and that we at Mother So Dear still believe we need ‘teacher-scholars’.

He made a very interesting point about how society is increasingly impersonal - that kids may have 200 friends on their Facebook account but few (or no) close confidants in whom they can confide things. Where that plays into our Collegiate University setting is that our people here -faculty and staff- want to know our students and take them seriously. We relate to them on a deep level. It’s different, and it’s important.

On to the provost. She echoed much of what NOH said about our charge to educate the whole person and how the special niche of our faculty is that they love teaching undergraduates - unlike bigger research schools where the grad students can be sort of a buffer between the faculty and the undergrads. She talked about the strategic plan and how one of the ideas in it is to forge new partnerships between the liberal arts and the professions. That students of all fields of study need to have access to learning from the best minds and have discussions of how we can solve the world’s problems together. She also talked about wanting to grow the best national mentoring program - using faculty and staff and alumni and parents. This would be fun project to get all of you out in the field involved in - once it’s built of course. So keep that on deposit for possible future engagement with MSD.

Now to Steve Reinemund, dean of business: he said that “our calling is to help our students find their calling.” Not just to get them a job - though he wants to have 100% of our students employed - but to help them find their place in the world and know their ‘True North’ of their internal compass. He wants to provide exceptional business education but to also instill the responsibility of being ethical leaders and community advocates. He’s a fitness buff too - he has a “Dawn with the Dean” running group that goes for a run every Thursday morning at 6:30 - and put out the all call for people to join him.

It really feels a bit like we have a Dream Team going on with this group of leaders - and the many others not represented on the program but who do equally good work for their schools and programs. There is a palpable excitement here right now. Big things are happening. It feels incredibly cool to have my own little piece of this new world.

Now let’s go beat Navy tomorrow. Go Deacs!

Lots of good items to talk about this fine fall morning. Today is “Hit the Bricks,” which is the student fundraiser for Brian Piccolo (our late alumnus, famous football player both here at MSD and also for the Chicago Bears, and the subject of the great movie “Brian’s Song”). Teams of students sign up to run laps around the Quad, and you get extra points if you carry a brick while you go. There is typically a solid - if genteel - rivalry between the fraternities and sororities to see which one comes out on top with the most laps/points. There is a scoreboard near the bookstore, so you can see a periodic update about which teams of runners are in the lead.

Great day to do it too. It’s been much milder - today is going to be high 60s maybe. Chance for rain later in the day, and wind will be picking up too. Those who signed up for the early shifts of the run will be happy they did.

Of course, our #15 ranked Deacs take on Navy this weekend. It’s Family Weekend, which will mean a great turnout of Deac parents and their kids. I am happy to pass along a couple of quotes from a press conference this week by some of our football players. At the presser, our kids talked about how much respect they have for the Navy team because of all the other things they do:

Chip Vaughn (On the respect factor when you play a service academy…)

“These guys go out there and do P.T. (Physical Training) at 5 a.m. and go through all of their rigorous training and football is extra for them. They have a duty to this country and we have the utmost respect for any academy.”

Trey Bailey (On perhaps having a different feeling playing a non-conference team in Navy…)

“It’s the same feeling that we have every week. I’m going to play this like it’s my last week. It may be the toughest game we play all year because for Navy, the easiest part of their day is football. They love it. They’re training to go to Iraq and Afghanistan so they’re going to come in here Saturday and try to knock us off.”

Gotta hand it to Coach Grobe and his staff for helping our young men win on the field - but also be incredibly classy people. Kudos to them.

Finally, I have mentioned a couple of times that there is a movie being filmed about our former (and incredibly awesome) linebacker, Jon Abbate. The movie is doing a casting call this weekend. Details below.

There will be a movie filmed in the Triad about Wake Forest’s 2006 football season, the year the Deacons went to the Orange Bowl. The movie is called “The Fifth Quarter,” and if you want to be in it, here’s your chance. There’s an open casting call this Saturday and Sunday from 11a.m. to 4 p.m. at Altair Casting and Production Services at 710-E Coliseum Dr. Producers are looking for all ages and all types. Call 336-725-0808 for more information.

Found this reference yesterday to discussions Harvard is having about making the SAT optional:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=524170

Wouldn’t it be lovely if they followed our lead?

We gave Starbucks in the library a second chance today. Bless their hearts, they are trying their best, but it’s still sort of long lines and mystery results. Today I ordered a skinny vanilla latte (its on their menu board, not something that requires a lot of extra manipulation like adding shots or substituting sugar free) - and I still got a latte with 2% milk not skim. Sigh. Their coffee is also strangely weak - not at all like a normal Starbucks. I’ll give them a few more days and then try again. The folks who work it are very very nice.

And to answer the questions I received about the new Starbucks - yes, you can eat in the library now. Only in certain places, such as Starbucks. You can bring bottled water almost anywhere in the library though - just not sodas and coffee or food unless you are in an approved space. As for where the Starbucks is: if you enter the library, Starbucks is immediately on your left in the lobby where the guard checks your ID card, and the new 2-level study room is immediately on the right. Thanks for the questions, and keep asking.

Also on the subject of the libary, as we entered this morning, we saw a giant moving truck and about 50 comfy study chairs being unloaded. They are all in shades of rich, winey red or maroon - some with hints of gold. I guess they are destined for places throughout the library. They looked so comfortable that I wish I could have sat down and tested them out, but that would have been incredibly strange to all who were passing by.

One of my best friends from college was here over the weekend, so we did a mini campus tour so I could show her around Mother So Dear and how we’ve grown in the 16 - gulp! - years since we graduated. The most fun I think was showing her The Pit - which is almost unrecognizable as the place we knew.

She was surprised at how much the Quad trees had grown - remember, our incoming freshmen class knew only tiny stumps that were planted after the old Quad trees died a terrible death from Dutch Elm Disease (and as an English-French major, I still marvel at the fact that trees can catch diseases. My friend is a bio person and I am sure she didn’t have any cognitive dissonance over it).

I received an email this morning about noted author and radio personality Garrison Keillor coming to campus:

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BOOKMARKS PRESENTS GARRISON KEILLOR - With Support from WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2008, 10:00 a.m.
Brendle Recital Hall, Scales Fine Arts Center, Wake Forest University
(Polecat Creek performs 9:45 a.m.)

The bestselling author will share his insights during: BOOKMARKS Presents GARRISON KEILLOR in one of only two North Carolina appearances on his national tour for Viking’s release of LIBERTY: A Novel of Lake Wobegon. The event will be held in Brendle Recital Hall and emceed by D. G Martin, host of UNC-TV’s NC Bookwatch. A book signing will follow the program for all ticketholders.

Tickets: 336-758-5145 (24 hours/7 days a week) - $25 general admission; $95 premier

At lunch in the Pit today, I overheard a conversation between two students - a young man and a young woman. He had a laptop and was looking at political sites, and they were having a very interesting discussion about the election.

I was trying not to eavesdrop, so I only caught occasional glimpses of what they were saying. What first caught my attention was that I heard the young man say “chagrined” - which as an English major I think is a really fun word and one used all too infrequently these days - but here are select soundbites that I could hear:

“liberal and conservative blogs”

“how does the French socialist system work with such high taxes?”

“Democracy can exist with social responsibility!”

“nationalization of finance”

“rugged capitalism”

“Lehman brothers and the regulations of the 1990s”

At least for this pair of students, they were really chewing on some weighty issues. It made me smile to think about these two folks really debating the issues and trying to understand what has become a very complex political and economic landscape.

It made me very proud to hear them.

Today was the grand opening of the new Starbucks on campus, and as a dutiful member of the blogging community, I felt it was only right that I go over and sample the place so I can report about it : )

The good news: it is a gorgeous facility. As with the renovated study room, it is a 2-tiered room, with a sort of spiral-y staircase immediately upon entering. I assume there are tables up at the top, but did not go up there. It is also a full-service Starbucks - all the various coffees, pastries, you name it. Same prices as the Starbucks I frequent on Reynolda and Robinhood roads, so it’s legit.

The bad news: it was opening day, and the staff needs a bit more training on how to make the drinks. I ordered a nonfat, no whip Pumpkin Spice latte, and instead got a latte with whip and I suspect not nonfat milk. And clearly the workers there (who appear to be ARA folks, I recognized some of them) do not frequent Starbucks as customers, because when people were rattling off orders, they looked a bit puzzled. (And it makes sense - if you just drink regular coffee, it would be a bit jarring to have someone blurt out “I’d like a venti skinny extra shot caramel latte”.)

So while they get an A for ambiance, they get a C for order execution. But then again, it is day one, and you have to give them a bit of a break so they can get into the swing of things. I’ll give them another try tomorrow and see how they do.

Yesterday was a very exciting morning: we announced our new Vice President for University Advancement, Mark Petersen. He comes to us from SMU in Dallas, where he was Associate Vice President for Development and Alumni Affairs. There is a news release about him online if you want to read more about him officially: http://www.wfu.edu/news/release/2008.09.18.p.php

For those of you not in the business of University Advancement, it may be worth taking a moment to talk about what our office actually does : ) We are the arm of the University that covers a lot of different ground: alumni, parent and donor relations; activities on and off campus like homecoming, WF Clubs, and lifelong learning; fundraising on a yearly basis through The Wake Forest Fund and on a larger, major gift and capital campaign basis - and this is for the undergraduate and professional schools; public relations, communications and marketing - the web, the WF Magazine; and technology (WIN) and things like alumni records, gift receipting, the list goes on. It’s a big job to do all of those things well.

So Mark Petersen will now have stewardship of all those programs. Fortunately, he comes to us with a very impressive resume. Over the past decade or so, he’s worked on several teams to raise about $2 billion - and by extension touch the lives of thousands and tens of thousands of students. He grew up on a college campus and to hear him speak, you could tell immediately that he has a deep sense of the nobility of higher education and how the work that is done on college campuses has a direct impact on humanity - forming and shaping and reshaping knowledge to best address the issues of the world.

And in that sense, all our die hard Wake Foresters should feel very good about him. In the words of one of my favorite colleagues, “he gets it.” In his remarks to our staff, he talked about part of the process of learning about Wake Forest and beginning to fall in love with us. He said that he realized quickly that this would be a great fit - that we share an appreciation of the unique place Wake Forest occupies in the world and the university we want to be. He gets it that we are a unique place as a “collegiate university” - with the personal attention, excellent teaching and community of a smaller liberal arts university with the vast resources of a top 30 school. He said that everyone he met from Wake Forest had the “same twinkle in their eye” - that we seem to love this place and that we seem to “understand that we’ve got something very special here.”

He talked about how we are getting ready to begin writing a new chapter in Wake Forest’s history. Dr. Hatch’s cabinet is formed, we have a strategic plan and a draft of a campus master plan, there will be a campaign in the coming years. The table is set for us to do great things. And as he said, it’s time to start writing that new chapter together.

I’ll leave you with one final thing - and this I also think is very Wake Forest of him. He said that if every day, we get out of bed and plant our feet firmly on the ground and recommit to being better than we were yesterday, we’re 90% there. If we can be committed to improving every day, we can tackle almost anything. Together.

Better every day.

So I’ll do my part - and please, all of you who are our Wake Forest army in the field, keep doing your part to make us better every day. Whether it is by hiring WF graduates, proudly wearing WF clothing, going to games and cheering vigorously, serving your local club, telling high schoolers and their parents about what a great school this is, or making a gift to The Wake Forest Fund - whatever you do, do it better every day.

PS - And to top it off, he wore a black and gold tie. Well done!

There is a very interesting article in the WS Journal this morning about an exhibit of items about WFU’s history. The exhibit was the brainchild of our Traditions Council (TC), a student-led initiative that is trying to teach current students about past WFU traditions. Some of the traditions are still alive and well - like rolling the Quad - others are less well known here. The TC is trying to keep the memory of our school’s history alive and to help today’s students be more aware. I know a couple of the TC students and they are really excellent young people, very involved leaders.

Anyway, take a look at the article below, and if you have the occasion to be on campus, please make an effort to go see this exhibit. For you freshmen parents who read the blog, this will still be up and running during Family Weekend, so even if you are far away now, you’ll have a chance to see it.

Also am including the link to the WSJ web site, as you can see a pic of one of the old Demon Deacon mascot suits - when it was literally just a tophat and tails that a man wore, not a proper costume like we have today: http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2008/sep/18/dear-old-wake-mementoes-home-movies-tell-universit/living/

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By LauraGiovanelli | Journal Reporter

Published: September 18, 2008

As if college freshmen didn’t have it hard enough. If you attended Wake Forest College in the years after the turn of the 20th century, you had to wear a beanie made of black-and-gold felt.

Today’s Wake Forest University students and fans can get a feeling for the old days at an exhibit of school memorabilia and relics. The Old Alma Mater: A Wake Forest History Exhibit will be in the Hanes Art Gallery at the Scales Fine Art Center on Wake Forest’s campus through Oct. 12.

The exhibit includes items from Wake Forest’s own archives and the Wake Forest College Birthplace Society. It also includes a section dedicated to the history of the school’s first 122 years, when it was in the town of Wake Forest, in northern Wake County.

Also on display are items that rarely leave Wake Forest’s original home, including the first Demon Deacons costume (from 1943); the first printed yearbook, the Howler, (from 1903); and ledgers for the literary societies, debating clubs that were precursors to today’s fraternities and sororities.

That freshman beanie, now worn and faded, is also in the exhibit. It belonged to James Graham Lane (class of 1914), who presumably had to endure wearing it during at least his first few weeks of school.

It could have been worse. In some photos, Ed Morris, the Birthplace Society’s director, said, he has seen the freshmen beanies festooned with propellers. “I don’t know if they wore them all year, but certainly in the first few weeks of school … so that they could be recognized on campus.”

Robert Cox and Lauren Hubbard, seniors and former co-chairs of WFU’s Traditions Council, organized the exhibit.

The council is a student group that promotes school spirit, revives old traditions and promotes new ones (though it probably won’t be bringing back beanies any time soon).

Cox and Hubbard thought of the exhibit last year, when one of their members was given an old brochure from Graylyn’s days as a psychiatric hospital in the 1940s and ’50s.

Their planning included a trip to the Birthplace museum, where they chose Wake Forest relics that they thought would resonate with students today. Morris let them have anything that wasn’t too fragile for the trip to Winston-Salem.

“I didn’t know that Shorty’s was anything but a coffee shop. But it was a hot-dog spot on the old campus,” Hubbard said. “These are the links we try to make for students.”

Shorty’s, a grill known for its hot dogs, is still in business today on South White Street in downtown Wake Forest. Winston-Salem’s Shorty’s is a coffee shop and pub in the bottom of WFU’s student union.

Today, Wake Forest students often don’t realize that in the 1950s what was then Wake Forest College built a new campus 100 miles to the west. The college, founded in 1834, moved to Winston-Salem in 1956.

“They come to Wake from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and everywhere else, and they have no idea of Wake Forest being anywhere but Winston-Salem,” Morris said.

“I think this exhibit just touches the surface.”

When people call information for a Wake Forest University number in Wake Forest, they often reach Morris instead. That’s why he keeps a university directory within easy reach. “During the Orange Bowl, we got calls from NBC Sports,” he said.

The crown jewels of The Old Alma Mater are black-and-white and color 16-mm home movies shot by a former chemistry professor, C.S. Black.

Black taught at Wake Forest from 1925 to 1965 (he took a break to serve in the Air Force during World War II, according to a WFU spokeswoman). He died in 1972.

Black lives on through the flickering images of cheerleaders in long skirts and saddle shoes; snowball fights; football games; and track-and-field meets on the old campus.

There’s also footage of the new campus under construction in the 1950s.

“It’s such candid footage. We’re not on the same campus but we’re going through the same things,” Hubbard said.

“We can still see ourselves in these people,” Cox added.

The home movies were given to the archives, then later put on DVD. They run on a continuous loop on a television in one of corner of the history exhibit.

Jenny Puckett, a Spanish lecturer and the council’s adviser, collected audio from WFU alumni and professors to run with the silent home movies.

They include Marina Nowell, one of first female students when Wake Forest began to regularly admit women in 1943, and Reggie Mathis, a former student-body president, who graduated in 2006.

The traditions council is trying to organize another trip to the town of Wake Forest and WFU’s original campus, now owned by the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

“One thing Robert and I realized is that not many students here get to visit the old campus,” Hubbard said.

“We feel like it’s something that every student should see.”

? Laura Giovanelli can be reached at 727-7302 or at lgiovanelli@wsjournal.com. The Hanes Art Gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

it’s 9:55 a.m. and the classes are changing. I am looking out my window toward Manchester Quad (aka Mag Quad) to see people as they go to their classes.

Lots of kids with messenger bags or big LL Bean type canvas bags instead of backpacks. Guess the times are changing. Actually now that I look closer, they are laptop bags. Lots of students take laptops to class; some classes require it.

There is a young Muslim woman in full black dress (head covered and all) walking by. It’s exciting to see because I know when I was here in the early 90s, I don’t think we had a single practicing Muslim woman. I actually know very little about Muslim requirements for dress, etc. I’d love to have coffee with her and talk to her about her WF experience - and broaden my own understanding of her culture.

Lots of girls in short dresses and leggings. 1980s are back, baby!

Today began with a cold, miserable, pelting rain. I find it difficult to be too angry about it, because we desperately need the water. Still, it’s been raining so hard that even with a good umbrella (pay attention, students!) and a long raincoat, you are still soaked from head to toe if you have to walk more than just a few feet.

Even with that, I am finding it hard to be in a bad mood today. I had the privilege of spending the morning over at Dr. Ed Wilson’s house - a rare and wonderful treat. He was to make a speech for an event, but had to conference in instead, so I was there to help with tech support. The greatest part was, the event was running behind schedule, so I had the chance to chat over coffee with Ed and his wife Emily - whom he described once in a convocation speech during my student days as “winsome” - and he is right. It was a wonderful, wide-ranging conversation we had, which would have been nice enough - but then I was there for the whole speech, and darn if he didn’t knock another one out of the park.

Honestly, I have never heard the man make a speech that was anything less than really and truly moving. I actually teared up at the end - which is not unusual for me, I confess.

Anyway, it was a speech about the importance of supporting the next generations of Wake Foresters through providing financial aid. I told him afterwards that I had already reallocated my donations to WF to go directly to The Wake Forest Fund for Student Aid, because like him, I believe its our greatest need right now.

And I also got 2 lovely bits of news - one of our student callers for the WF Telethon emailed me to say that she had been chatting with an alumna as part of her telethon call, and the alumna mentioned that she reads the blog and really likes it. Then I also heard from our Wake Forest Fellow (an ‘08 graduate whose job it will be to visit with Wake Foresters nationwide to talk about their engagement with MSD) that she talked to someone here in The Dash yesterday - and they mentioned the blog too!

So to our telethon call recipient and the kind person who met with Lydia the Fellow, thanks for the positive support. We’d worried a lot that no one would actually *read* this blog- so the fact that we are reaching some folks and they like it means the world to me.

Between Ed and Emily Wilson and your two nice comments, I almost don’t mind the rain. Thanks for reading!

So for lunch today, I went down to The Pit (and yes, despite any attempts from the ARA staff to try and get us to call it The Fresh Food Company, I stubbornly refuse and will only call it The Pit. Traditions have to count for something!)

For the parents who read the blog, this post might not resonate with you. However, for alumni, I hope I can express the vast, vast improvement of the menu - both in terms of the offerings and variety and in the taste.

Today’s choices were as follows:

Greek gyro wrap with curly fries (the ‘fast food’ lane)

Italian sausage and grilled red, green & yellow bell peppers. You could have it plain or on a bun (stir fry line)

Mushroom and spinach strata (egg casserole) - vegetarian line

Pork spareribs and veggies - homecooked food line. Seems like I saw a sign for basmati rice too.

Tortellini alfredo with veggies - pasta line

Pizza - choice of several. I had a small slice of bacon and onion, which gave a faint feeling of quiche lorraine flavors.

Cream of broccoli soup

Of course there was also a deli line for sandwiches, the make-your-own-waffle self serve line, the salad bar, the bagels and PB&J section, the cereal section, the baskets of fresh fruit, a big bowl of chex mix, and a dessert line with copious options, including big gooey cookies, a couple types of cake, and something that looked sort of tirimisu or pudding and whipped cream like.

Phew!

Yes, those are all daily dining options. The food is about 1,000x better than when I was here as a student. Alumni, if you remember the days of your choice being The Pit or the Snack Pit only, this is an enormous improvement.

I ambitiously said I’d go to the Campus Master Plan session on Thursday and recap it here. However, having seen the extensive presentation, there is no way I can do justice to it here. In addition, there were a lot of blueprints and maps and photos that really added to the presentation. Those I believe will eventually be accessible, but the Board of Trustees (BOT) needs to approve the final plan, which we think will be in October. So I am going to try and hit on a few key points and not the enormity of it all.

Matt Cullinan, VP for Administration, opened the session and told us the key takeaways from the presentation would be: 1) the strategic plan for the University will drive the campus master plan for the next 5-10 years in terms of priority and what gets done first; 2) this is a 30-50 year plan; and 3) remember that the campus master plan is not the “what” we do, but the “where” we will do it.

Basic goals of the campus master plan were: create open spaces, be considerate of ecology issues, extend the core feeling of campus farther out, find connections to Reynolda Village and Deacon Blvd, and expand pedestrian network.

Predictably, most of the folks in the audience were largely concerned with parking (and while we have it better than our peer schools, most people on campus would say we don’t have enough!) and interested to see the priority of what new buildings would go when. Again, the strategic plan will drive that, so it is premature to make a list.

The renderings they did of the campus layout were nice - they kept with our Georgian principles of clean lines, beautiful quads and green spaces, and symmetrical layout. If 30 years from now the campus looks like the plan suggests, I think people will be pleased.

I met with a student this morning - part of my job is to get to know students who might be invited to speak at events or be invited as guests to programs we do to provide a student’s perspective.

We were talking about how he chose Wake Forest instead of one of the many very good schools he had visited. He told me that he came on a great and beautiful day and said - I am paraphrasing here - that Wake Forest had something ‘that is almost unfair’ - you just can’t compete with us. We are so pretty, and so perfect in terms of architecture and clean lines and great weather and happy people. It’s checkmate before the other guy got his chess pieces on the board.

I chuckled, but in my mind it’s really true.

I wish that there could be a way to have a transparent window on the innerworkings of the school. As alumni and parents, you hear about decisions and programs after we have already vetted and researched them and are at the point where we are ready to roll them out. But from the insider’s perspective, I wish you could see the care and attention that go into just about everything we do. The people here are good, thoughtful people. We have visionary thinkers, people who carry the flame of the old campus and our noble heritage, and people who have akeen sense of what The Next Big Thing is, be it academically, programmatically, whatever.

And somehow we bubble all these different types and minds together in this great crucible and the end result is MSD.

And this kid is right. It is almost unfair -to the other schools.

Looking out my window, I see a needle-like rain and pea soup fog. So much fog, in fact, that I can’t see the Wachovia building at all - it’s like The Dash just disappeared at the treeline behind Collins dorm. Almost no one is walking on Manchester - and to be honest, you wouldn’t go out today unless you had to. The weather is just gross.

I got an advance copy of The Wake Forest Magazine yesterday, and in it is a lovely and wonderful tribute to Dr. Hearn, written by our own Kerry King (’85), who workedclosely with TKH on many writing projects, including his last book of commencement speeches. Kerry’s article is a real treat, so read it when you get it.

Also in the mag is a thorough spread on the SAT, including a reprint of Martha Allman’s speech to the Summer Leadership Conference. Another great read if you had not seen her remarks via the blog entry I did in July.

You may have heard about the Campus Master Plan, which is a 30 year plan for our physical facilities and the ‘campus footprint’ (for lack of a better word) of the University.  A plan had been done maybe a decade ago, but we have freshened it up with a look to the future and with an eye toward the University’s strategic plan and newly-developed interests that did not exist for the last plan, like green issues and sustainability.

There are 3 campus forums this week to talk about the plan.  I could not make the one lastnight or today, but am going tomorrow to hear what they have to say.

My own preemptive editorial about the process…

This is a 30 year plan.  While it will be exciting to look at new buildings or new traffic patterns, this will take a generation to enact.  So though there will be new and exciting things, they won’t all come tomorrow, lest anyone get their hopes up : )  And the plan will of course need to be funded - and that brings up a completely different set of issues.  All of that will be carefully planned and scheduled based on what is most prudent for the University - so we need to trust our administrators here; they know what they are doing.

That said, I am eager to see this presentation tomorrow.  I have heard lots of rumors about things that may happen - it will be great to hear what the real deal is.

More to come…

The hero of the weekend was none other than Sam Swank, whose last minute monster kick led us to victory.  A rolling of the Quad ensued - and for our Monday morning quarterbacking, some purists are arguing whether one ought to roll the Quad for an unranked team.  I will simply say that a rolled Quad to me always looks beautiful.

President’s Weekend had a number of great moments - and I will try to recap some of them here.  At 4 pm, there was an open discussion with Martha Allman (Director of Admissions) and Bill Wells (Director of Financial Aid) about the SAT policy and our new financial aid goals.  Very insightful stuff.  Martha mentioned that she is just now receiving the results of the admitted student questionnaires that go out each year (to all those who are admitted - and we get back from people who enroll here and at other schools).  She said that 47% of those who enroll at other schools do so because they say they did not receive enough financial aid.  So it is an imperative that we get more money to these students.  (As an aside, you can give directly to the WF Fund for Student Aid - which goes straight to student aid - at http://www.wfu.edu/alumni/giving/index.php?mode=student_aid - click the Online Giving link).

Former Trustee Bobby Burchfield of DC is our Wake Forest Fund National Chair.   We are rebranding our old gift club program under one single name - The Wake Forest Fund.  The Wake Forest Fund will recognize donors for their unrestricted giving (i.e., gifts that the University can designate tot he area of greatest need within the College, Calloway School, professional schools, but also Student Aid and the Library).  Bobby called unrestricted gifts “the year in, year out lifeblood of the University” - and he is right. 

Bobby then had sort of a fireside chat with Dr. Hatch - which was very interesting.  They began with reflections on Dr. Hearn and his legacy, and Dr. Hatch did a tremendous job capturing the essence of the greatness of TKH’s tenure.  He said - and all of this is roughly paraphrased - that TK never forgot that the best of Wake FOrest is providing an excellent education in a face-to-face community.  That he was surprised when he first came at how delighted parents and students are to come here - that there is a certain WF magic.

In terms of looking forward, NOH said that we have been a place of modest resources but extraordinary results - where there’s a will at WF, there’s a way. 

NOH also mentioned that we have been countercultural in some ways in our strategic thinking.  Where other top schools are trying to be research universities, we have been about the teacher-scholar model and understand that we must keep the richness of the graduate and professional schools but take students seriously.  That we understand the deeply personal nature of education - and this distinguishes us from the others. 

Bobby asked NOH about the idea of WF being a ‘crossroads for national and international discussions’ - and NOH said that we need to expose our students to the finest minds on pressing current issues.  That we can never be provincial - but instead must offer “a very rich banquet” for our students on the issues of our time.  He made a distinction that we try to offer “understanding, not advocacy” - our role is to promote thinking and understanding, not a specific point of view - and that’s why we had both Hillary Clinton and John McCain to campus - and had an open invitation to the other candidates. 

Provost Jill Tiefenthaler was up next.  She talked about our Strategic Plan and some of its components.  Our challenge is to define our niche in higher education, identify key components of our distinction, and create an action plan to secure our goals.

Our niche is the “Collegiate University” - and the strengths of it are that we are a face-to-face community where people engage deeply with learning and with each other.  We are grounded in the liberal arts but passionate about graduate and professional education.  Another distinctive is our emphasis on living the Pro Humanitate motto.  Among the action items to secure our goals are to build the best faculty, increase financial aid, educate the whole person, develop stronger ties between departments and schools, create mentoring and professional networks, strengthen international presence and diversity, and student service opportunities. 

JT said a telling thing about our Collegiate University is that all our schools (undergrad, grad and professional) are strong on their own, but they can come together in important ways.  I will add that I think our relatively small size lets us work together in ways that can not happen at larger, more siloed (is that even a word?) universities.

As if to emphasize that blending of schools and opinions, Jill then went on to interview 3 of the professional school deans - Bill Leonard of the Divinity School, Steve Reinemund of Business, and Blake Morant of Law.  Select highights of each:

Blake mentioned that law students need to learn more than just doctrine, they need to learn how to be pillars of society with strong community citizenship - a “Citizen-Lawyer” he called it

Bill talked about how the divinity students go immediately into internships at churches, chaplaincies or non profits - and talked about the importance of networking and learning from the other schools and departments here.  Bill had the best line of the night, saying for divinity students, “networking is second only to Jesus.”

Steve was asked about his views on diversity, and he said that he learned in business that if the company doesn’t represent the marketplace “from the front line to the boardroom” you can’t be successful.  It’s a business imperative to be diverse but it’s also the right thing to do.

They are as impressive a group of deans as I have ever seen at Wake Forest, and ditto for the provost.  This is a very, very exciting time to be a Deac.  We have tremendous leadership from the president on down and they have a deep understanding of our desire to be uniquely Wake Forest - and the best WF we can be.

Good times.

Today is a big day on campus. President’s Weekend begins - which is a weekend we use to honor members of our giving societies (folks who commit to make a gift at levels between 1,000-$25,000 year). Just like the year starts off on a high note for our students with lots of festivities, it is the same with our alumni, parents, and friends who support the school in the giving societies. Tonight we have a wonderful program planned - hearing from the president, provost, and some of our deans, followed by a gala evening in the newly-renovated Green Room.

Originally we had been planning to be in a tent on the Mag Patio, but Hurricane Hanna provided just enough of a scare with wind and rain that we could not use a tent lest it be too windy. It looks like it will rain late today - nothing to hurt our event - but tomorrow could be a soggy one for the home opener against Old Miss (and since my husband graduated from Ole Miss’ rival, I feel doubly compelled for the Deacs to beat the pants off of them and in the words of Coach Grobe “play like their hair’s on fire.”

Other excitement today is that there is finally some movement on the scoreboard situation in Spry stadium near the Polo Road entrance. There were tons of trucks and facilities people there when I drove onto campus after lunch, so work of some sort is being done. I hope our men’s soccer team - NCAA champs, I might add! - is getting some recognition there as well as a facelift on the scoreboard. They have earned it.

Must run, I am off to the first President’s Weekend event - a discussion session with Martha Allman, Director of Admissions, and Bill Wells, Director of Financial Aid, about the SAT decision.

Was over in the library the other day and saw the new study room they have been renovating this summer.  Jiminy crickets, its a heckuva setup.

When you first enter the library, this is the study room immediately on the right.  As you peek in the door, you see a sort of spiral staircase that leads up to a 2nd level - sort of a loft atmosphere.  The 2nd level loft runs along the length of the left wall, jutting out maybe 1/3 to 1/2 way across the width of the room.  So you have the ability to study up on the loft section, or below it.

Tables are all over the room, with lamps, great color scheme and decoration.  It seemed like a very warm toned room - maybe that was the lights.  At any rate, it is fantastic.  A far cry from the “Zoo” that I remember on the lower levels of the library that had a grim, institutional feel.  Almost like trying to study in a cagefighting room : )

The Starbucks will be opened later this month.  It is located just opposite the new study room - immediately on the left as you enter the ZSR Library.  If it is anything as nice as the new study room, our students are in for a real treat.

And when it’s cold enough for Starbucks to start making Pumpkin Spice lattes, I may just take my laptop over there to do some satellite blogging : )

I am moving into my new office and have been sorting through files as I figure out where to put things.  I have a file that’s full of great information on WFU - speeches, letters, memos, anything that has some value to our institutional history and memory.

Yesterday afternoon, I ran across a handwritten sheet of paper that said “Top 10″ - for the Top 10 moments in WFU’s history.  This was done probably in 2001 or 2002.  We’d had a staff meeting with a couple of key administrators, and we were talking about the pivotal moments in our history.    There were 2 administrators, and some of their list overlapped - so there are more than 10 moments.  Here is the list in no particular order:

Moving WFU to Winston-Salem

1988 Presidential Debate

2000 Presidential Debate

Admission of women and minority students

Disaffiliation with the NC Baptist Convention

Creation of WFU as a “University” not just a “College”

Tenure of TKH and his leadership

The triumverate of Old Campus legends: Bill Starling (dean of admissions), Ed Wilson (provost emeritus and professor of English) and Ed Christman (chaplain emeritus)

President Harry S. Truman on campus for the Groundbreaking in W-S

1995 and 1996 ACC Basketball Tournaments (GO RANDOLPH!!!!)

Dr. Poteat teaching evolution (when it was not politically correct to do so)

The securing of our international study abroad homes (Casa Artom, Worrell House, and now Flow House)

Joining the ACC

The Plan for the Class of 2000

There looks to be about 75-100 tables on the Manchester Quad this morning.  They are laid out in a big square in the center of lower Manchester, with a second, larger ring of tables encircling the smaller one.  I am assuming it’s for the Student Activities Fair, where every student organization on campus - service clubs, sports clubs, religious organizations, Greek organizations, you name it - can host a table so that the new freshmen can learn more about what they do.

Typically this is a great day - hundreds of students looking around at all the possibilities for getting involved at Wake Forest.  It’s a great way to meet people and it’s really impressive to see all the various ways that students are engaged on campus (and beyond).  It will be fun for me to watch it from my window - in just a couple of hours, the quad will be transformed into a flurry of activity.  It’s especially fun to watch the Greek tables - because they bring a lot of extra color to the scene, with their members wearing their Greek letters, having big signs and all that.

Will report more later if there is noteworthy info.  I may even walk down and check it out for myself.  It’s a gorgeous day on campus - sunny and warm.  A great day to be a Deac!

I have changed offices and instead of the Quad view I once had, I now have a Mag Quad (or Manchester Quad, as it is technically called now) view.  Today is overcast - the fog is thick enough that you can’t see the top of the Wachovia building downtown.  It’s almost like the skyline disappeared above the treeline.  It’s all hidden from view.

The new view is great for a couple of reasons:  1) when the leaves change, I have a much wider view of the south side of campus which is full of trees, and 2) in some ways, the activity center of campus has shifted a little bit from the main Quad (aka Hearn Plaza) to the south side.  The vast majority of the academic buildings are here, the 2 main eateries in Benson and the Pit (which to my great irritation, ARA continues to refer to as The Fresh Food Company).  A guess a fun 3rd reason I like this view is that it gives me an eye out toward the dorms of our newest students, the freshmen, and they are always fun to observe.

As I sat in an Orientation program last Friday night, I was amazed at how many of the students were multitasking at the time.  Though some were clearly listening to the speaker, most of them had their cell phones there and were checking them, texting people, etc.  I realized then that this current generation - smart as they are, skilled as they are - does not appear to be able to sit still and focus on just one thing.  Multitasking is wonderful - and a skill they will almost always need to have in their ultimate careers - but in some ways I was a bit sad to see that people no longer sit and listen to a lecture - they text at the same time.

Then again, I sat in the back, so maybe it was just the students in my section who were far from view of the speaker.  I hope so anyway.

I got an email from a colleague the other day that was sharing the story of Bruce Thompson (’88, JD ‘94) who is out at the Democratic Convention and is working on a blog and a video diary there. Thought it might be of interest to all the political aficionados out there.

Bruce will have his blog and a video diary available via the Fox News website (as he describes it ‘in what Rupert Murdoch will undoubtedly regret’ - very clever!). I found the blog easily on the Fox web site at http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/08/26/emilys-list/ - the video part I am not finding as easily, but then again it is 7am on a very rainy Wednesday and admittedly I am not altogther awake.

Bruce also mentioned his blog would be carried elsewhere, so here is a link to his blog on Media General: http://www.mgwashington.com/index.php/2008electionblog/blog_index/exciting-first-day-in-denver/1469/

I hope you’ll be pleased to know that our students are also getting engaged in the political process. On freshmen move in day, I happened to bump into a young man named Zahir Rahman (a junior, I believe), who had been the student leader for the Hillary Clinton event in Wait Chapel. He and I had done a lot of work on that event since I was the staff person assigned to help the students, so he gave me a hug hello and we chatted for a few minutes. I asked him if he was back early to be a student advisor, like me, and he said no, he was back because he was getting ready to go to the Democratic Convention. I was pretty impressed. It would have been very easy for me as a junior to say ’sure, it’d be interesting to go to a convention, but I’d miss the first few days of class, and that’d be a pain…’ and let the idea dwindle off to nothing. But Zahir is a go-getter and very motivated, so he is taking the plunge and doing it.

Good for him. And good for all of us that the Millenial generation is getting involved in politics. Whichever side they choose to vote for, I’m just thankful for their engagement and participation.

Today was gray and misty at first, then full on rain later.  Once again, I am amazed that the students here have SATs in the 1300s and above, yet so few of them own umbrellas.  Most of the students were just walking along with a hoodie.  Some of the girls had these really cute galoshes (or Wellies, for those of you Worrell House alumni who read the blog) - so I know they know there is rain gear available : )  They just choose not to do umbrellas for reasons unknown to me.

Freshmen finished registration today - they got to select 1/2 their classes Monday, the rest today.  Best as I can tell, my 11 students fared pretty well.  Only had one message from a student wait listed for Intro Spanish who really needed to select another course just so he had enough hours to qualify as a full time student.  All in all, that’s not too bad.

Today was also “buy your books” day - and there was a line of students waiting to go down the stairs to Taylor to the bookstore when I left.  It stretched almost to the entrance of Efird - and with a nice light rain, it probably made for a pretty cold and dismal experience.  Again, umbrellas would have been a nice touch.

Friday was the first full day of activities for freshmen and their parents - the early morning was meeting with the academic advisors (my 11 students are so great - I feel like I have gotten the best of the bunch), then Freshmen Convocation, then a boxed lunch on the Quad with their families.  The boxed lunch was meant to be a community type activity, and people spread red and white checkered blankets over the main Quad and the families sat down and ate - it looked like a small army of people.  I joked that it seemed like the footage of Woodstock, only cleaner : ) 

The surreal part was that after the lunch, we had to turn our minds from the celebration of the day to a more contemplative mood, as Dr. Hearn’s memorial service was Friday afternoon.  It was an incredibly moving tribute to him.  The 3 officiants were Bill Leonard, our amazing dean of the divinity school, Doug Bailey, our Episcopal priest and former Distinguished Alumni Award winner who specializes in urban ministry and social justice, and Tim Auman, our chaplain.  Each of these men has such a gift for ministry and prayer and reflection of the divine - and I can no way do justice to each of their remarks, except to say they were perfect.

Dr. Hearn was a big fan of Robert Frost, and one of his sons read a great poem about heaven and the constellations.  Interesting side note: he said that as kids, whenever they got in trouble, their punishment was to memorize poetry.  I think that is a great idea and forsee that my own son will be learning about selected highlights of TS Eliot, WH Auden and some of my favorites when he is a little older : )

One of the most moving parts of the service, in my opinion, was a speech by Mr. Wes Hatfield, an alumnus and life trustee.  He was the Chairman of the Board of Trustees during Dr. Hearn’s first year on campus and they became close friends.  Dr. Hearn evidently called Doug Bailey, Bill Leonard, Wes Hatfield, and Ms. Hearn together the weekend before he died to talk about how he wanted his memorial service to be.  At the end, Mr. Hatfield stayed with him a little while, and when he left to go, he got almost to the door and then he heard a still, small voice calling to him.  He went back to Dr. Hearn and talked a little more, and Mr. Hatfield said (I am paraphrasing) ”I don’t want you to go” and Dr. Hearn said “I am ready to go.”  Dr. Hearn told him that it was OK and “I will see you there” - and Mr. Hatfield said back “wait a minute Tom, I am not as certain as you that I will see you there!” (big chuckle from the audience).  But Dr. Hearn said “I will see you again.”  And it was a lovely, poignant look into this deep friendship and a very special goodbye.  Probably not a dry eye in the house. 

So on Friday we had jubilation from the freshmen, sadness for Dr. Hearn, and yet both were celebrations of a kind.

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/college/national-search

MSD went up 2 spaces and is ranked 28th in national universities by this year’s US News best colleges guide.   This is of course in the wake of the historic SAT decision, which some people feared would hurt our rankings - so good news all around!

Very little blogging today, as I have my first meeting with my 11 advisees this morning, and then will be attending Dr. Hearn’s memorial service after freshmen convocation.

This morning on the Quad, we are adding 2 wreaths to the one in Dr. Hearn’s honor.  One is from the Board of Trustees, and the other from the Wake Forest Alumni Association.  It is a small sign of respect for one who played such a great role in the history and progress of our institution.

The freshmen are here!  The freshmen are here!

It’s been a wonderful day to see - excited (and nervous) freshmen and their families.  Lots of help from WFU staff, particularly Facilities and Residence Life staff, who are out in force helping move the new students into their dorms. 

One of the funniest modern improvements to Move In Day are the shuttles that take students out to the IS building to pick up their laptops.  They are open air shuttle buses that are vivid red, green and yellow - its like seeing bright caterpillars inching along campus roads all day long. 

This morning I made the rounds of Luter, Babcock and Piccolo in search of the 11 students I’ll be advising.  I dropped off little goody bags and was able to chat with a handful of the students - most were in transit between car and dorm room with their boxes, but had a lovely chat with 3 of the moms.  Several of the girls I am advising are living in Babcock 3rd floor A side, which is where I spent my sophomore year and my best friends homesteaded there (while I went abroad) and kept their rooms for 3 years.  It’s still a great hall.  I have such fond memories.

And for all the alumni reading out there, the US News College Rankings will be released formally tomorrow.  There are quiet whispers that MSD fared well.  We’ll have to wait and see…

There is a wreath for Dr. Hearn at the entrance to the Quad (aka Hearn Plaza), just under the replica of the arch from the old campus.  There are some yellow flowers, and sunflowers - which I happen to like a lot - and black and gold ribbon.  It is solitary and dignified, which in many ways reminds me of Dr. Hearn himself. 

Saw his son Tom walking through Reynolda yesterday and he is remarkably like his father in looks.  He did a wonderful book of old Wake Forest postcards a few years ago - I think they are still available in the bookstore.  A great look at our history, particularly of the Old Campus.

People are a little concerned about the weather for the memorial service, which is set for this Friday at 3 p.m.  This tropical storm is giving a threat of rain.  Between freshmen move in tomorrow and Dr. Hearn’s service, no one wants it to rain.

I got an email this morning about one of our Demon Deacon Olympians, Hunter Kemper ‘98.  Though he did not medal in the triathlon in the Olympics, he was the US’s top male finisher.  Story below.

BEIJING, China (August 19, 2008) – The U.S. men’s triathlon team will be coming home from their third Olympics with no medals in tow after Tuesday’s race at the Ming Tombs Reservoir at the Beijing Olympic Games.

Hunter Kemper (Longwood, Fla. / Colorado Springs, Colo.) finished seventh in a time of 1:49:48, improving on his ninth place finish from Athens four years ago. Jarrod Shoemaker (Sudbury, Mass. / Maynard, Mass.) placed 18th with a time of 1:50:46, while Matt Reed (Boulder, Colo.) was 32nd in 1:52:30 in the first Olympics for each athlete.

Kemper, the only U.S. athlete to compete on all three Olympic teams, tried not to place any extra pressure on himself by having expectations of a top finish. That backfired in Sydney and Athens.

His only expectation this time around? To enjoy himself.

“It was a great day for me. I felt like I was soaring on wings like an eagle. The Lord carried me through. He blessed me so much today,” said Kemper. “My run fitness wasn’t quite there, where I wanted it to be. I think the maximum result would’ve been sixth. I laid it all out there today. I came off the bike in great position. I started the run well. It was a hot one, but I did all I could. That’s all I had.”

So here’s to you, Mr. Kemper!  Congratulations on a storied athletic career!

We got some very sad news today: President Emeritus Hearn passed away this morning. He had recently gotten some news that the cancer he had been battling had worsened, but this was certainly a shock to us all.

Much is going to be written about him in the coming weeks. There will be grander tributes and eulogies than I can write. So instead let me share a few of my thoughts about this very unique man. (And let me preface by saying that I knew him through work and did a lot of events with him - and he was comfortable enough to speak candidly in my presence - but I was not among his closest advisors. So while I have a semi-insider perspective, there are many others who can tell his story better.)

Before I started working at WFU, I had a certain impression of him - that he seemed a little distant perhaps, hard to approach. Once I began working with him, and realized the breadth and depth of the very difficult job of a university president, I realized that he was actually quite warm and personal. You just had to recognize that he had a public face that he wore to events and when he represented the University - but once he knew you, and when he was not being the public president, you realized just how warm he was.

He was a man who said less rather than more. I remember being told from my former boss that he once said of me “she seems very capable.” It was not his way to be lavish with praise, but to be much more understated. As I got to know him better, we developed the kind of working relationship where when I’d see him in the Pit, he’d smile and pat me on the shoulder and ask how I was, sort of in a fatherly way. He was thoughtful about personal things too. When my husband and I had our son, he and Mrs. Hearn sent a lovely card.

There were a lot of things I liked about Dr. Hearn - mostly because we shared some similar passions. He liked wine and had great affection for Joseph Phelps wines, from our late alumnus Tom Shelton. He and Ms. Hearn were dog people, and they had a great dog named Bo (or Beau - Ms. Hearn is a francophile so perhaps its the French spelling?) and Bo would be there at our events at the president’s house, always happy for me to pet him.

Closest to my heart, Dr. Hearn and I shared a great admiration for Randolph Childress. His very last day as president of WFU was the day that Randolph was coming to shoot some footage for a video for Dr. Hatch’s inauguration. I was on high alert that there were 2 people that needed immediate notification of Randolph’s arrival - TKH, and my friend Wes (the ultimate Deacon fan). I think Dr. Hearn and I were equally giddy to see Randolph that day. In fact, just today I ran across a picture from that day - it was also Dr. Hatch’s first day at work, so there is a pic of Randolph and both presidents in the lobby of the Green Room.

I was never more impressed with Dr. Hearn than in the days immediately following 9/11. He was always a very very good writer, but he really found his voice after 9/11. It was as if he realized on some deep level that the campus needed a father figure - someone to provide strength and solace and context about how tragedies form and inform our history. He spoke to the campus in Wait Chapel and it was brilliant. The best I’d ever seen him do. It’s like he formed a deep connection to the students in the wake of that tragedy. It was lovely and poignant.

So there are my first, rambling thoughts. My heart breaks for Ms. Hearn, for whom I have the utmost respect and affection, and for his family. May God be with them in their time of need.

Because he meant so much to so many, there is an online guest book that people can sign (link below). If you’d like to share your own comments here on the blog, please do. If there are stories worth sharing, I will add them to the main page.

Rest in peace, Dr. Hearn.

Sign the guestbook here: http://www.wfu.edu/wowf/guest/hearn/

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For those who are asking about a service for Dr. Hearn, this was in the email sent to faculty and staff today:

“A memorial service is being planned, tentatively for this Friday afternoon, August 22, in Wait Chapel. We will confirm those plans as soon as we know them. Please consult the Wake Forest website for more information in the coming days.”

The freshmen arrive on Thursday - and here are a few stats about the incoming Class of 2012, which will have about 1,200 members:

“This year’s freshman class represents 44 states and 12 foreign countries.  Twenty-six percent are North Carolina residents.  Thirty-seven percent of the students graduated within the top five percent of their high school classes, and 65 percent graduated within the top 10 percent.  Eighteen percent are minorities.”

http://www.wfu.edu/news/release/2008.08.14.s.php

One point of particular pride here - in my humble opinion - is that we are making great strides in having our campus community more closely reflect the world in which our students will ultimately live and work.  When I entered Wake Forest in 1988, only about 6% of the student body was students of color.  In the mid-90s, the number grew to about 10% of the WFU population, and in the mid 2000s had grown to 13-15%.  This year the percentage of students of color is 18%.   That is great news all around.

My personal belief is that we all benefit from different perpectives, backgrounds, and experiences - in the classroom and out.  So welcome to the newest 1,200 members of the WF family.  We’re glad to have you with us!

GIANT OOPS ON MY PART - I have just been told by a reader that those were last year’s rankings. Let me check with my colleagues tomorrow - but based on the US News web site, it says that the rankings will go live 8/22 - this Friday.

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so this is old news below - just a reminder of where we were ranked last year, and we can compare and contrast this coming Friday.  My bad!

WFU - #30 national research university

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/t1natudoc_brief.php

More details to come once I get a look at the full listing. I think we are unchanged from last year, but I need my friends in the News Service (who have access to the full data) to confirm.

And it is stunning!  The artwork went up today - 3 pictures on left wall (as facing Mag Patio), 3 I think on right wall.  They all have certain similarities - bold color, interesting and somewhat modern concepts.  My favorite is on the left wall at center - it reminds me of Matisse when he did the big bold shapes, lots of blue and red and very lovely altogether.

The lighting is complete - hanging WF fixtures (which appear to be original, but with more and better lighting), plus these big sconces.  The doors have been hung and stained so the natural wood shows through.  It really is a beautiful space.

Freshmen arrive in 6 days - lots of activity going on here.  I have seen some students moving in, no doubt either RAs or students here for one of the pre-school experiences.  Parking will be back to it’s old, bad ways next week.  I need to enjoy it while I still can : )

Today campus is absolutely lovely.  Sunny, mild temperature, slight breeze.  It’s the perfect day to be on a campus tour, or to be outdoors.  If the students were back, you’d see a ton of them playing Ultimate Frisbee on the Quad, or sunning themselves on Davis field (aka Davis Beach to the students). 

Freshmen arrive in one week and it will be great fun to get the campus filled with students again.  The summer is a bit of a lull - sure, we have lots of summer camps and conferences, but a lot of the faculty are away and certainly most of the students (save the ones in summer school).  There is just a different energy here when class is in session.

We’re also gearing up for fall events - our first one is September 5-6, President’s Weekend.  PW is designed to be a weekend to recognize and thank our alumni, parents, and friends who are members of our university giving societies (President’s Associates, President’s Club, Silver Society, Founders’ Circle, Pro Humanitate Society, and Society of 1834).  We are planning a great program for it, and if you are a member of one of our giving societies, you should already have received your invitation, so please sign up.  It’s going to be a wonderful weekend - and the football home opener/opening of Deacon Tower.  You won’t want to miss it.

This fall, there is going to be a fantastic debut of the newest Belle of the Ball - football that is.   It’s Deacon Tower, baby, and it looks amazing.  Our intrepid photographer, Ken Bennett, took some pictures recently of the new tower, and they are here for your viewing pleasure: http://www.wfu.edu/wowf/2008/images/20080805/slideshow/index.html 

Kudos to all in Athletics who made this happen.  It is a gorgeous facility and many, many long hours were put into this building - from function to decor to all the little touches that will make it special for our team and fans. 

One of my dearest friends from Wake Forest - I think she was even the first person I met at MSD - emailed our college set yesterday to remind us that it was exactly 20 years ago that we moved into Bostwick dorm.  I was an English-French double major and have always stunk at math, and at first I was feeling a bit haughty and superior that she got the year wrong.  It was impossible to think that our move in was 20 years ago.   And then once I did the math - and she was always much better at numbers than I was - I realized it was true.

20 years ago.

Holy moley, I am a lot older than I thought : )

Are going in the Green Room and Mag Rooms.  The tarp that has covered the Green Room entrances all summer is gone, and they look to be about 90% finished in the room.  The old wrought iron WF ceiling lights have been installed, as have these fancy old sconces that had been part of the original decor.  There are still 3 sconces that need to go up, but the lighting is almost finished.

Even nicer, there are doors to the Green Room from the Reynolda lobby, so that if there is a program or press conference going on in there, we can shut the doors off and not hear the sounds of traffic in the building or ARAMARK catering carts rumbling through.

We also snuck into the Little Mag.  It appears to be a light sandy color, and the hideous teal trim on the woodwork has been replaced with a pristine white, which looks great.  The room is now nice and warm feeling.  The old carpet is still there, so the room is not finished - but it’s well on its way.  Bravo, facilities.  You are doing a great job with these remodels.

Still trying to get the scoop on the Spry Stadium scoreboard situation (how’s that for alliteration?)  I have heard that it is a scoreboard upgrade, but need a little more info before I feel comfortable calling that the definitive answer.

[And as a totally unrelated aside, I am bleary eyed this morning from staying up to watch the swimming relay finals lastnight.  What an amazing comeback for the US team to beat the favored French. ]

The giant scoreboard on Spry Soccer Stadium (directly across from the DEKE house at the Polo entrance) has been taken down and is face down on the ground with lots of trucks around it.  I am hoping that what they are doing is erecting a giant sign proclaiming our men’s soccer team as NCAA Champions (woo hoo!  go soccer team!)  Realistically it could also be to add the new logo, fix the scoreboard if it’s broken.  But I like to think we are doing something big.  Will try to find out from campus sources and will post an update if I get one.

There is some very, very sad news from campus today.  Coach Battle of the basketball team lost his wife, Joyce, yesterday after a long illness.  They have a son in high school.  Please, everyone, remember the Battle family in your thoughts and prayers.  It is a terrible loss for the Battles, the basketball team, and the larger family of Deacon faithful. 

And is slowly making its way onto campus.   As I drove on yesterday via the Polo Rd/DEKE House entrance, I noticed that as you approach Wait Chapel and see the brown navigational signs, that the new logo is now on those signs.  Ditto for the Silas Creek entrance - when you get up the top of the hill closest to Olin/Salem and Winston, the new logo is there too. 

Saw it this morning on the truck that brings items to the Bookstore from the warehouse, and it’s starting to appear on merchandise in the Bookstore and Deacon Shop.  It’s good to see it.  I am assuming as we near the start of the school year, we may see it on banners and other things. 

I have had a number of delightful exchanges with parents lately - both parents of freshmen and parents of students who are enrolling this fall.  They tend to be the most enthusiastic people out there - and I sort of wish we had spaces for some of them to come back to school, because some of these parents fall in love with Mother So Dear even as much as their kids do.  I know it was that way for my folks.

Freshmen countdown continues, and I have been thinking about some of the differences in the Orientation schedule from when I entered in *gasp!* 1988, to today.  Select highlights:

Parking/unloading
- in 1988, your parents had to stake out a spot and get there at dark-thirty in the morning if you didn’t want to haul everything from East Jabib to your dorm.  You were largely on your own to unload, though there were kind souls from BSU or Intervarsity Christian Fellowship to help. 
- in 2008, your parents pull the car up to your dorm, a team of staff, students, and volunteers unload the car quickly and help you move it all to your room while your parents park in East Jabib.

Getting all the things you need
- in 1988, you walked to Reynolda to get your phone card, to Poteat to get your PO Box key, someplace else to get your meal card, you get the idea
- in 2008, you go to the Benson Center and do most of those things in a 1 stop shopping fashion

First night on campus
- 1988:  Ice cream social on the Mag Patio
- 2008: Movie on the Manchester (aka Mag) Quad

Registration
- 1988: Stand in a sweltering hot line snaking all through the first floor of Reynolda, even leading outdoors on the Quad, to wait to get to your turn with the kind people in the Registrar’s office who worked on a mainframe computer to schedule you
- 2008: get a PIN# and an assigned time and log on with your own laptop. 

There are many more differences, but I am out of time for this morning’s blog.  If you want to see the full schedule and do a compare-and-contrast to your own experience, here ’tis:  http://newstudents.wfu.edu/section.php?s=orientation&p=orientation_schedule

This year I am an academic advisor to 11 freshmen.  Just got their names today.  6 young women, 5 young men.  They are from the following states:  NC (3), MA (2), MD (1), OH (1), PA (1), TX (1), GA (1), NJ (1).  Which is fairly representative of the general WFU demographics - some concentration in the South, particularly NC, but also with a good spread in the Northeast/Mid Atlantic and some growing emphasis on places like Texas.  A handful of the girls are going to be living on my old hall in Babcock, if I am remembering correctly which side is A and which is the B side. 

One of the exciting parts about academic advising - aside from the obvious benefit of getting to know 11 great new students - is that we have some sessions together during Orientation where we get to have a meal and discuss some of the issues of our time.  We have assigned reading for this:  “Millenials Talk Politics:  A Study of College Student Political Engagement” - which will be discussed over dinner with our advisees. 

I always love when freshmen enter in a presidential election year, because for many of them, it’s the first time they are thinking politics on their own merit, vs. thinking about elections based on how their parents may want them to vote or voting based on predominant local loyalty.  I grew up in an area that was so heavily weighted in one direction, and pretty much the kids in my high school all voted one way because it’s simply what people did there.  When I got to MSD, I began thinking about what I believed.  Much better way to do it, IMHO.

For the parents reading this blog, encourage your kids to take some political science classes.  The only 2 professors I know much about are John Dinan and Katy Harriger, who are just dynamite.  I am sure the rest of the faculty is equally impressive - but if you get out of here without taking a class with Katy, you have missed out.  She is fantastic.

It’s August now, and there is no turning back - students will be here in 20 days.  Lots of projects are drawing to completion.   The Starbucks (which will be in the library) I think will be opening closer to September, and I have to think that the work that is being done to the Green Room and Little Mag Room will be finished within the next 20 days.

All through the summer, there has been a lot of renovation to the old faculty apartments (which will be used to house nearly 70 students - no freshmen) those will now be called the North Campus Apartments).   My understanding is that those will all be ready very soon.   The lucky students who end up in the North Campus Apartments are getting central air now - I have seen them installing the units.  Much better than the sweltering freshman year I remember - ground floor of a non-air conditioned dorm, and my mother put the fear of God in me not to leave my windows open at night, so we sweated plenty. 

I will tell you my best Faculty Apartments story:  I was privileged enough to go to a dinner party once at the home of Ed Wilson.  It was to celebrate the marriage of the daughter of another professor emeritus on Faculty Drive, and as it turned out there were a bunch of emeriti English professors there.   Some were trading stories of living in the Faculty Apartments in the 60s.  WFU was evidently host to WH Auden, the famous poet, who was here for a lecture or something. 

Evidently he was fond of the drink.  His faculty hosts had him at the apartments and he managed to drink the available liquor of one faculty member.  So if I remember the story correctly (always questionable) they went to ask another neighbor if they had anything - which they did.  It had been a rainy, soggy day, so there was a wet WH Auden, dripping rain onto the neighbor’s rug, asking for slippers and more cocktails.

As an English major, I was green with envy that a) my emeriti professors had met WH Auden and b) that they had such an interesting night with him.  Anyway, just to reassure that he was not all drunkenness and rain puddles, here is one of my favorite of his poems.  Clearly, the man had talent: