News
We are still awaiting our final year end totals (as WFU’s fiscal year ended June 30th) to see if we reached our fundraising goals for the year. We were tracking very strong on dollars - ahead of schedule even - but we needed some additional alumni donors to meet our goals. We should know by this Friday. Many thanks to all of you who contributed - whatever the amount. Your participation is so appreciated!
I will be slow to blog over the next few days, as I will be at our Summer Leadership Conference, where we gather together the alumni councils and boards of visitors for all the schools of the Reynolda Campus. We have probably 250 people coming and it should be great. With any luck (and a good wireless connection), I will be able to keep you apprised of interesting news from the conference. A couple of key highlights: the legendary Ed Wilson and Arnold Palmer will be our banquet speakers, reminiscing about their days at Wake Forest and talking about their role as public spokespeople for our financial aid initiative. (Brief aside: my late father would have given his right arm to meet Mr. Palmer. He was so excited that AP was the commencement speaker in 2005, when my niece was graduating from WFU). Then on Saturday, our Trustee Al Hunt, whose career in political journalism is legendary, will be our keynote speaker on Saturday, presenting a panel on presidential politics.
Can I confess that I sat up tearfully to watch the Tim Russert memorial, in which Mr. Hunt did a lovely speech? He got the greatest line of the evening in there, about Tim Russert’s much adored son Luke. He said something about when Luke was born, he and his wife Judy went up to see “the most celebrated baby in 2000 years” - no doubt true. Anyway, I have such admiration for the way he carries himself on television and he is such a gracious person for one so famous. I met him once and he was just lovely to me.
Finally, the last bit of news - I have a new job. I am moving from the Alumni office to the Development office to become the Director of Volunteer Leadership, which means I will have strategic responsibility for programming and messaging for all of our volunteer boards and councils on the Reynolda Campus.
Even though I will not be in the Alumni Office, I am still going to blog. (I have decided to take a page from the esteemed show “Melrose Place” and bill myself as “Special Guest” - as they did for Heather Locklear). Emily Smith - our incredibly talented and multifaceted Assistant Director of Communications here - also has rights to the blog, and I hope that as she is able, she will add her own posts here. So you will still see me here, just as a “Special Guest” : )