Thank you, thank you, thank you!
As promised, I said I would let you know about the Annual Fund goals that we were trying to reach. We had already met our dollar goal before June 30th (and the end of the WFU fiscal year), but we were scraping to reach our donor goal. But we did it! And I am very, very grateful. I have no idea how many of you gave, but I am assuming that you did and I want to tell you how thankful we all are.
There is other news to share on campus. Yesterday I was at a departmental staff meeting and Martha Allman, Director of Admissions, was there. She talked about plans - a couple of years down the line most likely - to build a new admissions building. I did not realize this before Martha told us, but they had 13,000 students visit last year. That number is just students - not including their parents, siblings, or great Aunt Minnie who came along for the ride. So the admissions house is seeing an awful lot of traffic and from plumbing to parking could use an upgrade. Makes sense to me.
The house - named Starling Hall after the late great Bill Starling, our much beloved Dean of Admissions who died suddenly (at the Alumni Admissions Forum, which I was running - the worst day of my professional life) - is a major piece of WFU history. Until 1989 it had been the president’s home. Some of you perhaps don’t know this, but after Bill died, Martha chose not to use his office. She made it into a conference room or a place where you could hold admissions interviews. It is a big beautiful room, paneled walls, tons of bookshelves. When Bill was alive, his office was notoriously messy - one story goes that when admissions was still located in Reynolda Hall, someone reported that his office had been broken into and the campus police called him to come in and survey the ransacking that the burglars had done to it - and in reality it was just as Bill had left it - stacks of paper everywhere, piles, ashtrays, you name it. Martha told us yesterday that finally she has moved into Bill’s office. Because of expansion of their staff over the years, her old office is now housing 4 people.
Since I am reminiscing about people who have since passed on, I can tell you something I learned at the Summer Leadership Conference this past weekend. Our great Trustee Al Hunt was doing a session on presidential politics, and to introduce him, there was a video montage of some of his more memorable TV moments. The final clip was of him at Tim Russert’s memorial service.
When the clips ended and Al Hunt took to the podium, the first thing he talked about was Tim. He said that Tim was a real Wake Forester - that he was a sports fan and would always call Al whenever WF won a big game - and would not ever call when we lost…until Luke Russert started at Boston College, then all bets were off if BC beat us : ) Then Al Hunt disclosed that part of Tim Russert’s Wake Forest connection was that he had been scheduled to be the commencement speaker for 2009. You could have heard a pin drop. It was just so sad.
————
Edited to add: There was a great story in the W-S Journal yesterday about our alumnus and friend Jamie Dean, who graduated in ‘05 I believe and is finishing his JD/MBA here. He is a rower (and actually rowed with my niece, an ‘05 grad) and will compete in the Paralympics in Beijing I think. Jamie is the real deal. Wonderful and gifted human being. (Side note about Jamie, I was in love with his old guide dog, Paul. Paul was this fabulous yellow lab - who had broken a tooth and actually had a big silver tooth in its place. He was a great dog. I should have offered to keep him after he got too old to guide - I would have loved it. Jamie, if you read this, put me on the list as a caretaker for your new dog!) http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2008/jul/14/from-carolina-to-china-blind-wake-forest-student-t/