Inside WFU – news for faculty and staff

Pre-College Program department's online summer offerings

May 22, 2020

The following message is shared on behalf of Pre-College Programs: 

Pre-college students across the country are realizing that many of the summer activities they look forward to most – camp, travel, summer jobs/internships, volunteer work, and mission trips –  are canceled for this summer. If you are the parent of or know of a motivated middle or high school student who is looking for something meaningful to participate in this summer, please share this opportunity with them! We are currently accepting applications for both programs.

Summer Exploration Program – Online Experience:

The Summer Exploration Program offers rising 7th – rising 9th-grade students the opportunity to investigate STEM topics while engaging in live learning sessions with Wake Forest staff and discussions with like-minded peers from across the country. Tuition is $400, and families can choose either of the two sessions: June 15 – 18 or July 6 – 9. Applications will close two weeks prior to each session’s start date.

Summer Immersion Program – Online Experience:

The Summer Immersion Program offers high school students the opportunity to explore a career pathway or field of study, virtually, this summer. Students will network and engage with experienced professionals, participate in online simulations and labs and discuss relevant topics that interest them most. Tuition ranges from $700 – $995, and applications are accepted on a rolling basis. The topics of the 13 institutes and their dates can be found on the Summer Immersion Program website.

President Hatch talks with Vice President Pence about COVID-19 and higher education

May 20, 2020

On May 13, President Nathan Hatch was among a group of 14 higher education leaders from across the country invited to talk with Vice President Mike Pence regarding the impact of COVID-19 on colleges and universities and what it will take to reopen campuses in the fall. This was what he shared at that meeting.

Update on capital projects

May 19, 2020

The following message is shared on behalf of John Shenette, vice president, facilities and campus services, and Hof Milam, Executive Vice President:

As stated in the message to faculty and staff on April 8, the University is reviewing all capital projects to determine whether or not they should proceed. Projects that are deemed necessary for the health and wellbeing of our students, faculty and staff, or are deemed critical to campus infrastructure are proceeding. Based on this guidance, the University has suspended most projects with the exception of the following:

• Bostwick and Johnson: Bostwick and Johnson residence halls (currently closed) and neighboring buildings on Gulley Drive (among the first original buildings to open on the Reynolda Campus) will receive new heating and cooling equipment to improve indoor air quality and increase control of indoor environments. Work began on these structures the week of May 4 and will continue throughout the summer.
• Greene Hall: This project will focus on failing structural conditions and water infiltration issues. The project will include new water proofing, exterior wall panel replacement and repairs to the large skylight above the atrium. Two elevations of the building will be addressed: (1) east – facing the Athletics facilities and (2) west – facing Manchester Plaza. Access to the building will remain available. Phase One was completed over winter break. Phase Two of the project begins the week of May 18 and will continue throughout the summer.
• Chilled water line extension: The line runs underground along Carroll Weathers Drive past the Worrell Professional Center and will be extended from the Wake Forest Road/Carroll Weathers Drive intersection to Wellman Way. This is the final phase of the 2009 Campus Master Plan to connect the North and South Chiller Plants. This connector is intended to expand chilled water capacity to buildings on the eastern side of campus including Worrell Professional Center, Alumni Hall, Sutton Sports Performance Center/Shah Basketball Complex and Palmer/Piccolo.  The extension will also greatly improve chilled water distribution challenges across campus. Intermittent road closures are likely during the project. Work began in early May and will continue throughout the summer.
• Sutton Sports Performance Center completion: The remainder of the natural turf practice field to the west of Sutton Sports Performance Center will be completed this summer. Completion of this project is necessary to return the construction staging site to its pre-project use and to provide proper storm water management for the area to the east of Manchester Athletic Center.
• Wake Downtown: The final phase of build-out for the Department of Engineering at Wake Downtown will be completed later this summer. This work is necessary to provide instructional spaces for the junior and senior classes and to meet accreditation requirements of the program.
• Renovation of Palmer/Piccolo: The renovation of these former residence halls began before COVID-19 and will be continued to provide much needed classroom, lab space and offices for the Department of Anthropology and The Museum of Anthropology.

Library Partners Press announces award recipients

May 19, 2020

Library Partners Press, a digital publishing imprint of Wake Forest, announced this week the recipients of its 2020 David Coates Award for Non-Fiction and its 2020 Gail O’Day Award for Poetry.

Thomas Edward Frank, professor and associate dean for continuing studies in the Graduate School, received the non-fiction award for the book entitled “Historic Houses of Worship in Peril: Conserving Their Place in American Life.”

Lamaya Covington Williams (’01, MALS ’05) received the poetry award for a book entitled “Tree River Fish: Poems on America’s Reaping.”

Of Frank’s book, Library Partners Press provided the following from Paul Edmondson of the National Trust for Historic Preservation: “In Historic Houses of Worship in Peril, Thomas Frank lays out the case for how historic houses of worship serve as ‘essential elements of the sense of place that grounds community life in America.’ Unfortunately, as he also describes, social and religious changes over time and across the American civic landscape means that these key community assets are seriously threatened.”

Library Partners Press describes Williams’ new book of poetry as offering instructive and timely poems on the condition of the United States during the present presidential administration. Library Partners Press, a digital publishing imprint of Wake Forest producing high quality monographs in both print-on-demand and ebook formats, is now accepting nominations and manuscripts for its 2021 Awards.

Please contact librarypartnerspress@nullwfu.edu for more information.

An occasional poem about graduation: "The Quarantine's Other Heroes"

May 18, 2020

Wanda Balzano, associate professor of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies, wrote an occasional poem dedicated to Wake Forest University students who finished the spring semester remotely amidst the coronavirus pandemic. The University is honoring graduates with a Virtual Conferring of Degrees today, May 18 and with an on-campus commencement ceremony on October 31, 2020.

“The Quarantine’s Other Heroes”

To my Wake Forest Students

Every day, face to face with a monitor:
Computer, tablet, phone.
Not everyone is the same,
For how many members are in a family,
How many rooms are in a house,
Helping their parents
Make ends meet, perhaps,
Or helping siblings
On their homework.

Kneading voices into sleep, from the East and the West,
Pens and books on their desks, beds, or laps;
Wearing sweaters over pajamas,
Hair combed, or not,
Make-up on their faces, or not,
Or darkened screens to hide it all,
When lessons begin.

Losing connections at times
Every so often they say
Their ritual “good morning” or “good night”
In Winston, in Seattle, or Korea.

In step with programs, counting days,
To put humanity back in the word
For ‘school’—the flesh of an active noun and verb
That smells of fresh chalk or dry eraser on the board
Mixed with take-out choices,
And free-reining hormones.

Days go by, one by one,
Labeling trips untaken
Parties not attended
Celebrations unlived.

Who is going to requite
Such emotions of year’s end
To these young scholars?
The night before the exams,
With the anxiety, and relief,
That feeling of shared
Destinies with peers,
Where is that restitution?

A self-crowned microbe
Is cruel and a tyrant, but will not win.
So many of them
Have learned the ways of champions
In a suspended time.
They have a life to journey through,
And they are learning in short order
Not to be presumptive – that
Nothing ought to be for granted.

Rather, some of them
Carrying Anchises on their backs,
Will wait out of danger and go back and run,
And color again the streets,
The schools, and life
On our earth, by and by.