A poem for the WFU Class of 2021: “Closing Remarks” (after a pandemonium)
Wanda Balzano, founding chair and associate professor of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies, wrote an occasional poem dedicated to the Wake Forest University Class of 2021. 
The University honored graduates with a series of small diploma ceremonies in the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum and an historic commencement celebration at Truist Field on Sunday, May 16, 2021.
Visit the Experience 2021 Commencement site to view photos, videos, speeches and performances from commencement weekend.
Last year, Balzano wrote and dedicated a poem to Wake Forest University students who finished the spring 2020 semester remotely amid the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic’s spread in the U.S.
“Closing Remarks” (after a pandemonium)
For the WFU Class of 2021
How will the curtain drop?
Will the crucible be covered, and the shutters closed?
Will the bottle be corked, the wine undrunk?
You have arrived now at the end where you began
These four years of your breath
These four years of thinking
These four years of learning
Away from home,
You translated hope into action, your dreams
Carved into stepping stones of new dawns.
The hands that accompanied your walk
Will let you go, now–
And you are leaving, in a group and alone,
With a promise being fulfilled.
Behind you, the deluge of history
Without atonement.
Like sweet sailor Deucalion and
Pyrrha the flame-colored one,
Your head slanted above your shoulders
Stepping out of the gray twilight into the tints of
the bright beacon of tomorrow,
And your arms arched high into a spur
You sow back into the trenches and the trails
Pebbles of your wisdom.
With foot after foot falling forward,
You leave a mark, unclosed, on the damp earth
To unseal and heal the bones of your mother
So dear.
Categories: Faculty News, Inside WFU
Julia Jordan-Zachery will join WFU faculty as chair of the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department
The following is a guest post from the Office of the Dean of the College. 
Professor Julia Jordan-Zachery will be joining the faculty as chair of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department in July. Jordan-Zachery is a leading voice on Black feminism and public policy, having published six books within the field including “Shadow Bodies: Black Women, Ideology, and Representation” (Rutgers University Press, 2017) and co-edited “Black Girl Magic Beyond the Hashtag: Twenty-First-Century Acts of Self-Definition” (Arizona University Press, 2019) and “Black Political Women: Demanding Citizenship, Challenging Power, and Seeking Justice” (SUNY University Press, 2018). Her first publication, “Black Women, Cultural Images and Social Policy” (Routledge, 2010) won the W. E. B. Dubois Best Book Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists and the Anna Julia Cooper Outstanding Book Publication Award by the Association for the Study of Black Women in Politics.
“I am thrilled that Julia Jordan-Zachery is joining Wake Forest University’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department. Julia is a noted scholar of Black feminism, an exceptional teacher-scholar, a practitioner of the engaged liberal arts through her important community justice work, and if all those amazing and welcome attributes were not enough, she will be serving as the next WGSS department chair. Students and faculty alike will all benefit from Julia’s powerful mind, deep dedication to substantive student learning, and impressive leadership skills. The WGSS Department could not have found a more exceptional and well-suited scholar for this critical role,” Dean of the College Michele Gillespie said.
Wake Forest Professor of the Humanities Corey D. B. Walker. Walker, inaugural director of the Program in African American Studies at Wake Forest, said, “I am excited to be reunited with a dear friend and committed intellectual. Black feminist studies is foundational to African American studies and to a liberal arts education. With Julia, we will continue to challenge ourselves as teachers and scholars to realize a broader and deeper understanding of Pro Humanitate.”
Read more about Jordan-Zachery, including a Q&A, on the College News website.
Categories: Faculty News, Guest Post, Inside WFU
