IdeasCityWS Festival and the Marketplace of Ideas this Saturday
A guest post from Wake the Arts and Wake Forest’s Office of University Collaborations.
On Saturday, Oct. 2, the IdeasCityWS Festival comes to Bailey Park as art, tech, design, and culture lead the conversation forward. Featuring interactive exhibits from two dozen local creative organizations, we’ll engage with a range of working ideas poised to move our communities forward as we reimagine a post-pandemic Winston-Salem. Vice Provost for the Arts & Interdisciplinary Initiatives Christina Soriano asks, “Winston-Salem has so many talented artists and scientists doing important work, yet often separated from one another. How can educational institutions be leaders in bringing these communities together more powerfully?”
Here’s where Wake Forest will be participating in the Marketplace of Ideas and panel discussions: Read more
Categories: Guest Post, Inside WFU
A Message from President Hatch
President Hatch emailed this message to students, faculty and staff on Feb. 22:
Dear Wake Forest students, faculty and staff,
Last night, there was a campus forum on creating more inclusive climates at Wake Forest. Several students voiced their acute and ongoing hurt, frustration and fatigue surrounding the underrepresented student experience on campus and the slow pace of change in bringing racial equity to our community.
As an institution of higher learning, Wake Forest is called to be a place where every member of our community cares about the treatment of people, seeks to understand the experiences of others and works together to become better. I want students at Wake Forest to know, at a deep and personal level, that you are valued here, even if it doesn’t always feel that way.
Following the forum, Dean of Admissions Martha Allman apologized to the campus community for appearing in a 1982 group photo with the Kappa Alpha Order before the Confederate flag. Since then, she has devoted her professional career to improving Wake Forest, and I have accepted her apology.
I have often spoken of the need to be in conversation with one another, which is why I am meeting with student leaders and University administrators to navigate our path forward.
I am grateful to the students, faculty and staff who have voiced their concerns. I remain committed to pursuing the sense of belonging we want everyone in our community to feel.
Sincerely,
Nathan O. Hatch
President
Categories: Inside WFU, University Announcement
'College House' opens for retired Wake Forest faculty
A guest post by Alex Abrams, Communications Coordinator, Office of the Dean of the College
Ed Wilson sat in a plush chair with a book of poetry in his hands.
Rather than enjoying a quiet evening, Wilson entertained the small crowd that gathered on Oct. 23 inside the renovated house at 2430-A Reynolda Road with poems by former Poet Laureate Billy Collins.
Looking up every so often from his book, he recited Collins’ poem “Schoolsville” about a retired college professor adjusting to life away from the classroom. The crowd laughed as Wilson read aloud.
After all, many of the people in attendance for the grand opening of the College House were retired Wake Forest faculty members – including Wilson, the longtime English professor and provost affectionately known as “Mr. Wake Forest.”
Categories: Inside WFU, University Announcement
Martha Allman appointed Senior Assistant Provost
This message was sent earlier today on behalf of Provost Rogan Kersh
Wake Forest Faculty and Staff,
Dean of Admissions Martha Allman (’82, MBA ’92) has accepted a new position as Senior Assistant Provost. Effective July 1, 2019, Allman will join the provost’s office in a role combining advisory and leadership responsibilities, with particular focus on bringing greater coherence to the array of programs and services we offer our students.
As undergraduate admissions dean for nearly two decades, Dean Allman developed extensive knowledge of our students and campus, distinctively enabling her to integrate the services and programs that connect—and transcend—academic disciplines and support offices. Her long-standing relationships across our community with students, faculty, administrators, alumni, parents, and trustees are invaluable in advancing this essential work.
Categories: Inside WFU, University Announcement
Faculty Drive neighborhood remains an integral part of the Wake Forest community
This is a guest post from Alex Abrams, communications coordinator in the Office of the Dean of the College:
A large historical marker stands at the corner of Faculty Drive and Timberlake Lane, just across the street from where Wake Forest University’s Department of Biology is housed inside Winston Hall.
The words “Welcome To Historic Wake Forest Neighborhood – Est. 1956” are etched into the metal historical marker, which has been painted old gold and black like other signs posted around campus.
Just past the marker, one- and two-story houses line the five quiet streets that make up the neighborhood. The houses range in style, with some exteriors made of brick and others covered with wood. Large trees in each yard provide both shade on a hot afternoon and a limb for the occasional tree swing.
Martha Allman, WFU’s Dean of Admissions, got a sense of the neighborhood during her four years living on campus as an undergraduate student. Her freshman advisor had a house on Royall Drive and hosted a dinner for students during Orientation.
“I had this very idealized feeling about that neighborhood and how wonderful it would be to live there,” Allman said.
In 2001, Allman and her husband moved their two young daughters into a yellow house on Faculty Drive. Their neighbors include a “Who’s Who” list of WFU administrators, professors, and staff members who also enjoy living on campus, walking to work, and hosting students in their homes.
The Historic Wake Forest Neighborhood was started the same year WFU moved its campus to Winston-Salem as a place for faculty who had relocated to live. It has since grown into a tight-knit community where dozens of university employees have raised their children just down the street from Wait Chapel for more than 50 years.
“Over here faculty members are our next-door neighbors, and the fact that one faculty member was a historian, another one was a psychologist, another one was a physicist, that’s tremendously important,” said Ed Wilson, the longtime English professor and Provost who is affectionately known as Mr. Wake Forest.
“And of course it made our children grow up with the idea that it was important to go to college, and if they could, it was important to do well.”
Wilson still lives in the same four-bedroom house that he and his wife, Emily, built on Timberlake Lane in 1964. He raised his three children there. He can still remember the different routes he used to walk every day to reach his favorite spots on campus, including his office in Tribble Hall.
Categories: Inside WFU
