"Polly Black" Archive

Centers and Institutes Leadership Updates

For nearly 10 years, Wake Forest University’s Centers and Institutes have added greatly to the scholarly and creative life of campus, helping enhance both the impact and visibility of faculty engagement across disciplines. Wake Forest salutes and congratulates the faculty and staff who currently serve in, or have recently concluded, directorships and related leadership roles:

  • A new Center is in its planning-grant year, the Center for Functional Materials. Timo Thonhauser and Oana Jurchescu, both of our Department of Physics, serve as Co-planning Directors. The Center aims to bring together faculty from physics, chemistry, engineering and medicine to explore organic electronics, metal-organic framework materials and other next-generation materials.
  • Marianne Magjuka became the Executive Director of the Pro Humanitate Institute in September. Wake Forest thanks Melissa Harris-Perry, who previously served as the Executive Director and whose term as Faculty Director concluded at the end of the fall semester, for her three-year tenure at the helm of PHI and her ongoing direction of the Anna Julia Cooper Center.
  • Recently, Dan Cohen was named John C. Whitaker, Jr. Executive Director of the Center for Innovation, Creativity & Entrepreneurship (ICE), with Paul Pauca taking the helm as ICE Faculty Director. University leaders extend their gratitude to Polly Black, outgoing director, and Bill Conner, who, until recently, served as Faculty Director since ICE’s inception.

Categories: Faculty NewsInside WFU

Faculty receive awards for contributions to entrepreneurship

Three faculty members — Jeanne Simonelli, Ananda Mitra and Polly Black — received awards on April 11 at the annual Excellence in Entrepreneurship Awards banquet, co-hosted by the Entrepreneurship Society and the Center for Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship (CICE).

Read a full summary of the event, which celebrates the achievements of students, faculty and staff, and the keynote speech by Jean Case, CEO of The Case Foundation »

Jeanne SimonelliSimonelli, a professor of anthropology, received the Russell D. and Elfriede Hobbs Faculty Award for Social Entrepreneurship. Simonelli taught one of the first cross-campus entrepreneurship classes called Free Trade, Fair Trade: Independent Entrepreneurs in the Global Market. She also took the entrepreneurial torch to Nicaragua and helped to teach the principles of entrepreneurship to small business owners there.

Ananda MitraMitra, a professor of communication, received the David and Leila Farr Award for Course Development and Research. Mitra has published a series of 10 books on the effects of digital technology on the world and coined a new term, the NARB, an item of personal information posted online. Mitra and his new digital technologies are shaping everyday life practices from how we teach to the way in which the marginalized can gain a voice through the use of Internet.

Polly BlackBlack is an instructor in the School of Business, an affiliate professor with the Documentary Film Program and the assistant vice president and director of the CICE. She won the Faculty Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award from the students for the impact she is making on their lives through her teaching and mentoring. One student said, “She has given so many students the opportunity to pursue their dreams while developing a skill set no other department at Wake Forest can teach you. Through her I’ve learned to be a better leader, visionary, and creative thinker.”

Categories: Faculty News

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