"Wanda Balzano" Archive

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. Headshot of Wanda Balzano, founding chair and associate professor of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies at WFUThe 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 NewsInside WFU

"Re-thinking Marginalized Identities in Pandemics" colloquium Oct. 9

Wake Forest University and Sant’Anna Institute in Sorrento, Italy, have teamed up to present the second International Virtual Colloquium, titled “Re-thinking Marginalized Identities in Pandemics” on Friday, Oct. 9, at 11 a.m. Graffiti stencil that says "COVID-19" beneath a face mask

Organized and moderated by Sant’Anna academic director Marco Marino and Wake Forest associate professor of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Wanda Balzano, the colloquium will examine the ways the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted equity and equality. Top scholars from around the world will consider the disproportionate and devastating outcomes of the pandemic and how they relate to gender, sexuality, race and class. Through these conversations, Wake Forest, the Sant’Anna Institute and panelists will contribute to the current and urgent conversation about equality from a multicultural perspective.

The event is free to attend. Complete the registration form to receive an emailed link to the webinar.

Read more about the colloquium and view the list of panelists on the Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies website.

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

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.

Professor Wanda Balzano teaches her British literature class“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.

Department Chairs and administrative assistants for 2015-16

Please find below a list of academic department chairs and their administrative assistants for 2015-2016, as of July 1, 2015:

Read more

Categories: Faculty NewsStaff News

Faculty milestones for August 2014

See a list of faculty milestones for August 2014.

Read more

Categories: Faculty News

Archives