Misc Monday
What a glorious, glorious weekend we just had. Yesterday was about 60-65 degrees and sunny – so wonderful after the snow. There is still some snow lingering, by the way, mostly on the side of the roads where it had been piled up by snow plows and now has all manner of exhaust from cars graying it. But with this warmth, we will no doubt fool some of the daffodils and other flowers into trying to burst into life early.
Couple of great news items to tell you about from late last week. Wake Forest was awarded a $650,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the ‘engaged humanities’:
“Funding will support a range of humanities-inflected programming, including, in response to high faculty demand, more opportunity for cross-disciplinary faculty to teach together and offer students the benefit of intentional cross-disciplinary learning, particularly in the context of publically engaged courses, for which faculty have increasingly been seeking support.”
We have a fantastic program of experiential learning taking place right now with the Iowa Caucuses. Wake the Vote has taken 22 students to Iowa to work on a presidential campaign:
“When 22 Wake Forest University students travel to the Iowa caucuses to work with presidential campaigns, they will embark upon a yearlong journey that combines classroom and real-world political experience through a program called Wake the Vote….From volunteering on the campaigns of presidential candidates to attending classes to planning community forums to organizing non-partisan voter registration efforts, the group will spend 2016 examining issues central to the presidential election.”
The students are randomly assigned to a candidate at each major campaign destination to which they will travel, giving them broad exposure to different candidates and campaigns. (And just a plug here: if your student has not registered to vote, please encourage him/her to do so. Look into absentee ballots in your state.)
Also, for first-year students contemplating applying to the School of Business, February is full of activities just for first-years. There will be information sessions, discussions of how to study abroad as a business major, drop-in times for Q&A and more. A word of advice too: please tell your first-year students to heed the recommendations of the advisers in the business program about the timing of their study-abroad experience. This might mean going abroad spring of sophomore year instead of fall of junior year – but there are good reasons for that.
A past event to mention – we have a video about the making of the Sutton Center (gym addition). If you want a look at this project from the beginning to end, this covers it all.
Finally, a few upcoming events to mention:
STEM Slam is this Wednesday evening
There is an Art Career Panel on Thursday evening
aWAKE All Night will start this Saturday
Those are but three things in a very full week. See for yourself at the Events Calendar.
Make it a great week, Deac families! And if you haven’t sent your student a Deacon Greeting lately, keep this on your radar screen for Valentine’s Day (or just to say “I love you” – that never gets old!)