There is a Study Abroad Fair tomorrow (Tuesday 1/29) from 11 am-4 pm in Benson University Center Room 401.

If your student has not gone abroad yet as part of his/her college experience, please recommend the Study Abroad Fair to your student.

I can say this from personal experience – and it has been echoed in the stories of legions of students I have met during my time as an administrator – the semester (or summer) you spend abroad is transformational.  It is unbelievable how much it expands a student’s worldview, sense of history, understanding of other cultures, and self-reliance.

I loved every minute of 7 semesters of my undergraduate time at Wake Forest, but my semester abroad was transcendent and provides me with lessons I still use today and memories I treasure.

So parents of first years, sophomores, and even juniors – if you have not had the discussion about an abroad experience, please talk to your student about it.  There are some stipends and scholarships available to assist students with financial need.

Best. Semester. Ever.

Wake Forest students who have studied

For any of the Deac families keeping an eye on the weather, it looks like our little slice of NC is going to get some rain, freezing rain, sleet, or snow, depending on which weather forecaster you use.  It is already very dark and cloudy and extremely cold.   The action had appeared as if it will start right around midday – but it is 9 am and it is snowing lightly right now.  As in any other weather situation, your student would be notified if there classes were to be canceled.  Here’s a reminder of how those weather or emergency notifications work.

If your students are looking for things to do this weekend (and wish to stay on campus because of weather) there are a number of options:

- Late Night Laser Tag on Saturday night

- Movies in Pugh Auditorium – either Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone or Argo

- Laurel McLaughlin, one of our Presidential Scholars, is doing a recital on Saturday

- Women’s basketball plays at 2 pm at  the LJVM Coliseum

There are many more activities that will be sponsored by individual groups, club sports and campus rec, etc.  These are just a few highlights.

And because we haven’t said this in a while, it is a good time to remind parents and families of the importance of making a Friday afternoon phone call to your student.

It has been a very, very brisk couple of days at Wake Forest.  I walked across the Quad this morning and much of the victory toilet paper has been blown out of the trees, because it has been very windy.  We’re still rolled – it’s just the stuff that is higher up and more tangled.

Students appear to be largely staying inside when they can, though every morning you do see the dedicated early morning runners (today I saw one young man in shorts – and he must have been freezing).  There has been some talk on the news about getting some freezing precipitation tomorrow.  Looks like it would start late morning or midday, we’ll have to wait and see.

Today is Bid Day for fraternities so new members will become pledges and they’ll start the process of brotherhood in their new organizations.  Just as on the women’s side, there will likely be some young men who are disappointed at not having received a bid.  In those cases, we want to remind parents that they have many avenues of support open to them, including: talking to their RA, the Counseling Center, a member of the Chaplain’s office, or a trusted faculty or staff mentor.  There are many, many people on campus who would be very happy to help students engage in other areas of campus life and provide some support and suggestions.  If your student falls into one of these categories, see if he is willing to talk to his RA or a member of the Greek Life of Campus Life staff.  And the Parent Programs office is always here as well, and we can help refer students as needed if you email parents@wfu.edu.

I hope you had access to cable TV or an iPad/computer hookup lastnight, because the men’s basketball team put up one for the ages.  We played old Big Four rival NC State, and State had been predicted to beat us (at least among those stats aficionados that I hang around with).  NC State had knocked out #1 Duke a couple of weeks ago and was ranked 18th in the nation, and Little Old Wake Forest was not given much of a chance.  And in some ways, that’s where we do our best work – when people underestimate us.

The game turned out to be an incredible one – with lead changes, and big runs that were then chipped away.  There were some brilliant performances by our freshmen – notably Devin Thomas, who was referred to by many in the Facebook and Twitter worlds as “a beast” – and they mean that in only the most complimentary way, I assure you.  He had 25 points and 14 rebounds.  The crowd was loud and their joy was infectious.

Lots and lots of talk about  - notably the fact that our freshmen played so well.  One can only imagine the possibilities once our team gets a little more seasoned.  The crowd rushed the court afterwards, and it was a joy to see.  It’s been a long time since we’ve done that, and I was reminded of a song lyric that goes “the sunshine trapped in our hearts it could rise again.”  The Quad was well and duly rolled (please see Intern C’s coverage on the Parent Facebook page).  It is SO cold this morning that I have not ventured out to see it in daylight.  Perhaps later.

So the game was amazing and I was so proud of our team and the “6th man” that is our fans.  Moving from sports pride to student pride, I want to share with you a great story about a student entrepreneurial venture.

About a week ago, the Parent Programs office had a delightful meeting with two current students, Alex Smereczniak and Quentin Robert, to talk about their entrepreneurial venture, Wake Wash, and how it has grown and evolved into a flourishing campus entity.  Wake Wash is a door to door laundry service that students (or their families) can purchase for the semester.  The business is owned and run by Wake Forest students, who get valuable experience in business planning, operations, and labor relations.  When the owners graduate, they have typically sold the business to the next generation of Wake Wash owners.  It’s been a great success.

We are such fans of Wake Wash, we wanted to be sure that all parents knew about it.  Why are some of the reasons you might consider getting Wake Wash for your student?

- If your student is taking a particularly hard course load and needs every conceivable bit of help and free time to focus on studying.

- To congratulate your student on a milestone achieved (dean’s list, internship secured, etc.)

- As a birthday present or Valentines Day gift

- If your student is going through pledging in a fraternity or sorority and their time is packed to the gills with other activities

- Or even just because you are worried that that one red sock is going to end up in the load of whites : )

We talked to Alex and Quentin and wanted to share our interview with you.  Enjoy!

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What began over 5 years ago as a class project has now grown into an amenity at Wake Forest that both faculty and students can enjoy and depend upon year after year.

In spring 2012, three Wake Forest students – Alex Smereczniak (’14), Tyler Leung (’14), and Quentin Robert (’14) – purchased Wake Wash with a new vision for what benefits the service could provide the campus of Wake Forest University.  After successfully transitioning the company into the fall semester and increasing its customer base by 25%, it is clear that the Wake Wash owners have continued to grow while maintaining its high standards of service.

So what is Wake Wash exactly?

Wake Wash is a door-to-door laundry and dry cleaning delivery service that presents students, faculty, and staff with the luxury of hands-off washing, drying, and folding.  We take pride in literally taking a load off of student’s already busy schedules.  With Wake Wash, students have more time to enjoy college and focus on the important things.

How does it work?

Upon selecting from one of our service packages, each customer is given a branded laundry bag to store all of their outgoing laundry and/or dry cleaning.  On scheduled days, bags are picked up from right outside the student’s door, brought to a professional cleaner, and returned within 48 hours.  It’s really that simple!

How can parents sign their students up for Wake Wash?

Parents and students can find more information and sign up on our website at www.wakewashwfu.com

What other benefits do you provide to the Wake Forest community?

We’re glad you asked!  Wake Wash not only provides quality laundry care, but offers a unique platform for student growth and learning.  Our job opportunities foster creative thinking and allow students to apply their class learnings to an actual business venture.  For more information, please contact us at wakewash@wfu.edu.

Is there anything else parents should know?

Wake Wash takes customer requests regarding our cleaning process.  Please do not hesitate to let us know if there is a specific way we should wash the clothes or if your student needs hypoallergenic detergent.

Because laundry and our clothes are an important part of our day to day comfort, we strive to provide the absolute best quality of service to our customers.  Sign up today and let us “Wash” your worries away!

Please be sure your students are aware of the annual Job & Internship Fair on Wednesday, Jan. 23, between the hours of noon-4 p.m. in Benson 401.  Students will have an opportunity to connect with over 55+ organizations that seek Wake Forest undergraduate and MA students for jobs and internships.  To see a list of participating organizations, go to Spring Career Fair Employers.

Many WFU alumni will be representing their organizations and would be happy to talk about what they are looking for in applicants for their full-time and internship openings.

We hope your students will join us on Wednesday to learn more about opportunities available to them.

Each week on the Parents’ Page we offer a special message for families of first year students.  These are weekly messages that (we hope) have relevance to something the first year students might be experiencing, and we try to offer some suggestions on how parents and family members can help and support their students through that particular developmental milestone or situation.

This week’s message is about “The New You!” and provided some thoughts on what students might consider doing as part of this new year.  Dr. Hatch had emailed the campus a message at the beginning of the semester, and he challenged students to try and do three things this semester:  1) spend time with and invest in your friends, 2) appreciate being a member of a community in a way that you may never experience again, and 3) have the courage to spend time alone (read his full message here).

In thinking about resolutions, I stumbled across this list of 30 Accomplishments to Be Proud Of and thought it might be interesting to put here for parents.  The writer of the blog had been asked to provide a list of her greatest accomplishments for 2012, and struggled.  While there were professional accomplishments, those were not the ones of which she was proudest.

She came to the conclusion that “accomplishments don’t necessarily need to entail productivity, promotion, sales, or profits. Sometimes the most fulfilling things we do in this world bring little recognition, yield no monetary results, and come without fanfare. And yet, they still can mean so much and feel so completely satisfying.”

Our students are so achievement-oriented and so successful, that sometimes it must feel to them like they are struggling just for the grades or the internship or the job opportunity.  And maybe it would be a good thing to remind them that they already do a lot of terrific things that are not as easy to measure, but add up to the greater good per the list below.

This list divides accomplishments to be proud of into three categories – your relationship with yourself, with others, and with the world.  I’d be willing to bet you can see a lot of your own students’ accomplishments in this list.

Your Relationships with Others

1. Offer your love and support to someone who needs understanding.

2. Show up for someone who needs help—moving, packing, or doing anything that’s easier with an extra set of hands.

3. Plan, organize, or assist with a party or event for someone you love and/or value.

4. Support someone in a fundraiser, online of offline.

5. Respond calmly to a tough situation to keep a small issue from escalating into something much bigger.

6. Speak up for someone who otherwise might not have a voice, or may be too scared to use it.

7. Volunteer your skills and talents to help someone, whether that means proofreading a friend’s resume or cleaning their kitchen.

8. Offer a random act of kindness to someone without expecting anything in return.

9. Give something of yours to someone else if you think they need it more than you.

10. Point someone in the direction of a resource, group, or event that could be life-changing for them.

Your Relationship with Yourself 

11. Set a clear boundary in a relationship that lacks them, thereby taking good care of yourself.

12. Follow through on a commitment to yourself, whether it’s to exercise, eat healthy foods, or to try something new.

13. Replace a negative, self-defeating thought with a positive, self-affirming one—and believe it.

14. Stick with something you’re tempted to quit knowing that what matters most is your commitment to the journey.

15. Improve how you deal with criticism, receiving it with an open-mind, without self-judgment.

16. Trust and follow your intuition instead of depending on someone else to define what’s best for you.

17. Forgive yourself for a mistake, creating more space in your mind to see, enjoy, and appreciate what’s right in front of you.

18. Choose a healthy coping mechanism to deal with emotional pain—like deep breathing or taking a walk—instead of doing something self-destructive.

19. Honor your own needs, creating more balance in your life.

20. Allow yourself to get into the zone with something you enjoy instead of overwhelming yourself with persistent mental chatter.

Your Relationship with the World

21. Purchase consciously to support businesses that follow ethical practices.

22. Become conscious of your environmental impact, and try one of these 50 ways to help the planet.

23. Make a microloan through an organization like Kiva to help and empower people around the globe. 

24. Recycle. (You can recycle a lot more than you may think!) 

25. Pay it forward. Do something kind for someone and tell that person to return the favor to someone else.

26. Give old clothes to charity instead of throwing them away.

27. Use the game at FreeRice.com to help end hunger.

28. Donate marrow to someone whose life depends on it. (You can start by registering on marrow.org.)

29. Do some research on your own to find a charity organization that you believe in and then tell three people about it.

30. Follow Gandhi’s advice and “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Do you have anything to add to the list?

It’s the MLK holiday and campus is closed for faculty, staff, and students.  This morning we wanted to share news of the work of one of our faculty members. Page Laughlin, Professor, and Smith Young Family Research Fellow, teaches painting at Wake Forest.  So if your students have taken a studio art class in painting, they may know Dr. Laughlin.

In addition to the studio and classroom instruction that our arts faculty provide to our students, they are also active artists themselves.  Dr. Laughlin’s work is being featured at the North Carolina Museum of Art in an exhibition called “Dwelling: Interiors.”  Some information about the exhibition is below.

The Daily Deac especially wanted to draw attention to this for the families living in the Raleigh-Durham-Research Triangle area, because there will be a special talk with the artists on February 8th, along with a sneak preview of the exhibition.  So if you are in the area on February 8th, please come out and show your support for Dr. Laughlin’s work.

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Dwelling: Interiors by Page H. Laughlin and Pamela Pecchio
North Carolina Gallery
February 10–July 28, 2013

Dwelling: Interiors by Page H. Laughlin and Pamela Pecchio, an exhibition of photographs and paintings by two contemporary artists, examines and compares the investigations of interior spaces in each artist’s recent body of work. Showing Pecchio’s Habitation series alongside Laughlin’s works based on design magazines reveals strikingly similar themes and aesthetics, though the artists are working separately and in different mediums. The dialogue created between these works further enriches them, drawing visitors into a new conversation about the variations of depicting domestic interiors and the underlying tensions in such imaginings.  More information.

Art in the Evening: Meet the Artists
North Carolina Museum of Art
February 8, 2013 / 5:30 pm
Artists present: 6:30-7:30 pm

If you are in the area, please stop by North Carolina Gallery, East Building, NCMA 6:30-7:30 pm during Art in the Evening, February 8th for a sneak peek of Dwelling.  More information.

We did get snow lastnight, Deac families, but not as much as was predicted.  There is probably about an inch or two out there, heavier coverage on grass than pavement.

It had been raining miserably for about 3 days and yesterday was very cold and blustery.  There was a rain-snow-slush combination that started coming down around 7 pm lastnight, but the flakes would melt as they hit the already-wet ground.  Closer to the 9-10 pm range there was thunder in addition to the snow (the rare “thundersnow” as the Weather Channel calls it).  At that point the snow started sticking, and it was coming down fast and furious.  Around 11 pm there was a bit of freezing rain as well.

Classes and administrative offices are opening at 11 am today, which means your students with early classes are likely waking up very, very happy – and immediately going back to sleep : )

At a school where we challenge our students to learn more than just what is in their textbooks and labs, but about their roles and responsibilities as global citizens, it seems especially fitting that we think this weekend about our school motto, Pro Humanitate (for humanity) and what that means in a historical and personal context.

Because of MLK weekend, there will be several opportunities for our students to hear speakers and lectures, and music of a celebratory nature.  It will also give our students time to think and reflect over the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his own service to humanity.  Most people are aware of his “I Have a Dream” speech, where he talks about his hopes and dreams for the future of our country and our citizenry.  With a weekend full of events, and a day off of school on Monday, I would challenge your students to think about their own dreams for the future.

What is their dream?  What is worth working for? Sweating for? Sacrificing for?  In what do they believe?  It’s not likely they will come up with an easy answer, two minute elevator speech or a soundbite about their dream, but they should start thinking about it.  College is the time to do these sorts of exercises.

Here are two flyers that might help your students consider activities this weekend.  I would challenge you to challenge your students to attend at least one of these events.  They might be outside your students’ normal comfort zone, or area of interest.  But college is about pushing your boundaries and limits and trying something new.  So try that lecture or concert and see what you think, and feel, and learn.  Your students will be better people for having tasted something new.

And perhaps beginning a dream of their own.

It’s been a wet, cold, grey start to classes this week, Deac families.  Not the ideal start to classes and getting into the new routine of the semester.  And your Deacs should keep an eye on the forecast – we’re under a winter storm warning tonight according to weather.com.  Should there be a weather-related delay or closing, here’s how your students can find out about it.

One of the things that always happens in the first week or two of the semester is some juggling of schedules.  Some students get off of the wait list in a class they’d wanted, thus opening up a space in the existing class so it can go to a wait list person.  You can see the domino effect that creates.

In addition, there are some students who attend the first few sessions of a course and decide  that they don’t feel like they should stay in the class.   Sometimes that is because the class seems too advanced for the student, or they realize they have bitten off too much relative to their other classes, or perhaps they are pledging or are heavily involved in a student organization and feel pinched for time.

As long as a student has 12 hours every semester, he or she is considered a full time student.  Fifteen hours a semester will get a student to graduation in 4 years (provided he/she has met GPA, major, and other requirements).  When students have fewer than 15 hours, they need to begin to think creatively about how and when to make up those credit hours.

Summer School at Wake Forest can be an ideal solution here.

Wake Forest offers two sessions of summer school each summer, and students can take many, many courses that fulfill Basic or Divisional Requirements and more.  The Parent Programs office is a big supporter of Summer Session, because we’ve personally seen the benefits for some of our own academic advisees and students we’ve come to know.

Some of the main reasons we see students go to summer school are:

- they have a very difficult course ahead, an area they struggle with a lot and don’t think they can balance at the same time as their other courses

- they have an important prerequisite class (often for presumptive business majors or students who want to go into the health professions) and they want to concentrate on ONLY that course for the summer, minus the distractions of friends, parties, etc.

- they deliberately chose to ease in to their college experience to ensure a successful first semester/year and have only opted for 12 credits each semester

- they are considering a break or gap in their academic path here to do a longer internship or project (we saw this with students working for political candidates in the election) and need to get ahead/catch up on credits

- they are student athletes or are involved in significant campus commitments that require them to slow the pace of their scholarship

The Summer School website offers course listings, testimonials and schedules.  Online summer school registration will begin for currently-enrolled Wake Forest  students on March 18, the first day of class following the return from spring break.

If your student falls into any of the above categories, consider as a family the possibility of summer school.