World Cultural Festival, LiveSafe, and Library Info
Here’s an opportunity for your Deacs to do something fun and global. Tomorrow (Friday, September 18th) the Office of Multicultural Affairs, SAF and The Center for Global Programs and Studies will be hosting the 7th Annual World Cultural Festival from 5:30-8:00 pm on Manchester Plaza (Rain Location: Benson 401). There will be free food, great music and dancing, prizes, and the opportunity to broaden ones cultural horizons.
In other news, the Homecoming football game time has been announced – it will be 12:30 on Saturday, September 25th. If you are an alumni parent, the Homecoming website is here.
Finally, the University Police has asked me to help share some important information about students’ personal safety and the security of their belongings.
University Police is promoting its new LiveSafe app and want parents to help us encourage their students to download the app. LiveSafe is a free personal mobile application for Wake Forest students to engage in a two-way conversation with WFU police. With LiveSafe, students can use their cell phones as a personal security device that allows direct access to police, 911 emergency services, emergency location sharing, information sharing with quick tips, and a peer-to-peer SafeWalk tool. Learn more here – and encourage your Deacs to get LiveSafe on their cell phones.
University Police also wants parents (and especially students) to be aware of Operation ID, a nationwide program designed to discourage burglary and theft of valuables. It also provides a way to easily identify stolen property, and increases law enforcement’s chances of recovery and conviction: “Most burglars steal valuables for resale. But if you mark all items with permanent identification numbers, the burglar may be unable to sell them. If a criminal knows all your valuables are marked, he or she will look for easier and more profitable victims. Register your Property Here http://police.wfu.edu/forms-pubs/operation-id.”
Please encourage your student to download the LiveSafe app and to participate in Operation ID.
Finally, for those Deac families who have been to college themselves, you may have noticed that college libraries in 2015 are vastly different than college libraries of your day. While generally speaking libraries still aim to be a quiet space for reading or research, now you are allowed to bring food or drink, there are group study rooms for collaborative projects, and there is the opportunity for a lot more interaction with librarians.
My dear friend and colleague Rosalind Tedford (’90, MA ’94), Director for Research and Instruction Politics and International Affairs Liaison, was interviewed about the work that our librarians do with Wake Forest students. Students have the ability to schedule individual research sessions/consultations with our librarians and these sessions can yield enormous benefits in the quality of their research projects and in time saved – for example, by knowing the best search terms to find the results you need. If you want to peek behind the curtain and see more about how our crack ZSR team works with students, check out the article.
— by Betsy Chapman