Ten years!

As we continue with our staged move-in, want to share a couple of points today.

Parents and families, please impress upon your students how critical it is to wear masks, maintain social distance (6′ from other people), and wash hands frequently. This applies to all students (as well as faculty and staff). 

We are seeing in the news what is happening with outbreaks on other campuses and we do not want that at Wake Forest. We need our Deacs to start the semester strong by masking, social distancing, and handwashing right now, and CONTINUING to do those things every day thereafter. 

This will take every person doing their part, and we need your help reinforcing that message. So if your student is on campus right now and you have not had an explicit conversation with them about saying they must wear their mask and not sit/stand too close to other people, we need you to do that today. If your student has not yet moved in, please have that talk before they come to campus.  

In other news, I got word today of an event taking place on Thursday and Friday that I hope will interest a lot of students: 

How did Wake’s career stars make their way from the Quad to places like Facebook, The Tonight Show, Google, sports marketing for the Golden State Warriors, L’Oreal or Michael Kors? Interested in running social media or public relations in New York? Want to work in investment banking or government? Think you might want to work for a start-up changing the world? Find out how for yourself. You have an unusual, very Wake Forest opportunity. More than a panel, you will have the unique opportunity to meet and have a small group chat with the Deacs who are opening doors in some of the hottest career spaces.

Sign up on Corq: Thursday 4-5, Friday 4-5. NOTE: this is a limited event capped at 100 students.

Your Deacs should be checking out Corq for other events. We also have a great service we are offering to our students, wellbeing coaching:

Wellbeing Coaching is an evidence-based practice designed to help you reach your personal health and wellbeing goals.  Health and wellbeing coaching is structured around the changes that you want to make in your life when you are ready to make them – you are empowered through this process to identify the life you want to be living and are not told by a coach what your life “should” look like.  Certified health coaches meet one on one with you to provide support and accountability to reach your health and wellbeing goals over a period of weeks together. Coaches apply strategies and practical skills as they partner with you to work through lifestyle challenges and to help you reach a quality of life that is meaningful, self-sustaining, healthy, and value-driven.  If you’re ready to make healthy, goal-directed changes in your life – Wellbeing Coaching is for you!

What types of goals can a Wellbeing Coach offer support?

• • Goal Setting
  • Stress Management
  • Resiliency
  • Time Management
  • Sleep Hygiene
  • Chronic Disease Management
  • Self Care
  • Lifestyle Management

The Office of Wellbeing will be offering fall sessions for wellbeing coaching starting in early September. Clients will meet with the coach for an initial session, and then bi-weekly for the next ten weeks, for a total of 5-7 sessions. Sessions will be scheduled directly with the coach and there is some flexibility to accommodate skipping a week or moving a session, if needed. Sessions will be 45-60 minutes long and will take place via Google Meet or telephone.

Last up, today is a big day for the Daily Deac: it’s the 10th anniversary of the blog! Ten years ago, I started this little experiment, mostly because I am a writer at heart and because I remember how much my parents loved every single inch of Wake. I thought it might be fun to bring families a little glimpse of life on campus and hoped you all would enjoy it enough for me to be able to justify having this as part of my job.

So thank you to everyone who reads Daily Deac (past, present, and future), because you have allowed me to do work that I love, and work that appears to have meaning and value in connecting our families to life at Wake and your students’ experience.

Here’s to the next 10 years!

— by Betsy Chapman, Ph.D. (’92, MA ’94)