News you can use
Lots of news you can use today. Let’s get started.
In academic news, we named a new University Registrar. Ken Gilson of Biola University will become our University Registrar and Assistant Provost on October 1st. Welcome, Dr. Gilson!
We also got some athletics news yesterday:
In accordance with guidance from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Wake Forest will not be able to host fans for its upcoming home contests, including the Deacs’ nationally televised football season opener at Truist Field on Sept. 12 against No. 1 Clemson…. The current DHHS guidance also extends to Wake Forest’s men’s and women’s soccer, field hockey, and volleyball teams through September. Schedules are forthcoming for all of those programs. If fans are able to attend future fall Wake Forest home contests, tickets will be sold on an individual game basis only.
There is an opportunity for you to virtually fill the seats at our football games and other fall sports via Deaclones:
We are excited to invite parents and families to order a Demon Deaclone cutout today so your student (or you) can virtually join us in Truist Field this season, beginning with next Saturday night’s primetime match-up vs. No. 1 Clemson on ABC. Time is running out to secure your place, as the deadline to guarantee your cutout is this Friday, September 4. Read more.
Our Office of Wellbeing is offering students a variety of opportunities – everything from Resilience Workshops (highly recommend!) to Wellbeing Coaching to virtual Gold Apron cooking events to Collegiate Recovery Community activities and more; see details. Our ‘24 students also got an email about A Taste of Winston-Salem.
Today’s COVID-19 topic of the day I want to talk about is travel. We’ve heard a number of questions in the Call Center about student travel – Can my student come home for the weekend? Will they be able to go to a family wedding out of state, family funeral, etc.? This is the guidance I have received:
To help protect the wellbeing and safety of the campus, we strongly encourage students to limit their off-campus personal travel. As we all know, personal travel may increase the risk of exposure to COVID and/or the risk of bringing it back when they return to campus. We want to minimize the risk of introducing COVID to the campus, so anything we can do to reduce that risk is something that might help increase our ability to get to Thanksgiving.
In the case of personal travel that’s of significant importance, such as a family wedding or funeral, our best guidance is that care must be taken to minimize the risk of exposure to COVID to the greatest extent possible during travel and during any activities at their destination. Prior to travel, students should review the CDC’s guidance, taking particular note of the incidence of COVID in the location of the intended travel.
So the takeaway here is if this is not essential travel, you should not do it just for the sake of doing it. If it is essential travel, be sure to follow CDC guidance on travel.
I know there are other questions you may have relative to the NC Phase 2.5 our governor announced yesterday. We are having lots of conversation about that and what it means for campus, and as I have answers, I will bring you the details here.