Channeling San Francisco

For the past couple of days, we have woken up to a dense fog, which clears away by late morning or midday. I feel like we are channeling one of my favorite US cities, San Francisco 🙂 I should have grabbed a shot of the Quad Cam in the morning to show you; this is what it looked like around 1 pm.

Another quick hit blog today as I have been in a lot of meetings today. Here goes:

Thanks for your patience with the late arrival of lastnight’s blog. Our third-party push service, Feedburner, sometimes does not send on time. Know that if I post a blog and it is not up by 7 pm as planned, I will always post it at the official Wake Forest Parents and Families Facebook page so it is accessible. Hopefully today will be gremlin-free.

On the subject of Facebook, I saw this from one of my faculty friends via the Wake the Arts Facebook page: “Voices of Protest opens this Friday! Here are some behind the scenes images from the @wfutheatre video production of this powerful collection of monologues, written and performed by students voicing their views on issues ranging from societal ills to personal challenges. Directed by Jackie Alexander, Artistic Director for the NC Black Repertory Company @ncblackrep. Digital release is October 30!” Check it out if you are interested.

Also want to congratulate our Homecoming Queen and King for 2020: Logan Bolton (’21) and Miles Middleton (’21). I just love this picture of Logan and Miles and the Deac. Even with masks on, they show their Wake Forest spirit beautifully. Go Deacs!

In COVID news, yesterday, students received an email with a COVID-19 update. In addition to Student Health Service and the SneezSafe tool, the email shares new ways to help respond to the virus based on students’ individual situations.

Students who are in the quarantine hotels got an email yesterday outlining election and voting options for them. If your student is at the hotel and did not vote before going to quarantine, please urge them to look at that email, as it has time-sensitive info in it. If your student has not yet voted and plans to do that in NC, they need to act quickly (the sooner the better), as one stop early voting ends on October 31.

Speaking of hotels, wanted to clarify some information about them:

While students are being housed at a hotel, we are not operating as a normal hotel would (in terms of all the things you might associate with a normal hotel stay). We have a Wake housing team who is physically present from 10 am – 6 pm at both hotels to assist with students checking in/out, meal delivery, and student needs. The COVID Housing Team continues to be available from 6 pm – 10 pm at the hotel receiving students that day. We set those hours because we see more students checking in late afternoon/early evening and needed the staff there at that time. After those hours, there are WFU security staff present at the hotels.

Students have been given information on how to call or email the WFU staff working the hotels when they check in. Students with routine questions/needs can contact WFU staff between 10 am-10 pm. If they have an urgent need or request after 10 pm that cannot wait until 10 am the next day, they can still contact that same number and talk with WFU security. Please note that frequently students may need to leave a message, as our staff may be away from the desk or assisting other students. 

We are grateful for your understanding that we want to keep the phone lines at the hotels freed up so that our staff can assist your students. Family members with questions/needs should contact the Call Center (M-F 10 am-3 pm Eastern at 336-758-7500). If the Call Center is closed and this is a time-sensitive issue, families can email getwell@wfu.edu for assistance until 10 pm. If there is an emergency situation (the kind of thing where you would need to call 911), you would still contact our University Police at 336-758-5911.

Finally, Halloween is just around the corner. In a normal year, Halloween is a prime party time. It is very, very important for students to stay safe while we are in this Orange status and observe all public health guidelines.  Please do all you can to help reinforce that message.

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