Deacs Abroad Photo Contest
Before the holiday break, I got a message from one of my colleagues in the Global Programs and Studies office. They are running a special edition 2021 #DeacsAbroad Photo Contest and this year, for the first time, they are inviting members of the WFU community – students, faculty, staff, and alumni – to participate by submitting photos from WFU sponsored/affiliated international travel or intercultural experiences. (It is normally just open to students who studied abroad, if I recall correctly).
The 5 categories are:
Spring 2020 Study Abroad Alumni
Current Students Studying in the US
Current Students Studying Outside of the US
Wake Forest Faculty & Staff
Wake Forest Alumni
We hope your students might be interested in participating. If appropriate, they may submit photos to more than one category. The deadline for submission is January 21st, 2021 at 11:59 PM Eastern.
Details on each category, rules, and the submission form, can be found here. Should your students have questions, they can contact Sean McGlynn mcglynsd@wfu.edu. NOTE: sometimes the blog push-service (that sends this to your email inbox) adds a NULL character in email addresses listed within the blog, so please be sure that if your student clicks on Sean’s email and it shows a weird NULL in there, they should retype it without the null.
Also wanted to tackle a few more questions you asked in our Daily Deac survey a few weeks ago. Here goes:
I’d like to know more about Betsy’s story – why she chose Wake, how she picked her major, how she met her husband, why she chose to work here.
Why I chose Wake: my late father worked in sales, and his company recruited at Wake. One day he came home and threw a Wake Forest sweatshirt on my bed, and I asked him “What’s a Wake Forest?” and dad said to me “I think it’s a place you’ll really like.” Dad knew I hated snow and wanted to move south, wanted a smaller campus with a close community. Aside: I got wait listed at my first-choice school (William & Mary, which my mother wanted me to go to because it was 4 hours closer to home), but I really loved both campuses. When I got wait listed there, it seemed providential that I got into Wake, like that was where I was meant to be (and it was!)
How I picked my major: I was one of the rare students that knew before I started I would be an English major. English was my passion in high school, also writing in general. I threw in a French major too because after my semester in Dijon, I only needed 3 more classes.
How I met my husband: do we have any Seinfeld fans in the house? My husband actually did the Seinfeldian Roommate Switch. He was in the same grad program as my roommate, and they briefly dated (I had a Wake boyfriend at the time). Both those relationships ended, and then we realized we liked each other. It was our small scale version of Le Scandale at the time, but eventually all friendships were mended.
Why do you love Wake Forest so much? Most of the best things that have happened in my life have come through Wake: I met my best friends here, met my wonderful husband here, got my first job because a nice woman in the old Career Services offices directed me to it. And my colleagues are without equal.
I had only been working here a year or two when one of our most beloved administrators, the dean of admissions (who I adored), had a heart attack at an alumni admissions event I was in charge of running; sadly he died later that day. The other senior members of his staff and I had to huddle in and figure out what to do (send everyone home? keep going?) One of my wise colleagues said sagely said at the time that ‘we keep going, because it is what Bill would have wanted’ and he was right. That day, and at the funeral a few days later, I looked around at the people I worked with – who were pallbearers, and speakers, and staffing the event – and all who mourned him, and I had this epiphany that when something bad happens, these are the people I want standing beside me. Being on the Crisis Management Team reinforces that belief: I have seen us in action in times of crisis and our folks are amazing.