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Happy Friday!

by Betsy Chapman

In this Issue:

  • Deacs win home opener, and ACC expansion!
  • Question about breaks and airline travel
  • Reminders about sickness and the Student Health Service
  • Student Involvement Fair Tues., Sept 5
  • Family Orientation resources
  • Suggestion: make Friday the day you call your Deac
  • Daily Deac will be dark on Monday for Labor Day

It’s a beautiful day in The Forest! When I woke up this morning, this was the view from the Quad Cam. You can see the maple trees at the bottom left and right of the screen are starting to turn. These are some of the prettiest trees on campus in the fall.

A view to the Quad early in the morning of 9/1/23. You can see the maple trees at the bottom left and right of this picture are starting to turn orange, a harbinger of fall to come.

For those new to NC, I like to share this funny and very true meme about our weather (click to enlarge). The cooler temps may lull your Deacs into a false sense of security that fall is right around the corner. It isn’t. Second Summer will be coming for us all 🙂

the 13 seasons of NC. Right now we are in False Fall, but Second Summer will be right around the corner.

Deacs win home opener, and ACC expansion!

It was a beautiful night in W-S lastnight. We had a sellout crowd at Allegacy Stadium and our Deacs won over Elon with a final score of 37-17. You can read the game recap here.

By the time the Daily Deac hit your inbox, I suspect you might have seen the news that the ACC has expanded! We welcome three new schools: Southern Methodist University, Stanford University, and the University of California, Berkeley to our conference.

Our Director of Athletics and alumnus John Currie shared his thoughts on ACC expansion in his From the Quad e-mail; you can read the full message here, but also wanted to include this excerpt:

“This is a great day for our student-athletes, the ACC, Wake Forest, Winston-Salem, and the state of North Carolina. Wake Forest has the fastest growing brand of the college athletics Power conferences and the addition of these tremendous and highly competitive athletic and academic universities further enhances the national exposure for our student-athletes and University….

An important factor in Wake Forest’s decision to vote in favor of expansion is the academic caliber of the institutions with whom we have aligned ourselves. Expansion strengthens our academic, research, and professional network with Silicon Valley and the Dallas Metroplex area; a tremendous value-add for our alumni, student recruiting efforts, and the growing ACC Network. Also, linking the state of North Carolina – the fastest growing state in America for business according to CNBC – with these media markets will be great for our league overall.”

Question about breaks and airline travel

I got a great question from a Wake family about how to know when their student is free to leave at fall or Thanksgiving break, or after finals, so they can buy airline tickets. I suspect others have this same question. Here goes.

The best answer I have on plane tickets is that you need to ask your student to look at their syllabus for each class to let you know whether the class is scheduled to meet the day before breaks. I suspect most classes will meet the day before the start of Fall or Thanksgiving break, but the faculty member may make adjustments. While the Academic Services calendar on the Registrar’s website tells us the dates of breaks, individual faculty can always make adjustments on their syllabus.

The final exam schedule is also on the Registrar’s calendar page, and those will tell you the dates of final exams. However, you still want to have your student consult the syllabus for each class (it could be there is not a final exam proper, but a final paper instead, etc.)

So your student should be able to tell you when they are free to leave, based on their reading of the syllabus for each of their classes.

Reminders about sickness and the Student Health Service

At the start of every fall semester, there are students who get sick (students live, learn, and socialize in a densely-populated environment, so illness happens). Our Student Health Service is our on-campus healthcare provider, with board-certified care providers and a wide variety of services they offer; see more here.

If your student has a medical issue after after our clinic hours, Student Health partners with an outside agency for after-hours nurse advice. Students should call 336.758.5218 and follow the prompts to be connected to this service. Students can also find a list of local urgent care facilities here. Some of these local urgent cares are open until the early evening. Of course if it is a medical emergency, your student should dial 911.

Student Involvement Fair Tues., Sept 5

Encourage your Deacs to come to the Student Involvement Fair on Tuesday, Sept. 5 from 3:30-6:00 p.m. on Poteat Field. Your students can visit tables featuring 200+ of our student organizations, departments, and community partners to see the many ways to get engaged on campus and in Winston-Salem. (Rain date: Thursday, Sept. 7, 3:30-6:00 p.m.)

This is SUCH a critical part of the start of school, particularly for our newest students who are looking to find ways to get engaged campus. But I certainly want to encourage our older students to attend as well and find a few new activities to try this year.

Family Orientation resources

For any P’27s and transfer families who were not able to be here for family orientation activities, here are some links to videos and/or documents that might be helpful:

Suggestion – make Friday the day you call your Deac

This one goes out to our newest Deac families, our P’27s and transfers. As you and your student try to settle in to a communications routine, consider making Friday the day you have a phone conversation with your student. Why?

Research by Meg Small also at Penn State showed parental communication on weekends (30 minutes or more of general conversations not specifically related to substance use) decreased the high risk use of alcohol on those weekends. Read more.

So Friday afternoon is a great time to call your students. Talk to them – it doesn’t even have to be about alcohol or other risky behaviors! There appears to be something about the act of talking to family members – perhaps it’s an implicit reminder that there are people counting on the student to make smart choices and avoid high-risk actions – that helps regulate student behavior. That’s my Pro Tip of the week 🙂

Daily Deac will be dark on Monday for Labor Day

Classes are in session on Monday, but it is a holiday for staff, so administrative offices will be closed. While our students I am sure don’t love that, it does not make a whole lot of sense to have a day off because classes just started. So no Daily Deac on Monday, but we will be back on Tuesday.

Have a great long weekend, Daily Deacdom!

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