A Simply Magical Performance
In this Issue:
- Reminder: Spring Involvement Fair tomorrow from 4-6 p.m.
- Students’ voices needed in our Campus Climate Survey
- Major/Minor declaration coming up
- Secrest Artists Series performance
Today is a packed day for me, so just a few things to share.
Reminder: Spring Involvement Fair tomorrow from 4-6 p.m.
Just a reminder that our Spring Involvement Fair is tomorrow (Thurs 2/1) from 4-6 p.m. This fair is one of the best ways for students to connect with new organizations, meet new friends, build their networks, and find meaningful engagement in activities. Whether your Deac is a first-year or a senior, encourage them to go and join a few new groups!
Student voices needed in our Campus Climate Survey
Students received this email today urging them to complete our Campus Climate Survey if they have not already done so.
We need at least 35% participation from students (as well as 35% from staff and 35% from faculty) in order to have an informed understanding about what’s happening at Wake Forest. Therefore, we truly need everyone to participate. As of today, we still have a long ways to go to get to that 35% student rate. Anything you can do to encourage your Deac to take the survey, please do it.
And for the faculty and staff Daily Deac-ers, you could do us a solid if you talk to your students and your colleagues and encourage their participation. It’s so important. Thank you!
Major/Minor declaration coming up
Major/Minor registration is coming up Feb. 5-9. Eligible students will receive information about the process. Here is a general gist of what happens, from the Registrar’s website:
“The initial declaration of major usually occurs in the Spring term of the Sophomore year or when the student has EARNED at least 40 credit hours. There is a designated period in February in which Sophomores declare both majors and minors en masse through the College academic departments, without each student needing to file individual declaration forms through the Office of the University Registrar.” Students admitted to the School of Business earlier this month may get different instructions on how to declare their major (if they had not already done so); I’m not as familiar with that process.
If your Deac already knows what they want to major in, terrific. If they don’t, the OPCD website has some great resources on how students can explore majors. Their website says in great big letters
Selecting a major is NOT the same as
choosing a career
And that is an important thing for both students – and families – to remember. Selecting a major that a student likes and has an aptitude for is likely to result in better grades and increased happiness vs. choosing a major that you think looks good on a resume but you don’t like (or struggle in). That’s my $0.02 as an academic adviser 🙂
Secrest Artists Series performance
Last night was our Secrest Artists Series concert featuring the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and it was an absolutely magical performance. There were three main works: a dance by Debussy, a piano concerto by Prokofiev (featuring renowned pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason), and – the pièce de résistance – Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov. It was an absolutely magnificent concert to a pretty packed Wait Chapel which (from my vantage point at least) contained a good number of students.
Forgive my self-indulgence for just a moment in telling an old story. When I was a student at Wake, maybe a sophomore, my roommate/best friend and I got tickets to the Winston-Salem symphony one night, just to feel like we were doing something grown up and cultured. The concert that night just happened to feature Scheherazade, which neither of us had ever heard before. But we heard it, and loved it more than we thought possible, and ever after that was a seminal moment in our Wake Forest experience.
As I left the concert lastnight, I saw two students bounding out of one of the exits, sort of in a half-skip, half-run. They were SO filled with energy. I could hear them going “OH MY GOD! That was AMAAAAAAAAZING!” And it made my heart grow about 3 sizes bigger, realizing that another generation of students was having a lifechanging moment through the same piece of classical music that I had 30+ years ago.
All that to say, if you talk to your Deac and they didn’t go to the Secrest Artists Series concert last night, urge them to consider going to the next ones (schedule here). There will come a time, all too soon, where they will have to pay real cash money to see artists of this caliber. They can get that here, right now, for free. And maybe just have a “love at first listen” moment that will stay with them long past graduation, as it did with me.
