Happy New Year!

In this Issue:

• Rogan’s ‘Best of 2023’ list
• Affirmations for the New Year

Happy New Year, Daily Deacdom! I hope that you all had happy times at your house during the holidays and are enjoying Winter Break with your Deacs.

While move-in for the spring semester is still nearly 2 weeks away, administrators are back in the office as of today. It is likely to be a slow news week since we are only just returning, so we’ll ease back in gently with some fun content to start the New Year off 🙂

Rogan’s ‘Best of 2023’ list

One of the things I love to share every year is the “Best of” list from our alumnus, former provost, and all around amazing person, Rogan Kersh. Each year, he compiles a list of some of the best things he’s read, seen, or listened to, and it is always a terrific guide of highlights to hit. You can read it here.

This year’s list even has a Spotify playlist of Best Cover Songs, and my little Gen X heart was thrilled to see someone did a cover of my favorite Jesus and Mary Chain song.

Many thanks to Rogan for his generosity in sharing his finds – and in case you missed it, Rogan is going back to NYU in July for a new and incredible sounding gig as Academic Director of NYU Florence and Associate Vice Chancellor for Global Programs; details here. Congratulations to Rogan; you will be missed!

Affirmations for the New Year

I’m an advocate for being authentic on social media and not pretending to have a perfect life, because no one’s life is perfect. So real talk coming: while it has been wonderful to have our ’27 home for NC State’s winter break, our Christmas with family in PA got totally derailed by illness: every branch of the extended family got some dreadful crud over the holiday, which made for abbreviated celebrations and unpleasant return travel.

Because Christmas was sort of crappy, we decided to give ourselves something to look forward to by getting on a list to get a puppy; we have an aging 12 year old dog and a 7 year old large breed, and so we are hedging against their eventual loss (we don’t do well with only 1 dog at a time). We are on a list for a Bernese Mountain Dog pup (should find out Friday how many are in the litter and if we can get one).

All that to say, right now I am leaning hard into self-care and things that spark joy in the coming year. In case you need a little positivity too, I am sharing some gems a propos of the New Year; click to enlarge. I particularly love this first one from amazing author (and fun fact: former WFU parent!) Neil Gaiman. Take what you need and skip what you don’t 🙂