The Pollening

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

In this Issue:

  • It’s pollen season
  • Entrepalooza – April 11
  • The President’s Ball – April 12
  • P’28s (i.e., incoming families of the Class of 2028) – email to your students re: Pre-Orientation programs

It’s pollen season

It’s that time again, friends:

The Twelve Seasons of NC - "The Pollening"

Our students who are prone to allergies are sniffling and sneezing, our sidewalks are full of big clumps of pollen (see pics below), and there is a fine sheen of green covering every outdoor surface. My husband’s black Jeep looked like a dirty green this morning, and I took a few pics of one of our building signs so you could see just how ubiquitous the pollen is (the green smeary looking swipes on the large picture of Olin is pollen, and the next two pictures are the top and ledges of the sign).

The hood of my black Jeep has a green dusting of pollen on it 4.2.24 Clumps of pollen all over the sidewalk April 2, 2024 See the fine sheen of pollen on a building sign 4.2.24 Pollen on top of the building sign 4.2.24 Pollen on the ledges of the Olin sign 4.2.24

Thankfully, there is rain in the forecast tomorrow, which I hope will wash some of this pollen away. Until then, take your allergy meds of choice, Deac students.

Entrepalooza – April 11

Entrepalooza is the marquee event for our Center for Entrepreneurship, and this year it will be held on Thursday, April 11 at 4:30 p.m. in Brendle Recital Hall.

The Center for Entrepreneurship hosts its annual Startup Lab Demo Day, where student groups make investor-ready pitches, followed by a keynote address by Ricky Van Veen (’03), VP of Strategic Partnerships at Meta. Ricky Van Veen had co-founded the humor site Collegehumor.com and students have always seemed to love hearing from him. I hope your Deacs might attend.

The President’s Ball – April 12

“Prez Ball” (short for President’s Ball) began in 2005 as a way to to celebrate former President Hatch’s inauguration, and the event turned into a biennial tradition welcoming thousands of Wake Forest community members. The Ball moved to the spring semester in 2024 to commemorate President Wente’s spring 2022 inauguration.

Prez Ball brings students, faculty and staff together at the LJVM Coliseum (aka “The Joel”) for what is the largest (and most exciting) formal of the year. Prez Ball features food, beverage, (adult beverages for those over 21) music and fun. The ball is Friday, April 12th from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. Students can reserve their free ticket to the ball here.

Please do encourage your students to attend and to reserve their tickets now! Prez Ball is SO much fun!

P’28s (i.e., incoming families of the Class of 2028) – email to your students re: Pre-Orientation programs

To our new P’28s in the Daily Deacdom, welcome! I wanted to let you know that yesterday, all enrolled students (i.e., those whose deposits have been received and processed) received an email about Pre-Orientation programs; you can read it here. Knowing there can be a lag between the time you send the deposit and when it is processed, I wanted to be sure to share the email here just in case it did not get to your Deac yet.

Additionally, all P’28s should take a look at our Incoming Families website (if you have not already done so) just to see what some of your immediate to-dos and action items are. We are currently working on updating the New Students website, which is done behind the scenes. We’ll swap out the old website content for the updated version on May 1st. Stay tuned until then 🙂

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