Final Friday!!!!!!
In this Issue:
- A couple final Commencement reminders
- Using math to address Baltimore’s transportation challenges
- From Idea to Impact: Wake Forest Engineering Seniors Take on Real-World Challenges
- Re-envisioning inclusive excellence at Wake Forest
- Reminder about our IS policy on students not sharing their WFU login
- Reminder about Summer Session payment
It’s the Final Friday for our seniors and graduating students. The big day is almost here!
Wishing all our P’25s and family members safe travels to Winston-Salem and a wonderful weekend! Enjoy every minute!
Today I have just a few things to share, since all energies right now are directed towards Commencement. Here goes!
A couple final Commencement reminders
Graduate and professional school students have their hooding and commencement ceremonies today through Sunday, so the Monday audience will be virtually all undergraduate students.
This is a vast oversimplification, but Commencement Monday has basically two parts: the pomp and circumstance and speeches at the front of the ceremony, and the reading of individual undergraduate names at the latter part of the ceremony.
All of us as parents/family members/guests are essentially waiting to hear our student’s name – that’s the one we care about most. But we would ask that all our guests be thoughtful of all the students who come after and to make sure the other guests sitting around you are able to see and hear when their student’s name is called. So please keep the sight lines clear and the volume of individual conversations low, and respect the ceremony for its full length.
Similarly, remind your students to follow the directions of the faculty marshals: after their name is called and they walk across the stage, our students need to follow the line back to their seats (not leave the event to find their families).
For our P’25s who have family members not able to make the trip to campus, we have a host of livestreams of the various ceremonies throughout the weekend. You can find the links on the main Commencement website, as well as the View All Livestreams page.
Finally, graduating students will retain access to Workday for a short amount of time after graduation, so please encourage your grads to check their student accounts for any outstanding charges, or credit balances that can be refunded. We also encourage our future alumni to register for their WFU Alumni Gmail account.
Using math to address Baltimore’s transportation challenges
This is a really cool story about a highly prestigious math award that Wake students won, and how math can help solve real world problems:
“When Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed in 2024, the disaster added to the city’s complex transportation challenges.
A Wake Forest team used mathematics to model solutions to the city’s transportation woes. The three undergraduate students – Tougzhou Liang, Zhanyi Qi and Flora Yi – were awarded one of the two top prizes by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) in the 2025 Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM).”
This year, 6,364 teams worldwide participated, but there were only 15 teams worldwide that either won a named award or were designated as ‘Outstanding.’
Read the full story and congratulations to our Deacs!
From Idea to Impact: Wake Forest Engineering Seniors Take on Real-World Challenges
I saw another great academics story that I wanted to share with you:
“Wake Forest Engineering seniors are tackling real-world challenges — from healthcare to sustainability to wildfire response — through innovative capstone projects that blend technical expertise with human-centered design.”
There are some really cool projects – everything from making bicycles safer, creating electric propulsion boats, and harnessing ocean waves for energy converters – and more! Read the full story here.
Reminder about our IS policy on students not sharing their WFU login
I have had a couple of families ask me about using their student’s WFU login and password to look up grades or take care of other processes online. In order to keep our IS environment safe, we tell students not to share their logins and passwords with others (including their parents or families); this is part of our Policy on Responsible and Ethical Use of Computing Resources.
Think of it this way – if you hold a job, would you give your work login and password to someone else so that they could access your work computing systems? Almost certainly not. So please do not ask for your student’s WFU login and password, and in the event they share their login with you, we ask families not to use it.
With the implementation of the Workday system, students have the capability to easily grant parents and family members permission to access specific parts of their accounts, which is a more secure method to assist your student.
Re-envisioning inclusive excellence at Wake Forest
Yesterday, the campus community received a message about re-envisioning inclusive excellence at Wake Forest. Here’s a snippet:
“Wake Forest will be taking essential steps this summer to re-envision how the University promotes connections across the campus community, broadens its approach to inclusive excellence, and strives for intentional belonging. This re-envisioning will also include reviewing paused R.I.D.E. plans, as well as our mission for sustaining community and belonging.”
Read more at Re-envisioning inclusive excellence at Wake Forest.
Reminder about Summer Session payment
If your student is taking Summer I or Summer II, please be advised that payment for both Summer sessions is due on June 1.
Everyone, please send your best weather wishes for the weekend! Go Deacs!