Tuesday Newsday

In this Issue:

• Study: College doesn’t make people as liberal as people think
• P’30 Weekly Message
• Thank you, President Wente

For those of us following the World Cup from Winston-Salem, lastnight was a disappointing night for us, as Germany lost a heartbreaker in penalty kicks. It was such a special treat to have them training on our soccer pitch and staying at Graylyn – really a once in a lifetime thing. Thank you for picking Winston-Salem. If you’d like to see some behind the scenes footage from the German team during their stay, here it is (note, it is in German).

Here is today’s news:

Study: College doesn’t make people as liberal as people think

I like to keep an eye on Wake Forest in the News, which shows where our faculty experts are cited. This title caught my eye: “The diploma divide is real, but college doesn’t make students as liberal as people think.” Here is the gist of the article:

“’The ideological effects of higher education are a hotly disputed topic in the United States,’ said Michael Prinzing, a research scholar at Wake Forest University. ‘Yet the evidence for such effects is remarkably mixed.’ Prinzing and his colleague wanted to investigate exactly how political views shift during college and which factors influence those changes….

‘The changes in political identity that we observe between students’ freshman and senior years are considerably smaller than people tend to think….In fact, in a supplemental study, we found that US adults think college students’ political identities change about twice as much as they actually do.'”

This is a complex and nuanced study, and I encourage anyone who wants to take a deeper dive on this subect to read the full article.

P’30 Weekly Message

Tuesdays are the days we send out a weekly message to incoming families. Today’s message was about financial deadlines and insurance waivers. P’30s, please be sure you are aware of those important financial and insurance-related items.

Thank you, President Wente

Today Dr. Wente finishes her presidency, then she will begin a sabbattical. To recognize all she has done for Wake Forest, there is a wonderful video tribute to Dr. Wente. And if you have received your recent Wake Forest Magazine, there is a great interview, The Path She Walked, that I highly recommend.

Thank you, Dr. Wente, for all the ways you have moved Wake Forest forward during your presidency (and as a working mom, I say a special thank you for getting a childcare center!)