Wrapping up the week
In this Issue:
- Hit the Bricks registration
- Center for Entrepreneurship expands, becomes University’s First “Engagement & Impact Center”
- New research on art heists
- Cynthia Erivo photostory
- P’30 weekly message
It’s Friday, and game night at that. Hope our Deacs show up in force to our football game tonight wearing black, and I know everyone will enjoy the drone show.
As we close out the week, here’s a few items that may be of interest. Enjoy.
Hit the Bricks registration
I heard from the student leaders organizing Hit the Bricks, one of our primary campus traditions every fall (and one of the greatest days on campus all year). They wanted me to be sure to share with families – especially new P’30 families – that students should be registering for Hit the Bricks right now. Here’s some of the details:
Join us for Hit The Bricks 2026! This annual tradition was started in 2003 as a campus-wide philanthropic event benefiting the Brian Piccolo Cancer Research Fund, in honor of Demon Deacon football great Brian Piccolo.
Each fall, teams of students, faculty, staff, and alumni gather on Hearn Plaza taking turns running and walking laps around the Quad to show their solidarity in the fight against cancer.
Students can register for Hit the Bricks here. Students can register with friends, as part of student organizations, etc. For our first-year students (who still are likely in the process of trying to find their people), they can also join their residential community’s team. Sign up now!
Center for Entrepreneurship expands, becomes University’s First “Engagement & Impact Center”
This news came to my inbox yesterday: the Office of the Provost has approved a major expansion of the Center for Entrepreneurship (CFE). Three new programs will serve faculty, alumni and the broader Wake Forest community.
For our students who aspire to be entrepreneurs, these might be especially interesting news:
“New networks for alumni entrepreneurs. The Center is launching two new alumni networks — WAVE (Wake Alumni in Ventures and Entrepreneurship) and WAN (Wake Angel Network). Both will host events connecting Wake Foresters pursuing entrepreneurship and venture capital careers across the country.
Expanded entrepreneurial events on campus. The Center is also expanding its campus events, including TEDxWakeForestU, which it now co-sponsors with the Center for Regenerative Medicine under the leadership of Rebecca Gill, Larry J. and LeeAnn E. Merlo presidential chair for Communication and Entrepreneurship and faculty director for TEDxWakeForestU.”
New research on art heists
I was fortunate enough to see the French crown jewels at the Louvre when I was on vacation in 2025, just a few months before thieves broke in and stole some of the items on display. So this story of research by Wake Forest faculty caught my eye:
“When a multi-million-dollar masterpiece vanishes from a museum, the public calls for tougher criminal penalties and better-funded police task forces. But research from Wake Forest University suggests that some of these intuitive solutions can backfire, resulting in more art crime, not less.
In their paper published in the Journal of Cultural Economics, Wake Forest Professor of Economics Frederick Chen and co-author Rebecca Regan (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco) model the strategic interactions between museum administrators, art thieves and law enforcement.
Game theory, a branch of economics that uses mathematical models to analyze strategic decision-making, maps out how one person’s optimal choice depends directly on the actions and reactions of others.
‘Art heists in movies look like high-tech battles between clever thieves and unbreakable security,’ Chen explains. ‘In reality, it’s an economic game of incentives, risk management and budget trade-offs.’”
Read the full story. Fascinating stuff.
Cynthia Erivo photostory
If you were not able to be present for Face to Face this week, we have still got you covered: see the photostory.
And if you want to subscribe to our photostories – so that each time a new one comes out, it is sent automatically to your inbox – you can scroll to the end of this photostory and then complete the Subscribe box.
P’30 weekly message
In the ‘better late than never’ category, I totally forgot to include a link to our weekly topic for P’30 families on Monday. This week’s message was about the importance of students learning and doing things themselves; Read it here. And know there will be a new weekly message this coming Monday.
Wishing you all a great weekend!