Monday Monday

In this Issue:

• A message from the President and Provost re: U.S. News rankings
• ICYMI: goat yoga
• For P’27s: Letters So Dear, Weekly Message for new families, and a reminder to complete your Orientation survey (if you had not already)
• Coffee with me on Family Weekend Saturday morning

One of my dear Wake friends sent me a text this morning saying joyfully that “it’s sweater weather!” And for a few hours in the early morning, they were right. But by about lunchtime, with the sun out, it was much closer to 80 and I was sweating in a long sleeve shirt.

Tis the season for NC to experience 3 of the 4 seasons in the same 24 hours. For those coming for Family Weekend, keep an eye on the forecast and bring clothes you can layer given whatever the microclimate is at that hour 🙂

A message from the President and Provost re: U.S. News rankings

The campus community received a message from President Wente and Provost Gillespie this morning about the U.S. News college rankings, which has a new methodology. Wake ranked 47th among national universities. I was in a meeting this morning to debrief what this really means, and the following items were particularly helpful to me.

This is not an apples-to-apples comparison from previous years. U.S. News changed 17 of the 19 indicators used in this year’s national universities methodology. So this is essentially a new ranking. There is a factsheet about the new methodology, provided by the Office of Institutional Research. I know some of the staff in that office and they do incredible work on surveys, methodology, and interpreting data.  

Some of the things we pride ourselves on at Wake – having small classes and personal attention from faculty who have Ph.D.s and are top scholars in their fields – are not in the U.S. News rankings methodology anymore.

What I left that meeting with is the understanding that although U.S. News changed its methodology, nothing has changed about the outstanding Wake Forest education our students are receiving. In fact, we fared well in the subcategories of the rankings:

• 31st in undergraduate teaching
• 25th in accounting
• 14th in undergraduate engineering (new category/ranking)
• 38th in undergraduate business programs
• 34th in undergraduate psychology programs

Rest assured we are going to keep on doing what we know works to provide a transformational education for our students. We’re still the same Wake you know and love.

ICYMI: goat yoga

I meant to get to this last week and time got away from me. In case you missed it, last Thursday your Deacs had an opportunity to take part in some wellbeing activities, with a twist: goat yoga! I did not get out there myself because I am still within my ‘you must mask around others’ from when I had to drive my son back to NC State following his required 5 days at home, but thankfully there are plenty of photos to share.

For P’27s: Letters So Dear, Weekly Message for new families, and a reminder to complete your Orientation survey (if you had not already)

For our new families, because it’s Monday, there are some things to share. First up, today’s issue of Letters So Dear that your ’27s received. I particularly like the message here: Justin Linden talks about his journey to a hopeful medical career and choosing to major in something he loved – history (not a STEM major). It’s a great reflection and worth reading.

For our weekly message for parents and families, this week we are talking about well-intended help that may not be helpful to our students: if I do X, what is my student learning? Believe me, this is one I have to really be intentional about, because I am a weapons-grade fixer. But more than anything else, I want to feel secure in the knowledge that my son can figure things out if I am not there to help him. Every opportunity he has to do things on his own gets me one step closer to that goal.

Finally – thank you to all the new families who answered our Orientation survey. If you hadn’t done that yet, we are making one last call for it. You can take the survey here. Thank you!

Coffee with me on Family Weekend Saturday morning

At 9 a.m. this Saturday in Pugh Auditorium of the Benson University Center, yours truly will be there to answer your questions. And while I could make a presentation and guess some of the stuff you would like me to talk about, it will be better and more meaningful if you submit the questions yourselves! So please take a moment and ask me anything using this form. I will do my best to answer on Family Weekend.

This is the third year in a row we are attempting to do this program (which has of yet never happened, because in 2021 I had COVID and in 2022 I was recuperating from minor surgery). I *really* would love to be able to do it this year, so please send good vibes for that along with your questions 🙂