Dopamine and Deans
In this Issue:
- Wake Alert message about water main break downtown
- What Ryan Fox’s victory at the Open Championship [and a Wake Faculty member’s research] can teach us about the science of belief
- Leadership Update: Interim Dean of the School of Business
- Reminder of dates for parking registration coming up in early August
I’m taking some PTO this afternoon because my ’27 is headed back to their college home because marching band camp starts in August, so we are trying to make the most of what time we have left. Read on for any items today that serve you.
Wake Alert message about water main break downtown
There was a Wake Alert message issued midday about a water main break impacting part of Forsyth County:
“Because of the county-wide water main break, Wake Forest’s Wake Downtown campus has closed. Classes affected by today’s alternative operations have been notified. Shuttles will continue to run as normal.”
As a reminder to our new families, if you want to opt in to campus safety messages, follow these instructions to get the WakeSafe app and enable notifications.
What Ryan Fox’s victory at the Open Championship [and a Wake Faculty member’s research] can teach us about the science of belief
For the golf lovers and neuroscience fans alike, I bring you a story about golf, belief, and dopamine in our brains:
“When [Ryan] Fox hoisted the Claret Jug at the Open Championship on Sunday, his journey mirrored that of countless elite athletes and champions. An improbable victory — unexpected by most — had offered confidence and belief, providing a springboard to the future…..
Kenneth Kishida, a neuroscience professor at Wake Forest, has spent the last two decades studying how the human mind processes narrative and how expectations can alter our subjective reality. In recent years, his focus has shifted to studying dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain that is largely known as ‘the pleasure chemical.’…
Kishida offers an analogy:
Imagine you’re an athlete, and in the middle of competition, you have a moment in which you believe that you might lose. You could be trailing, or time may be running out. You may have just hit a horrible shot. Yet you still keep playing, handling the pressure, performing well, and against the odds, pull out a victory in the final moments.
The feeling of victory after the expectation of defeat causes an intense dopaminergic signal in the brain, which delivers a simple message: That was better than expected. The process then acts as a teaching tool, reinforcing everything that led up to that point.”
Read the full story to get all the nuance and context. But this was a really fascinating take to me on ow our brains can help us believe in ourselves.
Leadership Update: Interim Dean of the School of Business
Dr. Norma Montague has been appointed as Interim Dean of the School of Business. Dr. Montague is a highly respected scholar, an award-winning educator and a trusted leader. She recently served as senior associate dean of academic affairs and innovation and brings broad experience and a deep understanding of the School of Business.
“Montague is a highly respected scholar, an award-winning educator, and a trusted leader at Wake Forest,” said President Peter Rodriguez. “With her extensive leadership experience, including her previous tenure as senior associate dean of academic programs, she will bring both strategic insight and dedication to academic excellence to the role.”
Read more in the announcement.
Reminder of dates for parking registration coming up in early August
If your Deac is planning to have a car on campus, they will want to make note of the dates for parking registration, which begin next week; see links for details:
First year student vehicle registration
Second year student vehicle registration
Third and fourth year resident student vehicle registration (i.e., students living in University housing)
Commuter undergraduate vehicle registration (i.e., seniors living off campus in housing not owned by WFU)
And just a reminder that we are a walkable campus with a robust shuttle system as well as Zipcars, so a car is not necessarily a necessity 🙂