1. education
2. alumni and reunions

Wake Forest News
JUNE - SEPTEMBER 2012
1
SELECTED MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS, WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY, OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTERNAL RELATIONS
Go t o news.wf u.edu | January - March 2015
Colbert returns! But not to TV
Fans will take comedian, political satirist and late night
television host Stephen Colbert wherever they can get him. In
television purgatory since leaving The Colbert Report (he takes
over for David Letterman on The Late Show Sept. 8), Colbert
will give the commencement address at Wake Forest University
on May 18.
“We are thrilled Stephen Colbert has accepted the invitation
to speak at Wake Forest’s commencement ceremony,” said
President Nathan O. Hatch. “I’m not sure what our graduates
will enjoy more – how his creative genius reflects the
exaggerated extremes of politics and contemporary life or
how so many of us at Wake Forest will find ourselves on the
receiving end of his jokes.”
The Washington Post, USA Today and Time have recognized
Colbert’s commencement speeches at the University of Virginia
(2013), Northwestern University (2011) and Knox College (2006)
as being among the best ever.
A livestream webcast of the ceremony will be available at
go.wfu.edu/wfu15.
MA RCH 9 , 2 0 1 5
Career competency: Students
need guidance from day one
At Wake Forest, career planning and experiential
learning are woven into academic studies. A team
of engaged advisers strive to help students discover
how to make a living doing something they love.
Such innovation gets a lot of attention, but for many
colleges, preparing students for the work force
falls to a small staff with meager resources working
in a silo.
“The way change has to happen,” says Andy Chan,
vice president for personal and career development,
whose work redefining career education at Wake
Forest has become a touchstone in the field, “is that
the presidents have to support, and endorse, and
communicate that this is important.”
Confirming the University’s commitment to post
career success, Wake Forest landed on Princeton
Review’s 2015 list of the country's 50 “best
value” schools for return-on-education. The list
recognizes the nation's academically best and
most affordable colleges that also have excellent
records of alumni employment.
FE B. 2 2 , 2 0 1 5
Old Gold & Black on the red carpet
Sophomore Kelly
FitzGerald handed out
golden statuet tes to
celebrity presenters during
the 2015 Academy Awards
in February. FitzGerald won
her spot af ter submitting
a 60-second video on “The
best piece of advice I’ve
ever received” for a Team
Oscar competition.
Additionally, senior Marshall Shaffer earned a seat
at the Oscars for his summer Academy Award
internship, and Wake Forest communication
professor and film critic Mary Dalton and “Hoop
Dreams” producer and documentary film professor
Peter Gilbert were both interviewed for their Oscarwinner predictions.
2
JANUARY - MARCH 2015
JANUARY - MARCH 2015
FEB. 2 3 , 2 0 1 5
Done with one-and-done?
President Nathan Hatch, former chair of the NCAA Division I Board of
Directors, commented on freshman ineligibility and the NCAA. “I do
think university presidents should in a concerted way appeal to the NBA
and make clear that this is not a healthy relationship,” he said. “The fact
that freshman ineligibility is being raised does show how deeply people
are troubled by the one-and-done phenomenon. It makes a mockery of our
hope that student-athletes are receiving an education. The professional
teams don’t want to have to examine high school talent. They can just wait
for the cream to rise on the college court. I think many colleges are feeling
used.”
President Hatch was also mentioned in a number of national media outlets for his work with the
NCAA on its new autonomy structure. While serving as chair of the Division I Board of Directors,
he said he hoped voting on these issues autonomously would “not only allow the membership to
focus more intently on the well-being of our student-athletes, but to also preserve the tradition
of Division I as a diverse and inclusive group of schools competing together on college athletics’
biggest stage.
JA N. 8, 2015
JA N. 23, 2015
Why doesn’t everyone
get the flu vaccine?
Beetroot juice improves exercise
function of COPD patients, study shows
Frederick Chen, an economist at Wake Forest,
designed an online game to determine what motivates
people to get vaccinated. While he admits that the
game is not “super fun,” he argues that it provides
some evidence for the kind of policies government
might pursue to boost vaccination rates. “It’s more
newsworthy when we see things not working. But
when a vaccine is working, nobody wants to talk
about it.”
Department of Health and
Exercise Science chair Michael
Berry, primary investigator
and lead author of a study that
looked at effects of beetroot juice
on exercise function of COPD
patients, said his study findings
showed overall that those
patients who drank beetroot
juice were able to extend their
exercise time, and had reduced exercise diastolic and
resting systolic blood pressures.
F EB .24, 2015
The 8 best schools for
international education in 2015
MA R CH 3, 2015
FEB . 8 , 2 0 1 5
Booby Behavior
David J. Anderson, professor of
biology, is featured by the BBC in
Natural World, a Web exclusive
video program. Anderson
discussed the reproduction habits
of the Nazca booby species, a
species of seabird that inhabits
the Galapagos Islands, which
Anderson has studied for 30 years.
Thiel Fellow set to graduate in May
After one semester at Wake Forest, John Marbach accepted a $100,000
entrepreneurship grant — a prestigious Thiel fellowship that supports
students who want to skip college to start a business.
Even though he successfully developed e-mail filtering software and
secured venture capital to fund it, he decided to return to the Wake
Forest community and left the program after his first year. One of the
younger participants, he felt out of step with the others. “The Thiel
Foundation said, ‘Oh, we’d be happy to introduce you to VCs and
CEOs and coaches,’” he recalls. “But there was no, like, ‘Oh, we could
introduce you to some normal friends.’” He graduates this year.
FEB. 1 4 , 2 0 1 5
F EB . 21, 2015
Museum of Anthropology
featured on NC Weekend
Wake Forest University’s Museum of Anthropology
was featured on the “NC Weekend” program on
UNC-TV. The segment focused on the museum’s
collections that currently highlight Native American
artifacts from the Yadkin River valley.
Law professor shares expertise
on hate crime prosecutions
In a story about the tragic murder of three Muslim students in Chapel
Hill, former federal prosecutor Kami Chavis Simmons, director of the
criminal justice program at Wake Forest University School of Law, told
CNN: “In terms of being able to prove whether or not this was a hate
crime or a bias-motivated crime, the prosecutors would have to show the
motive, would have to show that Craig Hicks killed these three students
because of their religion or race. And so in order to do that, police would
be talking to anyone affiliated with Craig Hicks.
JAN. 22, 2015
Just how little exercise does it take to get healthier?
People who believe they can’t
meet lofty exercise goals often do
nothing instead, according to Jeffrey
Katula, an associate professor in the
department of Health & Exercise
Science, and this “all or nothing”
mindset is common. “The more
physical activity you do, the more
of a response you’ll get,” explained
Katula. “Some exercise is better than
none, but more is better than that.”
F EB . 1, 2015
Wake Forest University is among eight colleges and
universities that received NAFSA’s 2015 Senator Paul
Simon Awards for Campus Internationalization for
excellence in international education. Wake Forest
was recognized for its Workshop on Intercultural
Skills Enhancement (WISE), a skills-based conference
aimed at helping faculty, program coordinators,
student advisors and staff develop intercultural skills
and awareness.
F EB . 11, 2015
Public history course
focuses on ex-offenders
“What we would want to know is whether or not he was a­ member of any
group that espoused any hatred related to these groups? They’re trying to
see if there was a motive, if he killed them because of their religion.”
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Students in history professor
Lisa Blee’s Public History course
curated the exhibit, “Release:
From Stigma to Acceptance” at
the Sawtooth School for Visual
Art in Winston-Salem. The
exhibit featured the words and
visual art of former offenders who
graduated from a program called
Project Re-entry.
3
Dan River healing after coal
ash spill as fines weighed
In October, staff from the N.C.
Division of Water Resources
sampled aquatic insects and
other tiny animals in the river,
determining that the size and
diversity of the populations both
upstream and downstream from
the spill were similar. Dennis
Lemly, a U.S. Forest Service fish
biologist and research associate
professor of biology, said past research has shown the
tiny aquatic insects counted as part of the state’s study
can survive in polluted water and sediment. The real
concern, he said, is whether they will absorb the toxic
metals from the coal ash, which over time would become
concentrated in the fishes and birds that eat them.
JAN./FE B. 2015
The secret to raising
smart kids
Research from assistant professor of psychology
Lara Kammrath that looked at people’s mind-set
related to how they deal with their problems was
referenced in this story that looked at raising
smart children and emphasized that a focus on
process, not on intelligence or ability, is the key
to success in school and in life.
F EB . 13, 2015
Lara Kammrath
Couples connect with
the click of a mouse
When it comes to online dating,
communication professor
Jennifer Priem says it gives
people a chance to control how
they are presented. “You have
a chance to present yourself
in whatever way you like,” she
said. “For those with higher
levels of anxiety in face-to-face
communication, they like having
that mediated environment so that they can plan a
message. We can present a certain part of ourselves so
it is an idealization, a censored self. You could play up
certain characteristics and downplay others.”
Harsher punishments for
the obese
Research from social psychologist E.J.
Masicampo reveals that moral judgments are
swayed by incidental emotions and perceptions.
“The assumption people have is that we draw on
values that are universal and important,” says
Masicampo, “but something like mentioning
that a person is overweight can really push that
judgment around. It’s triggering these gut-level
emotions.”
E.J. Masicampo
JAN. 21, 2015
F EB . 27, 2015
How an adverse Supreme Court ruling
would send Obamacare into a tailspin
Mark Hall, a professor of law,
was cited for writing a series of
papers examining the effects
of reform on various state
markets. If the court eliminates
the subsidies, “it would be a
big mess” in the affected states,
he said. “We have learned
pretty quickly that that policy
environment doesn’t work well.”
National universities where the most accepted students enroll
Colleges typically aim high for their yield, the
percentage of accepted students who elect to
attend. Students may choose to enroll based on
prestige, affordability or academic and social fit.
The average yield among the 261 ranked National
Universities reporting data to U.S. News was 34.1
percent in fall 2013. Wake Forest was on the list
and the data showed that 3,915 students were
accepted for fall 2013 with 1,230 choosing to attend
for a 31.4 percent yield.
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JANUARY - MARCH 2015
JANUARY - MARCH 2015
A R OU N D C A M P U S
Harris-Perry named director of
Pro Humanitate Institute
Melissa Harris-Perry (‘94) has been named
the executive director of Wake Forest’s Pro
Humanitate Institute. From environmental
justice projects to research on urban food
deserts, she has spent her career connecting
academic work and service.
Swimming in the ‘Deac Tank’
AR O UND C AM PUS
‘Naming Rights for the Rest of Us’
increases engagement and donations
In February, the Wake Forest Fund launched its tongue-in-cheek “Naming Rights for the
Rest of Us” social media campaign to improve engagement with young alumni. Donors that
month were entered into a drawing to have a name plate made and photographed with an
“iconic” Wake Forest item.
Using Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to generate excitement for the contest, the “Naming
Rights for the Rest of Us” website garnered 10,650 page views with 94 percent of those
being first-time visitors. The average time spent on the naming rights website was nearly
five minutes compared with an average time on the overall campaign website of under one
minute. Young alumni giving in February jumped from $4,961 in 2014 to $9,857 in 2015.
Examples of items “named” during the campaign included:
Taking its cue from a popular television show
focused on entrepreneurs seeking capital
funding, a campus-wide competition gave
student teams the chance to seek funding for
the best ideas to foster a diverse and inclusive
learning environment at Wake Forest.
Springing into action
Charlotte Said (‘17) was the recipient of the popular
floor outlet in the ZSR library.
While many of their classmates headed for the
beach, 140 Wake Forest students piled into vans
that would take them to locations across the
country to engage in community service during
the week of spring break.
25 years later:
Symposium explores President
Nathan Hatch’s book on
American Christianity
Ashley Millhouse (‘12) was chosen as the recipient
of Netta’s Skillet. She honored her late friend Betsy
Martin (‘12) with the naming rights.
Thanks to Berkley Sweetapple (‘11), Kevin Cox’s
‘snow day’ phone will continue to inform campus
of weather emergencies for years to come.
Wake Will roadshow continues
A quarter century after it was published, scholars
are still talking about the award-winning book,
“The Democratization of American Christianity,”
written by University President Nathan Hatch.
A half-day symposium held on Feb. 6 featured
seven of the country’s most distinguished scholars
of early American religion reflecting on the
influence of the book.
STEM careers ‘speed-dating’ style
Wake Forest’s first
STEM Slam brought
together students
who were looking
for job opportunities
with companies who
were looking for
potential employees.
If that sounds like
your typical career
fair, it wasn’t. The
STEM Slam was
a combination of
speed dating and career networking, or “speed networking.” The students who
participated included traditional STEM majors, as well as non-STEM students
who may have STEM-related hobbies or side interests. Non-STEM majors
represented at the event included art, theatre, psychology and communication. Is
there a place for liberal arts students in STEM companies? Yes!
Founders’ Day marks 181 years
One of Wake Forest’s new, flat speed bumps has
been renamed Altieri Hill thanks to Michael (‘03)
and Danielle (‘06) Altieri.
Wake Will San Francisco, March 16
5
Wake Will San Diego, March 17
Wake Will traveled across the country to San Francisco and San Diego to catch up
with alumni and donors in California.
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The Wake Forest community
commemorated 181 years since
the University’s founding at
Founders’ Day Convocation
in Wait Chapel on Feb. 19.
This year Dr. Louis Argenta
and Dr. Michael Morykwas
were awarded the University’s
highest honor, the Medallion
of Merit, for their outstanding
achievements in the medical
field. Other award winners
include the Award for
Excellence in Research to mathematics professor Jennifer Erway and physics professor
Oana Jurchescu; the Donald O. Schoonmaker Faculty Award for Community Service
to communications professor Mary Dalton; and the Reid-Doyle Prize for Excellence in
teaching to physics professor Timo Thonhauser, among others.
Donation supports
Wake Forest athletes
Wake Forest alumnus and
former football and baseball
player David Couch (‘84)
has committed $4 million in
support of the Wake Forest
baseball program and Sports
Performance Center.
2015 MLK ‘Building the
Dream’ award-winners named
Librarian Hu Womack and seniors Joe LeDuc
and Nehemiah Rolle were named 2015 Martin
Luther King Jr. “Building the Dream” award
winners in recognition of their efforts to promote
diversity within the WFU community.
Celebrating the 20th
anniversary of WFU’s City
of Joy program
Wake Forest students served in Calcutta, India,
marking the 20th anniversary of the City of
Joy program, the University’s longest running
international service trip.
OMG moment affects GPAs
Chemistry professor Angela King had an “aha”
moment last year at a teaching retreat which
led her to borrow ideas from Harry Potter and
Hogwarts for her organic chemistry class — a
House Cup contest fostered in-class participation
and healthy competition.
Flipping for physics
First-year students who signed up for Rick
Matthews’ calculus-based introductory physics
class found themselves in a “flipped” classroom
designed to use class time in a more interactive way.
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JANUARY - MARCH 2015
JANUARY - MARCH 2015
D EC . 2 6 , 2 0 1 4
MBA programs adapt to students’ needs
F EB . 9, 2015
Dean Smith was ‘the
master of coachtalk’
D E C. 26, 2014
Career advice from OPCD executive director
Dean Smith, the former
University of North
Carolina coach who
died at age 83, didn’t
just master the game
of basketball. He
also mastered the art
of “coachtalk,” said
John Llewellyn, a
communications
professor and sports
communication expert.
The School of Business continues to receive coverage about the decision last
fall to accelerate its evening and weekend offerings for professionals who
want to earn an MBA while working full time. Prior to the decision – part
of a trend to fit the needs of the modern student and the business world –
Charles Iacovou said when he took over as dean he did a “deep dive . . . to
understand our current situation and the landscape around us.”
“Throughout his career Dean Smith had a genius for
building communication and teamwork: the foulline huddle to set defenses, the point-to-the-passer
acknowledgement when a teammate scored on an assist,
the practice that everyone on the bench stands for the
man who comes out of the game,” Llewellyn said. “All
of these actions reinforced the common purpose that is
central to great teams and collective effort.”
F EB . 16, 2014
FEB . 1 2 , 2 0 1 5
For less corporate fraud, add female executives
Device helps blind
‘see’ like a bat
According to a new study from assistant professor of
accounting Ya-wen Yang, the IRS estimates that in 2006,
corporate-tax evasion was responsible for around $67
billion in losses. Though corporate ethics and morality
have been studied at length, the new study takes a look
at a different characteristic of a company’s leadership
– gender – as a means of determining how ethically a
company’s higher-ups behave when it comes to paying
taxes and reporting income.
FEB . 1 8 , 2 0 1 5
M AR . 1 3 , 2 0 1 5
WF Innovation Quarter wins recognition
Wake Forest Innovation Quarter has been recognized as among the nation’s best
examples of historic rehabilitation projects for 2014 by the National Trust for Historic
Preservation and the National Trust Community Investment Corp. The groups said their
awards “highlight exemplary” historic rehabilitation projects that utilized the federal
historic tax credit to revitalize America’s cities and small towns.
FE B. 26, 2015
A guide to a
Godless morality
Twenty percent
of Americans now
say they have no
religious affiliation.
For young people, it’s
nearly a third. Bill
Leonard, professor of
church history and
religion and founding
dean, Wake Forest University School of Divinity, was
interviewed for NPR’s “On Point.”
FE B. 12, 2015
Katharine Brooks, executive director of the office of Personal and Career
Development, was featured nationally in two stories on career advice. In
one, she recommended that recruiters need to ask the right questions
and in another, she encouraged job seekers to go beyond the ubiquitous
Google search to find valuable career information online.
“To that end, college and university career center websites are hidden gems
for job seekers. If you’re not currently enrolled in college, you might not
realize the plethora of free resources and helpful links available to the
public through these sites,” she said.
D E C. 26, 2014
Superstition times 3: 2015
calendar has 3 Friday the 13ths
Physics professor Eric
Carlson never put much
stock in Friday the 13th.
In fact, he once led a
group called the Carolina
Skeptics, that would gather
every Friday the 13th and
encourage people to do
“unlucky” things.
“We would deliberately
challenge superstitions,”
he said. “At 13:13, I would
stand under a ladder. We’d have a fake black cat (I’m
allergic to real ones), and break a mirror and spill salt
while standing on a crack. We like to have control in our
lives, and it’s very discomforting that bad things happen
that we can’t control. Superstition gives us a sense of
being in control.”
Wake Forest president backs campus Imam
Some Wake Forest University students are using bats as
a model to help the blind navigate their world. Just like
the flying mammals, the H.E.L.P device uses sonar to
detect objects and alert with vibrations.
Study claims $63.5B impact for N.C. higher ed
A study commissioned by the state’s public, private and community colleges estimates
that the 110 institutions added about $63.5 billion in economic value to North Carolina’s
economy in fiscal 2012-13. Of that, Wake Forest’s impact was estimated at $3.3 billion to
the surrounding region during the 2012-13 fiscal year.
7
F EB . 3, 2015
University endowments
climb with the stock market
North Carolina universities posted healthy gains in
the value of their endowed funds in 2014 and a rising
stock market led to an average return of 15.5 percent,
according to an annual survey of 832 U.S. colleges and
universities called the NACUBO-Commonfund Study
of Endowments.
Wake Forest University’s funds reached 1.1 billion, while
N.C. State’s foundations were up 15 percent to $885
million. Elon University had the best return rate of 22
percent on its $189 million in endowment assets.
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President Nathan Hatch
released a statement of public
support for the University’s
associate chaplain for Muslim
Life, Khalid Griggs. In a
message that went to the
Wake Forest community,
Hatch wrote that Griggs
had his “full support” and
is “an experienced, wellrespected religious leader
whose pastoral care and interfaith engagement assist Muslim students and
people of all backgrounds on our campus.”
Griggs wrote an open letter of his own in which he said, “I support the
constitutional government of the United States and have never advocated,
nor would I ever support, violence against it.”
He also said, “I want people to know that I have repeatedly and publicly
denounced violent acts in the name of Islam and decry a tendency to
blame all Muslims for the extremist actions of a few.”
In response to the open letters, Griggs and University leaders have
received messages of support from many Wake Forest alumni.
FE B. 15, 2015
WFU students win ethics bowl
Wake Forest University students won the 2015 NCICU
Ethics Bowl, a two-day competition at the Campbell
University School of Law in Raleigh. The event attracted
more than 100 students from 20 of North Carolina’s
independent colleges and universities.
JAN. 7, 2015
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco
enters agreement to
donate Whitaker Park
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.’s latest corporate gift to the
Winston-Salem community is its biggest – and likely
last – major infrastructure donation. The company is
providing the majority of its Whitaker Park campus to
Whitaker Park Development Authority Inc. (WPDA),
a nonprofit 501(c)3 corporation created in April 2011
by Winston-Salem Business Inc., the Winston-Salem
Alliance and Wake Forest University for economic and
redevelopment purposes.
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JANUARY - MARCH 2015
J AN . 3 , 2 0 1 5
MA R . 4, 2015
Remembering Ed Christman
Postal service honors
Maya Angelou with postage stamp
For years, longtime Chaplain Edgar D. Christman welcomed
freshmen to Wake Forest with his “What’s in a Name” speech, in
which he wove many of their names into his remarks to make them
feel part of their new community. No chaplain has ever been more
aptly named, or lived up to his own name more than Christman,
who is remembered for his compassion in helping generations of
students feel at home at Wake Forest.
Wake Forest University faculty, staff and alumni were among
those present for the dedication ceremony of the Dr. Maya
Angelou Forever Stamp in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday,
Apr. 7. They included Presidential Endowed Chair in Politics
and International Affairs Melissa Harris-Perry (’94), who
served as the master of ceremonies; Assistant Provost for
Diversity and Inclusion Barbee Oakes (’80); Assistant Dean
for College Development Wade Stokes (’83); and alumnus
Robby Gregg (’83).
The Winston-Salem Journal wrote a story about Chaplain
Christman’s life that ran on Christmas day and later ran an editorial
honoring him.
“He has been a chaplain to everybody –
to those of another faith, to those of no
faith, to those on the road somewhere.” Provost Emeritus Ed Wilson.
Christman, who was 85, died surrounded by the love of his family. He
could weave a story with charm, courage and humor. As the Wake
Forest University chaplain for more than 30 years, he put countless
students at ease with those stories. “When there were people in need,
he took care of us,” one of those students, Joe Clontz, once told me.”
Who doesn’t
love a ranking?
J AN . 2 1 , 2 0 1 5
Life trustee Petro “Pete” Kulynych dies
Petro “Pete” Kulynych, a life member of the Wake Forest
University Board of Trustees and former founding director of
Lowes Cos. Inc., died Jan. 20 at his home in Wilkesboro. He was
93. Kulynych was also a life member of the Wake Forest Baptist
Medical Center Board of Visitors.
M AR . 5 , 2 0 1 5
For the sixth consecutive year, U.S.
News & World Report has ranked
the Wake Forest University School
of Business Part-time Master of
Business Administration programs
No. 1 in North Carolina, and the
second consecutive year at No. 20
in the nation.
The Peace Corps recognized the
university, among schools with
fewer than 5,000 undergraduates,
at No. 20 as a top volunteerproducing university.
What I learned from Fr. Ted Hesburgh
In a column about Notre Dame’s Father Hesburgh, Wake Forest
President Nathan Hatch wrote: “Before moving to Wake Forest
10 years ago, I was privileged for many years to teach and work
in the administration of Notre Dame...Fr. Ted Hesburgh was as
close to a saint as anyone I have ever known.” Hesburgh died
Feb. 26 at the age of 97.
Printed on EcoVarsity Text PC100, an environmentally responsible
paper that contains 100% post-consumer waste content.
The National Jurist ranked the
School of Law among the nation’s
best for practical training.
College Factual rated Wake
Forest No. 2 on the top 10 list
of N.C. colleges and universities;
AND Best Master’s Programs,
named Wake’s online master’s
in counseling degree program
among the top 40.
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