Wake Forest University

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Wake Forest University is a private coeducational university located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, renown for its programs in the liberal arts.

The Wake Forest University campus is located north of downtown Winston-Salem, roughly at the juncture of Polo Road to the north and University Parkway to the east.

File:Sealgold.gif
Wake Forest University
MottoPro Humanitate (For Humanity)
TypePrivate
EstablishedFebruary 3, 1834
Endowment$1 billion (As of 5/2006)
PresidentNathan Hatch
Academic staff
636, excluding medical school
Undergraduates4,263
Location
Winston-Salem
,
NC,
,
USA

File:WakeForestLogo.jpg
CampusSuburban, 340 acres[1]
ColorsOld Gold and Black
NicknameDemon Deacons
AffiliationsACC
MascotThe Deacon
Websitehttp://www.wfu.edu/


History

Main article: History of Wake Forest University
The Benson University Center prepares for the inaguration of Nathan Hatch

The university first opened February 3, 1834 by the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina as the Wake Forest Manual Labor Institute; it was located in its namesake town of Wake Forest. In 1838, it was renamed to Wake Forest College. In 1894, the School of Law was established, followed by the School of Medicine in 1902. The university held its first summer session in 1921.

The School of Medicine moved to Winston-Salem in 1941 and became the Bowman Gray School of Medicine. The following year, 1942, Wake Forest admitted its first women undergraduate students. In 1956, as a result of large endowments from the Z Smith Reynolds Foundation, the college also moved to Winston-Salem. A graduate studies program was inagurated in 1961, and in 1967 the school became the fully accredited Wake Forest University. The Babcock Graduate School of Management was established in 1969.

The James R Scales Fine Arts Center opened in 1979. In 1995, the business school was renamed to the Wayne Calloway School of Business and Accountancty, while in 1997 the medical school was renamed to the Wake Forest School of Medicine.

The thirteenth president of Wake Forest is Dr. Nathan Hatch, former provost at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Hatch was officially installed as president on October 20, 2005. He assumed office on July 1, 2005, succeeding Dr. Thomas K. Hearn, Jr., who retired after twenty-two years in office. In celebration of Dr. Hatch's inaugration Wake Forest held a Presidential Ball for all students, faculty, and staff.

Academics

Wake Forest professors are often regarded very highly by both their students and their colleagues in their respective fields of study. The success of the strong education coupled with the students' work ethic can be seen in the ten Rhodes Scholars and numerous Marshall and Fulbright recipients the university has produced in the past twenty years.

Undergraduate

Wake Forest's undergraduate component consists of Wake Forest College and the Wayne Calloway School of Business and Accountancy. The university offers 34 majors and many interdisciplinary minors across many fields of study. In order to attend the Wayne Calloway School, students must make a special applications to its program. One program of note within the Wayne Calloway School is the 5 year accountancy program whereby a student earns an MS in Accountancy and their CPA after 5 years of combined undergraduate and graduate study.

In order to graduate a Wake Forest student must finish a basic set of classes and a set of divisional classes.

The basic set of classes including a first year seminar, a writing seminar, health and PE classes, and foreign language literature. The latter usually requires students to take additional languages classes first.

The divisional requirements, as of the 2006-2007 academic year, include 12 courses in 5 academic divisions:

  • Division 1 - The Humanities: Religion, Philosophy, and History (3 courses)
  • Division 2 - The Humanities: Literatures (2 courses)
  • Division 3 - The Humanities: Fine and Performing Arts (1 courses)
  • Division 4 - The Social and Behavioral Sciences (3 courses)
  • Division 5 - The Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Computer Science (3 courses)

The University does however recognize that the divisional system does not fit all students, and students can apply for open curriculum to have their divisonal requirements reduced and possibly even eliminated. The garden variety reasons in which the University has granted open curriculum is to allow a student to pursue special educational interests such as, but not limited to:

  • spend extra time studying an exotic language
  • focus on one particular field of study with extraordinary vigor
  • work on a special project
  • to facilitate study abroad interests

Wake Forest students generally pick a Major and a Minor, a major with two minors or double Major. In extremely rare cases,by approval of the college faculty, individuals have been granted a triple major.

Almost all Wake Forest professors have a PhD. Wake Forest professors are expected to excel in both teaching and scholarship, in a teacher-scholar ideal, howeve, the teacher role is usually emphasized.

Graduate

Wake Forests University also consists a wide array of top notch graduate programs in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Wake Forest also has professional schools:

  • Babcock Graduate School of Management
  • School of Law
  • a Medical School
  • a Divinity School.

Rankings

Wake Forest is consistently ranked as one of the top national universities in the United States. In the 2006 U.S. News America's Best Collegesreport, Wake Forest was ranked 27th, putting it on par with universities such as University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Tufts University, and Georgetown University.

Presidential Debates

Twice the school has hosted presidential debates. The first, between then-Vice President George H.W. Bush and Governor Michael Dukakis, took place in Wait Chapel on September 25, 1988. The second matched then-Governor George W. Bush against Vice President Al Gore on October 11, 2000.

Student life

Fraternities and sororities

Main article: Wake Forest Greek Life

Wake Forest has a very strong Greek presence. Roughly 50% of the female population is Greek and 40% of the male population are members of fraternities and sororities

Physical Activity Options

Wake Forest offers a vast array of possibilities for physical activity be it for recreation or health. The University offers classes in Yoga, Dance, Boot Camp, and etc. Classes can also be taking for credit to learn certain sports and how to dance.

Intramural Sports are also extremely popular and take place for a variety of sports, depending on the season.


Dining Facilities

Every Wake Forest undergraduate student is required to to sign up for a meal plan in coordination with Aramark. The meals can be used in the main dining facility known as "The Pit" or the Magnolia Room, both of which are located at Reynolda Hall, in the center of the campus. At the neighboring Benson center students can buy food and snacks independent of their meal plan from Aramark or from Chick-fil-a or Pizza hut.

Recently, in the fall of 2005, Aramark, through its Fresh Foods Company, renovated "The Pit" in an attempt to improve the quality of the dining experience. The newly renovated area contains a variety a food stations with a "cooked upon order" service.

Student media

Wake Forest University's school newspaper is the nationally recognized and awarded Old Gold & Black (OGB), named for the school's colors. Published weekly from an office in Benson University Center, the Old Gold & Black is produced by a dedicated group of student editors, reporters and photographers.

The school television channel is Wake-TV. Its feature television show is the weekly edition Wake-TV News.

The Student is a student run website created and run by students to help integrate the student body to academic activities and social events around campus and the Winston-Salem area.

The Howler is the annual yearbook.

Athletics

Originally the Wake Forest team was known as the Deacons, due to its association with the Baptist Convention (from which it later separated itself). However, in 1941, after a particularly good win against the Duke Blue Devils, a newspaper reporter wrote that the Deacons "fought like Demons," giving rise to the current team name, the "Demon Deacons."

Wake Forest has won a total of seven national championships in three different sports. Wake Forest is sometimes referred to as being a part of "Tobacco Road" or the Big Four, terms that refer to the four North Carolina schools that compete heatedly against each other within the ACC; these include Duke, North Carolina, and North Carolina State, as well as Wake Forest.

Both the current head basketball coach, Skip Prosser, formerly of Xavier, and football coach, Jim Grobe, were signed to ten-year contracts in 2003. The Athletics Director is Ron Wellman.

Football

The Demon Deacons participate in the NCAA's Division I (I-A for football) and in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Of all schools that play Division I-A football, only Rice and Tulsa have smaller undergraduate enrollments. Of particular Wake Forest football fame is Brian Piccolo. Wake Forest plays its home football games in Groves Stadium.

Men's Basketball

Wake Forest is generally regarded as a competitive basketball team, one that often qualifies for the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship (20 times in the school's history). The men's basketball team has made 16 straight postseason appearances (through their NIT appearance in 2006), the longest such streak in the ACC. They reached the Final Four once, in 1962. The school's famous basketball alumni include Billy Packer, a guard on the 1962 Final Four team who became far more famous as a basketball broadcaster, Tyrone "Muggsy" Bogues, one of the shortest players ever to play in the NBA, Dallas Mavericks star Josh Howard, Chris Paul of the New Orleans Hornets, and two-time league MVP and three-time NBA Finals MVP Tim Duncan. Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum is the home venue for the Demon Deacon basketball team.

Women's Field Hockey

Recent athletic honors include three consecutive NCAA Field Hockey national championships in 2002, 2003, and 2004 under Head Coach Jennifer Averill.

Other

Wake Forest has had several successful golf teams, winning national championships in 1974, 1975 and 1986. Several well-known players include Arnold Palmer, Lanny Wadkins, Jay Haas, Curtis Strange and Scott Hoch.

Wake Forest won the national championship in baseball in 1955.

Screaming Demons

Student attendance of Wake Forest Football and Basketball games is high, in part due to the program known as "screaming demons". At the beginning of each respective atheletic season students can sign up for the program whereby they pay $15 dollars in return for a tie dye t-shirt and card that serves as an automatic pass to the sporting events. They lose this privilege if they miss too many of the games. This encourages game attendance. Frequently, students let their friends borrow their pass and t-shirt if they can't attend again and don't want to be recorded as missing a game attendance. Generally speaking, there is always enough room in the students section to attend football games. Basketball game seats in the students section, especially against an ACC rival such as Duke or UNC Chapel Hill, can be extremely difficult to attain without participating in the screaming demon program. At those high profile games though screaming demons are assured a seat, they often camp out for the middle of the night (against rain, snow, and freezing temperature) to get the best seat in the stadium (which is assigned by order of showing up at the ticket gate).

Student organizations

There are over 160 chartered student organizations of all sorts. Student sports organizations such as RUCKUS (Ultimate Frisbee) are highly visible. Special interest organizations range from the academic, such the Model United Nations team, to the artistic, such as the handbell choir. In spring of 2006, the Mock Trial team was notable in qualifying for the national tournament while only in its 2nd year in operation. Religious organizations like RUF, Catholic Community,IV, and BSU are numerous and highly visible as well. Both the College Republicans and College Democrats have active chapters at the University. Historic student organizations the Philomathesians, an artistic literary magazine.

The Office of Student Development, led by Michael Ford, son of Gerald R. Ford, oversees all student organizations. Student Development also organizes leadership oriented student activities such as LEAD. LEAD is a semester long course in the spring that is a comparable to a training camp for campus-wide leadership.

Volunteer Service Corp

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Wake Forest Students at the Wake Alternative Break

The Volunteer Service Corp (VSC) is one of the most popular student organizations. It coordinates volunteering in both the local and international/national setting via service projects and trips. The organization has annual service trips to Russia, Vietnam, and Latin America. In light of the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina, it sent 30 Wake Students on a Wake Alternative Spring Break in the Spring of 2006.

A capella Groups

Wake Forest has a number of vibrant A capella groups that produce annual records and have very popular performances on and off of campus. They include:

  • Inneundo - mixed gender group intent on bringing "hotness" to music
  • Chi Rho - all male Christian group
  • Plead the Fifth - all male group
  • Minor Variation - all female Christian group
  • Demon Divas - all female group

Technology

Wake Forest has received praise for its efforts in the field of technology. In 2003, The Princeton Review listed it as the number two "Most Connected Campus" in the United States. The University's Information Systems (IS) department has a program that issues new Lenovo laptop computers to all undergraduate and graduate students and faculty as well as Hewlett-Packard color printers to undergraduate students. High speed wireless and wired Internet access is now provided on all campus grounds. For undergraduate students living on campus, the university provides Resident Technology Advisors (RTAs), undergraduate students who also live on campus, trained to aid students with technical help for their laptops.

Information Systems, in cooperations with high technology firms like IBM, Cingular and HP, also actively engage in technology testing with members of the student body. These selected students participate through either co-payment or leasing plans in experimental uses of technology in education and college life.IS Research and Development

The University is a founding member of WinstonNet, a non-profit organization of educational and municipal institutions in Winston-Salem, NC that among other things provides a gigabit ethernet based regional point of presence (or, rPOP) for the North Carolina Research and Education Network (NCREN).

Wake Forest University provides faculty with access to high performance computing efforts locally with the WFU DEAC cluster and statewide with its participation in the NC Grid Computing Initiative. The statewide efforts are coordinated through the non-profit organization MCNC

University Campuses

Reynolda Campus

The Reynolda Campus is the main campus for Wake Forest University, housing the undergraduate colleges, three of the four graduate schools, and about half the Graduate school of Arts & Sciences. The core of Reynolda campus are the two interlinked quads, separated by the main administrative building/main dining faciilty, Reynolda Hall, into North and South Campus.

North Campus consists of the T.K. Hearn Plaza, better known as "the quad" which holds the six upperclassmen residential buildings, the UPS Store, subway store, book/office supply store, clothing/athletic store, and Wait Chapel. Wait Chapel serves multiple functions. Its auditorium serves as an area for prayer, ceremonies, concerts, and certain guest speakers. The classrooms at Wait Chapel house the offices and classrooms for the Divinity School and the Religion Department.

South Campus is the home of Manchester Quad (formerly known as the Magnolia Quad or Mag quad). It holds freshman housing, most of the classroom buildings, the Benson Center, and the Z. Smith Reynolds Library.

The classroom and research buildings consist of:

Buildings that closely surround the two quads are:

  • Reynolds Gym - gymnasiums for classes, swimming pool
  • Scales Fine Arts Center - Art, Theatre, Music and performances are conducted here
  • Miller Center - gym and Athletic offices
  • Kentner Stadium - track and field, field hockey
  • Spry Soccer Stadium
  • Admissions Office

Structures of note extended further away from the two main quads yet still considered part of Reynolda Campus include:

Bowman Gray Campus

Known as the Bowman Gray Campus, a large hospital and medical center are located away from the Reynolda Campus in downtown Winston-Salem. This combined facility is now known as the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, and is currently the largest employer in Forsyth County. The facility is comprised of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, formerly known as the Bowman Gray School of Medicine, North Carolina Baptist Hospital, and Wake Forest University Physicians.

Bowman Gray Technical Center

In 2003, the Bowman Gray Technical Center (BGTC), a third, smaller, campus opened near the main campus. This campus is the administrative base for the Wake Forest University Center for Structural Biology, and the physical location for seven of the sixteen faculty members comprising the Center.

Wake Forest Information Directory


Academics

Schools: Wake Forest College • School of Law • Babcock School of Management • School of Medicine • Divinity School • Graduate School of Arts and Sciences • Wayne Calloway School of Business and Accountancy •
Programs: Study Abroad Programs • Demon Deacon Battalion • Debate Team • LEAD •

Athletics

ACC • Demon Deacons • Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum • Groves Stadium • Kentner Stadium • Miller Center •

Student life

Greek Life • Housing •

Student Organizations

Student Union • Student Government • Lilting Banshees •


Campus

Wait Chapel •


Notable Faculty

  • John Andronica, Classical Languages
  • Maya Angelou, English
  • John Dinan, Political Science
  • Terry Baker, Accountancy
  • John Baxley, Mathematics (Emeritus)
  • Deborah Best, Psychology, Dean of the College
  • Rhoda Billings, Law (Emeritus)
  • Thomas Brister, Political Science
  • David Coates, Political Science
  • Paul Escott, History, former Dean of the College
  • Michele Gillespie, History
  • George Graham, Philosophy
  • Dillon Johnston, English (Retired) and Founder of WFU Press
  • Matt Kendrick, Electric Bass and Jazz improvisation
  • Charles Kimball, Religion
  • Dilip Kondepudi, Chemistry
  • Charles M. Lewis, Philosophy
  • Dan Locklair, Music and Composer-in-Residence
  • Allen Mandelbaum, English and Humanities
  • Bill Marcum, Finance
  • John C. Moorehouse, Economics
  • James T. Powell, Classical Languages
  • Freddie R. Salsbury, Jr., Physics
  • Phyllis Trible, Divinity
  • Robert W. Ulery, Classical Languages
  • Sarah Watts, History
  • Peter Weigl, Biology
  • Mark Welker, Chemistry and Associate Provost for Research
  • Edwin G. Wilson, English (Emeritus)

Notable Alumni or Attendees

Arts & Letters

Politics, Law, and Government


Sports and Entertainment

Points of interest


References

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