As Wake Forest seniors watch the days of their last semester on campus tick by, they might feel additional pressure to find and secure their next steps after graduation. That’s where the Office of Personal and Career Development (OPCD) can really help. Find out what a second semester senior learned, on Andy Chan’s Heart of the Matter blog.

Wait Chapel saw two big crowds on Saturday, February 23. The 1,250 or so people inside for TEDxWakeForestU: Defining Our Future and the hundred or so outside rolling the Quad after Wake Forest’s huge win over No. 2 Miami.

On the inside, students, faculty, staff and Piedmont-Triad community members gathered to hear nine speakers from around North America give inspirational and motivational talks. One big highlight: the return of CollegeHumor.com co-founder Ricky Van Veen (’03).

This is the second TEDx event Wake Forest University has hosted. One of the student organizers for both events, Jake Graham (’13), says initial survey feedback shows the audience is there for future events.

“Now that it’s going to be an established tradition at Wake Forest, we hope it’s one the spring semester events people look forward to,” Graham said. “After our first TEDx last year, there was some talk about making it an every other year event, but it is clear there is an interest in having events like this to hear people’s ideas and discuss them whether you’re from Wake Forest or a member of the surrounding community.”

Attendance figures are preliminary while organizers wrap up the event. Meantime, if you weren’t able to attend the event, you could follow along via social media and the #TEDxWFU hashtag. The Storify below captures some of the event highlights.

Wake Forest has appointed Dr. Penny Rue as vice president for campus life.  Rue, who currently serves as vice chancellor for student affairs at the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego), is nationally known for her creative leadership in strengthening campus communities.

Rue will oversee most facets of student life with broad responsibility for the well-being and safety of students and their engagement outside the classroom.  The departments she will supervise include: Residence Life and Housing, Student Services, Campus Life, Campus Recreation, Student Health Service, the Office of the Chaplain and University Police.

She will assume her new duties mid-July.

“I have a passion for creating a compelling student experience,” said Rue.  “At Wake Forest, the high degree of student contact, the teacher-scholar model, the focus on service and the common good, the emphasis on student well-being — all of these are appealing elements.  I’ve never seen such collective dedication to providing a truly enriching educational experience.”

Since 2007, Rue has served in her current role at UC San Diego and has focused on enhancing the sense of community, advancing student health, safety and wellbeing, and promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.

“This is an exciting appointment in the life of the University,” said President Nathan Hatch.  “Dr. Rue’s tremendous depth of experience and her talent for building community make her an excellent fit for Wake Forest.  And, her leadership in the area of wellness dovetails perfectly with Wake Forest’s increased focus on student well-being.”

Rue has been an innovator in the area of wellness. In 2009, she created an Office of Student Wellness, which oversees Student Health Services, Counseling and Psychological Services, the Sexual Assault Resource Center, Campus Recreation and the Wellness Center. In the student center, she set up “The Zone,” a lounge for student well-being that includes cooking classes, relaxation techniques and contacts for the rest of the offices in the Wellness group.

Rue previously served for eight years as dean of students at the University of Virginia. She served for five years as senior associate dean of students at Georgetown University and for seven years as Georgetown’s director of student programs. Earlier in her career she held student life positions at The University of Maryland and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

A search committee co-chaired by President Hatch and Provost Rogan Kersh and composed of faculty, administrators and a student representative recommended Rue’s appointment.  She will succeed Ken Zick, vice president of student life and instructional resources. Last year, Zick announced his plans to step down on June 30 from the vice president of student life position, after 25 years in that role.  He plans to return to teaching following a year’s leave.

“I am immensely grateful for the work of the search committee in finding an exceptionally well-qualified person to succeed Ken Zick,” said Provost Kersh. “I deeply admire Dr. Rue’s work in program development and her gift for mentoring students. I look forward to working with her as a creative partner in weaving together the academic and extracurricular aspects of campus life.”

In each of her previous roles, Rue has made it a priority to personally connect with students.

“I’ll look forward to attending programs and events and to meeting with individuals and groups of students to help them turn their dreams into reality,” Rue said.

Jim O’Connell, a Wake Forest senior and the student trustee, served as a member of the search committee. “Dr. Rue is clearly more than qualified professionally, but what I found special is her genuine interest in undergraduates,” he said. “She strikes me as a truly caring individual who is ready to work with students on an array of campus life issues.”

Rue earned her doctorate in counseling and personnel services from the University of Maryland, where her dissertation research focused on building community on college campuses.  She also earned a master’s degree in student personnel services from The Ohio State University and a bachelor’s degree in English and religion from Duke University.

From crisis response to the role of family involvement in students’ success, Rue has regularly addressed important student life issues at national conferences for NASPA-Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education and other professional groups. She was named a “Pillar of the Profession” by the NASPA Foundation.

Rue currently teaches in the San Diego State University graduate program in student affairs and has also taught “College Student Development” at the University of Virginia and “Contemporary Issues in Leadership for Women” at Georgetown.

Nancy Aguillon, a Wake Forest senior, and Harold Holmes, associate vice president and dean of student services at Wake Forest, were recognized as this year’s Martin Luther King Building the Dream Award winners.

The recipients received the award at an annual banquet celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. held at Wake Forest on January 22.

The MLK Dream Award is presented to one professor or administrator and one student from both Wake Forest and Winston-Salem State University (WSSU) who exemplify King’s qualities and promote diversity within the community.

This year’s MLK Dream Award winners from WSSU are Dr. Azeez Aileru, whose work focuses on hypertension and its disproportionate affect on African Americans, and senior Dustin Pickett.

The awards were presented by Wake Forest senior Alycia Beverly and Candice Helton of WSSU.

Nancy Aguillon

Aguillon, a sociology major from Hendersonville, N.C., is the president of Wake Forest’s Organization of Latin American Students (OLAS).  Last year, she organized the first Latino Awareness Week at the University, which sponsored film screenings and lectures about Latin-American culture.  Aguillon is dedicated to raising awareness about and addressing issues specific to the Latin-American experience at Wake Forest by encouraging dialogue among students.

“Nancy is a natural leader not only because of her vision and her ability to actualize her ideas, but also for her ability to inspire others to join her cause and feel empowered when they work with her,” says Assistant Professor of Communication Alessandra Beasley Von Burg.

Harold Holmes

Holmes, who has served Wake Forest for 25 years, has been committed to fostering community on the Reynolda campus and beyond.

“Harold is respected and admired for his efforts to cultivate an inclusive campus environment and broaden the perspective of students,” says Ken Zick, vice president and dean of student affairs.

In the community, Holmes has served on the board of Big Brothers/ Big Sisters.  He is also active in Leadership Winston-Salem, Leadership Triad, and Leadership North Carolina programs, which guide leaders in serving and improving their communities.

Holmes is a second time MLK Dream Award winner. He was recognized in 2009 after launching Wake Forest’s Mission of Good Hope service trip to Cape Town, South Africa.

MLK Dream Award recipients are nominated by faculty, staff, and students at their respective universities and are then selected by a committee of faculty, staff, and student representatives from each school.

In addition to co-sponsoring the awards presentation, Wake Forest and WSSU also co-sponsor and alternate hosting a keynote event featuring a well-known guest speaker. This year’s keynote event was held at WSSU and featured Harry Belafonte, a singer, songwriter, actor, and social activist.

The University enhances its efforts toward creating a diverse, inclusive, and inquisitive community this month with the opening of its new Women’s Center.

“Gender conversations are integral to developing mind, body and spirit,” says Paige Meltzer, director of the Center, “and can help us forge connections within our communities, improve campus culture, and nurture women’s potential. Women who feel respected and empowered build strong communities, strong families, and strong relationships — personal and professional.”

Meltzer, who comes to Wake Forest from Harvard University, holds a doctorate in women’s history and is an advocate for public policy initiatives that create a culture of inclusivity. She sees the Center as a place of collaboration and networking and plans to let campus constituents shape the Center’s priorities. But she does anticipate promoting female leadership in student government and other campus organizations, professional development, and body wellness.

The Center’s work affects all members of the Wake Forest community. “We may not always think about it, but women’s rights affect men and families and society. The Women’s Center is a resource that can help us to recognize gender inequality and promote change on campus and beyond.” Those are conversations for all community members, regardless of gender.

Others share Meltzer’s philosophy. The Wake Forest Women’s Forum, a grassroots organization of faculty and staff, has worked to promote women’s issues within the University since 2004. Theatre professor J.K. Curry, co-director of the Forum, says the success of the work-life balance taskforce in securing an improved parental leave policy at Wake Forest is an example of how what is often perceived as a women’s issue affects men as well.

“For many years, maternity leave was not available to all women. Today, at Wake Forest, parental leave applies to adoptions, as well as to births, and it’s available to both men and women,” Curry says. “For faculty, it includes a semester of leave from teaching. The policy gives academic departments the resources to cover leaves with minimal disruption and without burdening other faculty members.”

Wanda Balzano, assistant professor and director of the women’s and gender studies program at Wake Forest, looks forward to the Center raising visibility for women’s issues through events such as the Human Rights Clothesline, which for several years has been spearheaded by faculty member Patricia Willis. The Center will provide a home for students with the desire to advocate for gender equity in the community — a role the academic department has been challenged to fill up until now.

“The Women’s Center is a clear commitment by the University to create a campus climate for women and men that is mutually beneficial. Its resources will complement what happens in the classroom, ” says Balzano.

Connecting the curricular and the co-curricular is high on Meltzer’s agenda. “I’m excited about bridging the classroom and the real world,” she says. “Developing supportive relationships between women and among members of the campus will help us learn to pause and reflect on how gender informs the way we think about ourselves and how we behave towards each other.”

The Women’s Center follows the establishment of the LGBTQ Center in September 2011.

It could be the motto that we hold so dear: Pro Humanitate. Or the enviably low student-teacher ratio of 11 to 1. Or the teacher-scholar tradition that our faculty embraces. Whatever the reason, mentoring at Wake Forest goes to a whole new level. Read some of the best stories from 2012.

If you wander through the Z. Smith Reynolds Library long enough, you’re bound to come across an exhibit honoring the inaugural class of the Wake Forest Writers Hall of Fame. Names like Ammons, Angelou, McNeill, and Wilson stand out among the honorees, and each contributed to the culture of writing on campus.

Though this installation honors the past, today’s Wake Forest writers exercise their craft in a room just around the corner.

The Wake Forest University Writing Center, one of the more popular destinations for undergraduates, moved to the library in 2010, when it expanded beyond the Learning Assistance Center.

“To be located in ZSR is a big help,” says Writing Center director Ryan Shirey.  “Not only are we grateful to be located among students who are in the process of writing, but the opportunity to work closely with resources like the Reference Desk is invaluable.”

“The Writing Center is a great place to get help with academic writing … occasionally I have trouble organizing my thoughts on paper, and the way they help me lay them out makes the process of writing much easier,” says sophomore Lindsay Hudson.

The convenient location has increased traffic into the center. In a typical month about 250 students visit the writing center, either making an appointment or just stopping by to seek advice and feedback. You can imagine traffic is higher during mid-terms or finals. Though one visit is often enough to help a student get their paper on the right track, more than a quarter of these students return for a second visit. Surveys show 96 percent of students who used the center would recommend it to a friend. But don’t think the Writing Center is just a human-powered spell and grammar check, or that students just drop off papers to get them fixed.

“We’re entirely a peer review center,” says Shirey. “All the tutors who work here are students capable of providing an appropriate audience: a friendly ear that is able to respond critically to a peer’s writing and assist with challenges of thought and process.”

As a tutor at the center, Sara González works a few sessions every week, ranging from five minute check-ins to 50 minute discussions. Though students are encouraged to use the writing center as early in the writing process as possible, tutors are trained to assist their peers with a paper of any size or completion.

“We try to strengthen the writing process by avoiding proofreading the student’s papers for them,” says González. “By focusing on the process instead of a single assignment, the student can come away empowered and better able to communicate his or her ideas in an essay.”

Twenty-five Wake Forest students serve as the tutoring staff, and five of them are graduate assistants from the English MA Program. All undergo a rigorous application and training process to ensure they have the skills to tutor a wide range of students. A handful of student tutors even enroll in a unique “Tutoring Writing” class for additional practice and credit.

“Writing says a lot about the author, and if you’re not careful, it can say something that you may not want it to,” says Shirey, “our task here is to remind students that they’re already writers and help them to develop their skills in different genres of writing.”

Every autumn, as the leaves begin to fall from trees planted on Hearn Plaza, this beautiful college quad comes alive with the hustle and bustle of students, faculty, and staff.  Each one is here to contribute their lap to a growing total in the fight against cancer.

The event is Hit the Bricks — an on-campus race that takes place in the shadow of Wait Chapel.

This year was the 10th anniversary for one of the most popular activities on campus. Hundreds of students, staff, and faculty turn out to lend their support every year. If there was ever a definitive list of Wake Forest traditions, Hit the Bricks would find its place among rolling the quad and Project Pumpkin.

When Hit the Bricks began in 2002, it raised about $3,000 and had only a handful of teams participate. Last year, the competition raised more than $26,000 and had 89 teams enroll. While every lap each team contributes is vital to the success of this event, the student organizers say support received from those outside the Wake Forest community is just as necessary.

“While it’s great to see staff, students, and faculty members turn out to race, it’s important to recognize parents and members of the community who often pledge their financial support,” said co-chair Aline Souza (’13).

This year, 93 teams completed 25,396 laps around the plaza, and while the final pledges are still coming in, it looks like Hit the Bricks will come very close to meeting this year’s goal of $30,000. In its 10 years, Hit the Bricks has raised more than $169,000 through the running of 150,261 laps.

The major function of Hit the Bricks is to raise funds for charity. All proceeds support cancer research at the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center’s Comprehensive Cancer Center. While Hit the Bricks turned 10 this year, the Brian Piccolo Cancer Research Fund dates back to 1980 and has raised more than $1 million dollars for the WFU Cancer Center. These funds primarily go toward research and patient care.

“The donations we receive from Piccolo events fund our primary operations,” said Lori Osowski, director for the Comprehensive Cancer Center.  “But telling prospective employees about the fund and its purpose helps attract talent to the team.”

Brian Piccolo attended Wake Forest in the early 1960s on a football scholarship, eventually winning the ACC Player of the Year as a senior. Unselected in the NFL draft, he tried out for the Chicago Bears as a free agent, and slowly worked his way up the ranks until he earned a position as a starting fullback in 1969. Halfway through the season, he began showing symptoms of poor health, was diagnosed with embryonal cell carcinoma, and passed away a year later.

This year, the competition was larger than ever as the 93 teams and 951 participants set a record.

“We learned a lot from past events, and we were prepared to accommodate additional teams,” said co-chair John Allen Riggins (’14).  With Hit the Bricks scheduled just before parents weekend, organizers also planned for additional support from both the Wake Forest and local community.

Student speakers took the stage to discuss their experience with cancer and explain the need for additional cancer research. President Nathan O. Hatch and Provost Rogan Kersh also participated in the event. Hatch walked an honorary lap with student leaders at the start of the race, and the team named in Kersh’s honor came in second in the faculty/staff division.

When Linda Tuttle was diagnosed with breast cancer, she never imagined her experience would inspire her colleagues to design new treatments to tackle the disease.

A staff assistant in the chemistry department, Tuttle was more accustomed to talking to faculty and staff about meetings and course loads – not doctors’ appointments and treatment plans.

But after her 2009 diagnosis, Tuttle’s use of tamoxifen, a drug commonly used to treat breast cancer, inspired medicinal chemist Uli Bierbach and graduate students Song Ding and Xin Qiao to develop a targeted therapy that delivers a sneak attack to the disease – similar to a Trojan horse – in the spirit of Pro Humanitate.

Trojan horses and targeted warheads

Current platinum-based drugs, such as the blockbuster drug cisplatin, do not work on the most common and most difficult-to-cure types of cancer, including lung and breast.

Building upon more than a decade’s work in platinum-based drug research, Bierbach’s team now designs synthetic hybrid molecules that more effectively tackle otherwise chemo-resistant cancers, including breast cancer. Results of this work, funded by the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health, appear in the September 13 issue of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

Results also have led to tumor-seeking magic bullets that attach platinum to endoxifen, a close relative of tamoxifen, and quietly hitch a ride to the diseased cells, as if hidden in a Trojan horse.

“Platinum-based drugs cause severe damage to the DNA in cancer cells. Unfortunately, most cancers are smart enough to cut out the DNA damage and repair it, and that’s the starting point for our structural design. We developed a compound that does a good job therapeutically by overwhelming the ‘damage repair police’ of the cell,” said Bierbach, a chemistry professor who recently completed a four-year term with the California Breast Cancer Research Program.

Bierbach said that instead of killing certain cancer cells, cisplatin causes kinks in the DNA strand, which prompt cell enzymes to repair the damage. Wake Forest’s new platinum-based molecule has a much higher affinity for DNA than cisplatin and twists it in a way that is not easily identified by the cancerous cell.

In partnership with Greg Kucera of the Comprehensive Cancer Center at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, initial preclinical studies have proven Bierbach’s army of molecules to be 500 times more powerful than cisplatin in treating non-small cell lung cancer, 80-100 times for pancreatic cancer and up to 10 times for breast cancer.

“Within the next two years, we hope to turn our platinum-based drugs into safer, targeted warheads by attaching them to vehicles that will take them to a specific type of cancer and act as a guided missile,” he said.

Hope on the horizon

Offering a safer way of delivery will be an important step in convincing industrial partners and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to move forward with clinical testing, which Bierbach estimates could be another three to four years away. Still, he and Tuttle remain encouraged given the progress to date.

For nearly three years, they met several times a week to explore Tuttle’s treatment options, discuss possible side effects, and defuse her fears.

“My grandmother had breast cancer. We were even the same age when we were diagnosed,” said Tuttle. “Now every time I have a strange pain or a headache, I can’t help but wonder if I have another tumor.”

But unlike her grandmother, whose late stage breast cancer metastasized, Tuttle’s cancer was only stage 1 when a routine mammogram detected it. Today she is in remission following a lumpectomy and radiation therapy, and her quality of life has improved.

Though her prognosis looks promising, she and Bierbach still get together frequently in the halls of the chemistry department to share stories – hers of how she now lives every day to its fullest, and his of the lab’s progress with its challenging research projects.

“Our professional relationship has definitely grown,” said Tuttle. “I hope his research group stays as focused as it is now. Every advancement helps.”

“Wake Forest’s motto is Pro Humanitate, which means ‘for humanity,’ and it motivates our research group daily,” Bierbach added. “Everyone knows someone who has been affected by cancer, and there’s a pressing need for more effective and less toxic chemotherapies. The solution starts with some combination of academic curiosity and personal experience, and takes place in a lab that has synthetic chemistry expertise and a good deal of imagination to think about new ways to tackle cancer mechanistically at the molecular level. It’s a fulfilling job, but it’s even more rewarding to help someone you know.”

Chances are, you’ve heard WFDD’s programming, but don’t know much about the local NPR affiliate’s history at Wake Forest.

Find out more about that history in an Old Gold and Black profile of the radio station, plus learn about how they are teaching middle school students how to listen, and find out more about an upcoming event that looks at communication technology in the classroom:

Technology in the classroom

This week WFDD, the Wake Forest Department of Political Science and the Forsyth Education Partnership will host “Cyber Communication in the Classroom: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” Featuring Ananda Mitra, whose study of “narbs” (narrative bits of social media), and NPR blogger Omar Gallega, the goal is an in-depth conversation about the benefits and pitfalls of technology use in the classroom.

The event will be held Sept. 27 in Brendle Recital Hall from 7-8:30 p.m. It is free to the public, but registration is encouraged here: http://forsythedpartnership.org/programs/community/cyber-communications-forum/

A look back at WFDD’s storied history

By Yasmin Bendaas, Old Gold & Black
In 1946, at the university’s old campus, three students named Henry Randall, Alva E. Parris and James H. Hampton illegally started a radio station called W-A-K-E broadcasting from a student room. Two years later, while the station received a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) license, the students learned that there already was a W-A-K-E and they changed the station name to “WFDD,” standing for Wake Forest Demon Deacons.

Read more in the Old Gold & Black »

Sounds like learning

By Kory Riemensperger, Intern, Office of Communications and External Relations
The ring of a wind chime … the chirping of birds … the start of a car’s engine. Noises like these might blend into the background and go unnoticed for many people. But, to the ten children enrolled in 88.5 WFDD’s summer radio camp, these “natural sounds” function as the first building blocks in producing a proper radio segment.

Read more in the Wake Forest News Center »