WFU in the news: July 25-31

FEATURED NEWS

Students pair with Wake Forest faculty to get summer lab experience
By Lisa O’Donnell | Winston-Salem Journal
“Many of us have hosted high school students in our labs,” said Rebecca Alexander, chemistry professor and director of Wake Downtown, “but they’ve usually been the children of friends of friends, and they tend to be students of privilege. We wanted to change that.” Students with an interest in STEM were identified at schools. Each were paid $1,800 to cover what the students could have earned at a summer job. The program also paid for meals and transportation for students who needed it. – 7/31/2022

NATIONAL & INTERNATIONAL

The negative side of positive thinking
By Patty Onderko | Success Magazine
“I have always had a rather dark personality, a mixture of melancholy, pessimism and irony,” said Eric Wilson, English professor and author of Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy. Throughout his life, family and friends have implored him to cheer up. He was instructed to smile more and scowl less—and perhaps seek counseling. Friends asked, “Everyone assumed there was something wrong with me.” Wilson says we miss opportunities for wisdom, creativity and growth when we use positive affirmations to stamp out feelings of discontent and sorrow as they naturally occur. – 7/31/2022

With crises everywhere, do democracies have an advantage?
Zyri
“This is an incredibly complicated question, in part because there are so many different ways to assess performance,” politics professor Justin Esarey. – 7/29/2022

Is Sri Lanka’s collapse a harbinger of things to come for South Africa?
By Natale Labia | Daily Maverick
“Their insatiable appetite for plunder took a poorly governed country and ruined it,” said politics and international affairs professor Neil Devota. To shore up their power base, they made a number of economically insane decisions, such as slashing taxes, which reduced the government’s tax revenue by 25% and banning non-organic fertilizers. – 7/27/2022

Students from Wake Forest University on study tour in SVG
By Ernesto Cooke | St. Vincent Times
A group of students from Wake Forest University are currently in St Vincent and the Grenadines. Through first-hand experiences and interactions with experts, the Environmental Communications course is designed to blend scholarship and practice. – 7/29/2022

REGIONAL & TRADE

A brutal battle for the American mind
By Parker Bono | Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC)
According to former MSNBC host and current Wake Forest professor Melissa Harris-Perry, “We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we’ve always had kind of a private notion of children. Your kid is yours and totally your responsibility.” – 7/29/2022

Former President George W. Bush heads to Raleigh
By Dane Huffman | Triangle Business Journal
George W. Bush will also sit down with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham to launch Wake Forest University’s Face to Face Speaker forum at the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum. The forum is in its second season. – 7/29/2022

LOCAL

Reynolda House captures American photorealism
By Dalia Razo | Yes! Weekly
Following two years of patience and generosity from the private collectors and institutions that committed to collaborating on the postponed exhibit, the museum now welcomes the public to experience Chrome Dreams and Infinite Reflections: American Photorealism. The exhibition is scheduled to run through December 31 in the museum’s Mary and Charlie Babcock Wing Gallery. – 7/27/2022