Professor Larry West shared his passion for German with students for four decades
Boys being boys, they’ll dare each other on a whim to do wild and crazy stuff. Which explains why Larry West has enjoyed a long and venerable career as a college German professor.
That career, spent almost entirely at Wake Forest, drew to a close this spring with his retirement from the Department of German and Russian. Behind him, the 68-year-old West leaves a redoubtable legacy as a teacher, scholar and study-abroad administrator, along with a cadre of devoted colleagues and former students who have been inspired by his dedication and regaled by his wit.Categories: Arts & Culture, Research & Discovery
History professor Emily Wakild is passionate about Mexican parks.
She has spent more than a decade researching and writing about the legacy of the Mexican Revolution in the early- to late-1900s, a period in which government planners created a system of national parks to achieve both social goals and environmental conservation. 
Cindy Gendrich is one of those people who can't stop herself from laughing, sometimes too loudly and at inappropriate times. A professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance, Gendrich has received a $24,800 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for her proposal, “Why do people laugh?”, to study the complexities of humor and to develop a first-year seminar. 
William Louis Poteat, seventh president of Wake Forest College from 1905-1927, is revered as a larger-than-life historical figure that championed the teaching of evolution and freedom of inquiry. But in an out-of-the-way lab in Winston Hall is evidence that Poteat, a biologist, was as interested in preserving the past as he was in charting the future. 
With the UK General Election now announced for May 6, some background information on what is likely to unfold might be of general interest.
When communication professor Ananda Mitra set out to write about the complex problems and issues generated by the widespread adoption of digital technology, he knew he had taken on a big job. So big, it led him to write 10 books simultaneously.