Beyond the Books: Brains and mussels
Wake Forest has a long history of close, mentoring relationships between faculty and students. It's an opportunity to explore the liberal arts, tie scholarship and research and create the teacher-scholar ideal. For biology professor Ron Dimock, mentoring comes naturally during hours in the lab -- going beyond the books.
Music professor and concert pianist Pamela Howland uses film clips and movie soundtracks to teach students classical music conventions. Her mission? For Brahms and Beethoven to join Beyonce on iPod playlists.
Marshall Shaffer, a first-year student from Houston, Texas, shares his thoughts on the behind-the-scenes look he and other students in Hana Brown’s “Political Sociology” class got at preparations for the upcoming Democratic National Convention.
Senior chemistry major Tara Seymour (’12) has been dancing since she was 4. She never imagined she would be dancing out the process of DNA replication until the opportunity arose to participate in Movement and the Molecular, the first class where chemistry meets dance taught at Wake Forest.
When Mike Bevan’s father died suddenly last year, he dutifully stepped into a family leadership role. He also enrolled in “Fathers and Daughters,” the only known college class in the country devoted exclusively to dad-daughter relationships, to help his sister cope with their loss.
The Department of Romance Languages is hosting a three-day Hispanic Transatlantic Studies symposium that will bring scholars from a variety of countries to campus to present cutting-edge research in history and the humanities.
Relationships between faculty and students are a Wake Forest cornerstone. While such connections are made every day, the annual Big Campus Connect – a weeklong series of events promoting faculty-student engagement in informal settings – offers an opportunity to put down the textbooks and have fun together outside the classroom.
Professor Jack Rejeski finds that weight loss and exercise for older adults with type 2 diabetes will help prevent them from becoming physically disabled. The research makes the case for patients to not rely solely on support and education.
In a recent Washington Post guest column, Andy Chan, the vice president of the Office of Personal and Career Development, and Jacquelyn S. Fetrow, the Dean of Wake Forest College, advocate for personal and career development to be a central part of the liberal arts experience.
About 40 students are enrolled in “Options in the World of Work,” a half-semester course that began just after spring break. It’s the second in a series of four “College to Career" courses designed to better prepare students for life and work after college.