November 8, 2013 | Salon
Ideologues fight to own Billy Graham’s legacyIn an email interview with writer Becky Garrison for Salon, Bill Leonard, Dunn professor of Baptist studies and church history at Wake Forest University, wrote about Graham’s legacy. “I think Billy is the last and the most successful of the Protestant ‘chaplains’ in America. There may be multiple chaplains in contemporary culture, but not with the consensus that Graham developed. He is also perhaps the last of the national revivalists in the U.S. who pioneered evangelical use of media including radio, TV, films and direct mailings. He generally stayed ‘on task’ with a primarily conversionist/evangelist calling to move persons toward ‘personal faith in Jesus’ but was occasionally distracted by his infatuation with American presidents, most evident in his association with Richard M. Nixon.
November 7, 2013 | Chicago Tribune
A serving of holiday mannersHave we forgotten how to have a conversation over a shared meal? “It’s not that we’ve forgotten as much as we’ve ignored it,” says counseling professor Samuel Gladding. “The mode of communication — or the most popular these days — is indirect communication through Twitter or text on through, well, you name it. Communication is an art form, but it seems to be a lost art at times when people gather together. They look down instead of at one another. If we don’t read facial expression or hear voice tone, we don’t know if the person is really inquiring or being sarcastic or being empathic. We can’t hear it, and we can’t see the expression on the other individual’s face.”
November 6, 2013 | The Washington Post
Ratiu Democracy Award winner fights ‘anti-gypsy’ prejudiceRoma activist and Fulbright fellow Angela Kocze was interviewed about Roma stereotypes after a high-profile story hit the news about the removal of blonde-haired, fair-skinned children from their darker-complected Roma parents in Greece and Ireland. “If it’s not careful, the media can sustain centuries-old stereotypes about Roma,” Kocze told Lynn Joyce Hunter, who wrote the piece for “She The People”: Changing the conversation. “We need to change the discourse,” Kocze said. “People in marginalized communities are affected by the majority’s perception of the minority—this has an effect on the minority as well…. For this reason, the media has to be more aware and critically reflect on how they frame the news.”
November 5, 2013 | National Geographic
Will Climate Change Imperil Your Cup of Starbucks?Justin Catanoso of the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting recently published a piece on National Geographic’s News Watch that looks at how rising temperatures may pose a risk to future food supplies. In the article, Catanoso asks Wake Forest tropical biologist Miles Silman, how tree migration may affect the earth. “You can move crops northward,” Silman told Catanoso. “Canada can become more productive, assuming the soils can handle it. So maybe (crop) productivity increases in the high latitudes. But it’s going to decrease in the southern ones. If you look at places where crop yields are expected to decline, it’s in some of the poorest and most populated places in the world.”Catanoso is a professor of practice in Wake Forest Univerity’s English department and director of the journalism program.
November 4, 2013 | 'Our State' Magazine
Documentary Film Contest: Finalists AnnouncedThis past summer, “Our State” magazine asked readers to submit a documentary film about North Carolina. Chris Zaluski (MFA ’13), program director for Wake Forest’s student-run Wrought Iron Productions, is a finalist for his film, “The Duke of Rougemont,” — a short documentary that explores the eccentric hobbies of artist, storyteller and craftsman Stacey Harris. Harris, a North Carolina native, recently completed The Boar’s Nest, a Dukes of Hazzard museum, in his backyard. The winner will be announced at the 2013 Carrboro Film Festival on November 23-24. Zaluski and Sam Smartt (’09, MFA ’13) recently won 2nd place at the 34th Annual College Television Awards for their nationally-recognized documentary, “Wagonmasters.”
October 29, 2013 | Bloomberg Businessweek
Spending on Halloween down from last yearA survey conducted by the National Retail Federation estimates that 158 million Americans will celebrate Halloween, down from 170 million last year. The survey also estimates that the average person will spend $75.03 on such items as candy, costumes and decorations, slightly less than the $79.82 spent last year. Marketing professor Roger Beahm says he doesn’t expect the Halloween spending trends to change that much,” Beahm said. “Yeah, there will be year-to-year fluctuations based on how the economy is at the time, but I think this long-term trend is going to continue.” Beahm is executive director of the Wake Forest University Center for Retail Innovation, a retail marketing center established within the School of Business to create knowledge and cultivate industry leaders through data analytics and channel partner collaborations.
October 24, 2013 | Minnesota Public Radio
Should SAT scores be a factor in college admissions?Joseph Soares, sociology professor and author of “SAT Wars: The Case for Test-Optional College Admissions,” talks with Kerri Miller (MPR) and Peter Coy (Bloomberg Businessweek) about why standardized tests still have so much power in college admissions decision-making. What are alternatives to the SAT and ACT? Do standardized tests threaten to make higher education elitist? Wake Forest has been getting “more creative students, more diverse students and stronger students” since going test optional, says Soares. The discussion focuses on Coy’s article, “What’s Holding American Students Back? The SAT.”
October 22, 2013 | New York Times
Not Just a Hot Cup AnymoreIt’s been 20 years since Stella Liebeck sued McDonalds over dangerously hot coffee. In a New York Times Retro Report video, communication professor John Llewellyn talks about how the facts of the case were lost in the media uproar. “This is the most widely misunderstood story in America,” says Llewellyn. “The public perception of it is Stella Leibeck won the lottery. She bought the coffee. She spilled it on herself, and now she’s a millionaire, but of course the facts are much more complicated.”
October 21, 2013 | Market Watch
10 things the World Series won’t tell youSports economics professor Todd McFall, an expert on tournament competitions and sports regulatory policies, was quoted by Charles Passey in Market Watch on the lopsidedness of baseball’s World Series. “Teams with monster payrolls (can) buy a competitive advantage over their rivals,” says McFall. McFall points to the Boston Red Sox as one such example: The club swept both the 2004 and 2007 World Series in four games — against the St. Louis Cardinals and Colorado Rockies, respectively — with a payroll that was tens of millions of dollars larger than that of its opponents, writes Passey.
October 18, 2013 | Winston-Salem Journal
Project examines changes in food systems in African-American communities“Foodways and Roadways,” a 16-minute documenatry developed and produced by Jessica Pic, a graduate of the Wake Forest University Documentary Film Program, and Margaret Savoca, research fellow in the Department of Epidemiology and Prevention at Wake Forest School of Medicine was screened at Wake Forest Biotech Place and gave the audience a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film. The documentary looks at how the construction of a highway in Winston-Salem split the community and displaced about 10,000 families. Over time, a great change in nutrition and meal patterns in these neighborhoods occurred.
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