Senior year, relationships cut short at Wake Forest University
March 18, 2020 | Salisbury Post
Wake Forest student Natalie Alms wrote a guest post about her senior year interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. “I’m still working on the emotional math of everything. I’m privileged to have been at college in the first place,” said Alms. “I’m a lucky one. But I probably won’t get to say goodbye to the people I only saw in class or on the quad. I hope they know I loved them and still do. Wake Forest’s motto is Pro Humanitate, ‘for humanity.’ My university shut its doors to save lives. That decision aligns with its very core, however painful it may be for us seniors. What a final lesson – one of sacrifice for the greater good – that my class, along with everyone else, is learning now.”
Media report for Feb. 8-21, 2020
February 27, 2020 | WFU News and Communications
The Wake Forest News Media Report for Feb. 8-21, 2020 is now available online.
Wake Forest University apologizes for its past role in slavery
February 20, 2020 | Winston-Salem Journal
Wake Forest President Nathan Hatch apologized for the school’s historical connection with slavery in a speech Thursday during the university’s Founders’ Day Convocation at Wait Chapel on campus. The apology is part of what Hatch described as an ongoing effort to come to grips with how the university participated in and profited from slavery. In his keynote Founder’s Day speech, Jonathan Walton, the dean of Wake Forest’s School of Divinity, told the audience the history of the university “is both beautiful and terrible,” but people in the present can’t escape its effects.
2020 rivals aim to slow Bloomberg's surge as he faces his first debate in Vegas
February 18, 2020 | Sinclair Broadcast Group
Allan Louden, former director of the debate program at Wake Forest and editor of “Navigating Opportunity: Policy Debate in the 21st Century,” weighed in on what viewers can expect from the Feb. 19 Democratic debate. In three months as a candidate, Bloomberg has spent nearly a half-billion dollars of his own money running ads and hiring staff across the country, vaulting into the top tier of candidates without even participating in a primary or debate. Elizabeth Warren’s supporters have complained that she has been marginalized and discounted by the media despite outperforming Biden in both of the first two contests. She could potentially channel that outrage in the debate to some effect. “She has the option of being indignant for being ignored.”
Coronavirus: Are African countries ready
February 15, 2020 | BBC
Africa and China are more connected than ever. Lina Benabdallah studies China-Africa relations at Wake Forest. “Diplomatic relations between China and African partners have seen a boom in relations with many exchanges including economic exchanges, cultural exchanges, diplomatic relations and more recently also security and military relations,” said Benabdallah. China has become Africa’s top trading partner over the last decade, and direct flights now bring workers back and forth between the country and African continent. This opens a possible pathway for the coronavirus to come to Africa.
What does justice look like for president’s friends and foes
February 12, 2020 | The Christian Science Monitor
The U.S. Department of Justice reduced its sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone, after President Donald Trump tweeted his dismay at the previous recommendation. “The underlying principles of punishment are you want to deter people,” says Kami Chavis, a professor at Wake Forest School of Law and a former U.S. attorney. “We do want to deter people from lying to members of Congress.” The fact that the four prosecutors involved have since left the case, she adds, suggests they were “uncomfortable with this high level of intervention that seems politically influenced.”
Media report for Jan. 25 - Feb. 7, 2020
February 12, 2020 | WFU News and Communications
The Wake Forest News Media Report for Jan. 24 – Feb. 7, 2020 is now available online.
Everything you need to know about coronavirus, the deadly illness alarming the world
January 29, 2020 | USA Today
Pat Lord, teaching professor in the department of biology at Wake Forest, said this particular outbreak probably came from a virus that originated in bats and another animal, and then transformed to be able to infect humans. Health experts have confirmed human-to-human transmission in a number of countries. Similarly, SARS originated from a fruit bat that was transmitted to civet cats and then eaten as a delicacy in China, Lord said. “Bats seem to be a reservoir for quite a few viruses, like the rabies, Ebola or the Marburg virus.”
Wake Forest commemorates 50th anniversary of integrating residence halls
January 30, 2020 | Diverse: Issues in Higher Education
Wake Forest will commemorate the 50th anniversary of integrating its women’s residence halls this weekend. To memorialize the anniversary, Beth Norbrey Hopkins and Deborah Graves McFarlane, the first two African-American women to live on campus, will speak openly about their experiences of living in the residence halls. Alongside them, Awilda Neal, Linda Holiday and Camille Russell Love will share their stories as Black women at Wake Forest in the early 1970s as well.
Will Peru overcome dirty gold
February 1, 2020 | La Recherche
“Since 1985, the illegal exploitation of gold has destroyed nearly 960 square kilometers of forest in the Madre de Dios region, more than two thirds of which in eight years, from 2009 to 2017,” said Luis Fernandez, executive director of the Center for Scientific Innovation in the Amazon (CINCIA). CINCIA was created in 2016 in Puerto Maldonado by the American university, Wake Forest, to assess and mitigate threats to health and biodiversity due to mining, and raise awareness. “Some 185 tonnes of mercury used to extract gold are released into the wild every year in Madre de Dios, or 60% of the mercury emitted in Peru.”
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