8/6 Weekly Update: Social Life

Bottom Line Up Front:

  • Upcoming key dates or action items for families and/or students
  • How to find Parent and Family Orientation activities in the New Deac Welcome Week 2024 app
  • Delay in Student P O Box assignment
  • Student Involvement Opportunities
  • Fraternity and Sorority Life
  • Student events and parties
  • Important alcohol information for our families

Dear parents and families of incoming students,

Has the summer sped by for you too? We are excited that it is getting closer for your students’ arrival! Here’s what you should know this week.

Upcoming key dates or action items for families and/or students

Here’s what you should know this week.

For families:

  • By August 12, ensure your student has checked their student account in Workday for financial holds and arrange payment if needed.

For students:

How to find Parent and Family Orientation activities in the New Deac Welcome Week 2024 app

Download the New Deac Welcome Week 2024 guide or simply scan the QR code below:



Once you have the app, here is how to navigate the app to see the Parent and Family Orientation activities.



While we hope our new families’ schedules will allow them to participate in Parent and Family Orientation activities, it is not required.

Delay in Student P O Box assignment

The assignment of P O box numbers for new students has been delayed. Students received this message yesterday.

The start of school is just around the corner, and our new students might be thinking about some of the more fun aspects of college. So today we are going to talk about getting involved on campus and social life.

Student Involvement Opportunities

  • One of the keys to finding a sense of belonging is getting involved on campus, particularly in student organizations. Wake Forest has over 200 student organizations, which students can find at The Link, our student engagement platform. In the unlikely event that your student has an interest not matched by a club, the Office of Student Engagement can work with them on creating a personalized involvement plan.
  • The Fall Involvement Fair will be held on September 3 from 3:30-6 p.m. on Poteat Field and I encourage your students to go. Student organizations will each have a table where they can display information about their organization, and students can sign up to get on a distro list to receive info about events and activities.
    • Pro tip: students should take one reconnaissance lap around all the tables first to see what is offered, so they don’t sign up for too much at once (and then not get involved in anything because they are overwhelmed by event notices).
  • Many of our students find involvement through our Campus Rec department. About a quarter of students participate on the 38 Club Sport Teams, most of which travel to compete against other universities’ club teams. About half of students participate in intramural sports, competing against other Wake students. Campus Rec also offers Outdoor Pursuits trips (think hiking, backpacking, rock climbing, etc.), Aquatics, and more. And, with over 300 student employees, Campus Rec is the largest campus employer.
  • Wake Forest has a robust arts community for students interested in musical ensembles, theatre and dance, art, creative writing, film, and more. Stay connected with all arts activities at the university by visiting the Wake The Arts website and subscribing to the newsletter or Google calendar. Upcoming Arts events:
    • Secrest Artists Series: icarus Quartet
      Monday, September 30, 7:30pm, Brendle Recital Hall
      The 2024-25 Secrest Artists Series opens with the Icarus Quartet and a world premiere! “Bartók Reborn” will be presented by the icarus Quartet, an ensemble of two pianists and two percussionists anchored by Wake Forest Music faculty member Larry Weng.
    • Theatre Season: “The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940”
      Performances on September 20-22 & 26-29, Tedford Stage
      The 2024-25 Theatre season opens with “The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940” by John Bishop. Directed by Cindy Gendrich, the play is an ingenious and wildly comic murder mystery romp, poking fun at the more ridiculous aspects of “show biz” and the corny thrillers of Hollywood’s heyday.
  • We also have a thriving Office of Civic and Community Engagement that connects students to opportunities for service, community-based experiential learning, election engagement, and social change. Students can find volunteer opportunities on GivePulse, the volunteer management platform at Wake Forest.
  • Our Office of the Chaplain provides opportunities for worship and community across a variety of faith traditions.
  • This is not an exhaustive list of things students can do — but just to give you a taste.

Fraternity and Sorority Engagement

  • Fraternity and sorority life has historically been a meaningful part of the Wake Forest experience for many students. From the most recent data I have seen, about 65% of women and 28% of men participate in sororities and fraternities.
  • Panhellenic (i.e., sorority) Recruitment registration is October 1 to November 10. PNMs (Potential New Members, i.e., young women going through the recruitment process), will move in on January 7, 2025 to begin recruitment. See the full schedule at the Sorority Life website.
  • Interfraternity Council (i.e., fraternity) Recruitment registration is November 14 to December 14. Recruitment begins January 15. See the full schedule at the Fraternity Life website.
  • Diversified Greek Council (Culturally Based Greek Letter Organizations) Intake is the process where men and women who are interested in joining one of our culturally based fraternities and sororities. DGC is home to both historically African American fraternities and sororities and our multicultural organizations students can explore their options. Intake takes place at various times throughout the year depending on when a chapter is able to accept new members. New students that are interested in receiving information about recruitment/intake processes are invited to complete our Fraternity/Sorority Life Interest Form.
  • How the process works: formal Recruitment (what we used to call “rush” in my day) takes place in the spring semester. However, both fraternities and sororities try to get to know new students in the fall, and often use the formal recruitment period in January to refine their informal list of potential members to make sure that there is a good fit between that student and the chapter. It is to your student’s benefit to get to know students from as many organizations as possible in the fall. My advice to my student advisees was always ‘leave everyone you meet with a neutral to positive impression. You don’t want to be the person who causes a scene or draws negative attention to yourself, which could make an organization reluctant to have you join their group.’
  • Unrecognized (i.e., underground) organizations: There are organizations that are not recognized by Wake Forest but are recognized by their national organization. For more information on these groups, you can visit the Unrecognized organizations website. The University does not encourage students joining these groups, nor does the University manage or have information on their recruitment processes. There are ramifications of being in an unrecognized fraternity, including but not limited to: lack of faculty/staff advisors, no University oversight or training in harm reduction, and potential lack of organizational liability insurance.
  • It is important to note that students do not have to be involved in a fraternity or sorority if they don’t wish to be. We have over 200 student organizations and we encourage students to join a few of these organizations each year to help build their social network.

Student events and parties

  • Once school begins, students can consult the Events section of The Link to see what is happening each week. There will also be flyers, digital screens, and yard signs to advertise events on campus.
  • Students who have fulfilled our 6 semester residency requirement, typically seniors, are able to live off campus, and there are a number of residential neighborhoods near campus that house many of our off-campus seniors. Those homes can be hubs for informal parties and other social events. As those students are typically 21 or older, they can legally drink alcohol. But there are things new students (and their families) should know about underage drinking and the start of school:
  • There is not a college town anywhere whose local law enforcement isn’t aware of when school starts. With new students comes a potential crop of underage drinkers who could run afoul of the “21 and over” law to drink.
  • Hopefully your family has had conversations about your values and expectations surrounding alcohol and drugs. If you have not, please talk to your Deacs. It’s likely that your student will encounter alcohol during their time at Wake Forest and it’s important to have an open and honest discussion; they care about what you think. My advice to students is always to be careful – both physically careful with what they put in their bodies, and careful in terms of potentially risky situations.
  • In most of my years at Wake, I could set my watch to the fact that soon after school started, I would get a late night text telling me that there is a large group of students who are being cited for underage drinking at an off-campus location.
  • A good rule of thumb is if you are at a house where there are lots of students standing around in the front yard/back yard with red solo cups in hand, or there are a lot of parked cars, or if it is loud or unruly, neighbors will call the police.
  • When the police come, students could be cited for underage possession. Off-campus citations are issued by the City of Winston-Salem or Alcohol Law Enforcement (state police). The Dean of Students will also meet with students who are cited off-campus. Both may have implications for students’ academic pursuits.
  • So remind your Deacs that they will have PLENTY of time after the semester begins to meet upperclassmen and go to parties or tailgates. They might do better to ease in gently from a social standpoint, because ALE (Alcohol Law Enforcement) can be more active the first few weeks.
  • If they want to go to a party and want to be careful of consequences, they could always bring a bottle of water. That allows them to visit and socialize, but won’t run the risk of being cited if they aren’t drinking/in possession of alcohol.
  • The start of college — especially for new students — is hard. Avoiding unpleasant consequences (and having to call home about same) is a good thing.

Important alcohol information for our families

  • My colleagues have asked me to share this request to our new families: please do not provide your underage student with alcohol, either at move-in or any other time you’re on campus.
  • Providing minors with alcohol is of course against state law, but it is also important for many other reasons, including risk, liability, safety, community, and more.
  • Wake Forest students are living in community — sharing their physical living space, classrooms, and the larger campus. Living in community means everyone needs to follow the rules that have been set out for the good of the whole, because that’s what makes the community function in harmony.
  • If you provide alcohol to your underaged student, you and your student are risking the safety of our campus and other students. Once you leave campus, you have no control over how the alcohol will be consumed, with whom it will be shared, or what the consequences of use may be.
  • Something to consider if you are coming for football games: NC Alcohol Law Enforcement (ALE) has been present at tailgates and have issued citations to students for underage consumption. In some families’ home states, the consumption of alcohol by a child, when the alcohol is provided by the parent, is allowed, but that is not the case in NC.
  • Please know that I share all this not to alarm families, but to offer guidance. College is a new situation, with nuances and rules your new students (and you!) may not be aware of, and you want to help them think before they act so that they have the best outcomes possible. And every year I write about underage drinking and the start of school, I get at least one parent/family member who emails me and says “I wish my Deac had listened to this!”

Parting Thoughts

We will continue sending messages to our new families through August 19th with reminders of key action items and other information we hope will be helpful. In case you missed one of our weekly messages, they are all archived here.

With best wishes,

Betsy Chapman, Ph.D. (’92, MA ’94)
Executive Director of Family Communications

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