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July 15 Weekly Update: Social Life and Campus Engagement

Bottom Line, Up Front

  • Upcoming key dates or action items for families
  • Student involvement opportunities
  • Fraternity and Sorority Engagement
  • Alcohol and other drugs, student events, and parties 
  • Important alcohol information for families

Dear parents and families of incoming students,

It’s a brand new week and time for us to share some news, tips, and information related to your student’s transition to college. This week we’ll talk about social life.

Upcoming key dates or action items for families 

Here’s what you should know this week.

  • Tuition is due August 1.  Authorized Payers/Third Party Users: Access Your Workday Account and then use the Managing Student Financials job aid to make the tuition payment.
  • Determine if you will ship items to campus. P O Box numbers will come out around August 1, and you can plan to ship items on your own if needed. You can also work with our partner, Storage Scholars. They asked us to share this with new families: “Move-in day is a once-in-a-lifetime experience that should be memorable and stress-free. Save yourself time and headaches by shipping items to our partners Storage Scholars, over the summer. They will receive your packages, notify you, and deliver everything to your room before you arrive on campus, so you don’t have to lift a finger.”

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 186 chartered 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 Tuesday, September 2nd 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 over 40 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.
  • 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 – this is 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.
  • Here at Wake, we observe a deferred joining policy. This means that your student will be able to spend their first semester getting to know the university, making connections, and establishing a strong academic foundation. Recruitment for Panhellenic and IFC will occur in Spring 2026.
  • Panhellenic (i.e., sorority) Spring Formal Recruitment registration will open October 1 at 10:00 a.m. and close November 10 at 11:59 p.m. PNMs (Potential New Members, i.e., young women going through the recruitment process), will move in on January 6, 2026 at 9:00 a.m. to begin recruitment. See the full schedule at the Sorority Life website.
  • Interfraternity Council (i.e., fraternity) Spring Formal Recruitment registration is November 1 to  December 14. Recruitment begins January 14. The full schedule will be available soon at the Fraternity Life website.
  • The intake window for the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) and United Greek Council (UGC) will be January 20-April 5, 2026. We encourage students interested in membership on either of these councils to attend Meet the Greeks, pop-ups, and information sessions to get to know the members of these chapters.
  • 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. For the safety of all students, the University discourages students joining these groups.  The University does not 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 or anti-hazing, no advisor or staff support, 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.

Alcohol and other drugs

  • Bear with me for what may feel like an uncomfortable conversation: students and alcohol and drugs. So deep breaths, all 🙂
  • Please know that I am sharing this information 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. 

Student events and parties

  • Once school begins, students can consult the Events section of The Link to see what is happening each week. Flyers, digital screens, and yard signs advertise official events on campus.
  • There will also be informal gatherings, so here are some thoughts about what new families (and their ‘29 students) should know about underage drinking and the start of school
  • New families should be aware that upperclass students who have fulfilled our 6 semester residency requirement, typically seniors who are 21 and older, are able to live off campus. There are a number of residential neighborhoods near campus that can be hubs for informal parties and other social events that might be attractive to your ‘29 students. Here’s what to know:
  • 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. Your student during their time at Wake may encounter alcohol. We want to ensure you’re prepared to have that conversation if it does arise. 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.
  • As part of your conversation, help your students understand the many ways they can navigate environments that could involve drinking, and share some of these safe decision making skills. 
  • 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. If that happens and students are at a party where police are called, 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 or some form of alternative non-alcoholic beverage). 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, and tell them not to bring a fake ID to campus. 
  • Getting caught with a fake ID can be more than just a small mistake. It could impact a student’s good standing with the university, and on the law enforcement side it could lead to their license to drive being suspended or even jail time, so it’s not worth the risk.
  • 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 and/or possession of a fake ID. 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.
  • Like clockwork, 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

Becoming meaningfully engaged in campus life is one of the best ways our students can make Wake Forest feel like home. So encourage your student to be thoughtful about putting themselves out there, joining organizations, being intentional about meeting people, and making smart choices on alcohol and drugs.

P’29s, please continue reviewing the Parents and Families section of the New Students website, and encourage your student to be attentive to their action items. As always, we will archive this message – and all our summer weekly messages – here.

With best wishes,

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

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