The Fall Dance concert celebrates student talent Page 6
Opinion: Dakota Access Pipeline should not be built Page 10
Men’s basketball starts 5-2 Page 11
OGB offers an interactive crossword for readers Page 17
Old Gold&Black WAKE FOREST’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1916
VOL. 100, NO. 29
T H U R S DAY, D E C E M B E R 1 , 2 016 “Cover s the campus like the magnolias”
www.wfuogb.com
New freshman dorm will be named Maya Angelou Hall The dorm will celebrate widely respected poet, author, activist and Wake Forest professor BY JULIA HAINES News Editor hainjm15@wfu.edu
Julia Haines/Old Gold & Black
A petition to make campus a sanctuary campus has been circulated among students online recently, prompting Student Government to discuss a resolution.
“Sanctuary Campus” vote tabled Student Government responded to a petition that would proactively protect undocumented students BY HEATHER HARTEL Asst. News Editor harthf15@wfu.edu On Tuesday, Nov. 29, a petition regarding Wake Forest’s position as a sanctuary campus was written to President Hatch. Colleges around the country have been taking steps towards the title of a “sanctuary campus,” which protects undocumented students from deportation under potential policies of President-elect Trump. “The president-elect has promised to deport millions of immigrants, build a wall that divides the United States from the global south and abolish the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that provides relief from deportation for over 700,000 young people in the United States,” wrote concerned members of the Wake Forest community in a letter to President Hatch. “The policies of the incoming administration will put the undocumented members of our community at great risk.” President Hatch has already joined a petition with over 400 other university
presidents to uphold DACA. The petition to the country’s leaders holds that DACA should be upheld, continued and expanded to protect and to empower undocumented students on their campuses. Student Government put the sanctuary campus decision to the floor for discussion. Ultimately, the organization decided to table the decision effectively postponing the vote until they meet again next semester. Despite typically low-student turnout at Student Government meetings, constituents are always invited to attend. However, for the first time in over a year, passionate students came to listen and to discuss the issue of undocumented students on campus. “The organization discussed the resolution with input from a variety of constituents and, ultimately, the senators voted to table the resolution to the next time that senate meets,” said Jordan Monaghan, student body president and co-sponsor of the resolution. “I don’t know the individual reasons as to why people decided to table this resolution, but some concerns were expressed that senators wanted to do more research and speak to more constituents to discuss this issue.” Student Government’s decision to postpone the vote was largely based on
the complicated nature at the core of the issue. Some of the protections requested in the letter to President Hatch held that: “The University ensure that student privacy remains guaranteed and thus refuses all voluntary information sharing with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)/Customs and Border Protection (CBP) across all aspects of the University to the fullest extent possible under the law; The University refuses ICE physical access to all land owned or controlled by the University; The University prohibits campus security from inquiring about or recording an individual’s immigration status or enforcing immigration laws or participating with ICE/CBP in actions.” In sum, the petition requests that the university’s undocumented members remain protected from federal immigration officials while on campus property, and that all community members’ citizenship information remains private. As the election made partisan divides visible around the country, differing opinions also appeared on campus regarding the vote on a sanctuary campus. “The Wake Forest Review”, Wake Forest’s private, conservative publication, also reported on the issue.
See Sanctuary, Page 4
The new residence hall on south campus will be named Maya Angelou Hall, in honor of the late poet, author, activist and Wake Forest faculty member. Angelou worked as the university’s first Reynolds professor of American studies from 1982 until her death in May of 2014. Prior to that, she celebrated Wake Forest’s first Black Awareness Week as a speaker/singer in 1973, and was awarded an honorary degree in 1977. “We are pleased to honor Maya Angelou — a towering figure at Wake Forest and in American culture — with a space that will introduce new students to the residential and academic life of the University,” President Nathan Hatch said. The residence hall will open in January of 2017, in order to allow students returning from abroad to live there for a semester before the hall becomes a freshman dorm in the fall semester of 2017. The name of the dorm does not come as a surprise, given Angelou’s strong connection to the university and general prominence as a highly respected public figure. After her death in 2014, several prominent figures, including Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey, attended her memorial service in Wait Chapel. “Upon hearing the news of Maya Angelou’s death in my high school English class, I wondered how I could feel so connected to someone I had never personally known,” senior Allison Thompson said. “As I watched the memorial service take place in Wait Chapel, my ultimate decision to attend Wake Forest seemed to make perfect sense. Naming the new building after Maya Angelou feels like a continuation of the unabating legacy that she left with me and many others.” Throughout her 32 years on campus, Angelou was a professor to some but a mentor and inspiration to many.
See Angelou, Page 5