News: ZSR librarians oppose proctoring services Page 4
Opinion: University action regarding virus fails students Page 9
Sports: Receiver Sage Surratt foregoes football season Page 10
Life: Taylor Swift releases surprise album folklore Page 16
Old Gold&Black
WAKE FOREST’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1916 VOL. 107, NO. 1
T H U R S DAY, AU G U ST 27 , 2 0 2 0 “Cover s the campus like the magnolias”
wfuogb.com
WFU releases COVID19 dashboard As of Aug. 26, the university has identified 11 total positive COVID-19 cases on campus BY OLIVIA FIELD Editor-in-Chief fielor17@wfu.edu
“I was getting emails up until today for the classes I had today about which way we were going to have class, online or in person, so I was a little confused,” Irvin said. “It’s hard because it’s up to each professor and how they want to communicate. I got emails from some every day this week, but heard from others for the first time today.” However, for freshman Sophia Iltis, the day went better than she expected it would. Though both her classes were online, she is eager to get into a routine rather than roam around campus. “We went over the syllabus and what the semester will look like based on COVID,” she said. Iltis opted to attend both her online classes from her dorm room, whereas freshman Sydney Smith sat outside Benson and tuned into her virtual classroom.
In preparation for the start of the semester, Wake Forest released their COVID-19 dashboard on Aug. 25 with an operating level of Yellow. With 11 total recorded cases since Aug. 17, this number and other measures such as capacity of resources and community compliance will allow Wake Forest’s campus to function under the normal coronavirus restraints and signifies that “transmission is manageable.” The dashboard, which will be updated every weekday, displays a bar chart of daily case counts among students, faculty and staff who “interact with the Reynolda Campus.” The decision not to delineate between students and employees is distinct from other universities’ dashboards. UNC Chapel Hill’s tracker includes positive case count, campus testing, campus housing occupancy and PPE availability. Duke University’s dashboard includes data on students and employees, and whether or not they were tested via random survey or based on contact tracing or symptoms. University of Miami has a count of how many students are in quarantine and isolation, as well as hospitalizations. Notre Dame university delineates between undergraduate and graduate populations, and NC State separates students and employees in positive case counts. “Our goal is to provide valuable information that helps people understand what is happening in our community so they can make good decisions. We studied dashboards from many other institutions and learned a great deal about the nuances of all the variables that can be reported,” said Mark Petersen, Vice President for University Advancement. “In consultation with our infectious disease experts, we settled on keeping the first iteration of our dashboard simple and clear. We are open to adding more information as the semester unfolds as we hear from the campus what would be most useful.”
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See Dashboard, Page 6
Katie Fox / Old Gold & Black
Among the numerous changes made to guarantee social distancing, the ZSR Library atrium’s traditionally collective study spaces were rearranged in favor of more individualized stations.
FDOC reflects bleak sociallydistant reality on campus Threatened by COVID-19, students experience unusually quiet first day of classes BY ELIZABETH MALINE Online Managing Editor malied17@wfu.edu It’s 3:15 p.m. on the first day of classes, affectionately known as FDOC. On a typical FDOC in the fall, students rush out of the doors of Greene and Tribble halls, flood the quad and Benson courtyard after their 2:00 p.m. classes. They hug their friends and reunite with their classmates after the summer hiatus. They wave hello to their professors, join impromptu frisbee games, or lie on picnic blankets, relaxing after a busy and scorching hot August day in Winston-Salem. Sometimes, they even bump into and strike up a conversation with someone they don’t know.
This is not what campus looked like on Wednesday. Instead, 3:15 p.m. struck and a handful of students trickled out of buildings. Students seemingly hanging out at the Benson patio tables were actually attending their online classes. During what would typicallly be the busiest time of day on campus, six people could be spotted on the lower quad. And of course, they were all wearing masks, hesitant to interact with those outside their immediate social circles. Many students now dream of the casual FDOC interactions they once took for granted. “It’s a little sad because I don’t see as many people out and about talking and laughing like I used to,” said junior Rachel Irvin. “I’m sure it’s very hard for the freshmen.” Irvin also expressed her frustration about the confusion surrounding her first day of classes.