News: LGBTQ+ Center spearheads data streamline Page 5
Opinion: Student pens letter to Senator Joe Manchin Page 8
Sports: Wake Forest dominates UVA 37-17 Page 10
Life: Peanuts: Two sides of the story Page 16
Old Gold&Black
WAKE FOREST’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1916 VOL. 108, NO. 7
T H U R S DAY, S E P T E M B E R 3 0 , 2 0 21 “Cover s the campus like the magnolias”
wfuogb.com
Int'l students adjust to being on campus Many students returned to campus after a year of learning from their home countries BY MINGXUAN ZHU Contributing Writer zhum18@wfu.edu Jessica Cao, a junior from Shaanxi, China, arrived at the airport four hours before the flight's departure time in Shanghai, only to see a long line in front of her. Ninety percent of the line consisted of international students with huge, overstuffed suitcases trying to go to their college campuses. She waited two hours before it was her turn to check in. After 20 hours with almost no food and nothing to drink, she arrived in the United States. It was a typical coming-back-to-campus trip for an international student. “It was so hard,” Cao said. “But it’s worth it.” As Wake Forest decided to start the Fall 2021 semester on Aug. 23, “with the assumption that improving public health conditions will enable a full offering of in-person classes on the Reynolda Campus,” many international students who had been remote studying in their home countries for almost a whole academic year were expected to come back to the United States and take classes on campus. Katie Fox/ Old Gold & Black
The Office of Diversity and Inclusion hosted its first campus dialogues event surrounding the guidelines that administration is using to consider the naming and renaming of buildings like the religion building.
Campus dialogues event centers naming guidelines Panelists discussed and took questions on guidelines formed by the Advisory Committee on Naming BY AINE PIERRE News Editor pierav20@wfu.edu On Wednesday afternoon, Dean of the Divinity School Dr. Jonathan Lee Walton joined Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion Dr. José Villalba to discuss guiding principles on naming and renaming buildings on campus. For Walton, who chaired the Advisory Committee on Naming, and for Villalba, who served on it, the controversy surrounding the name of the building that houses the Religion Department and Wait Chapel was fresh in mind. However, the two kept the conversation — the first in a new series called campus
dialogues — mostly focused on more general principles. Villalba also detailed possible next steps for renaming, which include a potential renaming of buildings with names that neither honor nor disparage the contributions of an individual or group. The vice president cited Magnolia, Dogwood and South Residence Halls as examples of buildings that could be renamed. “The names can stay,” Villalba said. “Or it could be an opportunity to have names that are a bit more representative.” Per Walton, the committee adopted five guiding principles to consider the names of buildings on campus: academic freedom; diversity and inclusion; historical analysis and thorough analysis; distinguishing between remembering and honoring; and transparency and tradition. “I think the principles are there to hold us to account,” Walton said. “There are always ex-
See Int'l Students, Page 5
Mask enforcement relies on students Inconsistent mask enforcement results in students having to selfregulate, with varying success BY HENRY PARKHURST Contributing Writer parkhd18@wfu.edu
tenuating circumstances and forces that impel us and animate us and inspire us to cut corners as an institution. We have to be honest about that.” Walton continued: “When we discuss as a committee about renaming a building to honor something or thinking about who else we might honor, if someone shows up with a $10 million check, a lot of that process gets cut through real quick. What something like guiding principles do is hold us accountable to the process.” A good portion of the question and answer period that followed the discussion centered around definitions of diversity and the dangers of casting too wide or too narrow a net. “We understand that diversity and inclusion is always a sliding and expanding scale,” Walton said. “What may be top of mind and pressing now may be different in 10 years.”
Students are sighing in relief. For the first time in over a year, the Pit looks normal. Groups of students squeeze through the double doors laughing about last weekend. Classmates sit in the corner booths, eyebrows raised in disbelief over their upcoming assignments. Friends bring back armfuls of cups to a fourperson table where nine are sitting. Best of all, no one is telling them not to. After semesters of being told to ‘mask-up’ and stay six feet apart, particularly indoors, students smile at each other walking by and are surrounded by their friends again. However, Wake Forest University health policy still mandates that masks be worn inside in accordance with Center for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines and is relying on students to self-enforce this policy.
See Naming, Page 4
See Masks, Page 6