Letter from the SG President

LETTER TO THE STUDENT BODY:

ALLY SWARTZBERG

Dear Wake Forest student body,

Thank you for entrusting me with our collective college experience. My term has been wonderful, exhausting, exciting and trying all at once. Through it all, I have had the pleasure of working alongside talented student leaders to advocate for the needs of our student body.

This goodbye is the most confusing thing I’ve written in a long time because it is filled with conflicting feelings of joy, sadness and gratitude. For the last year, through a pandemic, a fertilizer plant fire, rabid raccoons, protests, about one million surveys that are all the most important you’ll ever take (but actually the Campus Climate survey was the most important, so thanks for taking it), a global conflict, and whatever other crazy thing from which I’ve willfully dissociated, I have had the great pleasure of serving the Wake Forest community.

Though it has been a challenging year of leadership, it has also been deeply rewarding, not least of all because I have seen campus come alive again after a 2-year-long hiatus from “normal” life. As I approach graduation and the end of my term, I know I am leaving behind a team of strong, compassionate, and driven student leaders who will accomplish extraordinary things.

After we leave campus on May 16th, I don’t know what the next chapter of Wake Forest will bring, but I am sure that the next year will be different from the four that I have lived here. Yet, I am confident that when I return for a reunion five or 10 or 20 years from now, this place that has been my home will have blossomed under the next generation of student leadership. I think that’s the beauty of our Mother So Dear — she grows and changes with each new class yet she maintains the character that drew us to her in the first place.

I want to be clear: not one single thing that happened this year, happened because of me, at least not me alone. If you are one of the amazing students I have worked alongside in my four years at Wake, know that I appreciate your tireless efforts to support other students, to advocate with me when students rallied together, and to tell me I was wrong when I needed to hear it. My voice has not been my own this year; it has been ours, representative of 5,500 students who came together to call for a Wake Forest that serves her students first.

College is a time for growth and change. I love Wake Forest for giving me a chance to grow with so many inspiring and passionate role models and friends. Thank you for some of the best four years of my life. It has been an honor to serve as your President.

Catch you at homecoming and Go Deacs!

Ally Swartzberg

Year In Review Continued

Photo courtesy of Ally Swartzberg

Multimedia Managing Editor: Cooper Sullivan

It’s no secret that the way people receive news and information has drastically changed over the last few years. More people turn to quick blurbs from digital sources, most notably social media, rather than taking the time to read an entire article.

We at the Old Gold & Black have recognized this and tried to adapt the way we publish news. Admittedly, we are still behind the curve and have ways to improve, but our first year as a section has laid the groundwork for a strong future.

Most importantly we have strengthened and revitalized our current social media presence, providing both higher quantity and higher quality content across three platforms. Since establishing a consistent posting schedule at the beginning of the spring semester, engagement with Old Gold & Black associated accounts has increased 45% on Instagram, 250% on Facebook and over 300% on Twitter.

I would like to thank Abby Furman, Aran Silva, Avery Houck, Elisabeth Rollins, Essex Thayer, Grace Valley, Katie Fox, Kiara Kamlani, Maggie Onsager, Selinna Tran and Sofia Bazant for their help with making these improvements possible.

In addition to revitalizing our social media presence, the Old Gold & Black expanded onto the airwaves, producing three original podcasts, creating the Old Gold & In Your Ears podcast family. The first of which premiered in September 2021 and was hosted by Evan Daane and Cooper Sullivan and edited by Sean Jones. While the name seemed to change from week to week — I think we would call it “The Weekly Roundup” and “The News Dispatch” in the same episode numerous times — the passion and devotion the three gave never wavered. The 15-20 minute long episodes would recap the biggest headlines of the week, feature appearances from the writers and exclusive interviews with members of the Wake Forest community like two-time guest Dr. Corey D.B. Walker, student Yushuo Wang and Wakerspace coordinator Paul Whitener.

Later that semester two sophomores pitched a sports show and the “OGB Weekly Sports Podcast” was started. Jake Stuart and Jack McKenney were able to speak with athletes from nearly every Demon Deacon team during one of the greatest years of athletic achievement in school history. Football player Donald Stewart, golfer Rachel Keuhn, basketball player Dallas Walton and thrower Thomas Kitchell are just some of the talented players that you can listen to now on Spotify.

When one of the “Weekly Roundup” hosts went abroad for the spring semester, a hole was left in our programming. But thankfully, Sophie Yass and Stephanie Lu’s localization podcast called “The Outside In” went above and beyond all expectations. Centered around important national and global issues, the two spoke with experts around Wake Forest to get a better understanding and an answer to “why should college students care?” Yass and Lu tackled the mental health crisis, the vaccine debate, sexual assualt, the war in Ukraine, and to be released next week, abortion. A special thanks to Will Zimmerman for getting the ball rolling on this project.

Thiis next semester will be an exciting one for the multimedia section as we spend the summer workshopping and creating new ideas, especially in terms of video content. But we can’t grow the section as much as we want unless we have your help.

As we continue to revamp our multimedia presence, the need for quality images, fresh graphic design ideas, captivating voices and innovative video content grows. If you are interested in helping out, whether that is with graphic design, photography, videography, audio editing, podcast hosting, transcribing, or anything else multimedia-related, please reach out to Cooper Sullivan at sullcg20@wfu.edu