News: Anthony Appiah gives lecture on identity Page 6
Opinion: Warren and Sanders share political goals Page 10
Sports: Wake Forest weathers Florida State Page 11
Life: Self-care guide: meditation, masturbation and mindfulness Page 17
Old Gold&Black
WAKE FOREST’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1916 VOL. 106, NO. 8
T H U R S DAY, O C TO B E R 24 , 2 019 “Cover s the campus like the magnolias”
wfuogb.com
Say good-bye to Sakai, say hello to Canvas Sakai will be phased out as Canvas becomes Wake Forest’s new LMS BY LILLIAN JOHNSON Editor-in-Chief johnlg16@wfu.edu
products containing THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive constituent of cannabis), particularly those sold on the street, are linked to the most cases of death. According to the CDC, an ecigarette may come in many shapes and sizes. Fundamentally, however, the CDC defines an ecigarette as any vessel containing a battery, a heating element and a place to hold liquid with means to deliver nicotine or marijuana into the user’s system. Beyond the reports of deaths, additional lung injury cases from 49 states, the District of Columbia and one United States territory have all been reported to the CDC.
Next year’s incoming freshman class will never know what Sakai is. They’ll probably hear about it in passing from upperclassmen, but the majority will not experience it. The university is in the current process of transitioning their Learning Management System (LMS), from Sakai to Canvas, with the goal of being fully transitioned to Canvas by the fall 2020 semester. Canvas, a LMS by the company Instructure, was started in 2009 and has gained a lot of traction among universities and K-12 schools in the past 10 years. According to an article published yesterday in Inside Higher Ed, Canvas has not lost a higher education customer since it began nine years ago, except in cases of university closures. Wake Forest transitioned Sakai, from another LMS called Blackboard, in mid-July of 2010. After using it for the better part of ten years, it came time to re-evaluate the university’s LMS. Assessment began in the fall of 2017, when focus groups of faculty, students and staff were formed to evaluate Wake Forest’s needs and goals in terms of LMS, according to the university’s webpage for Canvas. From there, committees were formed in the spring of 2018 to further assess the university’s needs as well as the overall landscape of LMS in higher education.
See e-cigarettes, Page 5
See Canvas, Page 7
Graphic by Emily Beauchamp/Old Gold & Black
Many students on Wake Forest’s campus use e-cigarettes, including the well-known brand Juul. Health concerns raised by the devices have provoked extensive discussions on college campuses.
More than blowing smoke: vapes cause campus concern Duke’s proposed e-cigarette the only appropriate means of calming students’ busy minds. ban spurs Demon Deacons to “I think it’s entirely possible think about dangers of vaping that Wake Forest could enact a BY TUT GREGORY Contributing Writer gregaj16@wfu.edu
In light of a recently proposed ban of all e-cigarette products at Duke University, students at Wake Forest have turned an acutely tuned set of eyes towards their own campus vaping habits. A sense of worry seems to pervade the Reynolda Campus and beyond. Such alarming news over a seemingly regular habit has induced a state of uncertainty, leaving speculation to be
similar policy,” said sophomore Sam Bass, “and I think kids are beginning to understand that it (vaping) is horrible for human lungs.” The proposed ban at Duke is just the latest in an outburst of headlines regarding the dangers of e-cigarette usage. According to the latest publication from the Center of Disease Control (CDC) on Oct. 8, there have been 26 confirmed deaths in 21 different states with a direct link to vaping. The CDC further reported that the latest national and state findings suggest that