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Wake Forest University in the News

From TVO-TV Ontario (Canada’s equivalent of PBS)

Eric G. Wilson, professor of history at Wake Forest and author of Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy, appeared on “The Agenda” with host Steve Palkin as part of a panel to discuss the future of happiness.  The panel included Siri Agrel, a writer with Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail and author of Bad Bridesmaid; Uli Schimmack, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto; and Jane McGonigal, a game designer from  California and senior researcher at the Institute for the Future, who argued that increased playing of computer games will boost overall happiness because the games are modeled on four things that make people happy: satisfying work, feeling successful, spending time with other people and being part of something larger than self.  “My fear is that if people spend their lives searching only for happiness at the expense of sadness, that can lead to an attenuated existence—something of a half-life,” Wilson said, adding that sadness, or melancholy, often spurs people to look at the world in a new way and sparks creativity. (4/3/08)

From The Associated Press

The rampage carried out nearly a year ago by a deranged Virginia Tech student who slipped through the mental health system has changed how American colleges reach out to troubled students.  Administrators are pushing students harder to get help, looking more aggressively for signs of trouble and urging faculty to speak up when they have concerns.  Counselors say the changes are sending even more students their way, which is both welcome and a challenge, given that many still lack the resources to handle their growing workloads. … “At Wake Forest, every year we see more people, every year the demand increases,” said Marianne Schubert, director of the university counseling center.  But, “I don't think people are being paranoid.  I think given the circumstances of what has happened (at Virginia Tech) and the culture and society we live in, I think it’s appropriate.”  (4/13/08)

From USA Today

It’s been almost a year since the Democratic candidates first debated last April at South Carolina State University.  Then, eight presidential hopefuls crowded the stage.  That number has dwindled to a pair of finalists.  USA Today examines the debates and the outlook for Wednesday. … The debates have been one of several factors – including fundraising, big speeches, retail campaigning and TV ads – that have winnowed the Democratic field and defined the race.  Gaffes have occasionally put candidates on the defensive.  Debates have spotlighted Clinton’s command of policy and have televised Obama’s persuasive abilities unfiltered to a wide audience.  “I don’t think an Obama could have happened … absent the Internet and absent this kind of exposure in debates,” says Allan Louden, who teaches political communication at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.  (4/13/08)

From the Associated Press (North Carolina)

After weeks of television ads that trumpet their own accomplishments and promises, the two leading democratic candidates for governor are now trying to knock each other down a notch. … “You run these kinds of contrast ads to try to make people take notice,” said John Dinan, a political science professor at Wake Forest University.  “The candidates are not so clearly defined under ideological or other lines, that it’s not surprising that they’ve tried to contrast themselves.”  (3/27/08)

From North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC-FM

Jack Wilkerson, dean of Wake Forest University’s Calloway School of Business and Accountancy, joined New York Times columnist David Brooks and host Frank Stasio on North Carolina Public Radio’s noon call-in show, “The State of Things,” (http://wunc.org/tsot/archive/sot0326a08.mp3/view) March 26 to talk about how professionals can make a good living and live a meaningful life—the central theme of “Why Work? Business, Professions and the Common Good,” held at Wake Forest March 27-28.  “People, I think, feel a natural urge, even from infancy, to do the best of what they can do and make the most of their capacities,” Brooks observed, while noting that Americans work many more hours than other workers worldwide and surveys show most consider themselves happy with their work.  Wilkerson talked about ways to help aspiring young professionals give more consideration to what type of life they will lead.  “One of the things I’ve thought a lot about and actually talked to my colleagues in the business school about is: Could we move, for instance, some of the business education down into the sophomore/junior year and let students come back to liberal arts as seniors?  I think they would be more mature in those decisions and in those courses and actually would appreciate and benefit from thinking about these larger questions,” Wilkerson said. (3/26/08)

From The Washington Post

Former university professor Sami al-Arian wants to finish serving his prison sentence for a terrorism-related crime next month so that he can be deported to the Palestinian territories.  But the Bush administration is threatening to keep him behind bars until he does something he has steadfastly refushed to do: testify before a grand jury investigating allegations that Muslim charities aided terrorism organizations. … “It is certainly not uncommon for the government to expect a defendant to testify in the wake of a plea agreement,” said Robert Chesney, an associate law professor at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.  “In this instance, the agreement is silent on the question, and the court of appeals agrees with the government that this leaves the door open to subpoena his testimony.”  (3/22/08)

From WUMC-FM radio (Detroit)

Charles Kimball was interviewed about the new edition of his book “When Religion Becomes Evil” – “The main concern I have in terms of religion becoming destructive is when people take a truth claim and use it to justify the mistreatment of other people and absolutize it, and that’s what we see I think some of the Islamic extremists doing, for example – ‘this is what God wants me to do.  I know it’s what God wants, and so I’m going to do it.’”  (3/19/08)

From National Public Radio’s “On Point”

Bill Leonard on Anne Rice’s latest book, “Christ the Lord: the Road to Cana” – “I think it represents yet another way of revisiting Jesus. … I think we find that Jesus becomes the transforming experience, this transforming presence in the lives of so many people, and there are so many facets, so many ways in which we tell and retell the Jesus story, and this is one that obviously grows out of a deep spirituality on her part.  I think her view of Jesus seems both ancient and post-modern in the way she’s articulating him.”  (3/13/08)

From MSNBC.com

In his new book “Against Happiness,” Wake Forest University professor Eric Wilson asks whether we are trying too hard to be happy, and whether overmedication is draining our culture of the melancholy that historically gave rise to many great artists and writers.  Here’s an excerpt:  Ours are ominous times.  Each nervous glance portends some potential disaster.  Paranoia most mornings shocks us to wakefulness, and we totter out under the ghostly sun.  At night fear agitates the darkness.  Dreams of empty streets flitter through our fitful heads.  Enduring these omens, as vague and elusive as the obscure horror they suggest, we strain to think of exactly what scares us.  Our minds run over a daunting litany of global problems.  We hope with our listing to find a meaning, a clue to our unease.”  (3/12/08)

From The Associated Press (national)

Whenever the word recession crops up in the national discourse, so does the term recession-proof. … Some industries have, in fact, done better in recessions than others food, tobacco, health care and utilities, for example.  But even these aren’t totally exempt from the effects of declining personal wealth.  “There’s nothing that could be called completely recession-proof,” says Robert Whaples, professor of enconomics at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C.  “There are just degrees of recession-proof.”  (3/10/08)

From The Associated Press (Michigan)

There was a dark side to Andy Warhol, whose colorful images of famous people and everyday objects made him one of the most celebrated artists of the 20th century. … Warhol’s dabbling in death appears to be in direct contrast with the vivid, lively works for which he is best known, said David Lubin, an art professor at Wake Forest University.  “Despite the stereotype of Andy Warhol as an art-world butterfly who reveled in pop imagery, bold colors and the ubiquitous landscape of American commercial culture, he harbored deep fears and insecurities that led him to an abiding fascination with the dark, violent underbelly of modern life car wrecks, plane crashes, drug addicts, the electric chair, suicidal movie stars and the beautiful widow of a murdered president,” Lubin said.  (3/08/08)

From McClatchy-Tribune Regional News

Findings from a Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life study that nearly half of U.S. adults have changed from the faith of their upbringing should be no surprise, said a professor and author.  Bill Leonard, dean of Wake Forest University Divinity School in North Carolina, said competition and “brand” switching are normal in American life.  The study released Feb. 25 said 44 percent of Americans reported leaving the religious group of their childhood for another variety of Protestantism, another religion or no religion at all.  U.S. religious trends developing over 20 years have become everyday reality, said Leonard, formerly of Samford University in Birmingham.  “This is not about the future.  This is now,” he said.  (3/08/08)

From Conde Nast Traveler on Concierge.com

Mountaintop forests perpetually shrouded in mist are some of the most biologically diverse places on the planet – and, reports Jim Robbins from the Peruvian Andes, among the most endangered. … “It’s an ecologist’s dream,” says Miles Silman, a forty-year-old ecologist from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, as he pores over maps of the region on his laptop computer during dinner at a tiny Peruvian restaurant on one of Cuzco’s narrow cobblestoned streets.  Silman’s research is among the most ambitious and best funded in the world.  “You can see things from leaf size to soil type change in a few hours’ walk,” he says.  “It’s like a playground for scientists.  And we’re just starting.”  In fact, as vital as cloud forests are, it’s disturbing how little is known about them.  A cloud forest is natural serendipity, a fortuitous combination of a number of critical elements  that together nourish life in quantities far greater and more diverse than anywhere else on earth.  Moisture is the fundamental ingredient.”  (3/08)

From WSJS Radio (Winston-Salem)

“Live and Local” broadcast live from the Ring Theatre and featured Wake Forest University faculty and students in a wide-ranging discussion on freedom of the press versus national security. On the program were Katy Harriger, professor and chair of the political science department; Randall Rogan, professor and chair of the communication department; Robert Chesney, associate professor of law; Michael Curtis, professor of law, Judge Donald L. Smith, professor in constitutional and public law; Howell Smith, professor emeritus of history; Herman Rapaport, Reynolds Professor of English; Seth Gannon, junior and captain of the debate team; and Dustin Greene, law student. (1/24/08)

From Wisconsin Public Radio

Robert Whaples, professor of economics and chair of the economics department at Wake Forest University, was a guest on a one-hour morning program on Wisconsin Public Radio with host Kathleen Dunn. Whales and another guest, Ernie Goss, professor of economics at Creighton University, discussed interest cuts announced that day by the Federal Reserve and other government plans, such as tax cuts and spending packages, to blunt a recession in the United States. “Politicians are always going to do it (tax cuts) because they don’t want to look like they’re asleep at the wheel,” Whaples said. “That’s not going to work all that well, probably. Instead, we economists generally look to the Federal Reserve and get them to sort of jump-start the economy. And they’re doing exactly what we want them to do.” (1/22/08)

From WGHP-TV (High Point)

On the afternoon following the Federal Reserve’s historic interest rate cut that morning, Don Frey, professor of economics at Wake Forest University, fielded questions on what local consumers are likely to do if the economy enters a recession. “One of the major categories that gets hit in a recession is postponable expenditures—big ticket items, items that have to be financed,” he noted. “If you can keep that automobile going an extra year or two, that’s the kind of purchase that gets postponed.” Frey cautioned that tax rebates would be an ineffective stimulus if consumers save the money rather than spend it. (1/22/08)

From WZTK Radio (Burlington)

“The Allan Handelman Show” broadcast live from Benson Student Center and featured Wake Forest University faculty, an alumnus and student in a wide-ranging discussion about the Pentagon Papers and national security issues. On the program were John Dinan, associate professor of political science; Robert Chesney, associate professor of law, Michael Curtis professor law instruction, Judge Donald L. Smith, professor in constitutional and public law; Herman Rapaport, Reynolds Professor of English; John Llewellyn, associate professor of communication, Gene Boyce, alumnus and former counsel to Sen. Sam Ervin on the Watergate commission and Thurston Webb, law student. (1/22/08)

From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Southern Baptist leaders will be noticeably absent from a historic convention of Baptists this month in Atlanta aimed at reversing decades of racial and theological divisions and driving new socially conscious ministries. … Bill Leonard, a Baptist scholar from Wake Forest University, said, “This gathering is historic if for no other reason, it has the potential to be the largest African-American, Anglo and Latino gathering of Baptists ever in this country. That alone makes it historic, and one of the few people who could have gotten black and white Baptists together at the table is Jimmy Carter because of the credibility he has as a world leader and a Sunday school-teaching Baptist.” (1/21/08)

From The Chronicle of Higher Education

“We are eradicating a major cultural force, the muse behind much art and poetry and music. We are annihilating melancholia.” writes Eric G. Wilson, professor of English at Wake Forest University, in an essay titled, “In Praise of Melancholia,” based on his book, “Against Happiness,” published Jan. 16 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Wilson argues that American culture’s overemphasis on happiness and the increasing tendency to “cure” mild depression or even “the blues” through pharmaceutical means will breed a blandness and complacency with the status quo that is antithetical to creativity and ultimately to true joy. (1/18/08)

From the Associated Press

Mary Dalton, associate professor of communication at Wake Forest University, says some religious films were released in a similar fashion years ago. These days, she says some small films might play in Los Angeles and New York for a short time to qualify for Oscar nominations, and many other films are test-marketed for a few days without having a larger release later. “The Hannah Montana movies is really more like big-screen television and less like conventional movies,” says Dalton, who teaches film. “The idea is to get people to come out at a certain time and see the film.” (1/17/08)