Graduation Tabloid

W A K E F O R E S T U N I V E R S I T Y&OLD GOLD BLACK

Graduation EditionCelebrating the Class of 2014

M A Y 1 , 2 0 1 4

Page 4 | Thursday, May 1, 2014 Old Gold & Black | Graduation

“Wake Forest is more than a top-23 university, it is our home.”

Photo courtesy of Jacqueline Sutherland

JACQUELINE SUTHERLAND | SG PRESIDENT

RELIVING THE PAST FOUR YEARS

To my fellow members of the class of 2014,

Four years ago on a sunny morning in August, we lugged boxes and bags of clothes to South Campus and moved into our freshman residence halls. We arrived on campus with different expectations, goals and aspirations; we hailed from different regions, states and countries.

In those first few weeks of the fall 2010 semester, anything and everything was possible. In the semes-ters to come, we would strive to better ourselves and to leave our mark on campus through discovering our academic passion, contributing to an organiza-tion and learning from our friends, professors and mentors.

As the class of 2014, we have come together time and time again to celebrate both Wake Forest the institution and Wake Forest the family.

From screaming the fight song at the top of our lungs in the student section to cheer on our Deacs at football games, to running laps around the Quad at Hit the Bricks to beat cancer, to sipping coffee and munching on sweet bread by candlelight in Wait Chapel at the Moravian Love Feast, we have seized the opportunity to look past our visible and invis-ible differences to celebrate our shared identities as members of the Wake Forest community.

While these traditions have lifted us up to honor different causes and to tout our Demon Deacon pride, some of the most precious memories of the past four years have been found in those small, day

to day moments frozen in time, such as having that light bulb go off while discussing an academic ques-tion at a professor’s office, talking with friends in the dorm room until all hours of the night, and crossing the Quad on a warm, spring day, surrounded by the scent of cherry blossoms and the melody of Wait Chapel’s ringing bells.

Collectively, all of the moments of the past four years — the significant and seemingly insignificant ones — both have demonstrated what I have always believed to be true: Wake Forest is more than a top-23 university, it is our home.

While we may not all share the same memories, have the same academic passions or have pursued the same activities, over the past four years, the class of 2014 has worked, played and lived TOGETHER. For Wake.

As we walk across the stage on May 19 and say “goodbye” to Wake Forest and what has been, may we remember that we are also saying “hello” to the rest of our lives and to what can be. We will forever be a part of the Wake Forest family but this is just the beginning.

I wish every member of the class of 2014 the best of luck and I want to thank you all for making this place so incredibly special. GO DEACS!

Sincerely, Jacqueline SutherlandJacqueline SutherlandStudent Government President 2013-14

On March 22, 2013, rappers Kendrick Lamar and Macklemore performed the spring concert,

WAKEstock, on Davis Field.

Kappa Alpha Theta’s Zeta Omicron chapter joined the university campus with 155 charter members

in the spring of 2013.

New additions to campus over the past four years include Farrell Hall, the home of the School of Business, and Magnolia

and Dogwood dormitories.

The men’s basketball team defeated No. 2 Miami 80-65 on Feb. 23, 2013. This victory and football beating Florida State in 2011

are two of the past four years’ memorable athletic moments.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nephew of President John F. Kennedy, de-livered a key note address in Wait Chapel on Nov. 3, 2011. The lec-

ture, called “The Green Gold Rush,” involved the relationship between

the environment and economy.

Photo story by Nick Weldon/Old Gold & Black

SETH COLLIE | ACCOUNTANCY

Peter Ellis arrived at the university unsure of what he wanted to study, but after taking Introduction to Archeology with Eric Jones, assistant professor of archeology, Ellis was drawn to the anthropology department.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to major in,” Ellis said.

“Then I took Intro to Archeology first semester freshman year with Dr. Jones and I really enjoyed it,” said Ellis. “After taking that class, I still didn’t know a whole lot about anthropology. I started taking more classes — some of the intro classes and I really began to like [anthropology].”

Ellis continued taking classes in the anthropology de-partment, including Native Peoples and Cultures of North America, Osteology and North America Prehistory.

As he became more involved in the department and en-grossed in the field of anthropology, El-lis even was able to conduct fieldwork over the summer at a Na-tive American village site in Jonesville, N.C., with Jones.

Jones remarked on Ellis’s professionalism and dedication while conducting the fieldwork.

Jones said that Ellis’s dedication was particu-larly evident during one incident while they were conducting their fieldwork last summer. “We were excavating a site for ten weeks last summer, just the two of us, along the Yadkin River about 30 miles west of campus,” Jones said. “All of the sudden, one June day, a violent storm came through, with 50 mph winds. In an instant it went from sunny and breezy to

trees snapping off and uprooting and all of our equipment, notes, and artifacts blowing away.”

To prevent the wind and storm from damaging their artifacts, Ellis sprang into action and started weighing things down, protecting the site.

“All hell was breaking loose, and nothing fazed him; nothing ever does. When he sets out to do a task, he completes it. He never complains. He never makes excuses,” Jones said. “And, he always goes the extra mile. He is the most professional student I’ve ever worked with.”

This fieldwork experience helped Ellis when he was completing his honor’s thesis, which focused on investigating why Native Americans settled where they did in the North Carolina Piedmont Region. Jones was Ellis’s advisor on the project.

“Writing a thesis for anthropology has been a really good ex-perience,” Ellis said. “I learned a lot but I also enjoyed it. “

After graduation, Ellis will be working as a contract arche-ologist in the D.C. and Baltimore area. Contract archeolo-gists are responsible for surveying certain areas prior to any con-

struction begins. “By law every time you are putting in a new

highway for example, you need a team of arche-ologist to go through and survey the area to make sure you aren’t going to dig up a foundation of a house or cemetery for example,” Ellis said. “It’s a lot of survey, but some excavation as well.”

Ellis plans to work as a contract archeologist for one or two years before returning to school to get his graduate degree in archeology.

Jones is looking forward to hearing what Ellis accomplishes after leaving Wake Forest.

“Pete has a bright future ahead of him, and I’m excited for those alumni updates in the years to come,” Jones said.

“I started taking more classes and really began to like anthropology.”

Seth Collie, a senior accountancy major in the Wake Forest University School of Business, looks forward to completing his undergraduate campaign before returning to Winston-Salem for a fifth year to receive his Master’s.

Collie has also enjoyed pursuing his other interests at Wake Forest, such as his love for music through his participation in the music de-partment. He also served on the judicial branch of Student Government named the Board of Investigators and Advisors for two and a half years. Before becoming completely immersed in accountancy, Collie found his interests at a crossroads between business and law. In choosing his major, Collie often found himself leaning to-wards a political sci-ence major with a future of law school, but Collie found his passion for accounting and has been running with it ever since.

“I came in thinking about being a political science major. But I just figured I’d give Account-ing 111 a try and see how it went. I did it, did well in it, and Dr. Jack Wilkerson encouraged me to think about choosing it as my major. I’ve been lucky in that I stumbled into it and ended up being good at it,” said Collie.

During his graduate year, Collie plans to con-centrate on auditing and will double up on transaction services to fulfill his studies during his post-graduate career in Farrell Hall.

When asked which professors at Wake had the most influence on him, Collie wasted no time in naming Wilkerson and Dale Martin, both dis-tinguished accountancy professors in the School of Business in whom Collie has found excellent guidance resourcefulness. “Dr. Wilkerson and Dr. Martin have both been so awesome and

so helpful. They — and all professors here — teach at Wake Forest for a reason. They’re not just teaching — they’re doing research, they’re involved and they know people. If you need resources for anything, just use your professors and network through them. They want you, too. You can’t beat the faculty here,” said Collie.

When Collie departs from Wake Forest after his fifth year in the spring of 2015 and heads up the coast to Boston, Mass., to work for Pricewa-terhouseCoopers in the auditing branch, there are three aspects he’ll miss the most — and one is his favorite study spot. “I love the living room [in Farrell Hall], it’s my favorite place to study. In there, you can keep an eye on ESPN and study and have the buzz around you a little bit

while you study,” said Collie.

Another part of Wake Forest he will miss is the comfort and safety of Wake that allows for per-sonal growth.

“Take advantage of the Wake Forest com-munity while you can — you can grow, make mistakes, find yourself and try new things

here at Wake and I’ll miss those opportuni-ties,” said Collie.

Above all, the Hickory, N.C., native will miss his friends and the people of Wake Forest.

“I’ll miss the friends that I’ve gone through all four years with. Friendships are at a different level here in college. You change a lot when you go through college and it’s a time when you see other people change too. I’ll miss the people here a lot,” said Collie.

A true representative of an ideal Wake Forest student, Collie will say goodbye to his under-graduate career this May, but will postpone his final goodbye as a student at the university for just one more year while studying at Wake’s fifth year MSA program.

“I just figured I’d give Accounting 111 a try and see how it went.”

Thursday, May 1, 2013 | Page 5Graduation | Old Gold & Black

BY MOLLY [email protected]

Molly Dutmers/Old Gold & Black

Alex Spear/Old Gold & Black

BY ALEX SPEARSports [email protected]

PETER ELLIS | ANTHROPOLOGY

Hometown: Hickory, N.C.

Extracurriculars: Board of Investi-gations and Advisors, Jazz band and Orchestra

Post-Grad Plans: MSA program at Wake Forest University

Hometown: Pittsburgh, Penn.

Extracurriculars: Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity, Men’s Club Ultimate Fris-bee

Post-Grad Plans: Working as a Con-tract archeologist before going to graduate school

Elise Madar was born in Baltimore, M.D., but has spent most of her life growing up in northeast Ohio, right outside of Cleveland.

Coming from a family of engineers, Madar had a strong background in mathematics and the sciences, eventually fostering an interest in biology.

Her college search was focused on schools with strong neuroscience programs and in areas with temperate climates, which made Wake an easy choice.

“I really wanted to get out of the cold weather,” Madar said. She thoroughly enjoys her major, as it has afforded her the opportunity to build strong relationships with many of the pro-fessors in the biology department.

“I really like it be-cause of the faculty. I’ve gotten to know them very well,” Ma-dar said. It all started during her sophomore year, when she began doing research with Wayne Silver, a pro-fessor in the biology department.

“She’s one of the best Wake Forest students I’ve had in class and lab in all the years I’ve been here,” Silver said. “She is always extremely well organized, incredibly hard working, perfectly down-to-earth and always seems to be happy. She is an incredible student and has a 4.0 GPA.”

Madar also spent a semester abroad at the Flow House in Vienna, Austria with Silver and his wife, who described Madar as a “humble and kind person.”

Since then, Madar has diversified her under-graduate research experience. She has spent two years doing research with Erik Johnson, an associate professor in biology with whom

she also worked on her honors thesis on neu-ronal circuits in fruit flies. “Elise is precisely the type of student that all other students at Wake should emulate,” Johnson said. “Remarkably, she has balanced all of [her] demands and has done so with grace.”

She has also gotten close to Pat Lord, associate teaching professor in biology, over the years. Madar has left quite the impression on her professors and mentors.

“I have never once heard her complain about her course load, her job in the law school or anything else. She just gets down to work and does what she needs to do — and smiles the entire time,” Lord said.

Madar has, indeed, handled the challenges of balancing her demanding workload with her

academic and social lives.

“I’ve been working in the Law School in the Office of Career and Professional Development since the beginning of my freshman year about 10-15 hours per week on average,” Madar said of her work-study experi-ence. “I definitely had to manage my

time to still be able to be involved in extracur-riculars and do well in my classes, but I figured it out pretty quickly.”

Of her time at Wake, Madar says “it is all memorable.”

Although, her academic focus has been pri-marily on her neuroscience minor, Madar in-tends to enter medical school next year with an open mind.

Regardless of whichever specialty she chooses, Madar has garnered strong confidence and sup-port from those around her.

In fact, Lord was certain that “she will be very successful in medical school and her future patients will love her.”


“I grew a lot in professional skills and in my ability to analyze art.”

Ade Ilesanmi/Old Gold & Black

KATIE WINOKUR | ART HISTORY

ELISE MADAR | BIOLOGY

Hometown: Macedonia, O.H.

Extracurriculars: Alpha Epsilon Delta, Kappa Beta Gamma, Beta Beta Beta, Red Cross Club

Post-Grad Plans: Enroll in medical school at Penn State

“I really like the faculty. I’ve gotten to know them very well.”

Ade Ilesamni/Old Gold & Black

BY ADE ILESANMIOpinion [email protected]

Katie Winokur did not always want to come to Wake. Everyone in her family had attended Vanderbilt, so that’s where she applied there early decision. It wasn’t until Accepted Students Day that she decided to become a Deac, intending on studying either art history or art business.

“Most students don’t go into college wanting to major in art history,” Winokur joked, “but I have known it’s what I wanted to study for most of my life.” Art has been an important aspect of her life since an early age.

“They’d look at me like I had four heads,” Winokur said of her parents when she would ask them to take her to museums as a child.

Winokur admits that she was intimi-dated when she first entered Wake, con-cerned that most students were preoc-cupied with majors that would lead to more “practical” job opportunities. She is grateful for the advice of her freshman year seminar professor Leigh Hallberg, professor of drawing, sculpture and studio art fundamentals, who dissuaded her from trying to pursue a double major in art history and political science just for the sake of practicality and encouraged her to, instead, pursue her passion.

“Who has that the first semester of their fresh-man year, a professor just pulling you aside and telling you you’re talented enough to pursue your passion?” Winokur asked.

“The deal was sealed,” as she put it, when she took her first art history course with Bernadine Barnes, professor of Renaissance art. She left an indelible impression on her professor, as well.

“Katie just exudes energy and confidence. She

was a great student in my Renaissance art class, but I was even more impressed with her enthu-siasm and hard work in a course on the history of prints that she was just auditing,” Barnes said. “When a student excels in a course she’s not even getting credit for, I’m pretty impressed!”

Now also minoring in communication and entrepreneurship, Winokur’s choice has proven fruitful, as she gained acceptance to graduate school and received multiple job offers, all of which pertain to her major. She has had sev-eral internships at art galleries and museums throughout her college career and traveled to Italy for two weeks upon receipt of the Lynne Johnson Travel Award to attend the Venice Bi-ennale, an annual art exhibition. The oppor-tunity most meaningful to her, however, was

the Student Union Art Buying Trip over spring break of 2013, when she led a group of six other selected students to visit gal-leries throughout New York City and to buy art for Wake.

“I grew a lot in pro-fessional skills and in my ability to analyze art,” Winokur said.

Winokur is still great friends with

many of the people she spent time with on the trip, fellow students and professors, alike. One such professor is Jay Curley, professor of modern and contemporary art, who has taught five of Winokur’s classes and whom she refer-ences as her “hands-down favorite professor and a great mentor.” The feeling is definitely mutual.

“Katie has been a fixture around Scales and the START Gallery over the past three years and has always been an excellent and enthusiastic student,” Curley said of Winokur. “Even as a sophomore, she had the confidence and some of the intellectual heft of a senior. I will be sur-prised if she does not end up as a high-powered gallerist in Chelsea in a few short years.”


Hometown: Marietta, Ga.

Extracurriculars: Golden Key President, PR Manager for START Gallery Student Advisory Council, Student Life Committee, Reynolda Student Advocacy Council, Delta Zeta

Post-Grad Plans: Account Manager for Surya in Atlanta, Ga.

MADISON MARVEL | BIOPHYSICS

Coming from the small town of Canfield, Ohio, Maggie Wagner was one of the few stu-dents from her high school to venture out of state for college.

When she first came to Wake Forest, after reading about it in a guidebook, Wagner had not a clue what she wanted to declare as her major. After taking advantage of the liberal arts curriculum and experimenting with different divisional requirements, she decided on busi-ness and enterprise management with a minor in global trade and commerce, and has since had much success in the field.

Wagner has earned the Lura Baker Paden award for academic excellence in busi-ness, the Jones-Hold-er Business Scholar-ship and the John Belk Stevens schol-arship in business. She is also a member of the Beta Gamma Sigma and Phi Beta Kappa honor soci-eties, and won the MVP award at the 2014 WFU Marketing Summit Competition.

She says that the BEM major’s broad cur-riculum and freedom for creativity has greatly helped her.

“I have taken math based classes in finance and quantitative analysis, but I have also taken courses in leadership and strategy,” said Wagner. “I think that the variety of class topics has given me the freedom to customize my education to what interests me, but has also given me a fundamental understanding of core concepts that I will need after graduation.”

For the past two summers, Wagner has in-terned in Washington, D.C. After her sopho-more year, she interned at the White House

Office of National Drug Consulting Policy through the Wake Washington program.

Last summer, however, she interned for the federal practice of Deloitte Consulting, where she will begin working in strategy and opera-tions after graduation.

“I get to experience work that combines my interest in government and politics with busi-ness strategy,” said Wagner.

Wagner’s professors have commended her extraordinary strength in leadership and pro-fessionalism.

Sam Beck, director of student professional development, said Wagner worked hard last summer at Deloitte to take advantage of the networking opportunities while keeping up with her work.

“She started go-ing into the office at 7 a.m., two hours before the other in-terns were scheduled, so she could get her work done and still take advantage of the professional advice and connections,” said Beck. “This maturity, insight and professionalism is evident in every-thing she does.”

Other professors praise her hard work in the classroom and optimistic personality.

“Maggie is more than just prepared for class,” said Holly Brower, a professor in the school of business. “She thinks about what she has read and comes to class with probing questions for her colleagues and professors. She integrates concepts in a very insightful way that demon-strates deep reflection and critical thinking. She is a very serious, committed student but also has an engaging smile.”

Wagner is also a member of Kappa Delta sorority, on the Office of Personal and Career Development advisory committee and was the marketing co-chair for this year’s President’s Ball.

“The variety of class topics has given me the freedom to customize my education.”

Although she is from a small town in Indiana, Madison Marvel has seen much of the world. Her family currently lives in San Diego, Ca., but she has also lived in Illinois and spent the last few years in Switzerland.

In fact, it was in Switzerland that her cheerlead-ing coach, a Wake alumna, recommended that she and her older brother visit the university.

Not long after this encounter, her brother enrolled at Wake and encouraged her to do the same. Since entering the Wake community, Marvel has thrived and excelled. According to Marvel, having her brother Caleb here at Wake has been helpful and grounding.

“He’s always making sure I do what I need to do,” Marvel said.

Initially, she wanted to create her own ma-jor, but being master-ful in the biological and the physical sci-ences, Marvel fell in love with the biophys-ics major.

Little did she know that she would meet one of her most influential mentors at the very beginning of her very first day of classes her freshman year.

Professor of physics Daniel Kim-Shapiro taught Marvel’s first physics class, and since then, he has spent two classes, one lab, and five semesters of research with Marvel. He has enjoyed every bit of it.

“In August 2011, I went downstairs to set up for the first lecture for Physics 114 … and there was one student sitting outside the classroom. I think it was Madison’s very first class, and she was ready,” Kim-Shapiro said. “I was pleased to learn that Madison intended to major in biophysics. She proved to be an excellent phys-

ics student.” Marvel’s work in Kim-Shapiro’s lab has involved understanding the underly-ing processes concerning hemolysis-associated platelet activation and reducing unnecessary platelet activation and aggregation.

This work, for which she has received co-authorship on a recent publication released by the lab, could help improve the lives of those with sickle-cell disease.

Marvel has a deep sense of gratitude for Kim-Shapiro’s impact on her time at Wake.

“He has always been there as a mentor and a support system, even helping me with medical school applications,” Marvel said.

Kim-Shapiro has high hopes for Marvel.“She has excelled in everything she has done

here at Wake forest, and it has been a pleasure knowing her,” he said.

In addition to her time spent in the lab, Marvel is also in Kappa Beta Gamma, was on the Leadership Council for Student Advi-sors, worked as a stu-dent advisor along-side Kim-Shapiro and volunteers at Speas Elementary School with special

needs children. She has managed to balance her time despite

graduating a year early, at one time taking five science classes in one semester.

“My dad made a deal with me that if I gradu-ate a year early, he would pay for a year of med school,” Marvel asserted.

Some of her fondest memories include travel-ing to San Diego for a research conference with her entire lab and spending twelve hours at Wake N’ Shake with her sorority’s pledge class.

Upon graduating, Marvel will matriculate into medical school in Illinois, where she hopes to become a developmental and behavioral pedia-trician. She aims to work in under-served areas.

“[Dr. Kim-Shapiro] has always been here for me as a mentor and support system.”


BY MORGAN SCHICKAsst. News [email protected]

Morgan Schick/Old Gold & Black

Ade IlesanmiOld Gold & Black


MAGGIE WAGNER | BEM

Hometown: Martinsville, Ind.

Extracurriculars: Kappa Beta Gam-ma sorority, Student Adviser, volun-teer at Speas Elementary School

Post-Grad Plans: Southern Illinois University School of Medicine

Hometown: Canfield, Ohio

Extracurriculars: Kappa Delta, Of-fice of Personal and Career Develop-ment advisory committee, and Co-Chair for President’s Ball

Post-Grad Plans: Strategy and Op-erations, Deloitte Consulting


“I’m going to miss my friends the most, that’s definitely the best part.”

Nick Weldon/Old Gold & Black

HILARY BURNS | COMMUNICATION

Although she hails from Portland, Ore., Ivy Gress has spent a large part of her life exposed to the Chinese language.

In high school, Gress lived in Beijing with a host family for a year. Gress had been tak-ing French but wanted to study abroad before college.

While she hasn’t studied abroad at Wake Forest, she has returned to China, working in Shanghai for an international real estate company during her sophomore year.

Gress wanted the experience of liv-ing abroad in China while working for a western company, but ultimately decided that she would rather work in the states while fo-cusing on Chinese in-ternational business.

Following gradua-tion, Gress plans on taking a year off and working independently.

Afterward, she plans on attending law school in the Bay Area.

Her ultimate goal is for a career that com-bines Chinese and international business and the music industry, possibly as an entertain-ment lawyer.

Gress’s love for music has played a significant role in her academic life at Wake Forest.

She wrote her honors thesis on the indepen-dent rock ‘n’ roll scene in China.

“I really like looking into how smaller bands get their start and the political side of the gov-ernment intervening when bands get too con-troversial,” she said.

“Ivy’s dedication to her project is really re-markable. She was able to channel a musical interest in indie rock into a serious academic

investigation of the ideological and economic contexts of the music scene in China,” said as-sistant professor of Chinese Andrew Rodekohr. “What really makes the project succeed is still her own personal passion for awesome music.”

Gress recommends that undergraduates take advantages of the opportunities to explore Win-ston-Salem and the surrounding region. Some of her favorite places around town are the record store Reanimator and Krankies Coffee.

For students interested in Chinese, she rec-ommends Introduction to Chinese Film with Rodekohr. Gress enjoyed the course immensely, praising the class for its style, content and rel-

evancy.“You get to see

both the origins of Chinese film as well as what’s new and innovative be-ing made today,” she said.

Gress is a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma Sorority. When asked what her favorite part about Wake Forest has been, she cited

the sense of community. “Both the teachers and the students create a

welcoming atmosphere,” she said. “I love how all of my teachers, especially in the Chinese department know me by first name and really take an interest in my school work and life outside the classroom. They’ve helped guide me in terms of what I will do next year.”

Assistant professor of East Asian languages and culture Fengyan Hu praised Gress for her achievements over the course of her college career.

“I am so delighted that I had Ivy for four semesters. Those four semesters were unforget-table and enjoyable,” Hu said. “What impressed me the most about Ivy is her smile. I have never seen her looking upset. Her smile brightens the entire classroom.”

“I love how all of my teachers ... really take an interest in my school work and life.”

Kristopher Kolb/Old Gold & Black

BY KRISTOPHER KOLBProduction [email protected]

If you passed Alec Christian, dressed casu-

ally in a gray hoodie and jeans, on the upper quad, you would think he was just an average college student.

However, since his arrival at Wake Forest al-most four years ago, the senior chemistry major has been far from average.

A native of Salem, Conn., Christian found his way to Winston-Salem after visiting a few colleges in North Carolina. He wanted a small school atmosphere where the professors would actually remember his name.

“I don’t regret that decision at all,” Christian said. “The small class sizes defi-nitely helped me out in the long run.”

His Wake Forest career began with a focus on the pre-med track, but af-ter taking organic chemistry and par-ticipating in some research, Christian decided to aim for graduate school instead. He’ll be attending the University of California, Berkeley next year.

Outside of the classroom, Christian has per-formed research with professor Paul B. Jones since 2010, and has twice interned at Pfizer in Connecticut.

For the 2013-14 academic year, he was Presi-dent of the American Chemical Society Stu-dent Affiliates after serving as vice president the previous year.

Even with such an intense focus on chemis-try, Christian still found the time to be a four year member of the club baseball team, which he cites as his biggest commitment outside of academics.

When asked what major he would choose if

chemistry or the sciences were not an option, Christian recalled his interest in economics.

His professor for introductory economics, Todd McFall, recognized Christian’s unusual ability to “relate to the gray areas of economic debate.”

“He stood out because he paid strong attention to the economic intuition,” McFall said. “It’s rare for a math loving student to focus on the reason why the math looks as it did.”

“When we discussed government budgets, which is an explosive topic because it relates to politics, Alec was able to see the debate from either side. People who can do that sort of think-ing are patient and highly intelligent because

it requires them to ex-plore a side of an issue with which they might not agree.”

As Christian reflects on his academic career, he regrets not taking an economics class earlier and wonders if it could have been a potential minor.

He has plenty of time to think about it given that he’s taking just a single class semester, a

well-deserved conclusion to an impressive col-legiate career.

Christian leaves Wake Forest as the 2014 re-cipient of the John W. Nowell Award in Under-graduate Chemistry, given to the top graduating senior. Berkeley has already recognized him as the top incoming organic chemistry graduate student by giving him the Clayton H. Heath-cock Chemistry Award.

Even with all of his personal and academic achievements, the chemistry department will not be what Christian misses most about the university.

“I’m going to miss my friends the most, that’s definitely the best part,” Christian said. “The people you meet here, the relationships you develop, you can never replace that.”

BY NICK WELDONOnline Managing [email protected]

Hometown: Salem, Conn.

Extracurriculars: Teaching Assis-tant, Lab Assistant, Phi Beta Kappa, Club Baseball and President of ACS Student Affiliates

Post-Grad Plans: Graduate school at UC-Berkeley

ALEC CHRISTIAN | CHEMISTRY

IVY GRESS | CHINESE

Hometown: Portland, Ore.

Extracurriculars: Kappa Kappa Gamma

Post-Grad Plans: Gap year working independently followed by law school in the Bay Area

GURDEEP SINGH | CLASSICAL STUDIES

Hilary Burns came to Wake Forest with a passion for writing, but unsure of what she wanted to study.

She thought that passion would lead her to an English major.

It was not until the fall of her sophomore year when she discovered her future major. Her first communication class, Relational Communica-tion, ignited her love for the area of study.

“I think being able to communicate in what-ever field you end up going into is imperative” Burns said. She realized the benefits of the multi-faceted major, particularly with her future career. “I realized it was so broad and there was a lot of writing and analyzing rhetoric and communicating in other forms” Burns said. “I thought that went really well with journalism.”

She continued her pre-college interest in journalism, by immediately joining the Old Gold & Black. Burns would rise to become Editor-in-Chief, an experience that saw her grow as a person and journalist.

“I never had a free moment but that’s what I loved most about it.” Burns said. “I thought about it the second I woke up.”

As Editor-in-chief, Burns had to deal with readers critical coverage, corroborate with writ-ers and editors and most importantly, make sure the newspaper was published every week.

Burns experience from the Old Gold & Black and in the classroom has molded her skills as a journalist.

Cara Pilson’s Media Ethics class forced her to look deeply at how society views media, while Jarrod Atchison’s Conspiracy Theories in Ameri-

can Public Discourse class further developed her ability to write and analyze critically. Addi-tionally, Justin Catanoso’s Advanced Reporting course pushed her to be the reporter she has become.

As a sophomore in a class of upperclassmen, it immediately challenged her.

“Somewhere in the latter part of the semester, you could see that the distance between her skills and the skills of the more experienced students in the class were shrinking.” Catanoso said. “She was determined that she was going to be good at this. I could just see it, she was writing better story ideas, she was asking bet-ter questions and her writing was improving.”

“He really taught me the basics of reporting.” Burns said. “That’s when I learned to not be

afraid to ask the tough questions.”

As a senior, Burns continued to take on more responsibilities. She wrote weekly for the college page of USA Today.

Her articles varied from writing on for-mer head basketball coach Jeff Bzdelik re-signing to the app and campus sensation Yik Yak, whose founders

she interviewed.Burns was invited and accepted the challenge

of doing an Honors Project in Communication. The invitation is extended in the spring to

senior Communication majors who have a GPA of 3.8 or higher.

Burns wrote a 26 page paper on the flouride conspiracy for her course with Atchison.

“It made me understand how conspiracies affect public discourse and communication” Burns said.

Following graduation, Burns will continue pursuing journalism as a business reporter at American City Business Journals in Charlotte, N.C.

“I think being able to communicate in whatever field you end up going into is imperative.”

Gurdeep Singh entered Wake Forest with an interest in classical languages and studies, but he was unaware that the university offered a major in this topic.

“I did not know the [classical studies] major existed when I entered Wake Forest,” Singh said. “When I found out about it and I jumped on it right away.”

Singh’s interest in classical studies started at a young age. “I’ve had an interest in it since I was a kid,” he said. “I read a lot of stories and texts when I was younger.”

Since entering Wake Forest in the fall of 2010, Singh has been able to further explore his in-terests in the classics.

Singh has enjoyed several classes offered in the classical studies departments, espe-cially his Greek and Roman Comedy class and his Latin Poetry class.

He also had the op-portunity to spend a semester studying ar-chitecture, archeology and art in Rome.

Singh says that his studies in the classics have also been influenced heavily by John Oksanish, assistant professor of classical studies.

“He has been a huge influence,” Singh said. “He is one of the best professors I have had at Wake.”

Oksanish also looks back fondly of his time working with Singh.

“Gurdeep has been a true pleasure to work with: he is incisive, perceptive, with wide-ranging interests and exemplary facility with languages, especially but not only Latin,” said Oksanish. “Early on, I remember talking with Gurdeep at length in my office about the

mysterious Etruscans, simply because a pass-ing reference to them caught his attention in intermediate Latin.”

Singh also has a major in sociology. This works well with his classical studies major because he is able to compare and contrast modern times and modern social problems with those of ancient Western civilizations.

Singh was also part of the inaugural class of Public Engagement Fellows for The Institute for Public Engagement.

This program is designed to help support stu-dents who are specifically interested in pursuing careers in public service, public policy or public administration after graduating from the uni-versity. “With the office of public engagement I became more engaged with public policy is-

sues that our nation faces today,” Singh said. “It helped me understand many more issues on both a national and international level as well.”

After graduating from Wake Forest, Singh will continue to foster his interest in public service by entering the mili-tary.

He is currently applying to the Navy and the Marine Corps. “I think the major had a lot to do with [joining the military], especially with the idea of citizen soldiers,” Singh said. “I really just wanted to serve.”

Singh is unsure if he will want to go back to his original plan of working in public policy after serving in the military, solely because he does not know how long he will be serving in the military.

But whatever path Singh pursues, his pro-fessors at Wake Forest know that he will be successful.

“We in Classics know Gurdeep will go far and wish him the very best,” Oksanish said.

“When I found out about [the classical studies major] I jumped on it right away.”


BY MIKE McLAUGHLINAsst. Sports [email protected]

Ian Rutledge/Old Gold & Black



HILARY BURNS | COMMUNICATION

Hometown: St. Petersburg, Fla.

Extracurriculars: Club gymnastics

Post-Grad Plans: Hoping to begin service in the military, either in the Navy or the Marine Corps

Hometown: Cape Cod, Mass.

Extracurriculars: Delta Zeta Soror-ity, former Editor-in-chief of the OGB.

Post-Grad Plans: Begin career as a business reporter for American City Business Journals in Charlotte, N.C.

Like all other seniors, Christopher Earle’s time here at Wake Forest is coming to a close. Even though he realizes that fact, he still finds it hard to believe.

“To think about not coming to Winston-Sa-lem next year and doing another year of college here is kind of mind blowing,” Earle said.

But the economics and history double major has truly made the most of his time here. Inside the classroom, many professors noted Earle’s passion for learning.

Amanda Griffith, professor of economics, was able to work closely with Christopher while he did research and wrote his honors thesis. The thesis analyzed a pay-for-performance pro-gram that was imple-mented in Guilford County, N.C.

“Watching him go through the research process was a really fun experience,” said Griffith. “He’s an ex-tremely hard worker and he puts everything he has into the project he’s working on. He’s a great student, a great thinker and it all comes together very well in the end.”

Likewise, Earle appreciates all the work Griffith put in while he worked on his honors thesis. “She is far and away the biggest mentor I’ve had on campus,” Earle said. “It was the ideal of what the student-professor dynamic should be at Wake Forest.”

Earle also credited others in the economics department he enjoyed having as professors, one of them being John McDonald.

“He has the perfect teaching style for me. Very laid back, but you learn a lot from his classes.”

Yet, Earle believe the economics department

as a whole is what truly led him to become so interested in the subject and the material.

“I really fell in love with the department. I never had a less than stellar professor. It was natural to take more and more classes and then, eventually, turn it into a major.”

Outside the classroom, Christopher will miss all of the people he’s met and the friends he’s made during his time at Wake Forest, as well as the professors he’s had in the past.

“I’ll probably miss the people and that includes both faculty and students. I’ve met guys who I will be lifelong friends with, and made such great relationships with fellow students,” Earle said. “But also the mentor-mentee relationships. I still email professors I had freshman year and go get

coffee with them.”And yet Earle fell

in love with Wake even before he was able to meet any of the students and faculty he will miss after graduation.

“I visited Wake with my dad on a summer southern college trip,” Earle said. “I stepped onto Wake’s campus and knew five minutes

after being on campus that this is where I wanted to go. I applied early decision and it was pretty easy from there. I’ve definitely found a home here.”

After leaving Wake Forest, Earle will continue his education and attend the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William & Mary.

“I’ve always wanted to be a lawyer and go to law schools since I started doing mock trial in high school so it was natural to go right on rather than work for a year,” Earle said.

Although, Earle may be venturing away from Wake Forest, a place he has considered home for the past four years, he will surely find a way back to his alma mater.


“I would really love to eventually become a professor of computer science.”

Max Wohlmuth/Old Gold & Black

JAMIE FLOYD|COMPUTER SCIENCE

CHRISTOPHER EARLE|ECONOMICS

Hometown: North Attleboro, Mass.

Extracurriculars: Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity, former president of Wake Forest Mock Trial, Resident Advisor

Post-Grad Plans: College of William and Mary School of Law

“I’ll probably miss the people the most, and that includes both faculty and students.”

Max Wohlmuth/Old Gold & Black

BY MAX WOHLMUTHWeb [email protected]

After completing a major in mathematics, Jamie Floyd has spent a lot of hours working on computer science over the past two years.

“I picked computer science really late during my junior year,” Floyd said.“It’s a fun way to do some classes and it’s still relevant to math, so it worked out. I ended up liking the courses a lot more than my math courses. I had a lot of fun in them.”

But the fun came with a price. He had to take multiple computer science courses this past semester, which is not an easy task.

“This past year has been computer science all the way. I’m one with everything else. Now, I’m in three up-per level computer science classes, so it’s been a tough semes-ter, but I’m going to finish.”

Aside from his growing interest in computer science, Jamie came to Wake with a passion for music, ultimately crediting the music department in influencing his decision to come here. At Wake, Floyd was a member of various performance groups such as the wind ensemble and orchestra in which he played French horn.

“When I visited, I met with director Bowen and he invited me to sit in on the wind en-semble,” Floyd remembered. “Everyone was just so nice and everyone wanted to talk to me. I sort of got the feeling that Wake had a character for people wanted to be friendly or wanting to help you out and engage with you.”

Luckily for Floyd, he was able to combine music and computer science while working with Jennifer Burg, a professor in the computer sci-ence department, who he also took a topics

course from revolving around digital sound in music. The two then worked on a summer research project together.

Floyd’s research involved creating a program that would train a person’s ear for perfect pitch or relative pitch by using body motions. Upon hearing a note, the user would raise their hand to where they pictured the note. They would then use that relative position to identify other notes as well.

Burg truly enjoyed working with Floyd. “He’s very self-directed, independent and conscien-tious. He thought of what he wanted to do himself. He learned a very different program-ming language quickly over the summer,” Burg said. “It was interesting to see how he wrapped

his mind around that pretty quickly.”

Next year, Floyd will attend to the Uni-versity of Virginia to earn a Ph.D. in com-puter science. He’s very excited about the opportunities ahead, but will defi-nitely miss all of those who helped make his work with computer science memorable.

“I’m really excited about what’s coming at Virginia,” Floyd said. “I think I will honestly miss the computer sci-ence department because I’ve been so heavily engaged there in the past year. It’s led to some great relationships that I really hope won’t be going away as I continue somewhere else.”

After he finishes with his education, Jamie hopes to contribute back to the subject he has come to enjoy.

“I would really love to eventually become a professor of computer science.”

Maybe someday Floyd will return to Wake Forest to inspire the future generations of stu-dents to also study computer science, just like his professors did for him.

BY MAX WOHLMUTHWeb [email protected]

Hometown: Lexington, Va.

Extracurriculars: Marching band, former president of Kappa Kappa Psi

Post-Grad Plans: Studying to earn Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Virginia.

KRISTEN YOUNG | EDUCATION

Dallas, Texas native Brennan Clay has been interested in English since childhood.

“I’ve always been good at it and I read a lot as a kid.”

Brennan is also an economics major. Outside of academics, Clay has been an active member of Sigma Pi Fraternity, especially in their charity organizations.

After reading a John Dos Passos novel called 42nd Parallel on his own, Clay decided to write his senior thesis on the book.

“My thesis is about how the aesthetic tech-niques that Dos Passos employs in the 42nd Parallel present his-tory in terms of an evolving Hegelian dialectic between in-dividual and collec-tive constructions of consciousness,” Clay said. “Essentially, history in the novel evolves through the reader’s engagement with the various per-spectives offered by the text’s different narrative forms.”

Dos Passos wrote in the early 20th century, a time period in literature that Clay is particularly interested in. His favorite book from the Ameri-can Modernist genre is Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, although he also enjoys Heming-way’s earlier short stories, and John Steinbeck’s East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath.

Two books that are important to Brennan outside of the American Modernist movement are The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bel-low and Goodbye to a River by John Graves. The latter is lesser known

“[It] is a very important book to me because it takes place on the Brazos River, where I spent a lot of my childhood,” Clay said.

One of Clay’s most influential professors at Wake Forest was his advisor on his senior thesis, Barry Maine.

“The English Department has recognized Brennan as our best major for two years run-ning,” Maine Says. “Brennan has an encyclope-dic mind. He can pull up information about a wide variety of topics as if his mind were wired to the Internet.”

“He likes to know a lot about a lot of things, and he brings this range of knowledge to every assignment. In several classes in which I have taught him, including a summer seminar at Casa Artom in Venice, he has distinguished himself as the best writer in the class. His honors thesis on American author John Dos Passos is a scholarly achievement that few undergraduates anywhere

could produce.”Dean Franco, a pro-

fessor of English and another of Brennan’s influential teachers, also values Brennan as an English student.

“Brennan is very broadly well-read and seems to remember everything he’s read,” said Franco. “In class, he makes constant comparisons of newly

introduced literature with the encyclopedia of texts stored in his mind. Having him in class was like having a second-in-command, as his insights and considerations were often on par with some of the best professional scholarship. He is intellectually fearless, ready to pit his own ideas against his professors’ if they disagree, and always eager to learn more when he can.”

Clay has received a scholarship for Law School at the University of Oklahoma. He believes that an English degree will be beneficial to his study of the law.

“I think [English] helps you form arguments,” Clay said. “It helps your critical thinking skills, being able to engage with different texts, and good ideas.”

“I’ve always been good at [English] and I read a lot as a kid.”

For Kristen Young, deciding what to major in was never a question.

Since an early age, she always wanted to go down the education route.

“I have always wanted to be an elementary school teacher,” Young said. “When I was younger, I would teach my dolls everyday when I got home.”

Her desire for teaching led her to major in elementary education.

She decided to come to North Carolina be-cause she wanted to explore a different part of the country and branch out.

It was here, in her classes, where she forged relationships and learned valu-able information that would benefit her after graduation.

“All of my educa-tion professors were so great and really gave me such a great foundation so I could make it through stu-dent teaching,” said Young. “I now feel that I am ready to be a teacher,” Young said.

“I was really satisfied with my experience in the education department.”

Young also gained valuable insight from professors in different departments such as the sociology department, where she picked up a minor.

When she took the class Social Problems by associate professor Ana-Maria Wahl, Young learned about the hardships people faced in the world. The class allowed her to prepare for what she might possibly have to face when she becomes a teacher.

“She emphasized the problems of our educa-tion system and general problems in the world

that could be applicable to kids I will have to teach,” said Young. “The class broadened my horizon to different social contexts that I would most likely experience with my students.”

Her passion for education spanned outside the classroom, where she became involved in many extracurriculars both on campus as well as in the greater Winston-Salem area.

She was a member of Students for Education Reform and she also tutored at a local elemen-tary school twice a week and volunteered at a neighborhood center.

Young is eager to see what lies ahead, but at the same time she will miss Wake Forest and the friendships and relationships she has made, as well as all the opportunities she has been provided with during her four years at

the university.“I am going to

miss going to class everyday and being able to learn from someone who has so much knowledge and expertise in the field [of educa-tion],” Young said. “I am also going to miss all of Wake’s activities and the football games and tailgates.”

Although she is sad that her time at Wake Forest is coming to a close, Young is excited for the new experiences that she will encounter after graduation.

Young hopes to find a teaching job after gradu-ation in her home state of Massachusetts, where she can pursue her lifelong goal of teaching elementary school students.

“I am looking forward to having my own students,” Young Said. “When you student teach, you kind of feel that they are your own but there is always a part when they are not. I am excited to just have my own classroom and students.”

With all her hard work at Wake Forest and passion for teaching, Kristen Young will cer-tainly make a great elementary school teacher.

“I am excited to just have my own classroom and students.”


BY EMMA SKEELSLife [email protected]

Emma Skeels/Old Gold & Black

Lindsey Gallinek/Old Gold & Black

BY LINDSEY GALLINEKAsst. Life [email protected]

BRENNAN CLAY | ENGLISH

Hometown: Shrewsbury, Mass.

Extracurriculars: Delta Zeta, Stu-dents for Education Reform

Post-Grad Plans: Looking for a teaching position in Massachusetts

Hometown: Dallas, Texas

Extracurriculars: Sigma Pi

Post-Grad Plans: Law School at University of Oklahoma

MATTHEW TELLER | FINANCE

Senior Peter Siderovski has spent the past four years dedicating himself to his studies and his extracurricular activities. During his time at Wake Forest, Siderovski served as treasurer of Chi Psi Fraternity, business manager of the Old Gold & Black and was a trumpeter in the Spirit of the Old Gold & Black, Wake Forest’s marching band.

“The marching band was how I first met people here at Wake Forest, and I really en-joyed getting involved early,” Siderovski said.

Siderovksi’s stellar academic record began before his arrival in Winston-Salem, but con-tinued throughout his college years.

The Chapel Hill, N.C., native earned a Graylyn scholarship upon acceptance to Wake Forest, which is awarded to extremely high-achieving high school students with high SAT scores and impressive extracur-ricular involvements.

Siderovski adjusted quickly to college life and boasted a high GPA, which earned him entrance into the highly es-teemed Phi Beta Kappa, one of the nation’s premier academic honor societies, while still pursuing a double major in French Studies and Mathematical Business.

“Being a French Studies major was an integral part of my education,” Siderovski said. “I really benefited from the liberal arts atmosphere by taking classes in art, sociology, history and lit-erature, which has been a big part of my holistic education. I am very happy and fortunate to have had that opportunity.”

However, Siderovski’s experience at Wake Forest extends far beyond a list of awards and accomplishments. He has developed a passion

for Wake Forest sports during his time in the marching band. He is excited for the promising future of Wake Forest sports, despite not being able to attend games regularly after graduation.

He also pointed to the unique bonds formed with friends, faculty and staff at Wake Forest as being a truly life-changing experience.

“I think Wake Forest does an amazing job with its academic atmosphere with not only professors who invest in their students, but also students who care about learning,” Siderovski said. “A lot of my learning took place outside of the classroom, and the tight knit environment made that possible.”

Wake Forest’s academic climate is something Siderovski deeply values and will miss when he moves on to become a Strategy and Op-

erations Analyst for Deloitte Consulting in Washington, D.C., in the fall of 2014. In this position, he will be working with other team members at Deloitte to help government agen-cies control costs and manage risk.

For Siderovski, the job at Deloitte is a dream come true.

Professors who have had the opportunity to get to know him at Wake Forest are confident that both his personality and his academic achievement will serve him well on his future career path.

“I have had Peter in a couple classes, and he has invariably been a first-rate student who improves the learning atmosphere of any class where he is present,” said Stephen Murphy, a professor of French. “He is also a genuinely nice guy with a sense of humor, which helps when you are operating in a foreign language. Peter is obviously set to achieve great things in his professional life, and I am glad that his skill and love of French seem to be something that will remain with him.”

“Being a French Studies major was an integral part of my education.”

As a high school student pondering his col-legiate future, Matthew Teller had his eyes set on Cornell University’s School of Hotel Admin-istration. But then everything changed when he visited the Wake Forest campus during his junior year.

“I was swept off my feet and applied early decision right away,” Teller said. “I knew that I wanted a liberal arts education with a pristine business school, and Wake Forest was just that.”

Despite his initial interest in the business school, Teller was not entirely sure which con-centration appealed to him the most. During the summer after his fresh-man year, he spent six weeks in Peru working with the microfinance bank Caja Los Andes.

“I greatly enjoyed my experience in Peru,” Teller said. “It enabled me to interact with farmers, fishers and shepherds on a daily basis, while also learning about finan-cial services.”

Teller returned to campus the next fall with the intent to pursue a degree in finance. Since then, he has maintained a committed involve-ment to the Wake Forest business community.

He has served as an active member of the Fi-nance Club, and he has also participated in the Wake Forest Student Fund as an analyst in the Financial and Alternative Investments group.

Ever since Teller was accepted into the busi-ness school, several of his professors have noted the impact he has had on others involved in the program.

“I’ve been teaching business school students and engaging in executive education with busi-ness professionals since 1989,” said Sherry Jar-rell, a professor of finance and director of the

program. “So I have a fairly large population from which to draw when I say that Matt Teller is one of those rare students that make teach-ing a joy. He is always thinking of others, and thinking of both the short-term and longer-term consequences of the choices he makes.”

Jack Wilkerson, professor of accountancy, also recognized Teller’s contributions as a business student.

“I thoroughly enjoyed having Matt in my Accounting 111 class,” Wilkerson said. “He is bright and intellectually curious, he is highly motivated, and he is a genuinely good person. I will follow his career trajectory with great interest.”

As his time at Wake Forest comes to a close, Teller is beginning to look toward his future

career path. After working as an in-tern at Neuberger Berman, a private asset management firm, he spent the summer of 2013 as an investment bank-ing analyst intern at Barclays in New York. He will return to Barclays this sum-mer as a full-time analyst.

Teller firmly believes that his decision to attend Wake Forest has directly impacted his success as a student and what he hopes to be a successful career in financial services.

“The Wake Forest community is a special place, and there is no other place quite like it,” Teller said. “We educate the whole person, and accept people from all walks of life.”

As he prepares to leave the university he has called home for the past four years, Teller took a moment to reflect on his time spent at Wake Forest.

“I am grateful for all the friends and memo-ries I’ve made at Wake Forest,” Teller said. “I will definitely miss my time on the Reynolda Campus as well as at 1101 Polo Rd.”

“We educate the whole person, and accept people from all walks of life.”

BY TY KRANIAKStaff [email protected]

Ty Kraniak/Old Gold & Black

Photo courtesy of Ken Bennett

BY NICK WELDONOnline Managing [email protected]

PETER SIDEROVSKI | FRENCH

Hometown: Woodbury, N.Y.

Extracurriculars: Student Fund, Finance Club, Board of Investigators & Advisors, Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity

Post-Grad Plans: Investment Bank-ing Analyst at Barclays in New York

Hometown: Chapel Hill, N.C.

Extracurriculars: Marching band, Chi Psi Fraternity, Old Gold & Black

Post-Grad Plans: Strategy and Op-erations Analyst at Deloitte in Wash-ington, D.C.


For senior Abigail Bagliani, education at Wake Forest is not just about learning inside the classroom.

Bagliani has spent her time on campus getting to know her professors and truly taking advan-tage of what the distinguished faculty members have to offer. These relationships have led to incredible opportunities she says just aren’t of-fered at bigger schools.

Bagliani first realized the value of these re-lationships at the end of her freshman year, when her first year seminar professor found her an internship at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. After shadow-ing and doing research alongside a pediatric oncologist, PubMed and Pediatric Blood and Cancer published her work.

This incredible op-portunity, Bagliani says, is what made her want to become a physician’s assistant and major in health and exercise science.

“I had always wanted to be pre-med, so I was going to major in Biology and Chemistry,” said Bagliani. “But HES com-bined everything- nutrition, exercise physiology, exercise psychology and human anatomy.”

Through her hard work and devotion to the department, Bagliani has had much success. She earned the URECA fellowship last summer to conduct research about arterial stiffness in young adults born premature, and how physical activity may lower their likelihood to develop cardiovascular disease later on.

This April, Bagliani presented her research at the ACC Meeting of the Minds, where distin-guished undergraduates from ACC universities gather to highlight their research.

Patricia Nixon, professor of health and exercise science, got to know Bagliani personally as they drove nine hours to the Meeting of the Minds conference.

“Abby is the type of student who makes my job as a professor and mentor easy,” said Nixon. “Her appreciation for standardized and accurate data collection and management made me con-fident in her ability to collect the data for her honors research without supervision.”

But Bagliani’s accomplishments span outside the realm of just the health and exercise science department. She is additionally minoring in biology and dance. Bagliani has been a mem-ber of the Dance Company all four years and choreographed the past two productions, but has danced since she was only three years old.

She mostly focuses on ballet.

“Abby is always considerate, kind and thoughtful,” said Nina Lucas, di-rector of dance. “She is a leader amongst her peers in the dance company as a Peer Ministry leader and senior member of the Southwest Virginia Ballet. She holds a special place

in my heart and I will miss her.”But although Bagliani is graduating, she will

continue the next chapter of her life at Wake Forest’s Physician Assistant School in Boone.

“I won’t be here, per say, but it will still feel like I’m a Wake because I will have the same type of professors and curriculum,” said Bagliani.

“But it’s just going to be different not being able to walk into my professors’ offices and just chill.”

Bagliani is also a member of Kappa Beta Gamma, a Greek Recruitment Counselor and was Executive Chair of Decorations for Wake n Shake. She also volunteers daily at Downtown Health Plaza.

“I learned that I loved the people, the culture, and I knew I wanted to stick with German.”

Ty Kraniak/Old Gold & Black

COURTNEY FLYNN | GERMAN

ABIGAIL BAGLIANI | HES

Hometown: Roanoke, Va.

Extracurriculars: Dance Company, Peer Ministry, Kappa Beta Gamma

Post-Grad Plans: Bagliani will study at Wake Forest’s Physician As-sistant School

“HES combined everything — nutrition, exercise physi-ology, exercise psychology and human anatomy.”

Morgan Schick/Old Gold & Black

BY MORGAN SCHICKAsst. News [email protected]

For senior Courtney Flynn, German was not always in the cards.

But, now it is. Entering college at Wake Forest, the senior

from New York had no idea she wanted to pursue a degree in German.

“I originally just took German to get the lan-guage requirement out of the way, but the more I took of it, the more I liked it,” Flynn said.

“I also wanted to take German so I could study abroad in the Flow House in Vienna. On the second day there, I learned that I loved the people, the culture and I knew I wanted to stick with German.”

Flynn’s ability to master the German language will cer-tainly come in handy next year as she pre-pares herself for the prestigious Fullbright Scholarship.

As part of the fel-lowship, she will be teaching English in Germany.

Flynn says she may decide to continue teaching, as it combines her passion for the German language and culture, which she fell in love with in Vienna.

But if she does not continue teaching, Flynn has other options available with a vesting in-terest in international relations connected to Germany.

To accomplish this, the German scholar plans to attend graduate school after her time in Germany.

Despite all that Flynn has ahead of her, she will certainly miss her cherished time at Mother So Dear.

“I will definitely miss everything about Wake Forest, including rugby,” Flynn said.

Through her presence on the rugby team, Flynn has developed important leadership skills that are vital in today’s world in addition to her developments in scholarship and service.

Having served as captain of the women’s rugby team, Flynn has not only led other rugby play-ers but also influenced other Wake students to love rugby as much as she does — needless to say, the rugby team will miss Flynn’s presence in the future.

“You will never be able to be as close to friends and professors as they are right now.”

Flynn was also a member of Alpha Phi Omega, is a fraternity based upon community service.

She notes her extensive amount of community service as being paramount to her Wake Forest experience through living the University’s motto

of “Pro Humanitate”. However, Flynn

will also miss her interactions with the German depart-ment. Flynn was a member of Delta Phi Alpha, which recognizes superior accomplishment in German classes at Wake Forest, and she had gained a lot from her interactions with her professors in the

German department.“I will really miss the professors in the Ger-

man department,” Flynn said. “They are all wonderful.”

For a girl coming from the North, Flynn noted she was not very excited about coming down to Wake Forest or to the South before coming to the university.

However, through her time at Wake Forest, she has found a home in Winston-Salem.

And no matter where she lives, which lan-guage she speaks, or what job she is currently working, she knows that she will forever be welcomed back to place she’s called home for the past four years.

BY TY KRANIAKStaff [email protected]

Hometown: Staten Island, N.Y.

Extracurriculars: Alphi Phi Omega; Women’s Rugby Team Captain

Post-Grad Plans: Flynn will teach English in Germany as part of her Fullbright Scholarship



MAGGIE BERNARD|MATH BUSINESS

EMILY ANDERSON | HISTORYEmily Anderson had always enjoyed learning

about history, but it was the history department, the faculty in particular, that led her to choose history as her field of study for her undergradu-ate career.

“I really liked [history] in high school,” An-derson said. “In fact, I remember looking at the course booklet that we received on Campus Day and marking all of the classes I wanted to take; they were mostly history classes. But once I got here, it was really the professors who made my decision easy.”

The Clayton, N.C., resident took classes with Jake Ruddiman, assistant professor of history, and Emily Wakild, former assis-tant professor of his-tory, that substanti-ated the possibility of a major in history. “I think their passion and excitement is what at-tracted me to the disci-pline,” Anderson said.

The study of history is something that An-derson has come to appreciate even more over the past several years and is something she finds vital to understanding people and issues of today. “It’s not just about memorizing dates, or learn-ing facts about old famous people,” Anderson said. “History is the study of how the world has changed, and why.”

“The result, after much thought and interpre-tation, is a historical narrative whose purpose is to teach people who they are by explaining what has come before. For me, that is an incredibly exciting and important responsibility, and the history major is where students learn to create those narratives with accuracy and balance.”

Her work in the history department, particu-larly that relating to her major thesis, has been

extremely rewarding and provided her with many opportunities, including presenting her thesis at the Phi Alpha Theta Biennial confer-ence in Albuquerque, N.M., last January.

“I think our department has some of the great-est professors at Wake Forest, and I’ve enjoyed the chance to get to know them,” Anderson said. “Also, I appreciate that the department has majors develop thesis papers. While they are arduous to write, I think the process of researching and writing so deeply about a topic is a rewarding experience.”

Beyond the walls of Tribble, Wake Forest was exactly what Anderson was looking for in a university. “When I was applying for schools, I knew I did not want to move somewhere far from home,” Anderson said.

“I was also at-tracted to Wake’s prestige and the fact that it was a smaller school. Of course, the campus is beautiful, so that was hard to deny. Most importantly, though, I felt like I would be comfort-able here, and that has turned out to be true.”

Anderson also was involved in a number of activities outside the classroom including serv-ing as President of Wake Forest’s chapter of Amnesty International for two years, serving as President of the history department’s chapter of Phi Alpha Theta (the history honors society) and tutoring elementary school children at El Buen Pastor.

Next year, Anderson will begin a two-year role as an admissions counselor in the Wake Forest Office of Admissions. Nevertheless, Anderson will still miss her time here as a student.

“I will miss all of my friends who are mov-ing away for their jobs or graduate school,” Anderson said. “We’ve had an incredible time together, and it will be sad to see them go.”

“History is the study of how the world has changed, and why.”

Sarah Moran/Old Gold & Black

BY IAN RUTLEDGEPrint Managing [email protected]

Hometown: Clayton, N.C.

Extracurriculars: President of WFU Amnesty International, President of WFU Phi Alpha Theta, Tutoring at El Buen Pastor

Post-Grad Plans: WFU Admissions Counselor

As a native of Pittsburg, Pa., Maggie Ber-nard chose to come to Wake for the prestigious business school and the warm North Carolina weather.

“I was looking for a good business school in the southeast in warmer weather, away from Pittsburg,” Bernard said. “I also wanted to stay close to my brother, and he went here.”

Wake Forest Business School was particularly appealing to Bernard because of the mathemati-cal business major.

“I have always been really good at math, but I also wanted a practical major, so I chose to come here for [the math business] major,” Bernard said.

However, Bernard wasn’t always set on math business.

“Towards the end of high school, I had to choose between doing a math type degree or an engineering de-gree,” Bernard said. “After looking at a lot of different colleges, I thought Wake was the best fit, so I chose to come here and the natural choice was math business.”

Despite her seriousness in her studies, Bernard has always found time for other activities outside of studying to keep her busy.

“I am involved in Kappa Delta,” Bernard said. “I am also in a lot of other nerdy clubs like the math club, consulting club and I am in Beta Gamma Sigma which is the honors business fraternity.”

After graduating, Bernard will be moving away from the university and entering the work force.

“I am moving to Charlotte and working for Ernst & Young doing financial services consult-ing,” Bernard said.

In the future, Bernard hopes to combine her skills in math and her passion for traveling into a career.

“I would really like to be on the west coast or in Europe doing something — some sort of job that combines my bath business skills with my want to travel a lot because that is one of my passions,” Bernard said.

The close environment and small campus is one of the things Bernard will miss most about Wake Forest after graduating.

“I will miss having all of my really close friends in [close] proximity to me. It is kind of nice to see people face-to-face and run into people,” Bernard said. “That is definitely not going to happen in the real world.”

Outside of classes in her own major, Bernard found the most useful class she has taken during her time at Wake was an entrepreneur-ship class, Design thinking and high performance teams.

“It was probably the most beneficial class that I could see using in the future,” Bernard said. “It

teaches you a lot about team work and push-ing yourself to be really creative and come up with far-fetched products.”

Math business professor, Umit Akinc has gained admiration for Bernard through her com-mitment to her studies as well as her dedication to the university motto, Pro Humanitate.

“I think through her intellect, hardworking and a concern for the well-being of others, she not only excels in academics but also embod-ies the maxim Pro Humanitate,” said Akinc. “She has amply exhibited a deep interest in the wellbeing of others by volunteering and participating in the events to guide the future mathematical business majors.”

Hometown: Pittsburgh, Pa.

Extracurriculars: Kappa Delta so-rority, Math Club, Beta Gamma Sig-ma honors business fraternity

Post-Grad Plans: Financial services consultant for Ernst & Young

“I have always been really good at math, but I also wanted a practical major.”


BY SARAH MORANNews [email protected]


YILIN YANG|MATHEMATICS

“There has been so many opportunities both in class and outside of class...”

Lindsey Gallinek/Old Gold & Black

Since a very young age, Yilin Yang has had a passion for mathematics.

Hailing from China, Yang came to Wake For-est to pursue that passion and dive deeper into the field of mathematics.

“I feel that I have a great curiosity about the development of some applications using mathematics,” Yang said.

This curiosity allowed Yang to do research with multiple professors. After his freshman year, Yang began researching the ap-plication of linear algebra in differen-tial equations with Stephen Robinson.

What began as a summer research sponsorship program end up lasting three years and ended with the publication of a paper.

“Yilin is one of the very best students that I have had the good fortune to work with,” Robinson said.

“As a freshman he attended a math depart-ment event, even though the intended audience was upperclassmen and graduate students.”

“Within a few days Yilin had made progress on the problem that I had presented. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with him and to get to know him.”

After graduation, Yang is headed to the Uni-versity of Michigan to pursue his masters degree in mathematics.

Even though he has always had a passion for the subject, he never knew where it would take him.

“Before Wake Forest, I did not know that I would go to a graduate school in mathemat-ics. I just want to follow the flow,” Yang said.

While he does not know what is to come after graduate school, he thinks that he might choose one area in mathematics to study or go into the industry.

One thing is for certain though, and that is how much he will miss Wake Forest.

While he will miss the people and the weather, especially since Michigan will be so cold, it is the life experiences that have brought him the fondest of memories.

“The thing I will miss the most is the abun-dance of opportunities that Wake Forest pro-vided me,” Yang said.

“There has been so many opportunities both in class and outside of class where I can develop my interest and get a wider expo-sure to pretty much everything.”

Another thing he will miss is the pro-fessors.

“They are all really excellent at guiding me to becoming a researcher in math-ematics. This expe-rience is the most

valuable at Wake,” Yang said. Yang’s admiration for his professors is a mu-

tual and Yang has strived to learn the most he can through out his four years here and that has been seen with his excellent work effort.

One of his professors, Jeremy Rouse, assistant professor of mathematics, said, “We started his project last summer, and when we started it, I asked him if he wanted a problem he could work independently on, using the mathematical knowledge from classes he had already taken.”

He said, “I don’t want my limit myself to problems using mathematical tools that I al-ready know about.’ So I picked a hard problem for us to work on together!”

Yang’s dedication and hard work has brought him much success in he field of mathematics and beyond.

BY LINDSEY GALLINEKAsst. Life [email protected]

Hometown: Zhengzhou, China

Extracurriculars: ASIA and Student Fun

Post-Grad Plans: Masters in Math-ematics at the University of Michigan

ERIK NELSON|MATH ECONOMICSErik Nelson, a native of Ridgefield, Conn.,

prepares to graduate from Wake Forest Uni-versity in a few short weeks as a mathematical economics major and psychology minor. Before Nelson came to Wake Forest, he never imag-ined himself as a graduate of a school in the South — he figured he would always attend a university in the North.

“I honestly never imagined myself in the South,” Nelson said.

“I always thought I would go to school in the North. When I got into [Wake Forest], I decided I’d give it a shot and came down here. I’ve loved it ever since.”

Nelson attributes his academic success to his devotion to his studies throughout his freshman and sopho-more years, when the transition from high school to college is most prevalent and most effective.

“There’s a lot to be said for kicking your own butt freshman year,” said Nelson.

“I was fortunate enough to have an older brother who told me to get myself in the li-brary during the week.”

Nelson enjoys the mathematical aspect of his mathematical economics major, but truly loves how the technical and conceptual sides of the work fuse together.

“I really enjoy the math side. The thing I like most is that they’re constantly being combined, especially in a class like Dr. [Frederick] Chen’s Game Theory,” Nelson said. “It was my favorite class of the major. It’s really cool how abstract concepts flow into Game Theory.”

Chen has highly appreciated Nelson’s top-notch work ethic and his persistence in attaining

correct methods and correct answers, which have made him stand out as a student.

“Erik has always been a very attentive, hard-working student, and really dedicated as well. He really knows his stuff,” said Chen. “He’s just bright, energetic and persistent — if there’s something that he doesn’t get, he’s the kind of student to keep trying until he gets it.”

Although he commits insurmountable time to the classwork required by his major, Nelson thoroughly enjoys his psychology minor because of the interpersonal skills and understanding that flows from the psychology department.

“Psychology is more of a person-to-person thing. It’s a good balance,” Nelson said. “Psy-chology is great because you meet a lot of great

people too — the department is great and I’ve never had a bad psychology teacher. It keeps me grounded in seeing how relationships work, especially in terms of my day-to-day life.”

Outside of the classroom, Nelson has spent a multi-tude of his personal time with Wake Ra-

dio, an experience Nelson calls “a world away from Wake” and “its own community” because of how much enjoyment he has received from working with the other members.

Above all of his academic and extracurricular success, Nelson has a true, unhindered love for the people of Wake Forest that has made his four years everything he hoped they would be as he moves on to the next phase of his life, where he’ll be working for Wells Fargo in the Securities and Markets division.

“The [collection of ] people here is the num-ber one reason I love this school,” said Nelson. “The people here have been so influential in my experience.”

Hometown: Ridgefield, Conn.

Extracurriculars: Wake Radio

Post-Grad Plans: Wells Fargo, Secu-rities and Markets Division

BY ALEX SPEARSports [email protected]

“The [collection of] people here is the number one reason I love this school.”

Alex Spear/Old Gold & Black


CONGSHAN PAN| MUSIC PERFORMANCE

“I’ll try to keep my life engaged in music. It has taught me a lot.”

Emma Skeels/Old Gold & Black

Congshan “Holly” Pan, from Hangzhou, China, is a transfer student who originally at-tended university in Stony Brook University in New York, but transferred to Wake Forest in part because she wanted a warmer climate. She is a double major in chemistry and music performance. Pan also participates in many ex-tracurricular activities. “I’m a board member of ISAB, did research with Dr. Colyer in the chemistry department, [and] played in Colle-gium Musicum (an ensemble),” she said.

Pan has been playing piano since she was four, and got especially interested in playing after moving from China to attend high school in Kansas. “The workload in Kansas was super easy for me, so I joined the band. I was a keyboard, and the band teacher en-couraged me to play whatever I wanted. Nobody was push-ing me, and I enjoyed what was coming out of music.”

Pan enjoys the simi-lar artistic freedom that her piano professor, Louis Goldstein, gives her. She labeled him as one of her most influential teachers.

“He lets you pick your own pieces and gives you background information, so that you know it better. It does help you in conveying the mes-sage from the composer to the audience,” Pan said.

The respect is mutual. “Pan managed to dou-ble major in Music and Chemistry.” Goldstein said, “And she did it in her second language. Holly is a wonderful student musician; the solo Senior Recital she just performed was a great model for what that capstone requirement for Music Performance majors can be. And Holly

has been an absolute pleasure to work with; she approaches music with no ego of her own, she just wants the music to sound its best. One of the kindest, most straightforward, and open-hearted people I know, I will miss her terribly next year — what a huge empty spot on my teaching schedule!”

Another of Holly’s favorite teachers was Dan Locklair. “It has been my distinct pleasure to have Holly as a student and to get to know her as the thoroughly delightful person that she is,” he said. “She is a very diligent worker and her ever-growing musicianship as a pianist only confirms that. Holly has juggled the rigors of a double major at Wake Forest and, in whatever area she chooses to pursue as a profession, I am confident that her music-making as a pianist

will always be at the heart of her life.”

Pan’s favorite com-poser is Nikolai Ka-pustin, a contempo-rary Russian com-poser. After happen-ing upon one of his videos on YouTube, Pan decided to order his music. Kaputsin’s Impromptu Opus 66, No. 2, which she played at her senior recital, is one of her

favorite pieces. “It’s jazzy and classical infused together, and some of my friends told me they’d never heard of something like that. They went to my recital and liked it, so I was really glad to share that with everyone.”

After graduation, Pan is going to a pharmacy school. She may attend the University of Ken-tucky, but is still waiting to hear back from other schools.

Although she doesn’t see a career in piano performance, Pan hopes to keep music present in her life through joining a band or ensemble group, or perhaps through tutoring. “I’ll try to keep my life engaged in music. It has taught me a lot.”

BY EMMA SKEELSLife [email protected]

Hometown: Hangzhou, China

Extracurriculars: Board Member of ISAB, research in the Chemistry department, member of Collegium Musicum

Post-Grad Plans: Pharmacy School

RYAN WHITTINGTON|MUSIC: LIB. ARTSRyan Whittington had his sights set on Wake

Forest even in seventh grade. Having grown up in Pilot Mountain, N.C.,

just a quick thirty minutes away from campus, he aspired to attend Wake and become a pre-med biology major. A semester of general chemistry, however, convinced him that four years of labs was not the best plan, and he determined to become a psychology major instead.

Meanwhile, Whittington’s personal interests led him to develop his talents in the piano and organ, and later at the carillon. When the Wait Chapel bells ring on Wednesdays at five, Whittington is the one behind the music, and he often plays his per-sonal favorite. “If you hear “Beauty and the Beast” playing, nine times out of ten its me.”

He also enrolled in Music Theory courses and chose German to fulfill his language require-ment. During his second semester of music theory, a class taught by Susan Borwick, profes-sor of music, he decided that psychology was not the right fit for him either. Borwick gave him some invaluable advice that led him to where he is today.

“We came to Starbucks and I remember we both got Frappuccino’s, and we sat in the comfy chairs upstairs,” Whittington said. “We were chatting about things and I explained my crisis of major, and she said, ‘haven’t you been taking music theory and German courses this whole time? Do you like those? Do you think you should maybe do those?’”

The combined focus on music in liberal arts and German led Whittington to study abroad in

Vienna during the spring of his sophomore year, a place he described as “the Mecca of music.”

While studying there, he learned more about the famous composer Arnold Schoenberg, who had fascinated Whittington since he first heard one of Schoenberg’s unusual pieces during an online college course he took in high school.

“His music when I first heard it sounded so bizarre and strange that I thought, I have to figure this out. It was just so strange that I had to figure out what he was doing with these sounds,” said Whittington.

He received a Richter grant to return to Vienna for three weeks to conduct research on Schoen-

berg’s compositional process. Much of this material became the fodder for his honors thesis, entitled “Ar-nold Schoenberg: An Intelligent Man and a Terribly Curious Man.”

While in Vienna, Whittington decided he wanted to pursue musicology at the Ph.D. level, and he has followed through

on his plan. In the fall, he will begin studies to receive a Master’s degree in historical musicol-ogy from Florida State University.

“Historical musicology is the hardest thing to define,” he said. “Most broadly, it is the study of music, and all the things that that encom-passes: music and history, music and culture, music and philosophy. There’s a new wave of musicology that involves applying literary criti-cisms to music: feminist theory, queer theory, Marxist criticism and looking at music through these different lenses. In that sense, musicology can be just about anything. It’s like theology is talking about God — musicology is talking about music.”

After completing his degree at Florida State, Whittington plans to continue his studies of musicology at the Ph.D. level.

Hometown: Pilot Mountain, N.C.

Extracurriculars: Wake Forest Bap-tist Student Union, University Caril-loners

Post-Grad Plans: Pursuing a Mas-ter’s in Musicology at Florida State University

BY RACHEL WALLENAsst. News [email protected]

“If you hear Beauty and the Beastplaying, nine times out of ten it’s me.”

Photo Courtesy of Ryan Whittington

As an underclassmen, Maggie Payne was un-sure what major she wanted to declare. With a gifted mind for science, Payne initially thought that she was going to be a chemistry major and pursued a curriculum suited to that.

However, this all changed when she took an electronics class with Oana Jurchescu, assistant professor of physics.

Payne quickly fell in love with physics and wanted to work on research, continuing to do so with Jurchescu and graduate student Katelyn Goetz. “I’ve been fortunate to have two incred-ible female role model for physics in them,” Payne said.

She encourages un-derclassmen to con-sider sticking with physics through the upper level classes, as they grant one the op-portunity to explore topics in more depth and allow for greater practical application of the subject.

Payne’s research focuses on organic electronics, which has application in technologies such as flex-ible devices.

Even before graduating, Payne has already accomplished several scientific breakthroughs. She created a crystal structure that had not been made before and discovered two electrical prop-erties that had never been reported before. “Be-ing a physics major is great because you are literally on the forefront of science. We find new things all of the time,” she said.

During her summers, Payne has continued her research and pursued job opportunities. At N.C. State, the national science foundation funded research that allowed her to create a fabric that

generates energy as one stretches it. The experi-ence reinforced her drive to continue research in new technologies.

She has also worked for the Southwestern Company, selling books door-to-door, an ex-perience that she says she learned a lot from but doesn’t necessarily want to revisit.

Payne is the outgoing president of the Society of Physics Students and Sigma Pi Sigma, the physics honor society.

She has also worked as a teaching assistant, running two labs and offering tutorial sessions to beginning physics students.

“It is really great in a laboratory setting to connect what you learn in class to what you do with your hands — especially for electronics,” Payne said.

Outside of academ-ics, Payne is a member of Alpha Delta Pi So-rority and is the out-going musical direc-tor of Demon Divas, one of the university’s a cappella groups.

In addition to her physics major, Payne minors in chemistry and math.

Following gradua-tion, Payne will pur-sue a Ph.D. in electri-

cal engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.

In the future, she hopes to work in research and development at a company that manufactures large scale flexible electronics.

Referring to her fellow physics majors as family, Payne expressed sadness about leaving the department but she looks forward to the experiences that lie ahead.

Her best advice for underclassmen? “Find something that makes you forget to schedule lunch. If you’re so passionate about it that you forget to schedule breaks, that’s a good sign,” she said.

“Being a physics major is great because you are on the forefront of science.”


BY KRISTOPHER KOLBProduction [email protected]

Kristopher Kolb/Old Gold & Black

MAGGIE PAYNE | PHYSICS

Hometown: Delaware, Oh.

Extracurriculars: President of Society of Physics Students, Sigma Pi Sigma, Alpha Delta Pi Sorority, Demon Divas

Post-Grad Plans: Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at University of California at. Berkeley

ROBERT ELMORE | PHILOSOPHYIn college, it’s easy to stay within the realm

of your major and requirements and take few courses outside of those subjects.

Robert Elmore, though, made the most of his college experience by following his many interests and taking courses in a variety of sub-jects, ending up as a philosophy and economics double major with a minor in political science.

As a freshman, Elmore took an Introduction to Philosophical Ideas course taught by Charles Lewis, professor of philosophy, which began his interest in the subject.

“About halfway in I realized that this was the kind of thing that I was really interested in,” he said.

“I knew I was go-ing to be an econom-ics major, but once I took his course and we started having a discourse about a va-riety of things that I had always been in-terested in but never been formally taught about.”

He chose the two majors based on personal interest in each sub-ject as a whole, but enjoys seeing the overlap between economics and philosophy, particu-larly with the connecting factor of political science.

“I could find a passion in a lot of different things. Becoming proficient at various things is why we come to a liberal arts school like this,” he said.

Elmore played soccer and football through-out high school and became involved with the Club Rugby team at Wake during his freshman year, viewing it as almost a blend between the two sports. After being forced to retire due to having too many concussions, he misses the

regular exercise and competition provided by athletics. “I don’t have the best discipline when it comes to going to the gym, so being on a team with the competitive aspect helped me a lot more,” he said.

Elmore has excelled in academics at Wake, presenting an honors thesis this past fall and landing a job as an analyst with a consulting firm in Washington, D.C. that he will begin in June.

“Consulting’s cool. I didn’t know exactly what it was, but it’s got a nice ring to it. I wasn’t very discriminatory in the job apply-ing department. This one seemed like a good fit — small company, problem-solving skills, thinking outside the box a bit,” he said.

Regardless of his career path, Elmore will miss the lifestyle provided by col-lege, where work is simply learning and writing about interesting topics.

“Given my inter-est in school and ca-reer ambitions, I’ll be back in school at some point for something, wheth-er it be business or law or something in academics,” he said.

Even if the job he is about to start is not specifically in the realm of philosophy, Elmore appreciates his background in philosophy and the skills he learned in his many classes.

“Philosophy has given me a pattern of thought and of discourse, and the ability to be able to argue and analyze arguments. You can have a greater appreciation for something even if it’s not your belief system or ideology as long as you know the pattern of thought that led to it,” he said.

“I’ve enjoyed being a philosophy major. It’s definitely helped me be a better academic, better student, probably a better writer, but more importantly a better arguer.”

Hometown: Richmond, Va.

Extracurriculars: Club Rugby

Post-Grad plans: Analyst for Augur Consulting in Washington, D.C.

BY RACHEL WALLENAsst. News [email protected]

“Becoming proficient at various things is why we come to a liberal arts school.”

Rachel Wallen/Old Gold & Black


“My favorite thing ... is the faculty. They re-spect you as a person and as a student.”


CAMERON FORD | PSYCHOLOGY

Senior Cameron Ford, from Goldsboro, N.C. always knew he wanted to follow in his father’s and brother’s footsteps and study psychology in college; however he never knew how much he would truly enjoy the subject.

“The first time I ever loved a psychology class was when I took social psychology with Dr. Masicampo,” Ford said. “He would give us a concept and then show us a study to back it up. The studies he showed us were so bizarre and interesting. It was mind-boggling.”

Despite his assurance in what he wanted to study, Ford wasn’t always sure that he wanted to study psychology at Wake.

“I was torn between here and University of Richmond,” Ford said. “For a while I was set on going to Richmond, but I visited my brother a few times and hung out with him here. I decided I this is the place I needed to be.”

Next fall, Ford will head to Morgantown, W.V. to attend West Virginia University’s clinical psychology program.

“I had interviews elsewhere. Everyone always tells you to make sure the program is a fit,” Ford said. “I didn’t really know what that meant until I went to these other interviews. I guess West Virginia is the right fit.”

However, Ford wasn’t always sure of his future in clinical psychology; but through conducting his own research, Ford came to realize he wanted to pursue a career.

“I was like ‘do I want to take a gap year, do I want to do something different because I am an entrepreneurship minor or marketing is that cool?’ I don’t know. Really just getting

into research and doing my own project has been really cool.”

Ford has been involved in additional psy-chological research in professor of psychology Christian Waugh’s lab, doing emotional regula-tion testing as well as professor of psychlogy E.J. Masicampo’s lab, where he created a study on self-control and motor movements.

“Cameron works hard, he excels at what he does, and he has fun doing it,” Masicampo said. “Because of that, he has made some difficult tasks — like designing quality experiments and analyzing complex data sets — look easy. It has been a pleasure to watch.”

Through his experiences in the psychology department, Ford has gained admiration and appreciativeness for the university’s faculty.

“My favorite thing might be cliché and it might be what they tell you on the tours, but it’s the faculty,” Ford said. “They really re-spect you as a person and as a student.”

Outside of study-ing psychology, Ford is involved in other groups and in the Winston-Salem community as a PRE-PARE advocate and facilitator, a member of the service frater-

nity Alpha Phi Omega and works once a week at Arts for Life.

“I am a volunteer at Arts for Life,” Ford said. “It is this non-profit that works with the hospital. They offer visual arts and music to pediatric patients who have chronic illness.”

In the future, Ford hopes to eventually return to the campus.

“The plan/goal/dream is professor part time, clinician part time and researcher part-time—some sort of blend,” Ford said.

“If I could be on a college campus with all these energetic awesome people, I think I could be pretty happy.”

BY SARAH MORANNews [email protected]

Hometown: Goldsboro, N.C.

Extracurriculars: Alpha Phi Omega, Arts for Life, PREPARE advocate and facilitator

Post-Grad Plans: Study clinical psy-chology at West Virginia University

KIMBERLY QUICK | POLITICAL SCIENCE

Politics never ran in Kimberly Quick’s family, but the lessons her parents and grade school teachers taught her growing up sparked an interest that has grown into a likely career path.

Quick grew up in Chesterfield, Va., just outside of the state’s capitol of Richmond, and as early as middle school she was asking questions about the political process and public policy.

“My parents aren’t politicians or lawyers, but they’ve always instilled in me a sense that I should know what’s going on in the world,” Quick said. “I remember I had a seventh grade social studies teacher … I asked a whole bunch of questions and complained about domestic policy in the nice little 12-year-old way.”

Quick’s natural cu-riosity with politics continued to develop when she arrived at Wake Forest and be-gan taking various po-litical science courses with professors like Katy Harriger, chair of the department of politics and interna-tional affairs.

“When she gets excited talking about constitu-tional law I think ‘oh, this is really fascinating!’ I’m just as excited,” Quick said, noting that she’s currently enrolled in her third class with Harriger. “She’s also really good at challenging you … she can recognize when it’s not your best work.”

Quick, who is graduating with a double minor in English and American ethnic studies, said she also enjoyed classes like American Ethnic Literature with Dean Franco, associate professor of English.

“[It] was very intellectually challenging for me. The material we read spanned a wide range of American ethnicities,” Quick said. “I like that we read Jewish literature, African American literature,

Native American literature — the variety of mate-rial we read.”

Franco’s class even helped Quick develop her political science thesis, which focused on libera-tion theologies and specifically how they relate to the African American and LGBTQ community.

Her fascination with political expression contin-ued to grow with her experiences abroad. During her time at Wake Forest, Quick studied in both Ghana and the U.K, both of which she recalled as some of her fondest memories as a Demon Deacon.

After graduation, Quick will have just over a month away from Winston-Salem before she re-turns to serve as a fellow in the Provost’s office beginning in July.

“Over the past two years, Kimberly seemed to be involved in every major student-led event on

campus, often in an orga-nizer’s role,” Kersh said. “Her wide-ranging sense of our community, won-derfully creative approach to problem-solving and innovative ideas about how best to engage stu-dents, faculty, and staff in helping Wake Forest live up to our aspirations — all these made her a natural choice as Fellow.”

Quick is considering other academic opportu-

nities after her fellowship, such as law school as well as the possibility of earning her Ph.D.

She thinks that these degrees can provide career mobility to allow her to explore different working environments, such as teaching, consulting and researching as well as practicing law.

“Something that’s becoming more prominent with our generation is that people have a couple of career paths,” she said. “I like the ability to have a few different hats that are all interrelated and all important.”

Quick is also an Ambassador-in-Admissions, social action and political involvement chairs of Delta Sigma Theta, a President’s Aid, and special events coordinator for Amnesty International.

Hometown: Chesterfield, Va.

Extracurriculars: Ambassador-in-Admissions, Delta Sigma Theta, President’s Aid, Amnesty Interna-tional

Post-Grad Plans: Fellow in the of-fice of the provost

BY AUSTIN COOKNews [email protected]

“I like the ability to have a few different hats that are all interrelated and all important.

Austin Cook/Old Gold & Black


“The professors ... have given me such a wonderful experience in the major.”

Ian Rutledge/Old Gold & Black

ERIN HELLMAN | SOCIOLOGYErin Hellman has always had a passion for

community service and addressing issues that faced society, but when she first walked onto Wake Forest’s campus as a freshman she was unaware that her passions would lead her to a major in sociology.

“I had never taken a sociology class before college, so I took a sociology course with Dr. Simon for my divisional since I’ve always been interested in social issues, as well as politics,” Hellman said.

“I had always been particularly drawn to issues such as poverty and inequality, so when I took the sociology class it really made me real-ize that these inter-ests were something I could pursue further in a more academic way through the study of sociology.”

Through the start of her relationship with Robin Simon, professor of sociolo-gy, Hellman began to identify the congru-ence of her interests with the interests and passions of the depart-ment’s talented faculty.

“The [sociology] professors and their willing-ness to engage and support students, as well as their genuine interest in student success, have given me such a wonderful experience in the major,” Hellman said.

“[These characteristics] have also helped me developed incredibly close relationships with so many of my professors and I think that is really demonstrated by the three professors I had working closely with me to make my honors thesis happen.”

Hellman received a Richter scholarship to travel to South Korea and study the hagwon

system of private tutoring there, which later became the subject of her honors thesis.

Although Hellman’s accomplishments within the sociology department are numerous, she was also involved in a variety of activities outside the classroom, particularly in the area of service.

Her service activities included participating as a shift leader for Campus Kitchen, serving as a leader on multiple Wake Alternative Breaks, participating in an international service trip to Vietnam and founding the “Saturday Acade-my” tutoring program at Ashley Academy in Winston-Salem.

“The relationships I’ve built with students and members of the Winston-Salem community, through my service work, have been really im-portant to me,” Hellman said. “I have loved the

way that I could see the way what I stud-ied in the classroom as a sociology major could be applied to my service work.”

Hellman was also a member of the Kappa Delta soror-ity and served as the president of College Democrats.

As her and her fel-low classmates time at Wake comes to a

close, Hellman looks back fondly upon the four years she spent her as an undergraduate, especially the semester she spent in the Worrell House in London, England.

“That experience was the highlight [of my Wake experience] just because I was able to learn in a new city and a new place,” Hellman said. “Also, it was great because I could really see what I was learning in action. Studying in Europe definitely helped me gain a lot of confi-dence and independence through my traveling.”

Hellman will be working for Teach for America in Phoenix, Ariz., following graduation. She is confident her sociology studies at Wake will aid her work in Phoenix and beyond.

BY IAN RUTLEDGEPrint Managing [email protected]

Hometown: Frankfort, KY

Extracurriculars: Campus Kitchen, Wake Alternative Break leader, Kap-pa Delta, College Democrats

Post-Grad Plans: Teach for America in Phoenix, AZ

DAVID INCZAUSKIS | RELIGIONDavid Inczauskis hadn’t given much thought to

becoming a priest since his childhood, but now he feels the call more strongly than ever.

The Homer Glen, Ill., native began to think differently about religion’s role in his life upon arriving at Wake Forest.

“I think to some degree all of us have to deal with these questions that are very important in our lives,” Inczauskis said. “Questions like, who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? What’s the purpose of my life? What is truth? The religion department does a good job of enabling students to treat these questions academically but also provoking the stu-dents to think about them personally.”

Inczauskis also be-came involved in the Wake Forest Catholic Community, where he continues to serve as a peer minister.

“David is one of our most active members who gets involved in most everything we do on campus and with the Charlotte Catho-lic Diocese,” said Catholic campus minister Fr. Charles Jagodzinski. “I will truly miss my talks with him on Sacred Scripture and Church teaching when he graduates and goes on to study for the Catholic Priesthood.”

Inczauskis also has a double major in Spanish, which he decided to pursue after spending the second semester of his freshman year studying in Salamanca, Spain.

Backed by the Reynolds Scholarship, Inczauskis conducted a summer research project the summer after his freshman year in Guatemala, where he worked with an organization staffed by several people who were simultaneously campaigning for UNRG-MAIZ, Guatemala’s socialist revolution-

ary party. After going on various campaign move-ments, Inczauskis became inspired by these people who were devout Catholics but simultaneously had a vested interest in the political and economic liberation of the people.

Liberation theology is the subject of Inczauskis’ honors theses in both religion and Spanish, the latter of which he chose to write in the form of a play.

“David Inczauskis is a very thoughtful and learned young man,” said Spanish professor Jane Albrecht. “Directing his honors project this year is one of the highlights of my career.”

Inczauskis spent his junior year at the University of Oxford, where he sought spiritual direction from the university’s Jesuit-run chaplaincy. It was then that he firmly felt the call to enter the priesthood.

“My goal is to help souls,” Inczauskis said. “I think spirituality, edu-cation and social justice would be three aspects I’d like to focus on as a Jesuit.”

For Inczauskis, this di-alectic between spiritual and active life coincides with Wake Forest’s motto of Pro Humanitate.

“Many people take Pro Humanitate to mean ser-vice or volunteering, but I don’t think it means that,”

Inczauskis said. “I think it means ‘for humanness,’ in the sense that we humans are very unique in that we have the ability to think rationally. That’s what’s distinctive about us — our rational thought that elevates us high above the animals and gives us the opportunity to go to great lengths to perfect ourselves as a human race constantly.”

Inczauskis will enter the Jesuit novitiate in St. Paul, Minn., in August to begin his formation for Priesthood, a process that typically takes at least 10 years.

“I believe he will be a moving force in the Jesuit Order and in the Catholic Church wherever he serves,” Jagodzinski said. “I hope and pray we have more ‘Davids’ on campus in the future.”

Hometown: Homer Glen, Ill.

Extracurriculars: Peer minister in Wake Forest Catholic Community

Post-Grad Plans: Enter the Jesuit novitiate in St. Paul, Minn.

BY EMMA LINGANSports [email protected]

“That’s what’s distinctive about us — our rational thought that elevates us ...”

Emma Lingan/Old Gold & Black


“I have been told that even in my infantile years that I was scrawling things on the walls.”


KELSEY ZALIMENI| STUDIO ARTKelsey Zalimeni has been interested in art since

a young age. “I have been told that even in my infantile years that I was scrawling things on the walls and painting,” Zalimeni said.

However, Zalimeni was not able to fully ex-plore her artistic side until she entered Wake Forest.

“Growing up, [art] was always more of a hobby because sports were my focus,” Zalimeni said.

Zalimeni was a dedicated soccer player in high school. She also was a member of the varsity soccer team at Wake Forest for three years.

“I was a varsity athlete here until I tore my ACL three times,” Zalime-ni said. “Basically if you tear your ACL more than twice, they can’t really condone to clear you.”

Her time away from the field allowed her to focus more of her time and effort on her art.

Zalimeni commit-ted to Wake Forest on a partial athletic scholarship and the soccer coach encouraged her to apply for the Presidential Scholarship for visual arts.

“The coach knew that I was into art, so he told me about the Presidential Scholarship, which if I got it, would cover the rest,” Zalimeni said. “In some miraculous way, I put together a port-folio and I got the scholarship. So I have a dual purpose scholarship here.”

After coming to Wake Forest, Zalimeni’s deci-sion to major in studio art was easy.

“It was sort of one-track thing for me,” she said. “[Art] was just a part of me that I never really got to develop. In high school I never took lessons. I never even took art except for one year. It was something that I felt like I needed

to give myself a chance to be trained in, and I’m glad I did.”

During her time at the university, Zallimeni has focused on painting and sculpture. Her hon-ors project, which is titled “#followme” and serves as a critique of our social media culture, combines these two concentrations.

“The show that just went up of mine in Hanes is a combination of [sculpture and painting],” Zalimeni said. “They are actually mobile paint-ings.”

This honors project, which is on display in the Hanes Art Gallery until May 4, is one of Zalimeni’s favorite works that she has completed during her tenure at Wake Forest.

“I would say that this honors show has really been the first time I’ve been allowed to create

a cohesive body of work,” she said. “Ev-erything else that you make when you’re in college is exercise based — you’re given a task and then you have to make it. So [my honors show] is what I’m most proud of so far.”

After graduation, Zalimeni will con-tinue her career as an artist, but she will also be going to New York

to work in the Sotheby’s training program. “It’s a half-year trial. It’s like you work there,

but on the condition that if you’re not doing well at any point they can tell you to leave,” Zalimeni said. “I have a few options, but my main goal is to use that as a conduit to be hired within that company.”

Leigh Ann Hallberg, lecturer in art, has served as a mentor to Zalimeni during her time at Wake Forest. Hallberg has greatly enjoyed working with Zalimeni during the past four years.

“Kelsey has been one of the most talented, hard-working and self-driven students I have had the pleasure to work with,” Hallberg said. “She is a willful creature. I expect great things in the future from this force of nature.”


Hometown: Mebane, N.C.

Extracurriculars: Start Gallery Stu-dent Advisory Committee, Varsity Soccer, Reynolda House Student Ad-visory Committee

Post-Grad Plans: Sotheby’s train-ing program

“It would be really great to be able to work in an underrepresented area.”

Erin Patterson/Old Gold & Black

CHRISTINA HOSPODAR | SPANISHSenior Christina Hospodar has split her time at

Wake Forest between her two passions: Spanish and health and exercise science.

She has taken Spanish classes since the sixth grade and has always known that she at least wanted to minor in Spanish.

Once she got to college, however, she enjoyed her classes so much that she decided to pursue the major.

Hospodar looks forward using to using her Spanish major in her career in the health field, where professionals work directly with people.

“There’s such a growing population of Spanish speakers, and I think it would be really great to be able to work in an underrepresented area,” said Hospodar. “Also, it always opens up the possibility of going abroad again.”

Hospodar studied abroad during the fall of her junior year in Salamanca, Spain through Wake Forest.

She had always known that she wanted to study abroad in Spain to hone her Spanish-speaking skills, and the Salamanca pro-gram seemed like the best option when she began looking at all of the cities and programs available.

“I have nothing but positive things to say about studying broad in Salamanca,” said Ho-spodar. “You learn so much, so quickly just from being immersed so completely in a program like that. The Salamanca program is especially great because they really focused on language-development aspect, and it is a very immersive program.”

This past summer, Hospodar returned to Spain to hiked The Camino de Santiago, a

pilgrimage route through northern Spain. On the trail, she was surprised and fascinated by “how important people’s relationships to each other were on the Camino and how that kind defrayed physical ailments,” said Hospodar.

The importance of social connection on the trail inspired her Honors research work with Dr. Walter Rejeski when she returned to the university for her senior year.

Using Rejeski’s group-based weight loss trial, she examined how the subjects’ relationships with each other impact how they’re doing in the trial.

In addition to her studies, Hospodar spends much of her time working for campus recreation as the assistant coordinator for all of fitness. She works with the administrative aspect of the

Miller Fitness Center, the personal training programs and the group fitness classes.

“It’s been really cool to get that level of administrative ex-perience, because it’s not really a student position,” said Ho-spodar.

“I kind of took it haphazardly because the lady who was doing it had to leave

unexpectedly.” Her experience in this role has inspired her

to consider a similar coordinator position after graduation before she most likely goes to gradu-ate school to expose herself to more aspects of health and exercise research beyond what she has experienced with Rejeski.

When asked what she will miss the most about Wake Forest, Hospodar gets the most sentimental about the people.

“Wake draws so many people from so many different areas of the country,” Hospodar said. “The people are what make your experience what it is. And that includes professors and even the workers in the Pit swiping you in.”

BY ERIN PATTERSONMultimedia [email protected]

Hometown: Trumbull, Conn.

Extracurriculars: Assistant Coordi-nator at Campus Recreation

Post-Grad Plans: Graduate school to explore more Health & Exercise Science research


AMY SHACKELFORD | WGSOrlando, Fla. native Amy Shackelford found

her passion for issues of inequality and injus-tice during her sophomore year of college. Out of curiosity, she took an introductory class in women and gender studies taught by Wanda Balzano and Shannon Gilreath, and became fascinated by the issues covered in the readings and class discussions.

That same year, Shackelford was seeking an outlet for her newfound passion in the form of a feminist group that would address issues on campus. When she discovered that no such group existed at the university, she founded Gender Equality Al-lies with Lindey Cam-pagne, Molly Dunn and Simone Barbado. It was just chartered as a student organization and started receiving funding this year.

Gender Equality Allies has organized several events over the past few years that pro-mote self-love, gender equality and open dis-cussion about sexual-ity. Last year, they brought Brittany Snow to campus to discuss her experience with eating disorders, and they also organized the Love is Louder event in library. For the past two years, they have organized Love Your Body Week, which included a huge graffiti wall on the Lower Quad.

“I feel like [Gender Equality Allies has] prob-ably defined a lot of my college experience, but I think it has also enriched it,” said Shackelford. “The most meaningful thing is when you re-alize that your studies and your activism are important in the here and now.”

Shackelford is also the president of Anthony Aston Players, a service organization dedicated

to serving the university theatre in a variety of ways. Furthermore, she was a freshman resident advisor for two years and an ambassador for the Office of Personal and Career Development.

Beyond the university, Shackelford works part-time for Feminist Apparel with social media and brand partnerships. She also works part-time for Everyday Feminism, an online magazine that covers topics in feminism such as domestic violence, sexism, what it means to be transgender and more.

However, of all of her extracurricular activities, her involvement in Gender Equality Allies has impacted her the most.

“The combination of deciding to study wom-en and gender studies and combing that with the activism I do with Gender Equality Allies … it’s

changed my career trajectory entirely,” said Shackelford.

Although she previously thought that she would go into public relations and communica-tion, she changed directions after a “horrendously bor-ing” public rela-tions internship last summer. Because of her involvement in

Gender Equality Allies and her major in women and gender studies, her post-graduation plans have taken an exciting turn.

In June, Shackelford has a full scholarship to go a conference in Munich, Germany for the Office of the Provost of Global Affairs. After traveling through Europe for four more weeks, Shackelford will return to the States and move to Philadelphia to work for Feminist Apparel full-time and help with their upcoming Kick-starter campaign in August.

“It’s risky to go for a startup, but I think my personality is one that I’d rather go completely crazy over something that I love than settle,” said Shackelford.

“I’d rather go completely crazy over something that I love than settle.”

Erin Patterson/Old Gold & Black

Hometown: Orlando, Fla.

Extracurriculars: Gender Equality Allies, Anthony Aston Players

Post-Grad Plans: Conference in Munich before helping with Feminist Apparel Kickstarter in Philadelphia

BY ERIN PATTERSONMultimedia [email protected]

As a proud member of the theatre major and a Presidential Scholar in theatre, Quillian has dedicated herself to her field of study. Along with performing in a variety of productions rang-ing from musicals to plays to an experimental interdisciplinary piece that allied theatre with the chemistry department, she has contributed much of her time at Wake Forest to the theatre department, defending every last minute of it.

“There’s this huge misconception about what it means to make theatre,” Quillian said. “I think people’s perceptions of theatre majors are people who just kind of dance around and sing showtunes in Scales and don’t re-ally have work. It’s so many more hours than people think it is.”

Not only has Quil-lian acted in 20 shows and a total of 76 per-formances, but she also serves as the Pub-lic Relations Chair on the Executive Board of the Anthony Aston Players and is a mem-ber of Alpha Delta Pi sorority. She has also been involved in groups such as Gender Equality Allies, Experimental College and Splash Mob — a flash mob with umbrellas — all while pursuing a second major in communications.

Sharon Andrews, associate professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance, had the privilege to work closely with Quillian during her time at Wake.

“For four years, Celia, has given her skills, time and immense talent to Wake Forest Uni-versity Theatre, and I have had the privilege of working with her as teacher, director, mentor and friend all four of those years,” Andrews said. “Students have to leave, and we have to

let them go. We miss them and hope that we have helped them place a firm foundation under their feet. Celia’s foundation is deep and strong, and I will miss her.”

All of her hard work finally paid off when Quillian took on her biggest project yet this year with graduate student Andrew Newton. The two independently directed, produced, pro-moted and performed “The Last Five Years” by Jason Robert Brown in the Hanes Art Gallery.

“We didn’t realize how much work it would be,” Quillian admitted. “It’s good that we didn’t realize everything we would have to do in the beginning, because we would have backed out. But we said we were going to do it and we did.”

The idea started as a joke backstage when the two starred in “Hairspray” together and eventu-

ally flourished into a highly praised, sold-out show. De-spite the enormous time commitment, and work that the duo took on, the experience was un-forgettable.

“It’s something that will always stick with me,” Quillian said. “It’s something I’ll always be proud of.”

After graduation, Quillian plans to move back home to Atlanta, building up a résumé in theatre and film before heading to New York City or Los Angeles. Celia had originally planned to work somewhere stable in public relations, but instead has decided to dive right into acting.

Having achieved so much over the past four years, Quillian will leave behind a lasting legacy when she graduates. She hopes that the love she harbors for theatre at Wake Forest persists the among students who remain here.

“I hope that people continue to come see shows and see that we’re really good,” said Quillian. “I hope that the passion I have here stays and continues to grow.”

CELIA QUILLIAN | THEATRE

Hometown: Atlanta, Ga.

Extracurriculars: Athony Aston Players, Alpha Delta Pi, Gender Equality Allies, Splash Mob

Post-Grad Plans: Act in New York City or Los Angeles

“I hope that the passion I have here stays and continues to grow.”


BY SHANE LUTZAsst. Opinion [email protected]

CELIA QUILLIAN | THEATRE

Celebrating the Class of 2014

“The horizon leans forward, offering you space to place

new steps of change.”

-Maya Angelou, Reynolds Professor of American Studies“Inaugural Poem,” 1993

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