From the Quad
2/1/2021 9:57:00 AM | General
Good morning Demon Deacon Nation!
There is an amazing energy and vibe around our beautiful Reynolda campus today following yesterday's exciting announcement of Dr. Susan Wente as the next Wake Forest University President. Along with a few of our coaches and student-athletes, I had the honor of welcoming Dr. Wente to Wake Forest at a Saturday morning photo shoot in front of McCreary Tower!
If you've read her biography, you know that Dr. Wente's academic credentials, scientific research and leadership accomplishments are first rate. And, her warmth and relatability were immediately evident to me when she met our football student-athletes for the first time and four of our head coaches, including three-time NCAA champion Jennifer Averill, Dave Clawson, Steve Forbes and Jen Hoover. Dr. Wente now has her first batch of Demon Deacon memorabilia as each of our coaches and the football student-athletes brought her welcome gifts!
Before I share a few more thoughts about Dr. Wente, let me again acknowledge my personal gratitude for the tremendous leadership President Nathan Hatch has, and continues to provide for Wake Forest. The entire Hatch family – especially Dr. Hatch's gracious wife Julie – have been wonderful advocates for Demon Deacon Athletics and have truly transformed and elevated our University over the past 15 years. And, as President Hatch and I watched the Deacons pull away from Miami Saturday afternoon, I thought about how important his friendship, mentoring, and expectation of excellence has been for me personally over the past two years.
Wake Forest University has been blessed with tremendous presidential stability. It is hard to think of another major university to have just two presidents over a 38-year period. Following Dr. Thomas Hearn's 22 year (1983-2005) run, Dr. Hatch's 16-year tenure will be remembered by achievements on many fronts, including the historic Wake Will campaign, new programs to educate the whole person that reinvented the 21st century liberal arts education, incredible facilities like the WFU Business School's Farrell Hall, and of course the Innovation Quarter and Wake Downtown.
Board of Trustees Chairman Gerald Roach and the Presidential Search Committee did an outstanding job conducting an inclusive and thorough search process to find the right person to lead our University. More than 1,600 Wake Foresters participated in the process through a combination of a presidential survey and 30 virtual Calls to Conversation. Representatives from more than 20 affinity groups and Deacons worldwide provided abundant insight and contributed to the criteria used by the Committee in selecting our 14th president.
Dr. Wente's reputation precedes her, and in my conversations with Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey and Vanderbilt AD Candice Lee they spoke of her strong leadership, high intelligence, good listening skills and unwavering commitment to student success. Over the last 24 hours I have received many calls and texts from higher education and college athletics colleagues congratulating us on our new leader!
From her Iowa roots (growing up about four hours from Deacon men's basketball coach Steve Forbes), through her distinguished research career in biomedical science, and into high level administrative posts, she has combined her expertise in scholarship and research with an overarching vision that spotlights innovation, collaboration and discovery.
Dr. Wente has served as Vanderbilt's provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs since 2014 and led Vanderbilt's response to the COVID-19 pandemic while serving as interim chancellor from August 2019 through June 2020. She has accumulated all kinds of awards and recognitions, but more importantly has demonstrated steadfast commitment to her leadership principles of trust, transparency and teamwork.
And, she has helped Vanderbilt achieve the No. 1 ranking in the "Their Students Love These Colleges" category in The Princeton Review's 2020 Best Colleges rankings.
While serving as Provost, Dr. Wente also represented Vanderbilt as NCAA and Southeastern Conference Faculty Athletics Representative. Her husband, Dr. Chris Hardy, joined Coach Clawson and me for Saturday's afternoon's men's basketball victory and I look forward to welcoming their two daughters – Allison & Lindsay – for future Deacon games!
Dr. Wente was watching Coach Forbes' first ACC win over Pitt and texted Gerald Roach, "We're winning!" aligning herself with Wake Forest from the very beginning. And, her oldest daughter, Allison, was a student-athlete and now coaches high school volleyball, giving Dr. Wente a deep appreciation of the commitment required of student-athletes.
While we welcome Dr. Wente and her family, your Demon Deacon student-athletes are fully back engaged in their spring semester studies and athletics competitions, including our No. 1 ranked women's golf team who is battling in the UCF Challenge as we speak. Remember that GoDeacs.com and our social media platforms are your ticket to tracking all the Deacon action. Thank you for all you do to support Wake Forest student-athletes and please wear your mask so we can celebrate the fall season in person with President Wente at Truist Field, Spry and Kentner Stadium and all our venues!
Go Deacs!
John Currie
Director of Athletics
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