Daily Deacon

Assignment 1 Reflection — Bennett

I really enjoyed writing this article because it gave me insight into sports writing while also helping me learn more about our soccer program. As far as the interviewing and information gathering goes, it was much less stressful than I expected it to be. The internet is such a useful tool for journalism, it gives me perspective and admiration for journalists who worked before its existence. This assignment gave me a good template for how I plan to conduct my interviews and gather information for the remainder of the course. As far as writing is concerned, I think this article gave me some insight as to how to structure a news story. I still need to work on the detached, biasless voice required for this kind of journalism but I get the sense that it will become much easier as time goes on. I’m excited to see how sports writing differs from the other kind of journalistic pieces I’ll be working on over the course of the semester.

Reflection

In doing this story I focused using a combination of my experience at the event and interviews I had with people who attended. After going to the 1834 event I felt like I had a decent amount to write about regarding the atmosphere and the scene. That being said, once I interviewed all the people who I wanted to talk to I felt like I had much more of a story. I conducted five different interviews with people who attended the event and people who organized the event. I conducted 3 of my interviews over FaceTime on my phone. I found this to be a very convenient method for doing the interview. I was able to get all the reactions and responses in real time, which I felt made it more authentic. It was also much easier to do it over FaceTime because I didn’t have to organize a meeting place with anybody, or deal with fitting our schedules together. For the other sources I wrote emails to people who could provide me with information about the event. This was not as convenient and more time consuming for my source, but still proved to be an effective way to gather information. I tried to base this story off of a mix between a slice of life piece and a feature about the 1834 Student Giving Campaign.

Reflection — Chris Caswell

Writing this news story was challenging, but it was also the most rewording one I’ve written. I was somewhat nervous at first whether I could get the sources I needed to write an accurate profile of the since the people that Alexander Literary Organization influence the most are in a maximum security prison. But, it ended up being easier than I thought. I asked the president of the organization for a contact person at the prison and emailed him for a good time to call and mentioned that I would like to get a quote from an inmate if I could. Once he understood what I was working on, the coordinator at the prison was very helpful and even brought an inmate to the phone for me to speak to. Hearing him talk about the program’s influence on him made that interview the most powerful and moving one I’ve done. Once I talked to my two sources in the prison, it felt like the story wrote itself.

Brandon Liu edited on my story, and he was very helpful. He pointed out some sentences that did not flow well and just had awkward wording.

Reflection // Rachel Hirsch

Writing this story was fun, yet challenging. AIA is something a lot of my teammates are involved in, but I never knew just exactly what it was. I asked a teammate, Heather Wiley, as to who I should talk to for this story. She gave me the contact information for all three of my sources. I emailed all three and set up times to interview them. Thankfully, the job of the two interns is basically to have meetings with students so it was super easy to get together with them. The soccer player was relatively easy too, but we just had to work around both of our practice schedules.

Anna Conte edited my paper and really helped to organize my story in a different way. She pointed out how to make my paragraphs shorter by letting the quotes stand out more. Anna also helped with the concept of attribution. I had a couple sentences that needed to be changed!

Reflection Paragraph//Karlee Spirit

I approached writing my first story with a grain of salt. Aiming to not include any bias thoughts or opinion, I wrote strictly on informational ideas and factual news. I picked my three sources based upon different perspectives and different views towards the event of Career Night and the way in which it benefited or impacted each source. For this story, I did not base my writing off of an already written piece but find that doing so might be helpful for my next story. In all, however, I sincerely enjoyed writing this piece. Career Night is one of my favorite events every year and I personally think it benefits every student-athletes with their future after Wake. It was interesting to interview athletes who attended and even outside forces who work with athletes and find many trends among them, specifically female student-athletes.

Katie Dickens edited my paper and helped me in soooooooo many ways. She contributed to helping me fix my structural problems as well as steering me in the right direction of the correct APA citations and using my quotes and sources properly. She also helped my fix small things within my paper like rewording and grammatical mistakes.

Assignment 1 Reflection – Suyash Keshari

I chose to write about this story because the exhibit is very unique, deals with current ecological issues and their impact on the future. Initially I was not sure what I was exactly going to report on – the journey of a Wake Forest class to the SECCA exhibit, feature story on the exhibit or a visitor’s experience at the exhibit. Thankfully I was able to interview enough people to explore and expand on any of the story ideas. I interviewed the curator of SECCA Ms.Cora Fisher who was very easy to talk to and enthused about the fact that I was from Wake. I interviewed some of the visitors in the exhibit including students from my film class that I went with and the professor. I realized that it was hard to get something substantial from my peers as most of them would say “I thought it was pretty cool” or “It’s intriguing.” I had to delve deeper into their thoughts by using multiple questions.

I tried searching for a New York times or Washington Post article on an exhibition or gallery opening but was not successful at finding a good one so I decided to base my story independently hoping that it would work.

Although I would like to consider myself as a photojournalist, this was the first time I covered a news story. Writing this story made me realize that what I do (wildlife photography but not the campaign I am working on) is more on the lines of telling stories through my photographs, blogging and not exactly hard line journalism. This assignment led me to realize the separation between the two.

Story 2 Ideas and Reflective Paragraph// Katie Dickens

1. New Golf House…rich tradition of golf at Wake, maybe visual b/c of existing images

2. TedX prep

3. Faculty Profile

Reflective Paragraph:

Writing this story was so, so much fun. I was extremely curious about the new football facilities after hearing about them from friends on the football team, and wanted to look inside. I figured that the rest of the study body probably felt the same way, so I contacted McKenzie Maddox and she said that the OGB would be interested if I submitted my work to them afterwards as well. I set up a phone interview with Coach Clawson through his assistant, and contacted Kendall Hinton through my friend Phil Haynes who is on the football team. Because both of them are extremely busy, I was sure to schedule a week in advance in order to talk to them. I also set up a behind-the-scenes tour with the Associate Athletic Director for Development, Barry Faircloth, who provided the backstory for the building and also allowed me to go inside to capture all of my images for the story.

Karlee Spirit edited my piece in class and provided key feedback based on my images and also pointed out that the field hockey team had not used the facilities yet, which I had previously thought to be true based on an interview.

Alexander Literary Organization Profile — Chris Caswell

Once a month, members of Alexander Literary Organization, a student organization at Wake Forest, pile into their cars and drive an hour west to Alexander Correctional Institute. Once inside, the students trade their IDs for a visitor’s pass. Then, they make their way through a series of secured doors, across the yard and into the chapel. And then they begin class.

Alexander Literary Organization is a men’s maximum security prison, and according to Daniel Redding, clinical chaplain II at the prison and coordinator of the literary program, approximately 50 percent of inmates are in for murder, 25 percent for habitual felonies and the remaining 25 percent, for sexual crimes.

The literary organization was founded by senior Alex Gibson. He says he was introduced to Alexander Correctional Institute by Ulrike Wiethaus, professor of Religion and American Ethnic Studies during his freshman year in Religion 111, a course on Native-American traditions. Students were required to do a project on an aspect of Native-American culture and present it to the Native-American group at Alexander Correctional Institute. Wiethaus is heavily involved at the facility with the Native-American group there. Since then, Gibson has felt obligated to help inmates at the prison.

“I always felt that I had to do more for those people, because they were so amazingly engaged, interested and kind, and it really shattered my preconceptions of what a prison is and who prisoners are,” said Gibson. “So, I felt that it was my job as an educator to do what I could to help them express educational interest to employers in the future.”

According to Gibson, each month, about seven students visit the prison and a member of the group – changing every session — leads a program that they believe inmates will value and that will enrich their education. The organization has led a large variety of events such as one focused on theater, one on poetry and one on debate.

Gibson, even on his first visit to the prison, was surprised by how interested and engaged the inmates were.

“These students – [the inmates] – were more engaged in what I was doing than in any class at Wake Forest,” said Gibson. “They remember it, too. When you go back, they say ‘I was really thinking about this, and I found a book about that topic and I’ve been reading it, and what do you think of this.'”

Junior Corinne Sugino, a member of the organization, is majoring in Politics and International Affairs and Religion. She is also a member of the debate team at Wake Forest, so she chose to lead a session on debate. She says she sent materials on the debate to the prison ahead of time, allowing the inmates time to prepare.

“The value of that workshop was in gaining advocacy skills,” said Sugino. “And some of them came with pages of notes, some of them had done their own research outside of the articles that I had sent them.”

DeWayne Warren, 51, from Greensboro, N.C. is an inmate at Alexander Correctional Institute, and he explained why these sessions are so important to them.

“[They] allow us to be interested in some subjects that many of us have never even considered,” said Warren. “Without [Alexander Literary Organization] coming in and without some of the programs that are offered here, there is no rehabilitation in the penitentiary.”

Inmates like Warren do not just appreciate the content of the programs, but they also appreciate the different context in which they see each other.

“We get to see ourselves and see others in a totally different light. A lot of times, we see each other based on the crimes we committed, so when we’re in these initiatives, we get to see each other outside of [that context],” said Warren.

Warren isn’t the only inmate that appreciates the program. The Alexander Literary Organization asks inmates for anonymous feedback and it is overwhelmingly positive.

For instance, on a theater-themed session, the average score out of five of inmates’ overall satisfaction was a 4.9 while the level that the program affected them was an average of 4.8.

In response to a question asking for general comments on the session in the qualitative section, one inmate enjoyed the session so much that he shared it with friends and loved ones.

“This was so cool that I sent the cover of the program name with a letter about my experience and had my grandpa read it and email it to everyone, family, friends, etc,” the inmate said.

Feedback on other sessions are similarly impressive according to the organization’s surveys. Gibson is graduating this spring, but Sugino will take over his leadership position in the fall.

Awake All Night Event – Brandon Liu

Student Union sent Wake Forest students on a playful trip back in time to the medieval age on the night of the 6^th. The competitive and sportive nature of a knight was invoked at the highlight of the event as attendees raced on horses, jousted, and battled in tug of war. Hundreds of students showed up and were ready to enjoy the festivities at Benson Center, where the event occupied the 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th floors. Free of cost, the event was open to students and friends from 9:00 pm to 1:00 am.

Benson center was decorated with balloons, streamers, and banners and rang with upbeat pop music. On the second floor, a film was being shown in the Pugh auditorium and a late night open mic was hosted in Shorty’s where students were given the opportunity to display their talents.

A large hand painted castle banner guided students to the third floor where tables of finger foods, cake, and punch occupied the center. Next to the food was a face painting and balloon art stand.

The usually quiet study space of Benson Center was replaced with a neon lit casino. Well-dressed, elderly, adults hosted Poker, blackjack, and roulette in which players could win poker chips that could be exchange for tickets used at the end of event raffle.

Wake Forest sophomore Jack Garvey organized both the Fall 2015 event and Spring 2016 Awake All Night event, leading both to be very successful.

“The turn out has been great, definitely more people than expected, it’s been fantastic. The most popular attraction is probably the build a bear workshop and the food is always big hit too.”

Said Student Union head of special events, Jack Garvey.

Dragons, unicorns, and bears were brought to life at the build a bear station in room 410 where students could give a soul and hand stuff the bears themselves. The option of machine stuffing was also available for those in a rush to explore more of the event.

Loud hammering came from the adjacent arts and craft room where students pounding metal stamps into leather to make bracelets. Three tables were set up, one for sand art, one for crafting and dying leather bracelets, and one for bead bracelets. At the sand art table, students could pick from a rainbow assortment of sand and stack it to create patterns in a jar.

“I found the sand art the most interesting but actually enjoyed watching people joust the most because it’s funny”, said Wake Forest graduate of 2015, Kyungjin Yoo who has been to two previous Awake All Night events.

In the corridor, a long line for a psychic led to the other side of the fourth floor where the light hearted medieval games took place. Jousters wore oversized suits with heavily padded poles in attempt to knock off the opponents head. Students also participated in the derby race using three inflatable green horses. They bounced and rocked their way slowly to the finish line and back. The tug of war rope which was almost the length of the entire room allowed anyone willing to show off their strength in one on one or team battles. Freshmen Sashank Sakamuri and Alessandro Rizzi left the event with three inch rope burns near their elbows in a close match.

Awake All Night is a semiannual event organized by the special events division of Student Union which meets every Tuesday at 5:00 pm to provide fun for all Wake students.

FOOTBALL FINDS NEW HOME IN MCCREARY FIELD HOUSE // Katie Dickens

An outdoor view of the facilities

Rap music blares through the vast open space as the football team begins their afternoon lift. Wake Forest Football is imprinted in gold on every color-coded weight. Goal posts are suspended from high-reaching ceilings. Natural light brightens the field, a trait created by a translucent Kalwall window system.

After 18 months of construction, the new, state-of-the-art indoor-practice facility located behind to the Miller Center is open for business for sports practices and conditioning.

The $21 million, 80,000 square foot building is named McCreary Field House after Bob McCreary (‘61), who played football while a student at Wake Forest. He gave $7.5 million to the project in 2014.

The building contains 120 yards of indoor turf and is modeled after BB&T field. Head football coach Dave Clawson said the facility has been monumental for recruiting, as well as the team’s performance.

“We have a beautiful stadium but never had anything on campus we were able to show recruits,” Clawson said, “nothing nearly as impressive as this.”

The building is also temperature controlled for football indoor workouts- a trait that Clawson pointed to as a “game changer” during unpredictable weather.

“Now we can also work on skills all year long,” Clawson said. “For example, we could workout this morning when last year would’ve had to cancel because it was so cold. We’ve missed so many practices in my two years at Wake, but now we can practice regardless of weather- no excuses.”

The football team has been lifting using entirely new weights and machines in McCreary Field House.

Before transitioning the football team to work out in the McCreary Field House and also moving the basketball and baseball team to new facilities, 16 athletic teams shared one 7,000 square foot facility. Team workouts were an “absolute nightmare for scheduling,” according to Barry Faircloth, associate athletic director for development.

“The existing space wasn’t practical and was probably one of the worst of Division 1 football programs,” Faircloth said. “But now it will be as good as anywhere else in the country.”

At its peak, the ceiling is 72 feet tall.

“What is most unique about this building is its location,” Faircloth said. “It doesn’t disrupt campus, but it is still so conveniently located- which is different from most other schools.”

In the first phase of the building’s usage, temporary strength and conditioning stations are dedicated for football use only. Eight different weightlifting racks are set up for skills training, so that football players can work in two different groups when they used to work in at least five, according to Faircloth. Decreasing transition time between sets has increased the team’s efficiency.

“No excuses.”

Kendall Hinton, who had a breakout freshman season as quarterback, said the weight room equipment is his favorite feature of the facility.
“It’s given me the ability to work out and get extra time practicing and that was something I wasn’t able to do last year,” Hinton said.

However, the football players aren’t the only athletes that have taken advantage of the new facilities. So far, Men’s Soccer, Women’s Soccer, Field Hockey and Baseball teams have also trained at the new facility.

Fundraising for the second phase of the $58 million project is underway. The second phase includes the building of a Sports Performance Center that will attach to the McCreary Field House. It is set to include offices that will overlook the indoor field. The second phase is expected to break ground in June or July of next year, according to Faircloth.

Once completed, the opposite wall will have the same brick makeup but will house offices overlooking the field.

Once completed, the opposite wall will have the same brick makeup but will house offices overlooking the field.

The Sports Performance Center will adjoin to the existing far wall of the Field House, beyond the multiple viewing platforms lining the fields that are for filming and coaching purposes. The far wall will also be made of brick once completed, mirroring the other side.

“It’s the element of pride this time around,” Faircloth said. “It used to be that there were all different strength coaches using the same facilities, and weights were misplaced everywhere and that kind of thing. Now everything says Wake Football.”

The building will be dedicated on February 24th at 6:00 PM according to the Deacon Club website.