New Student Convocation, 2025

Class of 2029 – welcome to university life! Welcome to Wake Forest!

As a Wake Forest student you will learn, you will grow, you will be challenged and I have every confidence that you will be successful and thrive. 

There are exactly TWO times in your WFU undergraduate experience when the University President has the opportunity to address you as the class of 2029: right now at New Student Convocation, and again, four years from now at your Commencement. 

Today is your Convocation: your calling in to these years you will spend as a Wake Forest undergrad.  

It has long been a common refrain that your college years are supposed to prepare you for the “real world.” I want to push back on that a little and remind you that you already are in the real world.  

Yes, Wake Forest is a special place where a lot of thought and effort are deployed to ensure we have resources to support you –  making this a community of learning and engaging where you can discover and explore – try, fail, and try again; where a whole community of advisors, professors, and mentors will look out for you; and of course help you prepare and make decisions about your next steps.  

We are distinctive in all these ways. 

I truly believe that no other university does it better! But you are in the real world. 

College life – what you learn, what you do, the relationships you build and the choices you make – is real and it matters. 

As a Wake Forest undergraduate – it’s real from day one. You are not only taking classes to learn, you are collaborating with your peers and faculty to create knowledge. You’re forging new paths, not only walking established trails. From day one at Wake Forest, you are naming and solving the latest problems, not just studying the old solutions. 

At Wake Forest, we expect a lot. From ourselves as members of the faculty, staff, and administration. From you as students. 

You were chosen to join this university. 

You were chosen because of your capacity for exceptional intellect and your capacity for leadership, character, and integrity. Your college applications showed us that you were not only bright, talented and ambitious – but that you have hearts and minds for good. 

Each of you belong here.

Each of you matter and are an important part of our campus community.

And with precious little time remaining to hold your attention, I want to be clear in what I – as the president of this university –  am asking of you as you join this community. 

Remember this take home message. I ask you: Don’t wait. 

Embrace what it means to be a Wake Forest Demon Deacon. Start today. You are Wake Forest students now. 

And at Wake Forest, we live and learn and work to the very best of our abilities, every day.  

At Wake Forest, we believe the world needs leaders of intellect and character– people who use their gifts to be catalysts for good. 

At Wake Forest, we leave good in our wake. 

Because we are led by our motto – Pro Humanitate – to live and learn and work For Humanity. 

Trust me – I know – it’s a big calling. It’s a big ask. But you are here – this is the call that you answered. 

You have done so much to earn this – to get to this moment. 

I am here to tell you that at Wake Forest – and in life – the most important thing is what we do next. What matters most is what we do next.

So don’t wait. Be living examples of pro humanitate – here and everywhere – starting today. 

Don’t wait.  

As you leave this chapel today, go out and leave good in your wake.