Oct. 11 is a day for many anniversaries
This column represents the views of the Old Gold and Black Editorial Board.


Many members of the university community may not know it, but today the university has much to mourn, much to celebrate and much to simply remember.
Today, Oct. 11, is the one-month anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C.; the one-year anniversary of the presidential debate in Wait Chapel; and the 50-year anniversary of the groundbreaking of the Reynolda Campus in Winston-Salem.

When the ground was broken for the construction of buildings on the new campus, the trustees dreamed only of the college achieving the national reputation it can now boast. Many facets of the university – from the success of its business school and its ability to attract high-profile events such as the 1988 and 2000 presidential debates to the innovative technology on campus to the national dominance of today’s field hockey and women’s tennis teams – are testaments to the hard work and dedication of many members of the university community to bring the university to where it is today.
In 1946 the trustees of Wake Forest College and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina accepted a proposal by the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation to move the non-medical divisions of the college to Winston-Salem on a site contributed by Charles and Mary Babcock.

The first 14 buildings were built on the new campus between 1952 and 1956, and by 1956 the college had completed the move from the old campus to the new one.
The university is continuing to grow in many ways to this day. The university held a groundbreaking ceremony Oct. 4 for an addition to Calloway Hall that will bring all operations of the Calloway School of Business and Accountancy under the same roof for the first time. U.S. News & World Report ranked the Calloway School 30th nationally among undergraduate business programs, making the Calloway School one of only two North Carolina institutions ranked in the top 50.

When students, faculty and administrators recall how they felt one year ago as they watched the presidential debate – either in person for a lucky few, or on a television screen on the Magnolia Quad or in the comfort of their own homes – it reminds us how much can change in a single year, much less 50. Last Oct. 11 it seemed like more voters were concerned with how much makeup Vice President Al Gore was wearing or how hard George W. Bush partied during his fraternity days at Yale University than with the intricacies of U.S. foreign policy and the ramifications of our rapidly fraying economy.

As Bush stood in Wait Chapel one year ago, certainly no one ever imagined that exactly 11 months later all of us would be putting our faith in him as he led the nation through the tumultuous days and weeks following the terrorist attacks.

During the debate, all of us, as Americans, thought ourselves to be invincible.

Terrorist attacks, three-hour waits at the airport and a general feeling of fear were not for Americans; they belonged to the citizens of those far-away nations students scarcely give any thought to except in international politics class. Now Americans can turn on the evening news and see photographs of F-18 fighter jets taking off from aircraft carriers on their way to fly to Afghanistan.

It is important to reflect upon the events of Sept. 11 because beyond giving blood or making donations to charitable organizations, few of us have the time or the means to actually travel to the affected areas to volunteer. Sam Gladding, the associate provost and current director of graduate counseling education, is an exception. After receiving only a few hours’ notice, he traveled to Ground Zero in New York on Sept. 25 to begin a series of 12-to 14-hour days of counseling more than 200 friends and family members of those killed in the attacks.

Gladding would meet with mourners and then escort them to a station where lawyers would assist them in filling out death certificates for their missing loved ones.

In sacrificing his own personal comfort in a situation most of us can only imagine in our nightmares, Gladding truly embodied the spirit of Pro Humanitate.

This Oct. 11 we will mourn the one-month anniversary of the day we woke up to see that our sense of security in being an American citizen had crumbled as surely as the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

It was the day we were gripped with panic until we finally reached our loved ones and confirmed that they were safe, and it was also the day we first heard the word “war” escape our president’s lips.

But just as the nation has bonded in the months following the attacks, we as a campus will celebrate being part of a university community that has come so far in a relatively short amount of time.

We will remember where we were one year ago, swept up in the excitement of the national limelight, and realize how much can change in our lives in one day, one month, one year and one 50-year lifespan of a campus.