Description is in English
The Sesquicentennial Committee was created to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of Wake Forest University through a variety of events. The offical celebrations began with a Sesquicentennial concert on January 29, 1984. The Winston-Salem Symphony under the direction of Peter Perret, performed
The year-long celebration began, appropriately, at the University's opening convocation on September 6, 1983. Opening convocation is traditionally the first time the University community is reunited during the academic year. This year's convocation also introduced one of the themes of the Sesquicentennial: a consideration of the relationship between faith and reason. Speaker Mortimer J. Adler, associate editor of Encyclopedia Britannica's Great Books of the Western World series, spoke on this, "reason provides the ladder, but the ladder doesn't go all the way [to explaining the existence of God]. Man must rely on a leap of faith-a leap from a philosophical affirmation of faith to a religious understanding of God."
On February 3, the offical date of the college's founding, classes were cancelled and speeches were given by John W. Chandler and President Thomas K. Hearn. Other Sesquicentennial year speakers included former West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt, whose visit was co sponsored by R. J . Reynolds Industries, Federal Reserve Board chairman Paul A. Volcker, Noble Prize winners including the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz and Chemist Melvin Calvin, senior research fellow at the Hoover Institute on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University, Edward Teller, and the United States' chief strategic arms negotiator, Edward L. Rowny.
Across the aniversary year other events followed including a trek back to the original campus in Wake Forest, NC, on April 15 and a performance on the quad of the University's history entitled
Part of the committee's work included collecting essays and reports that detailed the histories and current states of various academic and administrative departments. These essays include details about the department foundings, important historical events, and current departmental activities. Some of the academic department essays also include resumes of faculty at the time.
Fundraising was also a concern of the committee. The Sesquicentennial Campaign ran 12 years in multiple phases and aimed to raise money for multiple concerns on the Reynolda Campus like creating a music wing in Scales Fine Arts Center, increasing the capabilities of the University Computer Center, and increaing endowments on the Babcock Graduate School and the School of Law. The Campaign's goal was $17.5 million, of which $13 million would go to the University's endowment and Z. Smith Reynolds library for renovations and increasing the number of volumes, with other investments being made in the Law School, student financial aid, housing, and student life. The Sesquicentennial Campaign exceeded their goal and raised over $20.2 million.
Materials in this collection include essays and reports on academic and administrative departmental histories, programs and photographs from the Secrest Artists Series, fundraising materials for the Sesquicentennial Campaign, and publicity materials for various anniversary events including the Sesquicentennial Concert. There are also a few essays that relate to departments in the Bowman Gray Medical School. When possible, the authors of department reports and histories is attributed.
Sesquicentennial. Committee on the First 150 Years Records (RG29.3), Z. Smith Reynolds Library Special Collections and Archives, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA.
This collection is open for use.
The nature of the WFU Z. Smith Reynolds Library Special Collections and Archives means that copyright or other information about restrictions may be difficult or even impossible to determine despite reasonable efforts. The Archives and Special Collections of ZSR Library claims only physical ownership of most materials. The materials from our collections are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study, pursuant to the U.S. Copyright Law. The user must assume full responsibility for any use of the materials, including but not limited to, infringement of copyright and publication rights of reproduced materials. Any materials used for academic research or otherwise should be fully credited with the source.
Processed by John Woodard. Encoded by Apex, March 2005. Funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA), with support provided through North Carolina ECHO.
Materials in this collection are arranged into three series, all organized alphabetically: Series 1. Committee and Campaign materials; Series 2. School of Medicine department materials; and Series 3. University department materials.