COVID-19 Resources

Information regarding university operations and campus operations can be found here.

Information regarding work study and financial aid can be found here. Lauren Trethaway is also available to answer any questions you may have at trethal@wfu.edu.

Be sure to read Advising for Summer and Academic Year Internships. For outstanding questions, contact Dr. John Senior at seniorje@wfu.edu.

If you have a specific and unique emergency as a result of the pandemic, we may be able to provide financial assistance. Students can seek financial assistance from the Chaplain’s Emergency Fund. This fund is set up to assist in times of financial hardship.  Limited funds are available. Please read the Guiding Principles of the Fund. Contact the Office of the Chaplain for further information at 336.758.5210.

Students may also want to seek assistance from the School of Divinity by completing this form.

You if you are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms or may have a roommate or housemate or family member who could have been exposed to COVID-19, please contact the Forsyth County Health Department, the Student Health Service, or your primary health care provider. You should remain at home until you have received instructions on what to do from health authorities.  If you need medical attention, call the Student Health Service (336-758-5218) or your primary care physician BEFORE going to the office and report that you have been exposed to COVID-19. If you have traveled to an area with widespread community transmission of the coronavirus that causes this illness, you should self-isolate for 14 days after returning from travel. This means:

• Stay home and avoid contact with others. Do not go to work or school for this 14-day period. Discuss your work situation with your employer before returning to work.
• Do not take public transportation, taxis, or ride-shares during this time.
• Avoid crowded places (such as shopping centers and movie theaters) and limit your activities in public.
• Keep your distance from others (about 6 feet or 2 meters).

If you are asked by the health department or your physician to self-monitor, you should follow the self-isolation protocols above, AND you should take your temperature with a thermometer two times a day and monitor for fever. Also watch for cough or trouble breathing. Report any temperature, cough, or trouble to the health department or your physician so they can provide more guidance.

Seek medical attention if you experience fever, cough or difficulty breathing. It is recommended that those who think they may have been exposed call ahead before going to the Student Health Service, your primary care physician or an emergency room.

If your roommate or housemate becomes ill, follow the CDC guidance on household members.

Wake Divinity will offer all courses, both core and electives, as Pass/Fail for the Spring semester 2020. No course credit received during the Spring semester 2020 will count against a student’s otherwise allotted six elective Pass/Fail options.*

To be sure, we understand that there may be students who want to receive letter grades this semester. Pass/Fail is the default option, but not the only option. Students have until April 15, 2020, to request a final letter grade from their professors rather than Pass/Fail.

We are still here to help you remotely, so please continue to reach out to Kaeley McMahan for your questions.  Additionally, the Reference team is remotely staffing our Reference Desk 8a-8p M-F, and periodically checking in on the weekend.  Information for contacting the Reference Desk visit here.

Kaeley McMahan, your School of Divinity Librarian, will be holding office hours on Zoom to help you work through all these problems and more! Office hours will be 3-5p on Wednesdays. If this doesn’t work, you can book another time or email her at mcmahak@wfu.edu. Also, please check out the updated resource guide with links to many online commentaries and encyclopedias.

Like all our higher-ed peers, we are experiencing significant losses in expected revenues resulting from refunds and numerous cancellations of auxiliary programs (on-campus summer programs and camps, Study Abroad, revenue for Athletics from the NCAA and ticket revenue) as well as uncertainty about when we will resume normal operations.

• • All discretionary spending was suspended immediately. This includes travel, food/meals, conferences and events, recognition banquets, consultants and other expenditures that are not critical to the operation of the University. Essential expenditures that directly support the mission of Wake Forest must be approved in writing by the provost or executive vice president.
  • Reduction in Executive Compensation  President Hatch and all Reynolda cabinet members and academic deans have volunteered to take a 10% salary reduction, starting immediately.
  • Capital Projects All existing and planned capital projects (like the planned improvements for Wait Chapel this summer)  are suspended unless they are necessary for the health and wellbeing of our students, faculty and staff; suspended projects will be reevaluated to determine whether they should proceed.

• • Pause on New Hiring  We have enacted a University-wide hiring pause on all administrative, faculty, staff and temporary positions. Any exceptions must be initiated by a vice president or dean and approved by the executive vice president and the provost. (An exception was made for our Director of Communications. We began this search in January.)

Students employed through the Federal Work Study (FWS) program were provided a lump sum payment of unused FWS earnings up to maximum eligibility based on their previously scheduled hours on April 9. To ensure all FWS students were provided access to the maximum amount of unused FWS eligibility, students will not be able to work remotely for the remainder of the term.  Wake Forest University has now exhausted our FWS allocation for the 2019-2020 academic year. 

Employment in North Carolina is at-will and based on the organization’s circumstances. It is our hope and intent to continue student employment when the fall semester resumes. The employment offer is contingent upon campus operations, funding, and position/work being available.

The public health crisis has changed the conditions under which summer internships are traditionally met.  All University-related courses, programming, internships, and clinical studies must adhere to social distancing protocols, i.e., all internships this summer must be done remotely.  Moreover, as summarized above, we are navigating increased financial challenges at Wake Forest University due to the loss of budgeted revenue. Funding that we anticipated being available for summer internship support is no longer available. 

In response and in an effort to provide flexibility, Wake Divinity has expanded options to meet summer internship requirements and adjusted the available financial support accordingly. 

• We are reducing the service hour requirement for the 2020 summer internship program from 200 to 80 service hours.
• A grant of $1000 each for up to 10 students will be available to support 80-hour remote internship placements committed to the theme, “Congregation and Community Health in Response to COVID-19.”
• Alternatively, the summer internship requirement may be met by students who take Dr. Jones’s “Financial Leadership for Ministry” course. The School of Divinity will provide a 100% tuition scholarship for this course.  (Students cannot take this course in addition to the other internship options.) As this course will include a service learning component, students who complete the course will also satisfy a secondary internship placement requirement.

Please see Dr. Senior’s email of April 8th for more information about summer internships.  The application to participate in one of these revised summer internship options can be found here.

Institutional scholarship award amounts will remain consistent for all three years of study (not to exceed six semesters) at Wake Forest, regardless of tuition increases, as long as a student is making satisfactory academic progress as defined by the Curriculum and Academic Progress Committee.

Tuition has been set and approved by the WFU Board of Trustees for 2020-2021 and the cost of attendance for the School of Divinity can be found here. 

A subset of the Reynolda Cabinet, academic deans and leaders responsible for University-wide operations (e.g. human resources, information systems, facilities) meet several times per week to review recommendations emerging from several COVID-19 working groups and planning teams. A smaller decision-making group led by President Hatch provides regular updates to an ad-hoc committee of the Board Trustees appointed to provide oversight of University operations during this period of uncertainty.

The School of Divinity includes two students on all of its Faculty Standing Committees where policies are developed and reviewed.  Additionally, divinity students have a strong Student Leadership Council (SLC) that provides feedback and voice to the School of Divinity administration.

In addition to the grants and summer scholarships mentioned above, please refer to the following resources for additional support:

Student Emergency Funds

Students are encouraged to contact the Office of Financial Aid to request emergency funds at financial-aid@wfu.edu.  Students with concerns about unexpected expenses due to completing course work remotely, including, but not limited to, travel costs, access to food, and the cost of an internet hotspot due to unreliable/nonexistent WIFI, should contact financial-aid@wfu.edu explaining their situation. The Student Financial Aid office will review the student’s concerns and make a determination of eligibility for emergency need-based funding on a case by case basis.

Depending on the limitations of other funding resources, students may be eligible to receive funds from Stealey’s Purse Emergency Fund in the School of Divinity. Students seek assistance from the School of Divinity by completing this form.Students can also refer to this list of helpful resources during the COVID-19 Crisis.