Manju Seal (MA ’90) put her high-powered financial career on hold for two years to fight domestic violence.

Dave Johnson’s (’90) innovative work as poet-in-residence for the New York City Probation Office is featured in the New York Daily News.

Counter terrorism expert Daveed Gartenstein-Ross (’98) on why the greatest threat facing us today isn’t terrorism, but the national debt.

Playwright and teacher Dave Johnson (’90) holds an unlikely appointment as Poet-in-Residence for the New York City Probation Office.

Amy Bannister White (’90) delivers turkeys on Thanksgiving and hope throughout the year.

Chuck Millsaps (’83, P ’13, ’16) guides elite runner Diane Van Deren from North Carolina’s mountains to the sea.

Alumni are renewing their black and gold ties through new alumni clubs 7,000 miles from campus.

The Bedouins spoke of them as “The Five.” They had come to the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt, to the remote St. Catherine’s Monastery, and they did stick out a bit. They had crossed the desert with a strange load of equipment described with some creativity to customs officials, they were American, and one of them stood 6’8″ tall. The team was there on a technological aid mission of sorts, aiming to digitize the pages of ancient manuscripts for preservation, and to reveal secret texts hidden for centuries. They were hoping that the men outside the monastery, the ones from the Egyptian government speaking Arabic into walkie-talkies, weren’t going to interfere.

Long before they became esteemed scholars who determine students’ futures and enlighten the world with their research, these professors were humble first-year students at Wake Forest. Like the rest of us, they might have gotten lost or been a little homesick on the Reynolda Campus, but they also discovered a passion for academics at a University famous for educating future teachers. After pursuing years of graduate school, these Deacons went on to get their Ph.D.s (or, in one case, M.D.) and secure tenure at learning institutions both big and small. We selected a few professors from around the country to reminisce, in their own words, about Wake Forest and their path to the academy.

A prototype movie poster proclaims: “Never since King Kong such a mighty appetite!” As New Orleanians might ask, “Who dat?” He’s none other than Ray Cannata (’90), perhaps the most unlikely Presbyterian minister you’ll ever meet and the man eating his way through every bistro, café, deli, grill, tavern and joint in New Orleans — all 750 of them. For Ray Cannata, life’s a Mardi Foie Gras.