Wake Women

Mary Tribble

"Wake Women" is a podcast by and about the women of Wake Forest University. In each episode, fifth-generation alumna Mary Tribble (’82, MA ’19) sits down with a female Wake Forester who inspires her. This show brings you intelligent, thought-provoking reflections from successful women whose experiences will inspire you to be your best self.

  1. 6d ago

    Leadership & Character in our World Today with Agatha Graham '29, Carter Nesmith '29, and Ann Phelps,

    Leadership and character are two words that get batted around a lot nowadays — and increasingly, questioned. What does it actually mean to lead well, or to have character, in a world that feels more uncertain than ever? You've heard from academics, thought leaders, and seasoned professionals about leadership on this podcast. Today, we get to hear from two young women who are poised for the future — women who want to grab this world and make it theirs. This is our chance to hear from the leaders of tomorrow, on their own terms. Agatha and Carter are rising sophomores in the Program for Leadership and Character, and they bring a candor and self-awareness to this conversation that belies their age. We talk about what it means to lead with character instead of just ambition, what women in particular bring to the table as leaders, and how to hold onto hope in a moment defined by polarization and misinformation. Joining us is Ann Phelps with the Leadership and Character program, and has spent the past year watching Agatha and Carter grapple with exactly these questions in real time. It's a conversation that left me more hopeful about the next generation of leaders than I've felt in a long time — I think it will do the same for you.

  2. Aug 7 ·  Bonus

    What Makes A Wake Woman? Courage (Bonus Episode)

    This is the third of four special guest tribute episodes closing out the Wake Women podcast, which will air its series finale on August 28th. Each tribute explores a single question: What makes a Wake Woman? This episode's answer is Courage — not the absence of fear, but the decision to go anyway. To show up against impossible odds, to walk into rooms where no one looks like you, to stop hiding and be fully seen, to look unflinchingly at a painful history and claim it as your own. Six Wake Forest women bring that answer to life. Erin Regan ('02), a Wake Forest soccer goalkeeper who became a wildfire firefighter, describes what it feels like to stand in front of a hundred-foot wall of flame and just try to make a dent. Sandi James ('06), a professional tackle football player and coach, is building the bridge in women's athletics while she's still walking it — and making sure it's steady enough for the women who come after her. Kate Lambert, an entertainment industry professional, makes the case for a different kind of courage: knowing your own worth before anyone else has confirmed it. Emily Goodson ('07), who has lived with a physical disability since childhood, spent years pushing her emotions down to survive — and then chose, during the pandemic, to stop and tell the truth about her life publicly, because the world needed to hear it. Carol Willis, a Wake Forest alumna who traced her family's roots to the enslaved people who lived and worked at President James Madison's Montpelier estate, describes the courage it takes to look unflinchingly at a hard history — and the extraordinary resilience she found on the other side. And Beth Hopkins ('73), one of the first women to integrate the residence halls at Wake Forest, left the university vowing never to return — and then came back, gave decades of herself to the institution she once wanted to leave, and now has a dormitory bearing her name. Her message to the students who will live there: tough times don't last, but tough people do.

  3. Jul 31

    Leadership, Character, and the Integrated Life with Ann Phelps

    Ann Phelps didn’t set out to run a character formation program at a major university — she set out to prove she could survive a cubicle job. A Nebraska native with a background in theology, the arts, and a decade as a professional musician, Ann arrived at Wake Forest in 2019 alongside her husband Kenneth Townsend and their mutual best friend Michael Lamb, the program’s founder, to help build something that didn’t yet exist: the Program for Leadership and Character. What started as a trio working out of borrowed space has grown into a team of more than forty, with Ann overseeing the Leadership and Character Scholars — a cohort of students she accompanies, ten per year, across all four years of their undergraduate lives. In this first of several conversations, Ann and I explore what character formation actually means — and why it matters now more than ever. We talk about the seven strategies the program uses to move the needle on character, from friendships of accountability to engagement with virtuous exemplars, and why those strategies are less revolutionary than they are intentional. We dig into the gendered history of the word “virtue” and why it lands so differently on women than on men. And we examine what Ann calls the integrated life — the idea that for people with a true calling, there is no clocking in and clocking out, only the ongoing, sometimes messy, always meaningful work of composing a life.

  4. Jul 24 ·  Bonus

    What Makes a Wake Woman? Heart (Bonus Episode)

    This is the second of four special guest tribute episodes closing out the Wake Women podcast, which will air its series finale on August 28th. Each tribute explores a single question: What makes a Wake Woman? This episode's answer is Heart — the quality that shows up not in titles or ambitions, but in what a woman is willing to give, and who she gives it to. Pro Humanitate, Wake Forest's motto, is often translated simply as "for humanity." These five women are living proof of what that looks like in practice. Christina Chauvenet '08, Child Nutrition Officer of Newman's Own Foundation, has built her career around the conviction that access to healthy food is not a privilege but a human right. Barbee Oakes '80, Wake Forest's first Chief Diversity Officer, who changed an institution by simply showing up and doing the work, was dubbed a "true daughter of Wake Forest" by Dr. Maya Angelou. Holly Welch Stubbing '93, President of the National Philanthropic Trust, has spent her career helping people discover that prosperity is most meaningful when it is rerouted back to others — what she calls a representation of the soul. Michelle Loyd, founder of Dope Coffee alongside her husband Michael, has built a business at the intersection of coffee culture and hip hop that is, at its heart, an act of community uplift. And Laurie Furr-Vancini '87, a retired minister and trained death doula, brings Heart to the most sacred threshold of all — reminding us that we come into this world with the Spirit, and we go out the same way. Enjoy this bonus episode, and look for two others--on Courage and Wonder--coming soon.

  5. Jul 17

    Poetry, Ancestors, and Sacred Ground with Jacinta White

    Jacinta White defies easy introduction — poet, founder of The Word Project, and a woman who says her answer to "who am I today?" changes with what the day calls for. In this conversation, she traces her path from a childhood split between Charlotte and Detroit, through the sudden loss of her father to a heart attack when she was in her twenties, to finding in poetry a language for grief she couldn't otherwise speak. That loss led her to found The Word Project, using writing as a tool for healing across ages and communities. Her father's death also set in motion the journey behind Resurrecting the Bones. When her uncle suggested they visit the small churches her father had once pastored, what began as a way to feel closer to him grew into visits to Black churches and cemeteries across the South — and a book of poetry born from that pilgrimage. That same instinct, to sit in sacred, often overlooked ground and let the words come, later brought Jacinta to a forgotten cemetery tied to Wake Forest's own history with slavery, where she and Mary stood together among generations of the dead. What runs through the conversation is Jacinta's belief that writing is a portal — a way to sit with grief and history instead of resolving them, to hear what the archives left silent, and to loosen the scripts we've inherited without ever choosing them. It's a conversation about presence over perfection, about possibility not as some distant horizon but as something available right now, in whatever we're brave enough to stay with.

  6. Jul 10 ·  Bonus

    What Makes a Wake Woman? Connection (Bonus Episode)

    This is the first of four special guest tribute episodes closing out the Wake Women podcast, which will air its series finale on August 28th. Each tribute explores a single question: What makes a Wake Woman? This episode’s answer is Connection — the idea that some people are shaped so deeply by a place, a mentor, or a moment that they carry it with them for the rest of their lives. At the center of this episode is one of Wake Forest’s most beloved figures: Dr. Edwin Graves Wilson, English professor, university provost, and poet, whose influence on generations of students was nothing short of transformative. We hear his own voice in an archival recording, reading John Keats’ “To Autumn” aloud — the way so many of his students remember him doing in class. Three Wake Forest women bring that connection to life. Laura Malone Elliott ’79— bestselling historical novelist writing as L.M. Elliott — describes the moment she knew Wake Forest was her place, and the discipleship that began in Dr. Wilson’s classroom and never really ended. Emily Giffin ’94 — #1 New York Times bestselling author of Something Borrowed and ten other novels — recalls being told by a family friend before she ever set foot on campus: you have to take Ed Wilson. And Kate Kennedy ’90— founder of Atlanta’s Boyce Ansley School for children experiencing homelessness and author of Once Upon a School — shares what it meant to sit across from Provost Wilson as a senior, working on a speech about wonder and courage. Three writers. Dozens of books. One man, in one office, on one campus, who left his fingerprint on all of them. Enjoy this special episode and look for more in the coming weeks as we celebrate the amazing women of Wake Forest University.

  7. Jul 3

    Women in History for America's 250 with Laura Elliott '79

    Pop in your earbuds for a special America' s 250th episode featuring historical fiction writer Laura Elliott ‘79! Do you ever wonder what historical events looked like through a woman’s eyes? It might be a completely different story than what you learned in school. Laura Elliott, who writes under the pen name LM Elliott, is an award-winning, bestselling author of historical fiction for a young adult audience. She’s written 14 novels set throughout various times in history–many of them with female protagonists. I’ve always been fascinated by how women’s stories are often tucked away, especially in moments of great change. Women in history weren’t just passive bystanders—they were actively shaping events, often without recognition. Whether it’s Peggy Schuyler’s quick wit and brilliance during the American Revolution, or a young congressional page caught up in the intrigue of Watergate, women have always influenced history in a powerful way. If you’re interested in history, writing, and truth telling, you’ll enjoy this conversation.  L. M. Elliott was a senior writer for the Washingtonian magazine for 20 years before becoming a New York Times bestselling author of historical and biographical novels. Three-time finalist for the National Magazine Award and winner of multiple Dateline Awards, Elliott focused primarily on covering women's issues, health, and the performing arts. Her extensive reporting experience in the Nation's Capital and love of in-depth research inform and enrich her topics, themes, and characters, particularly her latest Cold War docu-novel, TRUTH, LIES, AND THE QUESTIONS IN BETWEEN, set in 1973 D.C., the year of Watergate and the battle for states' ratification of the ERA.  Her fourteen novels cover a wide variety of eras (the Cold War, WWII, the Great Depression, the American Revolution, and the Italian Renaissance) and are written for a variety of ages from young adult to adult. They have been honored with the Scott O'Dell, VLA Cardinal Cup, and Grateful American prizes for historical fiction; been named ALA Rise Feminist Book Project Picks, NCSS/CBC Notables, Bank St. College of Education Bests, Kirkus Bests, Library Guild Gold Selections, and finalists for ten state readers awards.

  8. Jun 26

    Business For Good with Catherine Mitchell Jaxon ‘98 and Hope Skouras ‘12

    Catherine Mitchell Jackson '98 and Hope Skouras '12, are two Wake Women who saw a problem and created a product to solve it: not for not only their families, but for countless others across the country. Catherine and Hope both started at Wake Forest ready to begin careers in journalism, but along the way discovered their contributions to the greater good would be delivered in a different way. In this episode, they share their inspiring journeys from campus to successful product launches–for Catherine Mitchell Jaxon, it’s Mission Mighty Me, a product designed to introduce peanuts early in a child’s life and for Hope Skouras, it’s “The Whole Hope,” a company that develops Lemon Swirl, a product that Hope discovered along her own health journey. In this episode, Catherine and Hope will discuss overcoming challenges, scaling their businesses, and the social impact behind their innovative products for children with allergies and health-conscious consumers. Mission Might Me The Whole Hope

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5
out of 5
9 Ratings

About

"Wake Women" is a podcast by and about the women of Wake Forest University. In each episode, fifth-generation alumna Mary Tribble (’82, MA ’19) sits down with a female Wake Forester who inspires her. This show brings you intelligent, thought-provoking reflections from successful women whose experiences will inspire you to be your best self.

Information

  • Creator
    Mary Tribble
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    62
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Mary Tribble
  • Show Website
    Wake Women

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