

Poteat, a gifted biologist and the first layman to be elected president in the college's history. The leading college figure in the early 20th century was William L. Lea Laboratory was built in 1887–1888, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. The university held its first summer session in 1921. In 1911 Louise Heims Beck became the university's first librarian, later going on to become a vaudeville performer and the recipient of a Tony Award. In 1894, the School of Law was established, followed by the School of Medicine in 1902. The college re-opened in 1866 and prospered over the next four decades under the leadership of presidents Washington Manly Wingate, Thomas H. In 1862, during the American Civil War, the school closed due to the loss of most students and some faculty to service in the Confederate States Army. The town that grew up around the college came to be called the town of Wake Forest.
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In 1838, the school was renamed Wake Forest College, and the manual labor system was abandoned. Wait Chapel, located on the Hearn Plaza (or the Upper Quad) Samuel Wait, a Baptist minister, was selected as the principal, later president, of the institute. Students and staff were required to spend half of each day doing manual labor on its plantation. The new school, designed to teach both Baptist ministers and laymen, opened on February 3, 1834, as the Wake Forest Manual Labor Institute. The school was founded after the North Carolina Baptist State Convention purchased a 615-acre (2.49 km 2) plantation from Calvin Jones in an area north of Raleigh ( Wake County) called the "Forest of Wake".

Notable people of Wake Forest University include author Maya Angelou, mathematician Phillip Griffiths, Senators Richard Burr and Kay Hagan, former sportscaster and athlete Billy Packer, athletes Chris Paul, Tim Duncan, Muggsy Bogues, Brian Piccolo and Arnold Palmer, and CEO Charlie Ergen. Wake Forest alumni include 15 Rhodes Scholars, including 13 since 1986, four Marshall Scholars, 15 Truman Scholars and 92 Fulbright recipients since 1993.

The university is classified among " R-2: Doctoral Universities – High Research Activity". Students can participate in over 250 student clubs and organizations including fraternities and sororities, intramural sports, a student newspaper and a radio station. WFU's undergraduate and graduate colleges and schools include Wake Forest University School of Law, Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Wake Forest University School of Business, Wake Forest Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

The university's Graduate School of Management maintains a presence on the main campus in Winston-Salem and in Charlotte, North Carolina. The university also occupies lab space at Biotech Plaza at Innovation Quarter, and at the Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials. The Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist medical campus has two locations, the older one located near the Ardmore neighborhood in central Winston-Salem, and the newer campus at Wake Forest Innovation Quarter downtown. The Reynolda Campus, the university's main campus, has been located north of downtown Winston-Salem since the university moved there in 1956. Founded in 1834, the university received its name from its original location in Wake Forest, north of Raleigh, North Carolina. Wake Forest University is a private research university in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
