Wake Forest University

Private research university in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, offering undergraduate, graduate and professional education across eight schools, guided by its Pro Humanitate motto.

Wake Forest University is a private research university founded in 1834 in Wake Forest, North Carolina, and based in Winston-Salem since 1956, when it relocated to a campus on the former R.J. Reynolds estate. It serves more than 9,600 students drawn from 49 states and 38 countries, with a student-faculty ratio of 11:1 and a reported career outcomes rate of 97%. The institution is rooted in the Baptist tradition and guided by the motto Pro Humanitate (For Humanity), a principle that shapes its commitments to service, community engagement and humanitarian values.

The university's academic portfolio spans the Undergraduate College, the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, the School of Business, the School of Divinity, Wake Forest Law, the School of Medicine and the School of Professional Studies. Each carries its own distinct audience and visual identity within the wider institution, which works across higher education research, community engagement programmes, and innovation and entrepreneurship education.

Wake Downtown, the university's programme in Winston-Salem's Innovation Quarter, embodies a forward-looking approach to education and research and sits alongside the main campus culture, which includes the Demon Deacons athletics programme. For creative professionals, the environment combines a long institutional history and a defined set of values with a broad, multi-school communications landscape and an emphasis on balancing tradition with innovation.