What Makes a Wake Woman? Wonder (Bonus Episode)

This is the fourth and final special guest tribute episode closing out the Wake Women podcast, which will air its series finale on August 28th, 2026. Each tribute explores a single question: What makes a Wake Woman? This episode's answer is Wonder — the discipline of staying curious, of refusing to assume you already have all the answers, of looking at the world with fresh eyes even when you have every excuse to stop. As Plato's dialogues suggest, bewilderment is not a sign of failure. It is the making of a philosopher.The episode opens with a reflection on wisdom and wonder drawn from Socrates — and the idea that a Wake Forest education doesn't fill you up so much as it opens you up. If you think you already know everything, your mind goes still. Wonder is what keeps it moving.Six Wake Forest women bring that answer to life. Serena Dugan '94, founder of Serena & Lily and Serena Dugan Design, asks a question worth sitting with: what would life be without beauty? She makes the case that beauty is not superfluous — it is vital to engaging our senses and to being fully alive. Meaghan Steele '11, Head Auctioneer and Client Liaison at Concierge Auctions , has spent her career shepherding extraordinary objects from one chapter of their story into the next — a hundred-carat diamond, Michael Jordan's sneakers, an original copy of the Constitution — and will tell you that the wonder of it never gets old. Allison Orr '93, choreographer and founder of Forklift Danceworks in Austin, Texas, finds wonder in the places most of us walk right past — in the expert movement and daily grace of trash collectors, grounds crews, and the workers whose labor keeps our communities running. Kasha Patel '12, science journalist and comedian, has made it her mission to bring wonder to science communication through humor, performing her brand of science comedy everywhere from Washington D.C. to Antarctica. Alison Smith '83 has sought out transformational experiences across the globe, including the Camino de Santiago, and reflects on what it means to step so far outside your comfort zone that you come back a different person. And poet Jacinta White closes the episode with an idea that gives the whole series its final note: that writing is a portal to something larger than ourselves, a way of accessing wisdom and spirit that exists beyond the three-dimensional world we can see and touch.