April 19, 2024

Fleming Named ACPA Diamond Honoree

March 21, 2024 by

Dave Fleming, Assistant Dean of Residence Life and Housing and Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs

Dave Fleming, American College Personnel Association, Diamond Honoree, Class of 2024

The Diamond Honoree Program, established in 1999, is a way for those that care about students – and the research, scholarship, and programs that promote student development and success – to help advance our association’s efforts. Diamond Honorees are “Championed” by dedicated individuals who recognize their specific contributions and choose to raise funds in honor of each Diamond Honoree’s outstanding and sustained commitment to higher education through student affairs and student development. Those funds are then utilized to help sustain the ACPA Foundation in its support of the research, scholarship, and programs that advance our field as a whole.

Within ACPA, Dave has served on the Mid-level Community of Practice directorate, as NextGen faculty, and as a member of the Presidential Task Force on 21st Century Employment in Higher Education. He attributes much of his professional approach and success to the transformative experience of the Donna M. Bourassa Mid-Level Management Institute. Read more.

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Larus Comments on Taiwan, U.S. Elections

March 21, 2024 by

Elizabeth Freund Larus, Professor Emerita of Political Science and International Affairs and Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Pacific Forum

Taiwan

Elizabeth Freund Larus, Ph.D., Professor Emerita of Political Science and International Affairs and Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Pacific Forum, offered commentary to international media on Taiwan’s 2024 Presidential and Legislative elections:

U.S.

Larus also commented recently on Vietnam News on Super Tuesday. Larus said there would be little change in voters’ support for Biden and Trump between Super Tuesday and Election Day because voters are already well aware of the candidates’ weaknesses. The only place where the campaigns have left to influence voters are in the swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and maybe Nevada, Arizona and Georgia. Trump needs to pull out all the stops in Michigan where Biden is vulnerable to the Arab American vote. Larus also indicated that Trump has picked up support from Black and Hispanic voters since 2016 and 2020. In recent polls in 6 swing states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), 22% of Black people would vote for Trump, up from 8% in 2016, and 42% of Hispanics said they would vote for Trump, up from 29% in 2016. View the segment.

 

 

 

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Bales Fills Retirement With Research and Writing

March 21, 2024 by
Reference and Humanities Librarian Emeritus Jack Bales

Reference and Humanities Librarian Emeritus Jack Bales

Jack Bales’ vocation for more than 40 years was assisting students, faculty, and staff in Mary Washington’s library. His avocation, research and writing, was always an important part of his life as well, and now that he’s retired, the Reference and Humanities Librarian Emeritus happily stays busy with these interests. Bales continues to present Zoom PowerPoint programs to baseball groups and public libraries around the country on his true-crime narrative and tale of baseball history, The Chicago Cub Shot for Love: A Showgirl’s Crime of Passion and the 1932 World Series (History Press, 2021). He is an active member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), and has presented several Zoom programs on assorted baseball topics. He is also an occasional moderator of a SABR book discussion group devoted to the sport during the nineteenth century.

Bales has always liked to focus on topics about which little has been written, as he enjoys digging around in primary, original sources and uncovering new information that sheds light on the historical record. While working on his 2019 book, Before They Were the Cubs: The Early Years of Chicago’s First Professional Baseball Team, he read about Lewis Meacham, a Chicago Daily Tribune sports editor who helped William Hulbert of the White Stockings (the team now known as the Chicago Cubs) found the National League in 1876. Very little was known about Meacham, but Bales tracked down invaluable material in both newspapers and Chicago and Vermont archives. He gave a PowerPoint presentation, “The Mysterious Lewis Meacham: The Untold Story of William Hulbert’s Right-Hand Man,” at a SABR meeting and also wrote an essay on him for the organization’s peer-reviewed Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/lewis-meacham/

Bales said that it took many months of research, as most of what was published was inaccurate, including a fictitious Civil War record. “You know you are going to have a rough time of it,” he recently observed, “when biographical sources for the person you are writing about provide assorted birth dates, various names, two birth places, two burial spots, and even two entries in the popular website “Find a Grave,” both of them incorrect.”

Bales hosted the annual convention of the Horatio Alger Society in Fredericksburg in 2021, 2022, and 2023. He will host it again this May.  Among the persons attending will be Michael Dirda, the weekly book columnist for the Washington Post.

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McDonald Talks ‘Super Tuesday’ With The Conversation

March 7, 2024 by
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Parker’s Hunt for Mary Washington Grave Continues to Make Headlines

March 7, 2024 by

Assistant Professor and Archaeology Director Katherine Parker

Assistant Professor of Historic Preservation Katherine Parker’s work with UMW students to locate Mary Washington’s grave continues to catch media attention.

Mary Washington’s Grave Location a Mystery (Mount Vernon Gazette)
The team was led by historians from Washington Heritage Museums, and a professor from the University of Mary Washington who manned the GSSI Ground Penetrating Radar apparatus to investigate this colonial mystery. Read more.
High-tech hunt for Mary Ball Washington’s grave (Potomac Local)
The exact location of the actual grave remains unknown though, so in steps the GSSI Ground Penetrating Radar apparatus manned by historians from Washington Heritage Museums and a professor from the University of Mary Washington to investigate this colonial mystery. Read more.
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Rao Presents at International AI Conference

March 7, 2024 by
Professor of Communication and Chair of the Department of Communication and Digital Studies Anand Rao

Professor of Communication and Chair of the Department of Communication and Digital Studies Anand Rao

Anand Rao, Chair of Communication and Digital Studies, attended the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) meeting in Vancouver, Canada, to share research on the development of AI tools to support the teaching of argumentation and debate. He and his co-authors had a poster presentation at the AAI Conference’s AI4Education Workshop titled “Augmented Debate-Centered Instruction: A Novel Research Agenda for Responsible AI Integration in Education.” The paper argues for a debate-centered model of instruction that addresses concerns over assessment and AI reliance while helping students develop critical, durable skills. With presenters from around the world, the workshop focused on bridging innovation and responsibility in AI research. Collaborating organizations at the workshop included  Google Research, DuoLingo, OpenStax, Princeton University, Berkeley – University of California, Rice University, Jinan University, and the University of British Columbia.

A copy of the paper is available at https://www.debaterhub.com/aaai

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Yakabouski Shares College Search Tips on ‘Town Talk’

March 7, 2024 by
Dean of Admissions Melissa Yakabouski

Dean of Admissions Melissa Yakabouski

Dean of Admissions Melissa Yakabouski shared tips on the college search, paying for college, changes in FAFSA and writing an application with Town Talk radio show host Ted Schubel. Listen to the segment, which was also shared by the Fredericksburg Free Press.

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Farnsworth Shares Primary Predictions on WTOP

March 7, 2024 by
South Carolina primary: Trump beats Haley, but here’s why she’s staying in the GOP race (MarketWatch; Morningstar)
Haley “seems likely to stay in the race regardless of the outcome in South Carolina” because she wants to remain the main Republican alternative to Trump in 2024 or perhaps become the GOP front-runner for 2028, said Stephen Farnsworth, a professor of political science at Virginia’s University of Mary Washington, ahead of Trump’s victory in the Palmetto State.
South Carolina and the GOP Primary Today: What to expect. (CTV News)
“I think we can close the books on this pretty much already,” said Stephen Farnsworth.
Trump compares his legal troubles to the persecution of Alexei Navalny (Fox News)
“From the very start of Trump’s period of time in public life, Donald Trump has been extraordinarily pro-Moscow,” said Stephen Farnsworth.
As National Political Omens Go, Republicans Sought Middle Ground On Abortion In Virginia − And Still Lost The State Legislature (MENAFN)
Polls, including a September 2023 statewide survey by the University of Mary Washington and Research America Inc., demonstrated that Democrats were far more likely to vote based on the abortion question than Republicans were.
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Barry Invited to be Marsico Visiting Scholar at Denver University

March 7, 2024 by
Jennifer Barry

Associate Professor of Religious Studies Jennifer Barry

Jennifer Barry, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, was invited to be the 2024, Marsico Visiting Scholar at Denver University. Barry was invited to share material from the next book, meet with both undergraduate and graduate students, and co-teach a course on Gender and Sexuality in Early Christianity.

Barry also recently was honored with a book panel publication. The latest forum on Ancient Jew Review published the entire collection of reviews on Jennifer Barry’s Bishops in Flight: Exile and Displacement in Late Antiquity. The collection can be found here: SBL 2021 Review Panel: Bishops in Flight

Barry is currently on research leave as the 2023-2024 Harvard, Loeb Classical Library Fellow.

 

 

 

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Williams Touts Fredericksburg Civil Rights Trail on ‘Town Talk’

March 7, 2024 by
James Farmer Multicultural Center Assistant Director Chris Williams

James Farmer Multicultural Center Assistant Director Chris Williams

James Farmer Multicultural Center Assistant Director Chris Williams joined the City of Fredericksburg’s Victoria Matthews in talking about the importance of the Fredericksburg Trail now being part of the U.S. Civil Rights Trail on “Town Talk,” News Talk 1230 WFVA. Listen to the segment.

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