Author: Brynn Boyer

On March 1, Beth Perkins retired from her position as Head of Circulation at UMW Libraries.  During her 28 years at UMW she not only supervised both students and full-time employees, but planned for and helped administer library programs and services.  In the late 1980s she assisted with the transition from a card catalog to an online catalog and was often referred to as “Beta-Test Beth” for her ability to spot problems with a complex automated system.  For years she was an active member of the Virginia Library Association’s Paraprofessional Forum, and in 1996 she received the organization’s inaugural Paraprofessional of the Year award.  Four years later she received Library Journal’s first Paraprofessional of the Year award, the criteria of which included “contribution(s) enabling the library to best serve its constituents and/or its community.”  In nominating Beth for this prestigious, national honor, Systems Librarian Bob Grattan wrote that “her leadership on the job is always strong, and she brings experience and excellent skills to her staff.  Her professionalism is underlined by her extensive training and her experience working with her peers in several organizations.”  Beth likes to travel and is fanatical about her music, so now that she’s retired, she intends to travel where the music is and attend concerts and festivals around the country.

Despite their formal exclusion from politics, women played a central role in securing American independence. This talk will discuss the individual contributions of women such as Mercy Otis Warren, Esther de Berdt Reed, and Phillis Wheatley, as well as women’s collective forms of participation before, during and after the American Revolution. It will also examine the changing meaning of “women’s rights” in the era of the Revolution.

Noted historian Rosemarie Zagarri, professor of history at George Mason University, will deliver this free public lecture as part of UMW’s Women’s History Month celebrations. The lecture will be co-sponsored by the James Monroe Museum, the UMW Department of History and American Studies and UMW’s Women’s and Gender Studies Program. A dessert reception will follow.

7 p.m. in the Great Hall, Woodard Campus Center. Free and open to the public. Contact auphaus@umw.edu with questions. Download the program flyer.

Charles J. Shields, associate director of the Chappell Great Lives Lecture Series, is featured in the April 2012 issue of Virginia Living Magazine. The article is a review of Shields’ biography of Kurt Vonnegut.

The biography also is included in a London Times Literary Supplement review of recent works about Vonnegut.

The undefeated UMW women’s basketball team will host the sectional rounds of the NCAA Division III Championship Tournament in Fredericksburg on Friday, March 9 and Saturday, March 10. On Friday, George Fox University will take on Bowdoin College at 5 p.m., with Mary Washington facing Lebanon Valley College at 7 p.m. On Saturday, March 10, the two winners will meet with a trip to the Final Four on the line.

The seventh-ranked UMW team beat Messiah College in the second round of the tournament on Saturday, March 3.

Tickets for each day will cost $7 for adults and $4 for students. Senior citizens and all UMW faculty, staff and students with a valid I.D. will be admitted free of charge.

Cate Brewer, visiting assistant professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance, presented her paper “Process vs. Performance: The Work of Creating Theatre in a Results Driven Realm” at The Mid-America Theatre Conference in early March.