Author: Brynn Boyer

Steve Farnsworth, professor of political science and director of the university’s Center for Media and Leadership Studies, published an op-ed in The Washington Post on Friday, March 2. The piece, “Virginia Belongs at the Top of the Presidential-Election Calendar,” argues that Virginia should be more integral to the presidential nomination process, since the Commonwealth more closely resembles a microcosm of the U.S.

On Monday, March 5, Farnsworth was quoted in the Associated Press article “Limbaugh Controversy Casts a Fresh Light on Conservative Media Stars’ Impact on GOP Politics.”

In the article “Romney’s Virginia Faceoff with Paul not Overwhelming” in the Tuesday, March 6 edition of The Washington Times, Farnsworth discusses Virginia’s “Super Tuesday” race.

The UMW Fitness Center will be open from 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 8 and Friday, March 9. The Fitness Center will be closed on Saturday, March 10 and Sunday, March 11. Regular hours will resume on Monday, March 12.

Seacobeck Hall will reopen for dinner on Sunday, March 11 and The Eagle’s Nest and Joe Stacks will reopen at 4p.m. Naturally Woodstock and Jazzman’s Cafe & Bakery will be open for regular hours starting Monday, March 12.

The University of Mary Washington Galleries will present the exhibition “Making an Impression: Prints from the Permanent Collection” from Friday, March 16 through Friday, April 27 at Ridderhof Martin Gallery.

The opening reception for “Making an Impression” will be held Thursday, March 15 from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Ridderhof Martin Gallery. The exhibition will highlight prints from the UMW Galleries’ permanent collection of art, which includes works by Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali and Marc Chagall. The exhibit and reception is free and open to the public.

In conjunction with the exhibit, the UMW Galleries will feature two lectures that will take place in Combs Hall, Room 139.

Eric Denker, senior lecturer in the education department at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., will present the lecture “Ink, Wood, Copper Stone: Identifying the Techniques of Prints,” on Sunday, March 18 at 2 p.m.  The presentation will focus on the origination, duplication and originality of prints and will include techniques and tools used in printmaking.

On Sunday, April 1 at 2 p.m., Gregory Jecmen, associate curator of old master prints and drawings at the National Gallery of Art, will present “Renaissance Innovations in Color Printing and Etching.” The talk will focus printing woodcuts in color and the intaglio technique of etching. Jecmen’s presentation is based on a future exhibit at the National Gallery of Art, “Imperial Augsburg: Renaissance Prints and Drawings, 1475-1540.” Both lectures are free and open to the public, but pre-registration is highly recommended to ensure adequate seating.

A UMW administrative faculty member and two alumni will speak at the 18th annual Virginia Festival of the Book, to be held March 21 through 25 in Charlottesville. Charles J. Shields, associate director of the Chappell Great Lives Lecture Series and Kelly Cherry ’61 and Matt Paxton ’97, will participate in readings, discussion sessions and presentations.

Charles J. Shields will participate, along with two other authors, in the discussion session “Literary Icons – Their Lives, Their Works: Vonnegut, Tolstoy and E.B. White” on Friday, March 23 at 4 p.m. in the University of Virginia (UVa) Bookstore at 400 Emmet Street South. Shields also will give his presentation “And So It Goes” for students at two local high schools on the same day. Shields is the author of the first biography of Kurt Vonnegut, “And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life’’(2011). In addition, he is a co-founder of Biographers International Organization (BIO), an organization that promotes the professional interests of practicing biographers.

Kelly Cherry, Virginia Poet Laureate, will appear in the festival’s opening ceremony on Wednesday, March 21 at noon in the McIntire Room of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library, located at 201 East Market Street. Later that day, Cherry will participate in a poetry reading from her book “Hazard and Prospect: New and Selected Poems” (2007) with other poets at 4 p.m. at UVa Harrison Institute / Small Special Collections on the UVa Central Grounds. Cherry is a recipient of the University of Mary Washington’s Distinguished Alumnus Award, among many others. She is Eudora Welty Professor Emerita of English and Evjue-Bascom Professor Emerita in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Matt Paxton, author of “The Secret Lives of Hoarders” (2011) and featured cleaning expert on A&E’s television show “Hoarders,” will appear in the session “Memoirs: How We Cope,” discussing coping with personal biological and psychological issues. The session will be held Saturday, March 24 at noon at the City Council Chambers on 605 East Main Street.

A full schedule for the book festival is available at http://www.vabook.org.

Dr. Stephen Hanna, professor and chair of the Geography Department at the University of Mary Washington published “Cartographic Memories of Slavery and Freedom” in Cartographica, a leading journal in the fields of cartography and geovisualization.  This piece examines a map drawn by John Washington, a Fredericksburg slave who escaped bondage in April 1862 as the Union Army approached the town.  As a part of Washington’s memoir, Memorys of the Past (written in 1873 but not published until 2007), this map represents the Fredericksburg Washington experienced as a slave and remembered as a free man.