January 21, 2026

EagleEye

A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff

Seeking Feathered Friends

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For Andrew Dolby, a stressed-out bird is a big deal. Dolby, professor and chair of the biology department, is researching the stress response in birds, specifically, the Tufted Titmouse. During the spring semester he worked with three students to catch birds on UMW property and at sites in southern Stafford County. They took their measurements […]

Cate Brewer Summer Work

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This summer, Cate Brewer, visiting assistant professor in the department of Theatre and Dance, directed Into The Woods for The City of Fairfax Theatre Company, taught Shakespeare intensives at Imagination Stage in Bethesda, Md., and was The Director of Acting for ClearSpace Theatre Company in Rehoboth, Del.

Convergence Center Construction Detour

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Construction for the new Convergence Center is underway, with an anticipated completion date of spring 2014. A detour behind Simpson Library, scheduled to open on Monday, August 6, will allow pedestrians to bypass the construction site. The detour configuration will remain in effect for the duration of the project.

For more information, contact Len Shelton, associate director of capital planning and construction, at lshelton@umw.edu, or visit the Convergence Center project website at provost.umw.edu/convergence-center/.

Art Class Transforms Melchers Hall & Ceramics Kiln

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The plants hanging from the ceramics kiln outside Melchers Hall came from UMW’s Dahlgren campus

The ceramics kiln behind the fine arts complex of Melchers, Pollard and duPont halls on the Fredericksburg campus started showing its age. The wood had rotted in some places and the paint began chipping away from years of outdoor exposure.

Carole Garmon, professor of art at the University of Mary Washington, saw potential.

She and the 12 students in her installation art class this summer decided to give the kiln a makeover.  They brushed it with recycled paint, repaired the decaying wood and hung plants and flowers from the outside of the structure.

Even the plants were “recycled.”  When Director of Landscape and Grounds Joni Wilson heard about Garmon’s project, she harvested plants from the Dahlgren campus’ vegetative roof and delivered them to the class.

And that’s just for starters.

With the help of her student artists, Garmon plans to turn the art complex into an oasis for students, faculty and staff.

She calls it an exercise in “making art from nothing.”

The students in Carole Garmon’s installation art class painted the Melchers Hall terrace to create a “space that promotes creative thinking”

The class, held during the first eight-week summer session, also transformed the Melchers Hall second-floor terrace into a more colorful space.

The students, including junior studio art major Robert Luther, painted the area in bright shades of pink, blue and green geometric shapes to play off the shadows.

Luther, who recently transferred to UMW from Germanna Community College, enjoyed his first class at Mary Washington so much he decided to stay on after the summer session ended to continue the work, spending six hours a day repainting the furniture and floor of the Melchers Hall terrace.

“This project helps us form a community in our department,” he said. “It reinforces our togetherness.”

While refurbishing the old, the artists are intent on preserving the past.

Artwork from former students–a mural on one of the terrace columns, miniature clay figurines perched on a railing and signatures of previous students–are incorporated in the new design. The garden and the terrace show how collaboration between departments and thinking out side of the box can work.

“We try to create spaces that promote creative thinking,” Garmon said. “This has been a really good lesson in going low-tech and making something cool happen.”

Summer Science Symposium Honors Student & Faculty Research

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Werner Wieland (left) and Yoshi Takeda

On Wednesday, July 25, Jepson Hall was home to more than 20 posters and presentations on topics ranging from acid mine drainage to zebrafish as part of the 2012 Summer Science Symposium. UMW’s Summer Science Institute, a 10-week undergraduate research program, started in 1999.

At the symposium’s awards ceremony, Yoshi Takeda won first place for his oral presentation “Turtles in the Fredericksburg Canal: Identifying and Estimating Populations Sizes,” under the direction of Professor Werner Wieland. Robert Higgins won second place for his oral presentation “Pegylation of Guanyl Pyrazole to Provide a Guanidinylation Reagent,” under the

Janet Asper (left) and Robert Higgins

direction of Professor Janet Asper.

In the poster category, Robert Clark won first place for his project “Spatial and Isotopic Analysis of Soil Erosion and Sediment Fluxes in Three Rappahannock River Tributaries, Stafford County, Virginia,” under the direction of Professor Ben Kisila. Sarah Marzec won second place in the poster category for her project “Phylogenetic Classification of Nematodes,” under the direction of Professor Theresa Grana.

 

Robert Clark

The symposium program lists abstracts of all 22 presentations and posters.

Theresa Grana (left) and Sarah Marzec

Cassandra Good Presents Paper at Conference

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Cassandra Good, assistant editor of the Papers of James Monroe, presented “‘You Would Exert Your Friendship for Us’: Friendships Between Men and Women in the Early Republic” at the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic annual conference in Baltimore, Md.