July 2, 2026

EagleEye

A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff

Leslie Martin Named Faculty Director of the Center for Community Engagement

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Dr. Leslie Martin has accepted the position of faculty Director of the Center for Community Engagement. Leslie is Associate Professor of Sociology and currently serves as Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, having joined the UMW faculty in 2007. She received a Ph.D. in sociology from Emory University (2003) and has an M.A. (1994) in urban studies from Temple University, and a B.A. (1989) in history from The College of William and Mary. Leslie has a long history of activism around public health and social equality issues and a compelling record of community-based research. She has served on the Fredericksburg Continuum of Care, a regional coalition of homeless service organizations, and on the George Washington Regional Commission’s Affordable Housing Task Force.

At the end of this month, Dr. Sarah Dewees will be joining UMW as the Associate Director in the Center for Community Engagement. Sarah joins us after a number of years working in the nonprofit sector, most recently at First Nations Development Institute located here in Fredericksburg. Previously, she worked in the Center for Civil Society Studies at Johns Hopkins University and the Rural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri. Sarah received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Kentucky (1998), and has an M.A. in sociology from Ohio University (1992), and a B.A. in government from Oberlin College (1990).

In the coming weeks, Leslie and Sarah will be collaborating with the faculty working group on Community Engagement, providing support and guidance to COAR (UMW’s long standing student-run service board); and they will begin planning the mission and strategic vision for the Center which will officially “launch” in the spring.

Emile Lester Talks about Texas Curriculum in Radio Interview

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Emile Lester, assistant professor of political science, traveled to Texas to testify before the State Board of Education on its social studies curriculum. He was interviewed on Red River Radio. According to the story:

“Both conservative and liberal groups have raised concerns over the curriculum standards, which were last updated in 2010. Some topics at issue are how the history of slavery and the civil war are taught. Another issue: the extent to which religion influenced the founding fathers. For example, those 2010 standards describe Moses, from the Bible, as a major influence on the nation’s founding documents.”

Said Lester: “For example TEKS 1C of the high school government course asks students to view Moses as a major influence on our founding documents. Now as a Jewish person, Moses holds a special place in my heart, but there’s no evidence that our founders had Moses in mind when they were drafting the constitution. In fact, in two letters to Thomas Jefferson, John Adams openly denied the 10 commandments were the basis of our constitution and our legal system.”

Parrish Waters Featured in Inside Higher Ed

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Assistant Professor of Biology Parrish Waters talks about what he’s doing new in the classroom in an Inside Higher Ed story called Test Driving New Classroom Tech Initiatives:

What’s new: I am using a formative assessment tool (BluePulse) in my Human Anatomy course this semester.

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2018/09/19/professors-share-plans-implementing-and-assessing-classroom

 

 

Laura Wilson Talks About Mass Shootings in APA

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Laura Wilson talks about mass shootings in an article published in the American Psychological Association this month:

“Simply by definition, mass shootings are more likely to trigger difficulties with beliefs that most of us have, including that we live in a just world and that if we make good decisions, we’ll be safe,” says Laura Wilson, PhD, co-author and editor of “The Wiley Handbook of the Psychology of Mass Shootings” and an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Read the full story here: http://www.apa.org/monitor/2018/09/survivors.aspx