UMW History Professor Featured on With Good Reason
University of Mary Washington Professor of History Jeffrey McClurken will be featured on the “With Good Reason” public radio program, December 13-19.
The show, “Give War and Peace a Chance,” will consider how history is captured in anticipation of the 150th anniversary of the first publication of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.” McClurken will discuss how, despite the way that historical movies are often inaccurate, history can be learned from the way the stories are told. The program also will feature commentary from a faculty member at the University of Virginia.
“With Good Reason” is a program of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. The show airs weekly in Fredericksburg on Sundays from 1-2 p.m. on Radio IQ 88.3 Digital. To listen from outside of the Fredericksburg area, a complete list of air times and links to corresponding radio stations can be found at http://withgoodreasonradio.org/when-to-listen. Audio files of the full program and its companion news feature are available online at http://withgoodreasonradio.org/2014/12/give-war-and-peace-a-chance/.
McClurken, who joined the UMW faculty in 2001, has been instrumental to the university’s digital history efforts and has been on the forefront of incorporating technology in the classroom. Currently the special assistant to the provost for teaching, technology and innovation, McClurken previously served as chairperson of the history and American studies department.
McClurken is recipient of a prestigious 2014 Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education of Virginia, the commonwealth’s highest honor for faculty at Virginia’s public and private colleges and universities. He has presented numerous lectures and presentations across the country on teaching with social media, digital history and 19th-century American social and cultural history. His 2009 book “Take Care of the Living: Reconstructing Confederate Veteran Families in Virginia” examines the long-term consequences of the Civil War for veterans and their families in Southside Virginia.
Named to the Princeton Review’s inaugural list of “300 Best Professors,” McClurken received the Mary Washington Young Alumnus Award in 2003 and the J. Christopher Bill Outstanding Faculty Service Award in 2012.
A 1994 graduate of Mary Washington, McClurken received a master’s degree and doctorate from Johns Hopkins University.
UMW Professor Receives Outstanding Faculty Award
University of Mary Washington Professor of Psychology Miriam Liss is the recipient of a prestigious 2015 Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education of Virginia (SCHEV).
The awards are the commonwealth’s highest honor for faculty at Virginia’s public and private colleges and universities, recognizing superior accomplishments in teaching, research and public service. This year, 13 faculty members were selected from a highly competitive pool of candidates. In February, the recipients will attend a ceremony and luncheon in Richmond and also will be introduced on the floor of the General Assembly.
Liss, who joined the UMW faculty in 2001, is a clinical psychologist and has conducted research on parenting, division of labor and work-family balance.
The co-author of “Balancing the Big Stuff: Finding Happiness in Work, Family and Life,” Liss also has published articles about autism and developmental disorders, as well as sensory processing sensitivity, self-injurious behaviors, feminist identity and body image. She has developed a collaborative program between UMW and the New England Center for Children (NECC) where students can spend a semester at NECC outside of Boston, performing applied behavioral analysis in a school setting and taking classes for UMW elective credit.
Her articles have been published in numerous journals including the Sex Roles, Psychology of Women Quarterly, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Journal of Personality and Individual Differences, and Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines. She also regularly presents at national conferences. Liss has been interviewed for her work on intensive and attachment parenting for the Washington Post, MSNBC.com and Live Science.
Liss’s honors include election into Phi Beta Kappa and Psi Chi, where she was selected as the regional faculty advisor winner and supervised the chapter winning the National Chapter Award in 2006. She received the UMW Outstanding Young Faculty Member Award in 2005 and was a finalist in the SCHEV state award in 2006 and 2009. She also was named one of Princeton Review’s Best 300 Professors.
Liss received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Wesleyan University, in addition to a doctorate and master’s degree in clinical psychology from the University of Connecticut.
The General Assembly and Governor created the Outstanding Faculty Award program in 1986. Since the first awards in 1987, more than 300 Virginia faculty members have received this high honor. Professor of History Jeffrey McClurken was the 2014 recipient of the award.
UMW Bookstore Winter Holiday Sale
December 8- 12, 2014
20% off all regularly priced and discounted UMW clothing and insignia items, some exceptions may apply. In-store only.
Death of a Former Professor
Claudia Emerson
To the campus community:
It is with a heavy heart that I inform you of the death of Claudia Emerson, a longtime and beloved faculty member at UMW. As many of you know, Claudia left the University last year to take a teaching job at Virginia Commonwealth University. She died in Richmond from complications associated with cancer.
The University of Mary Washington counts Claudia among its most distinguished professors. During her tenure here, she received the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her collection Late Wife, and she was named Virginia’s Poet Laureate in 2008 — a position she held for two years.
Hundreds of students’ lives were touched by Claudia, who was instrumental in the establishment of the creative writing concentration as an option for our English majors. When she left, after serving on the faculty here for 15 years, she held the Arrington Distinguished Chair in Poetry.
Our sympathies go out to her husband Kent and all of her loved ones. While we do not yet know about plans to memorialize Claudia, I am including attachments to two articles about Claudia that appeared today.
Sincerely,
Richard V. Hurley
President
UMW Philharmonic Hosts Holiday Pops Concert, Dec. 5
The University of Mary Washington Philharmonic will host its annual Holiday Pops Concert, “Home for the Holidays,” tonight, Friday, Dec. 5.
The concert will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Dodd Auditorium, located in George Washington Hall on the university’s Fredericksburg campus. Tickets are $10 per person, and admission is free to children under eight years old.
Show highlights include a live performance of “Frozen” and the original John Williams score to the film “Home Alone.” Mary Katherine Greenlaw, mayor of Fredericksburg, will narrate a stirring rendition of “Yes, Virginia There is a Santa Claus.” Finally, a special troupe of Highland dancers from Baffa Academy of Irish Dance in Stafford and Richmond will perform two numbers from Celtic Woman.
The orchestra is welcoming back UMW faculty baritone In Dal Choi, who will sing “Ave Maria” and “O Holy Night.” Before joining the UMW faculty, Choi was a music director of the James Madison University Chorus.
Past holiday concerts have featured some of the Philharmonic’s best efforts including last year’s Beethoven’s Ninth, a Polar Express segment in 2012 that actually had a train rolling through the auditorium, and “A Fiddler’s Holiday” in 2011 that became a national PBS pledge show.
For more information or to purchase tickets for the Holiday Pops Concert, call (540) 654-1324 or visit philharmonic.umw.edu.
UMW to Open Veteran Resource Center
The University of Mary Washington will open its Veteran Resource Center on Monday, December 1 to serve more than 400 veteran, active duty and veteran-affiliated students at the institution.
The center, which will be located in the basement of Combs Hall, will provide a central campus meeting space for veterans to get assistance. It will also offer office space for the Veteran’s Administration work study students who will be responsible for office management.
“Our veteran community is very important to UMW,” said Douglas Searcy, vice president of student affairs. “We want to ensure that we provide support and service at the highest level.”
Services for students will include providing information on using Veteran’s Administration and Department of Defense benefits here at UMW, helping students locate the appropriate office to answer specific questions, collecting data on UMW veteran student numbers and concerns and providing peer-to-peer counseling and general support.
The space was a collaboration of the several organizations within the university, including the Veterans Working Group and the Association of Student Veterans, who identified the need and provided recommendations on requirements.
The Veteran’s Administration work study students will begin office hours on Monday, January 12, the first day of classes for the spring semester.
UMW’s Winter Weather Advisory Sources
It’s Winter Preparedness Week! UMW has two main sources for winter weather advisories: call 540/654-2424 or visit umw.edu/advisories to find out about closings and delays for the university’s Fredericksburg, Stafford and Dahlgren campuses.