A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff
Studio art faculty at the University of Mary Washington are passionate about teaching, but they are also talented and dedicated artists themselves. Selected works from faculty artists are on display through Oct. 8, 2023, at the duPont Gallery on campus.
Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesdays through Sundays, and admission is free. There will be an artists’ lecture at 5 p.m. Oct. 5, 2023, at the duPont Gallery. Read more.
First-year student Matt Serafin adjusts to his new room while dad Bob Serafin works on setting up a bunk bed. (Suzanne Carr Rossi photo.)
It was only 5 a.m. when Matt Serafin and his parents drove away from their home in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, headed for Matt’s first year at the University of Mary Washington.
If Tamara and Bob Serafin felt any anxiety about taking the older of their two children to college, Matt wouldn’t have known. Once settled in the car with a semester’s worth of possessions, he went right back to sleep.
When the Serafin family arrived at UMW, they and hundreds more students, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents and other helpers found the unloading process running smoothly.
This year’s entering class numbers 770, with another 260 transfer students. But several student groups had arrived on campus days early to participate in pre-semester activities, and returning upperclass students will move in this weekend. So first-year move-in day – Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023 – was chill both figuratively and literally. Read more.
Students leaned into the theatre experience, seeing at least 17 productions during their London trip.
It wasn’t just the chance to earn summertime academic credit that inspired Emma Magner ’24 to join “UMW Theatre in London,” a three-week immersion in one of the world’s greatest and most historic theatre cities.
“We do earn six credits for going on the trip,” Magner said, “but I signed up for the experience of being abroad in London and the opportunities to see amazing shows and to learn more about the history of theatre.”
Led by Assistant Professor of Theatre Marc Williams, the trip was packed with performances, theatre history and other cultural opportunities. Students took a behind-the-scenes tour of William Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and visited Shakespeare’s birthplace, baptismal church and burial site in Stratford-upon-Avon.
They attended 17 plays and musicals as a group, then sought out additional performances to see on their own. To encourage deeper reflection, Williams asked participants to wait 24 hours after each performance before discussing what they’d seen, heard and experienced.
The London trip was just one of several summer study-abroad experiences led by UMW faculty and facilitated by the Center for International Education (CIE). This season’s programs and destinations – some still ongoing – include ancient and early modern empires in Italy; cultural tours of France; digital production, international business and historic preservation in Paris, France; and an exploration of the cities and culture of Spain. Read more.
Ada Moses attaches a sensor to Kaitlin Lennox’s finger as they work with eye-tracker equipment. Team members Hannah Shipp, Eliana Black and Assistant Professor of Psychology Marcus Leppanen observe. (Laura Moyer photo.)
Academic test-taking can spark anxiety in even the calmest students. But is anxiety even more pronounced when the tests are taken online, with a visible timer ticking down the minutes and seconds?
University of Mary Washington psychology majors Eliana Black ’24, Kaitlin Lennox ’24, Ada Moses ’25 and Hannah Shipp ’25 are approaching that question with scholarly precision as participants in UMW’s second annual Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Summer Institute (AHSSSI).
Working alongside Assistant Professor of Psychology Marcus Leppanen, the four have devised a small-sample study that uses UMW’s high-tech eye-tracking equipment and a biometric sensor to determine test-anxiety levels in college-age volunteers. They and four other student-faculty research teams will present their findings at the AHSSSI Symposium at 2 p.m. Wednesday, June 14, in Room 139 of Combs Hall.
Inspired by the success of UMW’s Summer Science Institute (SSI), now in its 24th year, UMW last summer introduced AHSSSI as a parallel institute for disciplines outside of the traditional STEM fields. Read more.
Filiz Tabak joins the University of Mary Washington July 10, 2023, as dean of the College of Business.
Organizational leadership isn’t just a scholarly discipline for Filiz Tabak. It’s also a specialty she has successfully practiced over the past 28 years in the College of Business & Economics at Towson University – as a faculty member, graduate program director, department chair and, most recently, acting associate dean.
Now Tabak brings that expertise to the University of Mary Washington, where she’ll become dean of the College of Business (COB) starting July 10.
She already has a plan for her first few months on campus – to learn the strengths, experiences and passions of the faculty she’ll lead and the UMW students she’ll help educate. At the same time, she plans to connect with the COB Advisory Board, the deans of UMW’s College of Arts and Sciences and College of Education, and others in the campus community, “to see what we can accomplish together.” Read more.
Olivia Foster (left), a 2023 alumna, will teach English in Argentina, and Emma Bathke (right), a 2021 alumna, will teach English in Germany, both via the Fulbright Student program.
The University of Mary Washington continues its Fulbright tradition with the recent announcements of grants for two alumni.
Emma Bathke ’21 and Olivia Foster ’23 will teach English overseas as participants in the Fulbright U.S. Student Program.
They are among 28 Mary Washington student Fulbright recipients since 2006, according to Professor of Middle East History Nabil Al-Tikriti and Professor of Biology Dianne Baker. Al-Tikriti and Baker are co-directors of the UMW Fulbright Committee, which works with student candidates to craft compelling applications.
Bathke, an international affairs major with a minor in business German, will travel to Germany in September to teach English. Until then, she’s working for the Library of Congress in the Congressional Research Service. Foster, a history major from Richmond, will teach English in Argentina beginning in March 2024. Read more.
Stephen Farnsworth (left) will head to Poland in spring 2024 to teach a graduate-level class in presidential communication under the Fulbright Scholar program. Professor Emeritus of Psychology David Rettinger will travel to Nepal as a Fulbright specialist.
University of Mary Washington Professor of Political Science Stephen Farnsworth and Professor Emeritus of Psychology David Rettinger have received Fulbright grants to teach and share their professional expertise overseas.
Farnsworth, who directs the Center for Leadership and Media Studies at UMW, will travel to Poland to serve his third Fulbright assignment in spring 2024, during a sabbatical from Mary Washington.
At the American Studies Center of the University of Warsaw, he will teach a graduate-level course about U.S. presidential communication regarding domestic and foreign policies. He’ll also look at how presidents use direct communication and the mass media to shape public perceptions of their own characters.
Farnsworth’s Poland assignment falls under the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. It’s his third Fulbright; in 2019 he served in Malaysia as a Fulbright specialist, and in 2006-07 he held a Fulbright research chair in public policy in Canada. Read more.
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