December 18, 2024

EagleEye

A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff

Update on the Convergence Center

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To:  UMW Faculty and Staff

From: Jeff McClurken, on behalf of the Information and Technology Convergence Center User’s Group

Subject: Update on the Convergence Center

The Convergence Center has been open for two months now and hundreds of students (& faculty and staff) have already taken (or taught) classes there, walked across the bridge to the library, had coffee at Blackstone’s, charged devices while sitting on the powered lobby furniture, taken a spin in the famous red chairs on the 4th floor, held meetings in one of the conference rooms, reserved a collaboration space or room online, tried out the computers in the training lab or in the lobby, visited one of the many studentsupportcenters, and studied in the numerous niches around the ITCC.  Last week the new Digital Knowledge Center (like the Writing and Speaking Centers, but for digital class projects) began accepting appointments with its student tutors. [For those who are interested, Director Martha Burtis recently wrote about the creation of the Center.]   

Starting today the multimedia editing room with vocal recording booth opens on the first floor (accessible to all students via the EagleOne card).  In the weeks and months to come, the building will offer new opportunities, from checking out digital equipment at the Information Desk, to the opening of an Advanced Media Production Studio and the Digital Auditorium, to the unveiling of the Library’s Digital Archiving Lab and Digital Gallery on the third floor near the bridge.  Keep an eye as well on the Digital Media Wall in the lobby of the ITCC as we begin to display more student-created digital media projects.

If you have any questions about the Convergence Center’s resources, policies, hours, options, and opportunities for students, faculty, and staff, or simply want to keep up to date on what’s new in the building, check out the newly launched website, http://convergence.umw.edu.  You can also ask any of the student aides who work in the building about what is here and how to use it, especially those staffing the Information Desk found as you enter the building from Campus Walk.

See you soon!

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Jeffrey W. McClurken

Professor of History & American Studies

Special Assistant to the Provost for Teaching, Technology, and Innovation

University of Mary Washington

540-654-1475

http://mcclurken.org/

 

Road Work at Lee and Trinkle Halls

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The following message is from Facilities Services:    

Construction congestion can be expected at the access road behind Lee Hall and Trinkle Hall until Friday, Nov. 7. The road and parking area will continue to be accessible for deliveries and parking, but users are asked to be aware of the work and follow instructions from construction personnel.  If you have questions, please contact UMW Project Manager Les Johnson at ext. 2100.

Relay for Life 5K

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Relay for Life’s Fight Back 5K will be held on Nov. 8, 2014.UMW relay for Life

UMW’s Relay for Life committee is hosting its annual Fight Back 5K. The course will run through campus and the surrounding neighborhoods. For registration details and additional information, please contact umwrelayforlife@gmail.com. Your participation will benefit UMW’s Relay for Life, and also counts as a CVC contribution. Just forward your email registration receipt to lizykows@umw.edu. Let’s support all of the UMW Relay for Life folks that work so hard for a cause that has very personal meaning for them.

UMW Research Team Presents at Public Sociology Conference

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Fossil-Fuel-Protest-Photo

People’s Climate March, September 21, 2014

Undergraduates Beatrice Ohene-Okae (Environmental Science) and Zakaria Kronemer (Philosophy) presented their research project, “Studying Carbon Violence,” with Assistant Professor of Sociology Eric Bonds at George Mason’s annual public sociology conference, which this year was entitled “(Re)Visions of the Future: Public Sociology, Environmental Justice, and the Crisis of Climate Change.”  Beatrice and Zakaria presented some initial findings of their investigation into violence associated with global fossil fuel resource extraction.  Their work is part of a larger scholarly project, guided by Dr. Bonds, that is exploring linkages between violence, conceptualized in different ways, and the world’s largest oil, gas, and coal companies.

Humphrey and Alum Present at Feast on Good Conference

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UMW-at-Feast

Shawn Humphrey (left) and Jon Pack ’95 presented at the Feast on Good Conference, Oct. 11.

Shawn Humphrey, associate professor of economics, presented at the Feast on Good Conference in Brooklyn, New York on Saturday, Oct. 11. His seminar, entitled Tribal Teaching: Rewild Your Students, was one of several presented throughout the weekend that focused on discussions about global issues. In addition, UMW Alum Jon Pack ’95 gave a talk during the conference. He co-presented with Gary Hustwit about Helvetica, The Olympic City.

UMW Galleries to Host Two New Exhibitions

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Quanta, by David Row, 2012.

Quanta, by David Row, 2012

The University of Mary Washington Galleries will exhibit American Abstract Artists: 75th Anniversary Print Portfolio in the Ridderhof Martin Gallery and Antediluvian by Mia Feuer in duPont Gallery. Both exhibitions open on Thursday, Oct. 23 with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Admission to the receptions and exhibitions are free and open to the public. The exhibitions will run from Oct. 23 to Dec. 7.

American Abstract Artists: 75th Anniversary Print Portfolio is an exhibition of 48 archival digital prints. Founded in 1936, the American Abstract Artists held its first show the next year at the Squibb Gallery in New York City. The organization fosters the understanding of abstract and non-objective art by organizing exhibitions, producing print portfolios and catalogs as well as providing a forum for discussion through symposia, panels, and the American Abstract Artists Journal. For the first time in its long history the AAA portfolio was printed digitally rather than using traditional forms of lithography or transferring image to plate, thereby engaging the rapidly changing technological field of the twenty-first century.

duPont Gallery will exhibit Antediluvian, an installation by Canadian artist, Mia Feuer (b. 1981). Feuer’s latest project was to be a temporary public sculpture located near Heritage Island in Washington, D.C. created as part of the 5×5 Public Art Festival, a large temporary public arts. Feuer’s envisioned project was a solar powered gas station that would have floated in the surrounding Anacostia River. However, the proposal was abruptly cancelled by community protestors due to environmental concerns.

The duPont Gallery will display the preliminary materials that went into this major project- drawings, maquettes, projections and recorded lectures on environmental issues held at the location of the original project in order to initiate a dialog about public art, questioning what an artwork’s commitment is to the public, the site, and to the artist. Mia Feuer will give a lecture at the closing ceremony of the exhibition.

UMW Libraries to Host Scholarly Communications Forum

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Open AccessPlease join UMW’s librarians as they lead a discussion of issues in scholarly communications and open access publishing on Thursday, Oct. 23 from 1:30 to 3:30 pm.  The forum will take place in Room 412 of Lee Hall, and is open to all UMW faculty members. The event, held during Open Access Week, will kick off a series of three forums on these topics that will take place over the 2014-2015 academic year.

For more information on Scholarly Communications and Open Access, please visit:

http://www.openaccessweek.org/

http://www.sparc.arl.org/issues/open-access

http://libguides.umw.edu/scholar

Department of Chemistry Hosts Tech Tour

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Student looking at a chemiluminescent reaction, tonic water fluorescence, and title image.

Top left: A student looks at a chemiluminescent reaction. Bottom right: Tonic water fluorescence.

Approximately 40 students and teachers from Chancellor and Courtland High Schools visited the UMW Department of Chemistry on Wednesday Oct. 10, 2014 as part of the Tech Tour sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce’s STEM 16 group.  Associate Professor Leanna Giancarlo and Professor Kelli Slunt introduced the students to background information on fluorescence and forensics. The students toured the chemistry department laboratory spaces and conducted experiments on the fluorescence of household items and on the reaction of luminol with bleach.

Honors Students Explore Washington, D.C. Architecture

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group of students posed in front of Union Station.

Honors scholars in front of Union Station during the fall 14 field trip.

In August, incoming UMW Honors Scholars participated in a common reading experience, reading the book “The Devil in the White City” by Eric Larson. To expand on the theme of the planning and architecture of the Chicago’s World’s Fair, Andrea Smith, Department of Historic Preservation, led the fall field for the honors program on Saturday Oct. 4. Twenty six honors students, Professor of Economics Steve Greenlaw, Professor of Chemistry Kelli Slunt, and Assistant Professor of Environmental Science Melanie Szulczewski enjoyed learning about the urban planning and contributions of Daniel Burnham (one of the main characters in “The Devil in the White City”) while exploring Union Station, The National Mall, and the National Building Museum.

Foss Presents Paper at International Conference on Romanticism

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Figure talking about Kasiprasad Ghosh

Figure talking about Kasiprasad Ghosh

On Saturday, Sept. 27, Professor of English Chris Foss presented a paper at the annual meeting of the International Conference on Romanticism, held this year in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  His talk was entitled “The (Western?) Mirror and(/or?) the (Eastern?) Lamp: Romantic Reflection, Rejection, and Revision in Kasiprasad Ghosh’s The Sháïr and Other Poems.”  After begging forgiveness re: his embarrassing weakness for parentheses and question marks in titles, Foss argued that Ghosh’s Sháïr (1830), as the very first volume of English-language poems published by a Hindu writer, is an absolutely essential text to be accounted for within any full consideration of the international aspects of Romanticism in general and/or the question of Romantic reflections in particular.  Along the way, he teased out some of the various possibilities whereby one may position Ghosh as uncritically reflecting back the British orientalist version of Indian poetry, carefully revising and subtly transforming orientalist poetics into a new hybrid expression, and/or ultimately rejecting orientalism in favor of a distinctly transgressive and properly Indian poetics of resistance.  The theme of this year’s conference in the Land of Sky-Blue Waters (and, more particularly, in the Twin Cities) was, appropriately enough, “Romantic Reflections: Twins, Echoes, and Appropriations.”