A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff
Professor of Political Science Rosalyn Cooperman
The Gender and Political Psychology Network has named Rosalyn Cooperman, Professor of Political Science at University of Mary Washington, as a recipient of its 2020 Teaching Innovation Award for her work in the classroom to empower and inspire students.
Professor of English Antonio Barrenechea
Antonio Barrenechea, Professor of English, recently presented the paper “A Hemispheric World of Differences: Luis Alberto Sánchez and Stanley T. Williams” at the meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association, which took place virtually this year.
Reference and Humanities Librarian Emeritus Jack Bales
Jack Bales, Reference and Humanities Librarian Emeritus, has been keeping busy since he retired last August after more than 40 years at the UMW Library. His article, “‘He will do just what is best, no doubt’: William Hulbert’s Calculated Dismantling of the Chicago Base Ball Association,” was published in Base Ball 12: New Research on the Early Game (2021). Using original documents and primary sources such as the baseball club’s 1876 corporate charter, newspaper articles, and Hulbert’s letters and business records, the author details how the baseball club president shut down the Chicago Base Ball Association and, in so doing, disenfranchised many of its investors so he could form the new Chicago Ball Club. Base Ball is an annual peer-reviewed book series that promotes the study of the sport’s early history by publishing original research and analysis. Bales will discuss his work at the eleventh annual Frederick Ivor-Campbell Nineteenth Century Base Ball Conference, to be held virtually from April 22–24. He will also participate in a panel discussion on Chicago baseball executive and National League President William Hulbert.
Bales’s latest book, The Chicago Cub Shot for Love: A Showgirl’s Crime of Passion and the 1932 World Series, is scheduled for publication on June 21 by The History Press of Charleston, South Carolina. Using books, newspaper articles, memoirs, interviews, court records, archival documents, and never-before-published photographs, the author traces the story of how a young Chicago woman unwittingly set in motion events that indirectly changed baseball history.
Bales spoke on the nineteenth-century children’s author Horatio Alger, Jr. in February for UMW’s William B. Crawley Great Lives Lecture Series. He has published many works on Alger over the years and will host the convention of the Horatio Alger Society, a book collectors’ organization, here in Fredericksburg from June 3–6.
Professor of English Maya Mathur
Professor of English Maya Mathur co-led the workshop, “Intersectionality and Inclusion in the Early Modern Classroom,” with Elisa Oh of Howard University. The workshop took place during the annual conference of the Shakespeare Association of America, which was held virtually from 30 March to 4 April 2021. The workshop drew on Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality to examine how the overlapping axes of our identities and those of our students shape our pedagogy.
Professor and Chairman of the Department of Political Science and International Affairs Elizabeth Freund Larus
Elizabeth Larus, Chairman of the Department of Political Science and International Affairs, commented in the Financial Times that President Biden had come out with a “firmer posture” on China than most experts had expected but had also benefited from Trump’s precedent. She commented that “Some of the heavy lifting on Taiwan has already been done for him.”
https://www.ft.com/content/05d67774-fdf7-41ae-b17e-a8f2fe8e9f6f
https://oltnews.com/u-s-facilitates-diplomats-meeting-with-taiwanese-officials
Professor Larus also commented April 3 on Vietnam TV News on prospects for strengthening UN cooperation with regional organizations in peacemaking efforts, an item on the agenda as Vietnam begins official duties as (rotating) president of the UN Security Council. Professor Larus’ comments begin at 17 min into the program at https://vnews.gov.vn/video/the-gioi-360-do-ngay-03-4-2021-207815.htm
Romero Convenes Conference on Classics and Social Justice
On March 20, 2021, Joseph Romero (CPRD) collaborated with Hannah Čulík-Baird (Boston University) to present a second online conference in an ongoing series entitled, Res Difficiles, which attracted over 300 registrants from across the globe to engage in difficult conversations about the past, present, and future of the discipline. Our keynote speaker was the esteemed classicist, Dr. Patrice Rankine (Professor of Classics, Dean of Arts and Sciences, University of Richmond). The papers are now posted on the conference website: resdifficiles.com. Romero and Čulík-Baird have been invited to guest edit a selection of papers from the ongoing series for the online Classics journal, Ancient History Bulletin in this and the coming year. A third installment of the popular series is planned for 2022.
College of Business Interim Dean Ken Machande
The following message is from President Paino.
In December, Dr. Lynne Richardson announced that she would be retiring as the Dean of the College of Business in July of this year. After consulting with and receiving input from a number of constituencies, including the faculty and staff in the College of Business, I am very pleased to announce that Professor Ken Machande has agreed to serve as the Interim Dean of the College of Business and lead the College as we consider the plans and timing for an external search for a Dean and prepare for the next review cycle of AACSB.
Professor Machande has been a member of the faculty for nearly 20 years, has served as the Associate Dean in the College of Business since 2012, and also served as the Interim Dean of the College of Business in 2018-2019. Ken brings a wealth of experience, knowledge, and professional accomplishments to this role, and he will ensure both a smooth transition as well as further ongoing efforts to move the College of Business forward. Please join me in welcoming Ken to this role and thanking him for his willingness to further serve the University at this time.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry Sarah Smith ’12 instructs junior biochemistry major Valerie Ebenki in a Jepson Science Center lab. Photo by Suzanne Carr Rossi.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry Sarah Smith’s work with junior biochemistry major Valerie Ebenki was recently highlighted in an article in The Free Lance-Star about how the pair are helping Mary Washington alum Ray Parrish ’91, co-owner of Maltese Brewing Company in Fredericksburg, who aspires to earn a Guinness World Record for spicest beer. Smith and Ebenki are determining the heat content of Maltese’s Signal One 2.0, a pineapple IPA infused with 500 Carolina Reaper chilies, the world’s hottest pepper. Read more.
Dr. James L. Farmer Jr. Photo by Suzanne Carr Rossi.
A recent article in The Free Lance-Star highlighted the James Farmer Multicultural Center’s work with City Councilman Chuck Frye to establish an official historical marker at the site of the former Fredericksburg bus station where the Freedom Riders stopped in 1961, in their quest to desegregate interstate travel, orchestrated by civil rights icon and late Mary Washington history professor James L. Farmer Jr.
“It’s a great milestone that the city has met and it’s a huge deal that we have taken time to settle down and tell the story of Fredericksburg,” Frye said. “To me, it shows how history books don’t tell the story of African–American history. And here in 2021 we’re researching information and coming up with actual history.” Read more.
“A Climate of Change,” hosted by UMW and Marstel-Day, a local environmental consulting firm, was featured in The Free Lance-Star. This three-part series of public discussions with local leaders, held on Tuesdays in April on Zoom, aims to amp up critical dialogue about climate change and issues like environmental justice, clean energy and conservation. Following each discussion, UMW College of Arts and Sciences Dean Keith Mellinger and Marstel-Day President and CEO Rebecca Rubin will moderate a public question-and-answer session. Read more.
