A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff
Janusz Konieczny, professor of mathematics
Janusz Konieczny, professor of mathematics, published a research article, The semigroup of surjective transformations on an infinite set, in the journal Algebra Colloquium. This research has been supported by a 2015–16 University of Mary Washington Faculty Research Grant.
Eric Lorentzen, Associate Professor of English
Eric Lorentzen, Associate Professor of English, gave the talk “‘Spots of Time’: Wordsworthian Spirits and Dickensian Hauntings” for the special Dickens Society panel at the 50th Annual Northeastern Modern Language Association Conference in Washington, D.C. Lorentzen examined this Romantic influence in Dickens’ work as a part of the panel “Dickens and the Influences of the Past.” In his paper, Lorentzen traced the ways in which Dickens’ incorporation of the Wordsworthian philosophies of time, memory, and continuity transformed over the length of the Victorian novelist’s career. He detailed the many echoes of “We Are Seven” (Dickens’ favorite Wordsworth poem) in the early novels, and the darker cooptation of the poet’s ideas in moments of traumatic memory in the latter novels, as Dickens transformed Wordsworth from the poet of Nature, to a much more haunting figure that informs some of the more deeply psychological “spots of time” in Victorian fiction.
Kuykendall found that these two works borrow interludes from Bach settings, as indicated.
Music Department Chair Dr. Brooks Kuykendall combined text-critical theories about Shakespeare with Bach sources at the interdisciplinary Society for Textual Scholarship conference in New York City, March 20-22. His paper, entitled “The sources of Bach’s passaggio chorales: all ‘bad quartos’?” reconsidered traditional views of copyists’ manuscripts of Bach organ works in light of theories which have developed around the early editions of some of Shakespeare’s plays–editions which are markedly different from the standard texts as performed today. Early Bach sources reveal that his works were similarly contested from the start.
Assistant Professor Sushma Subramanian, Department of English
Sushma Subramanian, Assistant Professor of English teaching journalism, has published a story in Hakai Magazine about the Bajau, a people of Indonesia known for their special swimming and diving abilities, and how they might reveal something about our evolutionary past. The story is available at https://www.hakaimagazine.com/features/born-to-swim/.
Assistant Professor Lauren McMillan, Department of Historic Preservation
Lauren McMillan, assistant professor in the Department of Historic Preservation, and five students presented at the Middle Atlantic Archaeological Conference on March 22 and 23. McMillan presented a paper entitled: “Native Pipe Making and Use in the Rappahannock River Valley.”
Student papers included:
Professor Jeff McClurken, Department of History and American Studies.
In early March, Professor of History and American Studies Jeff McClurken, who also serves as the Chief of Staff and Clerk of the Board of Visitors, was invited to present on Digital Humanities and Southern History at the University of Alabama, as well as to talk with graduate students about how to integrate digital tools into their teaching and research.
See https://cw.ua.edu/51322/news/mary-washington-professor-lectures-on-southern-history-digital-humanities/ for more.
David Rettinger, associate professor of Psychological Science
Associate Professor of Psychological Sciences David Rettinger, who is also the president of the International Center for Academic Integrity, was quoted in an article on HowStuffWorks.com on the prevalence of cheating among college students. “The research I’ve seen and conducted doesn’t demonstrate a huge uptick in cheating,” Rettinger said. “Research by Prof. Don McCabe over the past 20 years shows up and downs in reported cheating. My more recent follow-ups indicated that the trend is continuing.” Rettinger references the late Donald L. McCabe, who is considered “the founding father of research on academic integrity,” and co-wrote the book “Cheating in College: Why Students Do It and What Educators Can Do About It.”
Laura Wilson, assistant professor of psychological sciences
Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences Laura Wilson was quoted in an article on PacificStandard.com about the psychological aftermath and post-traumatic stress disorder often experienced by survivors of mass shootings. The article references a September 2018 article in the APA’s Monitor on Psychology in September 2018, “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.” Read more.
Jesse Stommel, executive director of Teaching and Learning Technologies
Jesse Stommel, executive director of the Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies, was quoted in an Inside Higher Ed article that focused on whether discussions boards are valuable or overused in university courses. Stommel offers the following tips for using discussion boards: Build a community of care; Ask genuine, open-ended questions; Wait for answers; Let conversation wander; Model what it looks like to be wrong and to acknowledge when you’re wrong; Recognize that the right to speak isn’t distributed equally; Make listening visible.
Lynne Richardson, Dean of the College of Business
Read College of Business Dean Lynne Richardson’s latest column in The Free Lance-Star: You are Rare.
I recently received a note from a new friend. One of the sentences was, “You are rare.”
This caused me to pause. I cannot remember in my six decades of life anyone ever saying that exact phrase to me.
It got me thinking. Do most people think it’s a good thing to be rare? Let’s focus on the workplace. Read more.