Marie E. McAllister, professor of English and 2016-18 Waple Professor, presented a paper titled “Performance and Improvisation: Speaking Assignments in the 18th-Century Classroom” at the annual conference of the East-Central American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.
Farnsworth Lectures on Presidential Communication
Stephen Farnsworth, professor of political science and director of the University’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies, delivered an invited lecture at American University in Washington entitled “The Twitter-based Media Management Strategies of Donald Trump.” The talk was drawn from his new book, Presidential Communication and Character: White House News Management from Clinton and Cable to Twitter and Trump, which was published by Routledge earlier this year.
Buster-Williams Presents at National Conference
Kimberley Buster-Williams, vice president for enrollment management, presented at American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officer’s (AACRAO) SEM Conference in Washington, D.C. on Monday, November 12, 2018. Buster-Williams presented with colleagues Alicia Moore (Central Oregon Community College), Tara Sprehe (Clackamass Community College), and Jody Gordon (University of the Fraser Valley). The 90 minute session was titled, “SEM and Retention: A Perfect Pair.” The session was interactive and fast-paced. Presenters discussed a wide range of potential retention strategies and focused on these three aspects; access, progression, and completion. The session was geared towards those interested in more intentionally engaging in effective SEM- based retention work.
AACRAO’s Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM) Conference is an annual conference and provides conference participants with practical solutions, promising practices, training, research, and guidelines for enrollment management practitioners looking to maximize student success, improve operational efficiency, and enhance the financial well-being of their institution.
The SEM Conference brings together a comprehensive lineup of experts, researchers, and practitioners—who showcase both the core concepts that are the foundation of SEM, as well as new and best practices. Approximately 1,000 people attended this year’s conference.
Lorentzen Gives Talk at Victorians Institute Conference on Literary Tourism
Eric Lorentzen, associate professor of English, recently presented the paper, “Literary Tourism: Consuming Dickens, Sherlock, and the Sites/Sights of British Culture,” at the Victorians Institute conference in Asheville, NC. The conference theme was “Consuming the Victorians,” and the particular panel involved postmodern consumption of literature through literary and cultural tourism. Professor Lorentzen argued for the efficacy and exigency of approaching museums as texts to be read through cultural studies methodologies, and for museums to embrace the critical and pedagogical tactic of “presentism” in their curation. He discussed different aspects of the Agatha Christie Estate at Greenway, the Jane Austen Centre in Bath, and the Charles Dickens Museum in London.
Elizabeth Larus Offers Comments to China TV on IP Theft
Elizabeth Freund Larus, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, was interviewed on China Global Television Network’s program, China 24, on the US indictment of Chinese and Taiwan firms for stealing trade secrets. Dr. Larus offered insight on the politics of the indictment and on US trade tensions with China. CGTN is a Chinese international news channel with more than 85 million viewers in more than 100 countries and regions. To view her interview, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=zM87nVxMpBs.
Al-Tikriti Presents UMW to Three American Centers in Azerbaijan
Prof. Al-Tikriti at Baku American Center
In October 2018, Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies Nabil Al-Tikriti discussed the University of Mary Washington as a potential undergraduate destination to audiences at three American Centers in Azerbaijan.
Invited to discuss any topic he chose, Prof. Al-Tikriti decided to present his experiences at UMW for a local audience. Provided with the university’s undergraduate admissions powerpoint presentation, Al-Tikriti discussed UMW’s liberal arts curriculum, science facilities, and humanities philosophy — particularly in comparison with the Azerbaijani institutions he has recently come into contact with.
The first talk was on October 5 in Baku, before an audience of 25-30 youth. The second and third talks were on October 24, in Kurdemir (with 15-20 middle school children in attendance) and in Ganca (with 35-40 high school and college age youth in attendance).
These presentations came as part of Prof. Al-Tikriti’s year abroad in Baku, Azerbaijan, where he is currently leading a workshop on history pedagogy at Baku State University while starting to research early modern Caucasus history.
Foss Presents Paper at Gothic Conference
Professor of English Chris Foss recently presented a paper at the “Hideous Progeny”: The Gothic in the Nineteenth Century conference hosted by the Loyola University-Chicago Victorian Society on October 27, 2018. The talk, entitled “Gothic Mutations of Pity in Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Star-Child,’” aimed at a critical reconsideration of pity through a reading of Wilde’s fairy tale, explores the ways it replicates stereotypically pejorative assumptions about disability but also contains empowering possibilities as well. Through the gothic mutation of its disability-aligned titular protagonist (initially the embodiment of physical perfection, but eventually transformed into a scaly toadfaced freak), this text requires one to grapple with the extent to which its employment of pity reinforces a hierarchical division between the fortunate and the unfortunate and/or encourages a more progressive conception founded upon love, reciprocity, and action. The paper is part of the larger book manuscript project (The Importance of Being Different: Intersectional Disability and Emotional Response in Oscar Wilde’s Fairy Tales) that is the focus of Foss’s 2018-20 Waple Professorship award.
Bonds Publishes Article on Violence in Iraq and Syria
Eric Bonds, associate professor of sociology, published an article entitled “Humanitized Violence: Targeted Killings and Civilian Deaths in the U.S. War Against the Islamic State.” The article draws upon a qualitative content analysis of human rights reports, newspaper accounts, and U.S. military statements to describe the ascendancy of “humanitized violence” as a form of brutality that utilizes precision weaponry, and that which is frequently critiqued on technical grounds of whether or not its use conforms to international humanitarian law, but not on questions of morality or ultimate efficacy. The article is in Current Sociology, a publication of the International Sociological Association.
Rao Attends Meeting of Nationwide Faculty Governance Leaders
On Oct. 27, Anand Rao, professor of communication, vice chair of the Mary Washington’s University Faculty Council and president of the Faculty Senate of Virginia, attended a meeting of faculty governance leaders from across the country.
Rao participated in creating a National Council of Faculty Senates at the Austin, Texas event.
The National Council of Faculty Senates will help ensure various faculty senates nationwide play a coordinated, decisive role in university faculty members’ shared governance with their university administrations.
The Texas Council of Faculty Senates organized the daylong organizational meeting that attracted the faculty members to Austin, where they discussed plans to develop mission and vision statements, a constitution, and bylaws. Faculty senates advise university administrations and boards of trustees or regents on all matters of policy and decision-making that affect the faculty.
“Most associations in the United States have not only a statewide or a regional presence but also a national one,” said Trevor Hale, a professor of operations management at Texas A&M University and a convener of the meeting. “Therefore, we asked ourselves why not move beyond the state level to a national one.”
In welcoming the faculty members to Austin, Jim Woosley, president of the Texas Council of Faculty Senates and a professor of health and kinesiology at Texas A&M University, said that it was imperative that the voice of faculty members nationwide be well coordinated and presented in a meaningful and an effective way to university administrators and to broader audiences.
Attendees identified areas for immediate action. They included developing a database to support one another and to weigh in on evolving issues, creating a communication system with boards of regents or trustees, and identifying a medium for disseminating widely best practices in shared governance and in academic freedom.
Lynne Richardson Speaks at International Deans Conference
Lynne Richardson and Amy Hillman, dean of the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, provided insights from their “Associate Dean’s Journeys” on November 5 at the AACSB International Associate Deans Conference in Phoenix. There were 250 attendees from 19 countries.