Thinking beyond the initial outcome (The Free Lance-Star)
I may not have many abilities in life, but one I do have is thinking about what happens after a decision is made and implemented.
Poska Wins Research Grants For Book Project
Professor of History Allyson M. Poska has been awarded three research grants for her new book project Contested Equality: Smallpox Vaccination in the Spanish Empire (1803-1810).
The grants include: a Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society and a Council of American Overseas Research Centers’ National Endowment for the Humanities Senior Research Fellowship. Poska was also named an inaugural recipient of Project Development Grant from the American Council of Learned Societies. She will be conducting research in Spain and Mexico during her upcoming sabbatical.
Nabil Al-Tikriti Lectures at Virginia Tech – SPIA
On 19 April, Associate Professor of History Nabil Al-Tikriti spoke at Virginia Tech’s School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), in Alexandria, VA. The topic presented was the global humanitarian system and its impact in the Middle East and other zones of crisis. Attendees included both Virginia Tech SPIA graduate students and undergraduate students associated with both Prof. Ariel Ahram‘s class on Global Security (GIA 5514), and the Washington Semester program.
Prof. Al-Tikriti has worked since 1988 in field development and humanitarian relief programs for Africare, Plan International, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) / Doctors Without Borders in over a dozen countries in Africa and the Middle East. He also served on the MSF / Doctors Without Borders USA Board of Directors in 2011-17, and as Vice President in 2016-17.
Rafferty Publishes Latest Essay in Presidential Series
Colin Rafferty, Associate Professor of English, had his essay on Chester A. Arthur, “Smear Campaign (#21),” to appear last week in the new issue of storySouth. This is the latest in his series of essays devoted to the U.S. presidency and the men who have held that office.
Robert Rycroft Featured in FLS
UMW professor wins Independent Publisher Book Award (The Free Lance-Star)
UMW Economics Professor Robert S. Rycroft recently won a 2018 Independent Publisher Book Award for “The American Middle Class: An Economic Encyclopedia of Progress and Poverty.”
Steve Greenlaw Featured in Inside Higher Ed
Online Students Don’t Have to Work Solo (Inside Higher Ed)
Steve Greenlaw, a professor of economics at the University of Mary Washington, likes to avoid grouping freshmen together because he wants new students to benefit from the wisdom of their older peers.
David Rettinger Quoted in The Washington Post
Student’s death leads to investigation of possible cheating at George Mason (The Washington Post)
“It is very typical, at least in the lore, for social organizations to maintain these test banks,” said David Rettinger, president of the International Center for Academic Integrity and associate professor of psychological science at the University of Mary Washington. “Obviously it’s against the rules and undermines the learning that faculty hope will occur.”
Lynne Richardson’s Weekly Column Appears in FLS
In her weekly column in The Free Lance-Star, Lynne Richardson writes about what to do when an employee tells you something isn’t his or her job.
Read the whole column here:
Dasgupta Delivers Two Conference Papers
Shumona Dasgupta, Associate Professor of English, recently presented two conference papers, “A Counter Discourse to Bollywood: Gender, Nation and Violence in Bengali Partition Cinema” at the Association of Asian Studies Conference in Washington, DC March 22-25 and “An(other) Story: Memory, Trauma and Identity in Muslim Narratives of the Partition” at the American Comparative Literature Association’s annual conference hosted by UCLA in Los Angeles March 29-April 1.
Barry Co-Organizes First Millennium Network Event
Assistant Professor of Religion Jennifer Barry helped co-organize a series of events in the Washington D.C. area throughout the academic year for the First Millennium Network (firstmillenniumnetwork.org). The FMN is a cross-institutional collaborative network that hosts academic events around Northern Virginia and Washington D.C. Barry’s involvement in the Network has been a direct response to UMW’s President Troy Paino’s call to put Mary Washington on the map. The Network places special emphasis on the diversity of, and interconnections among, the religious communities within first millennium societies—Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Manicheanism, Zoroastrianism, etc.—in their multitude of forms.
On Friday, April 13, 2018, Barry, along with her fellow steering committee members, organized a day-long colloquium on “The Materiality of Relics in the First Millennium” at the University of Maryland, College Park. Four experts on relics and materiality broadly conceived were invited to share their research. Their disciplines ranged from archaeology, Carolingian textiles, Byzantine liturgical studies, and early Islamic textual practices. Each speaker was charged with the task to talk across their disciplinary boundaries, which helped to generate new and creative conversations. The day concluded with a session of reflection lead by Jennifer Barry and Samuel Collins to promote interdisciplinary connections and address thematic threads throughout the day.