Gary Richards, Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English, Linguistics, and Communication, presented “Queering Welty’s Male Bodies in the Undergraduate Classroom” on the roundtable devoted to teaching the works of Eudora Welty at the American Literature Association Conference in San Francisco, Calif., held May 24-27, 2018.
Blevins’ Dissertation Garners Honorable Mention
The dissertation of Brenta Blevins, assistant professor of English, entitled “From Corporeality to Virtual Reality: Theorizing Literacy, Bodies, and Technology in the Emerging Media of Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Realities,” received honorable mention designation for the 2017 Computers and Composition Hugh Burns Dissertation Award, as announced at the 2018 Computers and Writing Conference in Fairfax, VA. This award acknowledges and supports the growth of scholarship, research, and teaching in the field of Computers and Composition Studies.
Blevins’ dissertation examines Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality texts and their rhetorical and composing strategies, situates VR, AR, and MR into a continuum of communication practices using a range of classical and contemporary theories, and concludes with pedagogical approaches for incorporating these media into classroom assignments. Blevins completed her dissertation at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro under the direction of Stephen Yarbrough and graduated in May 2017.
Lynne Richardson’s Weekly Column Featured in FLS
Richardson: For the Person New to the Workplace (The Free Lance-Star)
Congratulations on your recent graduation from school!
Hanna and Farnsworth Column in VCC Magazine
A column on gerrymandering by Professor of Geography Stephen Hanna and Professor of Political Science Stephen Farnsworth appears in the spring issue of Virginia Capitol Connections magazine. To read the article, visit Virginia Capitol Connections.
Stommel Talks About Marylhurst Closing in Inside Higher Ed
Market Changes, Missteps and Marylhurst’s Closure (Inside Higher Ed)
Jesse Stommel, executive director of the division of teaching and learning technologies at the University of Mary Washington and a former professor and digital humanist at Marylhurst, agreed via email that “institutions like Marylhurst can’t keep up with … the marketing machine that many online programs have tapped into. The story of Marylhurst was a small one, and I wish more institutions were thinking about how to get online education to work at that scale. Instead of always scaling up, why aren’t we also focusing on how to take something small, something focused on humans working together, something like the liberal arts online?
“It’s hard for something at such a small (and lovely) scale to compete with the Courseras of the world,” Stommel added.
Gupta presents her research at an OECD-World Bank workshop
Surupa Gupta, associate professor of Political Science and International Affairs, presented her research on the political economy of agricultural subsidies in India at an OECD-World Bank workshop on “Facilitating policy change towards sustainable water use in agriculture” in Washington DC on May 29-30 2018.
Her presentation was titled “Fertilizer and Electricity for Groundwater Irrigation: Insights from India.”
Here is a link to the workshop:
Whalen, Blevins, and Skallerup Bessette Present at Computers and Writing Conference
Whalen
Blevins
Skallerup Bessette
Zach Whalen, Associate Professor of English; Brenta Blevins, Assistant Professor of English; and Lee Skallerup Bessette, Instructional Technology Specialist, recently gave presentations that constituted a panel at the 2018 Computers and Writing Conference, held at George Mason University.
The session was titled “Locating Digital Writing Space,” and the presenters talked about the origins of the Console Living Room project, using Augmented Reality with students to expand and complicate their sense of that space, and the ethos of Domain of One’s Own as digital writing space.
Michael Spencer Talks About Former Alms House in FLS
Michael Spencer, professor of historic preservation, was recently quoted in a story in The Free Lance-Star about the former Alms House on College Avenue. The building will likely be torn down after Fredericksburg City Council members decided not to vote on a proposition that could potentially help save it.
Craig Vasey Talks About Teacher Evals in Inside Higher Ed
Craig Vasey, chair of classics, philosophy and religion at the University of Mary Washington and chair of AAUP’s Committee on Teaching, Research and Publications, was recently interviewed for an Insider Higher Ed story called “Teaching Eval Shake-Up.”
According to the story:
Vasey called the “most pernicious element” of quantiative student evaluations is that the results “get translated into rankings, which then take on a life of their own and don’t really improve the quality of education.”
Read the whole article here:
Scott Harris Puts Monroe in Context in Story on Twincities.com
Scott Harris, executive director of the University of Mary Washington Museums, was recently quoted in a story that appeared on Twincities.com called “Movement would rename St. Paul school named for slave-owning president.”
Read the whole story here:
Movement would rename St. Paul school named for slave-owning president