April 20, 2026

EagleEye

A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff

Schultz, Marvashti Present at State Conference

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Maria Schultz and Lisa Marvashti

Maria Schultz and Lisa Marvashti

The Office of University Relations’ Assistant Director of Design Services Maria Schultz and Assistant Director of Media and Public Relations Lisa Chinn Marvashti presented at the College Communicators Association’s annual conference in Richmond on Friday, Feb. 2. Their presentation – Take Stock … and Ditch It, How to Achieve Authenticity in Campus Photos – covered the process of creating a complete branded marketing campaign that featured real UMW students in polished, yet genuine, photography accompanied by text that told each individual’s Mary Washington story.

Harris Co-Edits Special Issue of Journal of Urban History

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Associate Professor Steven E. Harris (HISA) recently co-edited with Daria Bocharnikova (University of Leuven / Center for the Fine Arts BOZAR) a special issue of the Journal of Urban History, volume 44, no. 1 (2018).

The special issue, “Second World Urbanity: New Histories of the Socialist City,” features five research articles by scholars who participated in one of three conferences co-organized by Harris and Bocharnikova as the conveners of the Second World Urbanity project (http://www.secondworldurbanity.org).

Launched in 2012, this interdisciplinary project explores the architecture, urban planning and everyday life experiences of socialist cities past and present. The special issue of the Journal of Urban History is the first publication to come out of the Second World Urbanity project.

Bocharnikova and Harris’s introductory essay, “Second World Urbanity: Infrastructures of Utopia and Really Existing Socialism,” is also included in the special issue.

Roberts Elected Chair of Southern States Co-Op

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Curry Roberts, president of the Fredericksburg Regional Alliance at the University of Mary Washington, has been elected chairman of the board of directors for Southern States Cooperative, one of the nation’s largest farmer-owned co-ops.

You can read more about it here:

http://www.fredericksburg.com/business/business_insider/curry-roberts-elected-chairman-of-southern-states-cooperative/article_823c7567-b962-500f-b3ec-3c7be63650f3.html

 

Dan Dervin Publishes ‘Digital Child’

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Daniel Dervin, professor emeritus of English, recently published his latest book, “The Digital Child,” an examination of childhood development in an advancing technological era.

Dervin’s book illustrates his concern of how contemporary childhood has moved away from the focus of inwardness, a psychological concept for the awareness of one’s self as resulting from the world, and how those reflections are internalized. Dervin believes inwardness permits the processing of an individuals’ thoughts, experiences and emotions.

In his text, Dervin traces the evolution of how childhood is perceived in the West and how inwardness has been defined throughout history. Six transformational stages of childhood are identified in his study: tribal, pedagogical, religious, humanist, rational, citizen and the newest stage, the digital child. By the referencing of myths, literary texts, cultural histories, media reports, the visual arts as well as traditions of parenting, pediatrics and pedagogy, Dervin examines each stage preceding the digital child stage.

With biological, cultural and psychological approaches to his investigation, Dervin studies the past stages of humanity in order to unveil the past—and future—of humanity.

Hanna’s Slavery Research Featured in FLS

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An article recently published in The Free Lance-Star featured the research of geography professor Steve Hanna.

In 2013, Hanna and his students mapped all of the city’s historical markers and monuments in Fredericksburg. They wanted to find out what these told — or omitted — about the history of slavery here. They updated the map this year.

 

Hanna concluded that the markers tell  part of the story, but not enough.

You can read the article here:

http://www.fredericksburg.com/news/local/fredericksburg/what-do-fredericksburg-s-monuments-and-markers-tell–/article_68b9c3a1-5d34-5032-81f7-b50a4677dd19.html

Richardson’s Weekly Column Featured in FLS

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Lynne Richardson’s latest column, Understanding Your Benefits, recently appeared in The Free Lance-Star.

She explains: “I was asked by one of my students—a recent immigrant from another country—to help her understand the benefits package offered by a company.”

You can read her column here:

http://www.fredericksburg.com/business/columns/richardson-understanding-your-benefits/article_c347678c-c2f3-5f61-98b3-b75c3f1fa64e.html

Bessette Publishes Review of Comics Collection

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Lee Skallerup Bessette, Instructional Technology Specialist in DTLT and adjunct instructor in the Department of English, Linguistics, and Communication, recently had her review of Graphic Novels for Children and Young Adults published in The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship.

Read it here:

https://www.comicsgrid.com/articles/10.16995/cg.124/.

Gupta delivers talk at the University of Pittsburgh

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Surupa Gupta, associate professor of Political Science and International Affairs, delivered a lecture titled “Food Fights at the WTO: Political Economy of India’s Focus on Food Security in International Trade Negotiations” on Friday, Jan. 26, 2018, as part of a speaker series at the Asian Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.

Smith and Burtis Publish on Tools for Preservation

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In January, Andréa Livi Smith and Martha Burtis had their article, “A Practical Cultural Resource Survey Tool for Preservation,” published in a special issue of the Association for Preservation Technology Bulletin. The piece shares a project Smith and Burtis have collaborated on since fall 2013 when they decided to develop an online tool to facilitate student collection of data during culture-resource surveys around Fredericksburg.

Prior to the project, data was collected in paper form, transcribed by students to numerous Excel spreadsheets, and then merged together by Smith. The process involved numerous opportunities for introducing errors and was laborious and time-consuming.

Using WordPress as a platform for building a database application, the two developed a new approach resulting in the Historic Environment Resource Assessment tool found at survey.andrealivismith.com. While conducting surveys in the field, students can login to the site on their mobile devices, and add their own data, including uploading photos of the sites they’re surveying. Later, they can return to entries to edit and refine their own or to comment upon their classmates’. At the end of the semester, Smith can easily export all the data in a standard CSV file, which can be imported into SPSS for further analysis by the class.

In addition to making it easier and smoother for students to collect data, the tool also makes is straightforward for Smith to update and tailor the collection form each fall semester, as students tackle new neighborhoods.

On the whole, the project is a fine example of what can be accomplished when faculty and instructional technologists collaborate to create new kinds of online experiences for UMW students using free and low-cost technology.

Barry Presents on Gender Violence

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Jennifer Barry, assistant professor of religion, presented a portion of her recent work at the Women’s and Gender Studies Brown Bag lunch on Wednesday, Jan. 24.

The talk was the result of her Faculty Research Grant awarded for the 2017-2018 academic year. Barry’s next major book project is on male fantasies of gender violence in late antiquity.

A description of the talk, called “Dismissing Sexual Violence: Augustine and the Sack of Rome,” follows:

Sexual violence during times of war is infinitely complex, particularly when religion informs the historical narrative. A famous example of invasion and destruction that lives on in Christian memory is the sack of Rome in 410 C.E. And yet, the details regarding sexual violence are often skipped over. The noted exception is preserved in Augustine’s most famous work the City of God. In this story, we discover hidden among the remains of Rome’s fallen heroes the bodies of sexually violated women. They are buried deep within the polemical layers of Book I. While these women, and their experiences, are the focal point of Augustine’s narrative, we may nonetheless find it surprisingly difficult to hang onto or even trust their horrific accounts. This talk explores the pressing question: Why does Augustine make it so easy to forget the victims of sexual violence?