The Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, S.C., will feature two staged readings of adjunct professor Mark Scharf’s play “Fortune’s Child.” The festival runs from Friday, May 25 through Sunday, June 10 and readings of “Fortune’s Child” are scheduled for Thursday, May 31 and Friday, June 1. For more information about the festival, visit http://www.piccolospoleto.com/.
Anand Rao to Direct Workshop at Harvard
Anand Rao, associate professor of communication and director of the speaking intensive program, will direct a summer workshop on public speaking and argumentation in Boston, Mass. The workshop for high school students is sponsored by Harvard Debate Council, the officially-recognized debate program at Harvard. The workshop will be held on the Harvard campus from July 15 through 27, and students will work on presentation skills for both live and online audiences. More information about the workshop can be found on the Harvard Debate Council website: https://www.hdcworkshops.org/camps/session/9.
College of Business Faculty to Present in Ireland
Lou Martinette
Mukesh Srivastava and Lou Martinette’s co-authored paper entitled “Building a Sustainable Competitive Advantage” has been accepted for presentation at the11th World Congress of the International Federation of Scholarly Association of Management (IFSAM) 2012 to be held at the University of Limerick from June 26 to 29.
This research study focuses on the cross-industrial best practices in the context of the resource based competitive advantage model of the firm. It identifies managerial levers, tools and systems which all collectively combine to influence a firm’s ability to sustain its core competences and therefore its competitive advantage. Specifically, contemporary techniques are discussed that provide credible, accountable leadership, high performance recruitment, & employee rewards, retention of creative people, building a more engaged workforce, improved strategy definition and more balanced execution tools.
Mukesh Srivastava
Mukesh Srivastava Won Award at International Conference
Mukesh Srivastava, associate professor of accounting and management information systems, presented a blind reviewed co-authored paper on “Co-creation in Vendor-Customer Matrix Organizations: A Boundary Theory Approach” at the sixth Asian Business Research Conference held in Bangkok, Thailand from April 8 through 10. He won Best Paper Award at the international conference. He also was awarded a fellowship by the World Academy of Social Science on Tuesday, April 10.
Laurie Abeel Earns Black Belt
Laurie Abeel, associate professor in graduate education, passed her Black Belt test in Tae Kwan Do on Saturday, April 28 at the Karate Sports Academy in Warrenton. She started as a white belt in April 2004 and three knee surgeries (with one more at the end of May) and eight years later has finally earned her black belt!
Center for Economic Development Members Complete Certifications
Members of UMW’s Center for Economic Development recently completed certifications and attended a conference.
Susan Ball, Early Venture Specialist for the UMW Small Business Development Center, completed the U.S. Department of Commerce International Trade Certification. Ball also attended a Social Media Marketing conference here in Fredericksburg, Va.
Brian Baker, Executive Director for Entrepreneurship and Business Development, completed two International Economic Development Council (I.E.D.C.) certification courses: Economic Development Credit Analysis and Real Estate Development and Reuse.
Kevin Bartram’s Op-Ed in The Free Lance-Star
Kevin Bartram, director of the UMW Philharmonic, wrote an op-ed in a recent edition of The Free Lance-Star about the state of the arts in the Fredericksburg area. Bartram is chairman of the Fredericksburg Arts Commission.
Scharf’s Plays to be Performed in Potomac, Baltimore
The Potomac Theatre Company in Potomac, Md. 
will present adjunct instructor Mark Scharf’s plays “Get Stuffed, Replay,” and “Grey Hair and Zits” during its one-act festival, “Wit, Wisdom, Wickedness & Wonderment,” from June 15 to 24.
His play “Hired Gun,” which is semi-finalist for the 2012 Eugene O’Neill National Theater Conference, will be produced in July by the Theatrical Mining Company in Baltimore, Md. His play “Replay” will also appear at the Spotlighter’s Theatre in Baltimore in August as part of an evening of one-act plays entitled “The Things We Do.”
“Replay” is now available from Heurer Publishing. Scharf was recently named “Playwright-in-Residence” by the Twin Beach Players, who have commissioned Scharf to write a stage adaptation of “Frankenstein” to be produced in October 2012 for Halloween.
Previously, the Oberon Theatre Ensemble presented a staged reading of Scharf’s play “The Whispers of Saints” on March 25 at The Lambs Club in New York City.
Courtney Clayton presents at AERA Annual Conference in British Columbia
Courtney Clayton, Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, presented her research at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association on “Preparing Social Justice Teachers: Rethinking Action Research Curriculum for Transformation” as part of Division K – Teaching and Teacher Education/Section 5: Preservice Teacher Education Coursework: Practices to Improve Teacher Knowledge, Understanding, and Application of Subject Matter. She also served as discussant for a paper session titled, “Preparing Teachers to Work with English Language Learners and Immigrant Students”.
AERA is concerned with improving the educational process by encouraging scholarly inquiry related to education and evaluation and by promoting the dissemination and practical application of research results.
AERA is the most prominent international professional organization, with the primary goal of advancing educational research and its practical application. Its more than 25,000 members are educators; administrators; directors of research; persons working with testing or evaluation in federal, state and local agencies; counselors; evaluators; graduate students; and behavioral scientists.
Stephen Farnsworth’s Study Featured in National Media
Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Leadership and Media Studies Stephen Farnsworth’s study “News Coverage of New Presidents in The New York Times, 1981-2009” is referenced in several news articles, including in The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
Statistics and information from the study, co-authored by Farnsworth and George Mason University’s S. Robert Lichter, appear in the Sunday, April 22 article “A Hard Look at the President” in the New York Times and in the Monday, April 23 article “The 2012 Dogfight” in the Wall Street Journal.