Stephen J. Farnsworth, professor of political science and director of the university’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies, is co-author of a refereed research article entitled, “News Coverage of New Presidents in the New York Times, 1981-2009,” published in the February 2012 issue of Politics & Policy.
On March 14, UMW’s Web team, Cathy Finn-Derecki and Curtiss Grymala, were invited to lead a discussion group on University Web Redesign Projects at the annual ACCS Conference (Association of College Computing Services). Representatives in attendance included web developers and designers from public colleges and universities throughout Virginia.
It was clear that the UMW web project was among the most ambitious attempted in recent history in the Commonwealth. The team discussed the strategic planning process, design and marketing, and, of course, WordPress. UMW continues to make a strong impression among colleague institutions with our innovative thinking regarding this ambitious redesign and migration. Work at UMW, and our contributions to the WordPress developer community, are helping to further WordPress’s viability as an enterprise content management system.
In January the DTLT group presented at the Educause Midatlantic Regional Conference in Baltimore, Maryland. The panel discussion covered the Digital Storytelling class being taught here at UMW, affectionately know as ds106. Martha Burtis provided an overview of the course, Tim Owens the technical framework, I featured the radio, and Andy Rush closed with our experiments with live, streaming video. It’s not only a great overview of ds106, but it is also a great overview of the chemistry that drives the creative, innovative machine that is DTLT.
[vimeo 35077511 w=640 h=360]
Jim Groom, Director of Teaching and Learning Technologies, published a co-authored piece with Matt Gold in the recently publishing anthology Debates in the Digital Humanities titled “Looking for Whitman: A Grand Aggregated Experiment.” According to the University of Minnesota Press this volume
….brings together leading figures in the field to explore its theories, methods, and practices and to clarify its multiple possibilities and tensions. Together, the essays—which will be published later as an ongoing, open-access website—suggest that the digital humanities is uniquely positioned to contribute to the revival of the humanities and academic life.
On March 1, Beth Perkins retired from her position as Head of Circulation at UMW Libraries. During her 28 years at UMW she not only supervised both students and full-time employees, but planned for and helped administer library programs and services. In the late 1980s she assisted with the transition from a card catalog to an online catalog and was often referred to as “Beta-Test Beth” for her ability to spot problems with a complex automated system. For years she was an active member of the Virginia Library Association’s Paraprofessional Forum, and in 1996 she received the organization’s inaugural Paraprofessional of the Year award. Four years later she received Library Journal’s first Paraprofessional of the Year award, the criteria of which included “contribution(s) enabling the library to best serve its constituents and/or its community.” In nominating Beth for this prestigious, national honor, Systems Librarian Bob Grattan wrote that “her leadership on the job is always strong, and she brings experience and excellent skills to her staff. Her professionalism is underlined by her extensive training and her experience working with her peers in several organizations.” Beth likes to travel and is fanatical about her music, so now that she’s retired, she intends to travel where the music is and attend concerts and festivals around the country.
