Category: Professional Notes

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.

Charles J. Shields, associate director of the Chappell Great Lives Lecture Series, is featured in the April 2012 issue of Virginia Living Magazine. The article is a review of Shields’ biography of Kurt Vonnegut.

The biography also is included in a London Times Literary Supplement review of recent works about Vonnegut.

Cate Brewer, visiting assistant professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance, presented her paper “Process vs. Performance: The Work of Creating Theatre in a Results Driven Realm” at The Mid-America Theatre Conference in early March.

Steve Farnsworth, professor of political science and director of the university’s Center for Media and Leadership Studies, published an op-ed in The Washington Post on Friday, March 2. The piece, “Virginia Belongs at the Top of the Presidential-Election Calendar,” argues that Virginia should be more integral to the presidential nomination process, since the Commonwealth more closely resembles a microcosm of the U.S.

On Monday, March 5, Farnsworth was quoted in the Associated Press article “Limbaugh Controversy Casts a Fresh Light on Conservative Media Stars’ Impact on GOP Politics.”

In the article “Romney’s Virginia Faceoff with Paul not Overwhelming” in the Tuesday, March 6 edition of The Washington Times, Farnsworth discusses Virginia’s “Super Tuesday” race.

Dr. Stephen Hanna, professor and chair of the Geography Department at the University of Mary Washington published “Cartographic Memories of Slavery and Freedom” in Cartographica, a leading journal in the fields of cartography and geovisualization.  This piece examines a map drawn by John Washington, a Fredericksburg slave who escaped bondage in April 1862 as the Union Army approached the town.  As a part of Washington’s memoir, Memorys of the Past (written in 1873 but not published until 2007), this map represents the Fredericksburg Washington experienced as a slave and remembered as a free man.