Category: Professional Notes

Ben LaBreche, assistant professor in English, has been selected to receive the prestigious James Holly Hanford Award from the Milton Society of America.

The award recognizes a distinguished published article on John Milton, the 17th century poet and author of Paradise Lost, and will be shared this year by two recipients. LaBreche won the prize for his essay, “Espousing Liberty: The Gender of Liberalism and the Politics of Miltonic Divorce.” The essay, selected from among the more than 100 Miltonic articles published each year, appeared in English Literary History, a quarterly journal of The Johns Hopkins University for scholars and educators in English and American literature, literary history and theory. The Milton Society will present the award to LaBreche at the annual dinner meeting of the society at the Modern Language Association convention in Seattle in January 2012.

Read the full news release.

Cathy Finn-Derecki, Curtiss Grymala, and Jim Groom — UMW’s web team and UMW Blogs architect  — gave a presentation on the philosophical and strategic drivers behind the new UMW Web site on October 15, 2011 at the 3rd annual edUi Conference in Richmond. The presentation, entitled “University Web Site to University Web Life” talked about how the new system paves the way for a growing integration between the external image of the University and its real-time academic activities online. Also presented were the specific WordPress tools developed exclusively at UMW for scaling WordPress for multiple networks. The ideas were well-received and sparked lively discussion regarding free speech, censorship, and the changing nature of higher education online branding in the open environment of today’s web.

Charles J. Shields, associate director of the Great Lives Lecture Series, has an article in the October issue of Writer’s Digest magazine. The article, “Wish You Were Here,” satirizes the supposed glamour of a published author’s life. The issue is available at http://www.writersdigestshop.com/product/writers-digest-october-2011-pdf-issue/.

Shields will appear at the National Press Club’s 34th Annual Book Fair and Authors’ Night on Tuesday, November 15 in connection with his new biography, “And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut, A Life.” He also will appear at the Miami International Book Fair and at Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C. in November.

Cate Brewer, visiting instructor of theatre and dance, recently filmed an episode of “Twisted Fate,” formerly known as “The Day That Changed My Life,” to air on Lifetime Networks this fall.  People who have encountered dramatic incidents, from accidents to miracles, are at the focus of the six-part, one-hour series.

UMW mathematics major Kathryn Dillinger won second place for her poster presentation at the Shenandoah Undergraduate Mathematics and Statistics (SUMS) conference held at James Madison University on Saturday, October 29.  Her poster, titled Profiting with Options Using the Black-Scholes Equation, details her work completed during the Summer Science Institute of 2011 under the guidance of Dr. Leo Lee.