May 16, 2026

EagleEye

A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff

Richardson Final Column in The Free Lance-Star

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UMW College of Business Dean Lynne Richardson

UMW College of Business Dean Lynne Richardson

Outgoing College of Business Dean Lynne Richardson’s final column in The Free Lance-Star is entitled, “Repotting the Plant.”

I’m not a gardener, but I understand the concept of repotting plants.

At some point, the nutrients in the dirt become depleted. Replacing the old dirt with new soil full of nutrients helps the plant grow. Of course, your plant may be outgrowing its pot, so a bigger pot might reduce the constriction on the plant’s growth.

I am the plant in the pot, and it’s time to repot me! I need new nutrients and, while not necessarily a bigger pot, a different pot. After 10 wonderfully challenging years at the University of Mary Washington, I need new challenges to address. This will be my last column. Read more.

Sanford to Participate on Panel on the History of Enslaved Housing

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Professor Emeritus of Historic Preservation Douglas Sanford

Professor Emeritus of Historic Preservation Douglas Sanford

Professor Emeritus of Historic Preservation Douglas Sanford will participate in a free, virtual panel next week titled “The History and Documentation of Slave Housing in Virginia,” hosted by Historic Richmond, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving, rehabbing and revitalizing the city. Dr. Sanford is co-founder of the Virginia Slave Housing Project.

The free event will be held on Zoom at 6 p.m. Thursday, July 22, and will cover the experiences of enslaved and free Black people in Richmond and include photos of dwellings for the enslaved that still exist within Richmond and plans for recording and interpreting the sites.

Panelists also include public historian and researcher Elvatrice Belsches and historic architect Jobie Hill, former preservation architect and project manager of Mulberry Row enslaved quarters at Monticello.

Details and registration can be found here: https://historicrichmond.com/event/the-history-and-documentation-of-slave-housing-in-virginia/

Farnsworth Lectures on Disinformation

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Stephen Farnsworth, professor of political science and director of UMW's Center for Leadership and Media Studies

Stephen Farnsworth, professor of political science and director of UMW’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies

Stephen Farnsworth, professor of political science and director of the University’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies, recently delivered an online lecture, “The Political Advantages – and Civic Dangers – of Disinformation,” to the Sorensen High School Leaders Program of the University of Virginia. The talk drew from Dr. Farnsworth’s current book project on disinformation.

Dr. Farnsworth also appeared in the following news stories:

Political opponents, yes, but Virginia’s gubernatorial candidates share a taste for pricey Zip codes (The Washington Post)

With Biden coming to campaign, Virginia’s race for governor takes on national overtones. But where’s Trump? (The Washington Post; MSN.com; Westport News)

‘It’s a Moral Issue’: Virginia Families Need Affordable Child Care and Paid Leave (Virginia Dogwood)

Farnsworth discusses Capitol Hill riot hearings (CP24.com)

Eleanor Clift on Glenn Youngkin: “A Trumpy Wannabe Tries to Spend His Way to Victory in Va.” (Blue Virginia; The Daily Beast)

Republican moderates, nearly extinct, must now seek permission to veer from Trumpist orthodoxy (The New Jersey Herald; Burlington County Times)

Thaden, Devlin Interviewed in The Free Lance-Star on LGBTQ Oral History Project

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Executive Director of Alumni Relations Mark Thaden

Executive Director of Alumni Relations Mark Thaden

Executive Director of Alumni Relations Mark Thaden ’02 and Associate Professor of History and American Studies Erin Devlin were interviewed in The Free Lance-Star about Mary Washington’s LGBTQ Alumni Oral History Project. UMW Libraries’ Special Collections and University Archives just launched the oral history collection, made up of recorded interviews and transcripts by students in Devlin’s oral history seminar in 2019.

When Mark Thaden first arrived at the University of Mary Washington in the late 1990s, the campus LGBTQ group met quietly, behind closed doors, in an upstairs room of the campus center.

“It was a social group, but it was very much about support,” said Thaden, a 2002 graduate of UMW who is now the university’s executive director of alumni relations.

Thaden said he was not out when he came to UMW from rural Maryland and a small, Catholic high school. At the club carnival early his freshman year, he was excited to see that there was an LGBTQ campus group, but he was too nervous at first to approach members.

Associate Professor of History and American Studies Erin Devlin

Associate Professor of History and American Studies Erin Devlin

Luckily, a friend signed him up to receive the group’s emails and the meetings became formative in his journey toward self-acceptance.

“That’s where I started feeling more comfortable, being with people who were comfortable with themselves,” Thaden said. “That’s where I started feeling like it was OK.”

Thaden’s memories and those of two dozen other LGBTQ alumni were recorded and transcribed in 2019 by students in Associate Professor Erin Devlin’s Oral History seminar. Read more.

Wilson Comments on Colorado Shooting in The Washington Post

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Associate Professor of Psychological Science Laura Wilson

Associate Professor of Psychological Science Laura Wilson

Associate Professor of Psychological Science Laura Wilson was interviewed by The Washington Post on her thoughts about the recent Colorado shooting for an article entitled, “Police officer killed in ‘ambush’ by man who ‘expressed hatred’ of law enforcement, officials say.” The article also ran in The Sentinel Source.

Laura C. Wilson, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia, said that years ago she might have thought about each mass shooting or shooting in a public place as having unique characteristics that affect survivors. But she now considers the trauma of multiple events. Read more.

 

Henry Helps Make Fredericksburg Historic Preservation Plan More Diverse and Inclusive

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Assistant Professor of Historic Preservation Christine Henry

Assistant Professor of Historic Preservation Christine Henry

Assistant Professor of Historic Preservation Christine Henry is a member of a Historic Preservation Working Group in the City of Fredericksburg that has put forth a resolution to City Council to amend the historic preservation chapter in the city’s 2015 Comprehensive Plan. According to an article in The Free Lance-Star, “the amendments … outline eight overarching goals that city officials hope will shape their continuing efforts to foster diversity and inclusiveness.” Other group members include Architectural Review Board members Jonathan Gerlach and Helen P. Ross, National Park Service representative John Hennessy, Fredericksburg Main Street member Sophia Constantine, Historic Fredericksburg Foundation representative David James, as well as Jon Van Zandt from the local development community and Mitzi Brown of the city’s Economic Development Authority. Read more.

Devlin’s With Good Reason Interview Re-Aired

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Associate Professor of History and American Studies Erin Devlin

Associate Professor of History and American Studies Erin Devlin

Associate Professor of History and American Studies Erin Devlin’s interview on With Good Reason re-airs this week, June 25 through July 1, as part of the episode, “Wearing Down the Appalachian Trail.”  With Good Reason airs Sundays at 2 p.m. on Fredericksburg’s Radio IQ 88.3 Digital and at various times throughout the week on stations across Virginia and the United States. Check the website for show times.

Camping, hiking, and enjoying the great outdoors are American pastimes. But for African Americans, gathering in public spaces has long been fraught. Erin Devlin discusses the racism that was built into America’s national parks. Listen here.

Farnsworth Lectures to Virginia Boys State, Fredericksburg Area League of Women Voters

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Stephen Farnsworth, professor of political science and director of the University’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies

Stephen Farnsworth, professor of political science and director of the University’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies

Stephen Farnsworth, professor of political science and director of the University’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies, recently delivered an online lecture entitled “Virginia’s Candidate Selection Process: Examining Recent Primaries and Conventions” at the 2021 American Legion Boys’ State of Virginia. The week-long government education program brings together several hundred of Virginia’s top rising high school seniors in the social sciences.

Dr. Farnsworth also recently delivered a lecture, “Voter Suppression Efforts Across the South (But not in Virginia)” at the Annual Meeting of the Fredericksburg Area League of Women Voters.

Dr. Farnsworth also contributed comments to the following news stories:

McAuliffe commits to five debates in Virginia governor’s race, Youngkin to one (The Washington Post; Westport News)

Schapiro: A Republican campaign in search of a theme (Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Roanoke Times)

Biden-Putin Summit Wraps Up in Geneva (CTV News Channel)

Analysis: Biden, Putin meet face-to-face in Geneva (CP24)

Democrats Playing Too Nice? (CTV News Channel)

Trump joins Rumble as his search for alternative social media platform continues (ABC 6; CBS12; CNY Central)

2022’s midterm elections already are pressuring Democrats, as Wall Street ‘might be praying for Republican gains’ (MarketWatch; Morningstar; Crumpe)

Petition against Louise Lucas seeks to do the unprecedented-recall a Virginia lawmaker (The Virginian-Pilot; Yahoo News)

Richardson Column in The Free Lance-Star

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UMW College of Business Dean Lynne Richardson

UMW College of Business Dean Lynne Richardson

College of Business Dean Lynne Richardson’s most recent column in The Free Lance-Star is entitled, “Learning to Make Good Decisions by Making Bad Ones First.”

MANY years ago, a reporter asked Walmart founder Sam Walton, “How did you become so successful?” Walton answered, “I’ve made a lot of good decisions.”

The follow-up question by the reporter was then, “How did you learn to make good decisions?” Walton simply replied, “By making a lot of bad decisions.”

Can you relate to this? I certainly can. Read more.

 

UMW Linguistics Alum Sylvia Sierra ’09 to Release ‘Millennials Talking Media’

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From Professor and Chair of the Department of English and Linguistics Gary Richards:

2009 UMW alumna Sylvia Sierra is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Syracuse University

2009 UMW alumna Sylvia Sierra is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Syracuse University

Congratulations to alumna Sylvia Sierra ’09! She has written the book Millennials Talking Media: Creating Intertextual Identities in Everyday Conversation, scheduled for release from Oxford University Press in September 2021.

Sierra is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Syracuse University. She completed her Ph.D. in the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University in 2016. Previously, she received a B.A. in Linguistics and Spanish from the University of Mary Washington where she graduated summa cum laude, and worked as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant at the Instituto Tecnológico de Jiquilpan in Michoacán, Mexico and then as a Prince William County Spanish teacher in Virginia. She also holds a Master of Education (M.Ed.) in Teaching English as a Second Language from UMW and an M.S. in linguistics from Georgetown.
In the new book, Sierra analyzes how millennial friends make intertextual media references (to film, TV shows, books, songs, video games, and internet memes) in their everyday talk for specific interactional functions.
Millennials Talking Media Book Cover“This book examines how a group of U.S. Millennial friends in their late twenties embed both old media (books, songs, films, TV shows) and new media (YouTube videos, video games, and internet memes) in their everyday talk for particular interactional purposes. Multiple case studies are presented featuring the recorded talk of Millennial friends to demonstrate how and why these speakers make media references in their conversations. These recorded conversations are supplemented with participant playback interviews, along with ethnographic field notes. The analysis demonstrates how the speakers phonetically signal media references in the speech stream, how they demonstrate appreciation of the references in their listening behaviors, and how they ultimately use media references for epistemic, framing, and identity construction purposes, often (but not always) when faced with epistemic, or knowledge, imbalances as well as interactional dilemmas, or awkward moments in interaction. The analysis shows how such references contribute to epistemic management and frame shifts in conversation, which is ultimately conducive to different forms of Millennial identity construction. Additionally, this book explores the stereotypes embedded in the media that these Millennials quote, and examines the effects of reproducing those stereotypes in everyday social life. This book explores how the boundaries between screens, online and offline life, language, and identity are porous for Millennials, and weaves together the most current linguistic theories regarding knowledge, framing, and identity work in everyday interaction, illuminating the interplay between these processes.”
For more on the book and Sierra, see https://www.facebook.com/millennialstalkingmedia and sylviasierra.com as well as: instagram @millennialstalkingmedia, twitter @milltalkmedia, and tiktok @millennialstalkingmedia.