It takes a certain kind of person to wear Disney-themed onesies to a college party. University of Mary Washington junior Mikey Barnes is that guy.

The consummate campus entertainer, Barnes is “Mr. UMW,” literally; he claimed the title at the annual competition last spring. Spinning Eagle Pride at halftime, talking sports on WMWC radio or lauding Mary Washington athletes online, he’s steeped in school spirit. With his wit and his warmth – and that Wite-Out white smile – he was born for UMW’s new major, communication and digital studies.

“I love the fact that it involves talking to people and engaging,” he said. “That’s me. That’s my life. Engaging in conversations is everything I live for.”

Growing up in Falls Church, Barnes had a one-track mind, playing basketball, baseball, football, soccer, golf, you name it. He managed his high school’s girls’ basketball team, covered sports for the newspaper and binged on ESPN’s Sports Center. It was in the pages of John Feinstein’s novel Cover Up: Mystery at the Super Bowl where he found focus.

“I watched sports, read sports, talked sports, played sports. Sports were everything to me,” said Barnes, who began writing for the online news source Patch.com and vying for work at the Falls Church-News Press. “Sports journalism was definitely my plan.”

Barnes studied journalism in college, but he was unsure at first that he’d found the right fit at Mary Washington. So he did what he’s always done best – he got social, joining group after group.

“Most kids struggle with getting involved. I had the opposite experience. I got way too involved way too early,” he said. “My GPA was in the toilet.”

As UMW worked its magic on him, though, he began to find balance, learning lessons in historic preservation, finite math … and life. “I realized what’s important and what’s not,” he said. “I learned time management.”

Head of recruitment for The Talons spirit group, assistant sports editor for The Blue & Gray Press student newspaper, and treasurer of Best Buddies and his residence hall, Barnes is still blazing through campus. He’s vice president of Club Basketball, a member of Club Baseball, and on the intramural basketball and flag football teams.

His thoughts on hot sports topics, like the proposed Redskins name change, travel the airwaves Friday nights on his WMWC radio show. He fires up fans as emcee of Eagles basketball games and he appeared in Mary Washington’s first TV commercial, filmed last summer in the Hurley Convergence Center.

“Mikey has done a great job bringing students together, especially in spirit,” said UMW Dean of Student Life Cedric Rucker. “You’re immediately taken by his sense of what Mary Washington has to offer. He really wants people to be happy here. He does all he can to facilitate connections.”

So when UMW introduced its new communication and digital studies major last fall, he grabbed it, changing his course load … and his dreams.

“My current goal is to be rich and famous,” said Barnes, who donated his “Mr. UMW” loot – earned by lip-syncing Will Smith’s The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air – to a scholarship fund in honor of the late Robert “Bob” Ericson ’14.

With a heart that’s as big as his smile, Barnes can even turn cleaning clothes – his signature bowties, preppy Vineyard Vines duds and, yes, even his Disney-themed PJs – into a cordial affair.

“I go to the laundry room and see five people I know, and I love it,” Barnes said. “I love people. I love to talk. It’s my life. It’s what I do.”

UMW junior Corey Taylor shared a bedroom growing up. Not with a sibling, but with his father’s art desk. A hunk of metal bigger than his bed, its surface gleamed with fat tubes of ink, freshly sharpened pencils and thick pads of sketch paper.

It was off-limits.

“I’d get in trouble because he’d have ink and stuff out, and I’d mess around with it and spill it,” Taylor said. “You can’t always blame the dog.”

Today, his own desk at Eagle Landing looks little like his dad’s did back then. His medium of choice – a laptop – makes no mess at all. With an artist’s brain, Taylor admits, his computer science major can be a challenge, but it’s a fair trade. As UMW boosts his tech-savvy skills, he’s casting his talents across campus. His graphics grace T-shirts for major Mary Washington events, like Homecoming and the Multicultural Fair. But before graduation, he has designs on one more.

“Every day you see people wearing Devil Goat T-shirts,” said Taylor, who’s tried twice to score the exclusively UMW tradition. “I’ve got to get my work on that shirt. It has to happen.”

Born on Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, he lived with his military family in Germany before landing in Woodbridge, Virginia. Along the way, he picked up his father’s passion for animation.

“I grew to love comic books,” said Taylor, who’s hooked on the genre, from the gritty feel of The Walking Dead to iconic Looney Tunes, like Tom and Jerry. “Who isn’t? Bugs Bunny is like the best creation in the universe.”

As a teen, his own strip, The Misadventures of Squiggy, ran in his high school newspaper. In it, a goofy green dinosaur with a pants-less persona provides social satire to the coming-of-age. But Taylor would put his artistic talent on hold.

While he searched for a college – and a practical major – a counselor suggested he visit UMW’s Multicultural Fair. The huge annual event touts diversity and talent.

“I thought, ‘If campus is anything like it is today, this is going to be a good home,’ ” Taylor said.

He joined Mary Washington’s Student Transition Program, which aims to enhance the first-year experience, and soon made an impression.

“He always showed up with enthusiasm,” said Associate Provost for Academic Engagement and Student Success Tim O’Donnell, who taught Taylor’s first UMW class, Public Speaking. “He was wide-eyed, taking it all in and loving every minute of it.”

Taylor launched himself into UMW life. A founding member of The Talons school-spirit group, he’s a RISE peer mentor, James Farmer Multicultural Center volunteer and intramural sports referee.

In class, technology meets talent. With an eye toward graphic design, keyboard buttons are his paintbrushes. Computer codes his colored pencils. PhotoShop his shellac. But that doesn’t mean Taylor can’t reach for an old-fashioned marker now and then. He went through four Sharpies and pulled an all-nighter for an assignment he morphed into a self-portrait.

The California-esque underwater scene, bubbling with monsters and zombies, is composed entirely of a single symbol – “C” – for Corey. Displayed at the Fredericksburg Visitor Center and on UMW promotional materials, the black-and-white piece predicts a promising future.

“I always want to encourage students to find the place where their talents and passions meet,” O’Donnell said. “In Corey, I can see the realization of the dream that I have for all of our students.”

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A Play in Three Acts

Cast

Jackie Filicko: senior; psychology/theatre major; brainiac from Midlothian

Gwen Levey: junior; theatre major, musical theatre/arts administration minor; dreamer from Annandale

Catherine O’Meara: junior; psychology/theatre major; tomboy from Warrenton

AT RISE:

Three over-achieving theatre majors talk “UMW.”

Act One: U-M-What?

Jackie: We were driving on 95, and I saw the exit for the University of Mary Washington. I literally looked it up from the backseat. Small classes were important to me. In high school, I developed a bond with so many of my teachers. I really wanted to carry that over into college. That’s how I learn best.

Gwen: [clasps hands] I was originally supposed to go to school at Fordham University at Lincoln Center, take classes at Julliard, but it was incredibly expensive. My grandma had lived in Fredericksburg, and I knew about Mary Washington. I got a performing arts scholarship from my high school to come to UMW, but my first tour, to be honest, I didn’t like it. The second time, I toured with (Department of Theatre and Dance Chair) Gregg Stull and that completely changed my point of view.

Catherine: I got invited to UMW to audition for governor’s school for theatre but it got cut short so I only saw the back of duPont. I finally went to a Discovery Day and completely fell in love with it, like crazy about it. I loved how it looks, the size, the whole classroom experience they talked about. I was one of those kids who didn’t apply anywhere else.

Act Two: Theatre 101

Jackie: [tucks hair behind ear] I’ve always loved theatre but in high school, I had extreme stage fright. I didn’t get into actual theatre until I came here. Sophomore year I did a practicum and was second assistant stage manager for Lysistrata, my first foray into the theatre department and seeing how a production works. Last fall I was cast in Sunday in the Park With George. It was my first acting experience ever. I loved it.

Gwen: We had a landing over my living room, and I’d put on performances and make my parents watch. I loved Christmas because we’d put on shows, Mary Poppins or The Sound of Music. I was 6 when I was first onstage in community theatre. I did Spring Awakening my first semester at UMW. I always knew I wanted to major in theatre, but what’s amazing is (Assistant Professor of Music) Mark Snyder’s composition class; I’m getting to write two to three songs a week.

Catherine: I did my first show in kindergarten, first lead in a musical when I was 12 – 45 Minutes From Broadway; I was Mary. I was an athlete, so for a long time I wasn’t focused on theatre at all. When I was diagnosed with severe asthma, they said I could never play again. That was the turning point; that summer I got into the New York Film Academy, an awesome, amazing experience. At UMW, I auditioned for Miss Firecracker and got a call back. Then I met Gwen in acting class.

Gwen:[hugs Catherine] Yay!

Catherine: We both did a summer internship on Always … Patsy Cline, and I really started getting involved. When I got a lead role in Doubt, I declared a theatre major.

Act Three: Setting the Stage

Jackie: Psychology helps you understand people. I use a personality type indicator on my characters to understand how they’d act in different situations. This summer I volunteered at Camp Bruce McCoy for survivors of traumatic brain injury. It was a paradigm shift. I’d love to act, but I really want to go to grad school and pursue occupational therapy.

Gwen: I definitely want to keep acting, but I know I’m going to do singing and songwriting. When I was 12, I went to New York to do my first demo, then ended up working with a label in Nashville and getting a development deal writing for artists. When you’re so young, you get taken advantage of. Now I’m getting paid to write for an artist based in Japan, so I’m kind of trying to keep the ball rolling.

Catherine: [glances knowingly at Jackie] Psychology helps with every aspect of life, especially theatre, especially when you’re playing those really gritty roles. In a scene in class from Angels in America, I played an agoraphobic addicted to valium. Having that psychology experience gives you a step up. I want to go into film. Film’s really my passion.

The End

Just the Beginning

UMW junior Melisa Pilipovic was 2 when she came to America as a refugee.

Her parents had fled their homeland during the Bosnian War, bringing with them only what they could carry across the sea.

“It’s unbelievable thinking about how far we’ve come,” Pilipovic said of her family’s rise from the rubble. “Going through it all, seeing things progress so much, it makes me want to give back to them even more.”

 

A first-generation college student, she’s banking on Mary Washington – and her love of accounting – to do just that.

From the start, Pilipovic was all about business. While her classmates crunched cereal before school, she crunched numbers. She’d opened a savings account by kindergarten; taught herself QuickBooks by 13. Now majoring in business administration and accounting – offered for the first time at UMW this fall – she plans to cash in on a dynamic career, pushing her family’s sparse U.S. start even further into the past.

“There’s something about accounting that just makes sense,” she said. “I could sit down and do it forever. I love to open the book.”

From the Bosnian town of Velika Kladuša, the family settled in Waynesboro, Virginia, where Pilipovic grew up learning Serbo-Croation from her parents, English from her teachers. In governor’s school, she tackled subjects like physics and molecular biology. But it was numbers – always numbers – that made her mind race.

When she enrolled, UMW offered neither finance nor accounting as majors, but she’d fallen in love with its not-too-big feel and the College of Business.

“I appreciated the program and what it could offer,” said Pilipovic, who plunged in, joining upper-level accounting courses; marketing, ambassador and mentorship programs; “everything I could possibly do.”

To get through that first year, she’d turn for support to Assistant Accounting Professor Dave Henderson ’95, who also fed her passion for travel. She’s studied abroad in Costa Rica, London and France, and in the U.K. on a trip led by Henderson.

“She’s engaged with faculty. She’s made connections,” said College of Business Dean Lynne Richardson, who appointed Pilipovic an inaugural student member of Mary Washington’s Leadership Colloquium Advisory Board. “She’s taken advantage of everything this campus has to offer.”

UMW’s liberal arts and sciences have even opened her mind to topics like French cinema and meditation.

“I’m not just this nerdy accounting person,” said Pilipovic, who worked last winter at Liberty Tax Service and helps run her parents’ trucking businesses.

An only child, she’s gained something else at Mary Washington. Her roommates, she said, are “the sisters I never had.” Most nights she makes them all dinner – spaghetti, maybe, or chicken and rice.

When she’s not in the kitchen, she might be online, re-tweeting stories from professional equality advocates like Lean In, working to boost all women in business.

“As women, we tend to judge, put up walls,” she said. “You have to put those down. Our accomplishments fall under one umbrella.”

She turns to social media, too, to share Mary Washington victories, both athletic and academic.

“I appreciate how much we’ve grown and accomplished,” said Pilipovic, who plans to stay on in the MBA program. “I want to make sure people know I go to UMW.”

Alumni Fitz Maro travels to the Cannes Festival of Creativity.