They could have been soaking up rays on sunny beaches. Instead, nearly four dozen University of Mary Washington students on spring break headed south to help build homes and schools in places like the Carolinas and Honduras.

U.S. Rep. Bob Filner (D-Calif.) will deliver the address at the University of Mary Washington’s 2011 graduate commencement ceremony to be held Friday, May 6 at 7:30 p.m. in George Washington Hall, Dodd Auditorium. The university’s undergraduate commencement will be held Saturday, May 7, with U.S. Rep. John Lewis as guest speaker.

The University of Mary Washington will host a panel of Freedom Riders for a Great Lives Lecture Series discussion on Thursday, March 31 as part of three days of events honoring the 1961 Freedom Rides that challenged segregated interstate bus travel in the Deep South.

Steve Griffin, professor emeritus of art at the University of Mary Washington, has been awarded a prestigious Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) professional fellowship.

University of Mary Washington student Benjamin Richard Saunders of Blacksburg, Va., was recognized with the Julia Burke Award for Character and Excellence in American Debate Association Policy Debate at the association’s national championship tournament in March.

Karl Rove, the Republican political strategist best known as President George W. Bush’s top advisor, will be the featured speaker at the Fredericksburg Forum to be hosted by the University of Mary Washington on Wednesday, September 28. The program will be held at 8 p.m. in George Washington Hall, Dodd Auditorium.

Claudia Emerson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and English professor at the University of Mary Washington, will be inducted into the prestigious Fellowship of Southern Writers during its biennial meeting to be held during the Conference on Southern Literature in April.

Mindy Erchull, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Mary Washington, has received the 2011 Psi Chi Southeastern Regional Faculty Advisor Award for her active involvement as the university’s Psi Chi chapter advisor.

As a University of Mary Washington student, Thien Phan is pursuing a scientific breakthrough that could one day save thousands of lives. A senior biology major, Phan is conducting research in conjunction with the biology department’s phage hunters course, which is offered at certain colleges as part of the National Genomics Research Initiative. In 2008, the university became one of the first schools in the nation to be selected to participate in nationwide initiative, which is funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science Education Alliance.

In the small village of La Nunez, Honduras, children used to go to school in a building where the thin wooden walls didn’t quite meet the roof.

So when it rained, the room would get soaked and classes would be canceled. The young Central American children couldn’t get a steady education–a crucial part of breaking the cycle of poverty that they are caught in.

But now the students are getting a new school, built by by a group of American college students. When members of Students Helping Honduras, which was founded at the University of Mary Washington, arrived in La Nunez near the city of El Progreso last December ready to start work on the new school, they were warmly welcomed by the children.