A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff
Cedric Rucker University Center
Eagle Takeoff is also known as “Welcome Week” but instead of just one week, it’s the full schedule of everything going on around campus the first six weeks of the semester. From the Eagle Resource Fair on Move-in Day, to Family Weekend the first weekend in October, we want to include all events that are open to all students. Submit your event to MyUMW.
See the full Eagle Takeoff schedule and learn more about upcoming events.
Sammy D. Eagle
The University of Mary Washington Athletic Department has released its 2022 Fall schedules, with links for live stats and live video streaming.
Schedules for men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s cross country, field hockey, volleyball, men’s and women’s rugby, and men’s and women’s tennis have been posted. Each team’s schedule link is live online at www.umweagles.com, and a composite calendar available.
Go Eagles!
Students dining on campus
A message from UMW Dining Services:
University Dining is excited to welcome everyone to campus for the fall 2022 semester! Please visit the Campus Dining website for the latest updates or read the Welcome Letter for more information.
* Food options and serving hours during move-in week
* The Dining Welcome Tent hours with free lemonade, prizes, and dining information
* The time meal plans go active
* Dining gift packages, jobs, and lots more!
Professor of Theatre and Chair of Theatre and Dance Gregg Stull
Professor and Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance and Producing Director of UMW Theatre Gregg Stull is interviewed on With Good Reason radio this week, Aug. 6-12. In the episode titled “Set the Stage,” Stull shares how some industries came to a slow crawl at the dawning of the pandemic, with curtains closing quickly for theatres across the country. Now we are returning to the stage, but theatre may be changed forever. Hear more online.
Alicia Austin[/caption]
Alicia Austin ’16 had never even attended a play before coming to the University of Mary Washington. But after her first costume design course, she realized theatre was the perfect fit.
“It was so interesting to me that I changed my major,” said Austin, who planned to study psychology but found elements of that in her new field. “I discovered that costuming could be a visual language to express each character’s personality.”
Now she’s putting those sartorial skills to work. After earning a bachelor’s degree in theatre from Mary Washington, Austin completed an MFA at Yale University. Graduating just before COVID shuttered Broadway, she made a leap from stage to screen, joining design teams for remakes of HBO’s Sex and the City and Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, as well as the Hulu hit Only Murders in the Building, which just began its second season.
It’s a success story she’s been stitching together a little at a time. Read more.
Rappahannock High School rising senior Shaniyah Lanier participates in ‘Kitchen Chemistry’ during UMW’s Summer Enrichment Program, as Professor of Chemistry Kelli Slunt looks on. The residential program gives high-schoolers a glimpse of college life. Photo by Suzanne Carr Rossi.
Holding tight to a video camera aimed at his face, high school junior Simon Young became a blur of motion earlier this month, whirling on a whimsical stool in the University of Mary Washington’s Hurley Convergence Center. The experience and its result – a panoramic portrayal of Simon’s dizzying ride on the curious chair – was part of a lesson in virtual and augmented reality.
Billed as an exploration of science fact rather than science fiction, the class was one of several – from kitchen chemistry to computational physics – available to rising 10th- through 12th-graders who took part in UMW’s weeklong Summer Enrichment Program (SEP). Packed with immersive instruction and high-impact activities, the unique residential program creates a microcosm of college, giving teens a taste of how it feels to live and learn on campus.
“I wanted a snapshot of college life,” said Zack Roland, a senior at Stafford’s Mountain View High School. “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime.” Read more.
The University of Mary Washington has once again been recognized in the annual Fiske Guide to Colleges, one of the leading guides for nearly 40 years. The 2023 edition features more than 300 of the “best and most interesting” public and private four-year colleges and universities in the nation as well as Canada, Great Britain and Ireland. Details come directly from the students.
The Fiske Guide to Colleges has once again recognized UMW in its “best and most interesting” listing.
“Tradition is at the heart of UMW and is one of the many things that instills a sense of community here,” says a junior quoted in the publication.
“Students are self-motivated by the excitement of learning something new,” comments another student.
Citing Mary Washington’s reputation as one of the premier public liberal arts and sciences colleges in the country, the Fiske Guide highlights the innovative core curriculum, including the “Beyond the Classroom” component and “After UMW” initiative, focused on professional and career development. The University’s Honor Code and First-Year Seminar (FSEM) earn additional praise, and the guide notes how the “close ties between students and faculty are a great source of pride at Mary Washington.” Read more.
Biology major Tessa Lanzafame inspects a leaf for evidence of insects. She worked with Assistant Professor of Biology Josephine Antwi to learn what herbivorous insects and host plants are present on the UMW campus. (Suzanne Carr Rossi photo.)
But on a hot July morning, biology major Tessa Lanzafame spotted something interesting, a tiny green caterpillar that appeared to be gnawing. With a snip of her scissors, Lanzafame collected the leaf and the insect, then marked the location on a Google map.
It was part of Lanzafame’s summer research with Assistant Professor of Biology Josephine Antwi, one project among 19 conducted during the 2022 UMW Summer Science Institute (SSI). The annual 10-week institute, in which students and faculty collaborate on research, concludes tomorrow – Wednesday, July 20 – with a public symposium. Student researchers will share their findings via poster or oral presentation from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the Digital Auditorium of the Hurley Convergence Center.
It’s the 23rd year of the program at Mary Washington. Earlier this summer, UMW introduced the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Summer Institute (AHSSSI) inspired by the Summer Science Institute. Read more.
As temperatures soared near triple digits last Wednesday, the weather formed a compelling case for Ava Spencer’s research on how extreme heat impacts Fredericksburg’s most marginalized communities.
Participants in Mary Washington’s 2022 Summer Science Institute pose for a picture with their professors and peers. Photo credit: UMW’s Summer Science Institute.
“I wanted to look at these issues from a sociological perspective, in a way that could help people,” says Ava, a rising senior majoring in environmental science at the University of Mary Washington.
She was one of a pair of students who took home the top prizes at UMW’s Summer Science Institute (SSI), which engages undergraduates in an intense 10-week research experience with professors and peers. At a public symposium held in the Hurley Convergence Center’s Digital Auditorium, she and physics major Kevin Leong were chosen by a panel of faculty judges to each receive a scholarship award through the John C. and Jerri Barden Perkins ’61 College of Arts and Sciences Student Research Endowment. The funds will help the students continue their projects through the upcoming school year.
Second place winners were Curtis Kasiski for his research on determining the dietary diversity of bumblebees, and Orianne Mbuyi Mujinga Kazadi for her work identifying fungal strains that can destroy invasive spotted lanternflies.
“I hope this award inspires them to open their minds to possibilities in life,” says Dr. Jerri Barden Perkins, who watched the presentations via Zoom. She was amazed at the variety and relevance of topics, she says, from fighting antibiotic resistance with phage therapy to using sockets to create video games. “The liberal arts and sciences education students find at Mary Washington broadens their perspectives and prepares them for the real world.”
Dr. Perkins earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Mary Washington and a M.D. from the Medical College of Virginia. She went on to conduct her own trailblazing research into rheumatoid arthritis and approved one of the first FDA drug therapies to combat AIDS. Her endowment, one of several she established at UMW, is in honor of her late husband, Cal, who practiced internal medicine.
“The Perkins scholarship award will allow us to recognize UMW students demonstrating exemplary performance,” says College of Arts and Sciences Dean Keith Mellinger. “This elevates SSI to a professional level.” Read more.
Here are some fun facts about the internships that have been completed by UMW students, courtesy of Mary Washington’s Center for Career and Professional Development. This summer CCPD also launched a blog for sharing internship experiences through the lens of Mary Wash students. 
