Category: What’s New @ UMW

Congratulations to Dan Quann, director of maintenance services, who has been selected as the Excellent Eagle Employee for the month of February. A parking spot of his choosing has been reserved for him through the end of the month.

Here is what one of his co-workers said about him:

“I recommend Dan Quann for his above-and-beyond prosecution of several recent incidents, including:

• Repair of steam line and water line leak between Brent Hall and Marshall Hall

• Clean-up following the Mason-Randolph fire sprinkler episode

• Flooding of Eagle Landing this past weekend

While his presence was not required during any of these repairs, Dan spent much of his personal time after hours and on two weekends to ensure that the repairs were completed as quickly as possible.”

To nominate someone who you believe is an Excellent Eagle Employee, send an email to Priscilla Sullivan (psulliva@umw.edu) with Excellent Eagle Employee in the subject line.  In your email, be sure to list the person’s name, department, work location (with the most convenient parking lot), and of course, the reason why you believe they should be recognized.  Please spread the word to other employees about this wonderful opportunity to recognize a co-worker(s).

Picking up right where we left off last semester, the “Office Sustainability Tip of the Week” is back!  If you’re new to this series, the “Office Sustainability Tip of the Week” is a weekly article featuring different ideas and suggestions that hopefully people will put into practice in order to create more sustainable office environments.  And sometimes, we like to look outside of the office as well.

Did you know January is the most popular month for joining a gym?  We indulge a bit more than we wanted to during those last few weeks of December, and then come January 1st, we’re making plans to join a gym, go seven times a week, and lose 40lbs in a month.  Obviously very achievable goals.  We know that you have probably already started to see results, so maybe now is the time to think about donating all those clothes you no longer fit into/no longer wear.  It is estimated that the typical American discards approximately 68 pounds of used clothing a year, resulting in two quadrillion pounds of clothing being tossed into our landfills every year.  Therefore, in addition to donating to those in need, donating your used clothes or items to charities is one of the easiest ways to help the environment.  You can also deduct your contributions from your taxes as you would a monetary donation.  Furthermore, you can start the new year off right by clearing clutter from your house.  Before you know it Spring will be here — so get a jump on that annual Spring cleaning!  Here are just a few organizations that accept clothing donations:

• American Red Cross  (collects clothes, paired shoes, handbags, linens, stuffed animals, small toys; will come to your home to collect any clean, wearable, unwanted clothing)
• Vietnam Veterans of America (Pick Up Please can pick up your donation within 24 hours in many areas; your donation of clothes, household goods, books, shoes, small appliances, electronics, and more make a big difference in the lives of America’s Veterans and their families. The items you donate generate the majority of the funding to support the local, state, and national programs of the Vietnam Veterans of America)
• The Salvation Army  (one of the more well known charitable organizations, you can go to their website to find a nearby location or schedule a pick-up)
• Dress for Success (The mission of Dress for Success is to promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support and the career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life)
• Big Brother Big Sister Foundation (When you donate clothing and other items to the BBBS Foundation, the donations are sold in bulk at their own “Big B” thrift store and other stores. The net profits then go to BBBS mentoring organizations. During times of need, donations are given to families)

This article is not a means of officially endorsing any of the above organizations, but rather just giving the reader some suggestions of places to look into if you are considering donating clothes or other items to charity.  Of course, you can also donate locally — churches, thrift stores, homeless shelters, school clothing drives, etc.  Rappahannock Goodwill Industries contains a list of goodwill stores in the area that you can bring your items to donate.  The goal should simply be to DONATE your used clothes as opposed to throwing them out.  Help others, help yourself, and help the environment!  We know what you’re thinking (“But what if I gain weight back?  I may need those old clothes!”).  Don’t be such a pessimist!  We KNOW you’re going to keep that weight off, so it’s time to buy yourself some new threads and donate the old ones to charity!  And don’t forget — Faculty/Staff and Faculty/Staff secondary card holders (a spouse or partner) are eligible to use the UMW Fitness Center with a UMW ID Card.  Plan your work-outs around your work schedule and you’ll not only save money by avoiding high fitness center/gym fees, but you’ll also be helping out the environment by reducing the amount of car trips you make by going to another fitness center/gym.

If you have any suggestions for things we can all do differently each day to create more sustainable environments, please feel free to leave a comment or email me the idea to be featured in a future Tip of the Week.

The PCS Action Group members for the “Office Sustainability Tip of the Week” are Kevin Caffrey, Elizabeth Sanders, Robert Louzek, and Dre Anthes.

The UMW men’s basketball game on Saturday, Feb. 9 at 1 p.m. will celebrate Faculty and Staff Appreciation Day. The Eagles will host Southern Virginia University. All faculty and staff are admitted free of charge, and there will be a reception for faculty, staff and their families in the Eagle Lounge at halftime and after the game. The Eagle Lounge is located in the hallway of Goolrick, across from the main office. For more information, please contact Clint Often at 540-654-1743.

The University of Mary Washington’s Eagle Dining has been awarded The Marstel-Day and Stafford Printing Green Frontier Award, which celebrates excellence in green business practices. Eagle Dining was one of five local businesses honored at the Fredericksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce’s annual gala on Friday, Feb. 1.

Eagle Dining at UMW received the The Marstel-Day and Stafford Printing Green Frontier Award from the Fredericksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce

Eagle Dining, which is managed by Sodexo, has undertaken many sustainability initiatives, including purchasing locally sourced seafood and produce, reducing the use of paper goods and creating a “Go Green” meal plan. Every “Go Green” meal plan purchased by students donates $5 to a sustainability grant fund. UMW students can apply for the grant funds to support on-campus sustainability efforts. Eagle Dining has also been named a green restaurant as part of the Virginia Green initiative.

“Following the lead of our parent corporation, Sodexo, our team is committed to reducing our carbon footprint and providing highly sustainable and eco-friendly food services at the University of Mary Washington,” said Kori Dean, general manager of Eagle Dining. “It is extremely gratifying to have those efforts recognized by such a prestigious organization. We will continue to look for the practices that will help us to be not only one of the best campus dining operations in the Commonwealth, but also one of the most sustainable.”

Several of Eagle Dining’s philanthropic efforts have included work with Dinners for the Homeless and STOP Hunger. In November 2012 the Eagle Dining sponsored campus-wide food drive collected more than 3,000 pounds of food for the Fredericksburg Area Food Bank and Presbyterian Food Pantry. For more information about Eagle Dining by Sodexo’s community outreach, visit http://umwdining.com/community/index.html.

Local businesses Reality Realty Professionals, the Title Professional LLC, NSWC Federal Credit Union and the Rappahannock Electric Cooperative also received awards at the Fredericksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce’s gala.

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News release prepared by:  Julia Davis

A certain strand of the Computer Science 106 course (a.k.a ds106, a nickname for Digital Storytelling 106) is the subject of an article by Alan Levine in the recent issue of EDUCAUSE Review Online called “ds106: Not a Course, Not Like Any MOOC” . The article frames the experimentation that went on here at Mary Washington with the open, online versions of this course from Spring 2011 up and until the present. The vision of the open online course ds106 is described as thus:

Characteristic of ds106 is its distributed structure, mimicking the Internet itself, and its open-source non-LMS platform. Students are charged with registering their own domain, managing their own personal cyberinfrastructure, and publishing to their own website. Via the WordPress plugin FeedWordPress, all content from students is automatically aggregated to the main ds106 site—but all links go back directly to the students’ sites.

What’s more, the course challenges conventions surrounding digital storytelling, online identity, and the state of online visual and vernacular culture more generally:

Most classes in digital storytelling revolve around the personal video narrative form as popularized by the Center for Digital Storytelling. But ds106 storytelling explores the web as a culture, as a media source, and as a place to publish in the open. Not claiming to authoritatively define digital storytelling, ds106 is a constant process of questioning digital storytelling. Is an animated GIF a story? What does it mean to put “fast food” in the hands of Internet pioneers? Why would we mess with the MacGuffin? Is everything a remix? Though this is perhaps simply semantic wordplay, ds106 is not just “on” the web—it is “of” the web.

And while the class has moved beyond UMW and taken on a life of its own at other universities and colleges, as well as within a vibrant open, online community, the spirit was in many ways born of the experimentation and innovation happening at UMW”s Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies over the last eight years:

No one claims ownership of ds106. Its success can be traced to innovation supported by the University of Mary Washington and carried out by the UMW Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies (DTLT) and to the vision of former UMW leaders Gardner Campbell and Chip German and DTLT team members: Jim Groom, who crafted much of the spirit and drive of ds106; Martha Burtis, who built many of the key web pieces (and has taught the class); and Tim Owens, who shaped the design and functionality of the sites. But the contributions extend further. UMW student Aaron Clemmer built a twitter bot that updates the current content on ds106 radio, itself a contribution of open participant Grant Potter (University of Northern British Columbia).

Thanks to the work of all of UMW’s faculty, staff and students UMW has become a model for re-imagining instructional technologies as well as teaching and learning in the digital age, and this tradition of experimentation continues on as a faculty development and student enrichment effort through the Domain of One’s Own initiative.