Category: What’s New @ UMW

From the Office of Human Resources.  If further assistance is needed, please contact Denise M. Holmes, Benefits Administrator dholme2@umw.edu

Special Enrollment for Medical Flexible Reimbursement Accounts ends on Friday,  June 22.

As stated below, you may now contribute up to $5,000 to the Medical Flexible Reimbursement Account (MRA) for the plan year of July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013.  To enroll, increase or decrease your MRA contribution, please complete the special enrollment form and forward the form Office Of Human Resources on or before close of business Friday, June 22, 2012.  EmployeeDirect will not be available for this special enrollment.

If you take no action your 2012-2013 MRA will remain as you elected during our annual open enrollment.

Virginia’s Executive Mansion in Richmond has a new addition – an almost 200-year-old painting on loan from the James Monroe Museum and Memorial Library. A portrait of James Monroe will reside in the State Dining Room of the Executive Mansion for two years to commemorate the bicentennial of the building’s construction in 2013. On Thursday, June 21, Gov. Bob McDonnell and First Lady Maureen McDonnell will formally unveil the Rembrandt Peale portrait in a private reception.

Members of the James Monroe Museum staff, including Director Scott Harris and Curator Jarod Kearney, were on-hand to help install the portrait in February.

“The process of transporting and installing the painting was carried out flawlessly by personnel from our art handlers, Ely, Inc., and staff at the Executive Mansion,” Harris said. “Peale’s portrait of Monroe is at a near life-size scale, and with its frame is quite heavy. Once it was in place, First Lady Maureen McDonnell texted the Governor, who was at the State Capitol, telling him ‘James is here!’”

The portrait, painted by Rembrandt Peale from 1817 to 1825, is thought to be based on an earlier bust-length portrait of Monroe painted by Peale from life. The James Monroe Museum has housed the portrait since 1985.

“What makes exhibiting James Monroe’s portrait in the Virginia Executive Mansion so special is that, while he signed the legislation to build the home during his last term as governor, he never got to live in it,” Harris said. “It is therefore fitting that he has returned to take up residence in the house he helped build during its bicentennial commemoration.”

At the Sorensen Institute of Political Leadership’s College Leaders Program, party lines are set aside. Participants are not allowed to disclose their political affiliations to each other.

“It bonds everybody together,” Brendan Oudekerk said. “It is really refreshing to get along with everybody…and know we are working toward common goals. Each person brings different qualities to the table.”

Oudekerk, a 2012 graduate of the University of Mary Washington, and UMW seniors Meghan Hobbs and Sean Simons are among 18 college students or recent graduates who were selected for the four-week-long summer program held at the University of Virginia.

The College Leaders Program, now in its eighth year, brings together youth leaders from across Virginia with a focus on ethics, bipartisanship, public policy and civic engagement. The Sorensen Institute was founded as the Virginia Institute of Political Leadership in 1993 in hopes it would identify and bring together Virginia’s emerging political leaders. More than 1,200 Virginian students have graduated from the Institute.

For Oudekerk, who is working toward a career in economic development, the program is a chance to network and learn more about Virginia politics.

“As a graduate, I’m using it to be more well-rounded,” he said. “It helps to come together with people from different backgrounds.”

The 18 program participants are divided into three groups – economics, higher education or transportation – to develop policy proposals. The groups will present their findings at the end of the program, in hopes a Virginia legislator will want to adopt the proposal.

One of last year’s groups actually got a bill passed, Hobbs explained.

“That’s everyone’s aspiration,” she said.

Hobbs, an international affairs and political science major, plans to attend law school after graduation, but also is interested in politics.

“I have been wanting to get a look into state politics,” she said, “so this program is really helping me with that.”

On Tuesday, June 12, the students met with Sen. Mark Warner and Sen. Jim Webb at the U.S. Capitol Building.

Simons, chair of UMW’s Legislative Action Committee and an intern in President Richard V. Hurley’s office, got to introduce the senators to the group: “It was an honor to have that privilege,” he said.

When the program ends on June 23, Simons says the experience of a respectful, bipartisan atmosphere will stick with him.

“A lot of issues are played in the media as being very polarizing, but people, especially my age, are much more willing to compromise and come together to find solutions,” he said. “I have a greater appreciation for what I think our generation can do.”

UMW’s Economics of Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector course was featured in the June edition of Virginia Business magazine in the article “Philanthropy’s Next Generation.”  On the cover, left to right and front row to back, are Gretchen Houser, assistant director of annual giving and a student in the fall 2010 class, Robert S Rycroft, professor of economics, and Kate Gibson and Will Zebian, students from the fall 2011 class.

The University of Mary Washington will host its 13th annual Operafest on Friday, June 22 and Saturday, June 23 at 7:30 p.m. in George Washington Hall’s Dodd Auditorium. The performances are free and open to the public.

Operafest, directed by UMW voice instructors Kathy Ahearn and Jane Tavernier, is the culmination of an intensive five-week course. The 12 performers auditioned for the course in April and have rehearsed six hours per week since mid-May in preparation for the performances.

The program will include scenes from Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” and “Don Pasquale,” Bernstein’s “West Side Story,” Mozart’s “The Abduction of the Seraglio,” Puccini’s “La Rondine” and Lehar’s “The Merry Widow.”

For more information about Operafest, contact the Department of Music at (540) 654-1012.