UMW Galleries presents “Rows, Collections and Private Spaces: New Work by Chris Gregson,” in the Ridderhof Martin Gallery on the UMW Fredericksburg campus. The show is open through March 21. Please visit www.umwgalleries.org for more information.
Spring Safe Zone Programs
The UMW Safe Zone program offers workshops that are designed to educate members of the University community about lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ+) issues to increase the safety and inclusion of all campus citizens. We are excited to announce the following Spring programs:
- We will be offering a basic training on Tuesday, March 2nd from 2:00-4:30pm (via Zoom). This training focuses on terminology, issues related to privilege, increasing awareness and sensitivity, and how to support the LGBTQ+ population on campus.
- We will be offering an advanced training on Friday, March 5th from 1-3:30pm (via Zoom). The advanced training is for faculty and staff who have already completed the basic training and covers more complex topics, including bystander intervention.
- We are also in the process of planning a book club. This would be a two-part program offered in the late afternoon on Zoom. We would like to judge interest and availability before picking the dates. We will be reading “Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More” by Janet Mock. Safe Zone will provide a free copy of the book to the first 14 people who sign up!
- We are also in the process of planning an offering of our Identity and Intersectionality. The training covers privilege, power, oppression, prejudice, diversity, cultural competency, intersectionality, and allyship. Ideally, participants will have attended at least one Safe Zone workshop prior to attending this training, but this is not mandatory. We would like to judge interest and availability before picking dates and times for this workshop.
Registration is required to attend each event, and space is limited. If you are interested in registering for the Basic and/or Advanced training, or would like to express interest in the Book Club and/or Identity and Intersectionality Workshop, then please provide your information at http://umw.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_57QYFoE4BvcEGz4.
Alumna Reappointed to UMW Board of Visitors
Princess R. Moss
Princess R. Moss, an education executive and 1983 Mary Washington graduate, has been reappointed to University of Mary Washington’s Board of Visitors. Moss, who previously served on the BOV from 2007 to 2011, is vice president of the National Education Association (NEA), the nation’s largest professional organization, representing three million teachers across the country.
She takes over a four-year BOV term set to expire June 30, 2024, succeeding Sharon Bulova of Fairfax, who has been appointed to Gov. Northam’s new committee on passenger rail.
An advocate for the arts in schools, Moss taught in the classroom for 21 years as an elementary school music teacher, while simultaneously championing children and public education at the local, state and national levels. For nearly four decades, she has supported the NEA’s mission to ensure that students receive well-rounded educations. Read more.
Alumnus Holds Court as Black History Month Keynote Speaker
Judge Kerwin A. Miller Sr. ’95, will deliver the virtual keynote address on Feb. 10, for the James Farmer Multicultural Center’s Black History Month celebration.
Judge Kerwin A. Miller Sr., who graduated from Mary Washington in 1995, delivered the virtual keynote address on Wednesday for the James Farmer Multicultural Center’s Black History Month celebration.
As a young teenager growing up in the Bronx, Miller came across an article about how unlikely it was for an African American male to graduate high school. Taking that news story as both an insult and a challenge, he vowed he’d have a different outcome. At Mary Washington, he excelled both in the classroom as a business administration major and on the court as a member of the Eagles basketball team.
A few years later, Miller found himself in a different kind of court after earning a juris doctorate from Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles. He became an attorney with the Legal Aid Bureau in Baltimore, and worked his way through the legal system, serving as a public defender, assistant state’s attorney and eventually an administrative law judge. In 2019, he was sworn in by Governor Larry Hogan as the second African American judge in the history of Harford County, Maryland. Read more.
COVID Delays, But Fails to Deter Fulbright Scholars
2019 alumna Hannah Rothwell is one of several recent UMW graduates going abroad as a Fulbright Scholar this year. The international program recently announced that educational exchanges would continue after being halted last year due to the pandemic.
Hannah Rothwell ’19 was recently in the middle of a meeting for her internship at a D.C. think tank when she received a text out of the blue: Call the U.S. Embassy in Uzbekistan immediately.
Rothwell, who majored in economics and international affairs at the University of Mary Washington, was suddenly flooded with memories of being named months earlier as an alternate for a Fulbright award. Knowing she was only a backup and that COVID-19 had suspended all Fulbright endeavors, she had “put it completely out of mind.”
Despite – or, possibly, due to – COVID, Rothwell learned she was needed in Uzbekistan, formerly part of the Soviet Union, as soon as possible to teach English under the auspices of the Fulbright.
Designed to increase mutual understanding between countries, Fulbright is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government. Its student exchange program is the largest for American students and young professionals who want to undertake international graduate study, advanced research or teaching English worldwide. More than 2,000 grants are awarded annually in all fields of study for the program, which operates in more than 140 countries. Read more.
World Lessons Inspire Sophomore to Pen Children’s Book
Sophomore Helen Dhue is about to publish a children’s book based on a story that she wrote as a child. Inspired by courses on immigration history and racism that she’s taken at UMW, Dhue hopes her book will help parents and educators have conversations with children about discrimination and inclusion.
Home during quarantine, University of Mary Washington sophomore Helen Dhue found herself rifling through childhood belongings. Among old papers and artwork, she discovered a book she wrote as a kindergartner.
As she turned the pages, inspiration struck. Influenced by classes she’d taken at Mary Washington as part of her history major, Dhue put pen to paper. She’ll soon release her self-published children’s book, The Cats Who Like Bats, based on the story she dictated to her mother all those years ago. Dhue, who is also enrolled in UMW’s education program and aspires to teach high school history, hopes the tale will help parents and educators broach with young children complex topics like racism, discrimination, diversity and inclusion. Read more.
“I appreciated that classes I’ve taken at UMW have allowed us to have open discussions so we could better understand one another and be more sensitive to other people’s experiences,” said Dhue, who was influenced by history courses she took focusing on immigration and Latin America. Illustration by Julia Lopresti.
Honoring a Master
Privately funded faculty award for English professors recognizes the value of extraordinary teaching.
Donald E. Glover as pictured in the 1971 edition of The Battlefield.
In 1971, the average cost of a postage stamp was 8 cents; Walt Disney World opened in Orlando, Florida; and Intel released its first microprocessor. In Fredericksburg, Virginia, a Mary Washington English professor made an indelible impression on a member of the Class of 1971.
Fifty years later, that alumna has fully funded a new faculty award to honor the memory of Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English Donald E. Glover. During his tenure, Dr. Glover was a widely respected and beloved member of the faculty. He began teaching at Mary Washington in 1961 and served as department chair from 1970-73. Glover retired in 1998 after 37 years of service; he passed away in August of 2020.
While the donor still wishes to remain anonymous, she first alerted the University in 2018 of her intentions as defined in her estate plans. She then requested that Glover be informed so he would know how important his teaching had been to her during those formative years at Mary Washington.
Dr. Gary Richards, professor and chair of the Department of English and Linguistics, met with Glover in 2018 to share news of this faculty award, as well as the future creation of a named endowed scholarship.
In 2018, Dr. Gary Richards (left) met Dr. Donald E. Glover (right) and shared news of two special gifts from a former English student.
“Don was long retired when I became Chair,” says Richards, “but this award brought me in contact with him and his lovely wife, Alice. Even though he was already struggling with his health then, I got a glimpse of the professor who made such an impact on our donor. I am delighted that Don Glover is being honored in this way.”
The donor recalls that Glover was light on lectures, yet strategically led his students to understand and appreciate works of literature by asking questions to stimulate critical thinking and discussion. She says students learned for themselves as they came to realize the full meaning and importance of what they had read. She decided to go ahead and fund this award now in the hope that English faculty can follow in Glover’s footsteps, while having a positive and lasting impact on students’ lives.
Richards says the award’s focus on teaching acknowledges Glover’s long and distinguished career at Mary Washington. “This award documents the life-impacting teaching that professors in our department have been doing for decades,” says Richards. “It also documents the generosity of this alumna, who so carefully looked backwards to her experiences at UMW and forward to other students’ experiences.”
While the department is fine-tuning details for the application and evaluation process, Richards stresses the value of this new faculty award for an outstanding professor of English. “This is in perfect keeping with UMW’s focus on undergraduate teaching and stands to buoy faculty who are exerting such winning energies in this arena,” he says. “And, as I hope we all know, affirmed and energized professors carry that excitement into the classroom, which in turn energizes students.”
Details for applying for the new Donald E. Glover Faculty Award will be available soon.
For information about establishing estate gifts or funding endowed awards and scholarships, contact the Office of Advancement at advance@umw.edu or 540-846-0470. UMW honors requests for anonymity.
‘Great Lives’ Lecture Series Continues with Architect I.M. Pei
The William B. Crawley Great Lives Lecture Series continues on Thursday, Feb. 11 with iconic architect I.M. Pei, presented by Assistant Professor of Art History Suzie Kim. The JON Properties/Van Zandt Restorations Lecture.
Because of restrictions on public gatherings on campus, the entire series of 18 lectures will be pre-recorded and delivered electronically, through Zoom Webinars, with closed captioning available. Although the presentations will be taped in advance, there will still be a live Q&A session following the online debut of each lecture, in which the speaker will be available to answer questions submitted by audience members.
I.M. Pei
Chinese-born American architect I.M. Pei (Ieoh Ming Pei, 1917-2019) was one of the most acclaimed and world-famous architects of the 20th and 21st century. He was awarded the 1983 Pritzker Architecture Prize for his iconic design for the east building of the National Gallery of Art (1968-78) in Washington, D.C., and the underground reception area and the central glass pyramid of the Louvre in Paris, France (1983-93). After earning his B.A. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his M.A. at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, he became well-known for his use of structural concrete as a smooth, ‘men-made’ stone and contemporary interpretation of the Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) and the International Style. The National Gallery of Art east building is quintessential I.M. Pei with the walls clad with continuous and smooth Tennessee pink marble, the use of architectural concrete molded by skilled cabinetmakers, and the application of the isosceles triangle for all architectural forms and smaller details. Pei’s buildings cover a wide range of skyscrapers, university buildings, and art museums in and outside of the U.S., which have been built in refined geometrical forms and demonstrate harmonizing effects with the surrounding skylines, cityscapes and landscapes.
Other upcoming lectures include novelist Horatio Alger, given by UMW Reference and Humanities Librarian Emeritus Jack Bales on Feb. 16; General Douglas MacArthur, given by Professor of History and American Studies Porter Blakemore on Feb. 18; and authors and Black rights activists Anna Julia Cooper and W.E.B. DuBois by Professor of Sociology Kristin Marsh. To learn more about Great Lives and view past and upcoming lectures, please visit https://www.umw.edu/greatlives/.
Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar and Mathematician Ken Ono Virtual Visit
The Kappa of Virginia Chapter and the University of Mary Washington Mathematics Department are pleased to host a Virtual Visit by the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, Mathematician Ken Ono, on February 18-19, 2021.
The visit will feature classroom visits and a Zoom Webinar Public Lecture on Thursday, February 18, 2021, 5:00 – 6:15 p.m., titled “Why does Ramanujan, ‘The Man Who Knew Infinity,’ matter?”
Dr. Ken Ono is the Thomas Jefferson Professor of Mathematics at the University of Virginia, the Vice President of the American Mathematical Society, and the Chair of Mathematics of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Dr. Ono was also an Associate Producer and the Mathematics Consultant for the movie “The Man Who Knew Infinity” about Mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan.
A showing of the film “The Man Who Knew Infinity” will be available to University of Mary Washington students on Tuesday, February 16, 2021, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m., at the Zoom link below.
For questions, please contact Dr. Suzanne Sumner at ssumner@umw.edu or call 540-654-1335.
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Here is the link for the attendees of the Public Lecture:
You are invited to a Zoom webinar.
When: Feb 18, 2021 05:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Topic: Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Ken Ono
Please click the link below to join the webinar:
Passcode: 812807
Or iPhone one-tap :
US: +16465588656,,86384500648#,,,,*812807# or +13017158592,,86384500648#,,,,*812807#
Or Telephone:
Dial(for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location):
US: +1 646 558 8656 or +1 301 715 8592 or +1 312 626 6799 or +1 669 900 6833 or +1 253 215 8782 or +1 346 248 7799
Webinar ID: 863 8450 0648
Passcode: 812807
International numbers available: https://umw-sso.zoom.us/u/kdqhBOFu7Y
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Here is the link for UMW Students to view the film “The Man Who Knew Infinity”:
You are invited to a Zoom webinar.
When: Feb 16, 2021 05:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Topic: “The Man Who Knew Infinity” Film
Please click the link below to join the webinar:
Passcode: 794548
Or iPhone one-tap :
US: +16465588656,,85052653111#,,,,*794548# or +13017158592,,85052653111#,,,,*794548#
Or Telephone:
Dial(for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location):
US: +1 646 558 8656 or +1 301 715 8592 or +1 312 626 6799 or +1 669 900 6833 or +1 253 215 8782 or +1 346 248 7799
Webinar ID: 850 5265 3111
Passcode: 794548
International numbers available: https://umw-sso.zoom.us/u/kiDeU4D0K
UMW Galleries Presents “Origin, Celebrating UMW Studio Art Alumna Tenee’ Hart”
UMW Galleries presents “Origin, Celebrating UMW Studio Art Alumna Tenee’ Hart.” In the duPont Gallery from February 11 through March 21. Open Tuesday through Friday, 10 to 4, and Saturday and Sunday, 1 to 4. Limited capacity: schedule your visit in advance at www.umwgalleries.org. A scheduled talk with the artist has been postponed due to
About the artist: Tenee’ Hart is an ‘unconventional’ fiber sculpture artist pursuing themes of feminism that delve into topics of beauty, anatomy, and injustices of women. Material usage throughout her practice is critical due to their innate history and meanings. Hart hails from Virginia, where she was born and raised. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Mary Washington in 2011. Later, Hart pursued and currently holds a Masters of Fine Arts degree from Florida State University, where she has been teaching, at the college level, since 2014. She enjoys dinosaurs, radical feminism, glitter, stickers, fur babies, and everything that is the 80’s!