July 1, 2026

EagleEye

A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff

LePine’s Play to Premiere at Hub Theatre

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LETO LEGEND by Kristen LePine, adjunct in the Department of Theatre and Dance, premieres at the Hub Theatre in Fairfax, Va., from July 10 to Aug. 2.

leto-legend

LETO LEGEND is a comedy about contemporary and mythical super heroines. In the contemporary world, Charlie is a single ‘lacrosse’ mom striving to balance new found success as a comic book creator with the demands of parenthood. In the mythical universe, Leto, a Titan goddess and mother to Artemis and Apollo, also deals with the dual demands of work and family. The play tackles how to navigate a work, artistic and family life and deal with interior and exterior judgement.

More information and tickets can be found at www.thehubtheatre.org.

Also this summer, LePine’s works can be seen in the New York Fringe Festival, Capital Fringe Festival, and the One-Minute Play Festival.

Romero Delivers Paper at Symposium Cumanum

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On June 25, Joe Romero, associate professor in classics, philosophy and religion, presented a paper entitled “Touched by Heaven (tactas de caelo …): Philosophy and Religion in Vergil, Eclogue 1″ before a congress of Vergilians gathering in Cuma, Italy.

Davies and Brown Publish Racial Diversity Simulation Paper

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Stephen Davies, associate professor in computer science and UMW alumna Morgan Brown (computer science, mathematics) have had their research paper “Toward an agent-based simulation of the factors impacting diversity within a college student body” accepted to the 47th Winter Simulation Conference, the premier academic forum for simulation research in the world.

The paper describes an agent-based computational simulation that models college students and their social interactions, with particular focus on interracial friendships and the factors that contribute to racial segregation. The ultimate goals of the project are to better understand the dynamics of campus segregation, and to determine the efficacy of possible institutional policies that a university might implement that would encourage racial integration. Such policies, if successful, could decrease the well-documented effect of social alienation that minority students often perceive, and which can impact their academic success.

This paper is a milestone in a project that originated with a 2013-14 UMW faculty research grant and which has involved contributions from three computer science honors students, Leah Cox and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and several other UMW staff members who contributed domain knowledge about various aspects of campus life.

Doug Gately Performs with the National Symphony

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Doug Gately, senior lecturer in the Department of Music, performed with the The National Symphony Orchestra Pops, conducted by Steven Reineke at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Fantasia was the featured guest. The soulful songstress and American Idol winner performed timeless standards and favorites from her Broadway turns in The Color Purple and After Midnight. Doug also recently performed with the Piedmont Symphony presenting Respighi’s The Pines of Rome.

UMW Psychology Faculty Receive IndieFab Book of the Year Award

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University of Mary Washington faculty members Miriam Liss and Holly Schriffrin’s book Balancing the Big Stuff has recently been named the 2014 Silver Winner for Psychology in Foreword Reviews’ IndieFab Book of the Year Awards.

 

Miriam Liss and Holly Schiffrin

Exemplifying the best work coming from today’s indie authors and publishers, the winners were selected from more than 1,500 entries in 63 categories from independent and university presses. Gold, silver, bronze and honorable mention awards were determined by a panel of librarians and booksellers and announced at a special program during the American Library Association Annual Conference in San Francisco on June 26, 2015.

Liss, professor of psychology, and Schriffin, associate professor of psychology, wrote Balancing the Big Stuff to fill a gap they recognized in the conversation about work and family balance.

Balancing-the-Big-Stuff“We noticed that there was not enough discussion about the actual psychological literature on what makes people happy and what is best for children,” said Liss, an internationally known expert on parenting, division of labor and work-family balance issues. “The book emphasizes that there are many right ways to parent. Parents should be less hard on themselves and focus more on whether they are meeting their own intrinsic needs as well as the needs of their children.”

A licensed clinical psychologist, Liss had conducted extensive research on intensive and attachment parenting, sensory processing sensitivity, self-injurious behaviors, feminist identity and body image. Her articles have been published in numerous journals including the Sex Roles, Psychology of Women Quarterly, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Journal of Personality and Individual Differences, and Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines. She is recipient of the 2015 Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education of Virginia, and also has been named one of the Princeton Review’s Best 300 Professors.

An expert on intensive and helicopter parenting and a clinical psychologist, Schiffrin also is the co-author of Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood. Her research on helicopter parenting published in the Journal of Child and Family Studies–with colleagues at the University of Mary Washington–has garnered international media attention, including The Guardian, Real Simple and Time magazine. Schiffrin’s scholarly research has been published in the Journal of Happiness Studies, Food and Nutrition Bulletin, Research in Development Disabilities, the Journal of Positive Psychology, Cyberpsychology and Behavior, and the Journal of Development & Behavioral Pediatrics.

For more information about the award and to view the complete list of Foreword Reviews’ 2014 IndieFab Book of the Year Award Winners, visit https://indiefab.forewordreviews.com/winners/2014/.