January 9, 2025

EagleEye

A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff

Lorentzen Gives Talk at Victorians Institute

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Eric Lorentzen, associate professor of English, presented a talk at this year’s Victorians Institute conference, held in Charlotte, Oct. 23-25.  The theme of the 43rd annual conference was “The Mysteries at Our Own Doors,” and his talk was entitled “‘The Narrative of the Tombstone’: Teaching English 251S — British Victorian Detective and Sensation Novel.”  In this talk, he was able to share, with Victorian colleagues from across the country, the pedagogical philosophies and praxes that he has employed in his course for the Department of English, Linguistics, and Communication, as well as an argument about the goals and objectives of this course and genre.  He also connected the talk to a summer course here at the University of Mary Washington in which he and his students pursue the study of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his famous detective, Sherlock Holmes.

English Alum Nominated for Emmy

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UMW Alumnus Alexander Cardia ’07 is among the nominees for the 35th Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards announced by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Cardia is nominated in the category of Outstanding Graphic Design & Art Direction, he was nominated for his animation and design work on Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle, produced by PBS. For a full list of nominees, visit: emmyonline.com/news_35th_nominations.

 

 

 

UMW Alum Brings Destination Imagination to Spotsylvania

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University of Mary Washington alumna Anne Roberts started and coordinated the first-ever  Destination Imagination teams at Thornburg Middle School with one of the teams ranking in an international competition.

“My students loved DI and I loved the chance to teach more open-ended, creative, and problem-oriented learning with my 19 students who competed this past year,” said Roberts, who received an M.Ed. in 2014 and a bachelor’s degree in linguistics  in 2010. “I even started incorporating some of the instant challenges into my curriculum.”

Destination Imagination inspires and equips students to become leaders and innovators through academic tournaments around the world. Students form teams in categories — including, fine arts, improv, technical/robotics, structural, service-learning, early learning, and science — and compete in regional, state and international competitions.

Roberts started three teams: a robotics/technical team, an improv team and a fine arts team. Each team, consisting of sixth through eighth graders, practiced a challenge throughout the year and then entered competitions. All three teams placed in a regional competition and two traveled to the state competition at James Madison University. The fine arts team ranked 18th at the international competition at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

“To get to the regional competition, it took a lot of fundraising,” said Roberts. “We were recognized by our school and the Spotsylvania School Board on June 23rd for our efforts. We raised 100 percent of the funds for the global competition, which totaled over $7,500.”

For more information on the Destination Imagination teams, check out their website: http://thornburgdifundraiser.weebly.com/.

Scanlon’s With Good Reason Interview to be Rebroadcast, June 21

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English Professor Mara N. Scanlon’s interview about Walt Whitman and the famed poet’s experiences as a Civil War nurse will be rebroadcast on the public radio program “With Good Reason” beginning Saturday, June 21.

In 1862, poet Walt Whitman went to Fredericksburg to search in field hospitals for his brother who had been wounded in a Civil War battle. Shocked by the bloodshed, Whitman worked as a nurse for years through the end of the war.

The interview, “Whitman at War,” originally aired in 2009. The segment can be heard online at http://withgoodreasonradio.org/2014/06/america-the-beautiful/.