A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff
Vice President for Student Affairs Juliette Landphair
Vice President for Student Affairs Juliette Landphair published a piece about the recent 16-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings, her connection to the tragedy, and the reform, including threat assessment training and expertise, that has transpired in higher education in the years since. Read the piece in The Richmond Times-Dispatch and in The Free Lance-Star.
Vice President of Student Affairs Juliette Landphair
Vice President for Student Affairs Juliette Landphair spoke to Inside Higher Education for a story titled “Counselors Join Cops to Help Students in Crisis.” The piece explored the ways colleges and universities are supplementing departments with mental health counselors for students who are struggling emotionally. The article highlights UMW’s initiative to provide students with access to counseling support after business hours to reduce the decision-making role of police during such crises. “Mental health concerns have now become one of the top few priorities for institutions in a way that you just didn’t see—I think student affairs professionals would say it was 15 years ago, but not presidents, and now presidents are saying it,” said Landphair, who chaired a working group last summer on the university’s response to mental health crises, which led to the after-hours counseling support and other changes. Read more.
Dear UMW Community Members:
This message is to inform you that the Mental Health Crisis Response Working Group has completed its charge (see email below for context and background) and has published the report on the UMW Police Community Advisory Panel (CAP) page under “Final Report to the President.”
President Troy Paino and I are grateful for the working group members’ time and commitment to this important task. If you have any questions about the report, please let me know.
Juliette Landphair, Ph.D.
Vice President for Student Affairs
University of Mary Washington
540-654-1062
jlandpha@umw.edu
Pronouns: She/her/hers
From June 25, 2021:
Dear UMW Community,
On May 13, 2021, President Paino released his response to the report and recommendations of the UMW Police Advisory Committee, which met throughout the 2020-21 academic year.
Dr. Paino’s recommendations included an evaluation of the University’s mental health crisis response. Here is the specific recommendation:
Restructure mental health crisis response. Dr. Juliette Landphair, Vice President for Student Affairs, and Dr. Tev Zukor, Director of the Talley Counseling Center, will form a working group that includes University Police, those on staff responsible for mental health crisis response, and interested students, to develop a timeline and plan for reform that might include:
The working group has been established and includes the members below. In addition to gathering feedback from the community, we will be reviewing relevant data, including Campus Police Surveys, and University policies and protocols around crisis response.
We look forward to reporting out the results of our work in the fall. In the meantime, do not hesitate to email me or Dr. Zukor with any questions or insights.
Sincerely,
Juliette Landphair, Ph.D.
Vice President for Student Affairs
Mental Health Crisis Response Working Group
Co-Chairs
Members
Hello all,
We know that many of you have been following developments lately with news of variants and vaccinations as we look to the arrival of students back on campus shortly. Throughout the summer, Dave has been leading the Public Health Advisory Working Group in conversations about vaccinations, testing, masking, tracing, and preparing for the fall. Jeff has been working with the other Public Higher Education COVID Directors and statewide officials at the VDH, Departments of Education, Labor, and Commerce and Trade to clarify expectations, options, and directions for the fall. This message is part of an effort to update faculty and staff as we get closer to the start of the semester.
First, we want to acknowledge the fluidity of the current situation and note that we are working with state and local officials to make sure we have the most up-to-date information. That fluidity will mean that some of our fall plans will continue to be in flux, even once the semester starts. We will endeavor to provide regular updates along the way.
Second, we wanted to share the progress we’ve made so far with our vaccination rates for students and employees.
Third, a reminder that given local COVID conditions and the CDC’s recommendations, we are strongly recommending that vaccinated people wear masks indoors when social distancing isn’t possible. This is in addition to our ongoing requirement that unvaccinated people mask indoors. We are keeping a close eye on those conditions, and we are in conversations with the state and with other schools about potential modifications to those recommendations.
We hope to provide a full plan next week as we keep working on finalizing the vaccination status of our employees and students, continuing our partnership with the local health department and Mary Washington Healthcare, and watching closely the national and local situation.
There will be more of these updates as we move closer to the fall semester.
Best,
Jeff McClurken, Chief of Staff and COVID Director
Dave Fleming, Asst. Dean of Residence Life and COVID Monitoring and Tracing Coordinator
Dear UMW Community,
On May 13, 2021, President Paino released his response to the report and recommendations of the UMW Police Advisory Committee, which met throughout the 2020-21 academic year.
Dr. Paino’s recommendations included an evaluation of the University’s mental health crisis response. Here is the specific recommendation:
Restructure mental health crisis response. Dr. Juliette Landphair, Vice President for Student Affairs, and Dr. Tev Zukor, Director of the Talley Counseling Center, will form a working group that includes University Police, those on staff responsible for mental health crisis response, and interested students, to develop a timeline and plan for reform that might include:
The working group has been established and includes the members below. In addition to gathering feedback from the community, we will be reviewing relevant data, including Campus Police Surveys, and University policies and protocols around crisis response.
We look forward to reporting out the results of our work in the fall. In the meantime, do not hesitate to email me or Dr. Zukor with any questions or insights.
Sincerely,
Juliette Landphair, Ph.D.
Vice President for Student Affairs
Mental Health Crisis Response Working Group
Co-Chairs
Members
UMW Students, Faculty, and Staff:
I am writing to you with a reminder about the University’s threat assessment process and what you should know as a community member invested in keeping Mary Washington safe and secure.
UMW has an extensive and robust threat assessment and violence prevention process that assists the University in identifying threats to our campus community and in responding to those threats. The threat assessment and violence prevention teams are trained members of our staff and faculty who meet regularly and as needed when situations arise. A list of the members can be found here.
What is threat assessment and management? Threat assessment is a systemic process designed to identify situations and people who might pose a risk to the UMW community; to gather information about the concerns; to assess the potential threats; and to manage the situation in order to mitigate any harm. After the 2007 Virginia Tech mass shooting, the Commonwealth of Virginia passed several legal mandates about threat assessment and continues to encourage intervention through interdisciplinary planning, training, and communication.
How can you be a part of threat assessment? Intervention is the key to prevention. Central to successful threat assessment and management is sharing information and concerns. Our team of trained faculty and staff members reviews information on a regular basis and as concerns arise.
If you see or experience anything of concern, no matter how seemingly insignificant, report it via the online reporting system or by calling UMW Police at 540-654-1025 (non-emergency) or 540-654-4444 (emergency).
I also wanted to make you aware of a new resource from the Talley Center for Counseling Services (TCCS). The Talley Center has added a specific section on suicide awareness and prevention for students and community members looking for information and support. The page is available in both English and Spanish.
https://students.umw.edu/counseling/links-to-umw-brochures-other-resources/suicide-prevention/
If you have questions about any of these processes or resources, feel free to contact me.
Sincerely,
Juliette Landphair, Ph.D. (she/hers)
Join us ONLINE for the next Mary Talk of the 2020-21 academic year!
In January 2020, UMW launched Farmer Legacy 2020: A Centennial Celebration and Commitment to Action to recognize what would have been the 100th birthday of Dr. James Farmer, national civil rights icon and Mary Washington College professor from 1985 to 1998. While the pandemic changed the direction of our yearlong commemoration, it did not shake our commitment to honor Dr. Farmer and to realize his vision for a more equitable America. Our next Mary Talk will explore Dr. Farmer’s life and legacy and his ongoing impact at Mary Washington today.
This Talk will be presented by Farmer Legacy co-chairs Dr. Sabrina Johnson (Vice President for Equity and Access) and Dr. Juliette Landphair (Vice President for Student Affairs) along with Jason Ford ’20 (leader of the Black Alumni Affinity Group). They will discuss Dr. Farmer’s impact and UMW’s ongoing commitment to inclusive excellence. We will hear from alumni who recall Dr. Farmer as a remarkable historian and teacher. We will recount our trip with President Troy Paino and others to Capitol Hill to visit the legendary Representative John Lewis, who participated in the Freedom Rides with Dr. Farmer and served as the Farmer Legacy’s honorary Chairperson. We will examine the context of Dr. Farmer’s life and legacy as well as our progress in equity and inclusion efforts at UMW.
Wednesday, December 9
7:30-9:00 p.m.
Online
To watch the Talk online, register here. You then will receive a link to the streaming video, which can be watched live or at a later time. You also will have the opportunity to submit questions to be asked of the speaker at the end of the Talk.
Note: Online viewing is the only option for this Mary Talk, as we are not conducting any in-person events at this time.
We look forward to seeing you online!
Vice President of Student Affairs Juliette Landphair
Vice President of Student Affairs Juliette Landphair, who is the Farmer Legacy 2020 co-chair, penned a column in The Richmond Times-Dispatch on the late Rep. John Lewis’ legacy and the impact that he and Dr. James L. Farmer Jr. have had on the University of Mary Washington and its students.
Sixty years ago, much like today, many American young adults were on fire to dismantle racial discrimination. U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., who recently passed away as an international icon for civil rights and public service, was one of them. Born in 1940 into a tenant farming family in Pike County, Ala., where half of their cotton crop’s earnings went to the white landowner, Lewis grew up in a poor, rural part of the nation completely alien from stereotypical recollections of 1950s consumerism and suburbanization. As historian Dr. Andrew Lewis recalls, John Lewis’ childhood “conjures up a world that the twentieth century seemed to have passed by.”
While in college at American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tenn., Lewis became active in civil rights protest. Over a few critical months in late 1959 and early 1960, he and other young activists, including the extraordinary (and not enough remembered) Diane Nash, attended workshops on nonviolence and its philosophical roots, taught by the minister James Lawson. Principles such as the power of the collective and the redemptive community settled into Lewis’ conscience and remained the rest of his life; he later described “crossing over” into a lifelong commitment to the movement in 1960 while participating in the Nashville sit-ins.
At my institution, the University of Mary Washington (UMW), Lewis figures prominently in our story. We like to think it is a special bond, but of course, Lewis made all admirers feel important. In 1961, Dr. James Farmer, leader of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), who later became a Mary Washington College professor, helped recruit the 21-year-old Lewis to join 12 others on the Freedom Rides. They would travel on two buses through several Southern states challenging interstate transportation facilities. During the Rides, Lewis was attacked by angry whites in South Carolina and Alabama.
More recently, Lewis agreed to serve as honorary chair of Farmer Legacy 2020, UMW’s yearlong celebration of the 100th anniversary of his friend Dr. Farmer’s birth. This past November, in his official acceptance of his chairperson role, Lewis met with a small UMW delegation in his Capitol Hill office for nearly an hour. I was fortunate to be among the attendees. With his celebrated warmth and humility, he spent nearly an hour with us, asking about UMW and our lives, and sharing stories. He especially was attentive to Jason Ford, our Student Government Association president who, as a black man himself, knew he was in the presence of a giant on whose shoulders he stood. Read more.