The family of a prominent alumna has honored her memory with the gift of the clock in the pediment of UMW’s new University Center, overlooking Ball Circle. Edith Logan Sheppard Ott ’59 earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology at Mary Washington, and eventually earned a doctorate in psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University. She served two terms on the UMW Board of Visitors. She served for many years on the Class of ’59 reunion committee, was a member and then president of the Alumni Association Board of Directors, and was a member of the President’s Council. For her contributions, she was awarded the 2010 Frances Liebenow Armstrong ’36 Service Award. She died in 2014. Her husband of 55 years, Matthew Nelson Ott Jr., helped Vice President for Advancement and University Relations Torre Meringolo unveil the clock’s dedication plaque at a ceremony Sept. 17. Also present were the couple’s children, Heather Ott, Matthew Ott III, and Meredith Ott; and Mrs. Ott’s sister, Sally … [Read more...]
A Welcome Home
University Center Is at 'the Heart of UMW'
It’s not just the sparkling dining facility – with its individual stations offering meal choices to suit every taste – that makes the newly opened University Center special. It’s not just the meeting rooms, the student-centered office space, the Jamba Juice and Qdoba restaurants, or the comfortably furnished living room, all encompassed in 108,000 square feet over four floors. What best defines the University Center, at the heart of campus overlooking Ball Circle, is its universal purpose. It’s everybody’s. Vice President for Student Affairs Juliette Landphair reminded those assembled for the center’s dedication Sept. 17 that Mary Washington was founded on democratic principles, to prepare women to teach in public schools. As the single-sex teachers’ college expanded, integrated, became coeducational, and transformed into a premier liberal arts and sciences university, UMW’s democratic mission has strengthened. The new building “continues the important institutional theme of … [Read more...]
Great Lives 2016 Lineup
Get on the line with Alexander Graham Bell and walk the line with Johnny Cash through the 2016 Chappell Lecture Series, Great Lives. Those are among the 18 interesting lectures included in next year’s lineup of this perennially popular series. Admission is free for these lectures, which begin at 7:30 p.m. in George Washington Hall’s Dodd Auditorium. Jan. 14: Jack London, by James L. Haley, author of Wolf: The Lives of Jack London Jan. 21: Georgia O’Keeffe, by Roxana Robinson, author of Georgia O’Keeffe: A Life Jan. 28: Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Feb. 2: Alexander Graham Bell, by Charlotte Gray, author of Reluctant Genius: Alexander Graham Bell and the Passion for Invention Feb. 4: Johnny Cash, by Mark Stielper, historian, essayist, and Cash confidant Feb. 9: Aviation Icons, by Winston Groom, author of The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, and the Epic Age of Flight Feb. 11: … [Read more...]
Campus Welcomes Bell, Carreras
On the heels of an on-campus performance by one of The Three Tenors, violin virtuoso Joshua Bell will be the William M. Anderson Jr. Celebrity Series guest with the UMW Philharmonic Orchestra this spring. Bell will perform Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor with the Philharmonic at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 26, 2016, in Dodd Auditorium. The romantic concerto is one of Bell’s longtime favorites. Bell performs on the 1713 Huberman Stradivarius violin. Tickets can be purchased at umwphilharmonic.com/tickets/. Mary Washington audiences heard another musical superstar, tenor José Carreras, last month. In his only U.S. concert of 2015, Carreras performed Oct. 17 at the Anderson Center. He was joined by Irish soprano Celine Byrne and conductor David Giménez. … [Read more...]
New Vice President Has Big Role
Juliette Landphair has hit the ground running as UMW’s new vice president for student affairs, with responsibilities for student engagement programs, residential life, health and counseling services, athletics, safety, and administering the student-run honor system. In August, Landphair joined UMW from the University of Richmond, where she was dean of Westhampton College and associate dean in the School of Arts and Sciences. She succeeded Douglas N. Searcy, who is now president of Barton College in Wilson, N.C. Landphair received the Influential Woman of Virginia award presented by Virginia Lawyers Media and the Bob E. Leach Award for Outstanding Service to Students presented by NASPA Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Tulane University and master’s and doctoral degrees in history from the University of Virginia. … [Read more...]
Surgeon Goes Where She’s Most Needed
By Kristin Davis As a senior trauma surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital, Susan Miller Briggs ’65 had rehearsed a day like April 15, 2013, many times. It would begin with an alert from Boston emergency dispatchers: Prepare for a mass casualty incident. Then hundreds of medical professionals would mobilize. Briggs had responded to enough manmade and natural disasters to know that a city the size of Boston would someday face its own major crisis – some kind of terrible accident, she thought. But she was horrified when two pressure-cooker bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring hundreds. “I never thought it would be a bombing by people who are our own citizens,” Briggs said. “That’s the hardest part to take.” Briggs grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, just a short train ride from Mary Washington. She always wanted to be a doctor, an interest most likely sparked by her physician grandfather. “I knew I would never have a … [Read more...]
Ambassador’s Eventful Career Started at Mary Washington
By Laura Moyer Rose McCartney Likins ’81 had been ambassador to El Salvador for just five months when a 7.6-magnitude earthquake hit in January 2001. Highways crumbled, homes shook apart, and the Central American country needed help urgently. But with a new presidential administration just arriving in Washington, Likins would have to fight to keep the country’s plight in the forefront. She flew to Washington and walked the halls of the State Department, knocking on doors and talking to anyone who would listen. And she arranged for George W. Bush, just weeks into his presidency, to meet with the Salvadoran president at the White House. With the resulting United States financial support and help from nongovernmental organizations, communities in El Salvador rebuilt infrastructure and rehoused 100,000 people. The efforts stemmed a potential mass migration and strengthened U.S.-Salvadoran ties. The earthquake was just one crisis Likins handled in an eventful diplomatic career … [Read more...]
Family Channels Sorrow Into Kindness
By Erica Jackson Curran ’07 Richard Edwin-Ehmer Specht, known to his family as Rees, was supposed to start swimming lessons in the winter of 2012. Growing up on Long Island with a pond in the backyard, it was natural that the toddler should learn to swim. But in October 2012, the unthinkable happened. Rees, just 22 months old, wandered away from the house and drowned in the backyard pond. In the days after the tragedy, Rees’ father, Richard Specht ’97, clung to the counsel of a relative who’d lost two children of her own. Today, he gives the same advice to parents who have suffered a loss. “There are two outcomes possible for a parent who loses a child,” Specht tells them. “They can either find themselves swallowed up by the never-ending sorrow, or they can transcend it. Those who transcend it have to find a way to channel the love they have for that child into something positive.” For Specht and his wife, Samantha, that meant creating the ReesSpecht Life foundation in honor of … [Read more...]
Alumna Finds Her Voice – and a Seat at a White House Dinner
By Edie Gross Riham Osman ’13 was one of nine young Muslims at the dinner table with President Barack Obama. But he turned to her first, and she wasn’t about to waste the opportunity. How will the administration engage the Muslim community on issues that matter to all Americans? asked Osman, suggesting Obama appoint a Muslim to a Cabinet-level position. And how will the White House work with Muslims to counter violent extremism, rather than singling them out as perpetrators? Inviting Muslims to the table, she told Obama, would make those discussions more productive and reduce media bias. Obama listened politely and joked about his own rocky relationship with the media. Then he turned to another invited guest at the White House iftar dinner during Ramadan in June 2015. But Osman, the communications coordinator for the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), wasn’t done. As the dinner wound down, Osman asked the president to acknowledge that violent extremism was not restricted … [Read more...]
Fulk Art
This Mary Washington grad's palette is places and spaces
By Anna B. Billingsley How does someone get to have a global enterprise carry his name? How does he get to be the life of every party, not to mention the inspiration behind these parties? To design spaces and create occasions for celebrities and tech moguls? To be featured in Architectural Digest? And to produce a named collection within an iconic American retail brand? How? For Ken Fulk ’87, it’s by dreaming big and never saying no. “Yes, this is exactly the life I envisioned for myself,” Fulk said in August on the morning of Pottery Barn’s launch of the Ken Fulk Collection, 60 pieces that reflect the designer’s whimsical and sophisticated style. The interview was in The Magic Factory, the eclectic San Francisco headquarters of Ken Fulk Inc., its three floors abounding with exquisite decorative touches and fresh flowers. Fulk finds power in saying yes. His modus operandi: Accept the challenge, then find a way. “When I was 4 years old, I did this parlor trick,” he said. … [Read more...]