By Edie Gross After enduring four decades of gray, cold winters in Washington state, Catherine “Cathe” Cantwell Luria ’66 is soaking up the sun at her home in Ajijic, Mexico. Luria, a retired nurse practitioner, and her husband, retired physician Eric Luria, visited friends in Ajijic several winters before deciding in fall 2016 to move to this idyllic community on Mexico’s Lago de Chapala. “It’s a beautiful small community, and the weather is fantastic,” Luria said. She doesn’t miss the gray skies and rain that characterized nine months of the year in her old home of Gig Harbor, Washington. “Here, it’s sunny most days. It’s just a gorgeous setting.” Since arriving in Ajijic (pronounced ah-hee-HEEK), Luria has enjoyed voice lessons, Spanish classes, and singing with a community chorus. She’s also supported the Lake Chapala chapter of Days for Girls, an international nonprofit that distributes environmentally friendly menstruation supplies for girls and educates women and men … [Read more...]
Heart Research Has Roots at Mary Washington
By Daryl Lease ’85 As head of a lab bearing his name at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Anthony Cammarato ’95 leads pioneering research in heart disease. But as a first-year at Mary Washington, he wasn’t sure how he was going to make it to graduation. “I think I was quite poorly prepared for college,” Cammarato said. He’d attended a small high school in rural Delaware, which at that time “was not overly challenging.” As a result, he struggled in his early classes at Mary Washington and sensed he was well behind his peers. His interest in science drew him to the biology department, where professors Janet Nicodemus-Hughes ’87, Rosemary Barra, Werner Wieland, and Steven Fuller were eager to help him adjust. Barra is still teaching, Nicodemus has since passed away, and Wieland and Fuller have retired with emeritus status. “Those four really helped me figure out how to learn,” he said. “They helped hone my skills and get me up to speed. By the end of my second … [Read more...]
Scientist Connects Babies’ Motor, Cognitive Skills
By Vicki L. Friedman Regina “Reggie” Tambellini Harbourne ’76 stops short of calling herself a pioneer. The assistant professor at Duquesne University is a Catherine Worthingham Fellow, the highest honor bestowed by the American Physical Therapy Association.It’s an accolade that reflects her forward-thinking research tying an infant’s motor skills to cognitive abilities. “If we advance motor, we advance cognitive,” said Harbourne, director of the Infant Development Lab at Duquesne, which investigates how babies learn to use their bodies and minds together. “I call myself the queen of sitting because I’ve done so much research on infants learning how to sit.” The science enthusiast followed a STEM path before it was a mainstream choice for women. She entered Mary Washington in 1972 as a pre-physical therapy major, racking up the necessary prerequisite science credits for admission to the Medical College of Virginia, where she finished her bachelor’s degree. She earned a … [Read more...]
Historian Unearths Unlikely Stories
By Emily Freehling Growing up in Dinwiddie County, Emmanuel Dabney ’08 couldn’t have avoided Civil War battlefields if he’d tried. “I literally grew up a mile away from part of the Petersburg National Battlefield,” he said. Dabney, who works for the National Park Service as museum curator at Petersburg National Battlefield, traces his fascination with Civil War history to fourth grade. “It hooked me, and it has not let go,” he said. A high school guidance counselor recommended Mary Washington, and after two years at Richard Bland College in Petersburg, Dabney transferred to UMW as a historic preservation major. These days, Dabney says his fellow preservation majors are an invaluable network for troubleshooting professional problems and questions. “I feel like we are all able to provide each other support,” he said. After graduation, Dabney earned a master’s degree in history from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Then he returned to the Civil War … [Read more...]
Give It Your Best Shot
Who are the three celebrating grads photographed at commencement? If you can put a date and names to these happy faces, please drop us a line. Comment on this post or send an email with “Get the Picture” in the subject line to magazine@umw.edu. You may also write to: UMW Magazine – Get the Picture 1301 College Ave. Fredericksburg, VA 22401-5300 … [Read more...]
You Got It!
Christine Dorner Clark and Suellen Grant Knowles, both Class of 1963, recognized themselves among the students posing with Dean Edward Alvey Jr. in what was then Trinkle Library. Christine is second from left and Suellen is third from left. The student on the right is Ginger Rawlins Crisp ’63, who passed away in 1996. Dean Alvey died in 1999. Suellen said the photograph commemorated the students’ experiences studying abroad. She recalled studying in Vienna, Austria, in the 1961-62 academic year. Suellen was a member of the Board of Visitors from 1997 to 2005. The picture sparked a happy thought for Christine, who wrote, “What a lovely surprise and a look back to a wonderful time in my life.” We know one other interesting fact about this image: The chair pictured is still in use in the Department of Classics, Philosophy, and Religious Studies. We thank office manager Cynthia Toomey for recognizing the chair and Professor of Religious Studies Mary Beth Mathews for emailing us … [Read more...]
Ambassador for Freedom
Alumnus Fights to End Human Trafficking
By Edie Gross All of the women who testified in United States v. Campbell had come to America with dreams of a better future only to be trafficked by Alex “Cowboy” Campbell, a violent sex trafficker who branded his victims so they’d never forget they belonged to him. For several weeks in January 2012, the women, all from Eastern Europe and in their early 20s, took the witness stand in a federal courtroom in Chicago. They shared in excruciating detail how Campbell offered them affection, housing, and help with immigration before seizing their passports and forcing them into prostitution. One by one, the women described how Campbell branded and beat them, extinguished cigarettes on their skin, videotaped them in compromising positions, and threatened to share the videos with their families back home. John Cotton Richmond ’93 had spent the better part of a decade pursuing justice for human trafficking victims in the U.S. and abroad, so he’d heard stories like these before. The … [Read more...]
Expanded Jepson Open for Excellence
Science Center Is Bigger and Better Than Ever
By Emily Freehling Photos by Adam Ewing and Suzanne Carr Rossi ’00 Where a surface parking lot once greeted drivers and pedestrians on College Avenue, a three-story wall of windows now opens like a proscenium stage. But it’s not Shakespeare on display here; these floor-to-ceiling glass expanses give passersby a view of geology labs, physics classrooms, mapping courses, and other examples of science in action at the University of Mary Washington. This is the 40,000-square-foot expansion wing of the Jepson Science Center, part of a nearly $28 million project that also included renovations to 30,000 square feet of the original science center. Project Manager Leslie Johnson said nearly all of the project cost was covered with funds allocated by the Virginia General Assembly. As the academic year opened Aug. 26, science faculty busily unloaded materials from storage and set furniture in place so classes could begin in the new space. All had roughly the same exclamation when … [Read more...]
Antarctic Adventure
Sisters’ Brave Choices Open Path of Possibilities
By Emily Freehling The view from the captain’s bridge of the Ushuaia wasn’t encouraging. The ship swayed in a sea of building-sized waves capped with angry froth. After every three or four swells, a three-story tower of water crashed over the bridge of the ship, a decommissioned government vessel. At that moment in January 2019, it was carrying 80 women through the Drake Passage, a 500-mile stretch of some of the roughest seas on the planet. The international delegation had to cross the tumultuous waters to make their way from the tip of South America to their destination – the Antarctic Peninsula. Showing video she had shot during the turbulent two-day stretch of her time aboard the Ushuaia, Christina Devorshak ’91 told a group of University of Mary Washington students that traversing the “Drake Shake,” as the passage is sometimes known, was a harrowing but necessary part of her experience in Antarctica. “You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable to get to a really … [Read more...]
UMW Named “Great College to Work For”
The following remarks are excerpted from a Q&A with President Troy Paino that focused on how he used feedback from a Great Colleges to Work For survey of university employees completed in 2016, a year when UMW did not make the cut. Having just taken the helm at Mary Washington then, President Paino used the results as a platform for change and setting of priorities. In only three years, his initiatives paid off – of 152 four-year institutions nationwide that participated in this year’s survey, UMW was among 60 selected as a Great College to Work For. Below are excerpts of Troy Paino’s responses in the Q&A: The survey gave me an important diagnostic tool to better understand how the people who work here felt about the state of the university. To move UMW forward, we needed the faculty, staff, and administrators to be fully invested in the school’s strategic direction. To get this sort of investment, our senior leadership had to build trust and instill hope. The 2016 … [Read more...]