Making Sense, a film by Alex Schein ’00 about the rising maker culture and micro-manufacturing movement in Philadelphia, was accepted for the 2014 DOC NYC documentary film festival and was screened in New York in November. Schein directed, filmed, and edited the 13-minute documentary while working toward a master’s in media studies at The New School for Public Engagement in New York. His undergraduate major was religion. The film was inspired in part by his late grandfather, a New York crane operator who told Schein how rewarding it was to point to a building with the ability to say, “I made that.” The documentary was filmed on location in Philadelphia, once known as the “Workshop of the World.” … [Read more...]
Lifetime Achievement in Financial Law
April 16, 2015 by
Anne P. Fortney ’66 has received the Senator William Proxmire Lifetime Achievement Award from the College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers. Fortney is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of the Hudson Cook law firm. She is a nationally recognized expert on the Fair Credit Reporting Act and other consumer financial privacy laws. She provides legal assistance on the areas of regulatory compliance, legislative developments, and litigation, and has testified as an invited expert before Congress. She is the immediate past chair of the Conference on Consumer Financial Services Law and has held a number of leadership positions in the American Bar Association’s Consumer Financial Services Committee. She earned a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center after completing pre-foreign service studies at Mary Washington. Fortney’s award includes a $3,000 donation to an organization that promotes the public interest in the area of consumer financial services. She named … [Read more...]
From Chemistry Major to Dental School Dean
April 16, 2015 by
Dr. Isabel Garcia ’76 has been named dean of the University of Florida College of Dentistry. Garcia’s career spans 34 years in public health, clinical practice, research, teaching, and administration. Most recently she was deputy director of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, a part of the National Institutes of Health. Garcia earned a doctor of dental surgery degree in 1980 from Virginia Commonwealth University and a master’s degree in public health from the University of Michigan in 1988. She completed a residency in dental public health at the University of Michigan and a fellowship in primary care policy from the U.S. Public Health Service. She studied chemistry at Mary Washington. “Dr. Garcia brings a great depth of leadership experience to all the core activities of the UF College of Dentistry and UF Health, from education to public health to research and technology transfer,” said UF President Bernie Machen. A fellow of the American College … [Read more...]
Little Rock Remembered
April 14, 2015 by
Ernest Green, one of nine students who in 1957 integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, urged University of Mary Washington students to be agents of change, not just passive observers in the continuing fight for social justice. Green made the comments as keynote speaker during the Jan. 21 commemoration of the life of Martin Luther King Jr. As a member of the Little Rock Nine, Green became the first African-American student to graduate from the formerly all-white Central High. After earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Michigan State University, Green worked to help minority women in the South secure jobs. He was an assistant labor secretary to President Jimmy Carter. In 1999, President Bill Clinton presented Green and the other members of the Little Rock Nine the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor awarded to civilians. At UMW, Green emphasized that people who will never be famous make important contributions toward change, according to The Blue … [Read more...]
Professor Sees Hope for Afghanistan Democracy
April 14, 2015 by
Young political party activists who received training through a pro-democracy initiative offer hope for effective elections in Afghanistan, according to a University of Mary Washington professor who recently spent 10 days in the country on a research and reporting trip. Ranjit Singh, associate professor of political science and international affairs, traveled to Kabul at the request of the U.S.-based National Democratic Institute (NDI). The nonprofit agency was winding up a 27-month program to support the role of political parties in Afghanistan. Singh interviewed nearly 40 members and leaders of various Afghan political parties to assess the effectiveness of the program, which ended in March. “Robust political parties are considered essential to modern democracies,” said Singh, an accredited international election observer who witnessed the Afghan presidential election of 2009 as part of a delegation of foreign policy experts. Singh sees benefits of the two-year NDI … [Read more...]
Coffman Honored for Innovation
April 14, 2015 by
Professor of Education Teresa Coffman was named 2014 Innovative Educator of the Year by the Virginia Society for Technology and Education. The award recognizes teachers who implement innovative educational practices and champion the integration of technology in the classroom. Coffman is researching how wearable technologies such as Google Glass can help teachers teach and students learn. Coffman encourages students “to think differently about who they are becoming as educators, and how their uses of technologies will shape transformational learning experiences for their own students,” said Mary Gendernalik-Cooper, dean of the College of Education. Coffman is the author of Using Inquiry in the Classroom: Developing Creative Thinkers and Information Literate Students and Engaging Students Through Inquiry-Oriented Learning and Technology. “Teaching needs to be more transformational,” Coffman said. “We need to extend beyond the creativity into innovative thought that can help … [Read more...]
Rambler Again Graces Belmont
April 14, 2015 by
Gari Melchers’ painting The Crimson Rambler, on loan from a private collection, will be on display at Gari Melchers Home and Studio through June 7. The Crimson Rambler features a rose arbor in full bloom with a lawn statue in the background. Melchers painted it about 1915, when he was living in Holland. It’s unusual for a Melchers painting because it is strictly a garden picture, incorporating no living person or animal. Because Melchers preferred figure painting, this is his only “pure garden portrait,” said Joanna Catron ’79, curator. “Melchers wholly gave in to the broken brushwork and chromatic possibilities of a lush garden in sunlight, rendering the sensation of a garden as opposed to a literal reproduction of one, a key objective of impressionism,” she said. Gari Melchers Home and Studio at Belmont is administered by the University of Mary Washington. … [Read more...]
Letter From the Editor
April 13, 2015 by
Dear Readers, As printing costs have risen over the last decade, we have had to limit the number of pages devoted to Class Notes. That has meant shortening the news class agents have submitted. Beginning this issue, UMW Magazine will publish agents’ unedited notes online at magazine.umw.edu. We will continue to publish an edited version in print, which you will find on page 25. Another change is that we will not publish a summer 2015 issue. Virginia’s budget cuts to institutions of higher education have caused many universities to prioritize spending. To use UMW’s limited funds as strategically as possible, the university has temporarily suspended publication of one issue per year. We are confident that the budget situation will improve, and we look forward to resumption of an annual three-issue schedule. Because the next magazine will mail in fall 2015, the next deadline to submit notes to class agents has been extended from March 15 to June 15. If you submitted notes … [Read more...]
Top-Notch
April 12, 2015 by
The University of Mary Washington is included among the nation’s best-value colleges by both The Princeton Review and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine. And UMW is recognized as one of the nation’s best public colleges overall by The Business Journals, placing in the top 75 four-year public institutions. The Princeton Review included UMW in its recently published Colleges That Pay You Back: The 200 Best Value Colleges and What It Takes to Get In – 2015. The ranking considers academics, affordability, and graduates’ career prospects. The Kiplinger’s Personal Finance ranking considers a university’s admission rate, percentage of students who return for sophomore year, student-faculty ratio, and four-year graduation rate. It also considers cost, availability of financial aid, and low average student debt at graduation. Kiplinger’s ranks UMW sixth among Virginia’s best values and 92nd out of 100 four-year public institutions nationwide. Mary Washington has consistently … [Read more...]
New for Freshmen
April 12, 2015 by
UMW is enhancing its first-year seminar program to give freshmen a richer introduction to academic life. For the first time, the program will offer residential clustering based on the seminar topics students choose. Freshmen will receive comprehensive advising, and they’ll all read, write about, and discuss Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. UMW will offer more than 60 first-year seminars on topics ranging from game theory to Jane Austen. In residential clustering, students live with classmates from their first-year seminars, creating a community that combines living and learning. Incoming students may choose a first-year seminar and housing assignments once they have made enrollment deposits. Every freshman must enroll in a seminar. Tim O’Donnell, associate provost for academic engagement and student success, said studies show that students who participate in a first-year seminar earn higher GPAs by the end of freshman year and are more likely to return … [Read more...]