Less than a year into his tenure, Troy Paino knows what it’s like to be the new guy at Mary Washington. Now the 10th president is sharing his discoveries to help incoming students get to know what to expect of UMW life.
The New Guy video series follows Paino as he explores campus and historic Fredericksburg, travels on Amtrak with an alumna, and visits Washington, D.C.
The president joined Grace May ’16 on the train to D.C., where she was an intern at the Library of Congress. While in the nation’s capital, the New Guy visited the happening H Street corridor, where Erik Bruner-Yang ’07 welcomed him to Maketto Cambodian-style marketplace and restaurant.
Bruner-Yang took Paino into the kitchen to toss a wok full of noodles, then served them up to fellow alumni Marion Blakey ’70 and Dan Steen ’84, who remembered what it was like to be newcomers at Mary Washington back in the day.
Another video finds the president in Fredericksburg with student Nikki Ferrell ’18, captain of the UMW Equestrian Team. The two ride Prissy and Wilbur from campus through downtown to the Rappahannock River, then make a swing by Carl’s for shakes and cones.
The New Guy gets an exclusive tour of Fredericksburg’s Mary Washington House, the home George Washington bought for his mother, UMW’s namesake. In the usually off-limits basement, the 10th president ducks under floor joists and avoids cobwebs with a class of historic preservation students. Professor Michael Spencer ’03 shows them the original foundation of the house where the nation’s first president stopped in to get his mother’s blessing on the way to his inauguration.
The New Guy series was produced by the UMW Office of University Relations and Enterprise Screen Video Communications.
Find episodes on the UMW YouTube channel by searching “UMW The New Guy.