Brag Sheet

Anew joint program between Blue Ridge Community College and JMU is opening doors for future students. The Bridge to Madison transfer program provides academic and social support to help students from BRCC gain admittance to and succeed at JMU.

Under the agreement, students who applied to JMU but have not been accepted through the regular admissions process can be considered for selection into the program. These students will be able to live on the university campus while taking their first year of college course work at BRCC. The arrangement lowers the cost of tuition for these students and provides academic support from both institutions. Students successfully completing the program will be able to attend JMU full time beginning in their sophomore year.

BRCC and JMU expect to support approximately 50 students through the Bridge to Madison program in the first year.

BRCC President John Downey and JMU President Jonathan R. Alger sign the transfer agreement.

— Ginny Cramer

At its regularly scheduled board meeting in September, the JMU Board of Visitors voted to extend President Jonathan R. Alger’s term as president for five years.

“The board appreciates President Alger and the growth the university has experienced under his leadership,” said Lara Major (’92, ’20P), the board’s rector. “Jon’s commitment to student success and academic excellence has been instrumental in maintaining JMU’s high graduation and satisfaction rates, outstanding post-graduation employment levels and continued affordability.”

“I am honored and humbled to continue my service at JMU and lead a place with such extraordinary talent,” Alger said. “In the coming weeks, I look forward to sharing more of our vision for the near and distant future of the university.”

Alger became the sixth president of JMU in 2012. His new contract will begin July 1 and run through June 30, 2027.

— Ginny Cramer

As loyal Madison readers, you can use this to brag about JMU and spread the word!

Healthy forest-verified

JMU earned recognition as a 2020 Tree Campus Higher Education institution. The Tree Campus USA program, launched in 2008 by the Arbor Day Foundation, helps colleges and universities around the country establish and sustain healthy community forests. JMU met five core standards for effective campus forest management. Career-ready

For the third straight year, JMU is the best college in Virginia for getting a job. The Zippia ranking is based on Department of Education data. Arts and culture

The Harrisonburg International Festival was recognized with the 2021 Circle of Excellence in the Arts award by the Forbes Center for the Performing Arts, the Arts Council of the Valley and the College of Visual and Performing Arts. Top sports venue

Bridgeforth Stadium/Zane Showker Field was voted by Virginia Living’s readers as one of the Best Sports Venues in the Shenandoah Valley region in its 2021 Best of Virginia issue. Rejoice, foodies!

JMU earned the No. 7 ranking on Niche.com’s 2022 Best Food rankings list. Niche analyzed meal-plan costs and student reviews.

Highest honor

The JMU chapter of Beta Gamma Sigma, a business education honor society, earned Highest Honors Chapter recognition. BGS is comprised of top-performing business students.

DDuring National Small Business Week in September 2021, the Gilliam Center for Entrepreneurship at JMU launched the Bluestone Seed Fund, a donor-backed investment fund that provides equity investments in student- and alumni-owned businesses.

“This is not a student scholarship competition,” said Suzanne Bergmeister, executive director of the Gilliam Center.

“Students will be pitching their real, legal businesses and raising real seed capital for their startups. On the investment side, students will be gaining unique experience in venture investing.”

JMU first lady Mary Ann Alger helped develop the concept, which is unique because of the large number of students who can get involved.

Startup selection is highly competitive. Student founders apply and pitch to the Bluestone Seed Fund’s investment committee made up of JMU alumni, donors, faculty and community experts.

Three student-owned startups were selected to receive $5,000 each in exchange for a 5% equity stake in their companies as part of the fund’s inaugural investment cycle. Beginning in the Spring 2022 semester, the opportunity will be extended to alumni who graduated within the past five years.

— Ginny Cramer

Join us in celebrating the 20th anniversary of The Business Plan Competition March 25, 2022 at 3 p.m. in the new Hartman Hall. A reception will follow.

Reach out to Judy Onestak for details at 540-568-3264 or onestajl@jmu.edu.

Spotlighting JMU professors through the lenses of scholarship, awards and service

CHEMISTRY & BIOCHEMISTRY

Baber was recognized as a 2022 Rising Star by the American Chemical Society’s Women Chemists Committee. This distinction recognizes “exceptional, early-to-midcareer women chemists across all areas of chemistry on a national level.” The award was established in 2011 to help promote retention of women in science. Baber was one of nine chemists from industry and academia recognized this year. Heather Coltman, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at JMU, called it “a wonderful accomplishment and recognition for Ashleigh!”

SPORT PSYCHOLOGY

Harmison, director of sport psychology and the Kibler professor of sport psychology, began a term as president-elect of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology in October 2021. His résumé includes stints with three U.S. Olympic snowboarding teams, the Kansas City Royals’ minor league organization and four Division I universities. According to Harmison, openly talking about mental health and how to cope with various stressors is becoming more common among college athletes. At JMU, student-athletes face plenty of demands. “The reality is, athletes have to make sacrifices because they don’t have enough time in the day to be a full-time athlete, a full-time student and then a full-time person,” Harmison said. Opportunities for student-athletes at JMU to discuss mental health have been increasing for several years, including through the launch of a program called “Dukes, Let’s Talk.” Following a year as president-elect of AASP, Harmison will be president for a year and then serve another year as immediate past president. “It’s an honor. I’m humbled by it,” he said.

POLITICAL SCIENCE

Kaussler developed The Yemen Human Security Project at JMU with funding from the Betty Coe (’64) and Paul J. Cinquegrana Presidential Chair of Faculty Teaching Excellence and Research award. The grant allowed him to conduct research on proxy war and civilian victimization in the civil war in Yemen, during which he interviewed government ministers, officials and politicians. He had planned to begin gathering field data in the Persian Gulf in January 2020 but could no longer travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic. From his research, he uncovered that the Yemeni Civil War has caused “the greatest humanitarian disaster of our time,” with children being the greatest victims of the conflict. For the second part of his project, students in Kaussler’s course, International Security and Conflict Management, launched an interactive map during the Spring 2021 semester. Users can search through more than 22,000 data points of air strikes during the war, allowing viewers to see the impact on Yemeni civilians over a six-year period. “I am glad that I was able to build the Human Security Map with my students in order to visualize the extent of civilian victimizations and ultimately raise awareness of the plight of Yemenis,” said Kaussler, an expert on the Middle East. The Yemen Human Security Project is hosted by the College of Arts and Letters and is accessible to the public: https://bit. ly/3D55Ozp.

ECONOMICS

In the Spring 2021 edition of Social Science Quarterly, Milliman published “Racial Exclusion in the Antebellum North: An Analysis of Indiana’s 1851 Vote to Ban African American Immigration,” the findings of which show how a racially charged 1851 vote depended on economic and social factors that varied across Indiana’s 91 counties. Milliman’s article is the first econometric analysis of a statewide referendum on Black immigration. The article points out that even though slavery was being phased out or outright banned in the North, Black residents still faced pervasive social, economic and political restrictions. Milliman’s research began with the painstaking assembly of a historical database on 19th-century Indiana. He collected a variety of demographic and economic variables, including religious affiliations. His quantitative methods have helped unlock Indiana’s racial history.

MEDIA ARTS AND DESIGN

Smalls was awarded a University of Maryland, Baltimore County Inclusion Imperative Visiting Faculty Fellowship to research popular culture as an entryway to conversations on race, class, gender and power in television and digital media spaces. The fellowship is awarded to scholars committed to diversity and to the advancement of groups historically underrepresented in academia. Smalls is spending the Spring 2022 semester in residence at the Dresher Center for the Humanities at UMBC, where she is conducting research that explores “HBO’s Insecure and Black Women in the Media.” She is examining if and how shows like Insecure, which focuses on two millennial, Black female best friends, challenge stereotypical portrayals of Black women. In addition to representation, the project deals with the convergence of media, integration of technology and the use of social television in an evolving media landscape.