Marlin Magazine 2012-2013

Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Norfolk, VA Permit No. 27

OFFICE OF COLLEGE COMMUNICATIONS 1584 Wesleyan Drive Norfolk, Virginia 23502 757.455.3200 www.vwc.edu

V i r g i n i a

W e s l e y a n

C o l l e g e

M a g a z i n e

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I am Virginia Wesleyan.

A Place in History In his new book, and in life, professor Dan Margolies explores the crossroads where cultures and ideologies collide

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Connecting

ClassroomtoCareer Being in the spotlight comes naturally to Kaitlin Harris ’12. A doubleKmajor in English and Theater, Kaitlin was involved in numerous stage productions at Virginia Wesleyan. Combining her education with her internship at Studio Center Total Productions in Virginia Beach paved the way to employment right after graduation.

The Annual Fund for Academic Excellence supports annual scholarships, undergraduate research opportunities, study abroad and internships, ensuring that Virginia Wesleyan students like Kaitlin have access to a 21stKcentury liberal arts education.

CONTRIBUTE TO BRIGHT FUTURES. Support the Annual Fund for Academic Excellence.

Visit www.vwc.edu/annualfund, call 757.455.3242 or write to President’s Office, 1584 Wesleyan Drive, Norfolk, VA 23502

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PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL-PITTMAN

WINDS OF CHANGE: During the fall 2011 semester, students in Alison Marganski’s sociology and criminal justice class on family violence decorated brightly colored t-shirts with emotional messages and invited others to do the same as part of the “Clothesline Project,” a national movement designed to raise awareness about domestic violence. The project is one example of Wesleyan’s new enhanced curriculum and how students apply what they’ve learned in the classroom to real-world scenarios.

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Features

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A Place in History From folk culture to foreign policy, beekeeping to Buddhism—professor

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Glass Act New partnership with the Chrysler Museum of Art gives Wesleyan

Dan Margolies discovers meaning

students unique access to world-

through a site-specific lens

class glassblowing studio

Freeing is Believing How students at Virginia Wesleyan and other colleges and universities explore

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The Forest for the Trees On a peaceful patch of land on

issues of faith and forge their own

the Eastern Shore, Billy and Fann

spiritual paths

Greer are making a difference

Conten 30,000 seedlings at a time

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2012-2013 Board of Trustees CHAIRMAN O. L. Everett VICE CHAIRMAN Gary D. Bonnewell ’79

SECRETARY Vincent J. Mastracco Jr.

TREASURER Anne B. Shumadine

Alexandra G. Arias ’03 Jane P. Batten H’06 George Y. Birdsong Thomas C. Broyles Deborah H. Butler Joseph D. Carson* Lynn B. Clements B. Minette Cooper Robert H. DeFord Jr. Christopher L. Dotolo ’91* Tammy L. Estep * Dale R. Foley Susan S. Goode William W. Granger III William T. Greer Jr.* Charles E. Harris Roy E. Hendrix Charlene P. Kammerer* David L. Kaufman Ronald M. Kramer

Departments 4

FROM THE EDITOR

6

WESLEYAN WINDOW

36

ACADEMIA

45

LIVING & LEARNING

51

MARLIN ATHLETICS

58

ALUMNI PAGES

36

ents COVER PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL-PITTMAN

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John F. Malbon Elizabeth F. Middleton ’91 Emily S. Miles Jerrold L. Miller Tassos J. Paphites ’79 Deborah M. Paxson ’75 Bradford L. Phillips* Robin D. Ray Richard D. Roberts H’08 Jeanne Polizos Ross Louis F. Ryan Alvin J. Schexnider William S. Shelhorse ’70 William H. Thumel Jr. Mark S. Towe John A. Trinder George K. (Chip) Tsantes III ’83 John N. Vest* D. Henry Watts H’07 *ex officio

Trustees Emeriti S. Frank Blocker Robert F. Boyd H’09 Jerry G. Bray Jr.** H’02 William J. Fanney James W. Griffiths Helen C. Hoffman** H’03 Henry C. Hofheimer II** H’02 H.P. McNeal ** Kenneth R. Perry** H’02 Ralph G. Roop** Mary Wright Thrasher** Benjamin J. Willis Jr. **deceased

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From the Editor

From the moment I started working at VWC in the fall of 2010, I was anxious to explore the campus’s expansive green space.

I had visited Virginia Wesleyan for arts and academic events in the past and, like most people who come here, I was struck by the unassuming beauty of this little oasis in the middle of everything.

I quickly became familiar with some of the natural attributes of the 300-acre wooded campus— from an old-growth beech forest to open fields and flowers, a designated bird sanctuary to bat and bluebird houses, beekeeping boxes and even an eco-friendly worm farm on the College grounds.

I set out to explore the network of wooded trails on the campus, hiking or jogging on lunch breaks along tree-lined paths, through the campus arboretum or to the water’s edge on Lake Taylor. I had a blast traipsing through the woods hunting down daddy longlegs with biology professor Vic Townsend and watching my daughter and a

PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN

The concept of spaces and places is one that is inextricably tied to memory and meaning. Where something happened is often at least as important as what happened there.

Not a Concrete Campus

By Leona Baker THE FIRST TIME I HEARD VIRGINIA WESLEYAN PRESIDENT BILLY GREER SAY “THIS IS not a concrete campus”—words I later realized he’s fond of repeating—the writer in me latched on to their alliterative punch. The marketer in me recognized a savvy message in the form of a friendly dig at some of the College’s more urban fellow institutions of higher learning. But the tree hugger in me knew exactly what he really meant.

gaggle of other school-age kids fish from the dock as part of the YMCA’s Camp Red Feather, which has made VWC its summer home for many years.

Virginia Wesleyan students and alumni undoubtedly have their own connections to the College as a place. We include some of those in a feature on page 48 of this issue called “Here and Then,” in which former students tell us about their favorite spots on campus—from the green ones to the go-to locales for study time or down time. And

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one alumna, Charla Smith Worley ’72, shares a very special tie she has to the College’s land, which was once her father’s family farm, on page 57.

Spaces and Places The theme for this 2012-2013 issue of Marlin magazine, if you have not guessed it yet, is spaces and places. It’s an idea that emerged out of our cover story about history professor Dan Margolies (page 18), whose research includes in-depth explorations of spaces and places as sources of political friction as well as cultural breeding grounds.

The idea pops up in photos and stories throughout these pages—sometimes by design, sometimes thanks to serendipity.

Philosophy professor Patrick Goold waxes poetic about his passion for the freedom he can only find while manning his sailboat on the spaces of the open ocean (page 36).

President Greer and his wife, Fann, give us a peek at the “mystical experience” afforded by the property they helped reforest on the Eastern Shore (page 30).

We get a look into the microcosmic space hidden from the naked eye with an image of “mutant mold” from the College’s new electron microscope (page 40). And student Chiereme Fortune describes the breathtaking views she and other students witnessed on an alternative spring break mission trip to Nicaragua (page 46).

The concept of spaces and places is one that is inextricably tied to memory and meaning. Where something happened is often at least as important as what happened there. A favorite meal, a first kiss, a challenge overcome; we can all say where we were during these scenes from the movies of our lives. This is certainly true of our college experience. For half a decade, the “not a concrete campus” of Virginia Wesleyan has played host to countless life-shaping moments for students, faculty and friends.

May this remain an inspiring space for living and learning for many years to come.

Leona Baker is the Assistant Director of Communications/Lead Writer for the Office of College Communications at Virginia Wesleyan College. For questions or comments regarding the content of Marlin Magazine, contact her at lbaker1@vwc.edu

MAGAZINE STAFF

ADMINISTRATION

Publisher Laynee Timlin

William Greer, President

Editor-in-Chief Leona Baker

David Buckingham, Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Enrollment Services

Art Director Mary Millar Hester

Timothy O’Rourke, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Kenneth R. Perry Dean of the College

Photography Director & Photo Editor Janice Marshall-Pittman

Bryan Price, Associate Vice President for Institutional Research and Effectiveness and Director of Strategic Planning

Contributing Writers Elizabeth Blachman Lovely Edwards Chiereme Fortune ‘13 Kathy Stolley Joe Wasiluk Advertising Designer Christine Hall Contributing Illustrator Chris Gallagher Contributing Editor Kristen De Deyn Kirk Contributing Photographers Alexandra Cohen Chiereme Fortune ’13 Keith Lucas Jack Mellott Thomas Mills ’15 Augusta Pittman Heather Spencer ’13 Virgil Stringfield Wendy Maness Contributing Photo Editor Augusta Pittman College Archivist Stephen Mansfield

Cary Sawyer, Vice President of Finance Laynee Timlin, Director of College Communications Mita Vail, Vice President for College Advancement Bruce Vaughan, Vice President of Operations ALUMNI RELATIONS Contact Alumni Relations Director Katy Judge at kjudge@vwc.edu or 757.455.2115 Marlin Magazine is published by the Office of College Communications.

The purpose of the publication is to inform, inspire and entertain a broad readership including alumni, parents, students, faculty, staff, supporters and friends by documenting the College’s vigorous intellectual culture and diverse community. The individual viewpoints expressed in these pages do not necessarily reflect those of the magazine staff or of the College and its policies. Contact the magazine at lbaker1@vwc.edu or Marlin Magazine, Office of College Communications, 1584 Wesleyan Drive, Norfolk, VA 23502. Website: www.vwc.edu.

Printed on recycled paper by Jones Printing Service

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Wesleyan Window

PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN

LIVING HISTORY: Students in Sara Sewell’s class organized a commemorative event featuring a locally based Holocaust survivor.

The Fourth Hour in Action VIRGINIA WESLEYAN PROFESSORS UTILIZE NEW ENHANCED CURRICULUM TO ENGAGE STUDENTS IN INNOVATIVE WAYS

BEGINNING IN FALL 2011, VIRGINIA Wesleyan implemented a revolutionary new curricular structure based on a fourcredit rather than the traditional three-credit system. This initiative was designed to make every course more engaging and every program more focused on helping

students become successful, independent learners.

As part of the enhanced curriculum, the fourth hour of each class is designated for deeper exploration of content through outof-class experiences and projects such as field trips, volunteer work, independent and collaborative research projects, and work with technological tools. All of these activities are stimulated by “inquiryguided learning,” the type of learning that takes place when students are engaged in critical thinking and hands-on problem solving.

During the first year under the new curriculum, students and faculty adjusted to the logistical challenges of the change, but the tangible effects on the learning experience at VWC could be observed on a daily basis.

A few examples of the innovative ways in which VWC faculty from various academic disciplines incorporated the four-credit structure into their course work include: a history class that organized a commemorative event with a local Holocaust survivor; extended inschool observation opportunities for teacher education training; a weather lab in which 100-level algebra students were asked to develop a linear equation based on temperature data; and a Buddhist philosophy course that asked students to design “reflection modules” that promote “greater capacity for concentration, focus, and deeper engagement.”

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Wesleyan Window

Pre-Engineering at VWC

New Heights ALPINE TOWER A WELCOME ADDITION FOR VWC’S ACADEMIC, RECREATION AND ATHLETIC PROGRAMS NO, IT’S NOT A GIANT MEDIEVAL weapon. Or a pirate ship. It’s the Alpine Tower, an imposing assemblage of massive wooden beams, ropes, swings and platforms that stands 50 feet tall and weighs more than 18,000 pounds. The tower, designed for climbing and teambuilding exercises, was recently put in place in the grassy area along the tree line off of Smith Drive, just west of the main entrance to the VWC campus.

The Alpine Tower is the result of a partnership between Virginia Wesleyan and the YMCA of South Hampton Roads. The YMCA will use the tower primarily in the summer for its camps and youth activities,

Happy Birthday, Batten JANE P. BATTEN STUDENT CENTER CELEBRATES 10 YEARS AS THE HEART AND HUB OF CAMPUS LIFE WHEN THE COLLEGE BROKE GROUND ON THE BATTEN STUDENT CENTER IN 2000, its namesake, longtime Board of Trustees member and tireless supporter Jane Batten, hoped the new facility would “make an enormous difference to the life of the campus.”

That it has—and then some. For the last decade, the Jane P. Batten Student Center has served as the heart and hub of campus life for students, faculty, staff and visitors from near and far. On Feb. 18, 2012, the College hosted a special “Batten Center Birthday Celebration” that included a cake cutting by President Billy Greer and Jane Batten before the men’s basketball game.

Designed to serve as the “town square” of the campus, the 137,000 squarefoot Batten Center features a modern convocation center with an elevated jogging track, an eight-lane pool, a training and fitness center, an aerobics room, racquetball courts, a climbing wall, an aquarium, the campus bookstore, and the popular Marlin Grille as well as offices, classrooms and meeting spaces.

“The Jane P. Batten Student Center was a catalyst for making campus life what it is today,” says Dean of Students Keith Moore. “It brought learning, fitness, and fun under one roof, a dynamic our students benefit from every day.”

while VWC will utilize the tower for classes, recreation activities and teambuilding programs mostly during the academic year.

As many as 36 participants at once, including six climbers, can engage in a variety of challenges on the Alpine Tower.

Among them is the “Giant Swing by Choice,” which connects to a pole 110 feet away from the center of the tower. The upper platform of the tower can even be used as a campsite for up to six people to spend the night while harnessed in for safety. The tower is also equipped for use by people with disabilities.

Virginia Wesleyan is the only school in Virginia that has an Alpine Tower on its main campus. It will also be available for use by outside groups for a fee and is an extension of the College’s Outdoor Achievement Center. Professor of Recreation and Leisure Studies Doug Kennedy was instrumental in making the tower a reality.

YMCA Youth Development Director Samantha Smith tackles the tower

PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN

VIRGINIA WESLEYAN HAS RECENTLY ENTERED INTO AN agreement with Old Dominion University that provides students the opportunity to earn both a Bachelor of Science degree from VWC and a master’s degree in civil, environmental, mechanical, electrical, computer, aerospace engineering or modeling and simulation from ODU. Students in this newly articulated program would enroll at Virginia Wesleyan and take several pre-determined undergraduate engineering courses at ODU. VWC Associate Professor of Mathematics Margaret Reese was the catalyst for this agreement.

“Over the last several years students have expressed an interest in engineering as a career,” says Reese. “This is the only program that I know about in which students enrolled at a liberal arts college without an engineering program can take engineering courses while in residence. Most programs require that students transfer to the engineering school for the senior year. Our students will be able to stay in the Virginia Wesleyan community for the entire undergraduate part of their program.”

The Master of Engineering program is designed to require approximately 12 months to complete, assuming full-time graduate status. A Master of Science degree would take longer (typically 18 months) because of the thesis research associated with the degree.

PHOTO: JACK MELLOTT

AGREEMENT WITH ODU EXPANDS OPPORTUNITIES FOR WESLEYAN STUDENTS PLANNING CAREERS IN ENGINEERING

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PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN

am

GE

50 S

FOR RECENT 2012 GRADUATES NICHOLAS FORNO, Alexander Maguire and Brock Waddell, commencement day was more than a time to celebrate earning a diploma.

All three were also commissioned as officers in the U.S. Army during a ceremony on the Boyd Plaza following commencement exercises. Forno, Maguire and Waddell, all student athletes and community service volunteers, participated in Army ROTC while attending Virginia Wesleyan.

Their commissioning ceremony was the first to be held on the VWC campus and included the commissioning oath, pinning of bars, the first salute and silver dollar ceremony. Each of the young officers chose a special individual for their first salute. For criminal justice major Forno, it was his mentor, AFC Timmy Hall (Ret.); Maguire, who majored in psychology, first saluted his friend CPL Joe Malazita, USMC; and Waddell, a social science major, chose his grandfather, CPL Galin Waddell, U.S. Army, as the recipient of his first salute.

WISDOM LIGHTS THE WAY. THIS PHRASE CERTAINLY RESONATED WITH Sandra Billy, Director for the Center for Sacred Music, when she first wrote the lyrics for the College’s alma mater in 2002. Yet it was when Billy found herself sitting in traffic behind a car with a Dartmouth license plate that the idea for using Latin for this key phrase hit her.

“There’s something about accepting the ‘mantles of age,’ and I realized that as Virginia Wesleyan reaches the ripe age of 50, it seems most appropriate to introduce a Latin motto.” For Dartmouth, “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness” or vox clamantis in deserto captures their essence, for Virginia Wesleyan it’s sapientia illuminat viam, or “wisdom lights the way.”

N LEYA COLL Billy shared her epiphany with President E ES W Billy Greer, who relayed the idea to his 1961-2011 administrative council. She then consulted with Ben Haller, Assistant Professor of Classics.

“A Latin motto for Virginia Wesleyan in our 50th year underscores our mission to provide years ap a not just a credential for a job,” says Haller, “but to ie n in t i a I ll u m give students the guidance to learn to operate as autonomous, moral agents within today’s society.”

Vi

INAUGURAL ARMY COMMISSIONING CEREMONY HELD ON CAMPUS

COLLEGE INTRODUCES A NEW VERSION OF THE MOTTO IN HONOR OF 50TH ANNIVERSARY

t

The First Salute

Latin Lights the Way

VIRGINI A

AT ATTENTION: Recent graduates (from left) Nicholas Forno, Alexander Maguire and Brock Waddell during the commissioning ceremony

HONORED BY CASE VIRGINIA WESLEYAN COLLEGE'S MARLIN MAGAZINE WAS HONORED with a District III Special Merit Award from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Higher Education (CASE). The award was for the feature story "The Long Run" about the College's Track & Field program. The story appeared in the 2011-2012 issue of the magazine.

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Wesleyan Window

“Wesleyan was a place where ideas and dreams could become reality without an inordinate amount of red tape.”

— Retiring music professor David Clayton reflecting on his nearly 40-year tenure at the College.

“At Virginia Wesleyan, professors don’t just care about what students are learning; they care about who they are becoming. Career preparation is only part of the story. There is also preparation to be a Renaissance citizen, an honorable, caring, and culturally literate person who will lead a good and reflective life in service to family and community.”

— Cathy Lewis, H ‘09, host of “HearSay with Cathy Lewis” on 89.5 WHRV-FM

verheard on Campus...

“I mean, who gets a speeding ticket on their way to work?

You have to love what you do.”

— Mike White ’81, president and CEO of Maersk Line, North America, during a presentation in the Pearce Hospitality Suite, joking about how his enthusiasm for his job once earned him a traffic violation

“People learn from the people they love. We can’t ignore the human element. We focus on the things that are easy to measure, but the deeper human stuff is hard.”

— New York Times columnist and author of The Social Animal, David Brooks, who spoke at the College in March 2012

“The diverse body of knowledge gained from a liberal arts education enables individuals to see the interrelatedness between subjects and ideas and events and societies. It basically teaches you how to learn and continue learning throughout your life.”

— Karen Corrigan ’97, co-founder and CEO of Corrigan Partners LLC, a healthcare management consultancy firm

“It’s the journey that produces the joy. The question to ask is not ‘What do I want to be?’ but ‘What do I want to do?’”

— 2012 Commencement speaker and recently appointed Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Maurice Jones encouraging graduates to consider their values along with their career aspirations

“The Center, located as it is at an undergraduate liberal arts college, is uniquely situated to teach students (and adults) how to put oneself in the ‘religious shoes’ of another person, by letting us see, teach, and learn from each other about some of the most important—and therefore most contentious —issues in our shrinking society.”

— Professor Eric Mazur, acting director of VWC’s Center for the Study of Religious Freedom

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All the News That’s Fit to Learn

Faculty Focus

Something in the Atmosphere SERIES OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS ON MERCURY POLLUTION AMONG PROFESSIONAL AND PERSONAL HIGHLIGHTS FOR ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC SCIENCE ELIZABETH MALCOLM THE PHRASE “CARBON FOOTPRINT” HAS become part of the popular lexicon, but in a chapter she contributed to a recently released book, Associate Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Elizabeth Malcolm explores a different aspect of the role people play in affecting the environment.

Malcolm has done extensive research on mercury pollution, its sources and the processes by which this naturally occurring heavy metal goes from “a volcano or power plant to the air, then water, and into fish” or from “a coal plant in China” to “a polar bear in Canada or fish in a New England pond.” In the recently released book Mercury Pollution: A Transdisciplinary Treatment (CRC Press, 2011), she considers the novel concept of a “mercury footprint” along with an overview of mercury and the environment. The book is the

BEYOND THE MINUTIA: Elizabeth Malcolm (left) in the newly renovated Blocker Environmental Science Lab with student Erica Sears ‘13.

result of a collaborative project with faculty from various academic departments at the College of William & Mary.

“This brought me in a new direction beyond just the minutia, the science,” Malcolm says.

“I got to look at mercury on a global scale and look at how emissions differ geographically by country.”

The publication is one in a series of recent highlights, both professional and personal, for Malcolm. In November 2010, Malcolm and her husband, Jim Saunders, welcomed their second child. Also in 2010, Malcolm published two papers on mercury, one in the journal Marine Chemistry and another in the Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry.

IT’S DEADLINE NIGHT IN THE MARLIN Chronicle newsroom. Student staff members are hunched over a row of computers, dropping photos into place, tweaking layouts and making final edits. Others are gathered around an oblong table scattered with papers and notebooks and a night’s supply of Domino’s Pizza. One student is marking up a printout of a story while another is absorbed in a sketchbook, creating an illustration to be used in the latest issue of VWC’s student-run newspaper.

Looking on is Assistant Professor of Communication Lisa Lyon Payne, who took the reins as faculty adviser for the Chronicle as of fall 2011. Payne assumed the role when beloved journalism professor Bill Ruehlmann retired. Under Ruehlmann’s tutelage, the publication garnered dozens of state and national awards.

“Filling Dr. Ruehlmann’s shoes was a tall order,” she says. “He was such an integral part of this group for so long. But as I’ve gotten more familiar with the students and the inner workings of the newspaper, I’ve identified some areas that I think would make this a stronger publication and better learning experience for the students.”

Among those are streamlining the Marlin Chronicle website, opening up the publication to the realworld benefits and challenges that come along with including paid advertising, and offering academic incentives to encourage more student participation.

Payne, whose professional experience includes work as a writer, editorial assistant and public relations specialist, says she sees her role in the publication as threefold: mentor, advocate and logistical facilitator.

“It’s very important to me that the staff has 100 percent editorial freedom. As a faculty member, it’s so refreshing to be able to mentor such a motivated and committed group.“

PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN

PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF NEW FACULTY ADVISER LISA LYON PAYNE, MARLIN CHRONICLE STUDENT-RUN NEWSPAPER IS GOING STRONG

EDITORIAL ASSISTANCE: Lisa Lyon Payne (right) with Rachel Satterwhite ’12 and Jesse Pugh ’12 in the Marlin Chronicle newsroom.

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Wesleyan Window

Home Run for Light Rail and VWC PROFESSOR JOHN RUDEL'S BASEBALL- INSPIRED ARTWORK PART OF NORFOLK'S LIGHT RAIL

The Magic of Music COLLEGE'S FIRST FULL-TIME MUSIC PROFESSOR RETIRES AFTER NEARLY 40 YEARS OUTSIDE THE ENTRANCE TO THE Hofheimer Theater hangs a series of elegantly framed programs from concerts past—each focused on a famous composer. Bach.

Schubert. Brahms. Handel. But one concert stands out in David Clayton’s mind as a coming of age for VWC’s music program, which Clayton has been building since he was hired as the College’s first full-time music professor in 1972.

On April 30, 1988, student singers, faculty, staff and guest artists were joined on stage by a full orchestra for a performance of one of the most enigmatic and challenging masterpieces in the classical canon: Mozart’s Requiem.

Clayton remembers it as a turning point.

“It was really amazing,” says Clayton, who officially retired at the end of the spring 2012 semester. “More than anything it reconfirmed my belief in the magic of music.”

Clayton, known to his students simply as “DC,” has been conjuring that magic in and out

MORE THAN 75,000 PEOPLE LINED UP FOR their chance to ride the Tide light rail system during its grand opening weekend in Norfolk, Virginia. Among them was art professor John Rudel, whose art work has become a permanent fixture at the light rail station at Harbor Park, home of the Norfolk Tides baseball team.

Rudel was one of approximately a dozen artists whose work was selected for installation

of the classroom for 39 years. When he arrived at VWC, the College had just 625 students and around 32 faculty members and, as he says, “everybody knew everybody.”

At a sold-out farewell concert in Hofheimer Theater in April 2012, 18 alumni returned to perform with the Wesleyan Singers and the College Choir in a program befitting a man whose mark on VWC is as indelible as it is musical. Clayton was instrumental in creating the Center for Sacred Music, establishing the annual Sacred Music Summer Conference and developing the College’s first concert series.

Under Clayton’s direction, VWC students have performed with regional and national arts groups and at prestigious venues along the East Coast and have made numerous recordings.

Faculty Focus

in the light rail stations as part of the city’s public art program. The artists were honored at a public dedication ceremony on Aug. 20, 2011. Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim was among the speakers who lauded their efforts and emphasized the importance of public art in creating a sense of community.

“A very meaningful feedback loop is developed when artists who inhabit a region are invited to become culture creators within that region,” Rudel says, “and that’s exactly what the public art program is facilitating. Being selected has meant a lot to me and I hope that this work is enjoyed by many.”

To complete the project, Rudel had to teach himself how to sandblast onto glass.

In keeping with the installation’s proximity to Harbor Park, he worked with Head Baseball Coach Nick Boothe to capture images of VWC baseball team members in action. He used the images as inspiration for some of the figures he created on a series of glass panels to be installed at the station.

In his retirement, Clayton hopes to read, travel to Australia and New Zealand, spend more time with his daughter, and indulge his passion for gardening at his home in Virginia Beach.

PHOTO: THOMAS MILLS

PHOTO: LEONA BAKER

ALL ABOARD ART: Rudel created sandblasted glass figures of baseball players for the the Harbor Park station

ON A HIGH NOTE: Known to his students as “DC,” Clayton has been a mentor to countless students whose love of music was nurtured under his direction.

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Awards and Honors

Faculty Focus

Chemistry professor Joyce Easter was awarded a $20,000 grant from Applied Separations, Inc. for a green chemistry initiative

Professor of Chemistry Joyce Easter was awarded the first-ever grant from Applied Separations, Inc. for implementation of an environmentally friendly chemistry technique. The $20,000 grant, received during the 15th Annual ACS Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference in Washington, D.C., will allow VWC students to learn the fundamentals of the supercritical fluid extraction process and green chemistry. Supercritical fluids are high-temperature, high-pressure substances that share properties of both liquids and gases. Easter will be using Applied Separations’ Spe-ed SFE Prime system to integrate the process into sophomore-level organic chemistry classes as well as for independent research projects.

PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN

Timothy O’Rourke, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Kenneth R. Perry Dean of the College, is one of 20 senior-level administrators in higher education nationwide selected by the Council of Independent Colleges and the American Academic Leadership Institute to participate in a year-long Executive Leadership Academy. O’Rourke will attend two seminars and ongoing webinars, participate in a mentoring program, develop experiential learning projects focused on specific areas of presidential responsibility, and complete a series of readings and case studies.

Associate Professor of French Alain Gabon was selected to participate in a National Endowment for the Humanities summer research seminar in Paris, France, in June 2012. The five-week seminar for college teachers and scholars was entitled “France’s Haunting Pasts: Debating 20th-Century History and French Identity Since 1990.” The seminar was organized by the Institut d’Histoire du Temps Present, part of the National Center for Scientific Research.

Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice Alison Marganski was awarded a grant from the Walmart Foundation through their Local Community Contribution/Hunger Outreach Grant Program. The $1,000 grant will be used to promote community engagement and cultural understanding among VWC students, particularly through student projects related to raising awareness about domestic violence and promoting healthy, positive relationships.

Professor of Religious Studies Terry Lindvall, also the C.S. Lewis Endowed Chair in Communication and Christian Thought, has been awarded a grant funded by the Louisville Institute, a Lilly Endowment-funded program based at Louisville Seminary. The grant entitled “Cinematic Worship: Representations of Prayers and Hymns in Hollywood Cinema” aims at integrating pastoral ministry with representational media studies.

Professor of Communication Kathy Merlock Jackson received the President’s Award at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA) Conference, which took place in Boston in April 2012. The award is given to individuals who have contributed to the PCA/ ACA in a variety of ways. Merlock Jackson serves as editor of the Journal of American Culture and is a past president of the American Culture Association.

Doug Kennedy, Professor of Recreation and Leisure Studies, was invited by the Department of Army Installation Management Command to direct aquatics training for defense personnel serving youth in Europe. Kennedy, who has served for 25 years with the Boy Scouts of America’s (BSA) National Camping School focusing on aquatics management, was recommended by the BSA to serve as the “Subject Matter Expert” for the defense Morale, Welfare and Recreation organization in Germany.

Points of Pride THE COLLEGE HAS MUCH to brag about in 2012 and beyond.

Here are a few current points of pride:

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Chosen as one of the nation’s best by the Princeton Review and featured in its forthcoming guide: The Best 377 Colleges: 2013 Edition.

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Featured on CollegesofDistinction.com for demonstrating excellence in four specific distinctions: engaged students, great teaching, vibrant communities and successful outcomes.

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Selected for inclusion in The Princeton Review’s Guide to 322 Green Colleges: 2012 Edition for outstanding sustainability initiatives.

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A grant from the National Science Foundation for up to $564,750 over a period of five years for the “Science & Mathematics Scholars Program at a Liberal Arts College.”

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$242,502 grant from the National Science Foundation that resulted in a state-of-the-art scanning electron microscope, the best of its kind in southeastern Virginia

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Partnerships with numerous community organizations such as the Chrysler Museum of Art, where students now have access to a world-class glassblowing studio.

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Week-long On-Campus Winter Homeless Shelter in its sixth year, the only homeless shelter known to be operated on the property of a college campus in the U.S.

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Wesleyan Window Student Spotlight

PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN

Bold Canvases, Bright Future

GRAPHIC DETAILS: Katie Bennett, a dual major in art and biology, poses with her work in the Neil Britton Gallery.

KATIE BENNETT ‘13 COMBINES HER LOVE OF SCIENCE AND ART ON A MICROSCOPIC SCALE THE ITSY-BITSY SPIDER IS NOT SO SMALL WHEN LOOKED UPON BY Katie Bennett ’13 during the wee hours of the morning in the VWC art studio.

Typical days for the dual major in biology and art include classes, six-mile afternoon runs, and plenty of time spent using both a state-of-the-art microscope and a paintbrush.

Honor societies, cross country, and indoor and outdoor track keep Bennett extremely busy, so she took the semester off from competing to focus on her paintings. Her artwork is based on black and white micrographs taken with the recently installed scanning electron microscope in Blocker Hall.

Minute details, too small to be seen by the naked eye, are greatly enlarged

by the time they arrive on Bennett’s canvas. The organs of an arachnid become mysterious organic shapes in swathes of rosy pink. Others are even more abstract, bold textures in royal blue and green.

“I’ve always been inspired to do artwork, and the beauty of organisms has always fascinated me,” she says, “so I’ve incorporated living biology into my art.”

The aspiring medical illustrator is considering graduate programs in California and Canada while taking full advantage of her liberal arts education. Bennett has entered her paintings into a juried art exhibition in Ohio and hopes to publish her research findings.

Ready, Set, Read

PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN

KUDOS FOR VWC STUDENTRUN MENTORING PROGRAM

Allison Reeves ‘13 received an AmeriCorps Service Award for her leadership role in Marlins Read

VIRGINIA WESLEYAN COLLEGE’S Marlins Read program was named a 201112 Model Partnership by Virginia Beach City Public Schools and honored during a partners-in-education recognition event in April 2012. Marlins Read is a mentoring program that pairs Virginia Wesleyan students with first graders from three Virginia Beach elementary schools to help improve reading their skills.

VWC junior Allison Reeves ‘13, the student coordinator of Marlins Read, also

received the 2012 ADVANCE Outstanding Service Award from the North Carolina Campus Compact. The award recognizes an AmeriCorps mentor whose service and support goes the extra mile to positively impact their mentee and service site. Under Reeves’ leadership, Marlins Read grew from 11 to 27 mentors.

Her service included helping a first grade class with a Valentine’s for Veterans project, driving the VWC van that transports college mentors to the elementary schools each week, and facilitating a “Chalk the Walk” project that encouraged students to express their love of reading on the school’s sidewalk.

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Transfer Student Success

PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN

Student Spotlight

United They Stand MODEL UN TEAM TRAVELS TO NEW YORK TO REPRESENT THE AFRICAN NATION OF LIBERIA AT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE A GROUP OF 14 VWC STUDENTS WENT to New York City in April 2012 for a conference that was truly international in scope. While there, they represented not only VWC but the entire West African country of Liberia.

The annual National Model United Nations Conference brings together more than 5,000 participants, students and higher education representatives from all over the globe. More than half of the attendees are from outside the U.S. Each group of students is assigned a country to represent at the conference.

Mostly political science and international studies majors, the VWC students participated in a Model United Nations group that met weekly on campus as preparation for the trip. They studied the inner workings of the UN as well as the politics and culture of Liberia, a nation of 5 million people marked by political upheaval and a variety of economic and social challenges in the 20th century.

“Model UN is a fantastic learning opportunity for any student because

TEAM LIBERIA: Professor Aubrey Westfall (center) with Carissa Chantiles ’13 (left) and Michele Kelly ’12, two of the VWC students who represented Liberia at the Model UN Conference.

it provides them with real experience in the practice of diplomatic decision making,” says Assistant Professor of Political Science Aubrey Westfall, who led the group.

Carissa Chantiles ‘13 received an award at the conference for her position paper on the Republic of Liberia in the UNICEF committee. It is the second time the College has received an award at the conference but the first time for a paper.

“I hope this will help me be able to see the world, and my place in it, from a different perspective,” says Chantiles.

“And I hope the experience I gain from it will help open doors for me.”

“I FOUND IT TO BE A DIVERSE, YET INTIMATE campus,” explains business major Caroline Rutledge, who transferred to VWC in January 2011 after earning her associates degree at Tidewater Community College. “The small classes and student-to-professor ratios allow for one-on-one attention and a more customized learning environment.”

Rutledge credits her advisor, Assistant Professor of Management/Business Economics Paul Ewell, with helping her quickly acclimate to VWC life.

“As a commuter, I didn’t expect to be so connected to the campus so soon, but Dr. Ewell has been a godsend. He assigned projects that extended my experience beyond the classroom, and I was introduced to people who are not only concerned about my success and education, but who challenge me to be the best leader, citizen and person I can be.”

Transfer students are often attracted by the College’s exceptional faculty, commitment to academic excellence, and inspiring location. Recently announced scholarships for transfer students have also created new financial assistance opportunities for students like Rutledge.

Internships Abound INTERNSHIPS GIVE STUDENTS OPPORTUNITIES to apply knowledge they have learned from the classroom to hands-on professional work environments. Faculty advisers offer encouragement and assistance with setting up and choosing programs that fit students’ needs. Business professor Bob Albertson is just one of the faculty members who supervise several types of internships, many of which lead to outstanding student achievements.

Among the recent successes under Albertson’s supervision are Gage Collins ’12, who completed an internship at the Lake Taylor Rehabilitation Hospital that resulted in his statistical analysis of patient satisfaction being presented to the board of the hospital and Scarlett Barham ’12, who worked part-time at the Virginia Beach Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse while completing a study on the role of trust in the workplace.

In the business world, critical thinking skills are crucial. When competing for jobs in the market, graduates must be able to make quick decisions based on logic, discipline, time management and effective communication skills. Interning teaches students these skills and offers insight on how to excel in a variety of companies, organizations, industries and institutions.

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Wesleyan Window

ATHLETIC ACHIEVERS: Athletic Hall of Fame inductees for 2012 included (from left) Julia Green Marks ‘04, Michael C. Duffy ‘96, John C. Tomasheski ‘03, Thomas R. Brett ‘71, and Meagan N. DiCave ‘02. Who will be next?

Standouts ON THE FIELD FIFTH CLASS OF HONOREES TO BE INDUCTED INTO VIRGINIA WESLEYAN COLLEGE’S ATHLETIC HALL OF FAME ON FEBRUARY 2, 2013 DO YOU REMEMBER WHO DOMINATED the court, scored the most goals, jumped the highest or ran the fastest while you were at VWC? Now’s your chance to honor these all-Americans, record breakers and other extraordinary men and women who have made their mark on VWC athletics.

During the 2012-13 academic year, Virginia Wesleyan will induct the fifth class of the Athletic Hall of Fame. Established in May2:42 PM MagADM1-2pgAd_Layout 1 8/10/12

2007, the Athletic Hall of Fame honors those whose outstanding athletic achievements, service or significant contributions have had a lasting effect on Virginia Wesleyan College’s intercollegiate athletic program.

Each year, nominations for the Athletic Hall of Fame are accepted from April 1 through August 31. Student athletes are eligible for nomination five years after they have graduated from the College. Marlin teams, Page 1

coaches and friends of athletics may also be nominated. More information about the selection criteria and nomination process is available at www.vwc.edu/AHOFnomination.

The 2013 Athletic Hall of Fame Induction Luncheon will be held on Saturday, February 2, 2013. Join us for recognition of Marlin athletic accomplishments and opportunities to reminisce with fellow alumni and coaches.

THINGS ARE LOOKING UP AT VIRGINIA WESLEYAN COLLEGE

IT VVirIS gin ia Wesleyan and meet our

A-TEAM VWC DAY

OPEN HOUSE Oct. 20 & Nov. 10, 2012 Feb. 9 & March 9, 2013 Contact our Admissions Office to plan for your future.

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Virginia Wesleyan College at

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A Monumental Year DURING THE 2011-12 ACADEMIC YEAR, STUDENTS, ALUMNI, FACULTY, STAFF AND FRIENDS CELEBRATED THE COLLEGE’S 50TH ANNIVERSARY 1. Commencement speaker Maurice Jones (front left), Deputy Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, addressed the Class of 2012. He’s pictured here with VWC President Billy Greer, Dean Timothy O’Rourke and Chaplain Greg West.

2. Professors Kathy Merlock Jackson (top left) and Terry Lindvall (second row, center) and students in their “1960s Media and Culture” class plunged headfirst into exploration about the College’s founding decade, an era marked by social and political upheaval.

3. Lush Healey, Board Trustee Elizabeth Middleton and Gay Shulman reminisced about what it took to help launch a fledgling college during a ladies’ tea that celebrated the accomplishments of the Women of Wesleyan.

4. Since Virginia Wesleyan’s history is “a tale of two cities,” Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms (first row, center) and Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim (first row, right) were on hand at the 50th anniversary celebration luncheon. The mayors are pictured with VWC President Billy Greer (first row, left), Board Trustee Jane Batten (second row, left) and keynote speaker David Brooks (second row, right).

5. New York Times columnist and author David Brooks served as the keynote speaker for the 50th Anniversary Community Celebration Luncheon, which brought together 250 community leaders and friends of the College.

6. Board of Trustees members Dick Roberts, Bob Boyd, and Elizabeth Middleton prepared to enter the convocation center for 2012 commencement exercises.

7. "Regeneration" by sculptor Christine Harris '92 was one of the works featured in the 50th Anniversary Alumni Art Exhibition in the Neil Britton Art Gallery.

8. Associate Professor of History Sara Sewell organized the photographic display that tells the story of Wesleyan women during the last five decades.

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9. Graduates of the Class of 2012 Joby Lefever and Joshua Christian were all smiles following the commencement ceremony.

10. Stephanie Drinkard ’12 and Sarah Imbesi ’13 performed in Hofheimer Theater in the down-home, feel-good musical Pump Boys and Dinettes.

11. Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Enrollment Services David Buckingham donned a leisure suit for a blast-from-the-past photo with Bob Marlin at Homecoming 2011.

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12. Stephen Mansfield, College archivist and former history professor and academic dean, signed copies of his book Wisdom Lights the Way: Virginia Wesleyan College’s First Half Century (Donning Company Publishers), available for purchase in the Scribner Bookstore on campus.

13. At the Founder’s Reception, VWC President Billy Greer and board member and Chair of the 50 th Anniversary Committee Emily Miles unveiled a commemorative plaque that now hangs in the College’s first home, the Royster Building in Norfolk.

14. Nancy Kelly ’15 and Lex Higbee ’15 participated in the groovy 1960s-themed parade during Homecoming and Parent Weekend.

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A Place in History

Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On

FROM FOLK CULTURE TO FOREIGN POLICY, BEEKEEPING TO BUDDHISM — PROFESSOR DAN MARGOLIES DISCOVERS MEANING THROUGH A SITE-SPECIFIC LENS

The Hofheimer Theater celebrates 30 years of music, theater and transformations

By Elizabeth Blachman

PHOTO BY JANICE MARSHALL-PITTMAN

By Leona Baker

STAGES OF SLEEP: Michael Blankenship and Chana Kostka in a production of Three Top Hats by Miguel Mihura, directed by Rick Hite.

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IN TUNE: Dan Margolies picked up the banjo when a former boss challenged him to learn to play if he truly loved old-time music. Margolies regularly organizes a series of Appalachian music concerts on campus.

resumably there is a desk in Dan Margolies’ small, square-ish office.

If the laws of gravity yet apply, surely a furniture-like object is serving as a pedestal for the stacks of books that form a multicolored miniature skyline that almost entirely obscures its top surface.

Around the desk, nearly every millimeter of wall space is covered with shelves, and every shelf is bursting with books. Books about history. Books about music. Books about beekeeping. Here and there are tokens of Margolies’ travels abroad, including a collection of battery-operated plastic songbirds from Korea that whistle the tunes of their respective species.

From behind the stacks, Margolies offers a scalding hot cup of tea as he settles into his chair to talk about his latest publications and how his seemingly disparate passions—from apiculture to Appalachia—“all relate somehow.”

Given one of Margolies’ other abiding interests, the politics and culture of spaces and places, it’s tempting to psychoanalyze the artful chaos of the room in Blocker Hall with his name outside the door.

Yet his recent academic research explores these concepts on a far grander scale.

A professor of history and coordinator of the History Department at Virginia Wesleyan, Margolies’ second book, Spaces of Law in American Foreign Relations: Extradition and Extraterritoriality in the Borderlands and Beyond, 1877—1898 (University of Georgia Press), examines U.S. imperialism in the late 19th century and how the American government seized on the legal gray areas of border disputes and other jurisdictional entanglements to unabashedly advance its interests in an increasingly global world.

A significant portion of the book focuses on the hotly contested Zona Libre along the U.S.-Mexican border and uses it as a jumping-off point for characterizing American unilateralism as a whole.

But it was Margolies’ love of conjunto music—not history—that drew him to that infamous stretch of geography north of the Rio Grande.

Margolies’ has published numerous articles on conjunto, a uniquely Mexican-American hybrid

that is as much a lifestyle as it is a musical form.

Born in South Texas, conjunto gets its distinctively danceable sound from the button accordion and the bajo sexto, a low-pitched 12-string guitar. The word conjunto translates literally as “group.”

“The name itself is evocative of more than just music;” Margolies wrote in a 2008 story for the Old-Time Herald. “It taps into a deeper sense of community and culture as well as a fierce regional pride.”

As a regular visitor to the Tejano Conjunto Festival, which draws legions of faithful to party conjunto style each May to San Antonio, Texas, he has experienced that culture firsthand. He’s even “monkeyed around” on the bajo sexto as he has on a number of traditional instruments from the Southern fiddle to the Mongolian morin khuur.

But it’s the banjo, a gift from a former boss who told him he should learn to play if he truly cared about old-time music, on which he’s most at home. It’s an instrument that figures prominently in Appalachian music, another of Margolies’ teaching and research interests.

Margolies regularly organizes a series of Appalachian music concerts during winter session at VWC, presenting well known artists of the genre like champion old-time fiddler Mark Campbell and ethnomusicologist James Ruchala along with other guests—from historians and anthropologists to poets and journalists.

In the summer of 2011, he spent a month in Mongolia studying traditional music in the remote, landlocked Asian country. He was especially interested in what is known as “sustainable culture and music”—a theory popularized by Brown University ethnomusicology professor Jeff Todd Titon.

“Issues of sustainable culture and music are similar across different cultures and different forms of music,” Margolies explains. “So the concept of creating a culture of sustainability within traditional music making is something you can look at among Mexican Americans in South Texas, among Appalachian Americans in Appalachia and then in Mongolia.”

Based on an ecological model of sustainability, it’s an idea that incorporates not just the music itself

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If you think about a space as either a physical space or a social space or just kind of a landscape, it gets invested with meaning and becomes a place.

And there are different scales: local spaces, regional spaces, an entire area of country, region or neighborhood, a house, a building. Some of it is smell, some of it is sound, some of it is image, vibe, language, food, music. but who is playing it, how they are playing it, what support they have from the state, and how it’s being presented to the public.

“The easiest, most memorable image is the model of building up soil,” Margolies says. “So if you are building up soil in a garden and you have a lot of compost and you build a really good rich, dark soil then you can grow a lot plants and sustain a lot of growth. You are concentrating on building the conditions for healthy natural systems.

It’s the same thing with music. It’s a culture you create.”

This way of thinking represents a break from the past, particularly in Asia, where cultural heritage has often been treated as a packaged commodity to be preserved in amber or put behind glass in a museum rather than a dynamic living system.

“It’s a process,” Margolies argues, “not a thing.”

and gives it a firm tap on the edge. With the hum of an alien ship, the bees descend en masse into what will hopefully become their new home.

As a past president of the Tidewater Beekeepers Association and a member of the Beekeepers Guild of Southeastern Virginia, Margolies is on a call list for local bee-related emergencies. In this case, it’s a swarm that took up residence on the side of a building in Norfolk. Assuming the bees approve of their new on-campus accommodations and have a queen to fawn over, they’ll start doing what honey bees do best.

They’ll also have a chance to serve as exhibit “A” for students enrolled in Margolies’ beekeeping course. In the class, students learn about the long history and culture of beekeeping, also known as apiculture, as well as the science behind it. But for Margolies, the bees represent something more.

In a short video called “Buddha in the Bee Yard” he created along with his wife, Skye, for a Buddhist film festival taking place in Washington, D.C. in the summer of 2012, Margolies muses about a question he is often asked: “Why do you keep bees?”

“I never had a good answer until I started to think about beekeeping as practice,” says Margolies, who lives in Norfolk with his wife and three young children, including one-year-old twins. “I began to see that the reason to keep bees was, in fact, simply to keep bees—nothing more than this and nothing less.”

Margolies’ interest in Buddhist philosophy also ties into his work as a historian and teacher. Among the classes he offers regularly at Virginia Wesleyan are courses on various aspects of Korean and Mongolian history. Buddhism factors prominently in both cultures.

EVOLVING LANDSCAPES: Margolies received a Mednick Fellowship to take a series of photographs documenting the ways in which Latino migrants have transformed the spaces of the American South. This image of a boy and a low rider was taken in Asheville, North Carolina.

ON A LATE MARCH AFTERNOON, Dan Margolies unloads a nondescript white bucket from the back of his pickup truck, carries it gingerly past the campus greenhouse and places it alongside the mismatched cluster of beehives along the tree line outside of Blocker Hall.

Dressed in a white t-shirt and jeans with protective netting over his face, he carefully removes the lid of the bucket. Attached to the underside of the lid is a massive buzzing glob of about 15,000 honey bees.

He positions the lid above an open hive box

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His primary teaching and research specialty is American foreign relations and foreign relations law, but he also teaches a wide variety of classes on topics such as globalization and empire, Old and New South, the Civil War, the 19th century, maritime history, and radicalism and violence in American history. Originally from Illinois, Margolies attended Hampshire College in Massachusetts as an undergraduate and thought he wanted to study film.

“Finding out that the U.S. had taken over the Philippines in 1898, which I just never learned growing up—I couldn’t really understand that because it seemed very un-American. That’s kind of why I became a historian. That piqued my interest—that concept of the U.S. having an empire and taking over another country.”

Most of all, though, Margolies seems to be concerned with the intersections of things, the crossroads where cultures and ideologies collide, intermingle and evolve into something new. More often than not, these intersections are deeply tied to specific places—“hybrid, malleable, and ephemeral places.”

A Maurice L. Mednick Memorial Fellowship from the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges gave Margolies an opportunity to

take a series of photographs documenting the ways in which Latino migrants, primarily Mexicans, have literally transformed the landscape in many areas of the South, specifically in rural and small town Virginia and especially North Carolina.

These spaces, “the frayed edges of modern America in roadsides, abandoned downtowns, decaying strip malls, churches, and community halls,” he writes, have been visually redefined because of “an ongoing discourse between peoples, cultures, ideas, systems of power, expressions, and sovereignties.” It’s an abstract but historically grounded concept sometimes referred to as “place making.”

“If you think about a space as either a physical space or a social space or just kind of a landscape,” Margolies says, “it gets invested with meaning and becomes a place.

And there are different scales: local spaces, regional spaces, an entire area of country, region or neighborhood, a house, a building.

Some of it is smell, some of it is sound, some of it is image, vibe, language, food, music.”

He recently taught a class at VWC that dealt specifically with the idea of place making.

“The point of the class is to think about the

way global cultures have created meaningful places within the United States. So, in Virginia Beach, one of those might be the Buddhist Temple that was in Pungo that’s now right around the corner from Virginia Wesleyan.

Some of it is I was trying to give the students the ability to read a place historically and visually and orally, to think about things in terms of history but also about the way that history has shaped the spaces and the places that people are in and how that has an effect on historical change.”

In the summer of 2012, Margolies plans to spend time traversing one of American’s most storied wild places: the Appalachian Trail. Along with a friend, he will complete the southern half the 2,184-mile hike, from Front Royal to Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. They began the hike at Springer Mountain in Georgia in 2000.

He is currently working on two book projects: one is a study of sustainability in Texas-Mexican Conjunto music and the other is a comparative global study of free zones, foreign trade zones, special economic zones, and exclusive economic zones since the 19th century. He also edited a recently published collection called A Companion to Harry S. Truman (Wiley-Blackwell).

In the late 19th century the United States oversaw a great increase in extraterritorial claims, boundary disputes, extradition controversies, and transborder abduction and interdiction. In this sweeping history of the underpinnings of American empire, Daniel Margolies offers a new frame of analysis for historians to understand how novel assertions of legal spatiality and extraterritoriality were deployed in U.S. foreign relations during an era of increased national ambitions and global connectedness.

PHOTO: DANIEL S. MARGOLIES

Spaces of Law in American Foreign Relations: Extradition and Extraterritoriality in the Borderlands and Beyond, 1877–1898 (University of Georgia Press, 2011)

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“I came to the point where I had to f igure out if I was carrying out my parents’ faith or whether or not I would really try to experience God for myself.”

FREEING is BELIEVING HOW STUDENTS AT VIRGINIA WESLEYAN AND OTHER COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES EXPLORE ISSUES OF FAITH AND FORGE THEIR OWN SPIRITUAL— AND, IN SOME CASES, NOT-SO-SPIRITUAL—PATHS

By Elizabeth Blachman

P

OPULAR WISDOM WOULD HAVE YOU BELIEVE THAT college students brush the dust of family religions off their boots and spend four years in a hedonistic orgy of binge drinking and casual sex. Add to that the undergraduate propensity for questioning everything, and the result may be what George Marsden in The Soul of the American University noted was a shift in academia “from Protestant establishment to established nonbelief.”

Not so, say recent studies, such as a 2004 UCLA survey that showed that out of 112,000 freshmen polled, more than two-thirds prayed and nearly 80 percent reported that they believed in God. Studies of religion on campus in the past decade suggest that American universities are increasingly becoming places where students explore faith.

On a Friday afternoon in April, four students gather in Virginia Wesleyan’s Monumental Chapel. They face east, toward Mecca.

Kneeling on prayer rugs in their socks, they repeat the ancient words spoken by Muslims for more than a thousand years.

Leading the service, Mohamed Hassan ’14 talks about a man in

the Koran who rose from sleep after 100 years and about how his own faith in Allah helped him figure out his dorm situation for the next year.

“We’ve stepped to the plate to help out future Muslims who come to this school,” explains Jibreel Salaam ’14, who started the prayer group with Hassan last year and says that the responsibility of being one of just a few Muslims at VWC has made his faith stronger.

Student-led groups like this one are a central part of VWC Chaplain Greg West’s vision for religious life at VWC. On a different Friday in spring, he says goodbye to two students from his men’s discussion group outside of his office in the student center. Last week a student stopped by to talk about human sexuality and scripture after the issue came up in one of her classes. West, who spent 11 years as a pastor, has been chaplain at VWC for two years.

“I’m very big on student-led ministry where I’m kind of a coach,” says West, who helped Hassan and Salaam find a space to practice Islam.

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Another student-led ministry is Under Construction for Christ, started by Wayne Credle to reach out to African-Americans. Credle, who graduated in 2012 and is headed to Duke Divinity School, says he’ll always remember one night on campus when he was able to positively affect the faith of another student.

“I asked her if she would be willing to talk to me, but she was quiet.

I told her, ‘I know I’m a little fat, but could you talk with me please?’

I said this in an effort to get her to laugh. She laughed.” remembers Credle. “As I prayed for her, she held on to me so tight.”

Credle and Chiereme Fortune ’13 both attend Midnight Prayer, a group of students who gather in the chapel on Friday nights at 11 p.m.

“It’s an amazing experience to be in the midst of five to six different types of people all coming together for one purpose, to lift up our campus and to invite God to dwell within our hearts in a powerful way,” says Fortune. “It’s the best part of my week.”

Fortune takes a leadership role in the gospel choir and attends Marlin Ministries—Reverend West’s weekly gathering of student leaders on campus. She grew up in a Baptist home and had to adjust to the more secular environment of the college campus.

“It was challenging at first to be the only member of my circle who regularly attended church and wanted to be involved in spiritual life,” says Fortune. “I came to the point where I had to figure out if I was carrying out my parents’ faith or whether or not I would really try to experience God for myself in the midst of a not-so-interested environment that was constantly inviting me to do otherwise.”

Emily Menke ’13 also took control of her faith at college. Menke, a United Methodist, is part of Marlin Ministries, sings in the SOAR Worship Team, and attends a LIFE Bible study group.

“I no longer go because my parents say that I have to,” says Menke. “I am involved because it is something that I truly believe.”

West sees evidence of increased religious involvement. He works with George Scott, who’s been connected to VWC for the past eight years—four as a student and four as the leader of the SOAR Worship Team.

“He’s told me that there were some times that they had two or three in the chapel for worship,” says West. “Now we’ve got 20 to 30.”

West leads a spring break mission trip to Nicaragua, and he emphasizes the community service happening at the college. These small groups and tradition of service link VWC to its Methodist roots.

“The Methodist movement started by the Wesleys and George Whitefield and others was the only denomination that started on a college campus as a renewal movement,” says West. “At Oxford University in the 1700s they started gathering together in small groups for spiritual well-being, shepherding one another, and the Methodist Church grew out of that. And it’s really taken a primary role in education.”

LAST SEMESTER, PROFESSOR OF JUDAIC STUDIES ERIC MAZUR organized a “Religion on Campus” program in connection with VWC’s Center for the Study of Religious Freedom. The program brought together administrators, religious leaders, and student leaders from local universities, as well as academics.

“We discussed issues such as how competing religious groups can get along in shared space,” says Mazur, “sharing a chapel, for example, or a common student meeting room—the image of religious students in popular culture, the legal issues of religion on the college campus, and the history and future of campus religious organizations.”

Mazur says that students at VWC and around the country have inherited a freedom to find their own views about religion.

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“[Students] feel free to innovate, to explore, or to be nothing at all as easily as they feel free to deepen their commitments to the traditions to which they were born.”

“They feel free to innovate, to explore, or to be nothing at all—not atheists, but just completely uninterested—as easily as they feel free to deepen their commitments to the traditions to which they were born.”

Statistics show a strong presence of Christian students from varied denominations on campus—more than 60 percent. Only four percent of the students characterized themselves as atheist, agnostic, or “no religious preference,” but more than 30 percent wrote “unknown” or declined to answer the religion question.

There are only a handful of Muslims, Buddhists and Jews. But Salaam and Hassan’s organization has a presence on campus; people in the cafeteria know to steer them away from the pork dishes. West hopes to gather enough student energy for a Jewish organization next year. In his “Judaism and Food” class last semester, Mazur led his students in a Passover Seder.

Terry Lindvall, who teaches in the Religious Studies and Communications departments and spoke in the “Religion on Campus” series, says that there’s still a degree of ignorance about religion among many college students.

“More students know about Indiana Jones’ lost ark than about King David’s dancing before the Ark of the Covenant,” he jokes.

But, he says, from the relatively small Religious Studies department at VWC, this year about 10 students are headed to seminary and graduate programs at schools such as Duke, Princeton, and Boston University.

“Callings to the ministry of the Church seem to be increasing,” he says, “with the Methodist tradition of helping the poor, the outcast, the homeless being combined with service to young people as in Young Life and Fellowship of Christian Athletes.”

Mazur says that one guest at the discussion series, Professor John Schmalzbauer from Missouri State University, has investigated religion on campuses throughout the country.

“He has come to the conclusion that while the official, institutional forms of religion may not be as vital as they once were, student innovation and initiative continue to make college campuses religiously vital places to be,” says Mazur. “Professor Schmalzbauer also noted that, as a result of this campus religious vitality, young people who go to college are more likely—not less— to be religious than people who don’t.”

West says that he is inspired to reach students at this crossroads in the formation of their identities.

“What has God created you uniquely to do?” he asks them. “And what has God put in your heart to learn? You can serve your fellow human beings; you’ve got a role in the planet.”

In the chapel where Hassan and Salaam were praying two days earlier, where a Catholic priest will say Mass later in the evening, the SOAR Worship Team sings contemporary hymns accompanied by piano and guitar. The words of the songs are projected on the walls.

The music swells. Chiereme Fortune closes her eyes. Her arms are lifted toward the concrete ceiling of the chapel, toward the sky.

Spiritual life groups on campus include: Alpha, Catholic Campus Ministries (CCM), Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ), Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), Gospel Choir, Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship (IV), LIFE Groups - Living in Faith Everyday, Marlin Ministries, Soar Worship Team, Under Construction for Christ (UCC), and Young Life. Worship opportunities include: Catholic Mass, Muslim Friday Prayer, and SOAR weekly nondenominational service.

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MagCSM1-2pgRev_Layout 1 8/10/12 3:10 PM Page 1

THE CENTER FOR SACRED MUSIC SOUND & SYMBOL LECTURE SERIES co-sponsored with the

Here Comes the Bride VWC WOMEN’S

AND

GENDER STUDIES PROGRAM

An exploraAon of marriage customs, the wedding ceremony, and music to match.

SEPTEMBER 20

The Disney Wedding Phenomena –“Some Day My Prince Will Come”

Dr. Kathy Merlock Jackson, Professor of Communication, and Dr. Terry Lindvall, C.S. Lewis Endowed Chair in Communication and Christian Thought

NOVEMBER 1

FEBRUARY 28

Cantor Wally Schachet-Briskin, Ohef Sholom Temple

Dr. Craig Wansink, Professor of Religious Studies

Marriage & Ceremony in the Jewish TradiAon

Marriage & Ceremony in the ChrisAan TradiAon

Polygamy, Polyandry, Monogamy, Oh My!

The Birth of the “Honor Me Beauty Pageant”

Dr. Eric Mazur, Gloria and David Furman Professor of Judaic Studies

All sessions take place at 11:00 a.m. in Fine Arts 9

•

APRIL 25

Marriage & Ceremony in the Hindu TradiAon

Padmarani Rasiah Cantu

Free-Choice in Mate SelecAon: Inter-Ethnicity and Inter-Race Marriages

Dr. Linda Ferguson, Professor of Dr. Kathy Stolley, Batten Associate Management/Business/Economics Professor of Sociology No admission charge • Reservations not required

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Glass Act NEW PARTNERSHIP WITH THE CHRYSLER MUSEUM OF ART GIVES WESLEYAN STUDENTS UNIQUE ACCESS TO WORLD-CLASS GLASSBLOWING STUDIO

Photos by Wendy W. Maness

V

irginia Wesleyan students are encouraged to “bring a spark, light a fire” as they embark on their educational journey at VWC, one designed to promote a lifelong passion for learning.

Thanks to a new formal partnership between VWC and the Chrysler Museum of Art, they have an opportunity to “get fired up” in a whole new way.

Students enrolled in the art course “Topics in Studio Art: Glass,” taught by adjunct professor and Chrysler Museum Glass Studio manager Charlotte Potter, travel to the Glass Studio a minimum of twice a week for an introduction to the practical mechanics of glassblowing as well as the conceptual approaches to glass as an art form and the history of the medium.

As of January 2012, VWC students have access to the Chrysler Museum’s world-class Glass Studio, which opened its doors adjacent to the Museum in Norfolk in November 2011.

The students featured in these photos are among the first to take advantage of this opportunity to experience the ancient, collaborative art of glassblowing in a stateof-the-art facility.

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Hot glass inside the furnace reaches a temperature of about 2,150 degrees before being inflated with air, turned, twisted, shaped, cut or merged with other materials.

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3

Glass Act 1. There are various methods for adding color to glass, including dipping the molten material into pigmented, granulated glass powders that resemble colored sugar.

1 2

4

2. Charlotte Potter and students Andrew Menefee '12 and Brandy Arab ’12 sketch out ideas in chalk on the floor of the studio before beginning a new glass piece.

3. A folded wet newspaper acts as a heat shield when hand-shaping a piece of hot glass.

4. Although the Chrysler’s facility is among the most modern in the world, many of the basic tools and techniques of glassblowing have remained the same for thousands of years.

5. Glassblowing is fluid, dynamic process that requires a team effort. VWC students Ashton Perry ’12 (foreground) and Rachel Wolfganger ’13 (in yellow) work together to make adjustments on a hot piece of glass.

6. Steam rises as VWC adjunct professor and Chrysler Museum Glass Studio manager Charlotte Potter cools a glasstipped blowpipe in a water bath.

7. Student Josh Hathaway ’12 applies a hot colored bit of glass to the surface of his bubble to create a spiral pattern.

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the Forest for the Trees On a peaceful patch of land on the Eastern Shore, Billy and Fann Greer are making a difference 30,000 seedlings at a time STORY BY LEONA BAKER PHOTOS BY JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN

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ROAD LESS TRAVELED: The Greers with their dog, Gracie, on their 200-acre farm near Belle Haven.

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I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines. Henry David Thoreau

IN

THE LATE 1990S, WHEN Virginia Wesleyan President Billy Greer and his wife, Fann, decided they’d like to purchase a piece of land on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, they were looking for a place to build—some woods, some water, a quiet respite from work life and a gathering spot for family including their three sons and four grandchildren. What they found was something more.

It was Fann who happened upon a 200-acre property off Route 612 near Belle Haven. It was a lot of space, much more than they needed or wanted. And it would be a lot of work. Sections of it had been razed to the ground, treated with herbicides that are commonly used in forestry to clear the way for a new planting. But love—and sometimes land—chooses us. Not the other way around.

“It was a wilderness, but it had just been cut over,” says Fann, whose comforting Southern lilt belies a woman who is right at home behind the wheel of the utility buggy she and Billy use to navigate the property as Gracie, their 2-year-old Goldendoodle, runs happily a few yards ahead. “It really hurt your heart to look at it. I kind of had a mystical experience.”

Twelve years later, mystical experiences are undoubtedly commonplace here. Shaded paths wind through stands of mature hardwood trees and along sunlit fields recently sown with soybeans. Sandy shores dotted with tall pines overlook the storied Chesapeake Bay. A graying early 20thcentury farmhouse adjacent to the Greers’ property greets visitors and speaks to an even simpler time in a place where “come-heres,” no matter how long they stay, are not to be

confused with “from-heres.”

The Greers, both natives of Georgia, may never earn locals’ status on the Shore, but they have most certainly had a lasting effect on this little corner of the world. At the entrance to the long drive that leads to their home, there is a green and brown sign officially designating the property a Stewardship Forest. It’s a status they earned by adhering to a set of guidelines detailed in a Virginia Forest Stewardship Management Plan created specifically for their land at Billy’s request.

The plan was written by Eastern Shore Area Forester Robbie Lewis, who has gotten to know the Greers since he helped them establish a plan that included planting and replanting 30,000-40,000 loblolly pine seedlings with the help of a planting crew in the deforested areas.

According to Lewis, Billy Greer had a solid notion of what he was trying to do—from protecting the aesthetics of the place to providing cover for wildlife to preparing for responsible timber harvesting—before the plan was created.

“He’s a really neat guy, a gentleman,” he says of Billy, “and he’s got a lot of neat ideas.

For the planting, he designed a layout that included travel lanes and open feed patches for wildlife. The idea was to allow plenty of sunlight to hit the ground to help maintain an early successional cover. That is critical.”

Early successional cover is created by the undergrowth that pops up as the seedlings mature, offering protection from prey for quail and turkey broods as well as food sources for these and other animals. After a number of WHERE THE HEART IS: It was a “mystical experience” that drew Fann to the place that has become a 12-year labor of love for the Greers.

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years, the young trees require pre-commercial thinning or cutting of unwanted hardwoods and other growth that inhibit the health of the tree stand as a whole. The thinning also provides further habitat for foxes and rabbits as well as turkey and quail.

For their efforts, Billy and Fann were named Forestry Conservationists for 2011 by the Eastern Shore Soil and Water Conservation District. For Billy, a humble guy who grew up hunting in the woods outside a small country town in Georgia, trees are in the blood.

“My family didn’t farm, but I was raised with a dad who believed in planting pine trees,” Billy remembers. “They were small, and so I’d have to water them. Of course I hated it then.

Now here I am planting trees.”

These days he’s happy strolling through those trees with his wife, pointing out a wild turkey that swoops out of the brush or telling stories about the Gracie the dog’s motherly encounters with lost fawns. One of his

favorites activities is “bush hogging,” pulling a rotary mower behind the family tractor because, as he puts it, “When I look behind me, I can see my accomplishments.”

Billy’s genuine love for the outdoors is reflected in his 20-year tenure as president of Virginia Wesleyan College. Under his leadership, the College has been recognized locally, regionally and nationally including being selected for the Princeton Review’s Guide to 311 Green Colleges for 2012.

“Certainly, I have great concern for the environment,” he says. “It is imperative that we not only preserve it, but enhance it so for our children and grandchildren.”

Billy is fond of noting with pride that Wesleyan is “not a concrete campus.” Its 300-acre wooded oasis of trees, open fields and flowers also happen to be a designated bird sanctuary and the home of an old-growth beech forest.

The President’s Environmental Issues Council (see below) is the administrative body tasked with leading the College’s sustainability efforts, setting standards for responsible management of resources and promoting improvement of the quality of the environment at Virginia Wesleyan—from waste-reduction and recycling to green building practices and public transportation. Billy Greer is also one of more than 250 signatories of the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment.

But out on the farm, as the Greers call the Eastern Shore property, he’s just a husband, a dad and “Poppy” to his grandkids—and the guy who cuts the grass. He also happens to have planted a few trees.

“It has been a great project, a real learning experience” says Fann, “and we thoroughly enjoy it.”

Marlins Go Green THE FIRST-EVER EARTH DAY WAS CELEBRATED ON THE campus of Virginia Wesleyan College in 1970, the same year as the College’s very first graduating class. Throughout the years, VWC’s greening practices have grown and evolved to include a host of programs and initiatives designed to contribute not just to a healthier planet but to a more active and engaged community committed to sustainable practices in all areas of life on campus and off.

The establishment of the President’s Environmental Issues Council in 2005 crystallized ongoing efforts to promote a strong environmental ethic and appropriate policies, practices and curricula throughout Virginia Wesleyan College. Increased concern and awareness about environmental issues and global warming prompted President Greer to lead the charge in changing habits at Virginia Wesleyan with the ultimate goal of making the College a more environmentally friendly place with environmentally conscious citizens.

Through its broad membership, the Council works with campus leaders to address environmental issues on campus and to promote conservation and environmental stewardship among Virginia Wesleyan's students, faculty and staff. The Council has three subcommittees that work in more concentrated areas. They are the Curriculum, Policies and Procedures and Budget sub-committees.

The Council also oversees the awarding of the President's Environmental Challenge Grant.

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The Georgia Guitar Quartet comes to campus November 8, 2012

February 14, 2013 The St. Petersburg Quartet One of the world’s most esteemed chamber ensembles, winner of countless prestigious competitions, performs two Valentine’s Day programs at VWC, at 11 a.m (with clarinetist Patti Ferrell Carlson) and at 7:30 p.m.

February 21, 2013 Lee Jordan-Anders, piano Treasures from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts are framed with music selected and performed by pianist Lee Jordan-Anders, VWC Artist-in-Residence.

Show time: 11 a.m.

The Arts at VWC 2012-2013 ARTS CALENDAR VIRGINIA WESLEYAN CONCERT SERIES All performances take place in Hofheimer Theater unless otherwise noted. Reservation number for the concert series is 757.455.2101.

Ticket prices vary.

September 7, 2012 The Tidewater Guitar Orchestra One of only several orchestras of its kind in North America, this ensemble of accomplished guitarists explores a rich repertoire ranging from Bach to Bartok while specializing in music of the Americas.

Show time: 7:30 p.m.

October 18, 2012 Kumar Das, tabla Abhik Mukherjee, sitar Das and Mukherjee perform music from the 4,000 yearold Indian classical music tradition designed to raise

the inner being to divine peacefulness and bliss.

Show time: 11 a.m.

October 29, 2012 Laurie Baefsky, flute Lee Jordan-Anders, piano Performer, educator, arts administrator and advocate Laurie Baefsky, longtime member of the Virginia Symphony, joins VWC Artist-in-Residence, Lee Jordan-Anders.

Show time: 7:30 p.m.

November 8, 2012 The Georgia Guitar Quartet An exciting new voice in today’s chamber music scene, this ensemble featuring four young men from the American South delivers a high-energy blend of virtuosity and imaginative programming.

Show time: 7:30 p.m.

November 19, 2012 Andrey Kasparov and Oksana Lutsyshyn Pianists Kasparov and Lutsyshyn have won critical acclaim around the world for their compelling interpretations of diverse and adventurous repertoire.

Show time: 7:30 p.m.

November 26, 2012 Billion Dollar Trio A gifted, versatile group of young musicians dazzle audiences with their virtuosic and energized interpretation of the great classics. Show time: 7:30 p.m.

February 4, 2013 Eastern Virginia Brass A Hampton Roads favorite dedicated to performing the best of the brass repertoire, this quintet has been exciting audiences for more than 30 years. Show time: 7:30 p.m.

March 8, 2013 “Young Artist Spotlight” – Nicholas Emmanuel A PhD candidate in musicology at the University of Buffalo, Emmanuel earned degrees in piano performance and musicology at Boston University and the University of Pittsburgh.

Show time: 7:30 p.m.

April 23, 2013 The Rose Ensemble “Land of Three Faiths,” at once sacred, secular, folk and classical, showcases medieval to modern music from around the world. Co-sponsored by the Center for Sacred Music and the Center for the Study of Religious Freedom. Show time: 7:30 p.m.

April 30, 2013 The Wren Masters “Birth of the Baroque” The Wren Masters, a “crisp ensemble” with “scrupulous phrasing and a satisfying blend of mellowness and astringency,” (The Washington Post) present 17th-century music on period instruments.

Show time: 7:30 p.m.

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STUDENT MUSIC PERFORMANCES

NEIL BRITTON ART GALLERY

All performances take place in Hofheimer Theater. For pricing and other information, call 757.455.3282.

Admission to the gallery, located inside the Hofheimer Library, is free and open to the public. Hours: MondayThursday 9 a.m.-8 p.m., Friday 9 a.m.-5 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday noon5 p.m. Phone: 757.455.3257

October 22, 2012 Perspectives The College Choir and Wesleyan Singers perform a survey of choral music spanning the millennia through the music of Schubert, Brahms, Bach, and more. Showtime: 7:30 p.m.

November 30December 1, 2012 “A Wesleyan Christmas” A celebration of the season, the College Choir and Wesleyan Singers perform the Vivaldi Gloria and the most beloved holiday carols with various guest artists.

Show times: Nov. 30 at 7:30 p.m. and Dec. 1 at 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

February 25, 2013 President’s Masterworks Series Schubert’s Mass in G and the Trio No. 1 in Bb feature the College Choir and Wesleyan Singers, pianist Lee Jordan-Anders, VWC Artist-in-Residence, and members of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra.

Showtime: 7:30 p.m.

April 8, 2013 Emancipation Project – Songs of Freedom and Hope The choirs of VWC and the University of Alabama-Birmingham perform works by Glenn McClure and Michael John Trotta, celebrating the anniversary of Methodist preachers Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke urging the Virginia General Assembly to abolish slavery 78 years before the Emancipation Proclamation.

Show time: 7:30 p.m.

Location: Virginia Beach United Methodist Church.

August-December, 2012 Virginia Derryberry “Third Nature” Derryberry’s large scale narrative figure paintings set in invented landscapes and accompanied by costume constructions are shown regularly in exhibitions throughout the U.S. Artist lecture: September 13, noon.

Opening reception: Sept. 13, 5:30-7:30 p.m.

January-April, 2013 Randy Shull Randy Shull works fluidly between a variety of mediums, including furniture design, spatial design, painting, and landscape design. He is highly acclaimed for his rich and sensual use of color and space. This traveling exhibition is curated by Janet Koplos, a former editor of Art in America magazine.

Reception/lecture dates/ times TBA. April-May, 2013 Senior Art Exhibition VWC students display their senior thesis work.

THEATER All performances take place in Hofheimer Theater.

Unless otherwise noted, general admission tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for seniors, students, and military. For information, call 757.455.3381.

October 3-7, 2012 Noises Off by Michael Frayn Called one of the funniest farces ever written, Noises

Virginia Derryberry's large-scale figure paintings will be on display through December 2012

Off presents a manic menagerie as a cast of itinerant actors performing a flop called Nothing’s On. Doors slamming, onstage and backstage intrigue, and an errant plate of sardines all figure in the plot of this classic comedy. Show times: Oct. 3-5 at 7:30 p.m., Oct. 6 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., and Oct. 7 at 2 p.m.

November 14-17, 2012 Student Directed One-Acts Free admission; no reservations required. All shows are at 7:30 p.m

April 17-21, 2012 Suddenly Last Summer

by Tennessee Williams Does an aging mother’s desire to safeguard the reputation of her dead son justify the sacrifice of a young woman’s sanity? Set in New Orleans’ Garden District, this drama pits brutality against delicacy in the way that only Williams can. Show times: April 17-20 at 7:30 p.m. and April 21 at 2 p.m.

PLEASE NOTE: All event details are subject to change.

For the most current listings, refer to the College’s website: www.vwc.edu

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Publisher's Desk

Academia

AT HOME ON DECK: Patrick Goold aboard “Restless,” his 1979 Pacific Seacraft Orion 27, in Portsmouth. Goold recently edited a collection of essays on sailing and philosophy.

Finding Meaning at Sea Sailing - Philosophy for Everyone: Catching the Drift of Why We Sail Patrick Goold (Editor), Fritz Allhoff (Series Editor) Wiley-Blackwell, 2012

“P

PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN

hilosophy is the attempt to think in a disciplined way about something when we don’t know exactly what it is we are thinking about. We cannot begin until we have realized that we don’t know. To ordinary consciousness, this loss of certainty is a step backward. To the philosopher, and the reflective sailor, it is progress: now one may begin.”

When philosophy professor Patrick Goold first moved to southeast Virginia in the mid-’90s, he felt a little cramped.

“I grew up in Oregon. I’m a Westerner, so I need open spaces,” Goold explains. “I just thought it was so overbuilt and crowded here.”

Enter fellow VWC professor and sailing enthusiast John Braley, who discovered Goold had taken sailing lessons in college and invited him out one evening to crew on his boat. Like that, a passion was reignited. That passion even decided where Goold and his wife, VWC math professor Margaret Reese, bought a house—on the western branch of the Elizabeth River in Portsmouth.

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Academia

Publisher's Desk “I can look out and see the river and know that once I’m on the river, nobody can stop me,” says Goold.

“There aren’t any ‘no trespassing’ signs on the water. I can get all the way to the ocean, and from the ocean, I can go anywhere in the world.”

That sense of freedom on the open water is a thing all sailors share. But, as Goold discovered in the process of editing a recently released collection of essays on sailing and philosophy, it isn’t the only thing.

The book, titled Sailing - Philosophy for Everyone: Catching the Drift of Why We Sail, brings together a diverse group of contributors, all of whom have a love for wind and water, from an accomplished seaman with a distinguished racing career who reflects on the character traits of great competitors to a Buddhist who approaches sailing as Zen practice, one means to “an awakened, flourishing self.”

Some of the writers are philosophers or academics from other disciplines. They represent “the intense engagement people have with sailing craft and with the many different forms that sailing takes.” There is even an essay by a windsurfer who draws on Daoism and modern psychology to interpret his affection for the art. Yet, there are common threads.

“Without knowing each other at all, they all came to some very similar lines of thought,” says Goold, who spent about a year gathering and editing materials for Sailing - Philosophy for Everyone.

Goold is also working on his own book about sailing and philosophy.

“My interest is in reason,” he says. “What is reason? What is rationality? I’m fascinated with using the general notion of seamanship as a model of rationality. Maintaining, provisioning and navigating a boat at sea—that’s an amazing sort of path that involves the entire intellect and the senses and all the capacities. There are all kinds of interesting things that have to be negotiated.”

Dr. Patrick Goold is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Virginia Wesleyan College. His current research focuses on defining rationality.

He is co-editor with Steven Emmanuel of the Blackwell anthology Modern Philosophy from Descartes to Nietzsche. In addition to maintaining a small daysailer and a cruising boat of his own, he frequently crews on the boats of others. He has sailed the length of the East Coast of the United States from Hilton Head to Long Island Sound, made a Bermuda crossing, done club racing in Brittany, and cruised in the Lesser Antilles.

—Leona Baker

Through the Looking Glass Self-Objectification in Women: Causes, Consequences, and Counteractions Edited by Rachel M. Calogero, Stacey Tantleff-Dunn, and J. Kevin Thompson American Psychological Association, 2011

“I

think that a girl has to be thin to feel beautiful,” states a questionnaire that asks adolescent girls to rate their agreement with this comment on a scale of one to six. In Self-Objectification in Women, VWC professor Rachel M. Calogero and her fellow editors, Stacey Tantleff-Dunn and J. Kevin Thompson, investigate how Western culture objectifies women—leading those women to stare at themselves with that same objectifying gaze. A 1997 model by social psychologists Barbara L. Frederickson and Tomi-Ann Roberts shows how this self-objectification leads to psychological consequences such as anxiety, depression and eating disorders.

The book’s various contributors, all psychologists, explore social, political, and psychological causes and discuss the consequences that result when women objectify themselves—and how this phenomenon can be researched and combated.

One essay recounts the damaging aspects of Barbie dolls; another notes a study in which women who saw themselves as subjects rather than objects were able to throw a softball farther than women who objectified themselves more.

The second chapter, written by Calogero, evaluates the tools used to measure self-objectification and the importance of further research given what she characterizes as the “toxicity of a culture that sexually objectifies the female body.” One measure analyzes whether women care more about appearance-based attributes like sex appeal or competence-based attributes like health and strength. Calogero calls for a refinement of the tools so that they can be more consistent and so that their use can be expanded to a more diverse group of women. From the vantage point of Calogero, Tantleff-Dunn and Thompson, only by examining women’s responses to the barrage of social messages can we create a society in which women can embody themselves.

Dr. Rachel M. Calogero is Associate Professor of Psychology at VWC. In addition to extensive research on self-objectification in women, she also examines sexist ideology, fat prejudice, disordered eating and exercise practices, and closed-mindedness.

– Elizabeth Blachman

The Sacred and the Silver Screen Celluloid Sermons: The Emergence of the Christian Film Industry, 1930-1986

By Terry Lindvall and Andrew Quicke New York University Press, 2011

A

n animated talking dandelion proclaims the glory of free will to a rabbit. A 12-part series chronicles the life of St. Paul. A horror film shows the terrors of the Rapture. Celluloid Sermons, by VWC’s Terry Lindvall and Andrew Quicke of Regent University, analyzes the Christian film industry’s origins in the 1930s at a time when many denominations of Christianity rejected the secular and often decadent milieu that Hollywood offered America. Chronicling the studios, trends and key figures in Christian film from the ’30s through the mid-’80s, Lindvall and Quicke discuss how out of the same soil that nurtured Mae West, Betty Boop and Scarface came films about Bible stories, missionaries, moral lessons and the beauty of God’s creation.

Lindvall and Quicke portray an industry that crossed denominations and continents and translated the Gospel to the visual medium of the camera lens.

The films reached out to people like fiery sermons, and “like stories in stained-glass windows, cathedral stones, and mystery plays, Christian film roused spectators who wept before The Jesus Film in a Tanzanian village or trembled before A Thief in the Night in an old Baptist church.”

The budgets were sometimes high and sometimes low, and the artistry was by turns subtly powerful and heavy-handed. Overall, the Christian film industry as presented by Lindvall and Quicke reached many with a moving message of Christ and was responsible for bringing a secular influence to liberal denominations as the sacred words were brought into the modern media era.

Dr. Terry Lindvall is C. S. Lewis Endowed Chair in Communication and Christian Thought at VWC and teaches classes in the Communications and Religious Studies departments. Two of his previous works, Sanctuary Cinema and Surprised

by Laughter: The Comic World of C. S. Lewis, were recently released in paperback editions. His latest literary adventure is The Girl Who Couldn’t Laugh, a children’s book that he co-authored with his daughter Caroline, which was released in summer of 2012.

– Elizabeth Blachman

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Animal Magnetism AS STUDENTS IN MY ENHANCED SOCIOLOGY COURSE DISCOVERED, THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PEOPLE AND THEIR FOUR-LEGGED FRIENDS IS

By Kathy Stolley

PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN

MORE COMPLICATED THAN EVER

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Academia

ANTHROPOLOGIST CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS once observed that animals are “good to think.”

What he meant was that including animals in our most human of deliberations helps us learn about ourselves. In a sociology topics course called “Animals and Society,” which I taught for the first time during the spring 2012 semester, students from across campus took this assertion to heart while exploring the growing interdisciplinary field of animal studies. The class focused on the relationship between humans and other animals and the myriad effects of these interactions, part of VWC’s new curriculum emphasis on course enhancement and community engagement.

My academic interest in animals and society was initially born out of interactions with the many animals who have shared my life. This was true for many of the students in the class as well. All of them had pets, and each identified as an “animal person.” The diversity of what this label could mean added to the experience.

Some were vegans; others choose meat at every meal. Some were hunters; others were animal rights activists.

At the end of the semester, students expressed how much more aware and reflective they had become of animals and their importance in society—whether those animals were the squirrels skittering across their path they now paid more attention to, the source of their chicken sandwich, media portrayals of animals, or the feathers in their pillows, the leather in their car seats, or the ingredients in their household products. Several even began to shoo spiders out the door rather than squish them. Some students reaffirmed or found new directions for animal-related career choices or future studies.

Consider for a moment how frequent and diverse human interaction is with animals. Pet owners (or animal guardians, as they are also called), farmers and even slaughterhouse workers are obvious examples. But just as important, although less often considered, is the vast amount of human interaction conducted about animals: neighbors arguing over a barking dog, officemates gathering around a computer watching a viral kitten video, a child who cries for a stuffed toy version of the latest animated animal craze as their parent is trying to shop. And anyone who has ever walked a puppy in the park knows firsthand that animals are social lubricants, facilitating human interaction even between strangers.

GOING TO THE DOGS: Kathy Stolley with her certified therapy dog, “Ernest T”

Animals are integral parts of every social institution, interwoven with human society in complex and often inconsistent ways. We have animals in our homes as pets, in our refrigerators as food, and we call the exterminators on others.

We legislate against animal abuse while allowing animals to be used in laboratory research.

Religions variously frame animals as sacred to taboo. Animals reflect our ethical and moral value systems and highlight systemic inequalities. They even permeate our language. Many of us know someone who “eats like a bird,” is “smart like a fox,” or should just “stop beating a dead horse.”

Looking at how animals fit into American family life is a good stepping-off point for thinking about the human-animal relationship and its meaning for both human society and for animals. More than 60 percent of American households include pets. Although dogs and cats get most of the press, we also share our homes with an array of birds, reptiles, rodents and other critters ranging from bunny rabbits to pot bellied pigs. Indeed, if we include fish in the count, American households include more animals than human inhabitants.

The animals that share our homes are increasingly considered “family.” Those ubiquitous little stick figure decals of parents, kids, and pets on the back windows of cars bear this out. Opinion polls show that fully 50 percent of us consider the animals that share our homes “just as much a part of the family as any other person in the household,” and almost all of us consider them family at least to some extent. We include our pets in family portraits and holiday cards, celebrate their birthdays, and increasingly give them “human” names like Bella and Max. A quarter of us think our pets are better listeners than our spouses.

When it comes to the economy, this phenomenon translates into big money.

Americans spend more than $50 billion annually on our pets. A considerable chunk of that goes beyond the “necessities”—from fashionable monogrammed sweaters and personalized bowls to “convenience” products like automatic feeders and even DVD programming to entertain pets left home alone during the day.

Animal-friendly hotels offer amenities ranging from gourmet treats to comfy doggie robes, while innovations in veterinary medicine push treatment boundaries as humans insist on more heroic medical measures for their beloved animals. Animals even get their own Facebook pages, Twitter feeds and television programming.

As we become more tuned into the circumstances of animals in our own lives, we may also be becoming more tuned into the circumstances of animals elsewhere (scientific

laboratories, for example) and seek changes on their behalf. Clearly, the way we interact with and about animals has significant social consequences for both humans and animals.

For the “Animals and Society” course, I asked my students not only to consider these ideas but to tie them to “real-world” experiences and perspectives.

In addition to their reading and written coursework, students taking the course were treated to customized “backstage tours” at the Virginia Beach and Norfolk animal control centers, as well as the Virginia Zoological Park in Norfolk.

The animal control center tours were followed by service-learning activities that provided some hands-on time with the shelter animals. I brought my own certified therapy dog, Ernest T, to class to demonstrate what he does best, visiting from desk to desk ensuring that every student got to scratch his ears. Dog trainers, accompanied by their canine co-presenters, a veterinarian, and animal rights activist all came to the classroom to share their “real-world” perspectives with the class. VWC Grounds Supervisor Kathy Bartkus, our animal welfare advocate certified in emergency animal rescue, covered animal welfare efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and other events, while philosophy professor Steven Emmanuel led the class in a social justice exercise related to animals.

Students conducted interviews with people who work with animals, researched a wide range of human-animal issues, and produced a series of wikis (user-modified websites) covering topics as diverse as animal hoarding, the military’s use of animals, dog intelligence, animal cruelty, and the whaling industry. End-of-semester debates grappled with the use of animals in medical research, in sports and entertainment, and “exotic” animals as pets. But perhaps the most spirited debate surrounded the question of whether pets should be allowed on college campuses. Animals are "good to think" with indeed.

Dr. Kathy Shepherd Stolley was recently named Associate Dean for Innovative Teaching and Engaged Learning at Virginia Wesleyan. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from George Washington University. Her emphasis is applied sociology, using sociological tools and perspectives to bring about positive social change. Her published work includes The Basics of Sociology (2005), The Praeger Handbook of Adoption (with Vern L. Bullough, 2006), HIV/AIDS (with John E. Glass, 2009), and Medical Tourism: A Reference Handbook (with Stephanie Watson, 2012)..

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MUTANT MOLD: Just when you thought it was safe to go to the pantry.

This is a secondary electron image of a mass of hyphae (a long, branching structure of a fungus) of a mutant of the common bread mold Neurospora crassa (you may have seen it on a loaf that’s past its prime). It’s a species studied intensively by Associate Professor of Biology Philip Rock. This

striking picture is among the first created with the Hitachi S-3400N, the College’s new state-of-the-art variable-pressure scanning electron microscope—made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Specimen preparation and photo were done by Professor of Biology Victor Townsend, the primary investigator of the NSF grant.

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Academia

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ILLUSTRATION: CHRIS GALLAGHER

The Body Binary COMPUTER SCIENCE PROFESSOR’S VISION FOR HEALTH BALANCES TRADITION AND TECHNOLOGY IN JOHN WANG’S NATIVE CHINA, THE ANCIENT HEALING ARTS are very much a part of modern life—a dichotomy as natural as yin and yang. For Wang, Batten Professor of Computer Science, the balance between tradition and technology is one struck on a daily basis. Yet when his wife was diagnosed with cancer, Wang found himself very much at odds with Western medicine.

“From my cultural point of view, we don’t like chemicals,” Wang says as he thoughtfully examines the dark green longjing tea leaves floating in his mug. He doesn’t drink caffeine and hasn’t had so much as an aspirin for the last seven years. “They are hurtful, bad for the body.

Chemicals deal with one symptom, but the body is a whole system.”

After a grueling round of doctor-prescribed chemotherapy, Wang and his wife, who was a professor at Virginia State University until she passed away several years ago, decided they would face the disease the natural way, relying exclusively on traditional Chinese medicine and employing techniques such as acupressure, massage and fire cupping, a process by which local suction is created on the skin by applying a heated cup.

Her doctors gave her a year and a half to live on a modern treatment plan. Using only natural remedies, she lived for three. The experience crystallized Wang’s commitment to a healthy lifestyle—including a varied diet and moderate exercise—and a holistic approach to healing.

It also translated to his professional life and academic pursuits.

With the assistance of 2010 graduate and computer science major Tara Santos, Wang recently designed an online database and program that allow users to enter health-related symptoms and discover the

corresponding acupressure points for relief of those symptoms based on which points connect most effectively to which system of the body.

“I want to use computers to simulate the immune system, to support my theory,” says Wang, who believes modern medicine and popular culture have overcomplicated what should be a simple, almost instinctive approach to wellness. “It’s a do-it-yourself process. The computer science can help us use this ancient knowledge.”

Wang’s project falls under the broader field of bioinformatics, a marriage of contemporary computing power and biology that can be used to process vast amounts of data. Wang published his “Study on Acupuncture Points Online Database” in the journal Computer Technology and Application in 2011.

Colleagues have suggested to him that the system, which also offers simple instructions on how to perform the acupressure, could be marketable for the public. But he’s not particularly interested in that. For him, the motivation is personal, the purpose straightforward.

“I am very focused on quality of life because of my wife. I think the main purpose is how to make our quality of life better and better.”

Dr. John Wang is a professor of computer science. His research interests include parallel computing, databases design, web computing, numerical methods, algorithmic analysis, management information systems, and decision-support systems.

—Leona Baker

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Beer, Bees

and Blintzes

ILLUSTRATION: CHRIS GALLAGHER

The liberal arts curriculum at Virginia Wesleyan emphasizes study across the disciplines—from mathematics to literature, philosophy to biology, history to foreign languages. For many students, regardless of major, that also means opportunities to explore unusual topics that challenge them in unique ways. Included here are a few examples of popular off-the-beaten-path courses.

CHALLENGING BREW: Students who sign up for professor Phil Rock’s course in zymurgy, also known as the science of fermentation (especially as it applies to the brewing of beer), thinking it’s a school-sanctioned keg party are in for a rude awakening.

“It’s harder than any biology class I’ve taken,” says Adult Studies student Heather Harrell, during a class tour of the local O’Connor Brewing Company. Harrell remembers emailing Dr. Rock in the wee hours of the morning after being stumped by a particularly complex equation regarding the calculation of hop bittering units.

The class is also about more than science or beer.

“They call it the beer class,” says Rock. “I do show them how to make beer, for sure, but it is a Senior Integrative Experience course, so we consider the history of beer making and the history of alcohol use by humans, as well as the scientific, social, cultural, and legal aspects of the venerable beverage and its production.”

BUZZ WORTHY: If you’ve spent time on the VWC campus in recent years, you may have passed by— or stopped to wonder at—one of two collections of bee boxes, also known as apiaries, located on the property. Beekeeping has many environmental benefits, but these bees are also an educational tool.

Students in Dan Margolies’ beekeeping class get an introduction to the history,

technique, biology and practices of apiculture, which includes handson experience building equipment and managing the hives.

The class is intended to be a primer on the fundamentals and pleasures of keeping bees as a hobby or a business as well as a strong introduction to the science of bees. Essentials such as building of hive components, supers, and frames, the capture of swarms, the installation of packaged bees, management of the hive throughout the seasons, requeening, and the harvesting of a honey crop are all part of the class.

KEEPING KOSHER: Field trips in Eric Mazur’s “Judaism Through Food” class range from an outing to a local kosher deli to a Shabbat service at a nearby synagogue.

The Jewish tradition is inextricably tied with food. How, when, what, where and especially why we eat— or shouldn’t eat—certain things is of great cultural and religious significance for Jews.

“From feasts to fasts, you will explore the history, texts, and traditions of Judaism through the study and first-hand encounter with its foods,” Mazur explains in the class syllabus, “their place, preparation, restrictions, and geographical variations that are central to the religious and cultural experience of Judaism.”

Of course, there are also plenty of opportunities to sample the goodies. Mazur brings in traditional Jewish foods for the class to try and even puts on a traditional Seder, the ritual feast that marks the beginning of Passover.

PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN

Academia Erica Clark '05 was the keynote speaker during the College's 2012 African American Heritage Month celebration

Facing Race

ALUMNA ERICA CLARK EXPLORES THE MINSTRELSY'S EXPLOITATIVE ROLE IN POPULAR CULTURE AS PART OF HER DOCTORAL RESEARCH THE PHENOMENON OF BLACKFACE, POPULARIZED BY LATE 19th-century minstrel shows and later packaged for the masses in films like The Jazz Singer, occupies a unique place in the history of American media and culture. The mainstream popularity of blackface minstrelsy, in which blacks were routinely lampooned as “dim-witted darkies” or “dandified coons,” was indicative of deeply rooted stereotypes that persisted for many years after blackface faded from the stage.

Erica Clarke ’05, a doctoral student and graduate teaching fellow at the University of Pittsburgh, became interested in the topic as part of her post graduate research and is currently completing a dissertation that explores the “rise, fall and residue of blackface minstrelsy.” Clarke, who majored in communications at VWC, says the “assiduous inaccuracies” perpetuated by the form have persisted into contemporary culture.

“The most enduring effect of blackface minstrelsy,” Clarke writes, “is the precedent it established in the appropriation, exploitation, and assimilation of African American culture.

Audiences of various media today are simply being ‘entertained’ with a derivative and more sophisticated form of minstrelsy.”

Clarke was a keynote during the College’s African American Heritage Month celebration in 2012 when faculty, students and staff gathered for her presentation, “Crafting Our Own Noose: The Role of African Americans in a ‘Post-Racist’ Society.”

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Finders, Seekers A WEALTH OF TOOLS AVAILABLE TO STUDENTS IN THE HOFHEIMER LIBRARY AND BEYOND—FROM PRINT MATERIALS AND MICROFILM TO EXTENSIVE ONLINE DATABASES—AID IN SUCCESSFUL AND REWARDING RESEARCH PROCESSES IT’S HARD TO IMAGINE DUELING WAS ONCE CONSIDERED ACCEPTABLE forms of conflict resolution among gentlemen in America. This peculiar and antiquated practice piqued the interest of political science and history major Bethany Bayles ’12 as she explored topics for her senior thesis seminar, the result of which would be a 25-30 page research paper. So, she went digging.

“Early on, I chose to research the topic of ‘rough and tumble fighting,’” Bayles explains. “This eventually morphed into a comparative study of manifestations of violence and understandings of honor in the antebellum South and the Western frontier. In order to complete the paper, I had to utilize

Tanya Puccio ’15 ( left) and Bethany Bayles ’12 (right) with Research Librarian Patty Clark (center) during Spring Honors Convocation

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, PRINTS & PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION

DUEL PURPOSES: Student Bethany Bayles chose to study the "manifestations of violence and understandings of honor in the antebellum South" for her senior thesis seminar

nearly every resource available to me.”

That meant scouring online databases for secondary sources, utilizing bibliographies, and taking advantage of the interlibrary loan system. It also meant discovering that old research standby, microfilm, on which Bayles was able to track down an 1835 article titled “A Kentucky Fight” in a newspaper called The New York Spirit of the Times.

The article became a substantial part of her paper.

Bayles and fellow student Tanya Puccio ’15 received the VWC Library Research Award during the annual Spring Honors Convocation in May, 2012. The award was established in 2010 through support from the Reverend James and Katheryn Driscoll, former co-chairs of Virginia Wesleyan Parents’ Council. The purpose of the award is to honor young researchers but also to collect information that will help the College better serve students’ needs.

“We wanted to recognize students who are using library resources,” explains Patty Clark, Research Librarian and Interim Library Director, “but even more than that, we wanted to find out how they are using them.”

Effective research skills—particularly in a world dominated by information overload on the Internet—are important to academic success, valuable in a variety of careers and absolutely critical for students planning to pursue graduate study.

“Learning how to use and access the databases and different forms of technology has given me confidence in my ability to discover the information I may be searching for,” says Bayles.

—Leona Baker

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Living & Learning SKY’S THE LIMIT: RecX work-study student and business major Gage Collins ’12 gets airborne with a jump rope assist from Jasmine Motley ’14

WHETHER YOUR IDEA OF STAYING active is freefalling from an airplane, hitting the weight room or just tossing the beanbag in a friendly game of cornhole, there’s no excuse for becoming one with your futon at VWC. The College’s RecX program includes outdoor activities, aquatics, fitness and recreational sports with a host of activities on campus and as far away as Hawaii and the Florida Keys.

“There are so many things that we offer here that students can come and do,” says VWC Fitness Director Willie Harrell. “An active person is a healthy person, and if they can get excited about what we’re doing, they can bring their sororities, their volleyball teams, their dorms. The idea is to get as many students involved as possible.”

During the spring 2012 semester, RecX introduced “Active April,” a month-long, student-generated calendar of activities designed to promote exploration of healthy lifestyles. RecX work-study students were asked to come up with and lead participatory activities—from basketball in the pool to “extreme jump rope”—for each day of the month.

RecX also happens to be the largest work-study employer on campus, providing part time jobs for as many as 100 students each academic year. These students help promote an active atmosphere and keep the Batten Student Center humming, but they also take something away from the experience.

“It’s a family atmosphere,” says Jason Seward, Director of Batten Center and Recreational Sports/ Outdoor Activities. “So, we often see students that really come out of their shell. They evolve and become leaders. It’s about caring about giving back to the campus and really working together.”

PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN

Jump in to RecX

Among those students is Gage Collins ’12, who got involved in RecX late in his VWC career but found himself right at home working in the College’s fitness center. A business major, Collins hopes to parlay his education and work experiences into a career in healthcare management.

“I feel that RecX has allowed me to utilize

my skills through the management of a healthcare environment,” Collins says.

“My position and the responsibility that comes with maintaining fluid operations and safety in the fitness room became second nature due to my education and experience in the classroom.”

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PHOTO: CHIEREME FORTUNE

Hope Springs Eternal REFLECTIONS ON MY LIFE-CHANGING MISSION TRIP TO HELP WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN NICARAGUA

MAKING CONNECTIONS: The author with one of her new found friends at House of Hope

By Chiereme Fortune ’13 IN A MATTER OF SECONDS AFTER I boarded an early morning flight along with nine other students, professor Alison Marganski and VWC chaplain Greg West, the sleeping city of Norfolk disappeared beneath our wings. As I nestled into my window seat and the sun began to rise, the realization that I would soon be in Managua, Nicaragua, set in.

The plane descended, the clouds thinned and my eyes were filled with an endless stretch of green landscapes dotted with blue pools of water and high rolling hills.

I had started my junior year with a lot of things on my plate—from my responsibilities as a resident assistant and member of Marlin Ministries to a busy course schedule. Yet, ever since I became connected with Spiritual Life on campus, I found myself wanting to do more—to be more. I discovered a unique opportunity in the College’s annual alternative spring break mission trip to Nicaragua.

Often referred to as “the land of lakes and volcanoes,” this Central America nation of six million people boasts a biologically diverse

and breathtakingly beautiful tropical climate.

While my goal was to be able to make a difference in the lives of women and children through service, I also hoped to see some of that natural beauty first-hand.

In the time leading up to the trip, my excitement steadily rose as I met with the team members to pray, plan, and prepare for the adventure ahead. The plane landed around noon, just in time for some traditional Nicaraguan “gallo pinto” (beans and rice) prepared by our cook, Jenny, at Quinta Arien

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PHOTO: CHIEREME FORTUNE

Living & Learning

A breathtaking view of a cross on the rim of the Masaya volcano, part of Nicaragua's diverse landscape

PHOTO: CHIEREME FORTUNE

Guest House, which became our home away from home. The following week would be a life-changing experience.

Each morning, we rose early for breakfast, met in prayer and made our way to the House of Hope, a nonprofit Christian organization that rescues, houses, and provides a place of work and refuge for women and children who have been enlisted in the underground world of prostitution and sexual slavery. I’ve always been interested in any cause that desired to uplift women and children who faced difficult situations. Visiting the House of Hope made every petition I had signed, every pledge I gave, and every dollar worth the work I put in to get there.

I found myself ready to help in every possible capacity. Whether digging through course sediment to prepare for underground piping, painting walls or playground equipment, or holding children while their mothers worked on greeting cards and meticulous jewelry making, I felt both the weight of the world lifted and the result of hope and trust in God fulfilled everywhere we looked.

I made a special bond with one House of Hope resident, a nine-year-old boy named Enrique who lived there with his mother.

During the week, Enrique borrowed my camera and had a great fun documenting our daily activities. As I looked over the videos and pictures he had taken of his relatives, women at the shelter, children, and the VWC team, tears swelled in my eyes for all the great memories I had created while at House of Hope.

At night, my teammates and I formed a circle of sturdy rocking chairs and a big comfy couch with our team leader, Greg West, to reflect on each day and share our highs, lows and favorite moments. This was one of my favorite times of the trip as it really helped us all to cope with what we had encountered or heard each day that left a mark on our lives.

The last day was spent touring the volcanoes, waters, markets and major tourist city of Granada and enjoying plenty

of authentic cuisine and good laughs. The beauty I saw blew my mind. One of the most memorable experiences happened while driving to our next sightseeing location. I caught a glimpse of a body of water with a blue-green tint that shined like rhinestones in the sun. It was a rain water lagoon that had formed in a dormant volcano. We were not only able to see the lagoon; we got to swim in it.

As I packed up that night and said goodbyes to the friends I had made, I felt the sadness seeping in as I prepared to leave my temporary home to travel back to the U.S. During a layover in Houston, I spent time with my new family sharing funny memories, tears and words of endearment exchanged in a sad, but hopeful promise that the group would continue to spend time together and return to Nicaragua next year. I will always carry Nicaragua in my heart, and spring break 2012 is a journey I will never forget!

For more information about House of Hope visit: www.houseofhopenicaragua.com

At Home and Abroad Many Virginia Wesleyan students get a chance to study abroad through one of the College’s exchange or affiliate programs, faculty-led travel courses or international internships.

Communication major Heather Spencer ’13 received a Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship to study at John Cabot University in Rome during the spring 2012 semester. This prestigious scholarship is awarded for undergraduate study abroad through the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational & Cultural Affairs.

Spencer’s love of photography is displayed in the two self-portraits shown here, one taken in VWC’s Wilson Arboretum and the other taken on a street in Rome, Italy.

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A Family Affair DUAL GRADUATION DAYS MARK MAJOR MILESTONES FOR TWO GENERATIONS OF MARLINS “I had always wanted to finish school,” Cyndi says. “I just didn’t have the opportunity.

And my kids had such a fabulous experience here. Hopefully hearing my story will inspire other adults to take the plunge and complete their education. I may be somewhat biased, but I can’t think of a better place to do that than Virginia Wesleyan College.”

Cyndi’s family was on campus to celebrate her graduating cum laude with her B.A. in social sciences from VWC. It was the culmination of a journey that included taking classes sporadically at a community college before coming to Wesleyan.

“It’s been years and to finally see it come to fruition is amazing,” says Amber. “I’m so proud of her. And I think it’s incredible that she and I and my brother all went to school here.

We’re really keeping it in the family.”

Immediately following Wesleyan’s Saturday commencement ceremony, the Randolph family hit the road to Charlottesville where they would see Amber graduate on Sunday.

With her law degree complete, Amber recently returned to the area to join Hampton Roadsbased law firm Willcox & Savage in their corporate transactional division. Cyndi is currently employed with the Virginia Beach Public Library and planning to pursue her master’s degree in library science.

WESLEYAN WOMEN: Cyndi Randolph (right) and her daughter Amber (left) celebrated back-to-back commencements

PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL-PITTMAN

THE COLLEGE’S 2012 COMMENCEMENT ceremonies arrived with all the requisite pomp and circumstance for the nearly 300 students who completed their undergraduate studies.

But for one VWC family, that picture-perfect spring weekend was particularly memorable.

Adult Studies student Cyndi Randolph graduated from Wesleyan on May 19, 2012, just one day before her daughter, Amber Randolph, also a graduate of Wesleyan, received her diploma from University of Virginia School of Law. Both Amber and Cyndi were members of the Honors & Scholars program while at Wesleyan.

Cyndi, mother of Amber ‘05 and Aaron ‘08, decided to fulfill a lifelong ambition after homeschooling both of her children during high school and then sending both to Wesleyan.

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Living & Learning

HereandThen VWC ALUMS REMEMBER THEIR FAVORITE SPOTS ON CAMPUS

 We asked fans of our alumni Facebook page to weigh in on the places and spaces they loved most while at VWC—the spots on campus where former students liked to study, hang out or just find some peace and quiet. Here are excerpts from the many responses.

“I used to do my studying on the dock at the lake. It was a special place because it was quiet and peaceful. I also loved the pine trees that were planted in rows as you walked to the lake.”

—Kat Balcom Puryear ’87 “My buddy Glen and I in the middle of the pine forest to honor John Lennon’s passing with candles.

The sound of the breeze through the pine needles was serene.”

—David Porter ’88 “Loved ‘Mole Beach!’ The courtyard between Old Hall and the old dining hall.”

—Laura (Balcom) Gadsby ’90 “The Hamptons apartments, basketball court and softball field and Winners for me too!”

—Sarah (Garrette) Kellam ’92 “When my husband and I attended VWC there weren’t many buildings or places on the campus, but we agree that my Rose Hall dorm room was our favorite because I had the largest room and everyone would hang out there playing spades and watching television (in between our studying, of course).”

—Mary Ross Withers ‘75

“The nature trail between campus and the Hamptons apartments.”

—Dave Weber ’86-’88

“Definitely the lake. My fiancé and I and the Episcopal priest who was to marry us sat back there on a blanket for a prenuptial marriage counseling session! We’ve been happily married 32 years.”

—Beverly Anne (Slamin) White ’80

“Loved watching TV and hanging out with everyone in Birdsong Lounge as a student. And running around the library when I went to work with my mom, Ann Matson, at age 4.”

—Anita (Matson) Monroe ’86

“I loved the old (old) snack bar.

I have really great memories of shooting pool with some of my favorite people and eating great, greasy fries.”

—Cathy Hogan ’85

“Birdsong when it was a lounge.

On Wednesday was movie night and Res Life would rent a VHS tape and pop popcorn.”

—Teresa (Clarke) Rhyne ’92 “I loved sitting in the library by the windows. I could watch everyone go by while I read or talked with a friend.”

—Lynn (Downey) Aydlett ’93 “Watching the 1992 Peekskill Bolide Fireball fall over the skies of the United States from Smithdeal steps. Also the pinball table at the Grill and Lake Taylor dock.”

—Sioux (Mathews) Hudson ’94

“When the stress of finals took its toll, my friends and I would get dropped off in front of the cafe with the golf cart and go for a midnight dip in the fountain.

Frolicking in the moonlight, we felt like true Marlins!”

—Evan Whitson ’96 “The Hofheimer Library. It always looked exciting and new.”

—Pedro Fabrega ’98 “Eggleston Hall, second floor common area. That’s where I met Josephine Franzese ‘98.

Art studio rooms, late at night, hanging with the creatives was always fun, too.”

—Adam Moskowitz ‘98 “There was a big, gnarly tree back behind Village I. That was my quiet.”

—Merideth Plimley ’98 “The Marlin Chronicle office! The old one, in Village I.” —Nancy Allen ’99 “My two favorite spots: Village III Phi Tau Suite and playing pingpong in the Village I Grill. I spent a lot of time on that table!”

—Michael Daily ’01 “My favorite place was Clarke Hall. That is where I first met the love of my life, Eddie Schuchhardt ‘01 in Mr. Garraty’s ‘Intro to Business’ class. He proposed under the tree by the Blocker Hall parking lot. The

continued on page 50

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HereandThen experiences I had at VWC and the lasting relationships that I forged there have been and always will be a huge part of my life. ” —Mandy (Bryant) Schuchhardt ’02

Tradition?

PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL-PITTMAN

“The bench outside of Johnston Hall was a great place to see friends and just relax. We had a Labor Day cookout there two years in a row. Even though both were cooking disasters, we still had fun.”

—Sean White ’04

>> The Adirondack Chairs “The Adirondack is a front-and-center seat into the creative process.

It talks of how things are dreamed up, worked up, changed, tried out, changed some more, and how things, just simple things, become part of a living memory of a people.”

—Daniel Mack, The Adirondack Chair It is a Virginia Wesleyan College tradition for each class of freshmen to make their initial mark on campus with colorful artwork and messages painted on Adirondack chairs. The chairs have become a symbol of campus life as well as homage to the College’s proximity to the beaches of the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.

The chairs are a relatively new tradition that began as a get-to-know-you exercise for incoming freshman in the early 2000s when a freshman orientation session was held at YMCA Camp Silver Beach on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. The College has enjoyed a productive partnership with the YMCA of South Hampton Roads for many years.

The chair painting was a hit and the idea stuck, becoming a way for new Marlins to express themselves and acclimate to their environment and one another. Now the chairs can been seen all over campus, often with students studying or relaxing in them.

In recent years one of the oversized versions of the chairs on campus was painted Marlin blue and adorned with the College’s logo and mascot by local artist Matt Jackson and has become a popular photo spot, especially on graduation day as students gather on and around the chair in their caps and gowns.

“Hofheimer Theatre. That’s where Dr. Sally Shedd was!”

—Matthew Tefft ’04 “My favorite view was seeing the Chapel as I was walking from Godwin to Boyd. I even painted the scene in one of my painting classes! That spot was so incredibly peaceful even though it was in the middle of everything, especially in the spring when there were birds chirping, the sun setting, flowers blooming and students happily walking to classes or to the Batten Center.”

—Vikki Holliday ’05 “The ‘old’ Grill in Eggleston Commons. The carpet was worn, the chairs were faded but it was a good time. Smelled like musty air, ketchup, honey mustard and French fry grease. I liked it because it was full of people so you didn’t have to eat your bagel sandwich by yourself.

Also the steps out front were a good place to talk the freshman drama of the day.”

—Jen (Thornton) O’Brien ’05 “Playing ping-pong at the Grill with the baseball guys!”

—Chris Hicks ’06 “Definitely the CMAC since I spent a lot of time playing roller hockey in there.”

—Rob Thompson ’06

“I liked the ropes course, great spot to read a book. Many people don’t even know it’s back there.”

—David Dziurzynski ’07 “Mine was the Scribner Bookstore.

I worked there for three years and I still spent pretty much all my free time there. I loved being around all the wonderful women who worked there. Everyone was so friendly and caring.”

—Marsha Herron ’07 “I liked to use rooms upstairs in the Hofheimer Library to study.

It was so nice and quiet and I could spread out more than on one of the tables downstairs.

Plus, when I mumbled or read out loud to myself, there was no one to give me weird looks.”

—Megan Moore ’07 “I loved the quad outside Batten!

All of the fun things happened under the sun there; Greek Week games, President’s Pig Roast, Seafood in the Dell, kickball and volleyball, or just laughing in the Adirondack chairs!”

—Desire Ellison ’08 “I loved the benches and area right outside of Clarke Hall.

On spring days, you could soak up some sun, read up before class, and almost most always see someone you knew passing by.”

—Liesl Arrington ’09 “The place I remember most fondly is the Grill in the Batten Center, specifically what we called the ‘Phi Sig Corner.’ If there were other Phi Sigs sisters there, I could count on good conversation, good companionship, and lots of fun. Some days I would bring Uno Attack and start a game and we’d all end up laughing hysterically. It was also the perfect place to curl up with a good book, take a mental break, or even get writing done.”

— Bronwyn Sciance ’11

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PHOTO: THOMAS MILLS ’15

What’s in a

PHOTO: THOMAS MILLS ’15

Athletics

New Era for VWC Tennis WITH A NEW FACILITY, A STRONG COACHING STAFF AND NATIONALLY RANKED INCOMING PLAYERS, MARLINS ENTER SEASON READY TO SERVE THE BRAND NEW EVERETT TENNIS Center isn’t the only feather in the cap of the VWC tennis program as it enters the 2012-2013 season. VWC popped up in both the women’s and men’s listings for the Top 25 Division III Recruiting Classes through May 2012 on TennisRecruiting.net.

Virginia Wesleyan’s women took the spotlight, however, with a class of newcomers that was ranked No. 25 nationally. VWC was the lone member of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference in the listing and one of eight programs to make a first-ever appearance in the group.

The Marlin men just missed cracking the Top 25, but received enough consideration to be included. VWC is in a solid group that includes Indiana’s Earlham College, California’s PomonaPitzer College, the University of

Rochester, Skidmore College, and Texas’ Trinity University.

VWC head tennis coach Tom Drabczyk, who begins his second season in 2012-13, and assistant Ben Hoskyn, both former VWC student-athletes, put in countless hours of effort to draw some of the best tennis players ever to commit to Virginia Wesleyan.

Current and incoming players as well as visiting teams will be able to showcase their skills in the new Everett Tennis Center, named after O.L. Everett, Chairman of the VWC Board of Trustees, and his wife, Carol, current President of the Women of Wesleyan. The facility includes a total of eight new courts, including two championship courts, two lighted grandstand courts and four competition courts, along with court fencing designed

AT THE NET: Chesapeake native and biology major Ryan Sadinski ’14 in the game at the new Everett Tennis Center

with California corners, stadium seating, a gazebo, viewing stand and storage.

“These courts will rival any in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) and will send a great signal to future Marlins that we take our tennis seriously at VWC,” says VWC Athletic Director Joanne Renn, who was the women’s head tennis coach from 1995 through 1999.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Everett Tennis Center, with special remarks from President Greer and Butch Everett, will take place at on Saturday, October 6, 2012, at 10:30 a.m. at Everett Tennis Center (behind Batten Convocation Center) as part of Homecoming and Parent Weekend celebrations.

All are welcome.

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Hoop, Hoop, Hooray

IT WAS A SEASON THAT BEGAN WITH the pressure that often accompanies success.

By October 2011, the VWC men’s basketball team was tagged tops in the land, earning number one national rankings from all three organizations that release preseason polls: Sporting News, DIII News, and D3hoops. com. Coach Dave Macedo and the team took it in stride.

“It’s an honor to be considered among the best teams in the nation,” said Macedo. “It excites our fans, it excites the community, and it also excites our players. The ingredients are there for winning, but we will need to remain

PHOTO: KEITH LUCAS

PHOTO COURTESY: JOE WASILUK

ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL SEASON FOR THE MEN’S BASKETBALL TEAM LEADS TO AN ODAC CHAMPIONSHIP WIN AND A THRILLING TRIP TO THE ELITE 8

humble and have consistent leadership throughout the season. We want to go far and that’s something we have to do together.”

That they did, with rowdy fans packing the convocation center throughout a challenging season to cheer on a group of players lead by five returning starters from the previous year’s 25-5 team. Their hard work paid off, guiding the Marlins to a 27-4 record, the 2012 Old Dominion Athletic Conference championship, and a thrilling appearance in the NCAA Division III Elite 8.

Credit goes to a talented group of athletes that included 15 lettermen, but most notably to

DIVISION CHAMPS: The Marlin men’s basketball team celebrate their 2012 ODAC win along with Coach Dave Macedo and his family Macedo, who was named the Virginia College Division Coach of the Year for an impressive sixth time in the past eight seasons. Entering his 13th season at VWC in 2012-13, Macedo has emerged as the most successful men’s basketball coach in the College’s history with a 267-85 record. He’s ranked among the winningest DIII coaches in the nation.

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Athletics

All-Academic at ODAC A 2011-12 ATHLETIC SEASON HIGHLIGHTED BY numerous academic awards for Virginia Wesleyan College's student-athletes has been capped with a record number of Old Dominion Athletic Conference All-Academic honors.

A total of 112 Marlins were named to the All-Academic list, making the second consecutive year that Virginia Wesleyan has topped 100 honorees. To be eligible for the honor, student-athletes must achieve at least a 3.25 grade point average for the year.

Game and Grades

PHOTO: KEITH LUCAS

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL MARLINS SCORE BIG ACADEMICALLY VIRGINIA WESLEYAN COLLEGE’S WOMEN’S basketball team has recorded a first in program history without touching a basketball. This one was all done with the books.

For the first time in program history, the Marlins are ranked among the top academic teams in the nation. In the summer of 2012, the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association released its annual Academic Top 25, and Virginia Wesleyan boasted the number 12 highest grade point accume among NCAA Division III teams.

The Marlins posted a 3.513 GPA. “Being recognized in the WBCA Top 25 is a tremendous accomplishment and a well-deserved honor, and I am so proud of this team,” said VWC head women’s basketball coach Stephany Dunmyer.

“Our players are true student-athletes who strive daily to be champions in every aspect of their lives, and their hard work and commitment have placed them in an elite group.”

Dunmyer, a three-time Old Dominion Athletic Conference Coach of the Year, including 2012, has stressed academic achievement throughout her nine years as the Marlins’ mentor. Her teams have consistently posted a cumulative GPA above 3.00. Strong academic finishes by seniors and outstanding starts by rookies helped boost the most recent VWC average.

The WBCA presents its annual list of academic achievers for NCAA divisions I, II, and III, as well as NAIA and junior and community colleges across the nation. Teams must have a 3.00 or better GPA to be nominated for the award.

All-Americans All Around A RECORD FIVE VWC ATHLETES RECEIVED ALLAMERICAN HONORS DURING THE 2011-12 SEASON Jessica Edelmann ’13 (Women’s Soccer) was named a 2011 second team All-American by National Soccer Coaches Association of America and Continental Tire. Edelman played a key role in the year’s success, leading the team with 38 points. The honor adds to a list of accolades for 2011. She was named an NSCAA/Continental Tire first team All-South-Atlantic Region honoree, a first-team All-ODAC honoree, and the ODAC/Farm Bureau Insurance Scholar-Athlete of the Year in women’s soccer.

Tori Higginbotham ’14 (Softball) was one of 46 women nationwide to earn National Fastpitch Coaches Association All-America second team honors. She was also a first team AllAtlantic region honoree, an Old Dominion Athletic Conference first team honoree, and Virginia’s College Player of the Year.

Higginbotham led the Marlins, and the ODAC, recording 142 at bats, 66 hits, 56 runs scored, and 108 total bases. Her totals produced two new VWC records in hitting and runs scored.

Kristina Karagiorgis ’15 (Softball) was one of 46 women nationwide to earn National Fastpitch Coaches Association All-America second team honors. Karagiorgis and her teammate Tori Higginbotham are the first two Marlin softball players in the program’s 31-year history to receive All-American accolades.

Karagiorgis had an impressive start to her intercollegiate career. She pitched in 117.1 innings and allowed just 25 earned runs en route to a 1.48 earned run average, ranking No. 42 nationally.

Adam Nycz ’12 (Men’s Lacrosse) received NCAA Division III All-America honorable mention honors in May 2012 from the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA). The honor came on the heels of Nycz's selection to compete for the South team in the annual Division III Senior North-South game.

Nycz was one of 64 seniors selected nationwide to compete in the game, which took place at Harvard Stadium in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

D.J. Woodmore ’14 (Men’s Basketball) was named a first-team All-American by the National Association of Basketball Coaches, making him the fourth Marlins men’s basketball player to earn All-American honors. It was just the latest in a series of awards bestowed upon Woodmore, who averaged a team-high 16.1 points.

The ODAC Player of the Year, Woodmore was also tabbed a fourth-team All-American by D3hoops.com and was named to the ODAC All-Tournament team after the Marlins’ 65-61 victory over Randolph College in the title game.

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Q&A

PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL-PITTMAN

Coach's Corner

Going to Bat AN INTERVIEW WITH HEAD WOMEN’S SOFTBALL COACH BRANDON ELLIOT

By Laynee Timlin

THE BIG PICTURE: Brandon Elliott, shown in front of a poster for the annual cancer benefit he started in honor of his mother, encourages his team to be community-minded as well as competitive

BRANDON ELLIOTT ‘03 TOOK OVER as head softball coach with eight games remaining in the 2007 season. While a student at Virginia Wesleyan, he majored in communications and played baseball on teams that lead the Marlins to two Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) Championships. As a student-athlete, he compiled a career batting average of .340 and led the league in stolen bases.

After graduation, Elliott worked as an admissions counselor and assistant baseball coach at VWC as well as an elementary school teacher before taking the reins of the VWC softball program. Elliott recently received his master's degree in sport management from California University of Pennsylvania and was recognized as a 2011-12 ODAC Coach of the Year.

He strongly believes in supporting community causes, especially those near and dear to his heart. He and his team annually host a “Strike Out Cancer” day which has raised more than $25,000 for cancer research. This event is a tribute to his mother, Elaine Sears, who lost her battle with colon cancer in 2008.

This year has been particularly challenging for Elliott personally. His wife, Laura Mills ‘05, has been fighting kidney disease while their newborn son, Cooper, was born 13 weeks prematurely in January. Support from family and friends and the Marlin team spirit have helped keep him on the playing field.

We asked Coach Elliott about his experiences as a player and a coach and some of the issues that impact the VWC program and the game as a whole.

Q: You’ve experienced Virginia Wesleyan as a student athlete and now as a coach.

Share your insights on athletics at VWC. A: I really have had a unique experience here at VWC in that I was able to be a student-athlete and an assistant coach in one sport and then turn the table and take over the reins in another sport. Throughout all these experiences, I have been able to see Virginia Wesleyan Athletics inside and out. I can tell you that as a whole we have one of the best if not the best collection of college coaches in the country. The men and women in that athletic department (support staff included) do a lot of great things for VWC, their programs and this community. I am blessed to have the opportunity to work with some great mentors.

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Athletics

What makes Division III athletics so unique?

Simply put, we give our student-athletes a chance to be a kid. Here at Virginia Wesleyan we are still going to prepare the same as we would at any other division and be extremely competitive, but we are also going to make sure our studentathletes have a great ‘college’ experience not just a ‘softball’ experience. The other great thing about Division III athletics is that you can really compete for a National Championship regardless of your size, funding etc. This is not necessarily true across the board in Division I. You are instrumental in bringing a national college softball community to Virginia Beach with the Beachblast tournament each year, and you've raised considerable funds for cancer research with the Strike Out Cancer event.

Talk about the importance of extending your program to the community and engaging your players in a wide variety of activities.

One of the best lessons that athletics has taught me is that everything is bigger than me.

The team is bigger than me. The college is bigger than me. Cancer is bigger than me. Unless we get our players involved in doing things that make a difference in the lives of others and in our community, they may not ever realize that simple truth, and we would have failed them at least in

part. Life has dealt my family a lot of curve balls, and we have endured a lot of hardships, but through these things we have connected with a lot of great organizations and people. Those experiences give you that drive to do something to help fix everything.

June 2012 marked the 40th anniversary of Title IX. How do you think being involved in college sports affects the development of women athletes?

Without being cliché, Title IX has changed the game. The development of women’s athletics and especially on the college level has surpassed the expectations of even the pioneers of Title IX. Athletics is critical in the development of young leaders and especially our female leaders. Through athletics, our women are seen, and they have a voice. They are strong, competitive and exude passion just like men.

Without Title IX, I am not sure we would be able to see that.

How have the upgrades to the fields positively impacted the game?

We take a lot of pride in our facility and continue to think up more ideas to continually improve its aesthetics. Not only do the improvements to our facility create pride in our

players and in our program, but they make being a part of our program more attractive to recruits and their families.

This was an exciting year for the softball Marlins. What are some of your reflections on the year?

When I look back at this season, I will have a lot of great memories. Another 30-win season and a record 17-1 conference finish.

Tori Higginbotham and Kristina Karagiorgis became the program’s first ever All-Americans, picking up second team honors. Higginbotham went on to win conference Player of the Year and Virginia State Player of the Year Awards, and Karagiorgis picked up the conference's Rookie of the Year and Pitcher of the Year Awards as well. We also garnered six All Old Dominion Athletic Conference Awards and four All-Atlantic Region Awards. However, I am more proud of my players and an extraordinary coaching staff (Jim Inzana and Jim Quinn) for leading this program through a year of great perseverance. We battled many things—from injuries to not having a field to personal issues.

There were many times we could have thrown in the towel and shut it down and it would have been okay in others' eyes. But this group just knows how to battle. That is special.

Fields of Dreams INITIAL SET OF IMPROVEMENTS COMPLETED ON MARLIN FIELDS AND MORE TO COME RECENT UPGRADES TO THE BASEBALL and softball complex take the Marlins one step closer to fields of dreams. The initial set of improvements happened during the 2011-12 school year and addressed urgent needs such as replacing fencing, installing new irrigation, grading and sodding the outfield, and adding wind screens and new batting cages.

These improvements are just the beginning, however. Plans for the future include grandstands for 240 (softball) and 500 (baseball), new dugouts and backstops, scoreboards, lighting and press boxes. With the vision to create one of the finest baseball/softball facilities in NCAA Division III, this modernization is sure to be a hit with players, coaches and fans alike.

Softball Field

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Plann

A shining example of one of Virginia Wesleyan’s remarkable student-athletes, senior and New Jersey native Jessica Edelman has been a consistent offensive force for the women’s soccer team, helping lead the Marlins to an 18-4 season and a 13th consecutive winning campaign in 2011.

Edelman also happens to be an Honors and Scholars student who thrives on a busy schedule that includes practices that last as long as two and a half hours six days a week. “I actually like being in season,” she says, “because I hate procrastinating. I like knowing my schedule and knowing what I have to do. And I’m happy that I ended up at a Division III school because it’s a great balance between soccer and academics.”

[Creature Comforts] “Teddy” has been Edelman’s constant companion since she was a kid. In her down time, she loves going to the beach. Though she tries to eat a healthy diet, her guilty pleasures include chocolate and pasta.

Her favorite movie of all time is The Lion King, and she’s been known to regale her friends with bad renditions of Backstreet Boys and Rihanna hits.

[Hitting the Books] A star on the field and in the classroom, Edelman enjoys writing and carries a 3.94 grade point average as a business major and communication minor. Some of her favorite courses so far at VWC are accounting, public relations and a class called “Persuasion and the Media” with Dr. Linda Ferguson.

[Family Girl at Heart] Edelman’s father, who has never missed one of her VWC games despite a five-hour drive, was “ecstatic” when he found out about her All-American honors. She is leader of “Team Alex” for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in honor of her younger sister, who found out she was a diabetic when she was 8.

[Dressed to Win] Edelman traveled to Kansas City in January, 2012, to become one of 40 women in the country to accept All-American honors from the National Soccer Coaches Association of America and Continental Tire. She received this jacket as part of the ceremony. She also received academic honors at the same event.

[All Yellow] The entire VWC women’s soccer team including Edelman wraps their left shin guard with a piece of yellow tape before each game. The tradition started in honor of former team member Laura Jackson's father, who died of cancer. Jackson graduated in 2007.

[Amazing Feats] Edelman didn’t even think she would play soccer in college because of a broken foot she suffered during her junior year of high school. It was Coach Jeff Bowers who convinced her to come to VWC. “I’m so thankful to Coach,” she says. “Coming here was one of the greatest decisions of my life, even if running and practicing every day kicks my butt!”

PHOTO: AUGUSTA PITTMAN

Anatomy of an Athlete

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PlannedGivingAd2_Layout 1 8/10/12 3:19 PM Page 1

Make what matters count

7 Charla - 196 farm y il am f h on the Smit

FOR CHARLA SMITH WORLEY ’72, EDUCATION AND FAMILY REALLY MATTER.

A

fter graduating from Virginia Wesleyan, she pursued her passion – a career in teaching. Charla's father, John Wesley Smith, encouraged her to

do something that wasn’t available to him – get a college education. Her father was born on the Smith’s family farm in 1909 on the land that is now the site of Virginia Wesleyan.

Charla grew up here – visiting the farm, selling vegetables, and later raising and riding horses. She says that her father always valued education and wished that he could have gone to college. To pay tribute to her passion and her father’s values and ideals, she established a scholarship in his name to be funded through her estate.

Pay tribute to your passion 1621_12.indd6 57

Like Charla, you can make a meaningful investment in education.

Your deferred gift can be a powerful tool for making what matters count. For a confidential conversation about making a legacy gift, please contact Mary Kate Andris, Ed. D., Director of Leadership and Planned Giving at 757.455.2136 or mandris@vwc.edu.

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Alumni Pages Alumni profile

Globe Trotters Paul Kumpf ’90 Tina Tyson ’93

PHOTO: ALEXANDRA COHEN

TINA TYSON AND PAUL KUMPF MET under the orientation tent on Tyson’s first day at Wesleyan. Kumpf was an upperclassman and had spent the day shuttling around freshmen in golf carts. Kumpf sat next to Tyson and glanced at her folder.

“And he looked at me and said, ‘Oh my goodness. You’re a Wesleyan Scholar. Your life is over,’” Tyson remembers.

Now married and living in Durham, North Carolina, with their children, Kristina and Brandon, Tyson and Kumpf have travelled a long way since that orientation tent. Kumpf is a supervisor with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, a component of the Department of Homeland Security. Tyson is an attorney working as the chief compliance officer at Duke University School of Medicine.

Kumpf majored in political science, and Tyson studied political science and French.

One Valentine’s Day, Tyson was in Kuwait working on litigation connected to claims from the first Gulf War, and Kumpf was doing international assistance work with his advisory team in Romania.

“I remember standing out in a traffic circle in Romania trying to get a signal to call her in Kuwait,” says Kumpf.

Kumpf and Tyson both remember Wesleyan as the place where they began to understand the international community and legal intricacies that they would engage with in their respective careers. Tyson says that Wesleyan’s Madame Sullivan set her on the path to an international internship with a law firm in Brussels, Belgium. Both Tyson and Kumpf encountered professors who shaped what they became by challenging them intellectually.

They laugh together as they reminisce about killer finals and professors’ bad puns.

“The rigor and analysis helped a great deal in going to law school,” says Tyson, who got her law degree at University of Virginia. “There are times when I listen to things now, and I’ll

While at Wesleyan, Tina Tyson '93 and Paul Kumpf '90 found a shared interest in international affairs that would help shape both of their career paths.

think back to Dr. Carlson or Dr. Jones and think about something from the Federalist Papers.

You have echoes of those things that you remember forever.”

Kumpf’s political science background led him to travel overseas and work with international organizations and the U.S. government. He worked with the Office of International Affairs on border projects in the Caribbean, the Middle East, and in Southeast Europe, among other places.

“I understand why the government works this way, why bureaucracies are built the way they are, why international organizations do what they do, and why foreign people do what they do because of those classes and that exposure at Wesleyan,” says Kumpf.

“You are a name and a person at a small liberal arts school, not just a number,” says Tyson.

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Alumni Pages

Class Notes

1970s

James Fitzpatrick (1975) and Sue (Louk) Fitzpatrick (1975) are proud to announce the birth of their granddaughter, a baby girl, Eleanor Sadie Fitzpatrick. She was born on June 3, 2011 to their son, Jim, and their daughter-in-law, Jessica. She weighed 9 pounds.

William Reece (1977) received a LLM. (Legum Magister) in Transnational Business Practice from University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law on May 12, 2012. Bill practices law in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii and San Antonio, Texas. His firm of four lawyers in San Antonio was recently augmented by his daughter, Margaret, a 21-year-old lawyer and Texas Tech School of Law graduate.

Louis Timmons (1979) died on February 10, 2012. Louis completed his degree at Virginia Wesleyan in 1979. After graduation he went on to Wesley Seminary. He retired as Pastor in the United Methodist Church. Louis served Churches in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.

1980s

Matthew Franck (1980) moved in 2010 to a new position at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New Jersey as Director of the William E. and Carol G. Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution. Matt was previously employed for 21 years at Radford University as a professor of political science and chaired the department for 15 years.

Dr. M. Gail Derrick (1982) received a Fulbright Specialist Award to Hungary in fall 2010. Gail spent six weeks in Hungary working with schools and teachers of Roma youth.

Jim Boyd (1984) has been appointed

by Governor McDonnell as a Commissioner of the Virginia Port Authority.

Deborah (Fisher) Stovall (1985) successfully defended her dissertation, “Signs and symptoms of opioid withdrawal in children undergoing opioid tapering” on April 10, 2012. She received her Ph.D from the VCU School of Nursing on May 12, 2012.

In 2006, Harry Warren (1985) created a side project designing breauhare fonts

(pronounced “bro hair”). Some of his fonts appear on current albums by Alicia Keys (The Element of Freedom) and Olivia Newton-John (Grace & Gratitude Renewed), and the logo for The Glen Campbell Goodbye Tour.

Harry’s font designs can be viewed at www.breauhare.com.

The Reverend Robert Coats (1986) has been appointed to a three-year term as a Commissioner for City of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Rev. Coats serves as a Commissioner on the City’s GLBT Commission. His term of office will expire in 2015.

Brian Ziegler (1986) had an art exhibit at Gallery 141 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which ran from July 1 to August 19, 2012. Brian, BA MFA, is an artist, performer, and educator based in the Washington, D.C. metro area. His art has been featured in a range of settings including One in Ten’s Walk the Red Carpet event in Washington DC, The Del Ray Artisans’ Gallery in Virginia, Camp Rehobeth in Delaware, as well as other galleries in Maryland and Virginia.

Carole (Snyder) Heller (1988) is beginning her second year as an art teacher at Gan Israel Academy in Fairfax, Virginia.

She also returns for her 20th year as a second grade Sunday School teacher at Temple Rodef Shalom in Falls Church, Virginia. She has spent over 14 years as a Hebrew School educator and over four years as a Bar/Bat Mitzvah and Special Needs tutor. This past spring an exhibit of her blankets, quilts, and wall hangings was on display as Temple Rodef Shalom’s Artist of the Month.

Sidney Dobrin’s (1989) book, Postcomposition, won the 2011 W. Ross Winterowd Award for Best Book Published in Composition Theory, and he has been named a University of Florida Research Foundation Professor.

1990s

Frank Bottone (1993) recently published a book titled All About Pugs: A Collection of Color Photos and Short Stories. The book reviews the traits and characteristics that make pugs unique, including their habits, grooming

requirements, nutritional and other needs. All About Pugs is available at leading book retailers such as Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble.

Victoria (Lowell) Walker (1994) has accepted a position at Purdue University, in West Lafayette, Indiana, as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Curriculum and Instruction for the Learning Design and Technology Master’s Program. She will also be serving as a program coordinator/ program convener completing various administrative roles in this new online education technology program.

Paul Carr (1995), Ph.D. is a professor at Regent University’s School of Global Leadership and Entrepreneurship.

Paul hosts the annual Autonomous Learning World Caucus (ALWC) at Exeter College and Linton Lodge at Oxford University, U.K. Recently, Paul held his eighth caucus and welcomed 27 distinguished scholars and students to this invitation-only event, which revisits the enormity of thinking, learning and mentoring from a Christcentered perspective, allowing doctoral students to become doctors instead of simply getting a doctoral degree.

Laura (Doran) Rifenberry (1995) received a Master of Arts in Education in Curriculum & Instruction from University of Phoenix in January 2012.

Hope (Rountree) Bradshaw (1996) was named the 2012 Middle School Teacher of the Year for Suffolk Public Schools. Hope teaches 6th-grade history at King’s Fork Middle School and is in her 15th year of teaching.

Mari (Keefer) Mann’s (1996) debut novel, Parisian by Heart, was a quarter-finalist in Amazon’s 2011 Breakthrough Novel Award. It is a work of literary fiction and has received many excellent reviews.

She is currently working on her second novel, entitled Father We Go. Jaimie Reese (1996) and Dean are proud to announce the birth of a baby boy, Hayden Reese Jones. He was born March 10, 2012 in Alexandria, and weighed 7 pounds, 6 ounces. Mom and baby and dad are all doing well.

James MacLeod (1997) is proud to announce the birth of his baby boy, Robert “Bobby” James MacLeod. He was born on September 16, 2011 in Torrance, California, and weighed 9

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Alumni profile

Kicks are for Kids

PHOTO: VIRGIL STRINGFIELD

As Coaching Director at U.S .Youth Soccer, Sam Snow '77 has translated a love of athletics that goes back to his time on VWC's first conferencewinning team, into a career in education.

Sam Snow '77 SAM SNOW PLAYED MARLIN SOCCER in 1976 when the team took home the conference championship.

“We were the first team in any sport at Virginia Wesleyan to win a conference championship,” he says.

In those days, Snow recalls, there were no athletic locker rooms or gymnasium, and the basketball team played homes games at Norfolk Academy. Snow was captain of the Wesleyan soccer team when he was an upperclassman, and he was an assistant coach of the team his senior year. He remembers fellow students on the soccer team drove the bus to away games. During his senior year, the Cunningham Gymnasium was built.

“I could see the accomplishments of the athletic department happening,” he says.

Now, Snow lives in Frisco, Texas, and he still spends his days on the soccer field. He

is a coaching director at U.S. Youth Soccer, the largest youth sports organization in the country with programs in all 50 states. After he got his master’s at the University of South Florida, Snow spent his career coaching soccer players at the high school, college, state and regional levels. He coached for the Youth Soccer Olympic Development Program.

Much of his time at U.S. Youth Soccer is spent training other leaders.

“Coaching the coaches how to coach,” he chuckles.

His favorite moments happen when he is teaching.

“Working with a group of players or with a group of coaches, those light bulbs go on,” he says. “Seeing those ‘aha’ moments when things click for them. For a player, it happens during the game when something that you’ve been working on comes together.”

An English major who at one point had intended to become a professional diver, Snow seems bemused that he was able to make a career on the soccer field. Interest in the sport has grown considerably since he graduated in 1977.

“That was a bit of a pleasant surprise,” he says.

For Snow, the intimacy of Wesleyan was an important part of his college experience. He remembers President Lambuth Clarke walking into the cafeteria and remembering his name and where he was from.

“It was notable, the attention that the professors, coaches and administrators gave to us individually.”

He’s still connected to many friends from his time at Wesleyan.

“It was that personal touch, the family feeling.”

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Alumni Pages

Class Notes pounds, 9 ounces. James reports that the first month with his son has been an amazing experience, and that the baby is healthy and well.

Nicole (Evans) Zucchi (1997) and Steven Zucchi are proud to announce the birth of a baby girl, Stella Jane Zucchi. She was born on February 9, 2012. She joins siblings Colin, Ava and Brennan as a wonderful addition to the family.

Darcy (Bumpus) Coyle (1998) and Brad Coyle are proud to announce the birth of a baby girl, Brooklyn Sharon Coyle.

She was born on September 4, 2011 in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and weighed 7 pounds, 10 ounces. Big brother Braden is loving his little sister.

Jason Hechtkopf (1998) received three regional Emmy’s at the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. on June 16, 2012.

Jason is known at WAVYTV as Jason Marks. The winning entries may be viewed on wavy.com. Jason is the brother of Allison H. Whiteman (2000) and Jenny Hechtkopf (2002).

John Helms (1998) recently accepted a position at University of North Carolina Wilmington as Postdoctoral Fellow.

John was previously employed at Tidewater Community College as Adjunct Assistant Professor. Having completed his doctorate in chemistry at ODU, he will be joining the Marine and Atmospheric Chemistry Research Lab at UNCW to study the impact of increased ethanol production and usage on rainwater chemistry.

Jennifer (Bender) Knop (1998) and Bill Knop are proud to announce the birth of a baby girl, Anna Olivia. She was born on August 6, 2011 in Lake Forest, IL, and weighed 7 pounds, 11 ounces.

Big brother Alex has been having fun getting to know his little sister.

Leslie (McConnell) Taber (1998) and Michael Taber are proud to announce the birth of a baby boy, Zachary Dean. He was born on April 19, 2012 in Virginia Beach and weighed 8 pounds, 10 ounces. Zach joins sister Daphne, who is enjoying getting to know her little brother.

Christine Walter (1998) and William C Hussey II are proud to announce the birth of twin boys. They were born on August 25, 2008 in Bucks County, PA. William Curtiss “Curt” Hussey III and Karl Richard Hussey were born

prematurely, but are doing great and are typical active (overly) energetic toddlers. Mom and Dad are loving every minute with them (and the few moments of sleep they can capture).

Nancy Allen (1999) has recently relocated to Washington, D.C. where she serves as speechwriter for the Commanding General for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. She has spent the past three years in New Orleans with the Corps’ Hurricane Protection Office, handling public affairs and strategic communications on a $6 billion construction program to provide 100year risk reduction to the city.

Jeremy (1999) and Francesca Sykes are proud to announce the birth of a baby boy, Giovanni Giorgio Sykes. He was born on April 21, 2012 and weighed 7 pounds, 7 ounces. Both the mother and child are doing well.

2000s

Mandy (Bryant) Schuchhardt (2002) and Eddie Schuchhardt (2001) are proud to announce the birth of a baby boy, Harrison Edward. He was born on April 27, 2012 at Brandon Regional Hospital in Brandon, Flroida, and weighed 6 pounds, 9 ounces. He is the second child for the Schuchhardts, whose daughter, Shelby Lynn, was born in 2009.

Bladen Finch (2003) was elected Vice Chair of the Legislative Information and Constituent Services Staff Section for the National Conference of State Legislatures. He will serve one year as Vice Chair and automatically become Chair of the staff section in the fall of 2012. Bladen was also appointed to serve on the Support and Efficiencies Subcommittee for the National Conference of State Legislatures’ Legislative Staff Coordinating Committee.

Delayna Ishee (2004) recently accepted a position at 20th Century Fox Television’s American Dad! Although Delayna graduated with a degree in the sciences, she has since decided to pursue her dream of becoming a screenwriter. She recently moved to Los Angeles, and is now working as a production assistant to the writers of American Dad! Victoria Holliday (2005) received a Master's of Business Administration in Management from Strayer University on April 2, 2011.

Ashley Carmichael (2006) received a Master's in Special Education from Regent University in May 2011. Ashley now teaches special education in Virginia Beach.

Suzanne Lazarowitz and Aaron Johnston (2007) are happy to announce their marriage on May 18, 2012, at Norfolk Botanical Gardens.

They currently reside in Muskegon, Michigan. Suzanne is a microbiology technician for Nestle R&D and Aaron is the Director of Recreation and Intramural Sports at Baker College.

Paul Wolfe (2007) and Leonieke (Nijssen) Wolfe (2006) are proud to announce the birth of a baby boy, Mason Austin Wolfe. He was born on August 2, 2011. This is the second child for Paul and Leonieke. Both the mother and baby are doing well.

Kevin Casteel (2009) has published his first book, My Journey, which consists of 41 poems that deal with everything from heartbreak and death to happiness and love. Most of the poems featured in the book are autobiographical and reflect from past events. My Journey was self-published on April 12, 2012.

Casie Newton (2009) and Mark Conlon were married at a ceremony on June 30, 2012, at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia.

2010s

James R. Bergdoll (H ‘10) was recognized at the 2011 Virginia Annual Conference on his retirement after 54 years working at three United Methodist related institutions, including the last 12 years as president of the Virginia United Methodist Foundation. He previously served nine years on the staff at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland and for over 32 years as assistant to the president and later vice president for college relations and development at Virginia Wesleyan College.

Graham Costa (2010) and Hayley Hamadyk, both of Newport News, are happy to announce their engagement.

The wedding ceremony will take place in fall 2012.

Please note: Class notes are user submitted are reprinted with only minor edits for style and consistency.

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Homec

Alumni profile

projects in play

PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL-PITTMAN

A typical work day for TV development producer Christine Cipriani Jones '91 (photographed on the antique carousel in downtown Hampton) includes writing reality show pitches

Christine Cipriani Jones ’91 WHEN CHRISTINE CIPRIANI JONES WAS AT Wesleyan, she went to an Alpha Sigma Alpha party where the students were supposed to dress as who they thought they were going to be when they grew up. Christine dressed as an MGM executive. Back then, she knew she wanted to be in television.

On a typical day at m2, a television studio in Hampton, Virginia where she works as a development producer, Christine writes a few reality TV pitches for network executives, arranges the logistics of a film shoot on a farm in Indiana, meets with her colleagues to decide which TV projects the company should go forward with, and interviews the leader of an African American motorcycle club in Atlanta.

“I always have projects in play,” she says.

Jones, who was a communications major when she was at Wesleyan, has worked in the television industry for 20 years—in reality

TV, sitcoms, talk, lifestyle and game shows.

She worked as a producer in New York for six years, but moved back to the area with her husband, Ben, four years ago.

Jones remembers that one of her first classes in the communications department was with Kathy Merlock Jackson.

“I was a slacker when I first got there,” Jones says, laughing. “I swear to God, Intro to Communications was at like eight in the morning or something ridiculous.”

Jones says that the close-knit environment at Wesleyan meant that professors like Jackson noticed and cared whether she showed up for class.

“Dr. Jackson took me aside and said, ‘Listen you need to pay attention and come to this class. I know you can do it.’”

Later Jackson helped Jones get a coveted Regent University internship with the Family

Channel sitcom Big Brother Jake.

“I can tell you without a doubt I would not have gotten into television if it weren’t for my internship,” says Jones.

That internship was the beginning of the network of connections that created her career in TV. Now Jones spends her days searching for stories. One reality TV pitch she’s working on tells the tale of three generations of boxers in Philly.

Another focuses on a group of girls in small town North Carolina who spend their time drag racing.

“When I was younger I would never have thought that I would have had all the experiences I’ve had,” says Jones. “I’ve been to Argentina and hung out with a clothes designer in Buenos Aires. All these weird, different things that you wouldn’t come into contact with in normal life. And you get to learn a little bit about what they do, so it’s like being in school all over again.”

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HomecomingAd3_Layout 1 8/10/12 3:17 PM Page 1

VWC Homecoming and Parent Weekend October 5>7, 2012

.

Pull up a chair and join us!

Check out our website at www.vwc.edu/homecoming to: • See the Schedule of Events • Register to attend • Find your fellow classmates and faculty who are attending

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AnnFu

Alumni Pages

Once a Marlin, Always a Marlin STAY CONNECTED. JOIN THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION! get involved with everything the College has to offer, from Wesleyan Wednesday and freshmen move-in to Homecoming and Parent Weekend.

The Virginia Wesleyan Alumni Association assists the College in remaining a vital and dynamic institution through community awareness and financial support. The Association provides an opportunity for alumni to help shape the future of the Virginia Wesleyan educational experience. Members of the Association are able to reconnect with professors and fellow classmates and enjoy a multitude of benefits while participating in efforts to enhance the College.

Find us online at www.vwc.edu/alumni or contact Katy Judge, Director of Alumni Relations, for more information.

KEEP THAT WESLEYAN SPIRIT STRONG BY staying in touch with your alma mater. We love to hear about the many accomplishments

of our alumni and to help inspire the current generation of students in their pursuit of academic excellence. We encourage you to

Join the Virginia Wesleyan Alumni Association today by scanning the QR code here.

The Alumni Association Board of Directors The Alumni Board of Directors represents the Association membership by serving as advocates to the College on behalf of alumni. They volunteer their time each year to oversee the activities of the Alumni Association, including networking events, campus activities, Homecoming and Parent Weekend, and other alumni priorities. Meet the members of our 2012-2013 Board.

OFFICERS Christopher L. Dotolo, 1991 President Director of Annual Giving Norfolk Academy Amy M. Rickard, 1998 Vice President Vice President of Marketing AAA Tidewater VA Richard L. Carmichael, 1986 Treasurer President/Real Estate Appraiser R.L. Carmichael & Associates John B. Haynes, Jr., 1998 Secretary Campus Minister and Director Tidewater Wesley Foundation at ODU

MEMBERS Wonder L. Burgung, 2009 Retiree/Volunteer

Bladen C. Finch, 2003 Senate Page Program Director Senate of Virginia

Kimberly M. Sypniewski, 2009 Training Program Director Community Personal Care

Angela D. Costello, 1987 Senior Advisor of Business Development and Media/Public Relations The Clean Air Action Corporation

Laura B. Gadsby, 1990 Director of Enrollment and Marketing Beth Sholom Village

Christopher M. Stefi, 1991 President Stefi Enterprises & The WDS Co.

Noelle P. Davis, 1991 Adjunct Faculty Everest College Desiree M. Ellison, 2008 Director of Housing, Sigma Tau Delta Syracuse University Jesse H. Fanshaw III, 1972 Former Director of Alumni Relations Virginia Wesleyan College

Paul C. Mumford, 1991 President Carrollton Properties, Inc. Barrett R. Richardson Jr., 1981 Attorney Richardson & Rosenberg, LLC Rachel H. Rigoglioso, 2010 Technical Editor Gryphon Technologies LC

Ronald L. Swan Jr., 1977 President VDS Beth C. Widmaier, 1999 Registered Nurse Riverside Regional Medical Center Carter B. Youmans, 2006 Member Services YMCA of South Hampton Roads

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Connecting

ClassroomtoCareer Being in the spotlight comes naturally to Kaitlin Harris ’12. A doubleKmajor in English and Theater, Kaitlin was involved in numerous stage productions at Virginia Wesleyan. Combining her education with her internship at Studio Center Total Productions in Virginia Beach paved the way to employment right after graduation.

The Annual Fund for Academic Excellence supports annual scholarships, undergraduate research opportunities, study abroad and internships, ensuring that Virginia Wesleyan students like Kaitlin have access to a 21stKcentury liberal arts education.

CONTRIBUTE TO BRIGHT FUTURES. Support the Annual Fund for Academic Excellence.

Visit www.vwc.edu/annualfund, call 757.455.3242 or write to President’s Office, 1584 Wesleyan Drive, Norfolk, VA 23502

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Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Norfolk, VA Permit No. 27

OFFICE OF COLLEGE COMMUNICATIONS 1584 Wesleyan Drive Norfolk, Virginia 23502 757.455.3200 www.vwc.edu

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I am Virginia Wesleyan.

A Place in History In his new book, and in life, professor Dan Margolies explores the crossroads where cultures and ideologies collide

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