W&L students created an impromptu gathering space filled with hammocks and games on the Front Lawn, inviting people to filter in and out all day. Tanner Barlow ’27 and James Kull ’27 made the colorful Eastern redbuds the backdrop for their reading nook.
FEATURES
10
Shenandoah
Celebrates 75 Years
W&L’s renowned literary magazine counts William Faulkner and Joyce Carol Oates among the noted authors featured in its pages.
18
Creative License
The Shenandoah internship program serves as a springboard to various career paths for W&L students.
20
A Tribute to Tom Wolfe
The research and reading room in the Special Collections and Archives area of Leyburn Library will be updated and dedicated to the Class of 1951 alumnus.
24
The Life of a Book
From the initial concept to the bound volume, a book’s journey is shaped by many hands.
the writer Rebecca Makkai ’99 the editor Pranab Man Singh ’05 the agent Chandler Wickers ’18 the publicist Craig Burke ’93 the lawyer Gray Coleman ’79 the teacher Marshall Boswell ’88
DEPARTMENTS
3 Columns
32 Office Hours
Sybil Prince Nelson ’01 shares her novel ideas.
34 Lives of Consequence
Terry Brooks ’69L is living out his writing fantasy.
36 Alumni
52 Chronicles
Cover
Photo by Kevin Remington & Shelby Hamelman
A master of social commentary, the late journalist and novelist Tom Wolfe ’51 used this manual typewriter (among three he owned) to write countless articles and a dozen books during his career. The typewriter is part of the Washington and Lee University Special Collections and Archives, thanks to a donation from Wolfe’s widow, Sheila. Read more on p. 20.
This page
Photo by Shelby Hamelman
SPEAK
EDITOR’S NOTE
In honor of The Literary Issue, W&L Magazine’s editors and designers reflected upon the books that ignited the spark for us (mine is Donna Tartt’s “The Secret History,” which oddly cemented my adoration of college). Books open up the world and allow us to better understand other people, experiences and — perhaps most importantly — ourselves.
‘Tuesdays with Morrie’ by mitch
albom
“This book feels like getting the answers to a quiz from someone who has already seen the answer sheet. Morrie has opened my eyes to the quirky beauty of life, and each time I reread his story, it inspires me to make the most of what this world has to offer and to view each morning as a priceless gift.”
Kolton Cannon Graphic Designer
THE VERY BEST
‘Perfume’ by patrick sÜskind
“My introduction to this book was through the Nirvana song ‘Scentless Apprentice.’
In Süskind’s brilliant novel, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was a man obsessed with capturing the perfect scent, in a world that rejects him. Its theme of alienation parallels Kurt Cobain’s lyrics — both men were ultimately consumed by their creations.”
Billy Chase Senior Graphic Designer
‘On the Road’ by jack kerouac
“The winding prose in ‘On The Road’ reached me during that malleable age of late teens and early twenties. It instilled such excitement for how life can unfold — the madness of humans, the rawness and authenticity of true connection and the places I could go with just four wheels on asphalt.”
Laura Lemon Assistant Editor
‘Ramona the Pest’ by beverly cleary
“This is the first book I ever bought with my own money! I loved Ramona Geraldine Quimby — a spirited antiheroine who was new to kindergarten and always on the lookout for unfair situations, given that she was ‘the youngest member of her family and the youngest person on the block.’ I related!”
Jamie Lipps Director of Design
I had the good fortune to be present at the Leading Lives of Consequence campaign launch in October 2024. It was there that President Dudley made the announcement about Bill Miller’s historic gift to make our beloved university need-blind. It also happens that Bill is a fraternity brother and an old friend. A legendary investor as well as a voracious reader with a vast intellectual bandwidth (think arts-science/philosophy-physics), Bill embodies the very best W&L values, including our sacred triumvirate of honor, integrity and civility. Considering the changes that the university has faced over the last few years, some of us from our generation (I graduated in ’70, Bill in ’72) have
been dubbed, and not without reason, as “grumpy old men.” After viewing the beautifully choreographed activities of that weekend — the smart students actively participating in their classes; the handsome, technologically state-of-the-art facilities; the aesthetically integrated campus in its splendor; the diverse returning alumni whose careers embodied “lives of consequence” and whose deep love for the school was palpable; the gorgeous singing in the chapel; the obvious pride of the faculty and campus leadership — all this convinced me that the school is thriving and that its best traditions and values are still intact. — David Bethea ’70
A Magazine for Alumni and Friends of Washington and Lee University
Volume 101, Number 1 Spring 2025
Jessica Luck Editor
Laura Lemon ’16 Assistant Editor
Jamie Lipps Director of Design
Billy Chase Kolton Cannon Designers
Shelby Hamelman
Kevin Remington University Photographers
Kelsey Goodwin
Jeff Hanna
Emily Innes
Brian Laubscher Contributors
Jessica Willett ’95 Vice President of Communications and Strategic Initiatives
Drewry Sackett ’93 Executive Director of Communications and Public Affairs
Published by Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA 24450. All communications and POD forms 3579 should be sent to Washington and Lee University, Alumni Magazine, 7 Courthouse Square, 204 W. Washington St., Lexington VA 24450-2116. Periodicals postage paid at Roanoke, VA.
UNIVERSITY ADVANCEMENT
Susan Wood Vice President for University Advancement
The university’s Special Collections and Archives will be closed from Spring Term through the start of the Fall Term to allow for construction of the newly named Tom Wolfe ’51 Reading Room in the archives’ main community research and reading space. Upgrades to lighting, display cases and furniture as well as adding a new online registration system will allow for a better user experience. Learn more about Wolfe’s love of W&L on p. 20.
ON LOAN 2
W&L lent its notable portrait of “George Washington as Colonel in the Virginia Regiment” by Charles Willson Peale to the Virginia Museum of History & Culture, where it is a central piece of the exhibition “Give Me Liberty: Virginia and The Forging of a Nation,” which commemorates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
NEW ROLE
PAUL YOUNGMAN ’87, P’27, associate provost for academic development and operations and professor of German, was named interim dean of the College. He succeeds Chawne Kimber, who was named vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty at Pitzer College.
HISTORY FOCUS
3. WARM WELCOME
Joelle James Phillips ’95L of Nashville, Tennessee, who retired from AT&T Tennessee in December 2023 as the company’s longest-serving president, was sworn in to the Washington and Lee University Board of Trustees in February 2025.
Bill and Wendy Payne of Dallas made a $3.5 million gift to W&L’s forthcoming Institutional History Museum, with $1.5 million of their gift as a challenge for other donors. Bill Payne is a graduate of the Class of 1988 and a member of the Board of Trustees.
6. FACULTY PUBLICATIONS
a Andi Coulter, assistant professor o f business administration, published “AFI.”
b Jonathan Eastwood , professor of sociology , published “Social Structure: Relationships, Representations and Rules . ”
c Leticia Fernández-Fontecha , visiting assistant professor of history, published “Childhood, Pain and Emotion: A Modern British Medical History.”
d JT Torres, director of the Houston H. Harte Center for Teaching and Learning (co-author), published “How to Use Writing for Teaching and Learning . ”
e Lesley Wheeler, Henry S. Fox Professor of Englis h, published “Mycocosmic . ”
IN THE NEWS
A Page From His Book
Matthew Neill Null ’06 received the 2024 Pushcart Prize for “The Dropper.”
By Jessica Luck
ESSAYIST AND NOVELIST
Matthew Neill Null ’06 forged his path to writing in preinternet Appalachia in his home state of West Virginia. His natural facility for language and lack of interest in the typical male pursuit of sports led him to the library in his rural hometown. He started reading all the classics — Toni Morrison, William Faulkner, James Joyce, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Gabriel García Márquez — and followed the plot to Washington and Lee University as an English literature major, after being impressed with the institution’s academics.
His list of “fabulous” professors is lengthy, including English faculty Suzanne Keen, Jim Warren, Ed Craun, Lesley Wheeler and R.T. Smith. He went on to get an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and he is the recipient of the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize Fellowship in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Mary McCarthy Prize, the Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship and the O. Henry Award, among others. His stories have appeared in The Kenyon Review, Oxford American and “The Best American Mystery Stories.”
In 2024, Null, assistant professor of creative writing at Susquehanna University, won the Pushcart Prize,
which recognizes the best poetry, short fiction, essays and other literary writing published in small presses and literary magazines. His short story “The Dropper” is about the relationship between an aging bird-dog trainer and trade unionist and his “illegitimate” daughter, Lorna, who happens to be his favorite child.
The changing political landscape in West Virginia serves as a backdrop, while the story centers on a lost English pointer.
“It’s nice to be recognized, but there are fabulous books that get overlooked in awards season for various reasons,” Null says. “As a writer, you spend years and years of your life in invisible labor on this project that no one sees, and you start to worry if you’ve wasted your time; there is a fine line between success and failure.
Sometimes you feel like a musician playing to an empty room.”
His 2015 debut novel, “Honey from the Lion,” was short listed for the L.D. and LaVerne Harrell Clark Fiction Prize, and his story collection, “Allegheny Front,” received the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction. All his books have a throughline of being set in his homeland of West Virginia. His next novel,
“The Floodgate,” is forthcoming in summer 2026.
“In the richest nation on Earth, West Virginia is a persistently poor internal colony that only exists to provide everyone else with coal, timber, natural gas, etc. Despite it all, West Virginians have a sense of humor, which is a survival mechanism that it shares with places like the Mississippi Delta, rural Ireland and the Balkans,” he says. “The best artists come from fairly miserable places. Novelists have that grit of discomfort around which the art forms.”
His ultimate advice for other writers?
“Write the type of book you’d like to read,” he says. “Chasing what you think the marketplace desires will lead you down the wrong path.”
WHAT I’M READING
“I try to look outside of American literature to find new ways of doing things. Last year, I was very taken with ‘Belladonna’ by Daša Drndic for its innovative form and engagement with the breakup of Yugoslavia, as well as with the mortality of her aging protagonist. She doesn’t flinch from difficult subject matter.”
’
LITERARY PURSUITS
BY WILL DUDLEY, PRESIDENT
IN THIS ISSUE OF W&L:
W&L is fortunate to count a number of bestselling and award-winning authors in our alumni ranks.”
The Washington and Lee Magazine, we celebrate the accomplishments of many of our alumni who are involved, in a variety of ways, in literature and publishing. W&L is fortunate to count a number of bestselling and award-winning authors in our alumni ranks, but perhaps none is so famous as Tom Wolfe ’51. His iconic typewriter, which graces the cover of this issue, will soon be prominently featured in the new Tom Wolfe ’51 Reading Room in the Special Collections and Archives
area of the Leyburn Library (see p. 20).
Wolfe’s legacy on campus began with his contributions as a student editor to the fledging literary magazine Shenandoah (see p. 10), and it continues with the annual Tom Wolfe Weekend Seminar. This year, the seminar — which is sponsored by the W&L Class of 1951 in honor of their classmate and hosted by our Office of Lifelong Learning — celebrated its 20th year. Each year, the program features a distinguished writer and observer of the American
scene, who spends several days on campus. Recent guests have included Jayne Anne Phillips (“Night Watch”), Amor Towles (“The Lincoln Highway”), Elizabeth Strout (“Olive Kitteridge”), Daniel James Brown (“The Boys in the Boat”), Jennifer Egan (“A Visit from the Goon Squad”), Jesmyn Ward (“Salvage the Bones”), Delia Owens (“Where the Crawdads Sing”) and our own Rebecca Makkai ’99 (“The Great Believers”).
As an avid reader, I always look forward to Tom Wolfe Weekend. The format is simple: On Friday evening, the author gives a public talk, followed by a reception and dinner for seminar participants. On Saturday morning, W&L faculty join the author in a panel discussion of the featured book, followed by a concluding lunch. The result is magic: current students, faculty and alumni coming together to share the joy of reading and learning. Like all of our Lifelong Learning programs, which run the gamut from weekend seminars in Lexington to international trips, the program is thoughtfully constructed and intellectually stimulating. What better way for a university to honor the legacy of a literary giant?
IN THE LEAD
New Chapter
ADHIP ADHIKARI ’27 constructed a library at a secondary school in Kathmandu, Nepal, with the help of the Washington and Lee University community.
GEETAMATA SECONDARY
School is a 15-minute walk from my parents’ home in Kathmandu, Nepal. Some of my friends who I played cricket with went there. Smart guys. But as we grew older, I noticed a pattern. Even the best students struggled with English — the kind of English needed to get into top universities
or land a good job, even in Nepal. And that mattered. English isn’t just another subject; it’s a gateway to opportunities, both in Nepal and internationally. Some of my friends didn’t get those opportunities. Not for lack of talent, but weak English skills. That didn’t sit right with me. So, I started thinking. What could I do?
A library seemed like a good place to start.
Geetamata is a solid public school, but it runs on government funding. Students pay something like $3 a month, which doesn’t leave room for extras. Their “library” was just a shelf with few books — no space, no reading culture. I figured if I could change that, even a little, it might help.
MASTERFUL MENTOR: W. DABNEY STUART
I knew professor of English Dabney Stuart’s son through summer camp, and before my freshman year at W&L, Nathan suggested I find his father on campus and let him know I wanted to be a writer That phrase … we used to speak it so innocently. I thought I might be special, anointed, that I would pull the sword from the stone. When I visited professor Stuart’s office to tell him I wanted to be a writer, he suggested we go fishing — somewhere on the Maury River, I think, a place I’d never been. Can’t remember
if we caught anything, or if we talked about writers and writing, but we struck up a friendship. Over the next several years, Dabney went out of his way to help me survive the English Department despite my struggles with literary analysis. No major in creative writing existed, but we managed to fake one. Years later, I’ve come to understand how lucky I was — all that one-on-one coaching from a master poet and fiction writer.
As a student with more enthusiasm than talent, more self-delusion than
I planned the project in November 2023 and executed it in summer 2024. First, logistics. I talked with the principal, mapped out space and outlined sections. Then, funding. I got a Shepherd Internship grant to cover travel and a Johnson Opportunity Grant to fund the majority of the project. And I am working with visiting assistant professor of education studies Sarah Margalus to track how students’ English improves — measuring structure, vocabulary and comprehension. Access is one thing, but impact is another.
The next step: books. I bought what I could with grant money and collected donations from my high school and nearby schools. The Indian Embassy pitched in, too. In
work ethic, what I needed — without knowing it — was Dabney’s brand of honest support that never coddled. Spring semester of my junior year, he encouraged me to enter a writing contest “because no one else has entered.” As predicted, I won. A soupçon of success, with an asterisk ensuring some humility.
Dabney helped prepare me for a life of seldomrewarded work while boosting my heart for the work itself. He made clear that if I really was determined to be a writer, he would do what he could to support
total, we digitized 4,800 books so students could browse what was available. We also created a reading comprehension curriculum because handing someone a book with unfamiliar words doesn’t mean they’ll know how to approach it.
The goal was simple: Help students improve their English for better opportunities. None of this would have been possible without W&L and its support.
This summer, I’ll return to Kathmandu to implement a barcode system for book circulation. One step closer to making this library a lasting resource.
Adhikari is a double major in mathematics and accounting and finance.
and encourage me, a decades-long commitment. I certainly had no inkling what his promise entailed for me: the great good fortune of a trusted lifelong friend.
James McLaughlin ’86, author of the novels “Panther Gap” and “Bearskin,” grew up in Virginia and now lives in the mountains of Utah W. Dabney Stuart, S. Blount Mason Professor of English Emeritus, has published 20 books of poetry, been nominated for six Pulizter Prizes and won the Library of Virginia Poetry Prize.
W. Dabney Stuart
James McLaughlin ’86
Next year marks a milestone anniversary for W&L’s University Library.
LEYBURN LIBRARY
584,131 print books
267,904 yearly visits serves as W&L’s main undergraduate library for the College, the Williams School of Commerce, Economics and Politics and Special Collections and Archives.
1,421,555 electronic books 202 online databases
250
1,187 750 764 recorded transactions with SC&A team members visitors to the SC&A’s Reading Room participants in 50 classes taught by SC&A staff 1776 2026
10 000 PLAYBILLS in the Henry Strouss Performing Arts Collection , * Above data from Special Collections and Archives (SC&A)
YEARS
“What we’re collecting now, we want that to be useful to our students, faculty and community members in 250 years.”
KT VAUGHAN
Hal F. and Barbra Buckner Higginbotham University Librarian on the upcoming 250th anniversary of the University Library
DUBYUHNELL DAY
THE ZINE SCENE
W&L’s Special Collections and Archives helps diversify materials for students and faculty.
By Kelsey Goodwin
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
to rare books and manuscripts to Roman coins, Washington and Lee University’s Special Collections and Archives houses a unique array of items that support a wide range of academic disciplines. One of the latest additions to that roster of resources is a curated collection of print self-expression born in the 20th century: zines.
Zines (short for “magazines” or “fanzines”) are small, self-published booklets or magazines, often created by hand or with simple digital tools. They are made using methods like cutting and pasting, hand drawing or typing text, which is then photocopied or printed; they often have a homemade, collage-like feel. Rising in popularity during the 1980s and 1990s, zines are often shared within specific subcultures or communities to foster connection and dialogue, although, over time, they have expanded to include creators and topics from all walks of life.
Mattie Clear, assistant professor and archivist in Special Collections and Archives, began helping W&L acquire a selection of locally produced zines in 2023. The current collection covers a range of topics, and Clear says she sees the zines as a way to diversify materials available to students and faculty, exposing them to a broader range of perspectives.
“We started collecting zines in 2023 and in just over a year and a half have grown the collection to approximately 70 titles,” says Clear.
“Many of these titles are by Virginians, with a number of them being specifically created in Rockbridge and Augusta counties as well as a few that Washington and Lee students created. I’m really proud of our zine collection and the opportunities zines provide for our students.”
Clear conducted more than 20 class sessions in Fall Term 2024 in the Special Collections and Archives classroom, and approximately half of those used materials from the zine collection.
The courses covered diverse topics such as natural hazards, the history of medicine, Spanish literature and environmental poetry.
“The fact that these courses are taught within a wide range of departments and were able to use the zines speaks to the versatility of the collection we have curated and continue to expand,” Clear says. “Zines allow us to grow the collection with modern resources that directly tie to the curriculum while also providing students exposure to primary sources.”
Visiting assistant professor of history Leticia Fernández-Fontecha’s Introduction to the History of Medicine course used the zine collection to explore the subject
matter through the lens of Western medicine’s interaction with other healing traditions.
“Engaging directly with primary sources allowed students to see the past not as a theoretical concept, but as a tangible, material reality made up of objects and sources they could touch and manipulate,” Fernández-Fontecha says. “Watching students adapt their approach to a modern primary source like the zines was fascinating. It highlighted the tools needed to analyze contemporary materials and underscored how they regularly encounter potential primary sources in their everyday lives — sources that future historians might one day study.”
Mattie Clear, archivist, has helped develop W&L’s zine collection for use in an array of courses.
shenandoah celebrates
story by Emily Innes
’s literary magazine has featured some of the biggest names in literature and jump started careers
of both authors and students.
PHOTO BY KEVIN REMINGTON
Shenandoah’s inaugural issue, which debuted in spring 1950, featured the first published short story by Tom Wolfe ’51.
Sshenandoah, washington and lee university ’s literary magazine, has witnessed — and helped shape — an evolving literary landscape for 75 years. Throughout its various eras, the magazine, which is celebrating its diamond anniversary in June 2025 with a redesigned website and special double issue, remains a W&L hallmark that editor Beth Staples describes as “fueled by pluck, initiative and love.”
Like many literary magazines, Shenandoah has served as a launching pad not only for emerging writers but also for student interns who are interested in pursuing careers in literature.
“Part of why literary magazines exist is so people have a place to get their careers started,” says Staples, who took the helm of Shenandoah in 2018.
Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author of 2023’s “I Have Some Questions for You.” Makkai was initially drawn to W&L for its well-regarded literary magazine and spent three years as a work-study student at Shenandoah, under then-editor R.T. “Rod” Smith. There, she organized his Rolodex filled with contacts, as well as picked up tubs of submissions from the post office and mailed back acceptance and (mostly) rejection letters. Seeing the sheer number of submissions and the corresponding low acceptance rate gave her a clearer picture of the life of a professional writer.
SPOTLIGHT
Authors often turn to magazines like Shenandoah to gain a foothold in the industry before seeking publising houses for their book-length projects. And magazines housed at universities can generally take risks on lesser-known authors, serving as important milestones for writers on the path to success. In its 75 years, Shenandoah — and the W&L faculty and students at its helm — has been included in the resumes of past greats, such as William Faulkner, W.H. Auden, Eudora Welty and T.S. Eliot, as well as more recent writers, such as Mary Oliver, Joyce Carol Oates and Rita Dove.
First African American U.S. Poet Laureate and Shenandoah contributor Rita Dove won the Pulitzer Prize in 1996 for her poetry collection “Thomas and Beulah.” Her work often focuses on family and personal life related to the Black experience. a
Oates, one of the most prolific American fiction writers of the 20th century, appeared in nearly every issue of Shenandoah from 1966 to 1987, as well as 2008 and 2010. She first contributed to the winter 1966 issue with her short story “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” which she later developed into her second novel. She won the National Book Award in 1969 for her novel “them.” And Oliver, who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for her poetry and was America’s best-selling poet in 2007, published more than 40 poems and essays in Shenandoah. Previous Shenandoah student editors and interns have gone on to impressive pursuits, including poet Christian Wiman ’88, former editor of Poetry magazine, along with Rebecca Makkai ’99,
“By the time I started sending my work out into the world as an adult, I had a very realistic sense of the odds and of how it wasn’t a personal affront when someone rejects you,” she says. “Literary journals are run by poets and fiction writers and people who love what they’re doing, and that’s a really helpful perspective.”
She kept in touch with Smith after graduating, and he encouraged her to submit her own writing. Smith published Makkai’s short story, “The Worst You Ever Feel,” in Shenandoah’s spring 2007 issue. And as guest editor of “The Best American Short Stories” anthology the next year, Salman Rushdie chose Makkai’s story for inclusion; the anthology featured her work in four consecutive years. She considers that the kickstart to her career.
“At W&L, I had an experience that really nurtured who I was as a writer through the English Department, Shenandoah and creative writing classes,” she says. “I became more and more myself and more and more of a writer while I was there.”
Nora Jacobson ’26, an English major minoring in environmental science and creative writing, and Sloan Criner ’25, an English and classics double major, served as student interns for Shenandoah during Winter Term 2025. And through W&L’s Summer Research Scholars (SRS) program, they spent the summer of 2024 working with Staples and other SRS students to curate the Shenandoah 75th anniversary exhibit, which is on
from the pages 1969
“Jane Austen will soon be closer in calendar time to Shakespeare than to us. Within the reading life of the next generation, that constellation of six bright stars will have swung that many years deeper into the one sky, vast and crowded, of English Literature. Will these future readers be in danger of letting the novels elude them because of distance, so that their pleasure will not be anything like ours? The future of fiction is a mystery, it is like the future of ourselves.”
display August 2024 to August 2025 in the Special Collections Gallery in Leyburn Library and showcases the magazine’s history and far-reaching legacy.
Throughout the research process, Jacobson loved immersing herself in the archives of correspondence between the students and contributors — many of the biggest names in literature in the 20th and 21st centuries, including Langston Hughes, J.R.R. Tolkien and Faulkner.
“There’s such a familiarity with the way they corresponded with each other that it feels like the way we write emails to each other today when we’re talking about putting the magazine together,” Jacobson says. “Realizing that these big, historic names were just like us once upon a time and that this influential magazine was started by W&L students — like us — was remarkable.”
W&L faculty members Ashley Brown, Marshall Fishwick, Brewster Ford and George Foster founded Shenandoah hoping it would provide an alternative platform for student writing other than the humor publication “The Southern Collegian.” They recruited student editors Tom Wolfe ’51, J.J. Donovan ’50 and Douglas Kerr ’50 to join the burgeoning modernist literary movement and ongoing conversations about the state of American literature.
Wolfe, 1998 National Book Award winner for “The Right Stuff,” author of close to 20 nonfiction and fiction books and champion of the new journalism movement that blends literary techniques and reporting, served as editor of the magazine until he graduated. Wolfe’s first published short story, “Shattered,” appeared in the inaugural issue of Shenandoah in spring 1950. After Tom Carter ’54 became editor of the publication in 1951, Shenandoah moved toward featuring less student work and more notable mid-century writers. Determined to prove that Shenandoah could take risks, he began soliciting writers such as Ezra Pound, Ray Bradbury and E. E. Cummings, dramatically expanding the scope of the magazine’s work and introducing its readers to a new international cohort of modernists.
“The reality is that modernism really only happened because of literary magazines like Shenandoah,” says Emma Malinak ’25, an English and journalism double major.
Malinak wrote her English honors thesis on mid-century literature movements, using the early history of Shenandoah as a case study to explore trends in American literature. During a period when authors were pushing and transgressing boundaries with their writing, she found that university-housed literary magazines like Shenandoah were more willing to publish their work than commercial publishing houses.
SPOTLIGHT
Ezra Pound was a mentor of Shenandoah editor Tom Carter ’54 and helped shape the magazine.
Known as the father of imagism, he worked to advance the international exchange of poetic ideas.
“It was hard for commercial publishers to take a chance on something experimental and risk their budgets or not meeting a printing quota, but smaller magazines were typically supported by universities and not as concerned about the financial risks,” Malinak says. “So, these people that are trying to push the boundaries of what American literature can be are only getting published in these tiny magazines because magazines are willing to take a shot on things that are a little out of the ordinary. They have this space where they can publish what they want and see what happens.”
eudora welty “A Note on Jane Austen”
Shenandoah covers have featured work from a variety of artists, including Sally Mann, famed Lexington photographer (top left).
Some of the biggest names in literature in the 20th and 21st centuries have corresponded with the staff of Shenandoah, including Flannery O’Connor, who wrote to Thomas Carter ’54.
from the pages 1953
Uunder carter’s leadership from 1951 to 1953, shenandoah garnered a reputation of giving experimental authors and ambitious students a place to find their footing. However, Malinak points out that Carter also kept the magazine rooted in the Southern literary tradition.
“You can pick out any Shenandoah volume and find an equal number of Southern writers and international writers, and I think Tom Carter was particularly good at striking that balance,” she says.
After Carter, the magazine rotated editorship among students until the faculty assumed editorial control in 1954. Former editors include professor of English James Boatwright (1962-1988), professor of English and poet W. Dabney Stuart (1988-1995) and poet R.T. “Rod” Smith (1995-2018). Each editor brought his own interests and priorities to the magazine — adding vibrancy to the tradition while not changing its character.
The magazine became quarterly under Boatwright, its first permanent editor. He aimed to bring back Carter’s vision of championing new voices and published then-burgeoning writers such as Auden, Welty, Oates and Walker Percy. He instituted color and added artwork to the magazine’s covers, also providing an early outlet for well-known Lexington photographer Sally Mann’s works in the 1970s.
Smith, who became Shenandoah’s first full-time editor in July 1995, renewed an emphasis on Southern literature and made student editors a pillar of the magazine through an internship program (read the story on p. 18). Under his leadership, Shenandoah won the prestigious Governor’s Award for Arts in 2008 and transitioned to a digital-only format in 2011.
A literary giant in his own right, Smith earned two nominations for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry and received a Pushcart Prize, the Emily Dickinson Poetry Prize and the Library of Virgina Poetry Book of the Year Award twice. Smith died in December 2024 (obituary on p. 51).
Staples assumed the role in 2018 as the first female editor of Shenandoah, eager to continue
“Twenty-nine wasn’t old; wasn’t nothing. She remembered her mother at twenty-nine — she had looked like a puckered-up old yellow apple, sour, she had always looked sour, she had always looked like she wasn’t satisfied with anything.
… It was all those children done her mother in — eight of them: one born dead, two died the first year, one run under the mowing machine. Her mother had got deader with every one of them.”
and refine the magazine’s legacy. For one, she reined in the submission process. When Staples came on board, the magazine received around 6,000 fiction submissions within a semester-long period. Today, the magazine receives between 2,000 and 4,000 submissions of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translations, comics and novel excerpts during a shorter intake cycle. It publishes less than 1% of them.
Under Staples’ direction, the twice-yearly Shenandoah soon became a part of W&L’s Department of English and is supported by a class of undergraduate interns in the Fall and Winter Terms. Chris Gavaler, professor of English, serves as the magazine’s comics editor; professor of English Lesley Wheeler is the magazine’s poetry editor; and associate professor of Spanish Seth Michelson serves as the translations editor. The internship course, which is open to any student who has taken a creative writing class, is capped at 12 students each semester who help read, edit and select submissions.
“I get a lot of energy from the students,” Staples says. “They bring a lot of interesting perspectives and fun ideas, which only enhances the editorial process. I also want to make sure they feel empowered, and that’s been a hallmark of Shenandoah’s new era, how involved the students are.”
SPOTLIGHT
Ray Bradbury was a master storyteller who wrote in a variety of genres and often reflected on the danger of society’s reliance on technology. His stories “The Lake” and “The Tombling Day” appeared in the magazine in 1951 and 1952, respectively. a
Staples emphasizes that W&L provides singular opportunities for editorial experience. University-housed literary magazines are generally attached to MFA programs, and opportunities to work on the magazines are limited to graduate students. Shenandoah is one of only a handful of renowned literary magazines that undergrads help produce, just one example of the university’s emphasis on a student-focused liberal arts curriculum.
“It speaks to how many unique opportunities W&L offers, and I feel like I wouldn’t have had this chance at any other university,” says Jacobson.
“Having this extra facet of a practical experience is invaluable in going into the professional sphere, and feeling like you have a voice in the process was also really special.”
flannery o’connor “A Stroke of Good Fortune”
Aas editor, staples continues to steward shenandoah as a major player in the literary field. While poetry has been a focus of the magazine from the beginning, Staples has helped expand its scope by introducing works in translation as a regular feature. She says that including translated poems, and occasionally short stories, helps bolster the magazine’s national — and international — renown, while encouraging readers to adopt a more global understanding of literature.
“If you don’t translate from other countries, you don’t know what people in other countries are thinking,” she says, connecting this expanded view of Shenandoah to Carter’s original vision.
Perhaps one of Staples’ more notable contributions to Shenandoah’s legacy is the creation of the Shenandoah Fellowship for Editors in 2020. Editorial fellows rotate with each issue of the magazine and are tasked with curating a selection of published work in a genre of their choosing, working with the Shenandoah staff to guide the work to publication. Shenandoah’s first editorial fellow was DW McKinney, who is currently the magazine’s nonfiction editor.
EDITORIAL ROOTS
Shenandoah was founded by a group of W&L faculty and student editors: Tom Wolfe ’51 , J.J. Donovan ’50 and Douglas Kerr ’50
from the pages 1952
“His best. Time may show it to be the single best piece of any of us, I mean his and my contemporaries.”
william faulkner
A review of Ernest Hemingway’s “Old Man and the Sea”
The fellowship embodies Shenandoah’s mission of showcasing a variety of voices and perspectives, facilitating emerging literary careers and expanding the accessibility of literature. Specifically, it provides an entry point into the publishing industry for individuals from underrepresented backgrounds who might otherwise not have the chance to break into the field. Fellows are given the chance to learn about all aspects of a small literary publisher and create connections with peers and potential future employers in the industry and in academia — an opportunity that Shenandoah’s staff and interns believe is revolutionary for the industry.
SPOTLIGHT
E. E. Cummings, known for his unusual punctuation choices and syntax, wrote 2,900 poems, often using only lowercase letters. He was a repeat contributor to Shenandoah from 1950 to 1962.
“To have so many perspectives included in one space and coming from a small town like Lexington — I imagine that anyone who opens an issue of Shenandoah has had their world expanded so much,” Malinak says. “And that’s the power of good literature and good editing — to be able to open people’s minds.” ■
Additional reporting by Jessica Luck.
“From the Pages ” excerpts from “Shenandoah: From The First 35 Years” anthology, published in 1984.
Thomas Carter ’54 became editor-in-chief of Shenandoah in 1951, establishing the precedent of having a single editor for the magazine. He formed connections with major poets, especially Ezra Pound.
In the winter of 1953, Raymond D. Smith Jr. , professor of English, became editor while Carter transitioned to the role of editorial adviser.
Edward M. Hood , professor of English, became the magazine’s editor.
M. Maxwell Casie III , professor of English, was named editor.
REMEBERING ROD
Annie Persons ’15, an advising fellow at the University of Virginia who also holds a Ph.D. in English from UVA, belonged to the late Rod Smith’s last cohort of Shenandoah interns. She looks back on her four semesters interning under Smith — including one as managing editor.
“It was a different approach to reading than we took in English seminars. When we were reading, you were free to be like, ‘I like this,’ or ‘I don’t like this.’ And you wanted to have reasons why. I left the Shenandoah internship thinking, ‘I’ve broadened my horizons.’
“He was even-keeled, not super emotive in any way, but he was wry. He would make these deadpan jokes and then have a kind of twinkle in his eye. Some of the most compelling literary moments that I had with him were in an independent study focused on 20th-century Irish women’s poetry. He was profoundly moved by the Irish language.”
The magazine editorship rotated among singleissue editors including Marshall Fishwick , professor of communication studies and humanities, and James Leyburn , professor of sociology and former dean.
Right: In honor of the magazine’s anniversary, Shenandoah launched a rebranding on its website, shenandoahliterary.org . Below: Feedback cards such as this were circulated between magazine staff when deciding whether a piece was worthy of publication. E.E. Cummings’ poem was ultimately published in the third issue in winter 1950.
James “Jim” Boatwright, professor of English, became editor two years after he joined the W&L faculty.
W. Dabney Stuart, English professor and poet, became editor with Shenandoah’s third issue in 1988. He was nominated for six Pulitzer Prizes and won the Library of Virginia Poetry Prize.
R. T. Smith , two-time Pulitzer nominee and Pushcart Prize winner, transitioned the magazine from print to online. He also launched the magazine’s internship during his first year.
Beth StapIes, assistant professor of English, became Shenandoah’s first female editor.
Creative License
Shenandoah’s internship program helps undergraduates craft a career path.
by kelsey goodwin
hile shenandoah honors its storied past by celebrating its 75th anniversary, its present continues to be a rotating cast of students who join the ranks each year in the magazine’s internship course.
The course, ENGL 453: Shenandoah Internship, is an immersive, hands-on experience with Shenandoah, which involves undergraduate students in every stage of the magazine’s twice-yearly production under Beth Staples, assistant professor of English and the magazine’s editor since 2018.
“It’s an exciting time to be an intern for Shenandoah, on the cusp of such a momentous anniversary,” Staples says. “They are part of and contributing to real literary history, and their work has value on this campus and beyond — it means something to writers and readers out in the world.”
Students in the course’s Fall and Winter Term sections read and evaluate submissions for the upcoming issue, participate in group discussions and assist with substantive editing, copyediting, fact-checking and proofreading. Special projects outside production include a blog, social media content creation and a research project that asks students to analyze other literary magazines. The course allows interns to learn industry practices like managing author correspondence, website content and promotion. They choose a writer from the current issue to highlight through personalized projects, such as interviews, social media features or creative endeavors, including a Spotify playlist tied to the issue. There are also larger team projects, including an events team that brought two nonfiction writers to campus during Winter Term and helped select two visitors who will
come to campus in the fall for the English Department’s Shannon-Clark Lecture Series; a publicity team tasked with finding ways to celebrate the magazine’s anniversary across campus; and a “swag team” responsible for designing and purchasing promotional items such as stickers, keychains and shirts for the magazine, funded by a small grant made available through the Office of the Dean of the College.
“I tell the students all the time that I truly couldn’t run the magazine without them,” Staples says. “They bring so much good energy and so many fresh ideas and are wonderful about helping me execute those ideas.”
Staples says one of the class’ strengths is that it attracts many non-English or creative writing majors, providing students from a variety of disciplines with unique insight into the world of publishing. Staples runs the class like a staff meeting, focusing on the magazine’s dynamic needs each week while offering a crash course in editing, publishing and creative promotion.
Betty Boatwright ’26, a business administration major and creative writing minor, says the discussion-based approach to the class was the highlight of her experience.
“I love classes that allow for the kind of discussion we have when we nominate stories to discuss as a group,” Boatwright says, “especially since so much of the content we’re reviewing is nothing like anything I’ve read before.”
Shenandoah internship alumna Madelyn Venable ’25 says the internship provided very practical, hands-on experience that helped her develop professional skills transferable to a variety of career paths.
“The internship allowed us to actually take a piece through the real editing and publishing process, which was very fulfilling,” says Venable, an English and strategic communications
double major who now plans to pursue a career in publishing. “It was very cool to be able to go from a theoretical classroom project to then get real-world experience.”
emma malinak ’25 , an english major and former intern at Shenandoah also conducted an independent study on Shenandoah’s history, says the skills she learned from writing long-form stories and conducting interviews for the magazine have already proven invaluable in her chosen field of journalism. During her internship at a news outlet in Vermont last summer, Malinak pitched a story about how recent flooding in the area had impacted artists and writers, an idea she was able to execute by leveraging the knowledge and network she built during her Shenandoah internship.
“I think it’s been beneficial for me in my reporting internships,” Malinak says. “I’ve had multiple opportunities to work on stories that include interviews with writers and artists because I have the experience through Shenandoah.”
Alumni who participated in the internship as students say they came away from the experience with impactful skills.
“Shenandoah helped give me direction,” says Gabriela Gomez-Misserian ’21, who graduated with a double major in English and studio art.
“I had no idea what I wanted to do with my two majors, but I knew I enjoyed collaborating with people who valued storytelling, perspective and creativity. I had started looking at writingfocused jobs, but my time at Shenandoah solidified my preference for editorial work over trying to do something like journalism. The rest of my classes at W&L that I took that year (which included a hybrid literature capstone, a Jane Austen literature class and a comics-making Spring Term class) leaned
into the art of storytelling, and Shenandoah helped to carve that space out.” Gomez-Misserian is now the digital editorial producer for Garden & Gun magazine.
Beth Ann Townsend ’20, who interned for Shenandoah in fall 2019, has worked for the past three years in the video-game industry, designing and writing for educational games while contracting with an award-winning escape-room center, a tabletop-inspired video-game system and a role-playing game. Townsend, who continues to serve as a reader for Shenandoah to help Staples and the current interns sift through the high volume of submissions, says class discussions, reading a wide variety of fiction, interviewing writers for social media projects and exercising her creativity in a collaborative space were her favorite parts of the internship.
“By that time in my W&L career, I already knew that I wanted to pursue game design and writing, so I appreciated the opportunity to read, edit, discuss and improve my work,” Townsend says. “Sitting on the ‘opposite’ side of the writers’ table — working as a reader — helped me be an even better creator.”
Several students in the fall 2024 internship cohort say that while they may not be pursuing a career in publishing or creative writing, the course was an invaluable insight into both their own craft as writers and as readers.
“It’s helped me discern what I like and don’t like, stylistically and thematically, and it has broadened my perception of what’s possible,” says Renna McNair ’25, a biochemistry major. “It has also made me a slower reader; I’ve realized that first impressions from quick reading often don’t do a story justice. When I read too quickly, I risk missing the intentionality behind certain details and don’t always appreciate the narrative voice. This course has taught me a tremendous amount about my own writing. ” ■
Beth Staples (second from right) meets with students to discuss Shenandoah’s content strategy.
tom wolfe A Tribute to
The research and reading room for the Special Collections and Archives in Leyburn Library will be updated and renamed in honor of the literary giant.
By Jessica Luck and Brian LauBscher
When t om w olfe ’51 passed away in 2018 at the age of 88, his widow, Sheila Wolfe, received inquiries from museums and other institutions throughout the country that were interested in showcasing her husband’s artifacts and belongings.
Wolfe, one of the most well-known chroniclers of the second half of the 20th century, pioneered new journalism and satirical commentary of American society in both his fiction and reporting.
After a conversation with Tom Camden ’76, former head of Special Collections and Archives at W&L, Sheila Wolfe began sending some of Wolfe’s things to the university, including the typewriter that appears on the cover of this issue.
Washington and Lee held a special place in Wolfe’s heart. Sheila Wolfe says he was often stopped on the streets of New York City, where he lived, and he was always happy to say hello. But when someone told him they were a fellow W&L grad, his face lit up, and he spent the next 15 minutes swapping stories of his beloved alma mater.
“If you said you were from W&L, it made a difference,” Sheila Wolfe says. “He loved coming back and visiting and showing me around; he was so proud.”
Lifelong friends Tom Wolfe ’51, Ted Van Leer ’51, Steve Miles ’51, Jimmy Gallivan ’51 and Sam Hollis ’51 at the Five-Star Festival in 2011.
While a student at W&L, Wolfe was a member of the baseball team (he tried out for the New York Giants before hanging up his cleats to pursue writing). He also developed close friendships with a core group of people, including the late Maurice Theodore “Ted” Van Leer ’51. Although the two were an unlikely pair, Shelia Wolfe says — Wolfe was more reserved and an observer, while Van Leer was “very funny and outspoken and a real character” — they remained close over the years. Van Leer, who passed away in 2023, was a generous benefactor of W&L and had earmarked a portion of his estate to support the university. His son, Theodore J. “Tad” Van Leer ’77, is a longtime member of the Friends of the Library group and knew just how to utilize the funds.
“The Friends of the Library group traditionally holds its meetings in the Boatwright Room, and about 10 years ago, they began reporting the significant challenges the space was facing,” says KT Vaughan, Hal F. and Barbra Buckner Higginbotham University Librarian at W&L. “The space is sort
of a time capsule dating back to the original construction of Leyburn Library in 1979. The room doesn’t fit today’s needs very well, and the Friends of the Library began advocating for the necessary updates.”
The f riends of the l ibrary has a long history of funding library improvement projects, and it began to focus on modest updates to the Boatwright Room, located in the Special Collections and Archives, in 2021.
George Ray, professor of English emeritus, was chair of the Friends of the Library Board of Directors at the time, and was a champion of the idea. Ray, who made the project’s initial leadership gift, believes the renovation aligns with the group’s mission to strengthen Leyburn for the W&L community and beyond.
“That was one reason why I wanted to give greater attention to Special Collections — so that the wider university community would become aware that Washington and Lee is rich in these materials,” he says. The group initially raised $150,000,
The Tom Wolfe ’51 Reading Room in the Special Collections and Archives is expected to open by the start of Fall Term 2025.
which was matched by another $150,000 from the university. However, it soon became apparent that additional funding would be necessary to accommodate the growing needs of today’s learning and research environment. Expected to be completed by the start of the 2025 Fall Term, the reimaged space will cost $1.35 million and will be dedicated in honor of Wolfe. When completed, the room will officially be renamed the Tom Wolfe ’51 Reading Room, and the dedication will take place on Friday, Oct. 3, during the Five-Star Festival Weekend. The renovation of the room will include a modernization of features that will improve its functionality as a research space. Among the changes will be a complete upgrade to the lighting systems, a new wood coffered ceiling and entry doors, comfortable research-friendly seating, upgraded electrical and technological infrastructure, updated finishes and wall features, new shelving and casework, personal storage lockers, public-accessible computers and displays capable of handling presentations and highlighting digital collections.
Tom Wolfe (above) was a very critical thinker, a great observer and had a good sense of humor.
… This gift honors the important relationships my father’s friends at W&L had that lasted all their lives.
TAD VAN LEER ’77
In addition to the functional changes, the space will be designed to honor Wolfe’s legacy as a prominent intellectual and significant figure in 20th-century American literature. In consultation with Sheila Wolfe, the room will be recast in Wolfe’s signature colors, navy blue and cream, and the reference desk will be shaped in the form of a parenthesis, mimicking the style of his personal desk. Various artifacts, letters and manuscripts will be on display inside the area, while a giclée portrait of Wolfe in his signature white suit will be a defining visual element for the space; the original hangs in the National Portrait Gallery.
“Tom Wolfe was a very critical thinker, a great observer and had a good sense of humor,” Tad Van Leer says. “He was a great mentor and exemplified the W&L spirit. This gift honors the important relationships my father’s friends at W&L had that lasted all their lives.” ■
The Special Collections area is closed through construction. Requests can be made via email at specialcollections@wlu.edu
TheLIFE OF ABOOK
Every book begins the same way: from a flash of inspiration. As it moves through the world of imagination, a team of creatives brings the final idea into existence. Once it takes shape, readers are allowed windows into other worlds that offer new perspectives — and leave an indelible mark on their lives.
PROFILES BY JESSICA LUCK AND LAURA LEMON
ILLUSTRATIONS BY KYLE ELLINGSON
The Wrıter
Rebecca Makkai ’99
Author of five novels and numerous short stories; teacher of graduate fiction at Middlebury College, Northwestern University and the Bennington College Writing Seminars; artistic director of StoryStudio Chicago .
One of the things rebecca makkai ’99 enjoys most about being a fiction writer is the freedom of invention. She gets the opportunity to travel to any time and place and to experience them through her characters. And the required research is part of the fun. She recently ordered a slew of Vogue magazines from 1938 on eBay to ensure the outfits she chose for a character in her current novel are historically accurate.
“I get to live in whatever world I choose,” Makkai says. “When you write a short story, it’s a place you’re visiting for a little while. But when you write a novel, you’re going to live in this world for years.”
Five years, in Makkai’s case. The first year is spent marinating on the concept and turning over ideas in her head. That way, she’s mentally worked through things before she commits anything to paper. After she’s about one-third of the way done with the book, she’ll write an outline to make sure she has a roadmap as she finishes writing, which takes about three years total. Surprisingly, she says her favorite part of the process is editing. She spends around a year copyediting what she’s written and focusing on structure.
“As a writer, you get to ask yourself: ‘What do I want to have happen? Do I want it to be funny? Do I want it to be sad? What do I feel today?’” she says. “It’s a lot of pure freedom and invention.”
Makkai says many of her works are preoccupied with the passage — and layering — of time. Her 2018 novel, “The Great Believers,” which was named one of The New York Times’ Best Books of the 21st Century and was a finalist for both the 2019 Pulitzer Prize and the 2018 National Book Award, jumps back and forth between contemporary Paris and 1980s and ’90s Chicago, portraying love and loss during the AIDS epidemic.
“I think that if I ever wrote a book that could not get you in a fight in your book club, I would have failed in some way,” she says.
One of the great things about writing is its interiority, Makkai says — the ability to understand what another person is thinking.
“We see again and again the failure of empathy in our society, in politics, in policy and in the world,” she says. “Fiction is one of the only things that can really take you at great length into the thought process of someone else.” ■
An accounting and philosophy double major from Kathmandu, Nepal, Pranab Man Singh ’05 says his view of the United States had largely been shaped by Hollywood before he came to Washington and Lee University. He started college the same year as 9/11, and conversations in and out of the classroom after the event helped him appreciate the rich and complex history of the U.S.
“It really made me realize how much our present lives are tied to the histories and past lives of other people and generations and how important it is for these stories to be shared,” he says.
After graduating, Singh knew he wanted to return to Kathmandu to start his own business, just as the country was coming out of a decade-long civil insurgency and was in the process of writing a new constitution. He opened an independent bookstore, Quixote’s Cove, and through the store he founded a literary magazine, La.Lit, which started publishing books from the community of writers with whom the store worked.
“We had a young population and educational levels were increasing, and there was a lot of curiosity among people to learn about the world and our role in it,” Singh says. “The bookshop was an opportunity to engage in those conversations.”
Quixote’s Cove worked with the U.S. State Department during the Barack Obama administration to bring American artists, writers and poets to Nepal to share ideas and facilitate engagement through the arts. This resulted in the establishment of the nonprofit Satori Centre for the Arts, which managed the U.S. Embassy’s Book Bus program until 2023, and ran mobile libraries across Nepal.
Safu, which means “books” in Nepal Bhasa, is the publishing imprint for Quixote’s Cove. As a small independent publisher, it works with writers, poets, illustrators, artists, editors and translators to produce books in multiple languages that capture diverse voices and experiences.
Singh works as both an editor and translator and sees them as relationship-building opportunities. He’s edited everything from reports to fiction novels to memoirs.
“Normally, as an editor, you get to know the writer through the editorial process and can build trust and familiarity with them,” he says. “It is necessary for you to put on their shoes and see the world as they do and understand what they are trying to say. A good editor can help a writer come to clarity of thought. On the other hand, the act of translating something is to dwell in the mind of the writer — it requires empathy and an attempt to embody the writer. Since Nepal is a multilingual country — we have over 128 different languages — we have always been keen on bringing out the richness of ideas that this offers and placing them in conversation with the world.” ■
The Editor
Pranab Man Singh ’05
Co-founder of Quixote’s Cove bookshop and Satori Centre for the Arts; assistant editor and translator with La.Lit literary magazine; visiting professor at Kathmandu University Department of +Design. Art
The Agent
Chandler Wickers ’18
Associate agent at the Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency Inc.; works with more than 100 authors in all stages of the publishing journey; freelance copywriter and marketing content writer; former freelance film and TV critic.
By happenstance, chandler wickers ’18 assumed the role of literary agent during her final group simulation project for the Columbia Publishing Course. As a newly minted W&L grad hoping to pursue a writing career in New York City, she had enrolled in the six-week intensive course covering all aspects of book, magazine and digital media publishing. Through a random assignment in her group of 10, where each person played a different part in the industry, she found the job that captured the relationship to writing she wanted.
“In editorial, you’re reading and copyediting; you’re really deep in the material all day. I wanted to be a little bit more zoomed out,” she says. “That’s why an agency appealed to me; it’s really the business side of publishing. You’re not only working editorially with authors and helping them get their proposals ready for submission, but you’re also handling their contracts. You’re working on their film deals and publishing deals. I wanted something that’s a little bit more business-oriented and less just editorial-minded.”
She achieved her hope of working with words in 2021 when she landed a gig at Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency Inc., after first getting a job in marketing at an advertising agency and then a financial planning startup. She immediately felt a connection to the Krichevsky agency because it represented one of her heroes, New York Times bestselling author Sebastian Junger and filmmaker, who also directed her favorite documentaries, “Restrepo” and “Korengal.”
Based in San Fransisco, Wickers works with more than 100 authors, such as Ashlee Vance — who wrote “When the Heavens Went on Sale” and is currently writing a book on OpenAI — and Leander Schaerlaeckens, a sports reporter who’s writing a book about the history of U.S. men’s soccer. All the authors on her long list dwell in various stages of the literary journey — from manuscripts and proposals, to drafts in editors’ hands, to published works, to screen adaptations, to new ideas haphazardly jotted down on paper. And as the life cycle of the book continues to evolve, Wickers’ role as the agent remains steadfast.
“You’re advocating for the author at every stage,” she explains, “and making sure that their work is valued. … I really like that — I like being the first touch point.
“Books and reading offer a powerful way to exercise our imagination and critical thinking, which I believe are precious resources for understanding and connecting with each other. These skills feel more essential than ever in an age where technology risks eroding them. I was fortunate to study under incredible professors at W&L who instilled in me a deep love for storytelling, and I’m truly grateful to work in an industry that preserves and celebrates the written word.” ■
raig burke ’93 had a clear idea of his career path until he fell in love — with book publishing. As a journalism and French double major, he thought his next step would likely be in broadcast journalism once he moved to New York City. But after someone at W&L’s Career and Professional Development Office suggested Burke submit his resume to a job fair in New York that included book publishers, Burke realized what a perfect fit that field was. At W&L, he served as the publicity chair of the Generals Activities Board and helped bring bands like Blues Traveler to campus while also promoting events among the W&L community.
Six weeks before graduation, a recruiter from the job fair told Burke he was perfect for a publicity assistant role at Random House and that there were two openings at different imprints: one at Ballantine and the other at Knopf. He ultimately chose Knopf, which had published one of his favorite books — Donna Tartt’s “The Secret History.”
Burke worked his way up the publicity ladder and joined Berkley as an associate publicist after a few years at Knopf. Now serving as vice president and associate publisher at Berkley/Penguin Random House, Burke oversees publicity campaigns for the company’s entire roster, including bestselling authors Emily Henry, William Gibson, Grady Hendrix and Carley Fortune. Berkley’s expertise centers on women’s fiction, romance, science fiction/fantasy and mystery/suspense.
“What’s not to love about a job that lets me read books and then spend most of my time trying to convince other people why they should read the books that I love or discover the authors that I really admire?” Burke says.
“What makes my job so fabulous is the people I interact with, from the authors, to their agents, to the media folks that I’m pitching, to my colleagues. I work with intelligent, witty, sharp, fascinating people who are up for talking about books and pop culture and what’s going on in the world.”
Depending on the book, Burke will get involved as early as the editing stage to start planning the publicity campaign. Sometimes he can tell from the title alone what the promotional hook will be, as with Henry’s “Beach Read.” Beyond pitches and press releases, Burke has accompanied authors on press tours, including traveling with musician Ricky Martin for his appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”
When not reading for work, Burke is often drawn to commercial fiction, whether that means romance, thrillers or fantasy.
“It’s the best escape money can buy,” he says. “I firmly believe that reading any kind of fiction, whether it’s commercial or literary, improves your ability to be empathetic and understand where people are coming from.” ■
The Publicist
Craig Burke ’93
Vice president and associate publisher at Berkley/Penguin Random House; oversees publicity campaigns for the entire Berkley list, including bestselling author Emily Henry, among others.
The Lawyer
Gray Coleman ’79
Partner at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP; named one of The Hollywood Reporter’s 25 Most Powerful Entertainment Lawyers in New York; represents estates and heirs of Harper Lee, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lindsay and Crouse, Thomas Meehan and Agatha Christie, among others.
Traditional artistic channels never unveiled hidden talent within Gray Coleman ’79, so, he jokes, he set his sights on law school. After double majoring in history and English at Washington and Lee University, he arrived at the University of Virginia School of Law in 1980, hoping to benefit from the field’s reputation of versatility. To his delight, he did.
“Lawyers are the ultimate chameleons,” says Coleman. “They take their color from the rocks you put them on, and I was looking for this real colorful rock to sit on.”
As a lifelong theater-lover, he moved to the artistic hotbed of New York City, and after working for Wall Street firm White & Case LLP for a couple years, Coleman found his colorful geode in entertainment law. As a partner at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, he represents producers for theatrical productions such as “Tootsie,” “Mean Girls” and “The Color Purple”; he serves as outside general counsel for institutional theaters such as the Public Theater (New York), the Goodman Theatre (Chicago) and the National Theatre of Great Britain; and he works with authors and owners of literary and intellectual properties.
“We lawyers are the historical memory,” Coleman says. “We keep the agreements; we keep the history.”
For close to 10 years, he’s represented the estate of Harper Lee, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” He has served as outside general counsel for the Rodgers and Hammerstein estate for over two decades and has worked on behalf of Agatha Christie’s heirs. He also acts as trustee for the estates of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, one of American theater’s most durable partnerships (the pair wrote the libretto for “Anything Goes” in 1934 and then “The Sound of Music” 25 years later), and Thomas Meehan, book writer for “Annie” and co-book writer of “The Producers” and “Hairspray.”
“The star of the show in my world is the property itself,” Coleman says. “I’m acting for clients, or, if I’m the trustee, my job is to look after the property and try to maximize income and avoid tarnishment for the benefit of the beneficiaries. But, in a way, I think of ‘The Sound of Music’ as my client. I think of ‘Annie’ as my client. When I make decisions, I make them for the welfare of those children.”
From working on the legalities of turning literary works into stage productions to handling the licensing of famed properties to representing theater houses, Coleman has relished a life in the arts.
“If I had had some creative talent, maybe I would have taken a different path,” Coleman says. “But I wanted proximity to the creative arts, and I found a way into it.” ■
When marshall boswell ’88 was considering colleges, his father, James M. Boswell Sr. ’57, tried to nudge him toward W&L. But the university’s all-male student body made it a no-go. Once his dad showed him a Ring-Tum Phi article that reported the W&L Board of Trustees had voted to admit women, Boswell did an about-face.
“I went to W&L and had a life-changing experience,” he says. “They are still the four years of my life I would relive if I had a time machine.”
Boswell found a litany of mentors in the English Department, but it was professor of English Jim Boatwright who made one of the earliest impacts. In Boatwright’s Introduction to Fiction Writing class, they read “A&P,” a short story by John Updike about a young man working at a grocery store. Boswell’s father worked his entire career for Kroger, and Boswell spent the summers delivering Pepsi to grocery stores and other shops.
“The fact that a famous writer from New York would write so eloquently about the grocery store, which was a place of such significance to me, was a revelation,” Boswell says. “It felt like my brain had been hacked in a really wonderful way.”
After getting his bachelor’s degree in English with a concentration in creative writing, he went on to get his master’s in English from Washington University and his Ph.D. in 20th-century American literature from Emory University. A professor of English at Rhodes since 1996, he teaches courses in 20th- and 21st-century American literature and fiction writing.
He encourages his students to “get under the hood” of a story, to really understand what the writer is trying to do.
“There’s a kind of playful creativity to the way I approach teaching literature and a scholarly expertise that I bring to creative writing,” he says.
Although his path ultimately led to teaching, Boswell is an author in his own right; he’s published full-length studies of Updike and David Foster Wallace, as well as short stories and a novel. And he still remembers the moment he realized he was a first-time published author — in a short story collection. He was so proud he didn’t want to put the book down and laid it on the passenger seat of his 1988 green Saab 900 and drove to the grocery store. After shopping, there was his book, waiting for him.
“Writing is the best way that we can take the mess in our brains and give it shape and form,” Boswell says. “It’s not a reflection of what we think, it’s the product of thinking. When you’re writing something down, you’re discovering what it is that was there. Writing brings it into existence.” ■
The Teacher
Marshall Boswell ’88
Professor of English at Rhodes College teaching 20th- and 21st-century American literature and fiction writing; author of literary studies, articles and two works of fiction; 2002 winner of the Clarence Day Award for Outstanding Teaching.
OFFICE HOURS
Tour de Force
Sybil Prince Nelson ’01 finds meaning in all her endeavors.
BY JESSICA LUCK • PHOTO BY KEVIN REMINGTON
“Anything in the world around us that is beautiful and that we enjoy, it all has some sort of mathematical context.”
Assistant professor of mathematics Sybil Prince Nelson ’01 has always been drawn to writing, so much so that she entered Washington and Lee University as an English and journalism double major. But sitting in her first math class in Chavis Hall — calculus — she realized how much she enjoyed it, thanks to her “amazing” professor, Paul Bourdon. He encouraged her to take another math class, so she did. And another, and another. Soon, she’d switched both majors completely — to music and mathematics.
“When he taught a math problem, he was just so enthusiastic about not only what the math could do but what it revealed about the world,” she says.
CONNECTING THE DOTS
A multi-instrumentalist in high school, Nelson continued playing the double bass and saxophone in the University Orchestra and Jazz Band and Wind Ensemble. Today, she plays in the Rock-
bridge Symphony Orchestra. For Nelson, there is a clear overlap between math and music. Her Spring Term course on Statistics in Korean Music focuses on Benford’s Law, a logarithmic distribution of first numbers that emerges in datasets ranging from popular music to tax forms.
Nelson’s research is focused on creating tree-based models for classifying and predicting outcomes from complex data. Last summer, she studied the entire Beatles’ catalogue of more than 200 songs, searching for Benford’s Law distribution, and discovered the majority of their songs fall in line. The most Benford song in the dataset?
“Let it Be.”
“My goal is to have my students understand math in a different way and to realize that it has such an impact on every aspect of your life,” she says. “Anything in the world around us that is beautiful and that we enjoy, it all has some sort of mathematical context.”
FOLLOWING THE STORIES
As she was getting her Ph.D. in biostatistics at the Medical University of South Carolina, she relied on a familiar stress-reliever: writing. If she got stuck during her research, she’d start working on a book. And if she ever got writer’s block, she’d switch back to mathematical concepts. In the six years it took Nelson to get her degree, she wrote 12 books.
“It’s what I tell my students as well: You might come up with a problem that you think is impossible, but when you walk away from it, your brain keeps working on it as you’re doing other things,” she says. “Sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night with an answer to a math problem or a plot point in something I’m writing.”
A prolific author, Nelson has published more than 30 books including historical romances under her pseudonym, Leslie DuBois, as well as the “Jane Austen in Space” and “Priscilla the
Great” series. A middle-grade series, “Priscilla the Great” follows a young girl who discovers she has superpowers. And “Jane Austen in Space” is a sci-fi homage to one of Nelson’s favorite genres — Brit lit.
“In high school, I was the biggest British literature fan; I loved Jane Austen. I loved Thomas Hardy. But there are not many people who look like me in British literature,” she says. “With the ‘Jane Austen in Space’ series, I was like, ‘What can I do to have that same story but to have some diversity?’ So, it takes place in space on another planet where humans are actually the minority.”
Nelson, who is currently working on three books, says she has more ideas than she has time to write, but she devotes the early-morning hours between 5 and 8 a.m. to her craft. Usually she doesn’t outline a book beforehand; generally, a scene will just pop into her head, and after getting it on
paper, she fills in the rest of the plot around it.
“Being able to write in different genres, I feel like they feed into each other,” she says. “There’s something about sci-fi that I really love, because you can comment on society without hammering your point. I just love all the different things you can do and how creative you can be.”
MORE ON SYBIL
IN THE BEGINNING
Nelson’s first published book was a historical romance novel under her pseudonym, Leslie DuBois. “Ain’t No Sunshine” takes place soon after the end of segregation and is set in a small Virginia town based on Lexington.
NOVEL IDEA
Each November, Nelson and her youngest daughter, Cayce, complete a novel from beginning to end in 30 days for National Novel Writing Month.
LIVES OF CONSEQUENCE
Writing Fantasy
Terry Brooks ’69L started writing fantasy novels as a way to balance his academic studies in law school.
BY JEFF HANNA • PHOTO BY MICHAEL CLINARD
“By writing, I found a stable existence. I found my niche and was a more whole person.”
Terry Brooks ’69L entered Washington and Lee University School of Law wanting to be a fiction writer.
“But, you know, I’d also like to go to the moon,” Brooks says. “Becoming a writer seemed like a real long shot at the time.”
During a career spanning more than half a century, Brooks has clearly beaten the odds by becoming one of America’s most successful and influential fantasy writers, with 23 New York Times bestsellers and more than 25 million copies of his books in print.
And Brooks’ literary success is attributable, in part, to a miserable first year at W&L law school.
“I was terrible at law school. I was insecure. I was at sea,” says Brooks. “I finished my first year with about a D average. I went home and told my folks I was quitting.”
They asked him to try another semester, even offering to pay.
“We didn’t have that much money. If they were willing to do that, I thought I should go back,” Brooks says.
When he returned to Lexington for his second
year, he eliminated all extraneous activity, even TV. He’d go to class and finish his studies by 10 p.m. Then he’d sit down to write, immersing himself in a fantasy world until 2 a.m.
Amazingly, his grades improved.
“By writing, I found a stable existence,” he says. “I found my niche and was a more whole person.”
Brooks celebrated his 81st birthday in January, and his law school memories have faded.
“I barely remember much about my courses,” he says. “But I did make good friends and had a pretty good time. Mostly, it was a steppingstone to writing.”
EMERGING THEME
After W&L, Brooks joined a four-man law practice in his hometown of Sterling, Illinois. For the next 17 years, he worked on any case that came through the door. And he kept writing. In 1977, the book he’d started at Washington and Lee, “The Sword of Shannara,” was released. It was the first in his signature series of epic fantasy novels, and became the first
work of fiction to land on The New York Times Trade Paperback Best Sellers list, where it stayed for five weeks.
Brooks has described the “Shannara” series as “an unlikely mix of [J.R.R.] Tolkien and [William] Faulkner,” with characters and storylines derived from European adventures he admired.
“Faulkner’s work had a huge impact on my life,” says Brooks, who wrote his senior thesis on the author while an English literature major at Hamilton College.
“The ‘Shannara’ series is based on the way Faulkner linked his books together with different characters in different times, but with the same themes over and over.”
Hamilton was also where Brooks found “The Lord of the Rings.”
“Once I read it, I thought that I wanted to write something like that,” he says of Tolkien’s classic. “But I wanted to write about what’s happening in this world in a totally different environment. I wanted to develop a world from Eden forward.”
DREAM SCENARIO
Fantasy was fading as a genre when the “Shannara” series appeared, and Brooks became central to its resurgence in the ’70s and ’80s before “Harry Potter” exploded fantasy with books, movies, TV shows and computer games.
“Fantasy now dominates,” says Brooks, who left his legal career and moved from Illinois to Seattle once he felt he could make a living as a writer.
Brooks is often asked why he stuck with fantasy instead of trying legal thrillers in the tradition of many lawyers-turned-novelists like John Grisham.
“I was too much of a dreamer for that,” says Brooks, whose active imagination can be traced to his childhood days of organizing the neighborhood kids in a joust with garbage can lids and broomsticks.
“I’ve never tired of fantasy because it challenged me every time out. Besides, as I have often said, there’s hardly any difference between practicing law and writing fantasy.”
Brooks’ latest novel, “Galaphile: The First Druids of Shannara,” was released in March. His next is underway, but he’s unsure how much longer he’ll write.
“I’ve never been one who can’t see the handwriting on the wall. I know I’m about done,” he says. “I’ll probably hang in there for another few years and then be some kind of old retired person nobody really wants to talk to because they can’t shut up.”
MORE ON TERRY
PAPER TRAIL
Filmmaker George Lucas asked Brooks to write the novelization of “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace” (1999), which hit No. 1 on The New York Times Best Sellers list. He’d previously written a novelization of the movie “Hook” (1991), produced by Steven Spielberg.
GAME TIME
“The Shannara Chronicles,” a TV series adapted from Brooks’ original trilogy, ran for two seasons on MTV and the Paramount Network. A point-andclick adventure game, “Shannara,” was released for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows in 1995.
EVENTFUL MEETUPS
THE W&L BOND
Washington and Lee University alumni engaged with current students and fellow alums over shared passions and experiences throughout the beginning of 2025. During Washington Break Feb. 24–28, students interested in various industries traveled to New York City with the Office of Career and Professional Development to visit alums to learn about their career journeys. On March 15-16, the university hosted its inaugural W&L Salutes: Generations of Service event to honor alumni, faculty, staff and student veterans who served in the armed forces and current students who are members of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. Then, in Houston, over 100 alumni, industry leaders and friends gathered for the inaugural W&L Energy Forum, held March 27-28.
1. During the health care-focused career trip to New York City, Jerzee Allentini ’25, Ishaan Bhadouria ’27, Leilany Calderon ’28, Ruthie Hay ’26, Sydney Irwin ’28, Ameera Issa ’28, Addison Johnson ’28, Joe Lee ’26, Perry Nuckols ’28, Dias Shymbay ’27, Bariz Sultankhil ’28, Grace Theodore ’28 and Jaden Yau ’28 visited with Dr. Rebecca Lawrence ’14 at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
2. Lt. Gen. Anthony Ierardi ’82 facilitated a conversation with Cadet Rob Mish ’25, Cadet Carey Camp ’25, Capt. Michael Holifield ’89 and Col. Christopher Beckert ’88 during the W&L Salutes: Generations of Service event.
3. Alex Burpee ’08, managing director at Moelis & Company, led a fireside chat on the energy M&A landscape with Eric Cantor and Stephen Trauber of Moelis during the W&L Energy Forum held March 27-28 in Houston.
EVENTS
LIFELONG LEARNING’S SUMMER EXPLORATIONS PROGRAMS
JULY 2025
Fuel your curiosity with engaging discussions on history, the arts, sciences and current events with W&L experts.
• Discover the Middle Ages July 6–11, 2025
• Questions of Ownership July 13–16, 2025
• Digging into History July 20–23, 2025
SUMMER SEND-OFF
Join your local alumni chapter to celebrate new and returning students in your area and to send them off to Lexington with the chapter’s best wishes.
SEND US UPDATES
Use magazine@wlu.edu to send:
• Photos of weddings and alumni meetups
• Changes of address
• Letters to the editor
Magazine
Washington and Lee University 7 Courthouse Square 204 W. Washington St. Lexington, Virginia 24450-2116
STAY IN TOUCH
Submit a class note: colonnadeconnections. wlu.edu or magazine@wlu.edu
CLASS NOTES
Class Notes are published three times a year, with submissions received from July through October appearing in the spring issue. If we are unable to run all Class Notes submitted within that time frame, they will appear in a future issue. If you have any questions, please email us at: magazine@wlu.edu
1960
Edward Corcoran was included in the Marquis Who’s Who for his expertise in military and government affairs. He served for over 20 years in the U.S. Army and worked as an intelligence officer, particularly in areas concerning Russia. He was a senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org and owns Industrial Efficiency Inc., which specializes in energy surveys for major industrial plants. He has written two books, “Threats & Challenges: Strategies in a New Century” and “Revive the American Dream.”
1972
Daniel Armstrong was named to Analytical Scientist magazine’s Power List, which features 60 of the most influential analytical scientists in the world. Armstrong is the Robert A. Welch Distinguished University Chair in Chemistry at The University of Texas at Arlington. He has more than 35 years of experience in the fields of ionic liquids, chiral recognition and enantiomeric separations and their biological relevance.
1979
Paul Daugherty was inducted into the Greater Cincinnati Journalism Hall of Fame, sponsored by the Greater Cincinnati Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Daugherty was a sports columnist for The Cincinnati Enquirer for 28 years until his “retirement” in 2022, though he continues his
sports writing with his The Morning Line substack.
1981
William “Tobin” Cassels III was named the 2024 Business Leader of the Year by the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce. Cassels is president of Southeastern Freight Lines, and the award is in recognition of his compassionate leadership, unwavering commitment to community involvement and positive impact on South Carolina’s supply chain.
W. Powell Jones , founder of Secure Records Solutions, and his son, Marshall Jones ’22 , project manager, celebrated the company being named to the 2024 Inc. 5000, the annual list of the fastest growing private companies in the U.S. Secure Records Solutions is a family-owned-and-operated document management company headquartered in Thomasville, Georgia.
1982
The Hon. Paul Black is president-elect of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges. He will preside over the conference’s 100th anniversary at its annual meeting in 2026 in San Diego.
1983
David Moore was recognized by the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) during a Senior Scientist Induction Ceremony in fall 2024. Moore is a senior scientist for envi-
ronmental sciences at ERDC, where he directs several large multidisciplinary research programs focused on assessing and managing risks related to emerging contaminants, contaminated sediments and dredged materials.
1984
Breese “Mark” Dickinson was named to the Critchlow Adkins Children’s Centers Board of Directors. Critchlow Adkins Children’s Centers is a nonprofit childcare program that serves families in Maryland’s Talbot County and its Mid-Shore area with yearround preschool and before–and after-school care and summer camp programs.
Emory Edwards was named to the newly created President’s Community Advisory Council for New Jersey City University, which will work to build a more connected and supportive community that promotes educational excellence, economic development and social well-being. Edwards is CEO of Hudson County Chamber of Commerce.
Timothy Rock was named president and chief operating officer of TranSystems, a provider of transportation-focused engineering and infrastructure services.
1985
Raymond “Bill” Metzger was named Lawyer of the Year in banking and finance law in the Columbia, South Carolina, area by the 2025 The Best
Lawyers in America. The Lawyer of the Year designation is awarded to individuals with the highest overall peer feedback for a specific practice area and geographic region. He is a member of Robinson Gray Stepp & Laffitte, LLC.
Kenneth Van Meter joined the North American forensic accounting and commercial damages team at HKA, a leading global consultancy in risk mitigation, dispute resolution, expert witness and litigation support services. He joins as partner and is based in Houston.
1987
John Brownlee was appointed by Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin to a fouryear term to the Board of Visitors at the College of William & Mary. Brownlee is a partner at Holland & Knight in Tysons, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., and serves as co-chair of the firm’s white collar defense and investigations team and as the practice group leader for the firm’s Virginia litigation group. He received his law degree at William & Mary.
1990
Alan Heinrich was named to the 2025 Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America list. Heinrich focuses on intellectual property litigation and is a partner at Irell & Manella LLP.
Stephen Stanley was awarded the 2024 Lawrence R. Klein Award for Blue
JOHN JENSEN ’01 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF ALUMNI AND CAREER SERVICES ALUMNI@WLU.EDU
Chip Forecast Accuracy by the W. P. Carey School of Business. Stanley is the chief U.S. economist at Santander US Capital Markets, LLC. The award is considered one of the bestknown and longest-standing achievements in economic forecasting.
1991
Mark Lubkowitz received the Scholarship and Artistic Achievement Award at St. Michael’s College. He’s a professor of biology at the college, and, as the award recipient, he will deliver the 2025 Convocation address.
Matthew Malloy was appointed to The Investment Association Board of Directors. Malloy is managing director at Neuberger Berman and is head of the global institutional client group and EMEA. He oversees the insurance solutions business and is a member of the firm’s partnership committee.
BUSTLING LEXINGTON
Spring in Lexington is nothing short of magical. Campus bursts into life, with trees awakening against the backdrop of Wilson Field, the law school and the Village. From the newly renovated Café 77 patio, you can take in the full beauty of the season, while Jump and House mountains loom in the distance, calling for a hike. Classes spill outside, and the Colonnade and Hotchkiss Alumni House remain favorite gathering spots for students and faculty.
Spring also marks our busiest season. Since March, campus has hosted W&L Salutes: Generations of Service, the Institute for Honor, Tom Wolfe Weekend Seminar, the Entrepreneurship Summit and much more. And the first weekend in May is always a celebration with Reunion Weekend, this time for the 0’s and 5’s.
Meanwhile, we’ve been taking the Leading Lives of Consequence campaign on the road, reconnecting with so many of you across 12 chapters so far. After a short summer break, we’ll be back on the road in September. I encourage you to join us when we visit your area — it’s an incredible way to stay connected and learn how the campaign will transform W&L for generations to come.
1992
Kevin Carl was named to the Top 25 Artificial Intelligence Consultants and Leaders of 2024 list by The Consulting Report. Carl is managing director of A&MPLIFY, Alvarez & Marsal’s AI-powered digital agency, in Washington, D.C.
Stephanie Lind was named to the National Small Business Association’s (NSBA) Leadership Council. Lind is founder of Elohi Strategic Advisors, and NSBA is the oldest small-business advocacy organization in the U.S.
1993
Andrew Fullam was appointed chief financial officer for the U.S. and Americas for HSBC. With offices in 62 countries and territories, HSBC is one of the largest banking and financial services organizations.
Patricia Miller was named to the 2024-2025 cohort of
the University of Georgia’s Women’s Leadership Fellows Program. UGA established the fellowship in 2015 as part of its Women’s Leadership Initiative to provide a select group with an opportunity to develop leadership skills and gain a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities confronting higher education, specifically on issues women face in academic administration. Miller is deputy director of collections and exhibitions and head registrar at the Georgia Museum of Art.
1994
Dan Katzenbach was recently featured in the Best Lawyers in America 2025 list.
1995
Carol Pierce Goglia was selected to be a part of the 2025 Presidential Leadership Scholars Program, where established leaders collaborate and make a
difference as they learn about leadership through the lens of the presidential experiences of George W. Bush, William J. Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Lyndon B. Johnson. Goglia is president and chief executive officer of Catch Up & Read in Dallas, which works to close the literacy gap and equip children in underserved communities to read on grade level by third grade.
1997
Amy Bohutinsky was named to the Wealthsimple Board of Directors. Wealthsimple is a money management platform that works to help Canadians achieve financial freedom. Bohutinsky is a strategic adviser for Technology Crossover Ventures and also serves on the boards of UnitedMasters, Duolingo and Zillow Group, where she was a founding executive.
1998
David DeMartino was named senior vice president, investor relations, for Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc., a global medical technology company. DeMartino will be responsible for developing, refining and leading Zimmer Biomet’s investor relations strategy and cultivating relationships with the investment and financial community.
1999
Mary Celeste Beall ’s Blackberry Farm was named the Best Resort of the South by Travel + Leisure and was included on the 2025 Condé Nast Traveler Gold List as one of the best hotels and resorts in the world.
Hudson Smith was appointed to the Palmer Trinity School Board of Trustees. He is a partner at Thoma Bravo, a leading private equity investment firm, where he co-leads the firm’s discover team and platform, focusing on investing in mid-sized and smaller software and technology companies. Palmer Trinity School is an independent Episcopal day school in Miami.
2000
Joshua Myerberg was appointed managing director and head of portfolio strategy for core and core plus real estate Americas investment platforms at J.P. Morgan Asset Management. In his new role, Myerberg will spearhead portfolio strategy, oversee the core and core plus real estate teams and the strategic property, special situation property and U.S. real estate income and growth strategies.
2001
Brooke deRosa composed an opera, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which premiered at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall on Jan. 31, 2025. She also performed as a singer in the opera.
Elizabeth Howard was appointed chief financial officer at EVPassport, a company that provides integrated and reliable EV charging solutions to enterprise and commercial businesses.
Stephen Philipson was promoted to head of wealth, corporate, commercial and institutional banking (WCIB) at U.S. Bancorp, parent company of U.S. Bank. A member of the bank’s managing committee, he previously led global markets and specialized finance in WCIB and has been with the organization since 2009.
Aldous\Walker LLP, a law firm at which Brent Walker is a partner, was named by Texas Lawyer magazine as among the top personal injury law firms in Dallas in the magazine’s 2024 Best Of list. The boutique firm represents clients in civil litigation, personal injury, medical malpractice, products liability and wrongful death cases.
2003
Blair Allen was elected as public defender for the 10th Judicial Circuit of Florida. She worked as a trial attorney at the Public Defender’s Office for 16 years and is the first woman to lead the office.
Katharine Coffey was named vice chair of the corporate department at Day Pitney LLP. She most recently served as the co-chair of
WHAT’S THE BOOK THAT IGNITED THE SPARK FOR YOU? GENERALLY ASKING
i n the early 1970s, k urt Vonnegut’s work had not yet entered the canon as taught by the English Department in Payne Hall, nor did I have much time or inclination to read for fun, but an exchange student from Hollins University gifted me one of his books at an opportune time.
Vonnegut’s “SlaughterhouseFive” has stayed with me ever since. It includes the most succinct description I’ve ever read of the limitations of human perception, combining irony, absurdity and hilarity in a way unique to him. So far, I’ve read it more than a dozen times. It has yet to get old. It is, along with Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22,” among the greatest American novels about World War II written from experience by actual participants in that global conflict. It is also instructive to aspiring writers of all stripes as a lesson in brevity. There’s not a wasted word in it. — Patrick Hinely ’73
P.S. FROM THE ARCHIVES
Coincidentally, for the Spring 2003 issue of W&L Magazine, Hinely reported on Vonnegut’s Feb. 4, 2003, visit to Washington and Lee University. Hinely wrote:
“He used a chalkboard to diagram the plot lines of several famous literary works across the centuries, explaining how the dynamics of a story work in the same ways as music. He also encouraged students to commit acts of creativity as often and as lovingly as possible and entreated the entire audience to notice and appreciate just how nice things really are. Vonnegut’s wit and wisdom were a winning combination.”
the real estate, environmental and land use practice. Coffey is a partner in the firm’s Parsippany, New Jersey, office.
Christina Twomey was promoted to chief communications officer at S&P Global and was named to the company’s executive leadership team.
2004
Albert “Chip” Saulsbury IV joined Jones Walker LLP as partner in the corporate practice group and a member of the mergers and acquisitions and private equity team.
Christopher Surdo was named CEO of Gateway Fiber. He joined the company in 2020 and became president in 2022. Gateway Fiber is an internet service provider in Missouri, Minnesota and Massachusetts.
2005
Bethany Dannelly was appointed commissioner of the Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC), becoming only the third full-time commissioner and the second woman to hold this role.
Patrick Hastings was named education outreach specialist for the Library of Congress, following a $1 million gift from the Aramont Charitable Foundation to support a specialist to enhance the Rare Book & Special Collections Division’s outreach and programming through 2029. In this new position, Hastings will shepherd a range of material from the Rare Book & Special Collections Division and develop accessible educational content that
engages a wide range of audiences.
Charles “Chad” Lewis was appointed executive vice president of corporate development at Associated Materials, a leading building materials manufacturer and distributor. Lewis has more than 20 years of experience in the building materials industry, having served as CFO of Paul Johnson Drywall Inc. and managing director at Lone Star Funds/Hudson Advisors. In his new role, he will focus on shaping Associated Materials’ growth trajectory and strategic direction.
2006
David Will joined The Chemours Company, a global chemical company,
as controller and chief accounting officer.
2007
Peter Goodwin was hired by Balyasny Asset Management, a multi-strategy hedge fund, to lead its global equities business.
Robert Rain joined OTO Development as chief executive officer. OTO Development, part of The Johnson Group, is a private company that develops, owns and operates select-service and lifestyle hotels throughout the continental U.S. Rain previously was division president of OTO Development’s sister company, Johnson Development Associates.
2008
Alice LaCour was named to the 2025 Lawdragon
FOR THE READING NOOK
The University Store proudly displays and sells books by Washington and Lee alumni, faculty and staff — and even current students! Contact bookdept@wlu.edu to have your literary work in the fold, and stop by the store or go online to purchase books authored by members of the W&L community.
500 Leading Litigators list. Her practice is focused on commercial litigation, trade secrets and government investigations, and she’s a partner at Hilgers Graben.
2009
Scott Russell was promoted to senior vice president of investments at Cottonwood Group, a private equity real estate investment firm. In this role, he will manage sourcing, underwriting and executing credit and equity investments for Cottonwood’s investment platforms.
Dana Statton Thompson coauthored “A Slow Approach to Visual Literacy in Higher Education: Lesson Plans for Critical Discernment” with Stephanie Beene.
William Underwood was promoted office head of Jones Walker LLP’s Atlanta office. Underwood is a partner on the law firm’s construction team; he joined the firm as an associate in the litigation practice group in 2016. In his new role, he will oversee the management and strategic expansion efforts for the firm’s office located in Buckhead.
Marisa Van Brunt Mourot was promoted to senior vice president at Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis. Van Brunt Mourot leads the global talent and influencer integration team at the agency’s New York office.
R. “Alden” Wicker won the Rachel Carson Book Award from the Society of Environmental Journalists during the Annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment for her book “To Dye For: How Toxic Fashion is Making Us Sick — and How We Can Fight Back.”
2010
John “Logan” Barlett was named to the 2024 Midas Brink List, which is published each year by TrueBridge and Forbes to highlight emerging venture capitalists who are building a reputation for smart investment decisions. Bartlett is a managing director at Redpoint Ventures on the firm’s early growth team. His podcast, “The Logan Bartlett Show,” features tech industry CEOs.
2011
Anthony C. Cardona was promoted to investment partner in the services team at Pritzker Private Capital, which partners with middle-market companies based in North America with leading positions in the manufactured products and services sectors. Cardona joined PPC in 2014 as an associate.
Trang “Tracy” H. Kennedy was appointed chief financial officer of Air T Inc., an air freight and logistics company.
Maddin M. Nelson was hired as associate attorney at the Nashville law firm of Dodson Parker Behm & Capparella, PC. She joins the firm’s employment and litigation practice groups.
2013
Steele Burrow premiered his first documentary, “Capturing Kennedy,” at the 40th Boston Film Festival in September 2024. The documentary focuses on Jacques Lowe, the official photographer for John F. Kennedy from the early days of Kennedy’s presidential campaign to his time in the Oval Office.
James A. Williams was named to Columbia Business
Monthly’s Best and Brightest 35 and Under list for 2024 in Columbia, South Carolina. Williams is president of the Food People Restaurant Group.
2014
Joni L. Deutsch was promoted to senior vice president of marketing and audience development at The Podglomerate, a firm for podcast production, marketing/audience development and monetization. Deutsch will represent and market the network’s business lines and oversee marketing campaigns and audience strategies for the company’s clients.
2015
Anna Kathryn B. Barry joined Kalijarvi, Chuzi, Newman & Fitch, P.C. in Washington, D.C., as an associate. As a civil rights attorney, her practice focuses on representing employees in cases involving discrimination, retaliation and other workplace injustices.
2016
Chloe V. Beninati , a secondyear resident at Stony Brook School of Dental Medicine’s Advanced Dental Education Program in Endodontics, received the Foundation for Endodontics and Dentsply Sirona Freedom Scholarship. The $50,000 scholarship is given to three second– or third-year endodontics residents at accredited programs to help offset tuition costs.
2019
Johanna C. Hurst joined Tipton & Hurst as a brand
strategy manager, making her the fourth generation of the Hurst family to join the 138-year-old family-ownedand-operated florist in Arkansas.
Edward “Doyle” Silva was promoted to senior associate at Kian Capital Partners, an Atlanta-based private equity firm.
2021
Maria Kisker was awarded a Fulbright Master of Arts Degree Award to Taiwan. Kisker will pursue a master’s degree in political economy at National Tsing Hua University, which is one of Taiwan’s most prestigious comprehensive universities and is known as an incubator for future leaders.
2022
Sarah Hollen was appointed assistant coach for the track and field and cross country teams at Washington and Lee University.
John “Whit” Rudder was appointed as associate at HCI Equity Partners, a lower middle-market private equity firm focused on partnering with family– and founder-owned distribution, manufacturing and service companies.
2023
Carter Chandler received the John R. Alford Scholarship in Law from Omicron Delta Kappa. The scholarship is awarded to the top applicant who is an initiate of W&L’s Alpha Circle and attending law school. Chandler is enrolled at the Georgetown University Law Center.
2024
Anna Bosking received the Kenneth P. Ruscio Scholarship from Omicron Delta Kappa. The scholarship is awarded to the top applicant from the W&L Alpha Circle. Bosking is completing a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Colombia.
William Dantini was selected as a member of Cohort 7 of the Virginia Management Fellows Program, a two-year program aimed at cultivating the next generation of leaders in state government.
The VMF is a collaboration between the Virginia Department of Human Resource Management and the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance.
Shauna R. Muckle was hired by the Tampa Bay Times to cover tourism, transportation and technology in the region.
Annie Thomas received the Sally K. Albrecht Scholarship in Arts from Omicron Delta Kappa. The scholarship is awarded to the top applicant who demonstrates leader-
ship in the arts. Thomas is pursuing a Master of Music at Portland State University.
BIRTHS
David Cohen ’17 and Caroline Cohen ’18 , their second child, Charlotte Jennings Cohen, in July 2024.
Victoria H. Waddail ’14 and her husband, Chris, a daughter, Eloise Lyle Waddail, on Aug. 15, 2024.
Kalli F. Ey ’13 and John Douglas Ey ’13 , a son, John “Johnny” Sullivan Ey, on Aug. 26, 2024.
Caitlin Smith Zadel ’08 and Stephen Zadel, a son, Leo Grey Zadel, on Sept. 20, 2024.
David Armstrong ’11 and Kat Michaels Armstrong ’08 , their third son, Rhett Walter Armstrong, on Oct. 7, 2024. The family resides in Atlanta.
Stephen Welker ’05 and his wife, Emily, their second child, a son, Louis Bates, on Oct. 30, 2024. Louis joins his sister, Elizabeth. The family resides in New York.
Prologue with Billy Webster ’79
it was a book 30 years in the making. Billy Webster ’79, Leading Lives of Consequence campaign council chair, had been toying with an idea for decades, a political thriller born out of several real-life experiences. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, his family had an ultimatum for him: Either stop talking about it or write the thing. The career businessman spent four months working on his first novel, and the 50-year long-distance runner says the feeling when he finished was akin to running a marathon: tired, but accomplished.
“Rockets’ Red Glare” will be published May 20 by Blackstone. The plot follows Wind River Indian Reservation tribal police deputy Sage Mendiluze and special agent Maggie Comstock, who team up to investigate a series of killings in national parks, along with Mendiluze’s dog, Peak. Webster, an English major at W&L, credits his mentor and longtime friend
John Evans — “one of the giants in the English Department” — with helping him hone his writing skills. He still remembers the first paper he wrote for Evans, who gave him a C-minus. “You need to do a lot more writing if you’re ever going to pass my class,” Evans told him. Webster took those words to heart and says it’s a challenge that has stayed with him his entire life; Evans is one of the people to whom the book is dedicated.
After connecting with book agent Mel Berger, who has represented many wellknown fiction and non-fiction authors, Webster was told his book was good, but it needed some tweaks to plot structure and less narrative and more dialogue. He partnered with crime novelist Dick Lochte to make edits over the following year. The two co-authored the thriller.
On the eve of his first book’s release, Webster is thrilled with the accomplishment. And spoiler alert: He’s already written the sequel and has ideas for a third novel.
“Most people don’t start writing at 65 years old; this was pretty far outside my comfort zone,” Webster says. “I
just enjoyed doing something new and different and not being worried about measuring success. When you run your first marathon, you’re not worried about running it in a certain time — you just want to get to the finish line and feel good about what you did, and that’s the way I feel about this book.” —Jessica Luck
BY JANE
PHOTO
BRYSON
CELEBRATIONS
Making Campaign Connections
JOIN W&L LEADERS AND MEMBERS OF THE CAMPAIGN COUNCIL TO CELEBRATE Leading Lives of Consequence: The Campaign for Washington and Lee with fellow alumni and parents across the country. Enjoy special guest speakers, updates from university leadership and the latest news about W&L’s historic campaign. For more information, contact the Office of Alumni Engagement at (540) 458-8464 or alumni@wlu.edu .
REGIONAL EVENTS 2025
• Sept. 10
Denver, Colorado
• Sept. 24
Charlottesville, Virginia
• Sept. 30
St. Louis, Missouri
• Oct. 1
Chicago, Illinois
• Oct. 8
Louisville, Kentucky
• Oct. 9
Lexington, Kentucky
• Oct. 30
New York, New York
• Nov. 13
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Nov. 18
New Orleans, Louisiana
• Dec. 11
Jacksonville, Florida
REGIONAL EVENTS 2026
• Jan. 28
Palm Beach, Florida
• Jan. 29
Miami, Florida
• Feb. 11
San Antonio, Texas
• Feb. 12
Austin, Texas
• Feb. 25
Columbia, South Carolina
• Feb. 26
Charleston, South Carolina
• March 19
San Francisco, California
• April 1
Raleigh, North Carolina
• April 13-15
Southern California: Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange County
campaign.wlu.edu
Clockwise from top: Bill Miller ’72, Jean Marie Roberts P ’17, ’19, ’21, ’24, President Will Dudley, Heather Miller and Tom Hagigh ’92 at the Baltimore event in April 2025. Sarah Hughes, associate dean of Law School Advancement, Jake McCabe ’23 and William Toles ’92, ’95L connect at the Dallas event in March 2025. Walt Plyler ’00 and Mikel Parker ’99 at the Atlanta event in February 2025. Katie Sinks Baird ’10 and James Baird ’10 at the Houston event in March 2025.
1. Jennifer “Jenny” Schieltz ’08 to Philip Dershwitz on Sept. 3, 2023, in Hallowell, Maine. Bridesmaids included Pi Beta Phi sisters Courtney Dolaway ’08, Jess Cobb Dowling ’08 and Keri Klein Geiger ’08, accompanied by Matt Dowling ’08 and Jacob Geiger ’09. The couple resides near Ames, Iowa, where they own a small acreage with cats and chickens with plans for other future farm animals.
2. Alec Gustafson ’19 to Olivia Stoffel ’19 on Dec. 2, 2023, in Newport, Rhode Island. Alumni in attendance included Gabrielle Moore ’20, Ryder Babik ’19, Luke Barnard ’19, Asha Campbell ’17, Jennings Huntley ’19, Charles Bovard ’19, Lukas Campbell ’19, Michael Steedman ’18, Christopher Baumgarten ’19, Conor Habiger ’19, Emma Stoffel ’21, Brendan Olski ’20, Pierce Harman ’91, Abigail Beasley ’18, Patrick Stoffel ’23, Emily O’Neill ’23, Amanda Meador ’18 and Dylann Ephraimson ’18. The couple lives in Boston.
3. William Toles ’92, ’95L to Wendy Parnell on Feb. 3, 2024, in Charleston, South Carolina. W&L alumni in attendance included Evan Beale ’92, Dana Bolden ’89, Courtney Penn ’92, Jon Harris ’92, Alexander Boone ’95L, Curtis Joseph ’93, ’96L, Matt Zamaloff ’92, Matt Gilman ’95, Ben Weinstein ’93, Kevin Fliess ’93, Hampton Nager ’95L, Nick Peters ’02 and David Stevens ’92.
4. Julia Carullo ’20 to Chris Vlahoplus ’19 on April 20, 2024, in Charleston, South Carolina, where they reside. They met on campus in their marketing elective class in the fall of 2018. Alumni in attendance included those in the wedding party: Katie Bearup ’20, Campbell DeNatale ’20, Andy Dean ’19, Viktor Dolberg ’19, Nate Gibson ’19, Bennett Roach ’19 and William Rowson ’19, as well as the groom’s uncle, John Vlahoplus ’83.
5. Clara Easterlin Reames ’18 to Grey Reames ’18 on April 27, 2024, in Kiawah Island, South Carolina.
6. Sara Moir Bohrer ’16 to Price Bohrer ’14 on April 27, 2024, in Richmond, Virginia. Alumni in attendance included Anna Moir Diles ’18L, Emily Flippo Moore ’16, Pauline Marting ’16, Cameron Farley ’16, Maggie Andrea Hinkle ’16, Mitchell Diles ’17L, Charles Busch ’14, Det Beal ’14, JT VanMeter ’14, Richmond Poindexter ’14, Harper Coulson ’14, Carolyn Holtzman ’16, Hays Cochran McJunkin ’16, Virginia Lindley Poole ’16, Myers McGarry ’16, Meg Pascale ’16, Bentley Boldt ’16, Katherine Cole Clare ’16, Margaret Felger Beal ’16, Rachael Wright Gould ’16, Elizabeth Steitz Sims ’14, Stephen Sims ’14, Chris Ives ’14, Alex Gannon ’14, Evan Ware ’14, Jonathan Howe ’14, Thomas Wright ’14, Scott Gould ’15, Bobby DeStefano ’16, Stephen Rowley ’16, Evan Hinkle ’17 and Jed Dunn ’82. The couple resides in Raleigh, North Carolina.
7. Elisabeth Holmes ’17 to Thomas Ferguson ’17 on May 18, 2024, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Alumni in attendance included: Kenzie Shand ’17, the bride’s cousin Caroline Blackmon ’19, Peyton Bryant Kenlon ’17, Todd Alan McDonald ’17, Laura Waggener McDonald ’17, Katelyn Degnan Barden ’17, Meredith Hardy Kyle ’14, Blackwell Shelley ’87L, Lindsay Castleberry ’17, the bride’s brother Robert Holmes ’19, Nelson Helm ’17, Cole Scott ’17, Weldon Furr ’17, Rachel Baker ’17, Rainsford Reel ’17, Andrew Botelho ’17, Asha Campbell ’17, Mac Trammell ’17, Haylee Rademann Block ’17, Michael Barry ’17, Jillian Leigh ’17, Warren Berenis ’15, Lindsey Gilbert ’16, Mara Tynan ’18, Kira Tomenchok ’18, Alexander Fox ’16, Alexander Dawejko ’17 and Garrett Singer ’17.
8. Burke Ugarte ’17 to Dr. Shelby Meckstroth on May 18, 2024, at the New Orleans Country Club in Louisiana. Alumni in attendance included: Warren Butler ’89, Danner Butler ’21, Doyle Silvia ’19, Parker
Butler Gavlin ’18, Andrew Gavlin ’18, Whit Griffin ’17, Austin Benacquisto ’17, Sam Blakeney ’17, Will Adams ’17, Tim Landers ’17, Pat Barry ’17, Ben Magod ’17, Coleman Johnson ’17, Kyle Singerman ’17, Jimmy Dugan ’17, Mikey Rodgers ’17, Bryant Dowd ’17, Liz French ’18, Phil Aiken ’17, Chason Timko ’17, Stephen Mitchell ’17, Charlie Van Horn ’81, Chris Comerford ’17 and Daniel Johnson ’17. The couple resides in Nashville, Tennessee.
9. Danielle “Dani” Murray ’20 and Andrew “Drew” Barnard ’19 on June 22, 2024, in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The couple celebrated with close family, friends and several W&L classmates. They currently reside in Denver.
10. Neal Willetts ’03 to Elijah Akers on June 26, 2024, at Ford’s Colony Country Club in Williamsburg, Virginia, surrounded by just over 100 family, friends and co-workers. They met while Akers was serving aboard the USS George Washington when
Willetts was the bartender for a ship party. Akers was the first person through the line at his bar that night in February 2020, and they’ve rarely been parted since. With Akers in the Navy Reserve and no longer on active duty, they are moving to Akers’ hometown of Columbus, Ohio, where he will be working in the IT industry and Willetts will work as a project manager for a small software company.
11. Pierce “Colton” Ward ’07 and Nivea Brandão on July 27, 2024, in Medellín, Colombia. Alumni in attendance included Mary Stuart Couch Hurst ’07, Walker Willams ’07, Stuart Hurst ’07, Tyler Parrino ’09, Erik Sivertson ’07, Will Noel ’06, Alec Covington ’07 and Brynn Chandler Noel ’07.
12. Trey Tickner ’16 and Mary Page Welch ’18 on Aug. 24, 2024, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Guests included their brothers, Baynes Welch ’15 and Bruce Tickner ’22, and other graduates from 2015 and beyond.
1. Former W&L roommates and partners in crime Juan Michael Pardo ’91, David Farace ’91, Rich Weinstein ’91 and Mike Welther ’91 teed it up on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Pardo is an ear, nose and throat doctor in downtown Annapolis, Maryland. Farace is the headmaster at his alma mater, McDonough School, outside Baltimore. Weinstein, after a successful 25-year career as an award-winning advertising executive, is now passing his knowledge on as associate director of extension programs at VCU in Richmond and hopes to be “half the mentor” that the late professor of journalism and mass communications emeritus Robert de Maria was to him. And Welther is an IT project manager for the U.S. Mint.
2. More than 20 Phi Kappa Sigma alumni from the classes of 1980–1985 gathered Oct. 6–9, 2023, in DeBordieu Colony, South Carolina, for a fun weekend of golfing, fishing, eating and
drinking. Labeled “Skullapalooza 2023,” the weekend was hosted by William Schoeffler ’85, Burt Palmer ’85, Alex McAlister ’82 and Jay Irons ’82 .
3. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Society President Charles Pinck ’86 (right) helped present the William J. Donovan Award on Oct. 21, 2023, in Washington, D.C., to CIA Director William Burns (second from left). They were accompanied by (from left) Dr. Mike Vickers, former CIA Director George Tenet and former commander of the U.S. Special Operations Adm. Eric Olson. Pinck’s father, Dan Pinck ’48 , served behind enemy lines in China for the OSS.
4. Rick de Alessandrini ’84 , winemaker, and his wife, Ellen, held a W&L wine-tasting event on Jan. 25, 2024, in Fairhope, Alabama, at Provision. The event was the kickoff and roll out of their Sassaia Italian wines across the state of Alabama.
Alumni in attendance included: Jeremy Milling ’93, Chris Haley ’92, Stewart Speed ’86, Gil Dukes ’85, Lillis Pipes ’94, Casey Pipes ’93, Mena Morgan ’92, George Lupton ’84, David Trice ’78, Cecilia McGlew ’90L, Hansen Babington ’09, Eddie Curran ’84, Lee Robinson ’85 and Katie McGinley ’97
5. Fifteen alumni, spanning the classes of 1970 to 1973, got together in March 2024, in Litchfield Beach, South Carolina. Front row: Lanny Levenson ’73, Bill Jacobs ’71, Scot Brower ’70, Mark Evans ’70 and Art Fuhrman ’72 . Back row: Kenny Murov ’72, Bob Silverman ’73, Paul Sugar ’70, Ron Sklar ’70, Steve Sandler ’70, Scott Rickoff ’73, Walter Sales ’70, Stuart Porter ’70, Chuck Cahn ’70 and Henry Fleishman ’70.
6. Philip Sampson ’90 and William Toles ’92, ’95L were inducted into the American College of Trial Lawyers in March 2024.
7. Noah Kelley, from Virginia Military Institute Class of 2023, and Sean Doherty ’23 successfully graduated from U.S. Army Ranger School Class 4-24 on March 29, 2024.
8. Michael “Mike” Burns ’77 met up with classmate Ferris Mack ’77 on the rooftop of the New York Athletic Club overlooking Central Park in New York. He swears the W&L shirt was very much a coincidence.
9. Cathy Resmer ’97 ran into a fellow alum, Judge J. Michael Luttig ’76 , in May 2024 in Philadelphia at a live taping of two podcasts from The Bulwark.
10. On May 9, 2024, graduates from the classes of 1979 to 1984 traveled 13,000 miles from nine states to have dinner at the home of Edward Taylor ’81 in Memphis, Tennessee. Front row: Rik Kirkland ’81, Win Ryan ’81 (seated
on the floor), Gary Shaffer ’81, Taylor, Richard Drennen ’81, Pat Robinson ’81 and Kevin McGuire ’81 . Back row: Bruce Moore ’81, Murry McClintock ’80, Greg Morten ’80, Jeff Milstead ’81, David Proctor ’81, Will Pierce ’79, Tom Coleman ’82, Louis Jehl ’84, Jim Hinson ’81, Thad Ellis ’82, Marshall Clark ’81 , Penn Owen ’81 , Tad McDonough ’81 . Not pictured is Victor McLaughlin ’81 , whose flight from New York was delayed until the next day. (Sadly, Taylor passed away on Nov. 6, 2024, after a battle with ALS.)
11. In June 2024, Charles “David” Mintz ’77 and his wife, Kathy, took a 14-day geology tour of the Scottish Highlands. One of the highlights was visiting James Hutton’s Angular Unconformity at Siccar Point, an important place that revolutionized our concept of time. Mintz completed an M.A. in humanities at the University of Richmond in
May 2007. His thesis, “Time in the Mountains,” researched how early geologists, including Hutton and Roderick Murchison, affected British poets, such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, as they utilized the new geological concepts of time and place in their poetry.
12. Many W&L alums were present for the marriage of Roger McDonough ’84 and Flo McDonough’s son, Fitz McDonough, to Cristina Varela on June 8, 2024, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. Alumni in attendance: Jim Hamlin ’87, Jim Holmes ’87, Jeff Marks ’87, Pat Buttarazzi ’84, Ed Buttarazzi ’85, Mike Buttarazzi ’87, Rob Buttarazzi ’88, Frances McDonough ’22, John Kalitka ’87, John Buttarazzi ’83 and Robert Young ’85 .
OBITS
1940s
Alfred T. Bishop Jr. ’41 of Hilton Head, South Carolina, died on July 16, 2024. He served the U.S. in World War II, where he was discharged as a major in 1946, and in the Korean War. He owned and operated Monarch Equipment Company of Louisville, which was the Ford tractor distributor for Kentucky for many years. He was an undergraduate class agent for the W&L Fund and a member of the Reunion Class Committee. He was on the football team and inducted into the Athletics Hall of Fame in 2005. He belonged to Alpha Tau Omega, Beta Gamma Sigma, Omicron Delta Kappa and Phi Beta Kappa.
Robert L. S. Adams ’49 of Timberville, Virginia, died on Sept. 9, 2024. He worked for the Federal Housing Administration and then the Department of Education. He belonged to Pi Kappa Alpha.
1950s
Francis W. Lynn ’50 of Buena Vista, Virginia, died on Oct. 16, 2024. He served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War, attaining the rank of sergeant, and afterward pursued a career in education.
Miller B. White Jr. ’50 of Houston died on Oct. 1, 2024. He was treasurer for the Chapter Volunteers. He worked in the oil industry in Oklahoma City, running his own land and royalty business for over 40 years. He was a member of the wrestling team and belonged to Phi Kappa Psi.
Dr. Melville P. Roberts Jr. ’53 of Hartford, Connecticut, died on Sept. 17, 2024. He practiced and taught neurological surgery at the University of Virginia before moving to Connecticut to practice at Hartford Hospital and teach at UConn School of Medicine. He belonged to Lambda Chi Alpha and Alpha Epsilon Delta.
The Rev. John B. Wheeler ’53 of Fort Walton Beach, Florida, died on July 15, 2024. He served for 67 years as an Episcopal priest, primarily in the diocese of Maryland, and taught in the Anne Arundel public school system for 30 years. He belonged to Pi Kappa Psi.
Bertram S. Griffith Jr. ’54 of Countryside, Illinois, died on Sept. 9, 2024. He held a career in business equipment sales with Bell & Howell and Ditto. He belonged to Lambda Chi Alpha.
Theodore V. R. Lenihan ’54 of Cleveland, Ohio, died on Sept. 19, 2024. He served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War, later working as an insurance agent. He belonged to Phi Gamma Delta.
Thomas E. Robbins ’54 of La Conner, Washington, died on Feb. 9, 2025. He was a famed comic novelist, capturing the counterculture movement with postmodern works like “Still Life with Woodpecker,” “Jitterbug Perfume” and “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.” He was a member of Pi Kappa Phi.
Earl S. Gillespie ’56 of Charlottesville, Virginia, died on Oct. 8, 2024. He served as the first assistant executive secretary and then the
first supervisor of officials for the Virginia High School League, which oversaw athletics and activities for the state’s public high schools. He was a member of the Reunion Class Committee. He was on the football team and belonged to Phi Kappa Sigma.
Arthur W. McCain Jr. ’56 of Easton, Connecticut, died on July 1, 2024. He served for six years as an officer for the U.S. Army Artillery, achieving the rank of captain. He spent the majority of his career at General Electric. He was an undergraduate class agent for the W&L Fund. He was a member of the tennis team, and he belonged to Phi Kappa Psi, Omicron Delta Kappa and Phi Beta Kappa.
W. R. Sargent Jr. ’56 of Columbia, South Carolina, died on July 26, 2024. He worked in commercial real estate, retiring from Colliers International at 82. He was a member of the football team and belonged to Phi Delta Theta.
The Hon. David G. Simpson ’56 , ’58L of Winchester, Virginia, died on Sept. 13, 2024. He served as a judge until his retirement in 1991 and taught law at Lord Fairfax Community College for 10 years.
William H. Williams ’56 of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, died on Sept. 1, 2024. He belonged to Delta Upsilon and Omicron Delta Kappa.
Ross H. Bayard ’57 of Spartanburg, South Carolina, died on July 17, 2024. He was an emeritus professor of history at Wofford College, where he taught for 39
years. He belonged to Lamba Chi Alpha.
Joseph C. Dickson Jr. ’57 of Upper Montclair, New Jersey, died on Oct. 28, 2024. He practiced law for over 50 years. He belonged to Phi Gamma Delta.
Donald V. Farriss ’57 of Lexington, Virginia, died on Sept. 20, 2024. He worked in banking and real estate development for over 50 years. He was on the football team, and he belonged to Sigma Alpha Epsilon.
Warner A. Isaacs ’57 of St. Louis, Missouri, died on July 10, 2024. He worked for Stifel Nicolas as a stockbroker for 61 years. He belonged to Zeta Beta Tau.
John S. Coleman ’58 of Burt Lake, Michigan, died on Aug. 1, 2024. He served in the U.S. Navy before working in the airline and courier industries. He was a member of the Reunion Class Committee. He belonged to Phi Kappa Psi.
James D. Hague Jr. ’59 of Virginia Beach, Virginia, died on Aug. 1, 2024. He taught at Blair Middle School and Old Dominion University.
James L. MacLeod ’59 of Augusta, Georgia, died on Aug. 19, 2024. He was an ordained minister and taught high school, later heading the gifted students program at Brunswick High School. He belonged to Lambda Chi Alpha.
R. Kemp Morton III ’59, ’64L of Huntington, West Virginia, died on Sept. 10, 2024. He practiced law at Huddleston, Bolen, Beatty, Porter & Copen, now Dinsmore & Shohl. He was a law class agent for the
FRANK MIRIELLO, FORMER HEAD FOOTBALL COACH
Frank Miriello, former head football coach and faculty member at Washington and Lee University, died Oct. 25, 2024. He was 79.
Miriello was born in Kulpmont, Pennsylvania, on Jan. 7, 1945, to parents Ralph and Jasmaine Miriello. He attended East Stroudsburg University and graduated in 1967 where he was a three-year starter on the football team and team captain and MVP in 1966.
Miriello spent 26 years coaching at W&L, arriving in Lexington in 1978 as an assistant coach on the late Gary Fallon’s first football team at W&L. From 1982 through the 1989 season, Miriello pursued other coaching opportunities before returning to Lexington in 1990 as an assistant football and lacrosse coach. He was named the defensive coordinator in 1991 and took over as head coach following Fallon’s unexpected passing in 1995.
W&L Fund and a law school committee member for the Reunion Class Committee. He belonged to Omicron Delta Kappa.
1960s
The Hon. J. Howe Brown Jr. ’60 of Fairfax, Virginia, died on Sept. 7, 2024. He practiced law for many years before serving as a Fairfax County Circuit Court judge. He belonged to Lambda Chi Alpha.
W. Jenkins Gibbs ’60 of Charleston, South Carolina, died on Oct. 15, 2024. Following a career in banking, he spent many years associated with Atlantic Services Group, Inc. He was a member of the Reunion Class Committee. He belonged to Kappa Alpha.
Miriello remains the program’s all-time wins leader, with an overall record of 91-78-1 (.538) during his time in Lexington. His teams posted a .500 or better record in 12 of his 17 seasons, earning two Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) championships and two NCAA tournament appearances.
Miriello was named ODAC Coach of the Year five times and was recognized as the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) South Region Coach of the Year and SportExe Division III Coach of the Year in 2006. That season, he led the Blue and White to a 7-4 record, securing the program’s first conference championship since 1985 and its first postseason appearance since the 1951 Gator Bowl.
After retiring in 2012, Miriello served as the senior defensive quality control coach at Coastal Carolina University for two seasons. He also held coaching positions at Hampden-Sydney (1982) and VMI (1983-84) before becoming the head football and lacrosse coach at Mercersburg Academy from 1986-89.
Miriello is survived by his wife, Dedre; son, Thadeus David; and many other family members.
Stephen D. Miller ’60 of Los Angeles died on Oct. 31, 2024. He served as an assistant United States attorney before opening his own criminal boutique law firm. He belonged to Zeta Beta Tau and Omicron Delta Kappa.
Charles T. Morse ’60 of Miles, Michigan, died on July 26, 2024. He worked for Northwestern Mutual Life Co. for 55 years. He was a member of the Reunion Class Committee. He belonged to Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Pi Sigma Alpha.
Jerry S. Wilbourn ’61 of Sun City Center, Florida, died on Oct. 12, 2024. He was a certified financial planner and financial analyst and rose to chief investment officer at General Reinsurance Corporation. He was a member of the
tennis team and belonged to Pi Kappa Alpha and Beta Gamma Sigma.
Richard J. Stamm ’62 died on Aug. 4, 2024. Stamm served in the military as a medic in the Air National Guard before becoming a successful business owner. He belonged to Zeta Beta Tau.
Walter C. Bird ’63 of Oxford, Massachusetts, died on July 17, 2024. He worked at Thom McAn and Commerce Insurance until his retirement. He belonged to Lambda Chi Alpha.
John M. Owen ’63 of Greensboro, North Carolina, died on Oct. 1, 2024. He worked as an independent real estate appraiser. He belonged to Delta Tau Delta.
Stewart M. Hurtt ’65, ’72L of Columbia, Maryland, died on Sept. 12, 2024. He practiced law for over two decades before transitioning to corporate underwriting counsel for national title insurance companies. He was a law class agent for the W&L Fund. He belonged to Sigma Nu.
Dr. J. Spencer Atwater Jr. ’66 of Asheville, North Carolina, died on Oct. 5, 2024. He founded the largest private allergy practice in the country, Allergy Partners, PA. He was on the football and outdoor track & field teams. He belonged to Kappa Alpha.
David N. Marchese ’66 of Rolling Hills Estates, California, died on Sept. 2, 2024. He held a career as an advertising and marketing executive and later
established a wine tour business. He was a member of the soccer team. He belonged to Phi Gamma Delta and Omicron Delta Kappa.
Phillip D. Mollere ’66 of New Orleans died on July 17, 2024. He was a chemist, rising to director of technology development for FreeportMcMoRan before joining Crescent Technology, Inc. as project manager and senior environmental specialist. He was an undergraduate class agent for the W&L Fund and was a member of the Reunion Class Committee. He was on the football team and belonged to Sigma Chi.
Jon R. Neergaard ’66 of Nashville, Tennessee, died on
Aug. 23, 2024. He spent 30 years teaching chemistry at Montgomery Bell Academy. He belonged to Mu Beta Psi.
Dr. Joseph W. Huston III ’67 of Nashville, Tennessee, died on Oct. 20, 2024. He served in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War as a general medical officer aboard the USS Bryce Canyon. He later practiced rheumatology and was a clinical professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He was on the swimming & diving team. He belonged to Kappa Alpha and Alpha Epsilon Delta.
J. Howard Luck ’67 of Virginia Beach, Virginia, died on Sept. 17, 2024. He retired as lieutenant colonel of the
U.S. Air Force Reserves and was a certified financial planner at Wells Fargo for nearly three decades. He belonged to Pi Kappa Phi.
Robert B. Scott Jr. ’67 of Fulton, Missouri, died on Aug. 31, 2024. He was a professor at William Woods University for 40 years. He belonged to Phi Kappa Psi.
Howard L. Mocerf ’68 of Scottsdale, Arizona, died on Aug. 14, 2024. He practiced law, working for Duane Morris LLP and Greenberg Traurig LLP. He belonged to Zeta Beta Tau.
Clinton W. Murchison III ’69 of Dallas died on July 2, 2024. His career focused on real estate development
JOAN SHAUGHNESSY, ROGER D. GROOT PROFESSOR OF LAW
Joan Marie “Shaun” Shaughnessy, Roger D. Groot Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University School of Law, died on Nov. 24, in Fredericksburg, Virginia. She was 71.
Born June 7, 1953, in South Bend, Indiana, Shaughnessy spent most of her childhood in Chicago. She received her bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the State University of New York at Binghamton and earned her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, where she was associate editor of the law review and a member of the Order of the Coif.
Shaughnessy joined W&L Law in 1983 after beginning her legal career as an associate at Cleary Gottlieb Stein and Hamilton LLP. She taught courses such as Civil Procedure, Federal Courts, Complex Litigation, Evidence, Jurisprudence and Legal Writing. She published a number of scholarly writings, covering complex issues across several areas, including personal jurisprudence and parental rights, as well as legal issues arising from poverty and child neglect. She also played an active role in the
and investment management. He was on the lacrosse team and belonged to Phi Delta Theta.
James A. Philpott Jr. ’69, ’72L of Lexington, Kentucky, died on Sept. 2, 2024. He enjoyed a law career first in New York City then Lexington, where he focused on equine law. He was a law class agent for the W&L Fund and served as vice president for the Law Council. He belonged to Phi Delta Phi and Omicron Delta Kappa.
Dr. John G. Simmons ’69 of Jasper, Alabama, died on Sept. 5, 2024. As an otolaryngologist, he joined his father’s medical practice and served as his community’s
Shepherd Program, opening her seminars to undergraduates and law students alike.
Shaughnessy served as associate dean for Academic Affairs for several years. She was a member of the President’s Advisory Committee and faculty representative to the Board of Trustees, and she chaired the Appointments Committee and the Curriculum Committee. Shaughnessy served on the university’s LongRange Planning Committee, the Confidential Review Committee, the Dean of the College Search Committee, the Dean of Students Search Committee and the Steering Committee for SACS Reaccreditation. Beyond W&L, she served as chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Children and the Law and as secretary of the Virginia Bar Section on the Education of Lawyers.
She was honored with the John W. Elrod Law Alumni Association Fellow in Teaching Excellence, named the inaugural holder of the Roger D. Groot Chair and received honorary membership in Omicron Delta Kappa National Leadership Honor Society.
Shaughnessy concluded her teaching career in 2023 after nearly 40 years.
She is survived by her siblings, Ann DuChane, Catherine Brennan (John), Monica Henderson (William), Edward Shaughnessy (Tricia), John Shaughnessy (Barbara), Lawrence Shaughnessy (Linda) and Vincent Shaughnessy, as well as many nieces, nephews, cousins and friends.
ear, nose and throat surgeon for 36 years. He was an undergraduate class agent for the W&L Fund, a board member for the Chapter Volunteers and a member of the Reunion Class Committee. He was on the soccer team and belonged to Beta Theta Pi.
1970s
David R. Frankstone ’70 of Hillsborough, North Carolina, died on Aug. 9, 2024. He practiced law as an estate planning lawyer. He belonged to Sigma Nu.
Clyde E. Smith III ’71 of Martinsburg, West Virginia, died on Sept. 5, 2024. For 51 years, he served as the
executive vice president of his family’s SmithNadenbousch, Inc. insurance agency. He was a member of the football team and belonged to Kappa Sigma.
David L. Raine Jr. ’72 of Richmond, Virginia, died on Sept. 2, 2024. He worked in communications at the VCU Massey Cancer Center and was a writer and publisher.
Gary W. McAuliffe ’74 of Richmond, Virginia, died on Oct. 25, 2024. He worked for Novartis Pharmaceuticals for 40 years as a sales and hospital representative and later as a federal accounts manager. He was a member of the Reunion Class Committee. He belonged to Sigma Chi.
J. Lane Nalley Jr. ’74 of Rome, Georgia, died on Oct. 3, 2024. He enjoyed a 37-year career in the banking industry. He served as president of the Chapter Volunteers. He was a member of the football team and belonged to Phi Delta Theta and Omicron Delta Kappa.
Brian A. Markley ’75 of Laurel, Maryland, died on Aug. 30, 2024. He worked for the Neurology Center for 42 years, supervising the clinical lab and IT.
1990s
David S. Stillman ’96 of Norfolk, Virginia, died on Aug. 5, 2024. He taught
English at various independent schools for more than 25 years, most notably Suffield Academy. He was All-American in swimming as a member of the swimming & diving team. He belonged to Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Omicron Delta Kappa and Phi Beta Kappa.
2010s
Dr. Emmanuel L. Abebrese ’15 of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, died on Oct. 7, 2024. He was a general surgery resident at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He belonged to Beta Beta Beta.
R. T. SMITH, EDITOR OF SHENANDOAH AND ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH
R. T. “Rod” Smith, adjunct professor of English at Washington and Lee University and former editor of Shenandoah: The Washington and Lee University Review, died at his home in Rockbridge County, Virginia, on Dec. 22, 2024. He was 77.
Smith was born on April 13, 1947, in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Griffin, Georgia, and Charlotte, North Carolina. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. In 1972, while working toward his master’s degree in English from Appalachian State University, he founded the literary journal Cold Mountain Review.
Smith arrived at W&L and became Shenandoah’s first full-time editor in July 1995, succeeding Dabney Stuart, professor of English emeritus. While directing the quarterly literary magazine’s internship program, he also served as writer-in-residence at the university and directed the Glasgow Endowment, which invites writers to campus. He taught creative writing and literature and
became adjunct professor of English in 2006. Under his guidance as editor, Shenandoah won the prestigious Governor’s Award for Arts in 2008. He retired from W&L in 2018 after 23 years.
As a fiction writer and poet, Smith gathered inspiration from Southern and Irish literature, childhood and nature. His work won many accolades, including two nominations for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. He was awarded the Library of Virginia Poetry Book of the Year Award twice, as well as the Carole Weinstein Poetry Prize, the Salmon Transatlantic Poetry Prize, the Maurice English Poetry Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Cohen Prize, John Masefield Poetry Prize and the Emily Dickinson Poetry Prize.
His writings appeared in anthologies such as “Best American Short Stories,” “Best American Poetry,” “New Worlds of Literature” and “New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best,” as well as Atlantic Monthly, The Virginia Quarterly Review and The Kenyon Review. He also earned several fellowships, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Alabama Council on the Arts Fellowship and a Fellowship to the Yeats School. He held residences at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland and the Wurlitzer Foundation.
Smith is survived by his wife, Sarah Kennedy, and his sister, Sharon Smith Berman.
CHRONICLES
SPEAKING VOLUMES
BY JESSICA LUCK
The university library at Washington and Lee has had several homes over the years, including, from 1908 to 1979, the building now named Huntley Hall. In 1905, philanthropist Andrew Carnegie gave the university $50,000 to use for the building and maintenance of a library, which opened in September 1908 with 40,000 volumes and a capacity for five times that number. The building was originally crowned by a copper dome that was lost during renovations in 1940. The family of Cyrus H. McCormick, the Rockbridge County native who invented the mechanical reaper and was a generous friend of the university, funded the renovations for the library, which was then named in honor of the family.
In 1975, plans were made to build a new university library with a larger footprint to better serve the W&L community. On Jan. 10, 1979, faculty, staff, students and members of the Lexington community loaded books from McCormick Library into shopping bags supplied by the Leggett department store and carried them to their new home in what is now Leyburn Library on Stemmons Plaza. One of the priority projects of the Leading Lives of Consequence campaign is a renovation of Huntley Hall, the current home of the Williams School of Commerce, Economics and Politics — the only internationally accredited, undergraduate business program among top liberal arts institutions. Additionally, due to a crucial need for more classrooms, offices and community spaces to support faculty and student research and collaboration,
the university is constructing a new building for the Williams School on West Washington Street, set to be complete in advance of Fall Term 2025.
The renovations at Huntley will create a three-story, multi-use hub for formal and informal gatherings, special
events and community-building, with classrooms and meeting spaces outfitted with state-of-the-art technology. The building improvements will allow for smaller class sizes and enhanced networking and professional development opportunities for students. ■
McCormick Library, located in the current Huntley Hall, was the university’s main library from 1908 to 1979.
Why I Give
“I hope our support helps every student have their best experience at W&L. My husband, Shane ’17, and I had wonderful experiences due to the generosity of others, and we are grateful to be able to pay that forward so future students can have meaningful experiences of their own.”
—Eileen Small Siebken ’15
W&L Magazine
204 W. Washington St. Lexington, VA 24450-2116
www.wlu.edu
SCENE ON CAMPUS
Mackenzie Brooks, associate professor and digital humanities librarian, has been mentoring Holly Pickett, professor of English, on how to use the letterpress as part of a Harte Center Fellowship. The program encourages faculty to explore a learning opportunity outside their expertise and share how the experience relates to their teaching.
