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STAFF REPORTS

Published: October 8, 2008

Area campuses generate news all the time, with new programs, construction, awards and initiatives. Here is a roundup of news items submitted by the schools profiled in this section:

        Going Green: For the second year, Hollins University will lead an initiative in partnership with other Virginia universities to encourage the recycling of old electronics. Last year’s e-waste recycling event collected 831,579 pounds of end-of-life electronics at Hollins, the University of Richmond, Virginia Tech, and Old Dominion University. This year’s event will take place Nov. 6-8.

        An emphasis on sustainability continues this fall at the University of Virginia. In September, the student council’s environmental sustainability committee brought in vendors from Charlottesville’s City Market to give students access to organic, locally grown food.

        Green initiatives at Longwood University include a move to trayless dining in August and the burning of sawdust in the boiler plant. Longwood’s health and fitness center was awarded a gold rating in the leadership in energy and environmental design from the U.S. Green Building Council.

        A student-led environmental campaign at the University of Mary Washington has sparked a dramatic shift in energy-saving attitudes and behaviors on campus. According to the energy services company NORESCO, a partner in the project, the behavior change program is among the first in the nation that seeks to influence energy consumption.

        Ferrum College recently implemented several green initiatives: trayless dining; a switch to biodegradable paper and more environmentally-friendly cleaning products; installing energy-saving heating/cooling units in residence rooms; and more green materials in new construction and renovations. The dining hall staff is now considering a composting program.

        Grants, Scholarships & Endowments: A new brighter future initiative at Virginia Union University offers grant incentives to 2008 graduates of Richmond Public Schools. Recipients must have a high school grade point average of 2.2 or better and complete community service.

        Randolph-Macon College was awarded a digital age initiative grant from the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges and the Verizon Foundation. Twelve freshmen will get a Dell laptop for one year, computer skills instruction through R-MC’s Higgins Academic Center and peer mentors.

        Hollins University alumna Susan Gager Jackson and her husband, John Jackson, have pledged $5 million to create the Jackson Center for Creative Writing at the school. The endowment will sustain the Susan Gager Jackson Endowed Chair in Creative Writing, the Jackson Fellowship in Creative Writing, the Susan Gager Jackson Scholarship and the Jackson Fund for Creative Writing.

        Lynchburg College has created a veterans award in conjunction with the new GI Bill. The school will offer free tuition to qualified veterans beginning in fall 2009.

        Marymount University has received two new National Science Foundation grants. One is a five-year, $595,700 grant for an academic and scholarship initiative for undergraduate students with financial need who are pursuing degrees in biology, mathematics, or information technology/computer science. The other is a $100,000 grant to support a research project entitled “Optimal Control Studies for Cholera Outbreaks.”

        New Libraries: At J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College, the Ivor and Maureen Massey Library Technology Center is the newest campus facility

and the first new building on Reynolds’ Parham Road Campus in 28 years. Open for fall classes, it offers a 378-seat auditorium, six “smart” classrooms, 10 group study rooms, an open computer lab and a soon-to-come coffee bar.

        At Christopher Newport University, the Paul & Rosemary Trible Library opened in January this year. The library is up to the minute in technology, boasting wireless access throughout, 30 public computing stations, 10 group study rooms, elegant reading rooms, collaborative work areas and two classrooms that bring the curriculum into the library.

        The Trible Library will also become the home of the Mariners’ Museum’s world-class collection, the largest maritime collection in the Western Hemisphere.

        Programs: The University of Virginia’s College at Wise is the only Virginia public college to offer a software engineering program. Besides offering a four-year degree program in nursing, UVa-Wise offers majors in computer science, management information systems, music and biochemistry.

        Randolph College (formerly Randolph-Macon Women’s College) has gained national recognition for its Model UN program. RC students have earned top awards from this national conference for several years.

        Among new community service programs at Virginia Tech are Hokies United, a student-led volunteer effort to respond to local, national, and international tragedies, and VT-ENGAGE, a campaign to encourage Virginia Tech students, faculty, staff, family, and friends to pledge and perform community service.

        Freshmen at George Washington University in D.C. have a new resource to help with their transition to college – a GW staff “guide.” Launched this fall, the Guide to Personal Success program matches members of the class of 2012 with GW staff members, or “GW guides.” More than 400 staff and faculty from departments and programs have volunteered to work with the new students.

        New this year at Lynchburg College is a major in economic crime prevention and investigation, as well as minors in criminology and outdoor recreation. New graduate programs include master’s degrees in history and music.

The school of engineering and applied science and the Curry school of education are working together on a new University of Virginia undergraduate education initiative, the technology leaders program. The program focuses on developing system designs that maximize advantages from new technology.

        New programs in the tourism industry are offered at several schools: Old Dominion University now has an online master’s degree in recreation and tourism; Virginia Intermont offers a tourism concentration under its business administration major; and Marymount University has a hospitality management specialization within its Bachelor of Business Administration.

        In two new Radford University courses, students are learning homicide investigation methods and processes. The courses are introduction to forensic anthropology and a criminal justice seminar, investigating the Kennedy assassination.

        Student success in college is the focus of a new course for first-year students at Eastern Mennonite University. College writing for transitions combines writing and a campus orientation. Also new at EMU is the inter-cultural communicative competence program, which facilitates co-mentoring among students of many lands.

        The Virginia Commonwealth University School of Engineering has launched a master’s degree program in nuclear engineering. An undergraduate track is in the works for fall semester of 2009. Both are under the auspices of the department of mechanical engineering.

        Jefferson College of Health Sciences two new Master of Science degrees in occupational therapy and physician assistant. This month, the school will add a Bachelor of Science degree to emergency health services and fire technology.

        This academic year brings two new graduate degrees to American University’s Kogod School of Business: the Master of Science in finance and the master of science in finance and real estate.

This fall, Hampton University is the second historically black college or university to offer a concentration in aquatics. Only 35 colleges and universities nationwide offer aquatics programs.

        The University of Mary Washington now offers a new creative writing concentration that gives students the opportunity to focus on the craft and art of writing and editing.

        Institute for Theory and Practice of International Relations, a new joint venture by the College of Arts and Sciences and the Wendy and Emory Reves Center for International Studies at the College of William and Mary, has spawned a range of collaborative research projects and interdisciplinary seminars.

        Averett University began offering classes this fall to help educators learn the best practices for teaching students with autism. Averett is offering a three-course, graduate level program for certified teachers.

        Several new undergraduate courses at the University of Richmond’s Robins School of Business introduce students to globalism, managing organizational change and the ups and downs of Wall Street. The courses are global business in a digital world, leading change, and markets and exchanges.

        In addition to initiating two new degree programs – the master of education in curriculum and instruction for teachers and the master of emergency services management – UR’s School of Continuing Studies has added two programs: an aupair program and a summer study abroad program at Yarmouk University in Jordan for students studying Arabic.

        Virginia Union University’s new Center for Continuing and Professional Studies now offers accelerated degree programs for adult learners. Weekend and evening classes began Oct. 7 with degrees in finance and banking, and elementary education.

        Also, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools has approved a new Master of Arts in Christian Education for VUU’s Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology. Weekend and evening classes will begin next fall.

        Life on Campus: In Salem, Roanoke College’s athletics teams have been known as the Maroons for 100 years. That isn’t going to change, but now leaders on campus are in search of an embodiment for the classic color they wear so proudly. Roanoke is looking for a mascot.

        So far, students faculty and alumni have suggested more than 200 ideas for the Maroon mascot. The contest was launched this spring.

        Accolades: VictorTango, a team of Virginia Tech engineering and geography students, won third place and a $500,000 cash prize in the DARPA Urban Challenge. The team created an autonomous vehicle, “Odin,” which had to complete a 60-mile obstacle course without human intervention.

        In its latest report, DesignIntelligence, the only national college ranking survey focused exclusively on design, ranked Virginia Tech’s undergraduate architecture program first nation-wide and fifth among public universities.

        American University students were ranked the “Most Politically Active,” and the university is one of the nation’s best institutions for undergraduate education, according to The Princeton Review in the newly released 2009 edition of its annual book, ‘The Best 368 Colleges.’

        Two University of Mary Washington alumni were awarded Fulbright Scholarships before graduating last May. Caitlin Gembol’s grant has taken her to Ecuador to study the effects of climate change on arachnid behavior through June 2009. Justin Simeone is pursuing his research project, “E.U. Member State Resistance to European Asylum Appellate Jurisdiction,” which will focus on constitutional law, politics and diplomacy in London.

        Preston Gannaway, an alumna of Virginia Intermont College, won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. A 2000 graduate, Gannaway majored in fine art photography.

        The Emory & Henry College Concert Choir has been selected as one of two collegiate choral ensembles in Virginia to perform for the 2008 Virginia music educators association conference in November.

        Laura Waters Hinson, a 2007 graduate of American University’s School of Communication, won the gold prize for best documentary at the 35th Annual Student Academy Awards ceremony June 7 in California. Hinson wrote, produced, and directed her award-winning film, “As We Forgive,” while pursuing her master of fine arts degree.

        New Libraries: At J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College, the Ivor and Maureen Massey Library Technology Center is the newest campus facility

and the first new building on Reynolds’ Parham Road Campus in 28 years. Open for fall classes, it offers a 378-seat auditorium, six “smart” classrooms, 10 group study rooms, an open computer lab and a soon-to-come coffee bar.

        At Christopher Newport University, the Paul & Rosemary Trible Library opened in January this year. The library is up to the minute in technology, boasting wireless access throughout, 30 public computing stations, 10 group study rooms, elegant reading rooms, collaborative work areas and two classrooms that bring the curriculum into the library.

        The Trible Library will also become the home of the Mariners’ Museum’s world-class collection, the largest maritime collection in the Western Hemisphere.

        Faculty News: Dr. Mary Polce-Lynch, assistant director of the Center for Career and Counseling Services at Randolph-Macon College, has been awarded a Congressional Fellowship by the American Psychological Association. This one-year fellowship, in Washington allows for the study of science and public policy.

        This fall, Averett University welcomed Dr. Tiffany Franks as its new president. Franks became the 24th president of Averett and joins the school from Greensboro College, Greensboro, N.C., where she served as executive vice president.

        Claudia Emerson, Arrington distinguished chair in poetry and professor of English at the University of Mary Washington, has been appointed Virginia Poet Laureate by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine. The honorary two-year position was created to promote greater appreciation for the writing and reading of poetry throughout the state.

        In March, the University of Mary Washington announced that Judy G. Hample would become the institution’s eighth – and first female – president. Dr. Hample previously served as chancellor of Pennsylvania’s 14-campus, 110,000-student public university system from 2001-2008.

        Carl Friedrichs, an oceanographer at the School of Marine Science/Virginia Institute of Marine Science at the College of William and Mary, received the commonwealth’s highest honor for professors from Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia in January 2008.

        Campus Expansions: The new Monroe Park Campus addition at Virginia Commonwealth University is on an 11-acre tract adjacent to the park campus, east of Belvidere between Main and Canal streets. The four-story Snead and East halls at VCI are joined and share some social and academic space. The new complex will enable the schools of business and engineering to increase enrollment by 2,000 students over the next few years.

        Integrated Science Center Phase I at the College of William and Mary, a new 117,000 square-foot space housing labs and offices from the departments of biology, chemistry and psychology, opened just before the fall semester.

        To accommodate a recent growth in enrollment, Ferrum College has entered into an agreement last February with Mod-U-Kraf Homes of Rocky Mount to construct a new three-story residence hall on the west side of campus. The new building, to be known as Margaret M. Clark Hall, will accommodate 120 students.

        Emory & Henry College has completed construction of a 20,000-square-foot addition to the historic Byars Hall, which houses the College’s division of visual and performing arts. Emory & Henry has also completed construction on the first phase of the Fred Selfe Stadium.

        Oakwood residence hall at Eastern Mennonite University is being replaced withh a new 120-room residence. EMU anticipates the new, $6 million residence hall will be ready for occupancy in the fall of 2009.

        Last fall, American University’s School of International Service broke ground on a new 71,000-square-foot environmentally-friendly building. The building is scheduled to open to students and faculty in fall 2010. Also, an expansion to the university’s Kogod School of Business building is expected to be complete this winter.

        A major renovation project is under way on Virginia Intermont’s Main Hall, a Virginia historic landmark. The college’s Smith-Canter Gymnasium also received a facelift over the summer.

        In November, Radford University will open the new Douglas and Beatrice Covington Center for Visual and Performing Arts. The center includes a 350-seat performance hall, rehearsal rooms, teaching studios, a music media center and an art gallery.

        Life Sciences I Building is currently under construction at Virginia Tech. The three-story building will consist of more than 72,000 square feet, with an estimated construction cost of $28 million.

        Four buildings made their debuts at the University of Virginia this fall: Kellogg House, a new dormitory; the Claude Moore Nursing Education Building; Ruffin Hall for the studio art program; and an addition to the School of Architecture’s Campbell Hall.

        Old Dominion University has opened a new engineering laboratory that will be used to educate a Southside work force and support economic development goals for the region and state. Located at the Virginia International Raceway near Danville, the lab is the latest addition to the growing arsenal of the high-tech Virginia Institute for Performance Engineering and Research.

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