News Briefs

From staff reports

Bum Chum Bazaar is Dec. 1

The Bum Chums, one of Sweet Briar’s tap clubs, will host its annual bazaar from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 1 in Prothro Atrium and Josey Dining Room. The event will benefit the Bum Chum Scholarship.

This year’s event will have a “Winter Wonderland” theme and is being billed as a one-stop shop for all of your holiday purchases. There will be holiday music, including Christmas carols sung by the Sweet Tones, and candy canes and other festive accoutrements.

Vendors include, among others, Stella and Dot (jewelry), Carol Schofield (jewelry), Preppy Palooza (dog collars, leashes, key chains, headbands, etc.), Chocolates R Us, Pillow Mint (home accents), Class of 2012 (key chains, etc.), and Shay’s Unique Gifts (painted wine glasses and cups, flip flops, jewelry, handbags and accessories).

Admission is free and it is open to the public. Parking is available behind Protho Hall. The $1,000 scholarship will be awarded to a deserving student by the Student Government Association. For more information, contact Alexis Hart at hart11@sbc.edu or (860) 967-2635.

Johnston’s Team Wins Briar Bowl

A team led by Sweet Briar College librarian Lisa Johnston won the Briar Bowl on Wednesday, Oct. 28 at Le Bistro. At the semi-annual trivia contest, which is hosted by the Academic Resource Center, 15 teams representing a wide range of academic disciplines, including athletics, battled it out.

The first place team included Johnston and Sarah Strapp ’10, Courtney Hurt ’10, Kate Rose ’10 and Abby Johnston ’12. The second place team was led by visiting assistant professor of history John Ashbrook and assistant professor of English Tony Lilly’s team placed third.

Dean Jonathan Green emceed the competition.

SBC Harpists Play in ‘Harps of Gold’ Benefit Concert

Four members of the Sweet Briar Community performed Sunday, Nov. 1 in “Harps of Gold,” a benefit concert for the Wednesday Music Club, a Charlottesville group that funds scholarships for young musicians.

The concert featured Virginia Schweninger, harp instructor at SBC, and her ensemble, Harp Songs of the Blue Ridge, playing golden harps made in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The ensemble also includes Sweet Briar senior Caroline Rainey and Becky Edmondson, who works in the dean’s office.

Claire Wittman, the 15-year-old daughter of associate professor of theater Loretta Wittman, also performed. She sang “Ave Maria,” accompanied by a harpist.

According to Lynn Buck, wife of SBC Dean Jonathan Green, who attended the concert, it was a “full house.”

Art History Web Site Celebrates Birthday

Christopher Witcombe’s Art History Resources on the Web, the oldest and most visited art history Web site in the world, celebrated its 14th birthday on Saturday, Oct. 24.

According to Witcombe, a Google search for “art history” has ranked the Web site in first place for more than 10 years. The Web site receives more than 20,000 page views per day and more than seven million per year. Art History Resources was praised as one of the “Best of the Web” by Forbes magazine and has been the recipient of numerous awards.

Most recently, it was selected by the National Endowment for the Humanities for inclusion on the NEH Web site, EDSITEment, as “one of the best online resources for education in the humanities.” It is listed on thousands of Web sites around the world and included in many published Internet and World Wide Web research and teaching reference guides and directories.

Emma Parker, SBC class of 2010, searches for tadpoles last April in a vernal pool near Piney River in Amherst County. Photo by Mike Hayslett.

Biology Receives EPA Funding for Environmental Outreach

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

The spotted salamander is typical of species that rely on seasonal wetlands to reproduce each year. Photo by Suzanne Ramsey.

Sweet Briar College’s biology department has received a $15,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to support an outreach program called “Schools for Pools.”

The program’s overarching goal is to increase awareness of the need for wetlands protection, particularly vernal pools, by connecting with kindergarten through 12th-grade students and their teachers from four regional school districts. Using teacher workshops, classroom instruction and directed field trips, experts will guide students and teachers in projects to find and study vernal pools in their local areas.

The field activities and classroom lessons will be age-appropriate and are designed to meet Virginia’s Standards of Learning. But “Schools for Pools” creator, Sweet Briar naturalist-in-residence Michael Hayslett, said the program is also about encouraging the participants to “adopt” the vernal pools and become ambassadors for them in their home communities. The plan calls for the groups to present their findings to their local governments and to seek media coverage.

Vernal pools are seasonal wetlands that a variety of animal and plant species — some of them rare — depend on to survive. The ponds typically fill up in fall and winter, creating vital amphibian breeding grounds in spring, before drying out in summer.

Frogs and salamanders that live in the surrounding woods trek a half-mile or more every year to the same pool where they were born to lay eggs and raise tadpoles. Migratory waterfowl, deer and other local fauna also rely on the ponds.

Although these wetlands’ ecological importance to the species they support is well understood by biologists, the average Central Virginian may be unaware that they exist, much less that they should be valued and preserved, Hayslett said. Despite statewide legal protection, many are destroyed, often unwittingly, by filling, logging or pollution.

“The surprising thing is how many there are in this area,” Hayslett said. “They’re really quite common when you know where to look, and when to look and how to look.”

Hayslett and Sweet Briar will work with several partners on the “Schools for Pools” project, including Boxley Materials Co., Bedford County Economic Development Authority, Lynchburg College’s Claytor Nature Study Center, the Central Virginia Chapter of the Virginia Master Naturalist Program and Appomattox Court House National Historical Park.

Most are providing access to property where vernal pools are found. Others, such as the Central Virginia Master Naturalists, are volunteering time and expertise on the field trips. Participants, whose schools were selected for their proximity to wetland sites, will be students and teachers from Temperance Elementary in Amherst County, Buckingham Middle, Appomattox Middle and Staunton River High School in Bedford County.

Hayslett will provide in-class instruction at the schools, and will be assisted in the field by VMN volunteers — including four Sweet Briar students who are completing the organization’s 40-hour training program. Each class will take three field trips. One in late fall will follow the classroom visit. Students will return to the same site in the spring to observe the seasonal changes, and they will make a final excursion to a new site to compare how one wetland differs from another.

The program’s third component, the teacher training workshops, will be held at Sweet Briar. One will be held in December and another in early spring. Teachers may choose to attend either one.

Hayslett is scheduling the fall field trips, a process that was postponed due to a delay in the EPA funding disbursement. But he’s been coordinating with the schools in the meantime and is confident that that all four trips will be scheduled before the Thanksgiving break.

Ancient Japan’s Colorful ‘Tale of Genji’ Subject of Gallery Talk

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

John Goulde, professor of religion and director of Asian studies, will lead an informal gallery talk at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 19 in Pannell Gallery. He will discuss an image on display in the current exhibition, “Language Arts: Images, Words, and Stories Selected From the Permanent Collection.” Admission is free and open to the public.

The work is a circa 1775-1790 woodblock print by Suzuki Harunobu depicting a scene from the third chapter of the ancient Japanese classic, “The Tale of Genji.” The novel was written in the 11th century by a noblewoman and tells of the romances and adventures of its colorful hero Genji, a prince in the emperor’s court.

Goulde’s presentation is the third in a series of talks held in conjunction with exhibitions of works from the College’s permanent art collection and the final one related to “Language Arts.” Faculty or staff members lead the talks, bringing to the discussion a perspective of the works from their own areas of interest and expertise.

“The focus is on the interesting story behind the images,” said SBC galleries director Karol Lawson, who organized the series with the aim of bringing visitors from both on and off campus into Pannell who are not regular patrons.

“Sometimes people are intimidated by art history,” she said. “With these informal gallery talks, I hope visitors will realize that they can learn about art while they’re also enjoying thrilling stories of derring-do, drama, romance, skullduggery.”

For more information, please contact Lawson at or Ext. 6248.

Media Update

From staff reports

Here are some of the stories that have appeared in local media as a result of the work college relations is doing to promote the College, its people and programs:

Higher Education
Lynchburg News & Advance
Sept. 21, 2009
Re: Endowed faculty chairs announced.

Julie Andrews the subject of SBC student’s senior directorial project
Nelson County Times
Sept. 24, 2009
Re: “Julie Andrews Musical Tribute,” directed by Sandi Prentice ‘10

Sweet Briar College’s 10th President Inaugurated
Amherst New Era-Progress
Sept. 30, 2009

Sweet Briar dancers to take the stage
Waynesboro News Virginian
Oct. 5, 2009

Musical Tribute
Lynchburg News & Advance
Oct. 7, 2009
Re: “Julie Andrews Musical Tribute,” directed by Sandi Prentice ‘10

Creating Craniums: Sweet Briar to host VCCA artist
Waynesboro News Virginian
Oct. 7, 2009

Calendar Events
Lynchburg News & Advance
Oct. 9, 2009
Re: “Julie Andrews Musical Tribute,” directed by Sandi Prentice ‘10

College Event
Waynesboro News Virginians
Oct. 12, 2009
Re: Writers Series and “The Bacchae”

Sweet Briar schedules Senior Dance Concert
Lynchburg News & Advance
Oct. 15, 2009

Seniors prepare for dance concert
Amherst New Era-Progress
Oct. 15, 2009
Re: Senior Dance Concert

College Profiles
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Oct. 19, 2009
Re: 2009 Media General College Insert

Get organized to find the funds
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Oct. 19, 2009
Re: 2009 Media General College Insert

Taking time for fun
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Oct. 19, 2009
Re: 2009 Media General College Insert

Fairfax teen may have died in Korean exorcism, police say
Washington Post
Oct. 21, 2009
Re: John Goulde, religion faculty, quoted.

Will President Obama’s support help Deeds?
WSET/ABC-13
Oct. 22, 2009
Re: Steve Bragaw interviewed.

Va. police probe Korean exorcism in teen’s death
Arizona Republic
Oct. 22, 2009
Re: John Goulde, religion faculty, quoted.

Police: Va. Teen may have died in Korean exorcism
Annison (Ala.) Star
Oct. 24, 2009
Re: John Goulde, religion faculty, quoted.

Writers Series to host Tinti
Waynesboro News Virginian
Oct. 26, 2009

Obama rallies for Deeds. But will it help?
WSET/ABC-13
Oct. 27, 2009
Re: Steve Bragaw interviewed.

They’re Baaaaack: Ghost Tours Explore Sweet Haunts
Appomattox News
Oct. 27, 2009

Biologist, Best-selling Author’s View has Evolved Since Darwin
Appomattox News
Oct. 27, 2009

Rockin’ for the Smile Benefit Concert for Operation Smile
Appomattox News
Oct. 27, 2009

SBC Writers Series Welcomes Hannah Tinti Nov. 5
Appomattox News
Oct. 27, 2009

Classics Professor Discusses Homer, Plato Depictions in Art
Appomattox News
Oct. 27, 2009

SBC Museum Ghost Tours return Thursday, Sunday
Amherst New Era-Progress
Oct. 29, 2009

Biologist to talk evolution at SBC
Lynchburg News & Advance
Oct. 30, 2009

Casteen Named ‘Distinguished Judge’ for U.Va. Writing Contest

From staff reports

John Casteen IV, poet and visiting assistant professor of English at Sweet Briar College, was named one of two distinguished judges for the 23rd annual Writer’s Eye competition, sponsored by the University of Virginia Art Museum.

Casteen is the author of the poetry collection, “Free Union.” He lives in Earlysville, Va., and has taught at Sweet Briar since 2007. He will judge poetry entries in the contest’s high school and university/adult divisions.

Novelist Sarah Collins Honenberger, author of “Waltzing Cowboys” and “White Lies,” was selected to judge the high school and university/adult prose entries. Honenberger was a 2002 fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

The Writer’s Eye competition runs from Sept. 21 through Nov. 20 and challenges writers from third grade to adult to create an original piece of poetry or prose using artwork from the university’s art gallery as inspiration. Winning entries will appear in the 2009 Writer’s Eye anthology.

This year’s contest focuses on three exhibitions currently on display at the museum: “Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village: The Creation of an Architectural Masterpiece,” “The Expanding Eye: Art Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe,” and “Abstract Photography: Selections from Glenstone.” Writers also are free to draw insight from items in the museum’s permanent collection.

For more information, visit the University of Virginia Art Museum’s Web site.

Bragaw’s Online Musings About Google Wave Help Spark Discussion

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Anyone noticed there’s a whole lot of blogging going on these days at Sweet Briar? Well, the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Jeff Young noticed one titled “Google Wave in the classroom.”

“I’m keeping my fingers crossed about getting a chance to try out google wave as a course management software,” wrote government professor Steve Bragaw in his brief post.

Young posted his own story on the Chronicle’s Wired Campus blog quoting Bragaw and linking to his SBC post. From there it caught the attention of several other bloggers with the headline “Could Google Wave Replace Course-Management Systems?” Comments ensued.

So did Bragaw’s wishful thinking about Google Wave set off a brouhaha? Maybe just a small one.

You can check out Bragaw’s blog and reaction to it at http://bragaw.blog.sbc.edu/?p=1458.

Biologist, Bestselling Author’s View of Planet Has Evolved Since Darwin

Olivia Judson to speak at Sweet Briar Nov. 3

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Olivia Judson

Evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson is working on her second book but she won’t be reprising the alter ego she created for her first, the bestselling “Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation.”

Judson, a research fellow at the Imperial College London and author of the weekly online New York Times column “The Wild Side,” will present a sneak peek of the book at Sweet Briar College in her lecture, “Glad to Have Evolved.” She will speak at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 3 in Murchison Lane Auditorium at Babcock Fine Arts Center. Admission is free and open to the public.

“Dr. Tatiana” tackles the evolutionary biology of animal sex in the guise of an advice column. She answers questions like one from I Like ’Em Headless in Lisbon, who begins, “I’m a European praying mantis, and I’ve noticed I enjoy sex more if I bite my lovers’ heads off first.”

As Dr. Tatiana, Judson parlayed the serious and often strange science of evolution’s most fundamental process into a popular book and three-part television series. But she turned down her publisher’s request for a sequel. Speaking by phone from her home in London, she said she wasn’t interested in writing the same book over and over.

Her lecture will cover some aspects of the new book which, put simply, is about the planet we live on and how 4.5 billion years of life evolving on its surface transformed it from boring to awe-inspiring. Earth today, she said, has largely been built by living organisms.

The notion that biology accounts for much of Earth’s present-day geology is relatively new science. And it’s a reversal of our understanding of the primary patterns of evolution — where the geology comes first and burgeoning life adapts to survive on it. Species do evolve, of course, but it works both ways. Judson cited studies showing more than half the minerals on Earth exist as a consequence of living beings.

And that’s good, because if you think about it, she said, “A planet that never had life would be much less interesting than this one.”

Judson will touch on three of Charles Darwin’s insights — common ancestry, natural selection and sexual selection — and comment on how we understand them today.

But don’t expect Darwin to dominate the conversation, despite this year being the sesquicentennial of his “On the Origin of the Species.” Not to diminish him or the work, she said, but, “I’m interested in the current field and too much Darwin worship is a mistake. ‘Origin’ did change everything but it is also a historical document.”

The study of evolution didn’t start or end with Darwin, she notes, and if it did all rest on one man, that would be dull, too. “I think it would be quite nice to write a book about evolution without talking about Darwin,” Judson said.

She hopes people will come away with a different perspective of the planet, and a sense of wonder. There is an implicit message that if life on Earth — from the tiniest bacterium to humans — fundamentally alters the rock under our feet, there are implications for the way we live. But she isn’t interested in spelling them out.

“It’s more powerful when you come to them yourself rather than being told,” she said. “Evolutionists can be terribly bullying. I would much rather explore the wonder of the planet. It sounds a little bit mystical, but I don’t mean to be mystical. It’s just that the more I learn about the planet, the more I am amazed by it.”

Judson will sign copies of “Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation” following the lecture. For more information, contact jsteven@sbc.edu or call Ext. 6365. 

Bonnie’s Big Yam

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

Lucy Lou

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

New Faces

From staff reports

Danielle Delude Jean Hazelwood

Danielle Delude
Athletics

Danielle Delude is the new softball coach and recruiting facilitator. She came to Sweet Briar after coaching at Stonehill College for the past six years and serving as assistant coach for four years prior to taking the head coaching position.

While at Stonehill, Delude guided her teams to the highest win totals in the softball program’s history. Through her guidance, her teams excelled both on the field and in the classroom. She coached a number of all-conference teams and all-conference academic teams. In her past three seasons her teams combined for more than 60 wins.

Delude was a four-year varsity athlete for Stonehill, and she batted .260 during her 1998 senior season and led the team in RBIs. She is a member of the National Fastpitch Coaches Association.

Her first day was Oct. 5.

Jean Hazelwood
Athletics

Jean Hazelwood started on Oct. 1 as Sweet Briar’s new director of athletic facilities. She is in charge of the new 53,000-square-foot Fitness and Athletics Center, along with the Daisy Williams Gymnasium and all outdoor facilities.

Prior to coming to Sweet Briar, she was director of athletic facilities at Randolph College for four years.

Hazelwood is a graduate of Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, where she was a member of the varsity soccer team. After graduating from R-MWC, she earned a master’s in health and physical education from East Stroudsburg University.

She interned at Brown University, where she served as an event manager for the university’s varsity athletic department. She also served as the facility and equipment manager at Vassar College, assisting in the daily operation of the athletic facilities and managing game-day operations for Vassar’s 25 varsity sports.

Point of Honor will perform at Rockin’ for the Smile, a fundraiser for Operation Smile.

Bands Rockin’ for the Smile Nov. 6

From staff reports

2008 SBC alumna Michelle Raymond. Photo by Shawnee Custalow.

Sweet Briar College’s business management lab is hosting Rockin’ for the Smile, a benefit concert for Operation Smile, from 4 to 8 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 6 at the Dell. The event will help Operation Smile fund surgeries for underprivileged children.

Operation Smile specializes in surgeries on children who have cleft palates, cleft lips or other facial deformities. They raise money to provide free medical treatment to children who cannot afford necessary surgeries that are usually performed at birth.

Rockin’ for the Smile is going to bring in three bands to raise funds and awareness for Operation Smile. Michelle Raymond, a Sweet Briar alumna, and the Michelle Raymond Band are coming from Washington, D.C. Point of Honor is coming from Lynchburg and Roanoke, and Swing and Miss is coming from Danville.

Rockin’ for the Smile is open to all Sweet Briar College students, faculty and staff, as well as the neighboring communities. Admission for non-Sweet Briar attendees is $2 per person. Limited refreshments will be available.

Please call (434) 826-9900 or e-mail catalano11@sbc.edu with any questions.

Sweet Briar House Gets New Table, Rocking Chair

From staff reports

The new rocker.

Sweet Briar House, the home of College President Jo Ellen Parker, recently received two “new” pieces of furniture. The items, which include an early 19th-century mahogany table and an upholstered rocking chair, were donated by Melinda Collie and her husband, David.

Collie, an interior decorator, is a 1979 graduate of Sweet Briar. She and her husband also collect Early American antiques.

The table, which seats 16 when the leaves are in place, will be used in the dining room at Sweet Briar House. According to Sweet Briar Museum director Christian Carr, it is thought to have been made by Duncan Phyfe in 1815 or earlier.

The chair is upholstered in crushed red velvet and has an eagle engraved at the top of the back. It was reportedly used by one of the Collies’ relatives, who was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Carr said chairs of this type were given to members of the House of Representatives during the antebellum period.

Berry’s Ride to Championship Recorded in Chronicle of the Horse

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Sweet Briar riding fellow Jason Berry teamed up with Sox In The City at the Warrenton Horse Show in September to win the International Hunter Futurity Eastern Regional championship in the 3-year-old division, according to an article in the Sept. 18 issue of The Chronicle of the Horse.

Berry, who began teaching at Sweet Briar this fall, and the horse were competing together for the first time.

“Jason Berry had never met Sox In The City before saddling him for the Warrenton Horse Show and IHF Eastern Regional, but they quickly developed a partnership,” the article said.

Berry and Sox In The City also won the tri-color 3-year-old hunter division the day before the IHF, where they were first and second over fences and sixth in the under saddle, the Chronicle said.

Buck Edwards and alumnae take an early morning bird walk during the 1977 reunion weekend.

Buck Edwards: Sweet Briar’s Bird Man

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

Buck (left) and Griffith at Sweet Briar Lake.


Edwards looking every bit the adventurer.


Edwards and his wife in 1970.


Edwards bird watches with students in 1972.


Edwards at his 90th birthday party.

In the sepia-tone photo, two grinning, barefoot boys sit in a rowboat, side by side. They’re wearing knickers and short-sleeved, collared shirts, and their feet appear blackened, perhaps from running around shoeless on a warm summer day.

In the background, Sweet Briar’s Lower Lake stretches to what is now a hardwood forest on the other side. In the photo it is a grassy hill, dotted with young trees.

The boy on the right holds a short fishing pole with two small-mouthed bass dangling from the line. The other, stretched lankily on the seat next to his brother, hands folded in his lap, is Ernest Preston Edwards, who would eventually be known as “Buck,” and, years later, a world-renown ornithologist and Sweet Briar’s Dorys McConnell Duberg Professor of Ecology.

The photo was taken in the summer of 1930, the year Eastman Kodak gave Brownie cameras — about 500,000 total — to children born in 1918, Edwards said recently. The photo was probably taken by Billy Worthington, the son of a Sweet Briar professor.

Edwards’ brother, George, who went by his middle name, Griffith, was 12 years old that year. It is he who is pictured with Edwards in the rowboat. “My brother fit in that age group and got his free camera, and immediately went on a photography spree,” Edwards said, adding that he was 10 or 11 years old at the time the photo was taken.

Now 90 and retired since 1990, Edwards is one of the College’s oldest emeritus professors and perhaps one of its best known, having been Sweet Briar’s ornithologist, or “bird man,” for decades. He now lives at Westminster Canterbury in Lynchburg, but visited campus recently to talk about his life at Sweet Briar.

When he visited campus, he brought with him a black paper photo album of images taken with Griffith’s Brownie camera. Among the photos affixed to its fragile pages, were snapshots of the family dog, a white collie called Mohini, and the cat, a striped tabby named Theodore.

There were photos of Camp Tye Brook in Lowesville, some from a visit to Monticello and images of Sweet Briar from the 1930s. One photo shows Edwards and other campus children hanging from all sides of the Williams family monument and another of him and some kids sitting in a bird bath.

Early Life at Sweet Briar

The Edwards brothers, which also included eldest brother Howard, moved to Sweet Briar in 1927. Their father was a physics professor at the College from 1927 to 1943 and their mother, a librarian. The couple had met and married in India while working as teachers under the auspices of the Presbyterian Church.

Edwards’ father, also named Ernest, grew up a Southern Baptist in Darlington, S.C. He wanted to “roam around the world,” Edwards said, an opportunity the Baptists weren’t offering at the time. So, he hooked up with the Presbyterians and traveled to India, where he met and married Mabel Griffith, of Utica, N.Y.

Three of the couple’s four children were born in India, including a daughter, Ruth Cary, who died when she was a year old. Edwards describes his mother as quiet and unassuming, and believes she never completely got over losing her daughter and having to leave her buried so far away.

Edwards has fond memories of growing up at Sweet Briar, first at Faculty Row No. 4, then down the street at No. 6. His mother would cook food with curry powder, perhaps a carryover from her time in India, and he and Griffith would play basketball and field hockey with the Sweet Briar girls. He doesn’t recall having any crushes on the students but says he liked them very much.

He went to Amherst Presbyterian Church with the students, and they took him to Lynchburg when Ringling Brothers’ circus came to town. His mother chaperoned them at dances at the University of Virginia, Virginia Military Institute and Hampden-Sydney, and they would visit the house on Faculty Row.

“Mostly, we’d hang around the gymnasium or the hockey field or the baseball field and play sports with them,” Edwards said.

The youngest Edwards boys are mentioned on page 179 of “The Story of Sweet Briar College,” by Martha Lou Lemmon Stohlman. They were known on campus for their hockey skills and played with a non-student team called The Campus Characters. Of them, Stohlman writes, “… the Edwards boys, the physics professor’s young sons, barefoot among the clashing sticks, always emerged unscathed — usually with the ball.”

Edwards and Griffith sold root beers to men building Williams Gymnasium and Mary Helen Cochran Library, and newspapers and magazines to faculty and staff. They also learned how to milk cows at the school’s dairy farm. Edwards said his dad, disdainful of the dairy’s Holsteins because their milk had a lower percentage of butter fat, kept a Jersey cow behind their house for a while.

At Halloween, “when trick-or-treating had never been heard of,” Edwards said he and Griffith went to a costume party on Faculty Row, where they “bobbed for apples from the Sweet Briar orchard and drank cider from the orchard.”

The brothers went on a late-night coon hunt on Paul Mountain with a man who worked at the dairy farm and spent lazy summer days at the lake, fishing, boating and sometimes camping on its banks. Edwards said Sweet Briar’s director of grounds once scolded him for playing hopscotch “from one boat seat to the other as we launched a rowboat from the dock.”

He also remembers diving to the bottom of Sweet Briar Lake for a handful of mud to see what kinds of things lived inside, “meanwhile oblivious to the fact that we were muddying up the water for the other swimmers.”

Their route to the lake took the brothers past the Boxwood Inn, today’s Alumnae House. “They had a soda fountain and I knew the lady who ran the place, and they would give me free ice cream sometimes if I looked real hungry,” Edwards said.

Shortly after the Edwards family moved to Sweet Briar, eldest brother Howard went to Darlington to attend high school in his dad’s hometown. He lived with an aunt, and when old enough, each of his brothers followed.

Edwards, who towers over most people at 6 feet 6 inches tall, was small for his age in high school, having skipped third grade back in Amherst. Despite being a foot shorter than he is today, Edwards said he was a good basketball player in high school, better in fact than after he had a growth spurt in college.

He said he would have liked to have played varsity ball in college but with his labs and classes didn’t have time to practice.

The Bird Man and the Wildflower Girl

Edwards thinks he first became interested in birds when he made a blue bird box as a kindergartener living in South Carolina. Several years later, when he returned to the Palmetto State for high school, his passion was cemented.

“We lived near a cypress swamp and I went down there and saw a hooded warbler and ruby-crowned kinglet and then that really hooked me hard,” he said.

Around the same time, he was also thinking about college. He wanted to go to Cornell University, which is well-known for its ornithology program, but couldn’t afford it. In the end, he went to the University of Virginia, where he earned a biology degree in 1940.

In 1941, Edwards finally got the chance to go to Cornell. Over the next eight years, he earned a master’s in ornithology and vertebrate zoology and doctorate in ornithology, zoology and botany, dividing his studies with a stint in the U.S. Army during World War II and the Korean War. After his military service and time at Cornell, he worked as a civilian with the Army’s Chemical Corps in Frederick, Md. There, in 1954, he met his wife, Mabel Thacher.

Mabel, a naturalized Canadian, also worked for the corps, and she was head of a branch of the Maryland Ornithological Society. She also liked wildflowers, particularly terrestrial orchids such as lady slippers, Edwards said, an interest she developed as a child on family trips to the mountains and lowlands of Kentucky.

“I guess we first met just walking around the Army base,” Edwards said. “I think she’d probably heard that I was interested in birds, so I gave a talk [to the Ornithological Society].”

Edwards soon found out that they had more in common than birds. Years before, while stationed with the Army in Louisville, he had met Mabel’s parents. He thinks they had “probably recommended” him, but regardless, Edwards said he thought she was cute and the feeling was mutual. They were married a year and a half later.

After they married, Edwards said they “were vagabonding” for a while. He had a summer job in Wisconsin, which was followed by two or three weeks studying birds in Mexico. He taught for friend at Hanover College who was on sabbatical and then for three years served as associate director of the Houston Museum of Natural History. During this time, he also did Audubon lectures about birds.

In 1965, after teaching for five years at the University of the Pacific in California, he and Mabel came to Sweet Briar, where he taught biology until he retired. That first summer, they lived on campus at Patteson House and then they rented an apartment on Kenmore Road in Amherst. For 20 years, they lived in Sanctuary Cottage, where Carrie and John Gregory Brown live today, before building a house on Woodland Road.

The couple, who enjoyed hiking the College’s acreage in search of birds and wildflowers, is responsible for compiling several lists of flora and fauna found on campus. Edwards credits his wife with finding and listing — complete with family, genus, species and other identifiers — more than 600 plants found on Sweet Briar property.

She also kept a journal detailing dozens of outings she took hunting wildflowers at Sweet Briar and on the Blue Ridge Parkway and Appalachian Trail.

Mabel died in 1996, and there is a wildflower garden on Farmhouse Road in her memory.

Edwards’ records also include a typed list of nearly 150 birds, along with pen and pencil notations about when they were seen or heard. The list, dated 1965, includes everything from mockingbirds and crows to less common birds, such as the eastern wood pewee, orange-crowned warbler, Lincoln’s sparrow and American redstart.

In addition to surveying Sweet Briar’s forests and sanctuaries, Edwards and his wife traveled the world together, studying the birds, wildflowers and culture of Africa, England, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, Central America and many U.S. states.

During this time, Edwards wrote several books and field guides including, “Finding Birds in Mexico,” “Finding Birds in Panama,” “A Field Guide to the Birds of Mexico” and “A Coded List of Birds of the World,” which has been called the “first complete one-volume list of the species of birds of the world to be published anywhere.”

Edwards also made films about his travels. He produced and narrated “Travels in Guatemala and Mexico: Ornithology, Archaeology, Anthropology,” and numerous other films shot overseas and at U.S. national parks. “I always say, around the world in eighty years,” he said, borrowing from Jules Verne. “But I haven’t been all the way around the world.”

During his travels, Edwards also spotted some very rare birds. “I saw two whooping cranes spending the winter in Aransas Wildlife Refuge in Texas when there were only thirteen in the entire world, including zoos,” he said. “I saw two trumpeter swans on a swampy lake in the Grand Tetons … when there were only a few dozen known to exist in the world.

“I saw a pair of Kirtland’s warblers and their nestlings in central Michigan when there were about 100 individuals of that species left in the world. All three species have grown considerably in numbers since those days and may eventually be considered out of danger.”

When asked about his favorite birds, however, he said his favorites in the United States are the wood thrush and indigo bunting, but abroad he prefers the quetzal. “It’s kind of iridescent green, about the size of a pigeon and mostly iridescent,” he said of the Costa Rican bird.

“[They’re] green on the back and bright red on the belly and the under parts, and a white tail, and then a long streamer of features going about two feet beyond the end of the tail that’s iridescent green. The Aztecs used them in their ceremonies and costumes.”

His “bucket list” — and he used that phrase exactly — includes one rare bird that he still hasn’t seen in its natural habitat: the hyacinth macaw. Seeing the rare bird would require a trip to the Pantanal, a swampy, marshy area of southern Brazil. “This one is all hyacinth color, kind of blue,” he said. “I’d like to see that one in the wild.”

Writers Series Welcomes Hannah Tinti

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

Hannah Tinti

Hannah Tinti’s novel, “The Good Thief,” started to come to life when she read two words: resurrection men. She had unearthed the phrase in “Forgotten English,” a Jeffrey Kacirk book about words that have nearly expired from the vernacular.

Resurrection men, she learned, were thieves who dug up corpses and sold them to doctors for medical research. An image came into her mind — grave robbers exhuming bodies under the cloak of near-darkness — and the first scene of the book was born.

“It was a moonlit night, and a small boy was holding the reins of a horse and wagon outside a graveyard,” Tinti said, describing the picture that was forming in her imagination. “I didn’t know anything about the boy, only that he was waiting for the resurrection men to bring the bodies, and that he was terrified.”

That scene became the first chapter Tinti wrote of “The Good Thief,” her first novel. She will read from the book at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5 in Sweet Briar’s Pannell Gallery. The event is part of the College’s 2009-2010 Writers Series, and admission is free.

As she continued writing that first scene, Tinti described the 11-year-old orphan. His name was Ren, and in his right hand, he held the horse’s reins. When she questioned what the boy was doing with his left hand, she was stumped until the answer hit her like a gravedigger’s shovel. Ren, she concluded, was missing his left hand.

“Suddenly the boy was alive,” she said. “This is how I discovered Ren’s secret, and I used it to unlock his character. It answered so many questions about him — why he was alone and how he might have fallen in with these dangerous men. Once I had this detail, the book came to me like a vision. I could see the whole thing. The details of the plot took much longer to figure out, though. Years.”

“The Good Thief,” which has been compared to works by Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson, is replete with fascinating and sometimes quirky characters. Among them are Benjamin Nab, who adopts Ren from a Catholic orphanage under false pretenses; landlady Mrs. Sands, who shouts in all-capital letters; and Dolly, a giant hit man who is befriended by Ren.

Sometimes, as in the case of Mrs. Sands and Dolly, characters just materialized. Dolly, for instance, appeared after Tinti, in a fit of boredom, thought, “What’s the weirdest thing that could happen right now?”

“Others, like Benjamin, I had to really work on,” she said. “My writing technique is sort of like using a divining rod. I try and bring my intuition into it as much as possible. Sometimes that works splendidly. Other times it takes me on false roads for awhile.”

In addition to “The Good Thief,” Tinti is author of the short story collection “Animal Crackers,” and she is co-founder of One Story magazine. Currently, she is 100 pages into her next novel and waiting to see if “The Good Thief” catches the attention of film directors.

If it does, Tinti could offer some advice to the casting director. “For Ren, it would have to be some unknown kid,” she said, “although I loved Dillon Freasier, who played Daniel Day-Lewis’ son in ‘There Will Be Blood.’ For Benjamin, I always imagined someone like Johnny Depp. [For] Dolly, I’d say Brendan Gleeson or James Gandolfini.”

The next event in the Writers Series will feature D.A. Powell, poet and author of “Tea,” “Lunch,” “Cocktails” and “Chronic.” The reading will begin at 8 p.m. Thursday, March 25 in the Boxwood Room of the Florence Elston Inn & Conference Center.

For more information, contact John Gregory Brown, director of Sweet Briar’s creative writing program at brown@sbc.edu or Ext. 6434.

Cat Playpen

From staff reports

The Albemarle Pipes and Drums leads the academic procession to Upchurch Field House.

Parker Sworn in as SBC’s 10th President

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Jo Ellen Parker

It began like a slow faucet leak — rain dripping from a leaden sky — and finished like a busted water main.

By 3 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 26, when the inauguration of Jo Ellen Johnson Parker as Sweet Briar College’s 10th president was set to begin, a soaking rain was falling. Led by the Albemarle Pipes and Drums, the academic procession snaked across the dell under a moving canopy of umbrellas from Prothro Hall, where the marchers had donned their regalia.

Delegates from other colleges filed into Upchurch Field House first, followed by board members, faculty, the Class of 2010, senior staff and the presidential party — each giving rise to louder cheers from the gathering inside the Fitness and Athletics Center.

Taking note of the undampened enthusiasm, board of directors chair Virginia Upchurch Collier ’72 delivered a defining line for the day as she opened the ceremony.

“I thank you for the rousing welcome that we received as we walked into this field house,” she said. “I can tell you that there’s nothing better than a Sweet Briar cheer to turn a rainy day into a sunny one.”

Collier would administer the oath and place the presidential medallion and its pink and green ribbon over Parker’s head, charging her to carry out the duties of office. But first she introduced a speaker, Mary Patterson McPherson. McPherson, executive officer of the American Philosophical Society and president emeritus of Bryn Mawr College, also is Parker’s friend and former teacher at Bryn Mawr, where Parker earned a bachelor’s in English and later taught.

McPherson spoke of the particular challenges of leading a liberal arts college in this age. Among them, technology is profoundly influencing how, when and where learning occurs, she said, and generally “making us rethink how we do our business.” Today, colleges also must prepare students for the “information economy,” and for living in a world of shifting influence and power, she said.

But these epochal challenges also can give small colleges new energy and importance, she said, noting that Sweet Briar appears ready to address the key educational opportunities of our time. Its emphasis on the languages and culture of other countries, and encouragement of living and learning abroad, is good grounding for understanding and adapting intelligently to the changing role of America as new economic powers emerge, she said.

Liberal arts education, which excels at teaching historical context, critical reasoning and inculcating students to continue learning for a lifetime, has an essential role in such a world. And Sweet Briar can be a partner in what may be our best investment in the future: girls’ education. There is growing recognition that the best way to beat global poverty is by empowering women in developing countries, McPherson said, and women’s colleges can ride that wave.

Technology is a theme that Parker would pick up in her inaugural address. As she embarks on her presidency, she cast about for “tutelary deities whose auspices I should cultivate,” she said, and settled on the double-headed Janus who sees both the past and the future.

“As scholars and educators we stand between those from whom we have learned and those who learn from us, between the lessons of the past and the discoveries of the future. It is the Janus-like role of higher education to simultaneously interpret the past, serve the present and generate the future,” she said.

Increasingly, higher education is “called to account for itself in purely immediate terms,” Parker said, with demands for students to land the best jobs after graduation or academic laboratories to make the next profitable discovery. She acknowledged these things are right and necessary, but not sufficient by themselves.

Quoting Yogi Berra — an apparent influence of McPherson who also borrowed a Yogi-ism — Parker said the future ain’t what it used to be, demographically, economically, “and crucially, it ain’t what it used to be technologically.”

Arriving at what promises to be a hallmark of her tenure, Parker said, “Digital information technology marks one of those moments of punctuated equilibrium that irreversibly changes the relationship between the past of higher education and its future.”

Information used to be scarce, expensive and difficult to move. The structures of education were built around that reality, she said. “The educational challenge now is not making sure that students have access to sufficient information but rather making sure they know how to sort through overwhelming amounts of information with which they are bombarded.”

To ready students to shape the future, Parker said, “We must make sure that we are educating them to be digitally sophisticated artists, or historians, or educators, or physicians, or field biologists, or librarians or whatever else they may choose to be.”

But, importantly, Parker said, we don’t have to choose between analog and digital — between seminars and webinars, essays and blogs, or field work and remote instrumentation. “We must learn to use digital tools and resources for what they are uniquely able to do, and to use print and personal interaction for what they are uniquely able to do.”

The ceremony included greetings to the president and Sweet Briar community from around the world by several faculty and students speaking in their native languages. An inaugural ode also was performed with lyrics from George Eliot’s poem “The Choir Invisible” set to music by Dean Jonathan Green.

Following Chaplain Adam White’s benediction, the academic and presidential parties were to recess, then continue up Monument Hill to conduct the College’s traditional Founders’ Day service at the Fletcher and Williams family cemetery. Because of the weather, the ritual was moved to Memorial Chapel.

For a long time after the marchers, attendees and staff who worked the event left the field house of Sweet Briar’s brand new Fitness and Athletics Center, the strains of bagpipes and drums could be heard, muted by distance but not the falling rain.

Filson to Appear in ‘Rent’

Tickets available starting Oct. 1

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

Shelbie Filson

Shelbie Filson, Sweet Briar’s box office manager and academic assistant in the dean’s office, will soon appear in the Renaissance Theatre production of “Rent.”

The rock opera, which is loosely based on Puccini’s “La Boheme,” runs for four consecutive weekends in October and November — Oct. 30 and 31, Nov. 6 through 8, Nov. 13 through 15 and Nov. 19 through 21. Shows begin at 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and 3 p.m. on Sundays.

“Rent” tells the story of eight young, Bohemian New Yorkers living in the shadow of AIDS. The Tony Award-winning musical premiered in 1996 and had a 12-year run on Broadway that ended after more than 5,000 performances.

Filson, a 1991 Sweet Briar graduate who majored in English with a minor in theater, will perform in the ensemble. Among other characters, she will play Mark’s mother, Mrs. Cohen. “Ensemble members in ‘Rent’ play several different characters like parents, homeless people, street vendors, people attending a support group meeting, cops, etcetera,” she explained.

“They all flow in and out of the characters, depending on what’s needed for any given space. The show has a pretty raw form of staging and when it first opened [in 1996] I think it was considered unique and cutting edge.”

Filson has appeared in several Renaissance shows. Her credits include “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Rumors,” “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” “Cabaret,” “Taming of the Shrew,” “Picasso at the Lapin Agile,” “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” and “Grease.”

Until now, however, she has not had the opportunity to perform in “Rent,” although she has seen the musical several times, including twice on Broadway. “I am so excited about the show,” she said. “It’s my very favorite musical … so having this chance is amazing.”

Tickets for “Rent” are $15 and available starting Thursday, Oct. 1. For reservations, call (434) 845-4427 or purchase tickets online at LynchburgTickets.com.

An opening night reception will be held at 7:15 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 30. Renaissance Theater is located on Commerce Street in Lynchburg.

Fitness and Athletics Center Dedicated During Weekend Festivities

Paul Cronin, Jennifer Crispen inducted into Hall of Fame

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

The Real Geniuses perform. Photo by Aaron Mahler.

An immutable din of happy voices filled Upchurch Field House on the night of Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009. They — Sweet Briar students, alumnae, faculty, staff and guests — had come for a party in this room where just a few hours earlier Jo Ellen Johnson Parker was officially sworn in as the College’s 10th president.

Maybe it was the excitement of the day or the long anticipation of being in this room in this building, Sweet Briar’s Fitness and Athletics Center, which is so brand new that crews would be back to work on it Monday. For most, the events of this Inauguration/Homecoming Weekend offered their first look inside the center.

Revelers basked in the green glow cast by the wall paint and the lighting set up for the occasion. The room had been transformed from earlier in the day, when 1,100 or so chairs had filled much of the floor. Now, more than 100 tables were elegantly set and food stations around the perimeter offered Latin, Mediterranean, Asian and Virginian tapas-style cuisine.

On this night, the College was celebrating the inauguration of a new president, the dedication of the long-awaited building, and the induction of two cherished members of the Sweet Briar teaching community into its Athletics Hall of Fame, Paul D. Cronin and the late Jennifer Leigh Crispen.

It was “undoubtedly one of the most phenomenal days in the history of Sweet Briar,” said Kathy Upchurch Takvorian ’72, one of several speakers during the formal dedication of the fitness center, which opened the gala. The field house is named for Ann Samford Upchurch ’48, mother of Takvorian and board of directors chair Virginia Upchurch Collier ’72.

All three were student athletes during their time at Sweet Briar and continued to support the College through philanthropy and service on numerous committees and the board. Takvorian chaired the fundraising committee for the fitness center.

After a ceremonial ribbon cutting, the stage was turned over to The Real Geniuses, who would go on to rock the house into the early hours of the morning. Between the band’s first and second sets, however, the Hall of Fame induction ceremony was held to honor Cronin, director of the riding program for 34 years until he retired in 2002, and Crispen, who coached several sports and taught at Sweet Briar for 30 years.

Cronin was inducted by Vivian Yamaguchi Cohn ’77, a former student. Acknowledging Cronin’s many accomplishments and awards as a coach and horseman, Cohn said he is a teacher first and used his tenure to integrate the College’s educational mission into its riding program. Most importantly, she said, he is an exceptional human being.

Katie Hearn ’85 inducted Crispen, who died in November 2008 after a courageous battle against cancer. With Crispen’s mother also in attendance, her sister, Whitney Crispen Hagins, accepted the honor. Hagins thanked the people she knew Crispen would deflect credit to, and brought some to tears and laughter with reminiscences of her sister’s always-ready-to-try-anything spirit.

With the induction concluded, the band, which had been chosen for the event by a student vote, took the stage again. Before long, the tables were mostly empty, the dance floor was packed and the all-out party was on.

New Briefs

From staff reports

Newsletter Goes to Once a Month

In September, @sbc, the faculty/staff newsletter at Sweet Briar College started running once a month, the same schedule it has used in the past during the summer months and winter break.

From now on, new “issues” of @sbc will be released on or about the first of each month. Please send submissions or news tips to newsletter@sbc.edu or sramsey@sbc.edu no later than the 25th day of the previous month.

Also, any time of the month, please visit the Sweet Briar news page for more stories about Sweet Briar, its people and events.

If you have an opinion you’d like to express about the newsletter or a question about the schedule change, please e-mail newsletter@sbc.edu .

Clifford Ruritan Sorghum Festival is Oct. 3 and 4
Jousting, crafts, food and entertainment on the program at annual festival

The most popular event in Clifford, Va., will soon be here. For more than 30 years on the first full weekend in October, the Clifford Ruritans have brought together old-fashioned sorghum syrup and apple butter making, traditional Virginia music and food, historical presentations and much, much, more. This year, dozens of jousters from across the Commonwealth will come together to vie for the Virginia State Championship.

In addition to jousting, festival offerings include food — fresh, hot sandwiches, Brunswick stew, beverages and desserts; old-fashioned sorghum syrup and apple butter cooking and sales; fresh local produce, crafts, art, collectibles, gifts, jewelry and quilts; kids’ activities; Volkswagen car club show; a Civil War re-enactors campsite; and entertainment by The Little Mountain Boys, Profitt & Sandidge, the dance team from Amherst Dance Academy, Blue Ridge Star Square Dancers, and others.

The festival will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 3 and 4, rain or shine. Admission is free but there is a parking fee of $5 per car and $1 for motorcycles. Lawn chairs are welcome, but no pets, please. All proceeds benefit local community charities.

The Sorghum Festival is held at 755 Fletchers Level Road (State Rt. 610) in Clifford. From Lynchburg take Rt. 29 north, turn left on Rt. 151 and right on Fletchers Level Road. From Charlottesville, take Rt. 29 south and turn right onto Fletchers Level Road.

For more information, e-mail sorghumfestival@gmail.com or call (434) 946-2208.

Scholarship Auction for Monacans is Oct. 3

Rebecca Bryant, wing captain at the riding center, and her husband, R.G., are hosting a scholarship auction on Saturday, Oct. 3 to fund educational opportunities for Monacan children. The 17th annual auction begins at 11 a.m. at the tribal center church on Kenmore Road.

The auction is held in conjunction with the Monacan Homecoming. Items up for auction will include Native American crafts, pottery, clothing, quilts and even a horse. Past events have raised as much as $10,000, and more than $100,000 total has been raised over the past 16 years.

For more information, contact Bryant at 238-2110. 

Sweet Briar community members (from left) Ginny Zirkle, Suzanne Ramsey and Alison Crehore pose for a photo after finishing the Virginia 10-miler.

Community Members Run in Local Race

From staff reports

Several members of the Sweet Briar community were among the more than 1,700 people who ran in the Virginia 10-miler or 4-miler on Saturday, Sept. 26. The annual event starts and ends at E.C. Glass High School in Lynchburg and is known for its hilly terrain. A total of 925 runners finished the 10-miler and 695 the 4-miler.

It was the first 10-mile race for help desk technician Ginny Zirkle and riding center administrative assistant Alison Crehore. Zirkle and Crehore finished the challenging, out-and-back course together in 1 hour, 52 minutes and 23 seconds, and placed 849th and 850th, respectively.

Scott Pierce, assistant professor of engineering, finished the race in 1:29.24 and 434th place. Jamie Bost, son of college relations’ Catherine Bost, ran with the Virginia Military Institute’s Marathon Club. He posted a time of 1:11.40 and placed 103rd overall. Shannon Cotulla, husband of SWEBOP director Laura Staman, ran the race in 2:07.18 and finished 901st.

Suzanne Ramsey, staff writer in college relations, finished 207th overall with a time of 1:19.20. She also placed first in the women’s 40-44 age group and first in the Athena division, a competitive class for women who weigh more than 140 pounds (and aren’t afraid to admit it).

In the 4-mile race, computer support specialist Jeff Young ran 49:06 and placed 592nd.

Members of the Sweet Briar Cross Country Club also competed in the 4-miler and won the open female team division. Hilary Bowie ’12 led the way for Sweet Briar, placing 200th with a time of 36:41.

Laura McKenna ’10 followed in 245th place and 37:52. Carlie Adams ’10 ran 38:07 and placed 254th and Alle Taylor ’10 finished a few seconds later at 38:11 and 258th place. Izzy Begej ’13 posted a time of 46:59 and placed 564th.

Tucker waits patiently before digging into the Thanksgiving Day turkey.

Calendar Dog Raises Money for Riding Center

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Tucker exhibits his patriotic side for July.

Tucker French must like to dress up or he’s just a natural ham in front of a camera. Whatever motivates riding director Shelby French’s 3-year-old beagle-chow-greyhound-et. al. mix, he sat patiently through enough photos to fill an 18-month calendar that the riding center is selling as a fundraiser.

Every photo or group of photos features Tucker in all manner of costume or setting — wearing academic regalia, sitting down to a full Thanksgiving table or perched on horseback.

“Yes, amazingly, Tucker was a willing participant,” said French in understated fashion for someone who has photographed her dog wearing, variously, a tiara, sunglasses, and a huge cut-out valentine on his head like a giant Elizabethan collar.

The calendar project evolved last year from the riding center’s Halloween hayride for area children, French said.

“We dressed all the riding center dogs for the preschool trick-or-treat hay ride and Tucker’s photo as Super Tucker generated the calendar idea,” she said. “After the Halloween shot, I did a Christmas picture and then when we had the snow I took a few shots. Then it became sort of a game to think of photo ops that would work for each month and or mean something about life at Sweet Briar.”

There are photos of Tucker basking in the sun on a Sweet Briar towel in August and dressed in pink and green — and pearls — posing on residence hall steps with luggage in September. He sports a toboggan on his furry black and tan head in the January snow and Easter bunny ears in April. Tucker does not always appear amused in his getups, but bears a dignified if inscrutable countenance that leaves you guessing what might be going through his canine brain.

If French knows his thoughts, she hasn’t said, but there’s one thing she is certain of. “The best thing about it is that if I am having a long day I just take out the calendar and it always puts a smile on my face,” she said.

French adopted Tucker when he was about 12 weeks old, after the skinny puppy was discovered alone in a hay barn at the riding center.

The calendars are printed on heavy card stock and cost $16 to produce, so the riding center is asking $25 a piece for them. About 45 have been sold so far. A former student also created a Tucker Facebook page to promote the calendar. Tucker had 139 fans at last count.

The money raised through calendar sales will go into a special project account to help with ring footing and ring maintenance, French said.

Those interested in buying one can contact the riding center at (434) 381-6116, e-mail Alison Crehore at acrehore@sbc.edu, or send a check payable to Sweet Briar Riding and one will be mailed or delivered to the address indicated. The calendar runs August 2009 through January 2011.

Sweet Briar Response to H1N1 Focuses on Prevention, Communication

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Most of us are aware that H1N1 influenza virus, also known as swine flu, is being reported at colleges and universities throughout the country and in the Central Virginia area. Fortunately, H1N1 has tended to produce mild illness, although like all flu viruses, it can pose a significant threat and must be taken seriously.

To date, seven students have required isolation due to suspected influenza and all have recovered or are expected to recover soon. No employee illnesses have been reported, so the impact on Sweet Briar has been minimal — and the College is doing all it can to ensure it stays that way.

Sweet Briar’s health services and co-curricular life staff are coordinating with local and state health officials to ensure the College is following the latest recommendations and providing the most up-to-date information available from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Sweet Briar also is working with other colleges and universities to monitor flu conditions.

There has been ongoing communication with students, parents, faculty and staff through posters, e-mail, newsletters, mailings and Web postings — all with one overarching message: Prevention is the best defense against flu.

Finally, Health Center and human resources staff members are working together, sharing information and protocols for handling students and employees who become ill. Testing to confirm H1N1 is not available at Sweet Briar, nor is it available locally, in accordance with CDC and local health department guidelines. However, because it is too early for seasonal flu to have made its annual arrival, health officials believe it is reasonable to treat individuals with influenza-like illness as swine flu cases.

Influenza-like illness is generally defined as having respiratory symptoms accompanied by a fever of 100 degrees or more.

With regard to students, specific steps the College is taking in response to H1N1 include:

• More than 85 students have taken advantage of seasonal flu shots offered for $25 through the Health Center, a number more than triple any previous record. Remaining doses will be made available for employees in October, when the second shipment arrives.


• A minimum of 200 doses of swine flu vaccine are expected to arrive in mid-October. The preventive vaccine is free and students will be strongly encouraged to get vaccinated.


• The Health Center is holding educational programs in Prothro atrium at noon every Thursday. Swine flu is featured weekly and a second health-related topic is added to the program every other week. Students can talk with Health Center staff and pick up informational brochures.


• The Health Center distributed individual-size bottles of alcohol-based hand sanitizer gel to all new students during orientation. About 330 bottles have been distributed to students during the noon atrium programs.


• The Health Center has implemented protocols for triaging suspected swine flu and for treating individuals with respiratory symptoms while minimizing or eliminating exposure to students visiting the center for other reasons. Students are asked to call to discuss their symptoms before visiting the center. Students with respiratory symptoms are asked to use a separate entrance and are seen in rooms reserved for that purpose.


• Students with flu-like illness are encouraged to go home if possible to recover. Otherwise, they are asked to self-isolate in their rooms or in housing on campus designated for the purpose until 24 hours after a fever is gone without the use of fever-suppressing medications.


• The Health Center provides care packages for ill students and dining services delivers meals. They are given surgical masks to wear when their roommates are present and when in the hallway and bathrooms.


• Roommates who are not ill are given the option of staying or having alternate housing available during the course of the illness. Cleaning supplies also are provided for well students who choose to remain with their roommates.


• Students are not asked to wear masks outside of their residence halls. If they have flu-like illness, they should remain in self-isolation for the recommended period of 24 hours after a fever.


• Students with flu-like symptoms are discouraged from attending class. They are expected to communicate electronically with their faculty members regarding their situation and are encouraged to keep up with their academic work as they are able.


• The Health Center has some antiviral medication for students who are at high risk for complications from the flu. Additional antiviral medication is available at local pharmacies. Most healthy individuals do not need antiviral drugs.


• A more detailed listing of these measures has been e-mailed to students, parents, faculty and staff, and is posted on the co-curricular life Web site as H1N1 (Swine Flu) Information.

With regard to employees, specific steps the College is taking include:

• The College has requested swine flu vaccine for employees and will announce when and if it becomes available, probably in mid-October. The quantity received will depend on available supplies. The vaccine will be distributed through the Health Center. A temporary nursing staff member will be employed to avoid disrupting service to students. All employees are encouraged to get the free vaccine, particularly those who are at greater risk of exposure and those at risk for complications from flu. To determine if you are at risk, visit the CDC Web site vaccination page.


• An e-mail was distributed to all employees on Sept. 7 that included information about preventing the spread of H1N1 and vaccine availability.


• Physical plant director Steve Bailey and human resources director Barbara Parker have met with physical plant employees to ensure that information is disseminated to everyone, including those without access to campus e-mail.


• Additional protocols are being implemented to assist employees who interact with students with flu-like illness, including physical plant, dining services and safety department employees.


• In accordance with CDC recommendations, employees who have flu-like illness are being asked to stay home until their fever has been gone for 24 hours without medication.


• Employees are encouraged to get vaccinated against seasonal flu. Southern Health, Sweet Briar’s health insurance provider, offers seasonal flu shots for a Tier 1 co-payment of $15 at the following pharmacies: Kmart, CVS, Rite Aid, Kroger, Walgreens, Ukrop’s, Westwood and Westbury Pharmacies. The vaccine is available from your health care provider for a $25 co-pay, and the student health center will make unused vaccine available to employees for $25.


• Human resources will track the number of suspected H1N1 cases among employees to assess its spread and determine if preventive measures being taken are effective. Supervisors should report the data to human resources at Ext. 6506 or by e-mail.

For more information
It is important to reiterate that the H1N1 virus is a novel influenza strain that local, state, federal and world health officials are monitoring constantly. As more is learned about the virus, CDC recommendations change. For the most up-to-date information or for details not provided here, visit the CDC Web site.

Another good source for information, including instructional videos, is http://www.publichealth.va.gov/flu/materials/videos.asp.

Prevention
While what is known about H1N1 is changing, some things are constant, including that flu spreads easily from person to person. You can minimize your exposure by following these guidelines:

• Wash your hands frequently for a minimum of 15-20 seconds each time using soap and running water.


• Use alcohol-based hand sanitizer gel or wipes when water is unavailable, rubbing your hands together until the gel is dry.


• Practice respiratory etiquette by covering your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue away. If you don’t have a tissue, cough or sneeze into your elbow or shoulder, not into your hands.


• Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth.


• Do not eat or drink after others.


• Eat well, stay hydrated, rest, exercise and follow good health guidelines.


• Incorporate stress management techniques in your daily routine.


• Get vaccinated for seasonal and H1N1 flu when available.


• Clean your environment. Viruses can survive on surfaces and infect individuals for two to eight hours after being deposited on the surface (books, pens, doorknobs, desks, phones, computers). Wipe surfaces down with household disinfectant or with chlorine, hydrogen peroxide, detergents or alcohol.


• If you develop symptoms of flu, avoid close contact with others and call your health care provider for advice on treatment. Symptoms include a fever greater than 100 degrees, headache, body aches, fatigue, dry cough, sore throat and, occasionally, nausea or diarrhea.

New Faces

From staff reports

Cheryl Elkins

Cheryl Elkins
Elson Inn & Conference Center

Cheryl Elkins is the new catering manager at the Elston Inn & Conference Center. She started on Sept. 9 and came to Sweet Briar from Ferrum College, where she was the assistant director of dining.

Elkins worked at Ferrum, where she also is working on a bachelor’s degree in business administration, for five years. She started there as the food court manager.

She lives in Ferrum, Va., with her husband and two boys, ages 17 and 14. She is a native of Rocky Mount, Va., and when she’s not working she enjoys four-wheeling with her boys and spending time at Philpott Lake.

Switched at Birth?

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

Bananas, a female Bernese mountain dog, is new to Sweet Briar this fall.

Bananas

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

Bananas exhibits one of her quirky habits, while Walker gives her a good scratching. McEwen (at left) holds her leash.

Bananas is a 13-month-old female Bernese mountain dog who lives with assistant professor of philosophy Bryce Walker and his girlfriend, Melissa McEwen. Walker and McEwen live on Elijah Road in the Music Box and are frequently seen around campus walking the tri-colored Bananas.

According to McEwen, Bananas’ favorite things include snow and eating butter — “whole sticks, including the wrapping.” She loves horses, and enjoys kissing them on the nose. She can dribble a soccer ball, likes playing with walnuts and loves all people, tall grass and the observatory trail.

Some of Bananas’ quirky habits are “standing halfway between your legs so you can reach down and scratch her hind quarters,” McEwen said, and although she’s not a “big barker” she grunts a lot when excited.

As for how Bananas got her name, Walker says that’s “top secret,” McEwen said.

Amherst United Boys U17 Travel Team (from left, front row) Jarrett Hannan, Matthew Payne, Tyler Gordon, Kaine Floyd, Dylan Nixon, Mack Granger, Andrew Morcom and Colton Stinson, and (from left, back row) Connor Irvin, Graham Carter, Jonathan McMillan, William Crehore, Coach Steve Gordon, Walker Brown and Matthew Mays.

Faculty, Staff Kids Win Soccer Tourney

Upcoming games schedule at SBC, fans much appreciated

From staff reports

The Amherst United Boys U17 Travel Team, which includes the sons of several Sweet Briar community members, won the 2009 Danville Summer Sizzle Soccer Tournament held Aug. 29 and 30 in Danville. The tournament involved teams from central and southwest Virginia.

The Amherst team includes Walker Brown, son of creative writing faculty members John and Carrie Brown; William Crehore, son of the riding center’s Alison Crehore; Mack Granger, son of chemistry professors Jill and Rob Granger; and Matt Payne, son of Gail Payne in the business office.

At the tournament, the team played four games, including the championship game against Valley Area Football Club Arsenal. When time expired, the teams were tied 3-3, which led to a series of penalty kicks. When the score remained even, there was a “sudden death” kick off, which Coach Steve Gordon described as kicking penalty kicks “until one team makes it and the other team does not.”

It was the first-ever tournament victory for the team. In his account of the match, Gordon wrote, “Players, parents and coaches are proud of this accomplishment, as this is Amherst’s first championship title in tournament action. Many thanks go out for all that helped, played and cheered for Amherst.”

The team practices two nights a week on the lower athletics fields behind Sweet Briar’s Babcock Fine Arts Center, and plays home games there as well. According to Alison Crehore, one father said, “This would be very difficult to accomplish if it weren’t for Sweet Briar working with AUSC.”

Upcoming home games are scheduled for 1 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 4; 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 18; 1 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 1; and 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 7. Fans are welcome and much appreciated.

‘Pie-A-Senior’ is Oct. 15

Business students host fundraiser for Operation Smile

MARY O'DONNELL '11

The fall 2009 Business Management Lab is hosting a Pie-A-Senior event from 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 15 in the main dining hall of Prothro. This event is being held to raise money for Operation Smile, an organization that fixes children’s cleft palates in Third World countries.

Pie-A-Senior is an event where students and faculty are able to bid money to pie a senior in the face. In order to figure out who the seniors are going to be, students and faculty are asked to nominate a senior.

As nominations are received, e-mails are sent to the seniors who are nominated asking whether or not they are willing to be pied. Then, a list of seniors who have agreed to be pied is compiled and there will be a silent auction during breakfast, lunch and dinner from Oct. 9 through 13. Anyone is allowed to place a bid on the seniors, starting at $5.

A list will be made of the highest bidders from the silent auction, but being the highest bidder does not guarantee you will be the one to pie the senior. On Oct. 15, during the event, the audience will be given the chance to outbid the highest bid placed from the silent auction for the right to pie a senior.

To nominate a senior or for more information, e-mail odonnell11@sbc.edu .

VCCA Celebrates International Milestone with Public Event

Mark calendar for Oct. 17

From staff reports

Peter Mayer’s 1998 untitled terra cotta horse sculpture is part of the exhibit.


Jens Barnieck

In 1988, two upstart artist fellowship programs agreed on an experiment. The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus, located in the picturesque Bavarian village of Schwandorf, each agreed to send two of their own artists to be in residence at the other place.

In 1989, the first two Americans went to Germany. Twenty years later, 100 artists have traveled back and forth, with exhibitions, translations, concerts and events in their wake. A wonderful relationship has developed among the artists and administrators of the two organizations, often resulting in friendships that have lasted for many, many years.

The VCCA is celebrating this milestone on Saturday, Oct. 17, with art and music created by the exchange artists. The event, to be held in the Fellows Residence at Mt. San Angelo, is free and open to the general public and includes an art exhibition from 3 to 5 p.m. and a concert of music for piano by Bavarian composer Jens Barnieck from 5 to 6 p.m. Refreshments will be served. All art featured in the exhibition is for sale.

Several American and German fellows who have participated in the exchange will attend the event. In addition, the director of the Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus, Heiner Riepl, and the organization’s board president will be on hand to make remarks.

The VCCA’s international exchange program, with seven artist communities abroad, is one of the oldest and largest of its kind in the country. And this event is a rare opportunity for the public to visit the VCCA and meet artists from around the world.

For more information about the event, call 946-7236 or e-mail vcca@vcca.com .

‘Buck’ Edwards Celebrates 90th Birthday

From staff reports

Buck Edwards stands in front of a poster painted for his birthday by studio art professor Laura Pharis.

On Friday, Sept. 25, Sweet Briar College’s biology department hosted a 90th birthday party for Dorys McConnell Duberg Professor of Ecology Emeritus Ernest “Buck” Edwards. The party drew dozens of faculty, staff, alumnae, students and friends of Edwards.

For the event, studio art professor Laura Pharis painted a large ivory billed woodpecker with birthday congratulations (pictured at left), which was displayed in the Guion entryway, and the Sweet Tones sang a couple of songs, including “Shenandoah.”

Edwards, one of the College’s oldest emeritus professors, grew up on Sweet Briar’s campus and was instrumental in establishing several of the College’s nature sanctuaries. According to biology professor Linda Fink, he “knows more about Sweet Briar’s thirty-two hundred acres than any other living soul.”

Edwards’ dad was a physic professor, and the family lived on Faculty Row. Edwards and his older brother, George, are mentioned on page 179 of “The Story of Sweet Briar College,” by Martha Lou Lemmon Stohlman. The boys were apparently known for their hockey skills and played with a non-student team called The Campus Characters.

Edwards lives at Westminster Canterbury in Lynchburg.

Cameramen line up to capture the start of the 2009 Cardboard Boat Regatta. All three local news stations were represented. Photo by Sarah Lewis.

Media Update

From staff reports

All three television stations — WSET, WDBJ and WSLS — showed up with cameras in tow Thursday afternoon, Sept. 24 for the 2009 Cardboard Boat Regatta. While they were on campus, they not only caught the action at the Regatta, they talked to Sweet Briar President Jo Ellen Parker about the following weekend’s inauguration ceremony.

Events Calendar
Amherst New Era-Progress
Sept. 3, 2009
Re: Gallery Exhibits, Bloodmobile

Fall film series set to premier at Sweet Briar
Amherst New Era-Progress
Sept. 3, 2009

Sweet Briar film series starts Friday
Nelson County Times
Sept. 3, 2009

SBC rolls out film for festival
Lynchburg News & Advance
Sept. 4, 2009
Re: Weekend Film Series

Sweet Briar employees earn ROSE awards
Amherst New Era-Progress
Sept. 10, 2009

Local musician earns top honor for ‘Somewhere in Time’ album
Amherst New Era-Progress
Sept. 10, 2009

Sweet Briar College Selects Meraki for 802.11n WiFi Network for its 3,250 Acre Campus
PR Newswire (Los Angeles, Calif.)
MarketWatch (New York, N.Y.)
KYTX-TV Channel 19 (Tyler, Texas)
WHBF-TV Channel 4 (Rock Island, Ill.)
KSLA-TV Channel 12 (Shreveport, La.)
WBOC-TV Channel 16 (Salisbury, Md.)
Freshnews.com (San Diego, Calif.)
Ventura (California) County Star
KGO-TV Channel 7 (San Francisco, Calif.)
Entrepreneur Magazine (Irvine, Calif.)
Channel Web Network (New York, N.Y.)
El Paso (Texas) Times
WTEN-TV Channel 10 (Albany, N.Y.)
WSFX-TV (Wilmington, N.C.)
WAFB-TV Channel 9 (Baton Rouge, La.)
WXOW-TV Channel 19 (LaCrosse, Wis.)
WMC-TV Channel 5 (Memphis, Tenn.)
WKRN-TV Channel 2 (Nashville, Tenn.)
WCAX-TV Channel 3 (Burlington, Vt.)
WFIE-TV Channel 14 (Evansville, Ind.)
Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel
KFVE-K5 The Home Team (Honolulu, Hawaii)
WVVA-TV Channel 7 (Hattiesburg, Miss.)
Austin (Texas) American-Statesman
WTOL-TV Channel 11 (Toledo, Ohio)
WLOX-TV Channel 13 (Biloxi, Miss.)
Individual.com (Washington, D.C.)
Sports Network (Southampton, Penn.)
Worcester (Mass.) Telegram & Gazette
WOI-TV Channel 5 (Des Moines, Iowa)
WTOC-TV Channel 11 (Savannah, Ga.)
KWQC-TV Channel 6 (Davenport, Iowa)
Las Vegas (Nev.) Review Journal
WTNZ-TV Channel 43 (Knoxville, Tenn.)
Reuters – U.S. Edition
WVNY-TV ABC-22 (Colchester, Vt.)
Seattle (Wash.) Post-Intelligencer
KATC-TV Channel 3 (Lafayette, La.)
Knoxville (Tenn.) News Sentinel
KESQ-TV Channel 3 (Palm Springs, Calif.)
KLKN-TV Channel 8 (Lincoln, Neb.)
KBSL-TV Channel 10 (Goodland, Kan.)
KTRE-TV Channel 9 (Tyler, Texas)
WWSB-TV (Sarasota, Fla.)
WKBT-TV Channel 8 (La Crosse, Wis.)
Yahoo! Finance (Sunnyvale, Calif.)
WDBJ-TV Channel 7 (Roanoke, Va.)
Long Beach (Calif.) Press-Telegram
WAFF-TV Channel 48 (Huntsville, Ala.)
WTXL-TV Channel 27 (Tallahassee, Fla.)
FOX 41 WDRB/WMYO TV (Louisville, Ky.)
KION-TV Channel 46 (Salinas, Calif.)
Riverside (Calif.) Press Enterprise
Business Press (Ontario, Canada)
Hollywood (Calif.) Reporter
WAVE-TV Channel 3 (Louisville, Ky.)
WBAY-TV Channel 2 (Green Bay, Wis.)
Seattle (Wash.) Times
Arizona Republic (Phoenix, Ariz.)
Hoover’s Online (Austin, Texas)
Business Journal Milwaukee
WLNS-TV Channel 6 (Lansing, Mich.)
KMPH-TV Channel 26 (Fresno, Calif.)
Business First of Columbus (Ohio)
Sept. 15 through 17, 2009
Re: Network upgrade

Evening Edition
WVTF Public Radio
Sept. 15, 2009
Re: Interview with Gretchen Tucker and Bobbi Carpenter promoting the College Admissions Workshop

Sweet Briar to hold how-to clinic on applying for college
Amherst New Era-Progress
Sept. 17, 2009

SB to host how-to clinic on college applications
Nelson County Times
Sept. 17, 2009

Author to lecture at SB’s ’09 environmental forum
Amherst New Era-Progress
Sept 17, 2009
Re: Waxter Forum

Something(s) to do
Lynchburg News & Advance
Sept. 20, 2009
Re: Roundup of area arts and culture events, including Sweet Briar

SBC to swear in president
Lynchburg News & Advance
Sept. 24, 2009

Sweet Briar president to be inaugurated Saturday
Washington Examiner (Alexandria, Va.)
WVVA-TV Channel 6 (Bluefield, W.Va.)
AP State Online Virginia (New York, N.Y.)
WDBJ-TV Channel 7 (Roanoke, Va.)
WSLS-TV Channel 10 (Roanoke, Va.)
WRIC-TV Channel 8 (Richmond, Va.)
WVIR-TV Channel 29 (Charlottesville, Va.)
Sept. 24, 2009

Speaker to talk ‘Revelation’ at Sweet Briar lecture series
Amherst New Era-Progress
Sept. 24, 2009

Cardboard Boat Regatta
WSLS-TV Channel 10 (Roanoke, Va.)
WDBJ-TV Channel 7 (Roanoke, Va.)
WSET-TV Channel 13 (Lynchburg, Va.)
FOX-WFXR-TV Channel 21 (Roanoke/Lynchburg, Va.)
Sept. 24 and 25, 2009

News Near You for Sept. 25
Richmond Times Dispatch
Sept. 25, 2009
Re: Inauguration of Jo Ellen Parker

New President Welcomed at Sweet Briar College
WDBJ-TV Channel 7 (Roanoke, Va.)
Sept. 26, 2009

Sweet Briar College swears in 10th president Saturday
WSLS-TV Channel 10 (Roanoke, Va.)
Sept. 26, 2009

Traditional Welcome: Sweet Briar College holds inauguration ceremony for 10th president
Lynchburg News & Advance
Sept. 27, 2009

Colleges to give ‘insider’s look’ at admissions process
Lynchburg News & Advance
Sept. 27, 2009

Sweet Briar Colleges holds inauguration ceremony for 10th president
Individual.com (Washington, D.C.)
Sept. 27, 2009

Health Fair is Oct. 22

From staff reports

Sweet Briar College will host a health fair for the campus community from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 22 in Prothro’s Josey Dining Room. Admission is free.

The event is sponsored by human resources and will include information on fitness and nutrition, diabetes, cancer, heart health, safety, rehabilitation services, mental health, hearing and vision, respiratory care and therapeutic massage.

Centra also will offer various laboratory services at the event. Tests are free to faculty and staff enrolled in SBC’s medical insurance plan, provided they present a copy of their Southern Health card. Others can be tested at the rates listed below, and cash and personal checks are accepted.

The following tests will be offered:

• Chemistry screen (including glucose, requires 12-14 hour fast for accurate results, although drinking water is OK) — $21
• Coronary risk profile (requires 12-14 hour fast for accurate results) — $16
• Hemogram (no fasting required) — $7
• Prostate specific antigen (men ages 40 and older, does not require fasting) — $32
• Total cholesterol/LDL (does not require fasting) — $12
• Thyroid stimulating hormone (does not require fasting) — $14

For more information, contact benefits coordinator Judy Sprouse at jsprouse@sbc.edu or Ext. 6323.

Business Students to Publish Cookbook for Operation Smile Fundraiser

From staff reports

In addition to planning several events this fall in support of Operation Smile, students in Sweet Briar’s business management lab also are gathering recipes from members of the College community.

The recipes will be published in the “Sweet Cookbook,” which will be sold to benefit Operation Smile, a non-profit organization that, according to its Web site, is “changing lives one smile at a time.” Current plans are to have the cookbook bound at the Sweet Briar Book Shop.

Each semester at Sweet Briar, business management lab students gain real-world experience planning events and fundraisers that raise money and awareness for a charity. Past beneficiaries have included Habitat For Humanity, Make-A-Wish Foundation and Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Headquartered in Norfolk, Va., Operation Smile is a medical charity that corrects facial deformities, particularly cleft lips and palates, in children all over the world. Last year alone, its volunteers performed 10,868 surgeries in 51 countries.

If you have an original recipe you’d like to submit for the cookbook, contact Fallon Niesen ’12 at niesen12@sbc.edu or P.O. Box 853 before Oct. 31. Please include step-by-step instructions, a list of ingredients, prep and cooking times, and your name and contact information. Also include a little about the recipe’s history and a photo of the finished product, if available.

“Shed at Crawford Store,” by Nancy McDearmon.

McDearmon Wins at Lynchburg Art Show

From staff reports

Nancy McDearmon, registraral assistant for the Sweet Briar Galleries, won the Campbell Insurance Award at the 37th annual Lynchburg Art Festival, held Saturday, Sept. 19 at E.C. Glass High School in Lynchburg. The award was for her oil painting, “Shed at Crawford Store.”

Lil’ Ike Fastest Gunslinger at Festival

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

Rebecca Bryant, wing captain at the riding center, took top honors Sept. 19 and 20 in a six-shooter fast draw competition held at the Shadows of the Past American Indian and Western Festival in Farmville.

Bryant, who goes by “Lil’ Ike” in fast draw circles, is a founding member of Old Dominion Fast Draw, which bills itself as the first sanctioned Cowboy Fast Draw Club on the east coast. She also founded Wild West Productions, which co-hosted the festival with George Whitewolf, assistant chief of the Monacan Tribe.

In the fast draw contest, men and women gunslingers shot six rounds on each day of the two-day competition to narrow the field to five women and five men. Bryant placed first in the women’s division on both days and was presented the division’s Top Gun award along with $100.

Kerosene Heater

LINDA SHANK
Executive assistant to the president/ associate vice president

Apartment for Rent

From staff reports

Harp Instructor Honored for Album

Schweninger, ensemble to perform Nov. 1 in Charlottesville benefit concert

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

A musical recording by Sweet Briar College harp instructor Virginia Schweninger has been recognized as one of the top solo instrumental CDs of the year by Just Plain Folks, a group that bills itself as “the world’s largest grassroots music organization.”

“Somewhere in Time” was one of 10 CDs nominated in the “Solo Instrumental Album” category, which qualified the harpist and her CD for a Just Plain Folks Award. The awards — given in dozens of album categories from rockabilly to storytelling, as well as for songs, lyrics and videos — were presented this past weekend in Nashville, Tenn.

Schweninger’s album took third place.

Since 1999, Just Plain Folks has recognized recording artists from around the world. In her genre, Schweninger was up against musicians from several U.S. states and Germany and Australia. She was nominated by the people at CD Baby, where her album can be purchased and downloaded, and judging was conducted by music industry professionals, fans and peers.

“Somewhere in Time” is Schweninger’s first album, and it was the first time she’d been up for a Just Plain Folks Award. “I was completely stunned and amazed,” she said of the nomination, although she admitted to initially questioning the validity of the honor.

“It took me about two to three weeks before I believed it. I started checking it out and calling friends. A good friend of mine is a Hollywood rep [for composers] and she said, ‘Oh yeah, it’s the real thing.’ So then I believed it.”

The playlist on Schweninger’s CD is an eclectic mix of classical and contemporary music — everything from Bach’s “Prelude No. 1 in C” to the title track, the theme from the movie “Somewhere in Time.”

Although her repertoire was born of a variety of genres, Schweninger said, her “heart is in the contemporary music,” which makes her recent nomination even more poignant. “This, to me, is so inspiring. … It suddenly just makes what I’m really good at enough. I don’t have to try to be a harpist that I’m not.”

Schweninger is currently at work on a second album of jazz, pop and light classical pieces that have become popular with her audiences, including Etta James’ “At Last,” “What a Wonderful World,” music from “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Pocahontas,” Vivaldi’s “Winter’s Largo” and Bach’s “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring.”

She also is planning “Harps of Gold,” a benefit concert for the Wednesday Music Club. According to Schweninger, the club raises money to “provide music scholarships and music camp scholarship for talented young musicians, all based on adjudicated competitions. We also provide music lesson tuition assistance based on need.”

“Harps of Gold” will feature Schweninger’s harp ensemble, Harp Songs of the Blue Ridge, playing golden harps made in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Sweet Briar student Caroline Rainey will play with Harp Songs, and Claire Wittman, daughter of associate professor of theater Loretta Wittman, will sing Schubert’s “Ave Maria” accompanied by a harpist on an 1800s-era instrument.

The concert begins at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 1 at First Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville. Admission is $25 for adults and $10 for children 15 and younger. For information or tickets, contact Charlotte Burns at (434) 975-1132 or WednesdayMusicClub@hotmail.com . Tickets also are available at Music & Arts, 1512 Seminole Trail, Charlottesville.

To hear a preview of “Somewhere in Time,” click here.

SBC Welcomes New Faculty

JONATHAN GREEN
Dean of the college

Cammie Barnes Seth Clabough Jason Gallaher Kevin Honeycutt Danylle Kunkle Ross Mecham Lisa Ralph Laura Reinert Bryce Walker

We are delighted the welcome our newest faculty members.

Camillia Smith Barnes, assistant professor of mathematical sciences (B.A., B.S., M.S. Michigan State University; Certificate of Advanced Study Cambridge University; A.M., Ph.D. Harvard University) spent part of the summer participating in Project Next, which is a national initiative to improve mathematics teaching in undergraduate colleges and universities.

Jason Berry, riding fellow, is pleased to return to Sweet Briar where he lived a few years ago when his wife, Alisa Cline Berry ’03, was one of our first riding fellows.

Jessica Burkey, adjunct instructor of music (B.Mus. Idaho State University; M.Mus. Ball State University) is an active soprano who is on the faculty of Lynchburg College. She will make her campus debut at the Sept. 15 Gager recital.

Seth W. Clabough, adjunct assistant professor of English (B.A. Randolph-Macon College; M.A. University of South Carolina) will be teaching composition in the English department and providing tutoring in the ARC. He is completing a Ph.D. at the University of Aberystwyth.

W. Jason Gallaher, head swim coach, aquatics director, and lecturer (B.A. Fairmont State College; M.A. California University of Pennsylvania) is returning to Sweet Briar where his team achieved the highest average grade point average of any swim team in the NCAA.

Kevin S. Honeycutt, visiting assistant professor of philosophy (B.A., B.S. Mercer University; M.A., Ph.D. Emory University) joins the classics, philosophy and religion department this year following a year teaching at William & Mary.

Danylle R. Kunkel, adjunct assistant professor of business (B.A. University of Central Florida; Ph.D. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) will be teaching our business ethics courses. She has been teaching leadership and management at Virginia Tech.

Ian McCartney, Riding Instructor (B.A. Alfred University) comes to us from upstate New York where he has been teaching riding following a career as a stock trader.

Ross Mecham, assistant professor of business (B.S. Appalachian State University; M.B.A. University of North Carolina-Greensboro) worked for the Forsyth County Arts Council and the South Eastern Center for Creative Arts before teaching at the Center for Creative Leadership. He is completing a Ph.D. at Virginia Tech.

Lisa Ralph, visiting instructor of sociology (B.A., M.S. Brigham Young University) is joining us this year as Debbie Kasper’s sabbatical replacement. Among her research, she has done work on the sociology of rural communities.

Laura M. Reinert, assistant professor of English (B.A. Ohio Wesleyan University; M.A. Western Michigan University; Ph.D. St. Louis University) joins the English department as our Medievalist.

Bryce Walker, assistant professor of classics (B.A. Swarthmore College; Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania) comes to us from teaching appointments at Washington and Lee and Colgate. His research area is Roman satires, particularly those of Juvenal. He is often in the company of his Bernese mountain dog, Bananas.

104th Convocation Ushers in Year of Transition

Faculty named to endowed chairs

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Everyone gathered in Murchison Lane Auditorium the evening of Aug. 26 knew Sweet Briar’s 2009 Opening Convocation would be momentous. The College’s first formal assembly of its 104th academic session also was the first of Jo Ellen Johnson Parker’s new presidency.

Some may have guessed there would be operatic singing, however brief. Soprano Marcia Jones Thom was the keynote speaker, an honor bestowed annually upon the faculty member who receives the previous year’s Excellence in Teaching award from the student body.

But few expected the revelation that came at the end. After the speeches, after welcoming new faculty members and the Class of 2013, and after the presentation of student awards, President Parker recalled Dean Jonathan Green to the podium to announce appointments to four named faculty chairs.

Recognizing outstanding achievement and service to the academic community, henceforth, Gerald Berg will be known as the Hattie Mae Samford Professor of History, Linda Fink will be known as the Dorys McConnell Duberg Professor of Ecology, Scott Hyman will be known as the Whitney-Guion Professor of Physics and Cheryl Mares will be known as the Sara Shallenberger Brown Professor of English.

Up to that point, much about the occasion had been typical. Reunited students chattered as they filled the auditorium. If the faculty were sweating in their full regalia, it didn’t show as they gathered outside Babcock for the procession. Filing to their seats, they waved cheerfully to students and staff. There was an air of anticipation and energy in the room.

After an invocation by Chaplain Adam White and greetings from the board of directors by David Breneman, Parker began the proceedings by acknowledging the passing of U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, noting that he was a champion of higher education.

“Many of us who are here today may have been personally assisted in achieving our educational aspirations by federal aid and student support for which Senator Kennedy fought,” Parker said.

Parker also introduced 12 new faculty members before yielding the podium to Green, who by custom offers his own remarks for students to ponder during the coming year.

“ ‘Ti esti?’ What is it?” he began. “ ‘Ti esti?’ is the Socratic question, quite literally, ‘What is it?’ ”

He went on to say, among other things, that as students, they will dwell on the much more “rewarding and exasperating” how and why than on what.

“As future leaders, you as students need to constantly ask why things are as they are and how they can be changed for the better. Look to your faculty as models,” he said.

“When their Socratic inquiry leads you out of the cave, take time to reflect not only on what you have found on the outside, but think about how you were led to that point of transformation, because there lies the power to make an important difference in the world.”

Thom’s address ended on a similarly serious note, advising students to use their college years to discover who they are, to make choices to enable them to use what they have learned — and what they love — to give something back to each other and to serve the world around them.

But Thom, who teaches voice at Sweet Briar, began in entertaining fashion, declaring she was more accustomed to performing for audiences than speaking to them. “So if you’ll excuse a middle-aged diva, I would like to raise my comfort level a bit,” she said, producing a pair of dangling earrings and putting them on.

“Big occasions call for big rhinestones,” she explained, then stepped back from the podium and sang briefly from Puccini’s “Tosca.”

“Then she stabs the baritone. It’s an excellent way for all operas to end,” Thom told her amused listeners before commencing an equally humorous treatment of what she termed “old business,” followed by the message she had come to deliver.

Convocation customarily ends with the president’s charge for the academic year. Parker began by thanking the community for entrusting in her the responsibilities of the presidency. “I will do my best to fulfill the charge of my office every day that I serve,” she said.

She acknowledged that economic difficulties are exerting pressures on Sweet Briar and all higher education institutions, but affirmed that the College stands on a firm foundation.

“My charge to the College in this year of continued economic uncertainty is simply this: remember why we do what we do,” she said. “Celebrate the joy of learning and the love of the life of the mind. Even when there is little gold in our coffers, like Chaucer’s Clerk let us gladly learn and gladly teach.”

The following academic prizes were awarded at Convocation:

The Emilie Watts McVea Scholars: Courtney Michele Cunningham ’10, Laura Nicole Jett ’11 and Maria Jamal El-Abd ’12

The Alumna Daughter Scholarship: Aili Grace McGill ’10

The Mary Kendrick Benedict Scholar: Allison Suzanne Bailey ’10

The Laura Buckham Book Award: Mary Rose McCarthy ’11

The Julia Sadler de Coligny Award: Carolina Hamilton King ’11

The Gill Scholars: Celeste Eid Rustom ’10 and Elizabeth Claire Carwile ’11

The Kenmore Scholar: Fazila Noorzad ’11

The Rebecca Tomlinson Lindblom Award: Ashley Maria Carroll ’10

The Manson Scholar: Madeline Adelle Davis ’10

The Jean Taylor Meyer Memorial American Poets Prize: Carina Kathleen Finn ’10

The Irene Mitchell Moore Scholar: Sarah Camille Jones ’11

The Loren Oliver Award: Bryca Nikole Brewer ’10

The Rickards Scholar: Sarah Elizabeth Brazell ’12

The Shakespeare Prize: Janika Sophie Carey ’10

The Mary MacKintosh Sherer Award: Katelyn Patricia James ’11

The Sweet Briar Fine Arts Scholar: Taylor Leigh Newman ’10

The Lucile Barrow Turner Award: Mary Catherine Massie ’10

NITLE to Review Technological Assets

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

Sweet Briar College has enlisted the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education, also known as NITLE, to conduct a review of Sweet Briar’s technology operations and programs.

The review will be done by Eric Harper, who heads up NITLE’s technology, finance and operations areas. Harper will be on campus Sept. 2 through 4, and he and his team plan to have their research and report completed by late September or early October.

“The goal of what we’re trying to do, basically — as I am new and have a very strong interest in technology — is really bring NITLE in to help me get a sense of what our resources are, what our capacities are, and to get some idea of what we might do to start doing some things in a more digitally sophisticated way,” Sweet Briar President Jo Ellen Parker said.

Parker, who was NITLE’s executive director before coming to Sweet Briar, called digital sophistication a “key message,” and said the College’s faculty, staff and students will be hearing that phrase a lot in the coming months.

For example, she explained, “We want to be able to talk about, ‘What does it mean to do history in a digitally sophisticated way?’ We want to introduce that phrase to the community and really take a review of all of our digital information, resources and operations and see what we can do to move forward.”

While on campus, Harper will meet with faculty, staff and students. He also will solicit ideas from the Sweet Briar community through an e-mail address (sbcinfo@nitle.org) and a program called “Uservoice.”

Parker described “Uservoice” as a “virtual suggestion box” and said it will enable members of the Sweet Briar community to submit ideas and then vote on them. Everyone gets 10 votes. “If you see that someone else has submitted a good idea you can use two or three or four of your votes to support their idea,” Parker said. “I think it’ll be kind of fun.”

NITLE, according to its Web site, is a “community-based, non-profit initiative dedicated to helping undergraduate-centered colleges, universities, and educational organizations use technology effectively to strengthen undergraduate education.”

Bingley, one of two cats that have taken up residence at Cochran Library, is lavished with attention.

Library Cats

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

Darcy relaxes on a cart full of books.

There are a couple of new editions — rather, additions — at Cochran Library. When students arrived in August, they found Darcy and Bingley had taken up residence at the library. The cats are named for Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley, characters in Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.”

Darcy is “very, very, very friendly,” librarian Lisa Johnston said recently, laughing. “He climbed a patron the other day. He’s also attracted to any keyboard that someone’s using.”

He was “obtained to help us with our mouse problem,” Johnston said, although she admits he’s proved better at killing bugs. “He’ll move up to larger prey.”

Bingley arrived at the library shortly after Darcy, but had to stay home sick for a few days. On the mend now, he’s ready to be lavished with all the attention the student body — and faculty and staff — can offer.

From what Johnston has heard so far, it’ll be a lot. In fact, she heard one student say she’ll spend even more time at the library now that Darcy and Bingley are there.

Darcy and Bingley are indoor cats, so if you find them pacing inside the library’s front door, don’t let them out!

Departures: Anne Richards

JOHN JAFFE
Professor and director of libraries

Richards and her dog, Fletcher.

Anne Richards retired Sept. 1 after 40 years of service to the College.

She first came to Sweet Briar in 1966 and raised three children on campus. She began working for the College as language lab coordinator in the 1980s and then began working with media services.

Upon the departure of the media services coordinator, she was promoted to that position, retaining her language lab duties as well. In 1991, she became director of media services and served the College in that role until her retirement.

Richards earned her bachelor’s degree from Sweet Briar, followed by teaching certification from Lynchburg College while working for the College. She worked diligently for the last two decades, always present at events on nights, weekends and in all College locations.

She frequently came to the aid of students in the wee hours of the morning when they had assignments due and needed assistance with media, whether editing videos or working with software. She went out of her way and worked many hours beyond the regular workday to support College events.

In her free time, she is a world-renowned builder of miniatures and has hosted many meetings for miniaturists on campus. She also was instrumental in bringing Jane Goodall to campus on two occasions.

Richards is devoted to charity work, having worked with and served on numerous charity boards and with groups like Habitat For Humanity and Christmas in April. Her years of living at and working for Sweet Briar have made her one of the first people consulted when someone wants to do an event at the College or when community members want to learn some history of events.

She has truly contributed to the College and we wish her the best in the pursuits she follows in retirement, whether that is creating new miniatures, public service, or supporting and enjoying her family.

SBC Co-sponsors ‘Get!Downtown’

‘Friday Cheers’-type event aimed at area college students but public welcome

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

2008 Sweet Briar grad Michelle Raymond and her band will play at “Get!Downtown.” Photo by Shawnee Custalow.

Sweet Briar’s co-curricular life office is one of several area colleges that is co-sponsoring “Get!Downtown,” an event organizers hope will draw thousands of area college students to Lynchburg’s historic downtown. Presented by Lynch’s Landing, “Get!Downtown” is a non-alcoholic take on the popular “Friday Cheers” concert series the group puts on each summer.

From 6 to 9 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 11, local bands and performers from area colleges — including 2008 SBC graduate Michelle Raymond and her band — will take the stage at the Lynchburg Community Market on Main Street.

Other highlights include roving street performers and dancers, a scavenger hunt, an “event zone” with games and other activities, salsa and line dance lessons, karaoke, and two “graffiti walls” where folks can legally express themselves with spray paint.

Main Street, from Commerce to 6th Street, will be blocked off to vehicular traffic for the event, and area shops have been encouraged to stay open late. Vendors — everything from cell phone companies to restaurants — are invited to set up tables and advertise their products and services, and craft vendors will set up shop in the Community Market parking lot.

At 9 p.m., local singer Paul Brunett and visiting band Farewell Flight will play at the Academy of Music on Main Street. Tickets are $5 with college ID and $10 for the general public. Only 600 tickets are available. At the same time, Westbound, a Newport News band, will perform a free concert at the White Hart, which is located across the street from the Community Market.

Sweet Briar’s campus events organization is donating funds for the event, and the student involvement and programming will shuttle SBC students to and from Lynchburg. Co-curricular life also will host a tent with raffle prizes.

Robyn Sanderson, director of student involvement and programming, wants to “gauge how many Sweet Briar students show up,” especially first-years.  “I hope we can get 200 SBC students there,” she said via e-mail. “I’m hoping that is a conservative number.”

Admission to “Get!Downtown” is free, and the non-college-age public also is invited. For more information, contact Sanderson at rsanderson@sbc.edu or Ext. 6134.

The Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company. Photos by Carol Rosegg.

Asian-American Dance Company Returns to Sweet Briar Sept. 14

Tickets available Sept. 7, free to SBC community

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

Members of the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company perform “Bamboo Prayer.”

At 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 14, Sweet Briar College will welcome the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company to Murchison Lane Auditorium for the first event of the 2009-2010 Babcock Season. Hailed by The Village Voice as “visual poetry,” the Asian-American troupe combines modern and traditional Chinese dance in its new show, “Song of the Phoenix.”

Named for its Taiwanese founder and art director, Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company last visited Sweet Briar in 2004. Mark Magruder, a dance professor at the College, described that performance as “fantastic” and “visually stunning,” but what seems to have stuck with him most were the “water sleeves.”

“Nai-Ni did an amazing solo with water sleeves,” Magruder said, describing the garment as a tunic with 6- or 8-foot-long sleeves. “It’s really cool because you get this gorgeous, flowing effect that with the lighting makes a rippling pattern.”

During the upcoming concert, the dance “Passage to Silk River” — an homage to Chen’s ancestors — will feature water sleeves.

Other pieces on the program include “Bamboo Prayer,” which uses rattan to “symbolize the strength and resilience of women”; “Incense,” in which Chen looked to her religious roots for inspiration; “The Way of Five,” referring to the five elements; “Raindrops,” which draws on the choreographer’s childhood memories; “Crosscurrent,” a dialogue of passion and strength; and “Mirage,” which was “inspired by the unique rhythms and dance movement of the Uyghur people of Xinjiang.”

“I think people will be in for a very beautiful visual experience and some very exciting choreography,” Magruder said.

Tickets are free to members of the Sweet Briar community. Non-SBC tickets are $10 for adults, $7 for seniors and free for children younger than 12. For tickets, contact the SBC box office at Ext. 6120 or boxoffice@sbc.edu, beginning Monday, Sept. 7. Credit card orders can be placed after Sept. 7 via LynchburgTickets.com.

SBC to Participate in ‘Museum Day’

Free admission offered at many U.S. museums on Sept. 26

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

On Saturday, Sept. 26, Sweet Briar College’s art galleries will participate in the Smithsonian Institution’s “Museum Day.”

On that day, participating museums all over the country — including most of the 50 states and Puerto Rico — will offer free general admission to patrons with a “Museum Day” admission card. The card can be downloaded on the Smithsonian’s Web site.

Sweet Briar’s galleries, which will be open that day for Homecoming, do not charge admission, so one might ask why the College is participating. Basically, it’s free advertising. “It’s a very low-key but effective way to let people know about the galleries here and that people other than students and professors are welcome to come,” galleries director Karol Lawson said.

In addition, Sweet Briar’s three galleries and their current exhibitions will be listed with other museums in an upcoming edition of Smithsonian magazine. “We’re just one of many,” Lawson said. “We’re part of a museum community.”

Participating museums within about an hour of Sweet Briar include Virginia Discovery Center in Charlottesville, Stonewall Jackson’s house in Lexington, Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest in Forest, and Amazement Square and the Maier Museum of Art in Lynchburg.

For more information and a complete list of participating museums, or to download your free admission card, visit the “Museum Day” Web site.

SBC Welcomes ‘talented, exciting, interesting and fun’ Class of 2013

KEN HUUS
Dean of Admissions

Every entering class at Sweet Briar is special, unique and distinctive, and the Class of 2013 is no exception. Throughout the recruitment and admission process, we enjoyed getting to know these young women, especially through their applications for admission. It really is amazing what they’ll share with us on an application!

Over the summer, we re-read applications to gather some information about the class, both individually and collectively. I shared this information with the students and their family members during their official welcome to the College on check-in day, and I think others in our community might find many of these things interesting.

I hope you will enjoy reading about the newest members of the Sweet Briar community as much as I enjoyed putting this together. I especially enjoyed compiling this information as I was reminded about so many of the wonderful things these young women bring to our community.

Of the 179 students enrolling for the first time at Sweet Briar, 160 are first-time college students and 19 transferred from another college or university.

They came to Sweet Briar from 23 different U.S. states and four foreign countries — China, Korea, Pakistan and the United Kingdom. Forty-two percent are from Virginia. Together, they have traveled 99,002 miles from their homes to campus.

The shortest distance traveled was roughly 500 feet — Yulia Rigg lives on campus — and the longest distance traveled within the U.S. was 2,808 miles from Federal Way, Wash. The longest distance traveled overall was 7,609 miles from Karachi, Pakistan. One student has been visiting Sweet Briar since she was 8 years old.

They came from 133 different high schools, including eight from nearby Amherst County High School. One hundred thirteen graduated from a public high school, 43 graduated from a private high school and four were home schooled.

Sixteen have a relative who attended Sweet Briar. Collectively, they have 200 siblings — 102 of those are brothers and 98 are sisters. Thirty-four are an only child and one is a twin.

The most common name in the class is Sarah with an “h.” There are seven Sarahs. There also are seven Caitlins but with four different spellings. Four spell Caitlin with a “C” and an “i,” one spells it with a “C” and a “y,” one spells it with a “K” and an “i,” and one with a “K” and a “y.” Five students are named Elizabeth, all spelling it with a “z.” There also are five Victorias, four Danielles, four Laurens and four Rachels — two adding a second “a” following the “e.” Eighty students are the only person in their class with her first name.

Using only the highest score submitted and including the writing portion of the SAT, together they scored a total of 237,920 points on the SAT and 1,284 points on the ACT. Ninety-five students took at least one AP course in high school, two took at least one International Baccalaureate course and 30 took dual-enrollment courses as part of her high school curriculum.

One hundred one applied electronically, 49 using the common application and 52 using Sweet Briar’s online application. The rest preferred to use the paper application. Forty-nine applied early decision.

Together, and including the applications submitted to Sweet Briar, they submitted 658 applications for admission and applied to a total of 245 colleges and universities. Two students applied to a total of 11 colleges and universities. Three applied to 10.

Hollins University was the most common addition to an applicant’s list — 21 also applied there — followed by Lynchburg College and Randolph College (14 each), Virginia Commonwealth University (12), Mary Baldwin (11), James Madison University (10) and Virginia Tech (10).

They’ve been a very involved group of young women. During high school, they were active with 4-H, Amnesty International, art club, book club, color guard, cultural perspectives club, debate team, DECA club, diversity club, environmental club, equestrian club, Future Business Leaders of America, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Future Farmers of America, forensics club, French club, German club, honor council, Interact club, Key Club, Latin club, mock trial, Model UN, newspaper, PAWS, photography club, robotics team, SADD, Spanish club, student council, travel club and yearbook, just to name a few.

Some of my favorites, not yet mentioned, included cookie club, math lovers’ club, non-smoking club, pep club, powder puff football, sailing club, “Send Support to Troops in Iraq” club, titan ball team — I’m not sure what that is but it sounds cool — and the tree huggers’ association. Sixty-four played a varsity sport in high school and 59 are riders.

One hundred three students have volunteered for organizations such as Adopt-a-Highway, Changing the Lives of Children, the Christopher Reeve Foundation, Habitat For Humanity, Labors of Love, Make-a-Wish Foundation, March of Dimes, Meals on Wheels, Operation Smile, Red Cross, Special Olympics and youth football.

In addition, they’ve worked at local animal shelters, participated in the AIDS Walk, served breakfast for the homeless, participated on dozens of mission trips — both in and outside the U.S. — and helped others through therapeutic riding programs.

They’ve held jobs at Ace Hardware, Ali Bleu Flower Shop, Ben & Jerry’s, Camp Ladybug, Long John Silver’s, Drumheller’s Orchard, KFC, Kroger, Limited Too, Papa John’s, Taco Bueno, Subway and Woof and Hoof. They’ve also worked as dishwashers, camp counselors, wait staff, lifeguards, a nanny, grocery store baggers and stable hands.

Some students wrote exceptional essays but among our favorites were one about Mickey Mouse as an inspirational idol and another about riding in a Jeep across the desert in Egypt.

Some stated career plans including accountant, architect, bakery owner, broadcast journalist, doctor (of many specialties), dolphin trainer, economist, foreign service officer, JAG officer, lawyer, linguist, midwife, nutritionist, photographer, teacher, radio or TV announcer, structural engineer, veterinarian, writer and zoologist, just to name a few. Fifty-five entered Sweet Briar undecided. Good for you!

They are a worldly group. They’ve traveled or lived abroad in 31 countries including Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Croatia, Ecuador, Egypt, Fiji, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland and South Africa, and one student has sailed around the Arctic.

There are those in the class who have achieved first place in a national mathematics competition, won an award for two years of perfect attendance, won a basketball state championship, won a “best actress” award, earned a Rotary Youth Leadership Award, achieved Summa Cum Laude status on the National Latin Exam (actually two students have earned that distinction), been named the volleyball team’s MVP, won a swim team state championship, achieved the Girl Scout Gold Award (several have done this), won first prize in an English speech contest, and been a traveling art exhibit winner.

Among the class is someone who has an extensive rubber duck collection, someone who wants to be a ghost hunter, someone who helped rebuild hiking trails in Alaska, two who own their own equestrian business, someone who carries a gold coin in her pocket that she won on a horse race during a trip to Mexico, two people who can speak five languages, one welding apprentice, one Civil War re-enactor, one Certified Nursing Assistant, someone who marched in London’s New Year’s Parade, Miss Teen Hampton Roads, one champion Irish dancer, someone who has a self-described obsession with Vladimir Nabokov, one certified firefighter and someone who was the Caledonia Mule school mascot.

After reading about them I hope you’ll agree this class is talented, exciting, interesting and fun. We enjoyed being their conduit to Sweet Briar and I hope you will enjoy working with them in your classes, offices and elsewhere on campus as much as we have. They are very excited to be here and are looking forward to becoming part of this community.

The 2009 winners of the ROSE Awards pose with Jo Ellen Parker. From left are Coleen Catalon, Juanita Elliott, Parker, Tom Shelton Sr. and Gloria Smith.

2009 ROSE Awards Announced

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Juanita Elliott’s eyes had wandered from the podium during the presentation of the College’s 2009 ROSE awards at the all-campus workday lunch on Aug. 20. Then she heard Sweet Briar President Jo Ellen Parker say her name and could only gasp in surprise.

She had received a ROSE for Excellence as a Team Member.

Elliott has worked at Sweet Briar for 16 years, the last four them as a housekeeping supervisor. In that role she fills in for her employees who are sick, on vacation or need time off. She also lends an ear or offers support when they need her to. It all adds up to what she likes best about her job, she said: “Being there for my employees.”

That spirit is reflected by her nomination for the award. Sweet Briar instituted the ROSEs — the letters stand for Recognition of Staff Excellence — in 2006. The awards are special because although College administrators make the final selections, co-workers nominate each other.

Any employee of more than one year is eligible for any of three ROSEs —Excellence in Service, Excellence as a Team Member and the Bright Idea Award, which is given for a suggestion or innovation that results in cost savings, efficiency or improved service. Along with a plaque, recipients also receive a $500 bonus. Parker announced winners of two Team Member and two Service awards this year.

The second Team ROSE went to Coleen Catalon, an academic assistant in the dean’s office since 1986. In her nomination, a faculty member was quoted as saying, “Without her many things on campus would grind to a complete stop,” while another asserts that “Nothing ever goes wrong in her office.”

Reading that line to the assembly in Prothro dining room, Parker paused to ask with a smile, “Is that really true?”

Catalon herself makes no such claim. “It’s very kind, but things go wrong,” she said later.

Her office is central to the College’s core mission, though, because she works with faculty on numerous committees where the curriculum is decided. And as the one constant presence at committee meetings, hers is effectively the institution’s memory when it comes to academic programs.

So if you ever need to know when, for example, the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree was approved, just ask. It will only take her a minute to check her index and pull the meeting minutes.

The service awards went to longtime carpenter shop superintendent Tom Shelton Sr. and Gloria Smith, assistant manager of the Book Shop. For 27 years, Shelton has handled everything from major renovations to minor repairs — even when it “needed to be done yesterday.”

“Tom, his colleagues say, has a humble yet very determined approach to getting the job done,” Parker said.

Smith began working in housekeeping 27 years ago. With a recommendation from her supervisor, Dorothy Sales, she moved to the Book Shop where she started out in shipping and receiving — and honed her gift wrapping skills, for which she is well known on campus today.

Hard work and support from people such as former Book Shop manager Roscoe Fitts, who she says taught her a great deal, helped her advance to a position she loves, whether she is assisting students or designing store displays.

“I love my job and I always have,” she said. “I love working at Sweet Briar. What more can I say?”

Traditionally, presentation of the ROSE awards is the second order of business at Sweet Briar’s annual all-campus luncheon. It’s also an opportunity for the president to speak on the state of the College.

In her first such address, Parker said, “Sweet Briar stands tall and on a firm foundation,” thanks to the education, experiences and humanity that students are exposed to during their time here.

“That excellence, that power, and that humanity have been generated by the work of all of you, gathered here in this room,” she said.” You have made Sweet Briar my dream job and I am grateful to you for that.”

Parker acknowledged the challenges ahead in a difficult economy, but pointed to the College’s accomplishments, particularly over the past year in the face of a deep recession. And although it will be an upstream paddle through choppy economic waters in the near future, “we are more than capable of doing what we need to do,” she said.

“Sweet Briar has amply demonstrated its ability to pull together, to face tough issues, and respond to challenges with imagination and integrity. And I’d really like to stress those two words, imagination and integrity. We’re going to need a lot of both.”

Several Exhibits Open

From staff reports

The following exhibits opened recently on campus:

“Everyday Life at Tusculum,” Benedict Gallery

“Language Arts: Images, Words, and Stories Selected from the Permanent Collection,” Pannell Gallery

“Silent Journey: A Photographer and Millions of Butterflies Travel to the Heart of Mexico,” Babcock Gallery

Mahler Obama Photo

AARON MAHLER
Director of network services

Media Update

From staff reports

Minimum Wage Increase in Effect
WSET
July 24, 2009
Re: Gene Gotwalt interviewed.

Bot girls: High schoolers explore engineering at Sweet Briar camp
American Society for Engineering Education News Service
July 30, 2009
Re: ASEE picked up story from Amherst New Era-Progress.

Area marching bands get in step at summer camp
WDBJ-7
Aug. 4, 2009
Re: Band camps at Sweet Briar

Freedom isn’t free, but school may be
Veterans eligible for assistance at colleges
Lynchburg News & Advance
Aug. 8, 2009
Re: Yellow Ribbon program

Piecing together the past
Tusculum artifacts to go on exhibit at Sweet Briar
Amherst New Era-Progress
Aug. 13, 2009

Preservation conference at Sweet Briar next month
Nelson County Times
Aug. 13, 2009
Re: Tusculum Institute

Tuition tougher in sour economy
Local colleges report increase in aid requests
Lynchburg News & Advance
Aug. 16, 2009

It’s not all bad: School tuition rises, but slowly
Lynchburg News & Advance
Aug. 16, 2009

Photography exhibit opens
Nelson County Times
Aug. 20, 2009
Re: Medford Taylor exhibit

New residence hall opens at Sweet Briar College
WDBJ-7
Aug. 21, 2009

Photographer follows Monarchs to capture them on film
Amherst New Era-Progress
Aug. 26, 2009
Re: Medford Taylor exhibit

Edward Kennedy at rest with brothers, vets
Boston Herald
Aug. 30, 2009
Re: Barbara Perry quoted

Register Now for Homecoming, Inauguration

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Rick Manasa, keyboard player, with Bob Seger’s original Silver Bullet Band in December 1973. Photo by Ken Settle.

Today is Sept. 1. The deadline to register for Homecoming 2009 and the presidential inauguration of Jo Ellen Parker is Sept. 4. So don’t worry … there are hours and hours left to reserve your spot.

There is time remaining, of course, but the Alumnae Association isn’t kidding about deadlines. At the current registration rate and based on past trends, alumnae director Louise Zingaro said the numbers signing up for the inauguration and dinner in honor of Parker could fill to capacity the Fitness and Athletics Center, where both will take place on Sept. 26.

That means latecomers may not be guaranteed entrance, and it’s just one more reason the association encourages on-time registration.

If you haven’t already checked out a schedule of Homecoming events, you can find one on the Alumnae Association Web site, along with a link to the registration form. Invitations with a schedule also were sent out with the Spring/Summer 2009 Alumnae Magazine, a clever measure to save printing and mailing costs.

Among the highlights of the weekend, to be held from Sept. 25 to Sept. 27, will be Parker’s inauguration as Sweet Briar’s 10th president at 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 26. Mary Patterson McPherson, president emerita of Bryn Mawr College, where Parker studied and served on the faculty, will provide comments for the occasion.

The traditional Founders’ Day celebration will be held in conjunction with the ceremony, including the walk to Monument Hill led this year by the Albemarle Pipers and Drums.

As soon as the recession clears the FAC field house, crews will move in to ready the space for the evening events, which include a dedication of the brand new building at 7 p.m., and cocktails, dinner and dancing from 7:30 to 11:30. At 8:30 p.m., two new members will be inducted into the Athletics Hall of Fame: Paul D. Cronin, professor emeritus and director emeritus of the Sweet Briar riding program and the late Jennifer Crispen, associate professor and chair of physical education.

Weather permitting, fireworks will be launched during the Saturday evening festivities. These are a holdover from last year’s rained-out Homecoming display.

Athletic events, a poetry reading, grape tasting and lecture, and other events are scheduled throughout the weekend. A Friday night rock concert will showcase Sweet Briar’s own FaSt along with a special guest, keyboardist Rick Manasa. Manasa, Parker’s husband, is a former professional musician who played with Bob Seger and other Motown artists.

There also will be an interfaith service led by Chaplain Adam White at 10 a.m. Sunday. In keeping with an emphasis on diversity that also will be highlighted during the inauguration ceremony, the program will include a focus on student religious faith groups and incorporate a variety of music.

Riding’s Mr. Clean has New Weapon against Dirt

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Glenn Moody initiates his new broom with an “inaugural sweep” of the Bailey Room.

Riding instructor Glenn Moody is the “Mr. Clean” of Sweet Briar’s Harriet Howell Rogers Riding Center, says riding program director Shelby French.

Moody is determined to keep the Bailey Room clean and swept — no doubt a thankless task considering the endless stream of booted feet that tread across it daily. According to French, his desire to keep the area spic and span is so great that at the end of the 2008-2009 academic year, the riding staff and students presented him with his own special hand-decorated broom. The words “Glenn’s broom” are painted on the handle.

The Bailey Room, named for former director of riding Clayton Bailey, is the lobby area of the riding center, where visitors enter through the main door. It’s also a meeting room and classroom for the riding program.

Today, Moody got the chance to initiate his new broom with an “inaugural sweep” of the Bailey Room — and a new academic year is under way.

Historic Preservation, Sustainability on the Agenda at Conference

Students, faculty, staff may attend for free

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

Tusculum Institute, a center for historic preservation located at Sweet Briar College, will host the 24th annual Virginia Preservation Conference Sept. 20 through 22. Sponsored by Preservation Virginia, the theme of this year’s symposium is “Historic Preservation and Sustainability: Saving our History, Saving our Future.”

According to Tusculum Institute’s Web site, the conference is aimed at “an audience that reaches beyond the preservation and professional preservation ‘choir’ to include the rich variety of players who are involved in sustainability and historic preservation.”

In short, anyone with an interest in the subject matter is invited to attend — from preservation and sustainability professionals and government officials to students, teachers and people who own or have a passion for historic houses.

“This conference is going to talk in very practical ways about how to make your historic house green,” said Bob Carter, director of the community services division of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, which is a partner of Tusculum Institute.

“… Preserving existing buildings, historic buildings, makes good sense environmentally, but we can make historic buildings greener. We can incorporate the new technology and new materials and respect the historic character of existing buildings. I think that’s one of the [conference’s] big themes.”

The conference begins Sunday, Sept. 20 in Lynchburg with walking tour of the downtown historic district, followed by a reception at the Craddock Terry Hotel. On Monday, Sept. 21, it moves to Sweet Briar’s Elston Inn & Conference Center for two days of panel discussions, break-out sessions and lectures.

Highlights of the conference include, among other things, keynote presentations on “Greening the Commonwealth’s Historic Buildings” and “Greening Your Old House”; hands-on workshops at two of Sweet Briar’s historic structures; and a panel discussion on the impact of the federal stimulus bill and green jobs initiatives on historic preservation and sustainability.

Students, faculty and staff at Sweet Briar may attend all or any portions of the conference for free, but they must preregister. To register, e-mail Rainville at lrainville@sbc.edu . Registration for the general public is $99 per person and must be done via Preservation Virginia’s Web site.

Registration includes all sessions, workshops and tours; two continental breakfasts and a five-course lunch; receptions at the Craddock Terry Hotel and Sweet Briar House; and shuttle services between the conference sites and hotels.

The 24th annual Virginia Preservation Conference is presented thanks to its partners and sponsors: Sweet Briar College, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, the National Park Service, city of Lynchburg and Preservation Virginia. 

Math Professor Makes Pedagogical Case in Science Magazine

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Raina Robeva

Raina Robeva, professor of mathematics at Sweet Briar College, is the principal author of an opinion article published in the July 31 edition of Science magazine. Robeva co-authored the piece, “Mathematical Biology Education: Beyond Calculus,” with Virginia Tech researcher Reinhard Laubenbacher to prompt educators to rethink the way the growing fields of mathematical and computational biology are taught.

The authors note that as institutions have restructured curricula over the past half-dozen years to create math courses for the “ ‘quantitative biologists’ of the future,” the prevailing models in use are calculus-based — that is, they are built on differential equations. The success of DE methods have led educators to focus less on algebraic models, which Robeva argues are equally important to incorporate into modern biology programs.

Particularly in systems biology, where complex interactions occur at the molecular level, these new biologists will need a toolkit of diverse mathematical and computational approaches to frame hypotheses, design experiments and analyze results, the authors wrote.

The difficulty with abstract algebra, Robeva said in a phone interview, is that it has been considered highly theoretical. Yet researchers like Laubenbacher successfully use algebraic modeling in their work and educators such as herself are developing modules to fit into biology and mathematics curricula.

“It works,” she said simply, reiterating that it can and should enrich these undergraduate programs.

In Science magazine, Robeva and Laubenbacher argue that algebraic models for systems biology are more intuitive and don’t require the high level of detail often needed to construct DE models. A prose description of the problem can be translated into logical statements, an especially appealing feature for those entering mathematical modeling, the article said.

Furthermore, the authors note, such algebraic modeling requires only a modest mathematical background, some of which is covered in low-level college math courses.

“Because the mathematics involved is more easily accessible to faculty in the life sciences, relative to DE, this could lead to increased engagement on their part,” they wrote. “Algebraic models will introduce problems from modern biology into the traditional mathematics courses, bringing life to the primarily theoretical abstract algebra curricula.”

For all these reasons, the authors call for educators to find ways to teach undergraduates algebraic modeling. One stumbling block to date is the lack of teaching materials “linking biology with modern algebra,” they wrote.

As the principal investigator on a curriculum development project funded by a $150,000 National Science Foundation grant, Robeva is creating teaching modules that can be “dropped” into existing mathematics and biology courses. Laubenbacher, a researcher at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech, is a consultant for the project. Robeva and her team at Sweet Briar and the University of Western Michigan are developing educational materials based in part on components of Laubenbacher’s cutting-edge work using algebraic methods to solve problems in mathematical biology.

Last February, Robeva spoke about the NSF project at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting. Following the presentation, an editor asked her to submit an article making her case to Science, a journal of the AAAS. The magazine has been one of the most widely read general science publications for nearly 130 years. She seized the opportunity.

“It’s important because we hope that this will have some impact on the trends in mathematical biology education,” Robeva said.

As she and her colleagues are trying to do with the NSF project, the goal is to push the algebraic alternative into the mainstream alongside calculus-based models. “We are saying that this should be taught and we should find mechanisms to do it,” she said.

Sweet Briar’s ‘Miss Daisy’ Makes Challenging Research Subject

Rising senior tackling biography of College’s first daughter

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

Maggie Mae Nase

In the 1989 movie “Driving Miss Daisy,” Morgan Freeman’s character, Hoke, chauffeurs a prickly senior citizen around the American South. In Maggie Mae Nase’s research project, “Writing Miss Daisy,” the Sweet Briar rising senior is taking readers on a tour of the life of Daisy Williams, daughter of College founder Indiana Fletcher Williams.

Nase is writing a biography of Daisy for Sweet Briar’s Honors Summer Research Program, an eight-week session that gives students the opportunity to work one-on-one with faculty members. This summer, eight students worked on diverse projects with themes ranging from creative writing and theater to chemical compounds and ancient Greece.

Nase, who hails from Nevada, Mo., is working under the supervision of two faculty members: Sweet Briar Museum director Christian Carr and Margaret Banister Writer-in-Residence Carrie Brown. For Carr, the timing couldn’t be better.

According to Carr, the only other known biography of Daisy was written by the late Ann Whitley, a 1947 Sweet Briar graduate and former museum director. Copies of Whitley’s book are in short supply, Carr said, and she’d been wondering how to replace them when they ran out.

“When I heard Maggie Mae was interested in historical biography as a literary form and was casting about for a subject — she’d hoped to work on her grandmother, but there wasn’t enough information — I suggested Daisy as a project,” Carr said.

Once the book is finished, Carr plans to have it printed and made available at the Sweet Briar Museum. “It will differ from the existing biography in that it will have academic citations, a bibliography and illustrations and, of course, it will be designed in keeping with our museum brochure, using the ribbon motif,” she said.

The prospect of being a published author thrills Nase, who is majoring in English and creative writing. “For a writer to have something published by the age of twenty-one seems to be gloriously ahead the curve and I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity,” she said.

Nase’s book is based on handwritten diaries Daisy kept before she died in 1884 at the age of 16, Williams family letters and papers, and secondary sources, such as books about Virginia history, childhood material culture and the Victorian Age.

She only recently began the actual writing process, starting with the book’s forward and introduction, having spent the bulk of the fellowship wading through paperwork. She compared the process to Alice in Wonderland’s “going down the rabbit hole.”

“One thing led to another which led to another,” she said. “I found out that my most valuable instinct in researching was curiosity, because when I found something interesting then I looked further and all of a sudden you would add a whole other dynamic to Daisy’s life.”

Nase’s inquisitiveness led her to pour over not only the diaries but hundreds of letters and papers, including Indiana Fletcher Williams’ will and an appraisal of her estate. She found the appraisal particularly intriguing, as it contained excruciating details on such things as the contents of the cupboards and a complete listing of books in the family’s library.

The items spoke volumes about life at Sweet Briar and in New York City, where the family had business holdings. For example, Daisy’s books — among them “Elementary Astronomy” and French, German and Italian dictionaries — offered clues as to how the girl was educated.

Although Nase admitted to having only a “mild interest Sweet Briar history” at the beginning of the project, “now that I’m in the throes of it all, every new little tidbit that comes up has become intensely interesting and exciting,” she said.

When she finally got to the writing stage, Nase said, it was “three thousand times harder than I thought it would be.” She’d written lots of papers for her college classes, but she soon discovered re-creating a 19th-century girl’s life in prose was something entirely different.

Sometimes, she confessed, it took 30 to 45 minutes to write a single sentence, and coming up with just the right adjectives to describe a person or place was a struggle. Where to begin and how to begin the book also led to quandaries. Nase’s other faculty advisor, Brown, an accomplished novelist, could sympathize.

“It’s a project of daunting scope, which in some ways is a wonderful thing for Maggie to discover because I think it gave her a realistic sense of the scale of the task before a historian or biographer,” she said. 

“That’s what she discovered, and I think at first that’s a daunting circumstance to face. But also, the exhilaration of learning to do something well is discovering that the task you imagined is actually much larger and more ambitious and therefore an interesting and exciting one.”

Nase plans to put the project on hold for the fall semester, as she has a full course load, but she will pick it back up in the spring as a three-credit independent study. In Brown’s opinion, however, finishing the book before next year’s Commencement is not the most important thing.

“The point of the honors program is to take students who have a specialized interest in a particular subject and give them the opportunity to pursue that single mindedly for a couple of months,” she said. “The best possible outcome is not necessarily the end product but what they learn along the way.

“It’s been great for me to actually work alongside [Maggie] or watch her discover the story of Sweet Briar and the history of this place. The story is really an enormously compelling story.”

Olivia Daniszewski (right) operates her team's "artbot" Friday, July 24 on the final day of a weeklong camp aimed at girls who are interested in engineering. Teammate Lexie Kiely looks on.

Budding Engineers Learn Ups and Downs of Inventing

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

Nicole Waugh (left), Brittany Gater and Cuddles the “demonic” bear

“Go, little guy! Go, little guy!” Lexie Kiely, a rising high school senior from Lynchburg, Va., pleaded as her “artbot” — a robot that paints — quivered on its canvas of white paper. The stingray-shaped robot, made from a lime green cloth placemat purchased at local Goodwill store, wasn’t doing exactly what Kiely and her partner, Olivia Daniszewski, had planned.

A fan-shaped brush on the stingray’s nose was supposed to spread paint, and paint-coated marbles in the creature’s eyes were designed to pop out of their holders and roll around, making interesting designs.

Holey pingpong balls injected with watered-down paint would trail behind on strings like squid’s tentacles, while crayons affixed to the stingray’s belly would make colorful marks as it motored around the artbot “stadium.”

It was a good idea that, for some reason or another, just wasn’t working. “Artistic design sometimes gets in the way,” Daniszewski, of Forest, Va., said by way of explanation as she tugged the stingray’s left “wing” out from beneath one of the robot’s wheels.

Assistant professor of engineering Scott Pierce explained it another way. “One of the most important lessons they’ve learned is nothing works the first time,” he said, to which Kiely countered with a laugh, “Nothing works if people watch!”

Kiely and Daniszewski were showing off their invention Friday, July 24 at a presentation held on the last day of Sweet Briar College’s first “Explore Engineering Design Summer Course,” a weeklong camp aimed at high school girls who are interested in engineering. Similar weekend courses were offered this past fall and spring.

During the week of July 19 through 24, 13 high schoolers in teams of two or three designed and built artbots and “e-garments,” the latter described by Pierce as computerized clothing that does something creative. The girls, most of whom hailed from Virginia, were assisted by Sweet Briar’s engineering faculty and four SBC students, three of them engineering majors.

One of the e-garments was a backpack made from a hollowed out stuffed bear. When a motion detector in the bear’s nose sensed movement, it would wave its arms and make a siren noise, and its eyes would glow a spooky red. “It’s kind of demonic,” Nicole Waugh, a rising junior from Henrico, Va., said while testing the design in the engineering lab.

Naturally, she and teammate Brittany Gater of Midlothian, Va., named it “Cuddles.”

At Friday’s presentation, when it came time to demonstrate what Cuddles could do, however, he wasn’t fully cooperating. The white Teddy bear waved his arms up and down like a shipwreck survivor flagging an aircraft but his LED eyes failed to light.

“Just the motion you saw is very hard [to make happen],” engineering program director Hank Yochum said before adding, “It has an audience sensor.”

Some artbots and e-garments worked better than others. Some floundered, while others performed pretty much as planned. The LEDs wired to some e-garments barely flickered, while other items were declared nearly ready for retail.

Kiely and Daniszewski’s “Shake Awake” headband promised to vibrate when a sleepy student nodded off in class. When Kiely put on the burgundy headband and set off its tilt sensor, it vibrated just like it was supposed to do. “It just worked! It just worked!” Daniszewski said.

Said Pierce, dryly, “And we’ll be buying them for all of our students.”

Kate Fanta, of Remington, Va., and her partner, Shanzay Farzan, of East Brunswick, N.J., designed the “Smarty Pants,” shorts that would get shorter the hotter the wearer got. A temperature sensor and computer located in the back pocket of the plaid Bermudas activated a pulley system that raised the pants legs.

“These are ready for Target,” Yochum said.

The weeklong engineering course was funded by a National Science Foundation grant aimed at recruiting and retaining female engineers. Those who attended earned one college credit hour. So far, unlike some of the inventions, the grant seems to be working. “Whether or not they come [to Sweet Briar], they sure do seem to be getting excited about engineering,” Pierce said.

Ashbrook Baby Arrives

From staff reports

Baby Sven

At 12:17 a.m. on Thursday, July 16, Magdalena Markovinovic and John Ashbrook, visiting assistant professor of history, welcomed their son, Sven Vinko Matthias Ashbrook, into the world. Sven weighed 8 pounds, 10 ounces and was 21.5 inches long. Congratulations, Maggie and John!

SBC Recognized as Great Place to Work

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Sweet Briar College has been recognized in the Chronicle of Higher Education’s 2009 Great Colleges to Work For survey. The College appears in six individual recognition categories: collaborative governance, job satisfaction, supervisor-department chair relationship, perception of and confidence in fair treatment, housing assistance programs and vacation or paid time off.

This is the second year the Chronicle has conducted the Great Colleges survey and the first time that Sweet Briar has participated in the program. Results were announced in a special supplement on July 6 at http://chronicle.com/indepth/academicworkplace.

“Collaborative governance and fair treatment for all employees are central values at Sweet Briar,” said President Jo Ellen Parker, reacting to the news. “Recognition in those categories is therefore especially gratifying.”

The goals of the Chronicle’s survey are to recognize excellent workplaces within higher education and to compile data that institutions can use in strategic planning, improving performance and recruiting the best faculty and personnel. Colleges that participate receive benchmarking and best practices reports to see how they compare to peer institutions and determine where improvements are needed.

According to the Chronicle, 247 four- and two-year colleges took part in the two-part assessment process in which nearly 41,000 randomly selected administrators, faculty members and staff members at the participating institutions responded to an online questionnaire. The second part was an institutional audit that collected demographics and workplace policies and practices from each school.

“The primary factor in deciding whether an institution received recognition was the employee feedback collected from faculty and staff members,” the Chronicle said.

The surveys are not used to rank institutions in one list. Rather, the program recognizes small groups of colleges (based on enrollment size) for specific best practices and policies, such as work-life balance, compensation and benefits, faculty-administration relations and confidence in senior leadership.

There are 26 recognition categories for four‐year institutions, and 15 categories for community colleges. Among four‐year colleges, 122 institutions were recognized in at least one category. Among two‐year institutions, 28 were recognized in at least one category.

ModernThink LLC, a human capital consulting firm, administered the survey and analyzed the results for the Chronicle. According to a Chronicle press release, ModernThink has conducted numerous “best places to work” programs, surveying hundreds of thousands of employees nationwide.

“Despite the down economy, colleges are still hiring,” said Chronicle editor Jeffrey Selingo in a press release. “Through this program, the Chronicle is able to provide more information to job seekers about the colleges that are the leading innovators when it comes to providing a rewarding work environment.”

News Briefs

From staff reports

President Parker Blogging about Life at Sweet Briar

Sweet Briar’s new president, Jo Ellen Parker, is blogging about her experiences as the College’s 10th commander in chief. “I’ll be blogging my first year as president of Sweet Briar here,” she writes. “I’m a novice blogger and a novice president, so I regard this as an experiment and an adventure!”

So far, among other things, Parker has written about spending the Fourth of July in Central Virginia; Sweet Briar’s recent designation as a “Great Place to Work”; the economics of higher education; and move-in day at Sweet Briar House.

To read Parker’s blog, click here.

Gotwalt Opines about Health Care

An editorial written by assistant professor of economics Gene Gotwalt about the current health care debate was published recently in the Lynchburg News & Advance. To read the editorial, click here.

VFIC Announces 2009 Grant Awards for Members

The Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges recently announced that it has awarded grants totaling more than $2.7 million to its 15 member colleges for 2009-2010, including $102,486 for Sweet Briar.

The VFIC is a consortium of private colleges and universities in Virginia that supports its members by securing financial support, increasing the institutions’ visibility and facilitating collaborative initiatives among the colleges.

Since 1952, VFIC has raised funds for its member institutions to support general operations, student scholarships, undergraduate research and other programs.

For more information on the foundation, visit http://www.vfic.org.

Kramar’s Daughter to ‘Jump for the Cause’

In September, Brenda Kramar, skydiver and daughter of library acquisitions assistant Joyce Kramar, will participate in “Jump for the Cause.” According to JFTC’s Web site, the goal is to “help increase awareness for breast cancer while preparing to set a new women’s world record in formation skydiving.” They also plan to raise $1 million for the City of Hope cancer center.

For more information and/or to make a donation, click here.

Mountain Run Farm Hosts ‘Farm Field Day’ Aug. 8

Mountain Run Farm in Sedalia will hosts its third annual “Farm Field Day” from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 8. Pasture walks will begin at 9 and 11 a.m. and lunch is available. For more information, visit http://www.mountainrunfarm.com or call 299-5193.

Sweet Briar Poet’s Work Appears in Paris Review

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

John Casteen

A poem by John Casteen, who teaches English and poetry workshops at Sweet Briar College, appears in the latest issue of a prestigious literary magazine.

Casteen’s Nocturne: Redaction is published in the online Summer 2009 Paris Review, along with works by former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins, Rome Prize fellow Craig Arnold and others.

In an e-mail to colleagues in Sweet Briar’s English department, Casteen wrote that for “some happy reason,” The Paris Review chose to make his poem available online.

Later, reacting to congratulations on the news, Casteen confessed that he felt like he had “slipped one past the goalie,” upon discovering his work in the Paris Review.

“I hope people like it,” he said. “I wrote that poem in my office in Fletcher Hall, on my birthday, while eating a chocolate bar that Eleanor Salotto had given me.”

According to its Web site, The Paris Review was founded in 1953 to emphasize fiction and poetry during a time when criticism held a “dominating place” in literary magazines. William Styron, writing in the inaugural issue, said the idea was not to exclude criticism but to relegate it to the back of the book, where he said it belongs.

“I think The Paris Review should welcome these people into its pages: the good writers and good poets, the non-drumbeaters and non-axe-grinders. So long as they’re good,” Styron wrote.

Marcais Elected to Organization’s Board

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

Tom Marcais

Tom Marcais, academic technology trainer and consultant at Sweet Briar, was recently elected board member at large for the Association of Small Computer Users in Education. He accepted the two-year position in June at the ASCUE’s annual meeting in Myrtle Beach.

This is Marcais’ fifth year as a member of the ASCUE and the first time he has served on the board. As a board member, he will work on the organization’s 2010 conference, contacting vendors and purchasing door prizes, among other things. “That will be fun,” he said.

According to the group’s Web site, ASCUE is a “dynamic organization for people interested in small college technology issues. Its members include information technology professionals, instructional technologists, and faculty members from all over the world who use computers and technology to support teaching and learning.”

The group convenes each summer and members provide support to each other throughout the year. “It’s a really good network of computer users,” Marcais said.

SBC Riding Director Writes for Industry Publication

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Sweet Briar riding director Shelby French has recently become a regular contributor to the Chronicle of the Horse, writing for its “Between Rounds” department.

French has authored two columns, in April and May, with another going to press this month. Contributors to “Between Rounds” are top professionals from different areas of equestrian sports who are asked to reflect on issues they feel are timely and important.

After submitting two columns, the Chronicle’s editors invited French to become a regular writer for the section, which she is glad to do. The 70-year-old publication covers the entire sport horse industry and is written specifically for accomplished competitors, according to its Web site.

“I feel it is such an honor to be asked to share my thoughts with the riding industry and be a voice for college riding and for the grassroots level of our sport,” French said. “An added bonus is that readers of the column should get a clearer picture of the philosophy that is the basis of the Sweet Briar program.”

Headquartered in Virginia, the Chronicle distributes across the United States and in Canada. The largest percentage of its circulation is made up of households in the South Atlantic states from Delaware to Florida.

Spotted Fawn

From staff reports

Blubber eyes a mole in the Kestner's Elijah Road yard.

Odd Kitties

From staff reports

Media Update

From staff reports

Alix Ingber: May at the Sweet Briar Community Garden
The Chronicle of Higher Education
May 29, 2009

Familiar name and lasting legacy at SBC
Lynchburg News & Advance
May 30, 2009
Re: News obit on Elizabeth Prothro

Only half graduate in 6 years
Report: Most Central Va. schools top state average
Lynchburg News & Advance
June 7, 2009
Re: American Enterprise Institute survey

Theatre Festival opens with encore of ‘The Bluest Water’
Amherst New Era-Progress
June 11, 2009

Educators integrate history into lessons
Lynchburg News & Advance
June 12, 2009
Re: The Teaching with Historic Places workshop

Engineering course for girls at SBC
Lynchburg News & Advance
June 18, 2009

How Catholics Became Majority on High Court
Washington Post
June 20, 2009
Re: Q&A with Barbara Perry on Catholics and the Supreme Court

Staging the ‘Great Flood’
Lynchburg News & Advance
June 24, 2009
Re: Endstation production of “The Bluest Water”

Alix Ingber: Rain, Rain Rain at the Sweet Briar Community Garden
The Chronicle of Higher Education
June 24, 2009

Education leadership transitions
New administrators step into big shoes
Lynchburg News & Advance
July 2, 2009

Olathe High School Graduate named Sweet Briar College president
Kansas City Star
July 7, 2009

Olathe High School Graduate named Sweet Briar College president
Olathe Daily News
July 9, 2009

Clear conflict
Lynchburg News & Advance
July 10, 2009
Re: Blue Ridge Summer Theatre Festival production of “My Brother’s Knife”

ArtMeters unveiled downtown
Amherst New Era-Progress
July 16, 2009
Re: Story written by Jennifer McManamay for Amherst newspaper.

ArtMeters unveiled in downtown Amherst
Nelson County Times
July 16, 2009
Re: Story written by Jennifer McManamay for Nelson newspaper.

Sweet Briar hosts summer band camps
Nelson County Times
July 16, 2009

A Supreme Court junkie on Sotamayor
Lynchburg News & Advance (Darrell Laurent’s Column)
July 16, 2009
Re: Barbara Perry interviewed.

RC expects enrollment dive
CVCC, Lynchburg College expect record number of students
Lynchburg News & Advance
July 21, 2009
Re: SBC’s dean of admissions quoted.

Bot girls: High schoolers explore engineering at Sweet Briar camp
Amherst New Era-Progress
July 30, 2009

Employees may pick up benefits-related forms any time in the hallway outside the finance and administration offices on the first floor of Fletcher.

Wall Display Ensures Benefits Forms Always Available

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

If you hurry you can snag a free Oral-B soft-bristled toothbrush while supplies last. They are in a wall display along with insurance forms from Delta Dental in the hallway outside the finance and administration offices on the first floor of Fletcher.

Director of human resources Barbara Parker said her department recently installed the wall bins so that employees could pick up benefits-related forms at their convenience. Everything from W-4s to flexible spending reimbursement forms can be found in the holders, along with copies of the College’s policy manual and information on the Employee Assistance Program.

Many but not all of the forms in the wall board are available online. But Parker said she wanted to make sure that forms and information were easily accessible to employees who don’t regularly use computers.

Town of Amherst Unveils ArtMeters

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Jennifer Crispen’s dog Mattie is the primary subject of a meter painted in Crispen’s memory, sponsored by librarians Joe Malloy and John Jaffe.


Bill England painted one of two meters sponsored by Sweet Briar.

Suny Monk handled master of ceremonies duties standing atop a tree stump in Amherst’s downtown Minipark.

As an ArtMeters Project volunteer and leader, she presided at the town’s unveiling of 22 parking meters-turned-street art. Town officials, project volunteers, sponsors and artists also were there.

Stretched along Main Street, the parking meters stood covered in white wrappers and red ribbons, looking like tall, skinny lollipops.

In the crowd of more than 100 who turned out for the July 8 event, people munched meter-shaped cookies and sipped lemonade as Monk explained how Town Council faced a quandary in 2008 — what to do with the business district’s outdated penny parking meters. Although the meters were defunct, their posts were still needed as flag holders on holidays.

Inspired by similar projects in other cities Monk, who is the executive director of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and a group of fellow citizens formed a committee with the idea of turning the meters into a sidewalk art gallery. Town Council had the “confidence and vision” to quickly sign on to the proposal, she said, and it was approved for a two-year period in January 2009.

Donors sponsored the meters for $100 each for one year and local artists submitted designs with the theme “What I Love about Amherst” for approval by a jury. Sponsors could choose an approved artist, choose an artist to go through the jury process or let the ArtMeters volunteers choose one for them. Small plaques recognizing the artist and sponsors are affixed to the meters.

The committee selected proposals to refurbish 22 of the town’s 46 or so meters in 2009. The rest will be painted next year to replace the older ones, with a new annual theme.

Monk yielded the stump to Mayor Jacob Bailey, who thanked the ArtMeters committee, noting it is another example of the local citizen involvement that makes the town what it is.

“Amherst depends on volunteers to a great extent,” he said, and the “people who do so much to keep Amherst beautiful and distinct” are among the community’s greatest assets.

The mayor also introduced Sweet Briar’s new president, Jo Ellen Parker, who took office July 1. It was the first official introduction to the town for Parker and her husband, Rick Manasa, who were there to unveil two meters sponsored by the College.

Town manager Jack Hobbs, an early supporter of the project, spoke of its benefits to Amherst. Even in Lynchburg, he said, people were talking about the meters — which at this point were still shrouded in their wrappers.

Back on the stump, Monk acknowledged the sponsors, artists and other volunteers individually before dispersing people to their appointed meters to await a signal. When the horn blasted from the town’s new fire engine — so new the temporary tags were still on it — everyone removed the coverings.

The meter designs range from Luis Lozano’s depiction of the courthouse and county seal to Terrie Linton’s representation of a fish, and include such iconic landmarks such as the traffic circle.

Meter No. 14, located near the Minipark, depicts the face of a black poodle named Mattie. Painted by Riverviews Art Friends, it is sponsored by Sweet Briar librarians John Jaffe and Joe Malloy in memory of Mattie’s owner, the late Jennifer Crispen.

“They really do speak to what is very, very special about our town,” Monk said.

New and returning sponsors and artists will have a chance to support the project in 2010, when the theme will be “The Town of Amherst — 100 years” to celebrate its centennial year. Speaking later by phone, Monk said the existing meters may be moved to side streets to make room for the new ones.

The sponsorship fee includes $50 for artists’ supplies and $50 for the recognition plaques and other administrative costs. Artists can choose to donate their materials and time.

Artists must submit an application, including drawings of the finished meter, for review by an artistic panel looking for quality, suitability and relationship to the theme. Approved designs are then evaluated by a “practicality” panel for weather resistance and durability, to ensure it looks good for at least a year.

The meters have to be appropriate for display on city streets, Monk said, and the committee will do everything it can to maintain them in the case of vandalism or weathering.

“Nothing’s worse than shabby, worn out street art,” she said. “Town Council went out on a limb [to approve the project] and we promised to try to do the right thing.”

Applications for 2010 will be available in December from the Town of Amherst Web site, from an ArtMeters volunteer, or by writing to ArtMeters, P.O. Box 1046, Amherst, VA 24521.

Q&A with President Parker

From staff reports

Snow Skis

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

Broiler Chickens

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

Best Wishes, Betsy, See You Soon

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Retiring president Betsy Muhlenfeld receives a gift from college relations at a party hosted in her honor. Photo by Brenda Fitts.


Pausing for a brief moment on moving day. Photo by Sheila Alexander.

The campus community bids thanks and so long but not goodbye to Elisabeth “Betsy” Showalter Muhlenfeld, who retired in June after 13 years as Sweet Briar’s ninth president.

Late in the morning of June 25, Muhlenfeld was directing the chaos that is moving day. Dodging movers, she paused long enough to take a phone call and reflect on her leaving.

The closer she and her husband, Laurin Wollan, got to their final night at Sweet Briar House, she said, “The more I realized how much I’m going to miss the place and especially the people.”

Of course, no one has seen the last of her. She anticipates that she will keep “several fingers on the pulse of Sweet Briar” from Richmond, where they bought a house and will be near family.

“I plan to be very engaged with alumnae in Richmond and will continue to chair the Tusculum Advisory Board here on campus,” Muhlenfeld said. “And I suspect the Sweet Briar news page will continue to be my default [home page] for years to come.”

She also will be back for the dedication of the new fitness center and inauguration of Sweet Briar’s 10th president, Jo Ellen Parker, which will occur during Homecoming Weekend on Saturday, Sept. 26.

More than a year ago, Muhlenfeld announced her intention to retire by the end of June 2009. She began serving at Sweet Briar in August 1996.

Among the College’s initiatives during her tenure are the founding of the Tusculum Institute for the preservation of historic resources; several new construction and renovation projects to expand facilities; and additions to the curriculum including master’s programs in teaching and education, an interdisciplinary Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, certificates in equine studies and leadership, and several new undergraduate majors, including engineering.

Muhlenfeld also presided during a critical period in which Sweet Briar reaffirmed its commitment to remaining a women’s college.

Thank you, President Muhlenfeld, for your service and best wishes in your next endeavors.

Sweet Briar Donors’ Generosity Holding Up in Tough Times

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

While the economic recession is being felt at Sweet Briar, charitable giving remains a strength of the College. So far, its supporters have defied a downward trend in giving to educational organizations reported last month in Giving USA 2009, an annual publication of the Giving USA Foundation.

Sweet Briar recorded an 18 percent increase in total giving — which includes pledges and future intentions such as bequests — in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, over the previous year. Donations had climbed at a slower pace by the end of May 2009, when total giving was 4 percent ahead of the same period last year, said Heidi Hansen McCrory, vice president for development.

The slowdown was offset by a 14 percent increase in cash and other gifts actually received this fiscal year, however. Distribution of earlier bequests and a 10 percent boost in the vitally important Annual Fund led to that outcome, McCrory said.

The 4 percent total increase also contrasts favorably with the 5.5 percent slide in giving to U.S. educational organizations in 2008 estimated by the Giving USA 2009 survey. McCrory cautioned against making direct comparisons, though, because the survey is based on donations received by charitable organizations in the calendar year, not the July 1 to June 30 fiscal year used at Sweet Briar.

Nonetheless, “In light of the national statistics, Sweet Briar is having a strong year, in large part because of the continued and extraordinary philanthropy from our alumnae, parents, faculty, staff and friends,” she wrote in an e-mail.

The Giving USA survey, which estimates all types of charitable giving, recorded the first year-to-year drop in donations without adjusting for inflation since 1987 and only the second since the foundation began publishing the reports in 1956, according to a Foundation press release. Still, it found that for the second year in a row, charitable donations in the United States exceeded $300 billion despite what is often characterized in the media as the worst economy since World War II.

Education is one of several types of charities, or subsectors, defined by the survey that saw declines, while some — religion, public-society benefit and international affairs organizations — realized small gains or were flat. The other subsectors were arts, culture and humanities, environment and animals; health; human services; and foundations, with the latter two being particularly hard hit in 2008.

The survey’s education category includes primary and secondary schools, vocational and technical institutions, libraries and other entities, but 80 to 90 percent of giving in the subsector goes to colleges and universities, said Sharon Bond of Giving USA.

A June 10 story about the Giving USA survey in the Chronicle of Higher Education, “Giving to Colleges and other Charities Declines Nearly 6 Percent,” notes the Council for Aid to Education reported last March that college giving rose by 6.2 percent in fiscal 2008 thanks to a strong second half of calendar-year 2007.

“But interviews with fund raisers led it to predict that giving would decline in 2009 and perhaps again in 2010,” the article said.

McCrory’s e-mail cited several likely reasons that giving at Sweet Briar so far has fared better those predictions.

“This year, bequests have definitely pulled our numbers up to the tune of almost $4 million. That’s the only unusual factor in our numbers this year — everything else is hard work and generous donors,” she said. “And of course, the bequests came about because we did the work earlier, as a community, to engage, cultivate and solicit those gifts.”

Particularly striking is the 10 percent jump in the Annual Fund, she said.

“Our numbers are good in the cash area this year, largely because of the realized bequests, but the increased Annual Fund numbers give, in my estimation, the truest and purest look at the health of an institution from a current philanthropy (gifts made today to benefit the College in the short term) perspective,” McCrory wrote.

“Obviously, all commitments, short and long term, cash and endowments, are important but Annual Fund dollars are critical in years like this when other means of supporting the daily operations of the College (endowment most especially) are stressed.”

The biggest spike in Annual Fund donations came from reunion classes, which totaled nearly $1 million, McCrory said, but the College also saw increased participation from faculty and staff and the Senior Class Campaign.

Donations to the Kellogg Library for children's books in the name of Hattie Arizona Ramsey have poured in from the Sweet Briar community. This is a sample of the 80 titles received so far.

Hattie Ramsey Remembered through Donations to Kellogg Library

Campus community reaches out to one of its own

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

The caring and generosity of the Sweet Briar community is brimming over once again. When admissions director Gretchen Tucker learned that a colleague in college relations had lost her newborn daughter, she felt she had to do something. She put out a call to donate children’s books to the College library in the baby’s name and within two days 24 people responded.

Within a week, 49 families had donated 80 books and Joyce Kramar, who volunteered to coordinate the effort, is still taking orders.

The death of Hattie Arizona Ramsey, born to Suzanne Ramsey and her husband, John, on May 28, broke her parents’ hearts and shook everyone around them. Tucker, herself a mother, wanted to reach out to the Ramseys and knew that others would, too.

The idea of memorializing Hattie by donating to the Kellogg Library for children’s books at Cochran Library came naturally to Tucker.

“One of the kindest gifts given to my children are books in their name donated to the Amherst Public Library,” she wrote in an e-mail to co-workers on campus. “I love the thought that the books may be enjoyed by many, many children.”

Initially Tucker intended to e-mail a few friends about her idea, and she asked Kramar if she would mind — being responsible for library acquisitions, it would fall to Kramar to process the donations. Kramar leaped at the opportunity.

“Then John [Jaffe, libraries director] walks out of his office and says ‘I just sent [Tucker’s e-mail] to everyone on campus,’ ” Kramar said later.

As the calls came pouring in, Kramar said she was having a ball ordering books with titles such as “Too Many Zucchini for Zachary Beany” and “The Whingdingdilly.” Some people made cash donations, others brought by books that were their favorites as kids or parents. But many have relied on Kramar to recommend titles and place the order for them.

“Oh man, I’ve had fun picking out books,” Kramar said, rattling off myriad subjects such as the solar system, horses and the food pyramid. “You name it, I think I’ve covered every ground you could possibly cover in children’s books.”

Kramar knows what the library’s needs are for children’s titles, which include alphabet books and stories on nature and diversity. By combining those criteria with what Ramsey’s friends know of her interests, Kramar has been able to research and suggest books that bolster the library’s inventory while memorializing Hattie in a personal way.

If you are interested in donating cash or books to the Kellogg Library, contact Kramar at bjkramar@sbc.edu or Ext. 6310. If you prefer to purchase a book or books of your choice, you may want to check with Kramar first to see if the library already has the title. Newly donated books have not yet been cataloged.

Donations will be book plated in memory of Hattie Arizona Ramsey from you. Kramar also will send a letter to the family acknowledging your gift unless you prefer not to do so.

The field house of the Fitness and Athletics Center should be ready in time to host Homecoming Weekend and inaugural festivities in September. Photo by Theresa McNabb.

Construction Update from Finance and Administration

PAUL DAVIES
Vice president for finance and administration

Phase 1 of the Green Village is nearing completion. Photo by Theresa McNabb.

After breaking ground for the Green Village in October 2008, construction for Phase 1 of the new residential space is on schedule to be completed in time for fall 2009. Phase 1 will consist of five buildings and will accommodate 60 students. Each building includes one apartment and two townhouse units of approximately 1,600 square feet with four single bedrooms.

In addition to providing student housing, the units will be used by the conference center during the summer months, allowing it to accommodate larger groups. When completed, the units will be attractive, fully furnished, energy efficient and made of quality material to reduce future maintenance costs. Each first-floor apartment will be designed to be handicapped accessible. Some of the major components in the buildings include the following:

• Structural Insulated Panels, called SIPs, which are approximately 40 to 50 percent more efficient than stick-built homes. They are 100-percent recyclable and generate less job-site waste.
• Energy Star-rated roof (designed to add photovoltaic solar electric panels)
• Energy Star appliances
• Low-flow showers and toilets
• High R value windows
• Sprinklers

Thanks to the creativity of Steve Bailey, director of physical plant, the College has enjoyed considerable cost savings. An example of this is the elimination of a detention pond for the Green Village by changing the grading of the project. This reduced the amount of earth that had to be moved and also eliminated an unsightly retention pond.

Bailey also solved another problem as the College needed to create a flat field to accommodate the Mid-Atlantic Band Summer Camp. The new camp will bring more 1,200 band students (about half are girls) on to campus between July 13 and Aug. 11. Bailey was able to use the dirt moved from the Green Village to build the new field, saving the College thousands of dollars. We are excited about the opportunity to showcase Sweet Briar to these visitors and their families.

Fitness and Athletics Center

Sweet Briar College began construction of the new Fitness and Athletics Center in May 2008. The field house and “hang-out” space completion date is targeted for Sept. 25, 2009 — just in time for Homecoming and inauguration celebrations — and the administrative space will be ready in early October. The expected completion date was changed due to structural changes and the wet spring.

Work will begin shortly to reconfigure the free weight and training rooms. In addition, the volleyball area will be resurfaced prior to the beginning of the school year. The FAC is designed to serve all students, faculty and staff by offering expanded fitness and wellness facilities, a bigger venue for co-curricular events, a restaurant, movie theater, classroom space, sitting area, big-screen television, pool and ping pong tables and computers.

The new facility will have an elevated .10-mile running track and office space for our athletics department. A state-of-the-art gymnasium floor (Teraflex) will provide multi-use space for College functions, concerts and events in addition to regulation sports such as tennis, volleyball and basketball.

The FAC will feature a geothermal heat pump, LEED-certified roof with skylights for increased daylighting and lower electrical load, energy-efficient windows, maximum insulation, occupancy sensors for lighting and low-flow plumbing fixtures.

Welcome Mat is Out for Summer Band Camps

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Sweet Briar’s denizens are accustomed to constant activity occasioned by the summer programs that have long had a home here.

Sweaty youths toting tennis rackets, school teachers attending workshops and conferees descend on Prothro during lunch and are frequently seen crisscrossing campus. Lately, Blue Ridge Summer Theatre Festival thespians have joined the throngs.

But this year both the tempo and the volume will rise noticeably when Mid-Atlantic Camps arrives for the first time. The Richmond-based company has chosen Sweet Briar as the new base for its summer band camps, after leaving its home of 32 years at Ferrum College.

According to a July 25, 2008, story in the Franklin News-Post, Ferrum can no longer host the program because of enrollment growth and scheduling conflicts. Camp director Dwight Leonard said there is no animosity about the change, just sadness over the end of a happy and fruitful relationship.

When the Franklin News-Post interviewed him, he estimated that Mid-Atlantic spent more than $5 million at Ferrum and in the local economy during its three decades there. He anticipates a long-term relationship with Sweet Briar that will result in similar benefits for the community.

More than 1,000 campers and roughly 45 staffers will stay at Sweet Briar for five-day sessions over four weeks from July 13 to Aug. 11. Parents dropping off and picking up their children will shop and dine nearby, and what his staff and clients can’t find on campus they will purchase from area merchants, Leonard said.

When he first scouted Sweet Briar, though, the campus didn’t initially impress him as the camps’ next home, Leonard said. He saw too many hills, not enough practice fields and a printed rate card that quoted costs for groups of 30 — not 1,200.

By then, he’d been searching for a suitable site for a year, without success. He was on the verge of giving up summer camps and concentrating on Mid-Atlantic’s core business of producing middle and high school competitions. Fortunately, Sweet Briar dean and professor of music Jonathan Green is a judge at those competitions.

A chance conversation between the two men led to a second look, and that’s when Sweet Briar auxiliary services director Steve Edwards got involved. Edwards said he realized the College could open additional practice fields at nominal expense. He could negotiate more affordable rates for such a large group.

And he knew a deal with Mid-Atlantic would mean half a million dollars in new summer program revenue for Sweet Briar over a three-year contract.

The first campers arrive Monday, July 13 for Mid-Atlantic’s Band Front Camp. The group is made up of mostly high school students from four states who are members of color guard (flags, rifles and winter guard), drum major and drum line sections. There is also a student leadership program for students who lead band sections.

The students will practice with their sections, then come together for a final exhibition that is open to the public. The exhibition will be held at 9 a.m. Friday, July 17 in Williams Gymnasium. Throughout the week their practice locations will be scattered indoors and out, from the field near the campus’ front entrance to the lower Babcock athletic field.

Next, roughly 250 students are due Sunday, July 19 for Middle School Concert Band Camp. They also will be on campus for five days, which will culminate in four back-to-back performances starting at 1 p.m. Thursday, July 23 in Murchison Lane Auditorium.

Mid-Atlantic provides all teaching staff, counselors and chaperones for the Band Front and Concert Band camps. Leonard said 45 to 50 staff members stay on campus during those two weeks.

Finally, three Marching Band Camps will be held from Tuesday, July 28 to Saturday, Aug. 1; Sunday, Aug. 2 to Thursday, Aug. 6; and Friday, Aug. 7 to Tuesday, Aug. 11. Two to four high school bands will attend each session, with as many as 400 musicians.

Bands from Chapel Hill and Carrboro, N.C., are signed up, along with several Roanoke Valley and Southwest Virginia high school bands, Leonard said. Although his company runs the marching band sessions and provides accident and health insurance as it does with the first two camps, he said the high schools usually provide most of their own teaching staff and chaperones.

The marching bands will practice at various locations. Final exhibitions will be performed at 9 a.m. the last day of their camps on the lower athletic field behind Babcock. Spectators are welcome at all exhibitions.

For more information, please contact Steve Edwards at or Ext. 6160.

"Teaching with Historic Places" workshop participants take note of the architectural details surrounding them on Sweet Briar's campus. Photos by Sheila Alexander.

Hands-On History a Hit with Area Teachers

SHEILA ALEXANDER
Development communications coordinator

Turnout for the Tusculum Institute's workshop was robust. Participants are seen here during an observation tour of campus.

The Tusculum Institute, a center for historic preservation at Sweet Briar College, hosted “Teaching with Historic Places” on Saturday, June 13. With an audience of K-12 teachers as well as curators and docents from historical societies and museums, the workshop taught some new ways to engage others with history.

A hands-on approach to interpreting historic architecture gave teachers some basic architectural information to help guide their students. In their first exercise, they left the classroom with instructions from presenter Charles White, associate professor at Boston University School of Education, to “observe what you see as if you had never been here before and didn’t know where you are.”

From observing whatever caught their attention first, from the handmade appearance of the brickwork to the columns, window styles and aged trees, the group learned how to interpret the value of the architecture around them.

“It is so nice to be a student for a day,” a middle school teacher said. “We’re learning how to pick up clues on what’s around us, which is invaluable to inspiring the children.”

A slide show, “The Power of Place,” illustrated historic places from across the nation to demonstrate the relevance of historic places from different time periods and regions. A walking tour of Sweet Briar House and a slave cabin encouraged teachers to notice architectural details and derive hypotheses about the history of a house based on close observation of window ornamentation, building plans and decorative elements.

Besides White, speakers included Carol Shull, chief of the National Park Service’s heritage education services; NPS historian Beth Boland; and Lynn Rainville, archaeologist and director of the Tusculum Institute.

“Teaching with Historic Places” was sponsored by the Tusculum Institute and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources with support from the National Park Service.

The Tusculum Institute, although not yet constructed of bricks and mortar, is drawing historic sustainability enthusiasts in droves. It will eventually be housed in the historic home Tusculum, birthplace of the mother of the founder of Sweet Briar College, when it is rebuilt on campus.

The Tusculum Institute is dedicated to preserving and studying the region’s historic assets within a context of environmental stewardship.

Welcome to the World, Xavier Fish

From staff reports

Xavier Leroy Fish snoozes in his dad's arm.

Assistant admissions director Autum Fish and her husband, Jeremiah, are the parents of a baby boy. Autum gave birth on the morning of Saturday, June 13, 2009, to Xavier Leroy Fish, who weighed in at 6 pounds, 14 ounces and measured 22 inches long. Autum and Xavier are both doing well.

Blogger Recognizes SBC Librarian

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Sweet Briar librarian Liz Kent received a mention recently on a Web site called Lynchburg’s Best Kept Secrets.

Blogger Jennifer Bailey notes that as digital resources librarian, Kent directs the Gifts of Speech Web site, which features the full text of speeches by influential women throughout the world.

With sponsorship from the College, Kent founded the site more than a decade ago and it’s been winning awards ever since.

Hello from President Parker

JO ELLEN PARKER
President of the College

Friends:

I’m grateful that this newsletter gives me the opportunity to say to the whole staff how delighted I am to have arrived “for real” and to be joining you in the work of the College. My regular visits throughout the spring have shown me that one of Sweet Briar’s greatest assets is its committed and resourceful staff — that is, all of you — and I am proud and grateful to be joining your ranks.

There’s a steep learning curve ahead of me, I know; your help, wisdom and support will be essential as I learn the ropes. So thank you in advance for your patience with all the clueless-newbie questions I’m certain to be asking!

I’d be remiss if I didn’t also thank the many people who have worked for several months to make this presidential transition go seamlessly. First, President Emerita Betsy Muhlenfeld could not have been a more thoughtful or gracious predecessor. Then, those who represented the faculty and staff on the search committee were unfailingly impressive, insightful and enthusiastic about Sweet Briar’s prospects.

Many faculty have extended warm and thoughtful welcomes, both formally and informally, and offered valuable perspectives. The president’s office staff has managed to juggle their ongoing work and the transition process with competence and good humor, and many colleagues from dining, housekeeping, public safety, computing, and other offices have made my visits to campus efficient and comfortable. So thanks to all colleagues who have contributed to this remarkably successful transition process.

Soon the College will begin a new academic year. We’re all aware that this year, in the current economic environment, Sweet Briar faces challenges (as does every other college in the nation.) Meeting these challenges while advancing the mission of the College and building upon her considerable strengths will require the best efforts from all of us.

We will need to approach our shared work with energy, imagination, dedication and teamwork. Fortunately, I know how rich this college is in energy, imagination, dedication and teamwork, and I’m excited and optimistic about what we’ll be able to accomplish together.

During the interview process, I said in a couple of meetings that I have always approached leading organizations on the principle that “we are building something, not just working somewhere.” Thank you again for allowing me to join you in building a Sweet Briar for the 21st century!

I hope you will all enjoy some R&R in the remainder of the summer. And if we haven’t met yet, please come by, or stop me on the walkway sometime, and introduce yourself. I’m looking forward to getting to know you all.

Cheers,
Jo Ellen Parker

‘Plato’s Ghost’ Emerges from Wild Ride through Spiritualist Movement

Religion professor’s research results in scholarly work with no shortage of good tales

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Paige Critcher's photo appears on the cover of Cathy Gutierrez's book.

Sweet Briar associate professor of religion Cathy Gutierrez’s new book, “Plato’s Ghost: Spiritualism in the American Renaissance,” is a scholarly work on a gripping subject. If you don’t believe it, ask Mary Todd Lincoln or Arthur Conan Doyle.

Sure they’re dead, but no good Spiritualist of 19th-century America would have let that stop them. Gutierrez’s 232-page monograph, due to be published by Oxford University Press this month and available at amazon.com by fall, examines the Spiritualist movement that swept the country beginning in the mid-1800s. It gathered enough followers to make politicians worry about capturing their vote, and at least piqued the interest of such notables as Mark Twain and Charles Darwin.

While the book is a serious study of Spiritualism’s tenets, philosophical influences and its legacy, Gutierrez says the movement brims with fascinating stories. She stumbled on one of them years ago while doing research for a graduate class. It was a newspaper account of a woman identified as “Mary of a New Dispensation” who was asked to give life to a machine. The woman apparently experienced a hysterical pregnancy and appeared to go into labor.

“And boom, that was it. I had to figure out who these people were and how they thought. It was such an outrageous moment that I knew that to get inside their heads would be a wild ride,” Gutierrez said.

“I am also very much attracted to their ethics — universal salvation, equal rights for women, pro-Abolition, prison reform and a host of lesser causes. I think they were the real gateway for multiculturalism in America and were very much ahead of their time.”

Spiritualism is an overflowing bucket of ideas, which Gutierrez tackles by organizing them in themes and analyzing them, sometimes using colorful historical accounts as illustration. They believed in talking to the dead, for example, and in addition to popularizing séances, tried to devise machines for contacting people in the afterlife.

Among the politically progressive Spiritualists’ concerns were women and children trapped in bad marriages with violent men, Gutierrez said. She describes the advocacy of women like suffragist and Spiritualist Victoria Woodhull, who led on issues such liberalizing divorce laws, women’s rights and “free love.”

“Spiritualists also believed that love and even sex continued in heaven so the stakes were high for valuing love and marriage,” Gutierrez said. “The free love movement condoned consensual adult sex without interference by religious or civil authorities.”

Gutierrez argues in the book that modern Spiritualism became the religious expression of the American Renaissance. According to the publisher’s synopsis, it was a “culture in love with history as much as it trumpeted progress and futurity, and an expression of what constituted religious hope among burgeoning technology and colonialism. Rejecting Christian ideas about salvation, Spiritualists embraced Platonic and Neoplatonic ideas.”

Spiritualists believed that everyone goes to heaven and that hell does not exist, Gutierrez says. Theirs wasn’t a “saved-versus-damned” view of the world.

“I argue that esoteric teachings of Platonic and Neoplatonic thinking, brought to America through groups like the Freemasons and perpetuated by a new interest in what we would now call world religions, made for a new kind of ethics,” she said. “Knowledge and progress rather than us-versus-them were the hallmarks of progressive religion.”

The book’s title is a reference to Plato’s influence on the movement, but it also evokes one of Spiritualism’s more lurid chapters: spirit photography.

William Mumler accidentally made the first ghost photograph while using a wet-plate process to make a self-portrait. A ghostly figure appeared behind his image. Gutierrez said he showed it to a Spiritualist friend to tease him, but after the photograph was splashed across Spiritualist publications, Mumler recognized an opportunity.

He claimed to become a convert and opened a studio specializing in “spirit sittings,” charging as much as $10 dollars for a 50-cent photograph. He was eventually prosecuted for fraud but it was never clear to some experts who examined his techniques how he did it — despite apparitions of living persons occasionally appearing in his photographs and court testimony showing 10 different ways to fake the images with wet-plate photography.

“Mumler was acquitted on all counts and compared to Galileo, fighting an uphill battle for science in the face of treachery,” Gutierrez said.

In a kind of homage and because she knew Sweet Briar photographer Paige Critcher had lately been working with 19th-century ghost photography techniques, Gutierrez asked Critcher to make the cover art for the book. Although the publishing schedule didn’t allow enough time to make a new image, Critcher’s work does appear on the cover. The photo is a street scene in Prague, taken in 2005 using a view camera.

“Paige is my favorite photographer and I love all of her work,” Gutierrez said. “That stunning shot from Prague really evokes an otherworldly and 19th-century feeling, so it worked out perfectly.”

KIC participants go through exercises in "The Art and Science of Swordfighting."

Another Successful Kids In College Wraps Up

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Participants in Tiffany Cummings' "Yoga for Kids" get a workout on the dell.

Close to 100 area third- through eighth-graders descended on campus during the week of June 15-19 for Sweet Briar’s seventh annual Kids In College program.

The students chose two workshops from a menu that included everything from pinhole photography to golf and from decorating cakes to fake fighting for the stage. The workshops were led by SBC faculty and staff — and in some cases, their family members — and local and visiting professionals who taught classes in their fields.

Pam Simpson, who teaches in the chemistry department, coordinates the KIC program. She said there were 14 offerings presented over 19 sessions this year. In addition to the presenters, she had help from seven high school student volunteers, two adult volunteers and a Sweet Briar student.

The classes run for half a day every morning during the week. They are designed to build on each day’s activities to provide a thorough exploration of the topic.

It’s a formula that seems to work both for parents looking for educational summer activities for their kids and for participants. Simpson collected evaluations at the end of the week, but even before then a number of parents told her how much their sons and daughters were enjoying the programs. The kids had their own way of expressing it.

“Several of the students wanted to know if they could come back the next week!” Simpson said.

KIC is an annual summer enrichment program presented by Sweet Briar College for students in the third through eighth grades. It offers in-depth exploration of topics in the arts and sciences led by expert instructors.

For general information about KIC or how to register for next year, check the KIC Web page, where course descriptions and a downloadable registration form will be posted when available.

Dobby and Smudge Mahler

AARON MAHLER
Director of network services

Many of you will remember my writing about our beloved cat, Squinky, back in November of 2006. One of the more devastating experiences in our lives was losing him very suddenly this past March. Squink was a force of nature and the pain of losing him was exacerbated by a house that was suddenly very, very quiet.

Under no illusions that there will ever be another Squink, we set out a few weeks later to at least fix the overly quiet house problem. It’s fair to say that, in this regard, we succeeded quite well. As I’m writing these very sentences (after midnight, nonetheless), my office at home is being invaded by the thundering sounds of eight cat feet moving at high speed in one door, through the room, and out the other.

Yes, eight cat feet means we decided to step it up a notch and double the household’s previous cat population. Honestly, we figured it would take two cats to come anywhere close to reaching the bar Squink set for overall presence and capacity for disruption.

Enter Dobby and Smudge. They couldn’t be more different personality-wise but, together, phrases like “hell on wheels” spring to mind. They are both just over a year old and were adopted from the Amherst and Nelson County shelters on the same day, several hours apart. We discovered them both the day before, deliberated on our choices, and decided to go for it simultaneously so neither one of them would have established any territorial dominance.

Dobby, named after the house elf in Harry Potter due to his inherently impish personality, is a virtually unflappable and a talented troublemaker. He’s orange and has eyes that remind me of the black, yellow-rimmed glass eyes of early 20th-century teddy bears.

He’s a consummate explorer and spent the first few days here with his front end jammed underneath most everything (and often on his back as he was doing it). Walk into a room and you would see the lower half of Dobbs sticking out from under a piece of furniture. Enter another room later and you would see virtually the same thing, but this time it might be the refrigerator. Or a cabinet. Or a sofa. If there was a gap, Dobby was checking it out, sniffing it loudly and often sneezing as a result.

Smudge is named for the faint gray streak on the top of his pure white head, suggestive of having just spent time exploring the fireplace. Compared to Dobby, who is fairly compact and — dare I say, squishy — Smudge is long, lanky and has a tail like a tree. He is capable of jumping as high as your head. I am not exaggerating about this since he does it routinely when chasing my green laser pointer.

He’s often as nervous as Dobby is unflappable, but he’s been coming into his own lately and showing signs of starting to own the place. Smudgie is also highly vocal, usually announcing himself when he enters any room with a rapid-fire series of little chirps. Dobby, on the other hand, makes an utterly bizarre honking noise that is unlike anything either of us has ever heard come out of a cat. If I ever manage to catch a recording of it, I will gladly share it online for the world to hear.

We’ve only had a few months with “da boyz,” as we call them. Smudgie and The Dobbs. Abu Dobby. Smudgkins. The Diabolical Duo. These are all names that, even in just a few short months, have become natural to us. We’re watching their personalities develop as they settle into the house and establish their routines.

We inevitably compare them to Squink when they exhibit any traits or mannerisms reminiscent of his personality. More often than not, though, we’re remarking on the differences and appreciating the new experiences that come with having a pair of cats that play off one another as much as they interact with us.

Oddly enough, they both have a penchant for sleeping on their backs, something that Squink never did. Dobby tends to sprawl out flat in the most unseemly poses you can imagine. Smudge, on the other hand, rolls over and twists his lanky self into horrifically bizarre contortions suggestive of having been tossed into the chair from a moving vehicle. Both, though, appear to be reaching an enviable level of comfort that only cats can achieve.

To see a photo gallery, click here.

Vacation Renters

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Summer Engineering Course Offers College Credit for High School Women

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Sweet Briar Engineering is hosting a weeklong residential course to introduce rising junior and senior high school women to the field of engineering while earning one college credit hour. The course will be held from Sunday, July 19 to Friday, July 24. Meals and lodging are provided.

The cost to attend is $250 including a $100 deposit due by July 1 with the application. An online application can be found at www.engineering.sbc.edu. Scholarships to cover the cost of attendance also are available.

In addition to the coursework, participants will share meals and hold discussions with current SBC Engineering students, faculty and successful women engineers. Classroom and lab work will explore aspects of engineering design, including working in groups, with an emphasis on hands-on assignments. Students will engage in a group competition that incorporates robotics, structural and other engineering design elements.

Attendees also will learn about engineering computer tools; explore the machine shop, aerodynamic efficiency and robotics research labs; and hear from SBC student and faculty researchers about their ongoing work.

The culminating competition will be held Friday, July 24, followed by a luncheon at the College’s Boat House with family and SBC faculty before departing for home.

Visit www.engineering.sbc.edu for more information about the program. Click on the “course information” link for registration information or contact Hank Yochum, engineering program director, at hyochum@sbc.edu or Ext. 6357.

Town Hosts Unveiling of Amherst’s ArtMeters Project

From staff reports

The town of Amherst will officially unveil its new ArtMeters Project at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 8 at the Amherst Minipark across from Traveler’s Restaurant.

The event is open to the public and members of the Sweet Briar community are especially invited to attend. The College is a sponsor of the project in which local artists refurbished 22 parking meters in the downtown area.

Mayor Jacob Bailey, members of the Town Council, and ArtMeter volunteers, sponsors and artists all will be on hand.

Refreshments will be provided.

Butterfly on milkweed

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Michael Stablein Jr. as Romeo in “Romeo and Juliet” uses the outdoor staging to put the audience in the middle of the action during last year’s Blue Ridge Summer Theatre Festival. This year, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” will be performed on the dell near Babcock.

Round Two of 2009 Theatre Festival Kicks Off

Shakespeare, an original Southern gothic tale and good eats align to entertain

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Natalie Caruncho is Puck in Shakespeare's “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
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Kirin McCrory as Valerie and Walter Kmiec as Deter in Endstation's “My Brother’s Knife: A Madison Heights Odyssey.”

As the 2009 Blue Ridge Summer Theatre Festival wraps up an encore run of “The Bluest Water,” the talented, gung-ho cast and crew of the Endstation Theatre Co. are feverishly racing toward the second and main leg of the event hosted by Sweet Briar College.

So, too, is chef Glenton Goodwill of the Elston Inn, which is working to create an extra culinary incentive for playgoers. On specific dates, guests can purchase tickets and dinner for two for $60, plus tax. Or they may choose Sunday brunch on July 12 for the 2 p.m. premiere of “My Brother’s Knife: A Madison Heights Odyssey,” Endstation’s original “Southern gothic” play.

The dinner menus vary, but each offers a choice of meat entrée, such as a baked chicken breast stuffed with spinach and Boursin cheese or pork picatta served with capers and lemon-roasted garlic jus. Dessert, salad course, coffee, tea and wine also are included.

The Sunday brunch includes beverages, a fresh omelet station with cheese assortment, salad and dessert stations. The entrée station includes apple wood-smoked bacon, gourmet sausages and ham glazed with maple sugar and Dijon mustard, potatoes O’Brien and a vegetable medley of zucchini, yellow squash and carrots.

The time — and place — couldn’t be better to kick off director Ryan Clark’s mercurial take on William Shakespeare’s romantic comedy “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

The play will be performed on the grassy dell between Babcock Fine Arts Center and Sweet Briar House. The first show time is 7 p.m. July 7 — when the evening sky and darkening shadows of nearby Guion Woods set the stage for mischievous forest fairies who prey upon four young lovers.

If you prefer a picnic to a sit-down dinner, pack a food basket along with your blankets and chairs. There’s plenty of room to spread out, and for all Saturday shows, Rebec Vineyards will offer wine tastings one hour before and after the performances. Tastings are $3, including the glass.

Although the idea for “My Brother’s Knife” came to playwright Joshua Mikel two years ago, while he was acting in Endstation productions at Live Arts in Charlottesville, he hadn’t planned to set the story in Virginia. He intended the protagonist, Wayne, to be a Cherokee Indian from his home state of Georgia.

Mikel changed the script for Endstation founder and artistic director Geoff Kershner, who wanted to produce “MBK” for the 2009 summer festival. But part of the company’s modus operandi is to produce original works where its Central Virginia home is integral to the action. So Wayne became a Monacan, a tribe native to Amherst County.

Kershner liked the story and believed it works for a Monacan character. Being native Virginian is part of Wayne’s narrative, but the play is not about the experience of his people, he said — although the Monacans will be the subject of a project he is already working on for the 2011 festival.

In the play, Wayne is talked out of jumping from a bridge over the James River by a dysfunctional police officer, sending him on a journey during which he must address his dark past.

The role was inspired by the Mikel’s admiration for a well-known Native American writer. “I am a big fan of the author Sherman Alexie, and like many of his characters, I wanted Wayne to have an attachment to a heritage that he was, on the whole, wildly unfamiliar with,” the playwright said.

Mikel visited Sweet Briar for a few weeks in June to finish the play, an experience he blogs about on Endstation’s Web site. He also workshopped the script with Kershner, the cast, and technical and artistic designers.

In his blog entry, he said the work was “funny, but that’s about the extent of it” until he and Kershner had a revelation. He also recalled, with some humor, his friend’s forceful directorial ways and insistence on the audience knowing what the characters want.

“We were making huge huge changes,” he wrote, and many of them came as a result of readings and technical meetings with people he called a mother load of talent.

“It’s a different play,” he concluded. “Completely different. And it’s not just funny.”

IF YOU GO: Ticket information
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” will be presented at 7 p.m. on July 7, 9, 11, 16, 18, 19, 21, 23, 25 and 26 on the dell near Babcock Fine Arts Center, where parking is available.

“My Brother’s Knife” will be performed at 2 p.m. Sunday, July 12 and at 7 p.m. on July 14, 15, 17, 22 and 24 in Murchison Lane Auditorium at Babcock Fine Arts Center.

Tickets for the Blue Ridge Summer Theatre Festival are $12 each, or $35 for all three plays, and can be purchased via www.lynchburgtickets.com. For more information, visit Endstation Theatre’s Web site at http://www.endstationtheatre.org/.

IF YOU GO: Dinner package details
Packages, which include play tickets and dinner or brunch for two, are $60 per performance.

Prefix menus including salad, entrée, dessert, wine, tea and coffee will be served at 5:30 p.m. for all evening shows. A brunch will be served at 11:30 a.m. for the 2 p.m. showing of “My Brother’s Knife” on Sunday, July 12.

“My Brother’s Knife” packages are available for Sunday, July 12; Tuesday, July 14; and Wednesday, July 15. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” packages are available for Sunday, July 19 and Sunday, July 26.

Reservations are requested by Monday, July 6. Availability cannot be guaranteed for reservations made after July 6. For information or reservations, please visit the Web site at http://www.elstoninn.com/ or call (434) 381-6207.

SB Community Gardener Digs the Rain in Latest Blog for CHE

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

This summer, retired SBC professor Alix Ingber has been writing as a guest contributor for the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Buildings & Grounds blog. She is reporting on the growing season at the Sweet Briar Community Garden. She notes this month in her third installment that with all the rain we’ve been having, there is much to report on.

You can read her first two entries here.

A founding member of the SBCG, Ingber also maintains the garden’s official blog.

The Sweet, Brief Life of Hattie Arizona Ramsey

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

Hattie Arizona Ramsey

Hattie Arizona Ramsey, beloved daughter of Suzanne Ramsey and her husband, John, passed away on Saturday, June 6 at UVA Medical Center in Charlottesville. She was born two months early at 10:22 a.m. on Thursday, May 28 at Virginia Baptist Hospital in Lynchburg. She weighed 3 pounds, 6 ounces and was nearly 16 inches long.

She was a beautiful baby, with a full head of nearly black hair, her father’s nose, and long fingers that made her parents think about future piano lessons. She appeared to have the “Ramsey knees,” unfortunately, which are made more for replacement than running marathons, but her tiny toes and feet were perfect.

In the end, however, Hattie’s situation was more complicated than just being a preemie. Parts of her brain were severely underdeveloped, affecting life-sustaining functions like breathing and swallowing, as well as cognitive function and the ability to be “present” at all in the world. The condition is always fatal, usually in the first year of life. On Saturday, June 6, Hattie’s parents made the heart-wrenching decision to let their daughter go to Heaven. She passed peacefully in her father’s arms at 11:10 a.m.

During her nine days on Earth, Hattie was loved by many and had many visitors at both Virginia Baptist Hospital and at UVA. It is very evident that she will be sorely missed by her parents and family and friends at Sweet Briar. Her brief life taught her parents more than they could have ever imagined about loving someone unconditionally, the joys of parenting and making the most difficult of decisions and sacrifices for the people you love. Her absence, although best for Hattie, will always leave a hole in her parents’ hearts.

Suzanne and John would like to thank everyone from the Sweet Briar family who called, wrote, e-mailed, visited and assisted them during this difficult time. Anyone wishing to make donations is asked to contribute to:

Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center
1915 Thompson Drive
Lynchburg, Va. 24501
528-4321

Parents to Participate in Homeschool Cooperative

From staff reports

RSS Feature Added to Sweet Briar Web Site

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Sweet Briar College recently added RSS to its Web site news pages. If you linked to this story from an RSS feed, it’s probably not necessary to read on. If you haven’t tried using news feeds until now, you might want to stay tuned.

RSS — which stands for Really Simple Syndication — is a tool that automatically lets you know when content that interests you has been added to your favorite Web sites. It also allows you to view and access the updates from one place.

There are several ways to subscribe to RSS feeds, including simply adding the feed to your bookmarks. That method doesn’t aggregate the content from all of the sites you subscribe to in a single display, however. To do that, you’ll need to choose an RSS or news reader. Many of these programs, including Google Reader, My Yahoo and Bloglines, are free.

News readers may be accessed using a Web browser or through a downloadable application. Web-based readers let you view your RSS subscriptions from any computer, while downloadable applications store them on your computer or mobile device. You can also choose to receive RSS feeds by e-mail.

You can get started by clicking on the square RSS icon that appears in the news and events sections of the SBC home and SBC News pages. You’ll be asked to select a reader and log in to create an account. Once you have an account, you can add and remove Web sites as needed. Some programs, such as Google Reader, let you create folders to further manage your feeds.

Many Web sites, including Sweet Briar, let you select all news or screen out stories you don’t want to read by selecting only the topics that interest you. For example, Washington Post subscribers may opt to receive only the Metro and Style section articles.

The topic feeds available on Sweet Briar’s site currently include articles related to the business, economics, engineering and Spanish academic departments; athletics and riding; and the Museum at Sweet Briar. The list will be updated, so check back occasionally for additional topics. To use this feature, go to SBC News and click on the RSS Feeds link.

Hillbilly the neighborhood cat and Prince McManamay, a yellow Lab, enjoy twice daily walks.

Street-wise Cat Amuses Neighbors

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Prince and Hillbilly go their own directions.

Hillbilly the cat isn’t an official member of the McManamay household, but he seems to want to be. Although he is well cared for by a family who lives down the street, he is a familiar presence among the dog walkers in my Waynesboro neighborhood. He’ll tag along with just about anybody, but he seems to like Prince and me best.

Hillbilly has taken to sleeping on the front porch day and night, and he joins us for our twice daily walks through rain, snow or shine. This hasn’t gone unnoticed by my neighbors, several of whom have stopped me to say they enjoy watching our entourage. One family with kids has gone so far as to dub the cat Tigger and Prince — who ambles along as fast as his spry 14-year-old legs will take him — Eeyore.

Over the years, I’ve had several cats who followed me on dog walks, but none so faithfully and as brazenly as Hillbilly. This grizzled character with a tattered left ear and a bum right eye fears neither man nor dog and is a friend to all he meets.

Sweet Briar Enlists in Yellow Ribbon Program

From staff reports

Sweet Briar College has partnered with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs on the Yellow Ribbon GI Education Enhancement Program, a new initiative that will help post-9/11-era veterans or their dependents attend the college of their choice.

According to the VA’s Web site, the Yellow Ribbon Program allows U.S. colleges and universities to “voluntarily enter into an agreement with VA to fund tuition expenses that exceed the highest public in-state undergraduate tuition rate. The institution can contribute up to 50% of those expenses and VA will match the same amount as the institution.”

Sweet Briar applied for the program in April and was accepted May 1.

“Our interest in participating with the [VA] in this program was a no-brainer,” Sweet Briar dean of admissions Ken Huus said. “This is a win-win for all involved. The qualifying veteran or his or her dependent receives a free Sweet Briar education, while the College enjoys the opportunity to enroll students while sharing the cost of that education with the VA. We’re thrilled to be able to show our support for military professionals in this way.”

Participating colleges and universities will be listed on the VA’s Web site on June 1 and the program officially begins on Aug. 1.

For more information about program qualifications, visit the VA’s Web site. For information about this program at Sweet Briar, please contact the admissions office at admissions@sbc.edu or Ext. 6142.

Rigg Donates Time, Talents to Seal Restoration

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

Olga Rigg restored the Sweet Briar seal on her own time.

Olga Rigg, bookkeeper and accounts payable manager for the Sweet Briar College Book Shop, recently donated her time and talents to restoring the Sweet Briar College seal. The seal is used during Opening Convocation, Founder’s Day and Homecoming, Families Weekend, Commencement, Reunion and other special College events and lectures.

Rigg, who says she paints for pleasure, donated 90 hours of her time to the project and was reimbursed only for the supplies needed to refurbish the seal. Working with a paper mockup, she sanded the seal’s surface, applied three coats of oil-based primer and repainted the lettering and coat of arms with two coats of oil-based paint and liquid gold leaf.

She also replaced and repainted the ribbon at the bottom that states Sweet Briar’s motto, “Rosam quae meruit ferat,” or “those who wear the Sweet Briar rose must be worthy to bear it.”

Rigg, a 2004 graduate of Sweet Briar, has been painting for six years and took classes from studio art professor John Morgan while enrolled at the College. Her work also has been displayed in on-campus exhibits.

Prior to coming to the United States from Ukraine, she lent her artistic talents to mechanical drawing, which she learned as a student in the former Soviet Union.

When she agreed to restore the seal, which was used most recently on May 16 at Sweet Briar’s 100th Commencement, Rigg said some folks thought she might not be up to the challenge. But she thought otherwise.

“It was an honor for me to do it,” she said, adding, “I needed to prove that I could do it.”

Class of 2009 Steady as She Goes in Turbulent Times, According to Career Services Report

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Every year just before commencement, Sweet Briar’s director of career services, Wayne Stark, surveys the graduating class about post-college plans and reports on the results. In what is frequently described as the worst economy since World War II, the 2009 numbers look strikingly similar to recent years, when the job market was robust.

Ninety-four percent of this year’s seniors responded to the survey, one percentage point behind the previous two classes. Of those, at the time of commencement on May 16, 78 percent had either secured full- or part-time jobs, been accepted to graduate school or other advanced study programs, or were pursuing “personal endeavors” such as internships or traveling abroad.

According to Stark, the remainder of the 2009 graduates are searching for jobs. On these two measures — those whose plans are known and those actively seeking work — the numbers are identical to last year’s class, 78 and 22 percent respectively. In 2007, 71 percent had settled on plans, and 29 percent were looking for jobs.

The employment numbers for SBC graduates are on par with the most recent benchmarking analysis available from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, Stark said. Citing NACE’s 2008 Career Services Benchmark Survey for Four-year Colleges and Universities, which covered the Class of 2007, he said 48 percent of graduating students nationally reported having jobs at the time of graduation. In comparison, 44 percent of Sweet Briar’s Class of 2009 had accepted full- or part-time work, which is an increase over the previous two years.

Sweet Briar also exceeds NACE’s national average reported in the same survey when it comes to continuing education, Stark said. Twenty-eight percent of the current SBC class members are seeking higher degrees or advanced study, compared to 21 percent reported nationally among 2007 graduates. In 2007 and 2008, Sweet Briar reported that 24 and 30 percent of its graduates respectively went on to further studies.

“Judging by the above information, I would say that we are looking at above average graduate school/further study numbers, and probably a bit above or right around the average employment figures,” Stark said in an e-mail.

“When all is said and done, after looking at upcoming institutional survey data like the [College Senior Survey], etc., I would not be surprised if we come out above our peers in employment as well. This is actually positive information for the tough economic times we are in.”

Sweet Briar’s 2009 graduates are taking diverse career paths.

Brione “Bree” Smith graduated a year early to pursue a dream she’s had for as long as she can remember — to be a pastry chef. She is headed to The French Pastry School at City Colleges of Chicago, after earning the “real” degree her parents insisted on in case she changes her mind about her career. In an e-mail, Smith acknowledged that many chefs burn out from the stress and long hours, but she expressed no worries.

“I think that it has to be more than just a hobby. It is your life. For me, I dream of desserts all the time and read as much as I can,” she wrote.

Smith, who hopes to open her own patisserie one day, may simply have baking in her genetic makeup. “The funny thing is, my grandpa owned a bakery and my dad grew up working in it,” she said. “I don’t think he ever would have thought I would be following in his footsteps.”

Meanwhile, SBC Engineering is bidding farewell to the young program’s first official graduating class. Two students — Kaelyn Leake and Sarah Smiley are headed for graduate programs. Amanda Baker is going to work for Straughn Environmental Services Inc. and Lauren Guyer will be working in mission support at the National Ground Intelligence Center in Charlottesville.

Guyer will be using her engineering management degree to market NGIC products to active military personnel. A job in defense contracting piqued her interest while she interned at the Center for Advanced Engineering and Research in Lynchburg her senior year.

Speaking by phone from her office at CAER recently, she said working there led her to consider companies such as airplane maker Boeing or Babcock & Wilcox, which makes nuclear components for the Navy. Then the opportunity to work in intelligence popped up at a job fair.

“I knew I wanted to do defense work,” Guyer said. “I’ve always had a lot of respect for people who give up part of their lives in military service. Guess I’m too much of a sissy to do that, but giving back in this way is the next best thing.”

She says the CAER internship helped her know how to get things done as well as what she wanted to do, especially interacting with numerous government agencies. She learned “things that only an internship can help you with,” Guyer said.

Read on for a sampling of the Class of 2009’s plans at the time of graduation:

Rebecca Adams will be studying chemistry at the University of Maryland.
Megan Behrle will pursue a master’s in international social change at Clark University.
Katherine Bird will study communications at the University of Maryland.
Carolanne Bonanno will be at Northern Virginia Community College working on a historical preservation certificate.
Amanda Bradley has a position in event planning at Oak Ridge Estate in Nelson County.
Emily Brown will join Uprooted Dance, a Washington, D.C., a contemporary dance company.
Paige Cantfil, a December graduate, works at the Close Up Foundation in Washington and will go to nursing school at Virginia Commonwealth University in the fall.
Pia Cho has a job at the International Monetary Fund.
Petra Dacheva will be an associate economist at Welch Consulting.
Julie Dandridge will study in Germany this summer.
Ann Dowdy has taken part-time work at a fitness center while she looks for permanent employment.
Jessica Echols is starting her own cosmetology business.
Logan Fitzgerald will be an analytical chemist at Fleet Pharmaceuticals in Lynchburg.
Sarah Goldstein will be working as a pre-school director at Rainbow Station in Richmond.
Audrey Hogan will be working on her Master of Science in Library and Information Science at Kent State University
Kaelyn Leake will be studying bioinformatics at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Reda Masincup will be a part-time guide at Luray Caverns as she looks for full-time employment.
Doreen McVeigh will study conservation marine biology at Hood College.
Bethany Melendy will study Arabic language in Amman, Jordan.
Stephanie Nance will study physics and chemistry at New Mexico Tech.
Margaret Nicholson will be a nanny for a German American family.
Julia Patt will be working on a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing at Florida State University.
Brittany Patterson will be a museum educator at Amazement Square in Lynchburg.
Jessica Pisciotta will be “teaching for America” in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.
Sara Rothamel will be a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biology technician.
Lara Salyer will be interning with a public health advocacy organization.
Caroline Sapp will be at St. Andrews University studying international security.
Elizabeth Schell will be working on a graduate degree in history at the University of West Florida.
Kimberly Shrader will be working with AmeriCorps VISTA in Washington.
Sarah Smiley has been accepted to study graduate engineering at Dartmouth, the College of William and Mary and the University of Vermont.
Rachel Sullivan plans to strengthen her accounting skills at the Vanderbilt University Summer Business Institute.

“Watts’ Store (Triptych),” by Nancy McDearmon.

‘100 Views of High Peak, Part 2’ Opens June 1

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

“Afternoon Shadows: Price’s Farm,” by Nancy McDearmon


“Garden Shed at Watts’ Store,” by Nancy McDearmon.

Part two of an art exhibit that pays homage to a Central Virginia landmark and a 19th-century Japanese artist opens today in the Babcock Fine Arts Center Gallery at Sweet Briar College.

The exhibit, “100 Views of High Peak, Part 2,” includes paintings of different views of the High Peak of Tobacco Row Mountain by Amherst residents Nancy McDearmon, Marion Freerks and Rosalie Day White. McDearmon is the registraral assistant for the Sweet Briar Galleries.

The oil, watercolor and pastel paintings were inspired by the works of Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), a Japanese woodblock printer from the Edo Period who is famous for his series “36 Views of Mt. Fuji.”

The exhibit will run simultaneously with “The Bluest Water: A Hurricane Camille Story,” which is on the program for this year’s Blue Ridge Summer Theatre Festival. “100 Views of High Peak, Part 1,” which featured different paintings with the same theme, was on display during last year’s sold-out run of “The Bluest Water.”

A reception hosted by the artists will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. on Sunday, June 7. The exhibit runs through June 30.

Gallery hours are 9 to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and during performances of “The Bluest Water.” Admission to the exhibit is free. For more information, contact McDearmon at nmcdearmon@sbc.edu or 942-2067.

Daisy Williams a Star at Philadelphia Children’s Museum

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

Daisy Williams


A bracelet was one of the souvenirs Daisy Williams took home from the Centennial Expo.

An exhibit at Philadelphia’s children’s museum featuring things belonging to Daisy Williams, daughter of Sweet Briar College founder Indiana Fletcher Williams, is being modified to focus more on Daisy.

Sweet Briar Museum director Christian Carr heard the news recently from Stacey Swigart, curator of the Please Touch Museum. The museum is located at Memorial Hall, one of the venues for the Centennial Exposition, a world’s fair that 8- or 9-year-old Daisy attended with her parents in 1876.

The original exhibit, which was unveiled in October 2008, featured items belonging to several of the millions of people who visited the Expo — inventor Thomas Edison, suffragist Susan B. Anthony, abolitionist Frederick Douglass and Daisy.

According to Carr, the new exhibit, which will open sometime in June, focuses exclusively on Daisy. The display was described by Swigart as a “diorama of sorts” showing Daisy as she packs her belongings to leave the Expo.

“It is going to be set to look as if Daisy is packing in her hotel room, getting ready to leave the fair,” Swigart wrote in an e-mail to Carr. “Our visitors will be able to look through her window to see what she is doing. I am going to be using the objects as sort of an ‘I Spy’-type engaging exhibit.”

In planning the exhibit, Swigart and the Please Touch Museum staff envisioned a Victorian hotel room with souvenirs from the Centennial Expo. Some of the items are Daisy’s, on loan from the Sweet Briar Museum, and others are from the permanent collection of Please Touch.

It will be “as if she’s taking a lot of souvenirs home with her,” Swigart said. “Featured in the window, I plan on having a visitor’s guide to the Centennial from our collection with her calling card laid out on the table, and the Daisy Centennial bracelet, which was a souvenir that she brought home with her.”

“The Bluest Water,” which premiered to sold-out audiences during last year's inaugural Blue Ridge Summer Theatre Festival, is back for the festival's 2009 season.

2009 Blue Ridge Summer Theatre Festival Opens with Encore of ‘The Bluest Water’

Playbill also features Shakespeare and ‘My Brother’s Knife: A Madison Heights Odyssey’

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

Hurricane Camille struck Nelson County 40 years ago this August. "The Bluest Water" is a memory play about the disaster.

The 2009 Blue Ridge Summer Theatre Festival, presented by Endstation Theatre and hosted by Sweet Briar College, where the company is in residence, opens Friday, June 12 with an encore run of “The Bluest Water: A Hurricane Camille Story.”

“The Bluest Water” premiered at the inaugural festival in 2008 and is a memory play about the aftermath of the hurricane that devastated Nelson County in 1969. The play was so popular with the local community — Nelson County is just up the road from the College — that additional performances were added, all of which sold out.

Endstation is reprising “The Bluest Water,” in part because of its popularity and because this summer marks the 40th anniversary of Hurricane Camille, which killed dozens of Nelson County residents.

“The Bluest Water” will run June 12 through 28, with the exception of June 15 and 16 and June 22 and 23, at Babcock Fine Arts Center’s Murchison Lane Auditorium. Shows begin at 7 p.m. on weekdays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. on Sundays.

The second offering in this year’s festival is William Shakespeare’s romantic comedy, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The performance will be staged outdoors on the dell between Babcock Fine Arts Center and Sweet Briar House. Playgoers are encouraged to bring a picnic to enjoy during the show.

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” will be presented at 7 p.m. on July 7, 9, 11, 16, 18, 19, 21, 23, 25 and 26.

Rounding out the 2009 program is “My Brother’s Knife: A Madison Heights Odyssey,” which opens Friday, July 10 in Murchison Lane Auditorium.

“My Brother’s Knife,” which makes its debut at the festival, is the story of a Monacan Indian man, Wayne, whose chance meeting with a dysfunctional police officer sends him on a journey during which he must address his dark past.

Described by Endstation Theatre director Geoff Kershner as a “southern gothic” play, “My Brother’s Knife” was written by Joshua Mikel, who acted two years ago in Endstation’s productions of “The Tell Tale Heart” and “The Mind of Poe.”

The play was originally set in Mikel’s home state of Georgia and involved a Cherokee Indian main character. After discussions with Kershner, however, Mikel decided to customize the story and characters for Amherst County, Va., and Endstation Theatre.

“When I began writing the piece, the protagonist, Wayne Howling Wind, was a Cherokee Indian,” Mikel said. “I am a big fan of the author Sherman Alexie, and like many of his characters, I wanted Wayne to have an attachment to a heritage that he was, on the whole, wildly unfamiliar with.

“When we changed the location of the piece, Cherokee could have still worked, but Geoff turned me on to the idea of making Wayne a Monacan Indian, a tribe I was ironically and fittingly unfamiliar with.”

Since that time, Mikel has researched Monacan history and the stereotypes and prejudices experienced by the Monacans and other American Indians. He and Kershner also plan to meet with local Monacans in June to talk about the “real meat of these issues,” a process that should further enrich the play’s characters and themes.

“I think there are many Americans, including myself, who have very vague ideas of what it means to be an Indian in the modern day,” Mikel said. “A history that is so tied to the earth and modest living certainly has volatile run-ins with modern American life.

“There are certainly many people who, for one reason or another, harness unreasonable distrust or dislike for the Monacan tribe, perhaps racism, perhaps not. That is also a theme I look to investigate. There is plenty of work to do on this front.”

“My Brother’s Knife” will be performed at 2 p.m. Sunday, July 12 and at 7 p.m. on July 14, 15, 17, 22 and 24.

Tickets for the Blue Ridge Summer Theatre Festival are $12 each, or $35 for all three plays, and can be purchased via www.lynchburgtickets.com. For more information, visit Endstation Theatre’s Web site.

Stay, play and dinner packages are available for select performance nights. Packages include a night’s lodging at the Florence Elston Inn, dinner for two and two play tickets. Packages for all three plays also are available, as are “commuter” deals, which include dinner and play tickets. Prices range from $60 to $375, plus tax.

For reservations or more information, call the Florence Elston Inn & Conference Center at Ext. 6207.

Fletcher Hall was built in 1925 under the direction of architect Ralph Adams Cram.

New Fund Preserves Historic Resources, Legacy of a President

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Tusculum before its deconstruction.


Gray Hall is one of four buildings designed by Ralph Adams Cram that the College opened with in 1906. Photo by Jennifer McManamay


The slave cabin behind Sweet Briar House is one of the few remaining in Central Virginia. Photo by Suzanne Ramsey

Following Sweet Briar President Elisabeth Muhlenfeld’s decision last spring to retire in June 2009, the College’s board of directors established a permanent fund in tribute to her legacy. At a dinner in her honor on Friday, May 1, the board announced that the Elisabeth Showalter Muhlenfeld Fund for Historic Preservation has raised $1.6 million.

In today’s economy, the amount exceeded even the College’s chief fundraiser’s expectations. “One point six million is extraordinary and is a testament to the respect and love that the Sweet Briar community has for Betsy,” said Heidi Hansen McCrory, vice president for development.

McCrory said the board created the fund to support a wide variety of projects related to historic preservation, including Sweet Briar House and the Tusculum Institute. The former is the 19th-century plantation home of the College’s founder that now serves as the president’s residence. The latter is a recently established regional resource and education center whose mission is preserving and studying the area’s historic assets within a context of environmental stewardship.

The institute eventually will be physically headquartered in the original Tusculum, the 18th-century childhood home of Sweet Briar founder Indiana Fletcher Williams’ mother, Maria Crawford. Until 2006, the timber-framed, wood-sided house stood a few miles north of the College in Amherst County. Slated for demolition to make way for new development, it was instead carefully dismantled, inventoried and stored for later restoration on Sweet Briar’s campus.

Muhlenfeld has been a “driving force” behind Tusculum, and the board saw the “Betsy Fund” — as many in the Sweet Briar community have begun to call it — as a good way to “pay tribute to her efforts in the past while continuing her legacy in the future,” McCrory said.

Although the details of the fund’s structure are still being determined, McCrory expects it to become a self-sustaining source of income for historic preservation campus wide.

When Muhlenfeld became president in 1996, one of the first contracts she entered into was with an architectural historian to inventory and assess the campus’ original buildings so that appropriate maintenance could begin on the exteriors. This was necessary because the previous year the buildings, designed by Ralph Adams Cram and built in the early 1900s, were registered as a National Historic District.

Sweet Briar House, a slave cabin and a garden cottage on the house grounds also were added to the historic register.

Muhlenfeld said serving as president has enhanced her understanding of the issues associated with historic preservation, but the campus’ inherent educational value has always been paramount to her. And with the addition of Tusculum, she sees an exciting new piece. She observed that it was built around 1750, Sweet Briar House acquired its current Italianate form in the mid 1850s and the Georgian-style main campus was built between 1906 and the 1930s.

“You really have a sweep of native American architecture, if you will, of a local character and high quality,” she said. “To me, that’s important.”

Muhlenfeld further believes the institution’s whole history as a working Southern plantation turned women’s college is important. Its past also left behind a setting that is certainly unusual and maybe unique, she said, noting such contrasts as the great house and the slave cabin and the Fletcher family cemetery with its huge marble obelisk and the slave burial ground where fieldstones mark anonymous graves.

“Preservation allows us to keep Sweet Briar whole for all of its constituencies, including alumnae,” Muhlenfeld said. “But more important to me is the ability to use the history of the place — and the land — more effectively within the curriculum.”

Moreover, her administration has taught her that when one takes proper care of the old, it’s easier to make a case for the new, she said. The campus has expanded during her 13-year tenure but it hasn’t always been through new construction.

Like many colleges, Sweet Briar has long recognized that adapting old buildings for new uses, though not necessarily cheaper, protects both the environment and architectural heritage. Muhlenfeld has led several such projects, including converting former dairy barns into a studio arts complex and turning a century-old water treatment plant into an environmental sciences lab and nature center.

In creating the Betsy Fund, Sweet Briar’s board recognized that environmentally sound historic preservation has risen to the forefront of the College’s initiatives under Muhlenfeld’s leadership.

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