At the end of every semester, the College schedule is packed with musical performances as students are eager to demonstrate their newly learned skills. This year, for the first time, those concerts have been grouped together into a music festival to better showcase the diverse talents of the College's music students and faculty.
The fight against global AIDS experienced a three-fold increase in cash after conservative U.S. leaders embraced the disease as a "moral" issue early in the decade, Susan Peterson, professor of government and dean for educational policy for arts and sciences, told the audience at a World AIDS Day forum hosted by the student group Activism in the Fight Against AIDS (AFYA) on Dec. 1. While applauding the result, which is manifested in the $15 billion pledged for overseas distribution through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief initiated by President George W. Bush in 2003, Peterson told the group that a proclivity among conservatives to treat the sick at the expense of investing in prevention threatens to limit the impact of the funds, to create a virus resistant to the current anti-viral regimens and to cost millions of lives over the long term.
Donald "Duck" Harrison sweats the small stuff, but he does so for good reason. He knows that attention to detail formed the music of the jazz greats that taught him, and he knows that attention to detail will bring out the great in the students he teaches.
The United States Senate this week confirmed the nomination of William and Mary alumnus Robert Gates as the next U.S. Secretary of Defense. Gates, a member of the Class of 1965, was nominated last month by President George W. Bush to replace Donald Rumsfeld.
President Gene R. Nichol earlier this month discussed with the Board of Visitors his decision to reserve display of an altar cross in the Wren Chapel for appropriate religious gatherings.
Soon after commencement, the expanded William and Mary Student Recreation Center opened to widespread anticipation. Returning students immediately noticed the drastic increase in floor space, equipment and services.
William and Mary will move forward with plans to build a state-of-the-art facility for the school of education at the site of the former Williamsburg Sentara Hospital, President Gene R. Nichol told members of the Board of Visitors during a meeting held Nov. 16-17.
A Chinese proverb says, Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. That is the principle behind sustainable intervention, an idea that the William and Mary Medical Mission Corps (WMMMC) is using to provide medical care and community-based solutions to residents of the Dominican Republic.
The Trollope Prize Expository Writing Program at Harvard University has recognized two William and Mary English scholars for their essays expanding understanding of the works of Victorian writer Anthony Trollope (1815-1882).
A painting from William and Mary's Muscarelle Museum is making quite a stir in Paris this fall, due to the hard work and research skills of Aaron De Groft ('88), director of the College's Muscarelle Museum.
Homecomings conjure up thoughts of floats, fun and football but also bring to mind school spirit in the form of philanthropic generosity.
The Tribe duo of Megan Moulton-Levy and Katarina Zoricic rose to the top of the intercollegiate women's tennis world by winning the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's national indoor doubles championship in Columbus, Ohio, on Nov. 5.
An era in local high school athletics ended on Friday, Nov. 3 as Walter J. Zable Stadium hosted the annual football matchup between Jamestown and Lafayette, the two high schools in the Williamsburg-James City County school district.
We cannot put the equivalent of 875 million adult elephants per year into the atmosphere without changing the climatic balance. That was the gist of an argument used by Dave Malmquist, director of communications at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), to illustrate the number of pounds of CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere each year as he delivered his lecture, "Global Warming: It's Not Just Hot Air," during the opening session of the "Global Warming in the Chesapeake Bay" minischool at the Science Museum of Virginia. CO2, he explained, is one of the greenhouse gases that has driven up global temperatures by nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit during the past decade.
As promised, there was something for each of the thousands of alumni who descended on Williamsburg between Oct. 27 and Oct. 29 as the Alumni Association hosted its 80th homecoming weekend.
Several weeks ago, Harvard and Princeton universities announced plans to discontinue their use of early admission, a move followed shortly thereafter by the University of Virginia. Those decisions brought new attention to an ongoing debate about early admission and left many wondering whether William and Mary would be next.
At midnight on July 1, 2006, a quiet revolution took place at the College of William and Mary.
One has to live to write. It is a lesson that Rosalind Brakenbury stressed during her recent reading in the Tucker Hall Theatre; it is a point she continually emphasizes during the fiction seminars that she conducts as the College's writer-in-residence. In her case, she has "lived" as a journalist, as a mate on a schooner, as a teacher and as a mother-"living in the real world," she says, in order to gain experiences that can be translated into words.
Promising new tactics in the government's attempts to reign in environmental polluters are no substitute for tough enforcement of existing regulations, Sarah Stafford, associate professor of economics at the College, said during the College's Distinguished Faculty Lecture titled "Environmentalists in the Boardroom" on Oct. 8.
Following her delivery of the College's Distinguished Faculty Lecture on Oct. 8, Sarah Stafford responded to the following questions from the W&M News.
Religious freedom and judicial independence dominated two talks given by William and Mary Chancellor and retired Associate Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor during a visit to campus earlier this month.
Although they were presented with a rich array of about 45 events to choose from, the nearly 1,400 parents of William and Mary students who arrived on campus for Family Weekend, Sept. 29-Oct. 1, had one thing on their minds: to stay connected with the adventures of their offspring.
Lu Ann Homza knows that readers of her recent book The Spanish Inquisition: 1478-1614 will perceive parallels to the alleged treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay that have been reported in the nation's popular media. On the surface, the use of torture to obtain confessions is common to each. Yet, Homza, the Class of 2006 Associate Professor of History at the College, resists drawing direct comparisons.
During the early 1990s, in response to a California mandate, General Motors (GM) produced a viable electric vehicle (EV1) that met the requirements of the state's zero-emissions policy mandate. As soon as the mandate was withdrawn, GM killed the vehicle.
On the heels of the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States, journalists, lawyers and legal scholars came to William and Mary to discuss the ramifications of Supreme Court rulings in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld as part of the Institute of Bill of Rights Law 19th Annual Supreme Court Preview.
When the weight of teaching about the Holocaust begins to wear him down, Marc Raphael, it is said, retires to the Major League Baseball box scores. Baseball is his refuge.
An undergraduate course at William and Mary was singled out in a national study of chemistry courses conducted by the Center for Educational Policy Research (CEPR) on behalf of the College Board.
On Sept. 11, William and Mary joined the nation in reflecting upon the terrorist attacks of 2001.
Standing in front of the storied Sir Christopher Wren Building on Sept. 5, keynote convocation speaker Warren Buck ('76) peered into the future and envisioned members of the incoming Class of 2010 being prepared by their undergraduate experiences to win Pulitzer, Nobel and McArthur prizes.
Christina Bolton had been waiting for the opening of school since she received her student staff assignment in February. A senior psychology major, Bolton drew one of the plum resident-adviser assignments in Jamestown South.
When George Reeves, who starred in the 1950s television series "Adventures of Superman," died from a gunshot wound in 1959, authorities labeled his death a suicide. For Nancy Schoenberger, professor of English at the College, who investigated the story along with her husband, Sam Kashner, for their 1996 true-crime book Hollywood Kryptonite, the evidence did not add up. Their thesis, that Reeves was murdered as part of a lover's triangle gone awry, will drive the new feature film "Hollywoodland," scheduled for release nationwide on Sept. 8.
It was hard to sense who was more excited during move-in day at the College on Aug. 25: the freshmen who were arriving, the upperclassmen who were helping them haul their personal belongings into their rooms or the members of the College's staff who were assisting the entire endeavor.
Incursion this summer by Israeli military forces into southern Lebanon represents only "the most recent indication of failed policies in the Middle East," Lawrence Wilkerson told a gathering of the James City County Democratic Committee Aug. 17.
The College of William and Mary remains among the nation's best universities, according to the 2006 annual rankings of colleges by U.S. News & World Report.
In the following interview, Scott Nelson, associate professor of history, discusses his discovery of the real John Henry, the subject of his forthcoming (October 2006) book Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend.
Scott Nelson, associate professor of history at the College, discovers the truth about John Henry, the famous steel-drivin' man.
Professors Herrington Bryce of the Mason School of Business and Paul Marcus of the William and Mary Law School were honored during the College's commencement ceremonies. Bryce was named the recipient of the 2006 Thomas Ashley Graves Jr. Award. Marcus received the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award.
To improve the human condition, send students upstream. That is the strategy that Joseph Galano, associate professor of psychology, employs each year when he assigns 25 students enrolled in his research practicum to service in the greater Williamsburg region. He sends them to what are, in a sense, the headwaters, where they work with community-service groups such as Avalon and Eastern State Hospital to address the source of sexual assault, domestic violence, substance abuse and other disorders that plague society.
Following is a transcript of the remarks made by Archbishop Desmond Tutu during the College's 2006 commencement ceremony.
When God sees injustice and oppression in the world, he does not send lightning bolts to strike down the perpetrators, Archbishop Desmond Tutu told more than 1,900 graduates during his commencement address at William and Mary Hall on May 14.
It has been a while since George Srour (’05) has had a first day of school, but he could not resist seeing his friends in Uganda one more time before heading home.
In a corner of the Keck Environmental Field Laboratory sit an old water heater, a plastic holding tank and a few pumps, set up in a purple-painted particle board frame with the air of an eighth grade science project. In a terrarium a few feet away, tiny turtles sun themselves and swim, either unaware or unconcerned that they are neighbors to William and Mary's first biodiesel fuel plant.
There are no shortcuts for faculty members as they strive for excellence in the classrooms at William and Mary. They are the intermediators. On one hand, they must maintain a passion for the evolving knowledge within their disciplines or become ineffective or, worse, irrelevant. On the other hand, they bear responsibility for their students: "Not for driving them outside the box," explained David Feldman, professor of economics at the College, but for "driving them beyond."
Lewis Cohen, professor of art and art history at the College, began his interest in art at a young age. He copied master drawings for practice and soon started taking evening classes at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Later, after he gained national recognition in a high-school art competition and met Harold Tovish, a sculptor and professor at the University of Minnesota, Cohen realized he would pursue an art career in sculpture.
The following testimonial is by Jennie McGee ('06), an art major who has taken several classes with Professor Lewis Cohen.
About her new CD "Changing the Changes," Hermine Pinson says, "I don't know which came first, the music or the poetry."
Several years ago, Ian Caldwell and his lifelong friend Dustin Thomason bet each other that they could write a marketable novel. The result was The Rule of Four, a book that earned a place on the New York Times' bestseller's list in 2004. Eighteen months ago, they wagered that they could write a prime-time television series. When "The Evidence" premieres on ABC television this month, the pair will be two for two.
Three faculty members at the College of William and Mary have received the Commonwealth of Virginia's highest honor for professors of the colleges and universities in the state.
Perhaps it will be the millions of migrating blackpoll warblers that will bring the avian flu virus to Williamsburg when they arrive from Alaska this autumn. Perhaps it will be some other species. Regardless, H5N1 will come to Virginia, where it will, if all goes as several William and Mary professors predict, take up residence indefinitely in local wild-bird populations. At that point, one of those professors, Dan Cristol, associate professor of biology at the College, will be among the first human beings locally to be at risk.
As a leader in the field of marine organic chemistry, Elizabeth Canuel could easily work at an organization where her entire focus would be devoted to research or time in a lab.
When Joel Schwartz, director of the Charles Center, steps up to the Charter Day microphones on Feb. 11 to accept the College's Thomas Jefferson Award for career contributions to William and Mary, he will have three minutes to speak. Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine will be there; William and Mary President Gene Nichol will be sharing the platform; colleagues with whom he has labored for two and a half decades will be pressing closer; students will be clustered en masse. Three minutes: It will be, Schwartz knows, barely enough time to acknowledge, much less to thank, them all.
The incredible run of Melvin Patrick Ely's book Israel on the Appomattox, which began nearly a year and a half ago, continued this month as the American Historical Association (AHA) gave it the Albert J. Beveridge Award as the best book of 2004 on American history along with its Wesley-Logan Prize as the outstanding book dealing with the history of the African diaspora. Two juries cited Ely's work as a "beautifully crafted history" and as "meticulous and moving."
For more than a year, Melvin Ely has been touring the region-and the nation-discussing his book, Israel on the Appomattox, which deals with the relationships between free blacks and their white neighbors prior to the Civil War. The discussion has contributed to his understanding of current issues of race. Following are some of his insights.
Paul Marcus, R. Hugh and Nollie Haynes Professor of Law at the Marshall-Wythe School of Law, and Mary Sue Backus, associate professor of law at the University of Oklahoma, were asked to head the committee's Right to Counsel Project. Marcus and Backus, a 2001 graduate of William and Mary's law school and Marcus' former student, teamed up as co-reporters for this important initiative that, through their efforts, canvassed law practices in all 50 states on the right to counsel provided for indigent clients.
