Faculty News

• Dr. Lee Bidwell, Professor of Sociology, recently received Certified Family Life Educator (CFLE) designation from the National Council on Family Relations. The CFLE credential recognizes professionals in the family field with a proven background and knowledge in 10 content areas deemed essential to family life education. This is the only international program to certify family life educators.

• Dr. Allison (Vonnie) Colvin, Associate Professor of Physical Education Pedagogy, is the co-author of a recently published textbook, Teaching the Nuts and Bolts of Physical Education: Ages 5 to 12. The book, co-authored with Nancy Egner Markos and Pamela Walker, a 1974 Longwood graduate, is the second edition of Teaching the Nuts and Bolts of Physical Education, also co-authored by Dr. Colvin and published in 2000 when she was teaching at the University of Kentucky. Dr. Colvin, coordinator of the Physical & Health Education Education-Teacher Education program, described the new book, which is lightweight and spiral-bound, as “a field guide designed for teachers to use on the playing field or in the gymnasium. It teaches how to teach the basic locomotor and manipulative skills that are the essential foundation for all physical activities, games and sports.” The book, published in mid-January by Human Kinetics, comes with a CD-ROM that contains a 335-page copy of a revised and expanded version of the first edition. Markos and Walker both teach at elementary schools in Albemarle County; the former was the 2002 National Elementary Physical Education Teacher of the Year, and the latter was the 1995 Virginia Elementary Physical Education Teacher of the Year. Markos will conduct a workshop March 24 at Longwood for area elementary physical educators and elementary educators.

• A new book includes a chapter by Dr. Raymond Cormier, Visiting Professor of French. Dr. Cormier’s contribution, “Roman d’Eneas” (pp. 550-576) appears in The Virgilian Tradition: The First Fifteen Hundred Years, a 1,082-page book edited by Jan M. Ziolkowski and Michael C.J. Putnam and published Feb. 4 by Yale University Press.

• Kerri Cushman, Assistant Professor of Art, and Dr. Alix Dowling Fink, Associate Professor of Biology, collaborated on Riveting Inferences, an interactive installation that was on display from Feb. 8-23 at Vespine Gallery & Studios in Chicago. The installation, which consists of cyanotype images on handmade denim paper (salvaged from jeans worn by ornithologists in the field during research activities), “represents a collaboration that bridges the arts and sciences through the use of historic documentation,” according to a description. Longwood undergraduate students Alex Grabiec, Kristen Herndon, Michael McAteeer, Laura Nodtvedt and Kari Wilson assisted with the year-long research project, which was funded in part by the Cook-Cole College of Arts and Sciences and the Faculty Research Grant program. Vespine Gallery is an artist-run independent gallery that “provides intimate exhibition space for emerging artists.”

• Dr. William Harbour, Associate Professor of Political Science, was a guest on Richmond radio station WRVA on Feb. 13 during which he discussed the Virginia presidential primary, held the day before.

• A new play by Dr. Brett Hursey, Assistant Professor of English, was performed Feb. 8-10 in the Jarman blackbox theatre by the Longwood Underground Players. The Stand-In was one of four 10-minute comedies performed that weekend. This was the third time the play has been performed; it has appeared in Chicago and ran Feb. 8-24 at the Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen, near Richmond. Dr. Hursey has written several other plays, including Scrambled, Kung-Foolery, The Vagrant, and Night of the Living Debutante. Those plays and The Stand-In, his mostly widely performed play, were performed in more than 20 venues last year, including performances of Scrambled in England and Australia. The Vagrant is a full-length comedy, and the others are 10-minute comedies. The student comedies performed on campus were Dead Weight by Colleen Ball, Family Values by Nick Bradford and The Death of Margaret Thatcher by Alex Odom. “I very much appreciate the Department of Communication Studies and Theatre allowing the students to use the department’s space and resources,” Dr. Hursey said.

• An essay by Dr. Ramesh Rao, Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication Studies and Theatre, was recently published by The Pioneer, one of the oldest Indian newspapers, published from New Delhi. The essay, “Not Gandhian, or is it?,” is a shortened version of an article by Dr. Rao that appeared in UPI’s Religion and Spirituality Forum, for which he has written a weekly column since February 2006. The article, which can be viewed at http://dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_variable=EDITS&file_name=edit3%2Etxt&counter_img=3, is about controversial statements by Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, which forced him to resign as president of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Non-Violence. Dr. Rao’s main page at the forum can be accessed at http://religionandspirituality.com/columnists/columns.php?FixtureID=rrao
  Also, Dr. Rao was one of two speakers at a program Feb. 5 in Toronto sponsored by the Hindu Conference of Canada and the Speakers Action Group. Dr. Rao, representing the Hindu American Foundation, on whose executive council he serves, and Rabbi Roy Tanenbaum of Toronto presented a program on “Hinduphobia & Antisemitism: Common Issues.”

• An article co-written by Katie Register, Executive Director of Clean Virginia Waterways (CVW), which is based at Longwood and affiliated with the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, has been published in the Journal of Polymers and the Environment. The article, “Marine Debris & Plastics: Environmental Concerns, Sources, Impacts and Solutions,” was co-written with Seba Sheavly, president of Sheavly Consultants Inc. of Virginia Beach, a 1975 Longwood graduate who was the convocation speaker in September 2007. The article, about how marine debris is “one of the most pervasive and solvable pollution problems plaguing the world’s oceans and waterways,” said Register, is available at www.springerlink.com/content/914338t508377262/  It was published online Nov. 28, 2007 and will appear in the journal’s next issue (Volume 16, number 1). Register and Sheavly, an environmental consultant, also contributed to developing an extensive web-based education project for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Debris Program called “Marine Debris 101” that can be found at http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/welcome.html. CVW is a statewide, nonprofit organization dedicated to improving Virginia’s rivers and other water resources by promoting citizen stewardship.

• Larry Robertson, Executive Director of Residential and Commuter Life, and Residence Education Coordinators Josh Blakely (Cunninghams), Jennifer Cox (Longwood Landings) and Matt Scruggs (ARC/Stubbs/Wheeler) were appointed recently to the board of the Virginia Association of College and University Housing Officers (VACUHO). Their terms on the board, which has about 20 members, run from January 2008 through January 2009. Robertson is the chief housing officer representative for the state; Scruggs and Cox are the co-chairs of  the VACUHO conference for resident assistants that Longwood will host Nov. 7-8; and Blakely is the board’s central regional ambassador.

• An article co-written by Dr. William Stuart, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, was recently published in the Winter 2007 edition of Conflict Resolution Quarterly (Volume 25, Number 20). The article, “Reciprocal Influence Mediation Model: A Guide for Practice and Research,” was co-written with Dr. Lucinda Sinclair, a former faculty member in the Department of Communication Studies & Theatre. The article is about Dr. Stuart’s and Dr. Sinclair’s research to assess mediation sessions.

In Memoriam

Dr. Alton M. Harvill Jr., professor emeritus of biology, died Feb. 21 in Cape Carteret, N.C. Dr. Harvill, who taught at Longwood from 1963 to 1983, was a botanist and an expert on Virginia flora. He was the chief author of all three editions of Atlas of the Virginia Flora, published in 1977, 1981 and 1992. A longtime systematic collector of plants from across Virginia, he established what is considered one of the finest and most significant collections of vascular plant specimens in the mid-Atlantic region, the Harvill-Stevens Herbarium, which contains more than 75,000 specimens. He specialized in documenting the geographical distribution of plants. In 1998 he established a merit-based scholarship, which bears his name, awarded to an incoming freshman biology major. He received the Thomas Jefferson Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Natural Science from the Virginia Museum of Natural History Foundation in 1988. He was 91.