A Place in History - Virginia Wesleyan College

V i r g i n i a W e s l e y a n C o l l e g e M a g a z i n e | 2 0 1 2 - 2 0 1 3
A Place in History
In his new book, and in life,
professor Dan Margolies explores
the crossroads where cultures
and ideologies collide

WINDS OF CHANGE: During the fall 2011 semester, students in Alison Marganski’s
sociology and criminal justice class on family violence decorated brightly colored
t-shirts with emotional messages and invited others to do the same as part of the
“Clothesline Project,” a national movement designed to raise awareness about
domestic violence. The project is one example of Wesleyan’s new enhanced curriculum
and how students apply what they’ve learned in the classroom to real-world scenarios.
PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL-PITTMAN

16
Features
26
18
A Place in History
From folk culture to foreign policy,
26
Glass Act
New partnership with the Chrysler
beekeeping to Buddhism—professor
Museum of Art gives Wesleyan
Dan Margolies discovers meaning
students unique access to world-
through a site-specific lens
class glassblowing studio
22
Freeing is Believing
How students at Virginia Wesleyan and
other colleges and universities explore
issues of faith and forge their own
spiritual paths
30
The Forest for
the Trees
On a peaceful patch of land on
the Eastern Shore, Billy and Fann
Greer are making a difference
30,000 seedlings at a time

2012-2013
Board of Trustees
CHAIRMAN
O. L. Everett
VICE CHAIRMAN
Gary D. Bonnewell ’79
SECRETARY
Vincent J. Mastracco Jr.
TREASURER
Anne B. Shumadine
Departments
4 FROM THE EDITOR
6 WESLEYAN WINDOW
36 ACADEMIA
45 LIVING & LEARNING
51 MARLIN ATHLETICS
58 ALUMNI PAGES
36
COVER PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL-PITTMAN
Alexandra G. Arias ’03
Jane P. Batten H’06
George Y. Birdsong
Thomas C. Broyles
Deborah H. Butler
Joseph D. Carson*
Lynn B. Clements
B. Minette Cooper
Robert H. DeFord Jr.
Christopher L. Dotolo ’91*
Tammy L. Estep *
Dale R. Foley
Susan S. Goode
William W. Granger III
William T. Greer Jr.*
Charles E. Harris
Roy E. Hendrix
Charlene P. Kammerer*
David L. Kaufman
Ronald M. Kramer
Trustees Emeriti
S. Frank Blocker
Robert F. Boyd H’09
Jerry G. Bray Jr.** H’02
William J. Fanney
James W. Griffiths
Helen C. Hoffman** H’03
Henry C. Hofheimer II** H’02
H.P. McNeal **
Kenneth R. Perry** H’02
Ralph G. Roop**
Mary Wright Thrasher**
Benjamin J. Willis Jr.
**deceased
John F. Malbon
Elizabeth F. Middleton ’91
Emily S. Miles
Jerrold L. Miller
Tassos J. Paphites ’79
Deborah M. Paxson ’75
Bradford L. Phillips*
Robin D. Ray
Richard D. Roberts H’08
Jeanne Polizos Ross
Louis F. Ryan
Alvin J. Schexnider
William S. Shelhorse ’70
William H. Thumel Jr.
Mark S. Towe
John A. Trinder
George K. (Chip) Tsantes III ’83
John N. Vest*
D. Henry Watts H’07
*ex officio

From the
Editor
From the moment I started working at
VWC in the fall of 2010, I was anxious to
explore the campus’s expansive green space.
I had visited Virginia Wesleyan for arts and
academic events in the past and, like most
people who come here, I was struck by the
unassuming beauty of this little oasis in the
middle of everything.
I quickly became familiar with some of the
natural attributes of the 300-acre wooded
campus— from an old-growth beech forest
to open fields and flowers, a designated
bird sanctuary to bat and bluebird houses,
beekeeping boxes and even an eco-friendly
worm farm on the College grounds.
I set out to explore the network of wooded
trails on the campus, hiking or jogging
on lunch breaks along tree-lined paths,
through the campus arboretum or to the
water’s edge on Lake Taylor. I had a blast
traipsing through the woods hunting down
daddy longlegs with biology professor Vic
Townsend and watching my daughter and a
PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN
Not a Concrete Campus
By Leona Baker
THE FIRST TIME I HEARD VIRGINIA WESLEYAN PRESIDENT BILLY GREER SAY “THIS IS
not a concrete campus”—words I later realized he’s fond of repeating—the writer in me
latched on to their alliterative punch. The marketer in me recognized a savvy message
in the form of a friendly dig at some of the College’s more urban fellow institutions of
higher learning. But the tree hugger in me knew exactly what he really meant.
The concept of spaces
and places is one
that is inextricably tied
to memory and
meaning. Where
something happened
is often at least as
important as what
happened there.
gaggle of other school-age kids fish from
the dock as part of the YMCA’s Camp Red
Feather, which has made VWC its summer
home for many years.
Virginia Wesleyan students and alumni
undoubtedly have their own connections to
the College as a place. We include some of
those in a feature on page 48 of this issue
called “Here and Then,” in which former
students tell us about their favorite spots on
campus—from the green ones to the go-to
locales for study time or down time. And
/ 4 / MARLIN

one alumna, Charla Smith Worley ’72, shares
a very special tie she has to the College’s
land, which was once her father’s family
farm, on page 57.
Spaces and Places
The theme for this 2012-2013 issue of Marlin
magazine, if you have not guessed it yet, is
spaces and places. It’s an idea that emerged
out of our cover story about history professor
Dan Margolies (page 18), whose research
includes in-depth explorations of spaces and
places as sources of political friction as well as
cultural breeding grounds.
The idea pops up in photos and stories
throughout these pages—sometimes by
design, sometimes thanks to serendipity.
Philosophy professor Patrick Goold waxes
poetic about his passion for the freedom
he can only find while manning his sailboat
on the spaces of the open ocean (page 36).
President Greer and his wife, Fann, give us a
peek at the “mystical experience” afforded
by the property they helped reforest on the
Eastern Shore (page 30).
We get a look into the microcosmic space
hidden from the naked eye with an image
of “mutant mold” from the College’s new
electron microscope (page 40). And student
Chiereme Fortune describes the breathtaking
views she and other students witnessed on
an alternative spring break mission trip to
Nicaragua (page 46).
The concept of spaces and places is
one that is inextricably tied to memory and
meaning. Where something happened is
often at least as important as what happened
there. A favorite meal, a first kiss, a challenge
overcome; we can all say where we were
during these scenes from the movies of
our lives. This is certainly true of our college
experience. For half a decade, the “not a
concrete campus” of Virginia Wesleyan
has played host to countless life-shaping
moments for students, faculty and friends.
May this remain an inspiring space for living
and learning for many years to come.
Leona Baker is the Assistant Director
of Communications/Lead Writer for the
Office of College Communications at
Virginia Wesleyan College. For questions or
comments regarding the content of Marlin
Magazine, contact her at lbaker1@vwc.edu
MAGAZINE STAFF
Publisher
Laynee Timlin
Editor-in-Chief
Leona Baker
Art Director
Mary Millar Hester
Photography Director &
Photo Editor
Janice Marshall-Pittman
Contributing Writers
Elizabeth Blachman
Lovely Edwards
Chiereme Fortune ‘13
Kathy Stolley
Joe Wasiluk
Advertising Designer
Christine Hall
Contributing Illustrator
Chris Gallagher
Contributing Editor
Kristen De Deyn Kirk
Contributing Photographers
Alexandra Cohen
Chiereme Fortune ’13
Keith Lucas
Jack Mellott
Thomas Mills ’15
Augusta Pittman
Heather Spencer ’13
Virgil Stringfield
Wendy Maness
Contributing Photo Editor
Augusta Pittman
College Archivist
Stephen Mansfield
ADMINISTRATION
William Greer, President
David Buckingham, Vice President
for Student Affairs and Dean of
Enrollment Services
Timothy O’Rourke, Vice President
for Academic Affairs and Kenneth
R. Perry Dean of the College
Bryan Price, Associate Vice
President for Institutional
Research and Effectiveness and
Director of Strategic Planning
Cary Sawyer, Vice President
of Finance
Laynee Timlin, Director of
College Communications
Mita Vail, Vice President for
College Advancement
Bruce Vaughan, Vice President
of Operations
ALUMNI RELATIONS
Contact Alumni Relations Director
Katy Judge at kjudge@vwc.edu
or 757.455.2115
Marlin Magazine is published by the
Office of College Communications.
The purpose of the publication is to
inform, inspire and entertain a broad
readership including alumni, parents,
students, faculty, staff, supporters
and friends by documenting the
College’s vigorous intellectual culture
and diverse community. The individual
viewpoints expressed in these pages
do not necessarily reflect those of the
magazine staff or of the College and
its policies. Contact the magazine at
lbaker1@vwc.edu or Marlin Magazine,
Office of College Communications,
1584 Wesleyan Drive, Norfolk, VA
23502. Website: www.vwc.edu.
Printed on recycled paper by
Jones Printing Service
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 5 /

Wesleyan Window
LIVING HISTORY: Students in
Sara Sewell’s class organized a
commemorative event featuring a
locally based Holocaust survivor.
PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN
The Fourth Hour in Action
VIRGINIA WESLEYAN
PROFESSORS UTILIZE NEW
ENHANCED CURRICULUM
TO ENGAGE STUDENTS IN
INNOVATIVE WAYS
BEGINNING IN FALL 2011, VIRGINIA
Wesleyan implemented a revolutionary
new curricular structure based on a fourcredit
rather than the traditional three-credit
system. This initiative was designed to
make every course more engaging and
every program more focused on helping
students become successful,
independent learners.
As part of the enhanced
curriculum, the fourth hour of each
class is designated for deeper
exploration of content through outof-class
experiences and projects
such as field trips, volunteer work,
independent and collaborative
research projects, and work with
technological tools. All of these
activities are stimulated by “inquiryguided
learning,” the type of learning
that takes place when students
are engaged in critical thinking and
hands-on problem solving.
During the first year under the
new curriculum, students and faculty
adjusted to the logistical challenges
of the change, but the tangible effects
on the learning experience at VWC
could be observed on a daily basis.
A few examples of the innovative
ways in which VWC faculty from
various academic disciplines
incorporated the four-credit structure
into their course work include:
a history class that organized a
commemorative event with a local
Holocaust survivor; extended inschool
observation opportunities
for teacher education training; a
weather lab in which 100-level algebra
students were asked to develop a
linear equation based on temperature
data; and a Buddhist philosophy
course that asked students to design
“reflection modules” that promote
“greater capacity for concentration,
focus, and deeper engagement.”
/ 6 / MARLIN

Wesleyan Window
Pre-Engineering at VWC
AGREEMENT WITH ODU EXPANDS
OPPORTUNITIES FOR WESLEYAN STUDENTS
PLANNING CAREERS IN ENGINEERING
VIRGINIA WESLEYAN HAS RECENTLY ENTERED INTO AN
agreement with Old Dominion University that provides
students the opportunity to earn both a Bachelor of
Science degree from VWC and a master’s degree in civil,
environmental, mechanical, electrical, computer, aerospace
engineering or modeling and simulation from ODU.
Students in this newly articulated program would enroll
at Virginia Wesleyan and take several pre-determined
undergraduate engineering courses at ODU. VWC Associate
Professor of Mathematics Margaret Reese was the catalyst for
this agreement.
“Over the last several years students have expressed an
interest in engineering as a career,” says Reese. “This is the
only program that I know about in which students enrolled at
a liberal arts college without an engineering program can take
engineering courses while in residence. Most programs require
that students transfer to the engineering school for the senior
year. Our students will be able to stay in the Virginia Wesleyan
community for the entire undergraduate part of their program.”
The Master of Engineering program is designed to require
approximately 12 months to complete, assuming full-time
graduate status. A Master of Science degree would take
longer (typically 18 months) because of the thesis research
associated with the degree.
Happy Birthday, Batten
JANE P. BATTEN STUDENT CENTER CELEBRATES 10 YEARS AS
THE HEART AND HUB OF CAMPUS LIFE
WHEN THE COLLEGE BROKE GROUND ON THE BATTEN STUDENT CENTER IN
2000, its namesake, longtime Board of Trustees member and tireless supporter
Jane Batten, hoped the new facility would “make an enormous difference to the life
of the campus.”
That it has—and then some. For the last decade, the Jane P. Batten Student
Center has served as the heart and hub of campus life for students, faculty, staff
and visitors from near and far. On Feb. 18, 2012, the College hosted a special
“Batten Center Birthday Celebration” that included a cake cutting by President Billy
Greer and Jane Batten before the men’s basketball game.
Designed to serve as the “town square” of the campus, the 137,000 squarefoot
Batten Center features a modern convocation center with an elevated jogging
track, an eight-lane pool, a training and fitness center, an aerobics room, racquetball
courts, a climbing wall, an aquarium, the campus bookstore, and the popular Marlin
Grille as well as offices, classrooms and meeting spaces.
“The Jane P. Batten Student Center was a catalyst for making campus life what it
is today,” says Dean of Students Keith Moore. “It brought learning, fitness, and fun
under one roof, a dynamic our students benefit from every day.”
PHOTO: JACK MELLOTT
New Heights
ALPINE TOWER A WELCOME ADDITION
FOR VWC’S ACADEMIC, RECREATION
AND ATHLETIC PROGRAMS
NO, IT’S NOT A GIANT MEDIEVAL
weapon. Or a pirate ship. It’s the Alpine
Tower, an imposing assemblage of
massive wooden beams, ropes, swings and
platforms that stands 50 feet tall and weighs
more than 18,000 pounds. The tower,
designed for climbing and teambuilding
exercises, was recently put in place in the
grassy area along the tree line off of Smith
Drive, just west of the main entrance to the
VWC campus.
The Alpine Tower is the result of a
partnership between Virginia Wesleyan and
the YMCA of South Hampton Roads. The
YMCA will use the tower primarily in the
summer for its camps and youth activities,
while VWC will utilize the tower for classes,
recreation activities and teambuilding
programs mostly during the academic year.
As many as 36 participants at once,
including six climbers, can engage in a
variety of challenges on the Alpine Tower.
Among them is the “Giant Swing by
Choice,” which connects to a pole 110 feet
away from the center of the tower. The
upper platform of the tower can even be
used as a campsite for up to six people
to spend the night while harnessed in for
safety. The tower is also equipped for use
by people with disabilities.
Virginia Wesleyan is the only school in
Virginia that has an Alpine Tower on its main
campus. It will also be available for use by
outside groups for a fee and is an extension
of the College’s Outdoor Achievement
Center. Professor of Recreation and Leisure
Studies Doug Kennedy was instrumental in
making the tower a reality.
YMCA Youth Development Director
Samantha Smith tackles the tower
PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 7 /

PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN
AT ATTENTION: Recent graduates (from left) Nicholas Forno,
Alexander Maguire and Brock Waddell during the
commissioning ceremony
The First
Salute
INAUGURAL ARMY COMMISSIONING
CEREMONY HELD ON CAMPUS
FOR RECENT 2012 GRADUATES NICHOLAS FORNO,
Alexander Maguire and Brock Waddell, commencement
day was more than a time to celebrate earning a diploma.
All three were also commissioned as officers in the U.S.
Army during a ceremony on the Boyd Plaza following
commencement exercises. Forno, Maguire and Waddell,
all student athletes and community service volunteers,
participated in Army ROTC while attending
Virginia Wesleyan.
Their commissioning ceremony was the first to be held
on the VWC campus and included the commissioning
oath, pinning of bars, the first salute and silver dollar
ceremony. Each of the young officers chose a special
individual for their first salute. For criminal justice major
Forno, it was his mentor, AFC Timmy Hall (Ret.); Maguire,
who majored in psychology, first saluted his friend CPL
Joe Malazita, USMC; and Waddell, a social science major,
chose his grandfather, CPL Galin Waddell, U.S. Army, as
the recipient of his first salute.
Latin Lights the Way
COLLEGE INTRODUCES A NEW VERSION OF THE MOTTO
IN HONOR OF 50TH ANNIVERSARY
WISDOM LIGHTS THE WAY. THIS PHRASE CERTAINLY RESONATED WITH
Sandra Billy, Director for the Center for Sacred Music, when she first wrote the
lyrics for the College’s alma mater in 2002. Yet it was when Billy found herself
sitting in traffic behind a car with a Dartmouth license plate that the idea for
using Latin for this key phrase hit her.
“There’s something about accepting the ‘mantles of age,’ and I realized that
as Virginia Wesleyan reaches the ripe age of 50, it seems most appropriate
to introduce a Latin motto.” For Dartmouth, “the voice of one crying out in the
wilderness” or vox clamantis in deserto captures their essence, for Virginia
Wesleyan it’s sapientia illuminat viam, or “wisdom lights
the way.”
50
Billy shared her epiphany with President
1961-2011 Billy Greer, who relayed the idea to his
administrative council. She then consulted
with Ben Haller, Assistant Professor
of Classics.
“A Latin motto for Virginia Wesleyan in our
years
50th year underscores our mission to provide
not just a credential for a job,” says Haller, “but to
give students the guidance to learn to operate as
autonomous, moral agents within today’s society.”
VIRGINIA WESLEYAN COLLEGE
Sapientia Illuminat Viam
HONORED BY CASE
VIRGINIA WESLEYAN COLLEGE'S MARLIN MAGAZINE WAS HONORED
with a District III Special Merit Award from the Council for the Advancement
and Support of Higher Education (CASE). The award was for the feature story
"The Long Run" about the College's Track & Field program. The story appeared
in the 2011-2012 issue of the magazine.
/ 8 / MARLIN

“Wesleyan was a place where
ideas and dreams could become
reality without an inordinate
amount of red tape.”
— Retiring music professor
David Clayton reflecting on
his nearly 40-year tenure
at the College.
Wesleyan Window
“At Virginia Wesleyan, professors don’t just
care about what students are learning; they
care about who they are becoming. Career
preparation is only part of the story. There is
also preparation to be a Renaissance citizen,
an honorable, caring, and culturally literate
person who will lead a good and reflective life
in service to family and community.”
verheard
on Campus...
“I mean, who gets a speeding
ticket on their way to work?
You have to love what you do.”
— Mike White ’81, president
and CEO of Maersk Line, North
America, during a presentation
in the Pearce Hospitality Suite,
joking about how his enthusiasm
for his job once earned him a
traffic violation
— Cathy Lewis, H ‘09, host of “HearSay with
Cathy Lewis” on 89.5 WHRV-FM
“People learn from the
people they love. We
can’t ignore the human
element. We focus
on the things that are
easy to measure, but
the deeper human stuff
is hard.”
— New York Times
columnist and author of
The Social Animal, David
Brooks, who spoke at the
College in March 2012
“The diverse body of
knowledge gained from
a liberal arts education
enables individuals to
see the interrelatedness
between subjects and
ideas and events and
societies. It basically
teaches you how to learn
and continue learning
throughout your life.”
— Karen Corrigan ’97,
co-founder and CEO of
Corrigan Partners LLC, a
healthcare management
consultancy firm
“It’s the journey that produces
the joy. The question to ask is
not ‘What do I want to be?’ but
‘What do I want to do?’”
— 2012 Commencement
speaker and recently appointed
Deputy Secretary of the U.S.
Department of Housing and
Urban Development Maurice
Jones encouraging graduates
to consider their values along
with their career aspirations
“The Center, located as it is at an undergraduate
liberal arts college, is uniquely situated to teach
students (and adults) how to put oneself in the
‘religious shoes’ of another person, by letting
us see, teach, and learn from each other about
some of the most important—and therefore most
contentious —issues in our shrinking society.”
— Professor Eric Mazur, acting director of VWC’s
Center for the Study of Religious Freedom
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 9 /

Faculty Focus
Something in the
Atmosphere
SERIES OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS ON MERCURY
POLLUTION AMONG PROFESSIONAL AND
PERSONAL HIGHLIGHTS FOR ASSOCIATE
PROFESSOR OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC
SCIENCE ELIZABETH MALCOLM
THE PHRASE “CARBON FOOTPRINT” HAS
become part of the popular lexicon, but in a
chapter she contributed to a recently released
book, Associate Professor of Atmospheric
and Oceanic Science Elizabeth Malcolm
explores a different aspect of the role people
play in affecting the environment.
Malcolm has done extensive research
on mercury pollution, its sources and the
processes by which this naturally occurring
heavy metal goes from “a volcano or power
plant to the air, then water, and into fish” or
from “a coal plant in China” to “a polar bear
in Canada or fish in a New England pond.” In
the recently released book Mercury Pollution:
A Transdisciplinary Treatment (CRC Press,
2011), she considers the novel concept of a
“mercury footprint” along with an overview of
mercury and the environment. The book is the
PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN
BEYOND THE MINUTIA:
Elizabeth Malcolm (left)
in the newly renovated
Blocker Environmental
Science Lab with
student Erica Sears ‘13.
result of a collaborative project with faculty
from various academic departments at the
College of William & Mary.
“This brought me in a new direction beyond
just the minutia, the science,” Malcolm says.
“I got to look at mercury on a global scale and
look at how emissions differ geographically
by country.”
The publication is one in a series of recent
highlights, both professional and personal,
for Malcolm. In November 2010, Malcolm and
her husband, Jim Saunders, welcomed their
second child. Also in 2010, Malcolm published
two papers on mercury, one in the journal
Marine Chemistry and another in the Journal
of Atmospheric Chemistry.
All the News That’s
Fit to Learn
UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF NEW
FACULTY ADVISER LISA LYON PAYNE,
MARLIN CHRONICLE STUDENT-RUN
NEWSPAPER IS GOING STRONG
IT’S DEADLINE NIGHT IN THE MARLIN
Chronicle newsroom. Student staff members
are hunched over a row of computers, dropping
photos into place, tweaking layouts and making final
edits. Others are gathered around an oblong table
scattered with papers and notebooks and a night’s
supply of Domino’s Pizza. One student is marking
up a printout of a story while another is absorbed in a
sketchbook, creating an illustration to be used in the
latest issue of VWC’s student-run newspaper.
Looking on is Assistant Professor of
Communication Lisa Lyon Payne, who took the
reins as faculty adviser for the Chronicle as of
fall 2011. Payne assumed the role when beloved
journalism professor Bill Ruehlmann retired. Under
Ruehlmann’s tutelage, the publication garnered
dozens of state and national awards.
“Filling Dr. Ruehlmann’s shoes was a tall order,”
she says. “He was such an integral part of this
group for so long. But as I’ve gotten more familiar
with the students and the inner workings of the
newspaper, I’ve identified some areas that I think
would make this a stronger publication and better
learning experience for the students.”
Among those are streamlining the Marlin Chronicle
website, opening up the publication to the realworld
benefits and challenges that come along with
including paid advertising, and offering academic
incentives to encourage more student participation.
Payne, whose professional experience includes
work as a writer, editorial assistant and public
relations specialist, says she sees her role in the
publication as threefold: mentor, advocate and
logistical facilitator.
“It’s very important to me that the staff has
100 percent editorial freedom. As a faculty
member, it’s so refreshing to be able to mentor
such a motivated and committed group.“
EDITORIAL ASSISTANCE: Lisa Lyon Payne
(right) with Rachel Satterwhite ’12 and Jesse
Pugh ’12 in the Marlin Chronicle newsroom.
PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN
/ 10 / MARLIN

Wesleyan Window
ALL ABOARD ART:
Rudel created sandblasted glass
figures of baseball players for
the the Harbor Park station
Faculty Focus
PHOTO: LEONA BAKER
Home Run
for Light Rail
and VWC
PROFESSOR JOHN RUDEL'S
BASEBALL- INSPIRED ARTWORK
PART OF NORFOLK'S LIGHT RAIL
MORE THAN 75,000 PEOPLE LINED UP FOR
their chance to ride the Tide light rail system
during its grand opening weekend in Norfolk,
Virginia. Among them was art professor
John Rudel, whose art work has become
a permanent fixture at the light rail station
at Harbor Park, home of the Norfolk Tides
baseball team.
Rudel was one of approximately a dozen
artists whose work was selected for installation
in the light rail stations as part of the city’s public
art program. The artists were honored at a public
dedication ceremony on Aug. 20, 2011. Norfolk
Mayor Paul Fraim was among the speakers
who lauded their efforts and emphasized the
importance of public art in creating a sense of
community.
“A very meaningful feedback loop is
developed when artists who inhabit a region
are invited to become culture creators within
that region,” Rudel says, “and that’s exactly
what the public art program is facilitating. Being
selected has meant a lot to me and I hope that
this work is enjoyed by many.”
To complete the project, Rudel had to
teach himself how to sandblast onto glass.
In keeping with the installation’s proximity to
Harbor Park, he worked with Head Baseball
Coach Nick Boothe to capture images of
VWC baseball team members in action. He
used the images as inspiration for some of
the figures he created on a series of glass
panels to be installed at the station.
The Magic
of Music
COLLEGE'S FIRST FULL-TIME
MUSIC PROFESSOR RETIRES
AFTER NEARLY 40 YEARS
OUTSIDE THE ENTRANCE TO THE
Hofheimer Theater hangs a series of elegantly
framed programs from concerts past—each
focused on a famous composer. Bach.
Schubert. Brahms. Handel. But one concert
stands out in David Clayton’s mind as a coming
of age for VWC’s music program, which Clayton
has been building since he was hired as the
College’s first full-time music professor in 1972.
On April 30, 1988, student singers, faculty,
staff and guest artists were joined on stage by
a full orchestra for a performance of one of the
most enigmatic and challenging masterpieces
in the classical canon: Mozart’s Requiem.
Clayton remembers it as a turning point.
“It was really amazing,” says Clayton, who
officially retired at the end of the spring 2012
semester. “More than anything it reconfirmed
my belief in the magic of music.”
Clayton, known to his students simply as
“DC,” has been conjuring that magic in and out
of the classroom for 39 years. When he arrived
at VWC, the College had just 625 students and
around 32 faculty members and, as he says,
“everybody knew everybody.”
At a sold-out
farewell concert in
Hofheimer Theater
in April 2012, 18
alumni returned to
perform with the
Wesleyan Singers
and the College
Choir in a program
befitting a man
whose mark on VWC
is as indelible as it
is musical. Clayton
was instrumental in
creating the Center
for Sacred Music,
establishing the
annual Sacred Music
Summer Conference and developing the
College’s first concert series.
Under Clayton’s direction, VWC students
have performed with regional and national
arts groups and at prestigious venues
along the East Coast and have made
numerous recordings.
In his retirement, Clayton hopes to read, travel
to Australia and New Zealand, spend more time
with his daughter, and indulge his passion for
gardening at his home in Virginia Beach.
PHOTO: THOMAS MILLS
ON A HIGH NOTE: Known to his students as
“DC,” Clayton has been a mentor to countless
students whose love of music was nurtured
under his direction.
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 11 /

Faculty Focus
Awards and Honors
PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN
Chemistry professor Joyce Easter
was awarded a $20,000 grant from
Applied Separations, Inc. for a green
chemistry initiative
Professor of Chemistry Joyce Easter was awarded
the first-ever grant from Applied Separations, Inc.
for implementation of an environmentally friendly
chemistry technique. The $20,000 grant, received during
the 15th Annual ACS Green Chemistry and Engineering
Conference in Washington, D.C., will allow VWC students
to learn the fundamentals of the supercritical fluid
extraction process and green chemistry. Supercritical
fluids are high-temperature, high-pressure substances
that share properties of both liquids and gases. Easter
will be using Applied Separations’ Spe-ed SFE Prime
system to integrate the process into sophomore-level
organic chemistry classes as well as for independent
research projects.
Timothy O’Rourke, Vice President for Academic Affairs
and Kenneth R. Perry Dean of the College, is one of
20 senior-level administrators in higher education
nationwide selected by the Council of Independent Colleges and the American Academic
Leadership Institute to participate in a year-long Executive Leadership Academy. O’Rourke
will attend two seminars and ongoing webinars, participate in a mentoring program, develop
experiential learning projects focused on specific areas of presidential responsibility, and
complete a series of readings and case studies.
Associate Professor of French Alain Gabon was selected to participate in a National Endowment
for the Humanities summer research seminar in Paris, France, in June 2012. The five-week seminar
for college teachers and scholars was entitled “France’s Haunting Pasts: Debating 20th-Century
History and French Identity Since 1990.” The seminar was organized by the Institut d’Histoire du
Temps Present, part of the National Center for Scientific Research.
Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice Alison Marganski was awarded a grant from the Walmart
Foundation through their Local Community Contribution/Hunger Outreach Grant Program. The
$1,000 grant will be used to promote community engagement and cultural understanding among
VWC students, particularly through student projects related to raising awareness about domestic
violence and promoting healthy, positive relationships.
Professor of Religious Studies Terry Lindvall, also the C.S. Lewis Endowed Chair in
Communication and Christian Thought, has been awarded a grant funded by the Louisville
Institute, a Lilly Endowment-funded program based at Louisville Seminary. The grant entitled
“Cinematic Worship: Representations of Prayers and Hymns in Hollywood Cinema” aims at
integrating pastoral ministry with representational media studies.
Professor of Communication Kathy Merlock Jackson received the President’s Award at the
Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA) Conference, which took
place in Boston in April 2012. The award is given to individuals who have contributed to the PCA/
ACA in a variety of ways. Merlock Jackson serves as editor of the Journal of American Culture and
is a past president of the American Culture Association.
Doug Kennedy, Professor of Recreation and Leisure Studies, was invited by the Department
of Army Installation Management Command to direct aquatics training for defense personnel
serving youth in Europe. Kennedy, who has served for 25 years with the Boy Scouts of America’s
(BSA) National Camping School focusing on aquatics management, was recommended by
the BSA to serve as the “Subject Matter Expert” for the defense Morale, Welfare and Recreation
organization in Germany.
Points of
Pride
THE COLLEGE HAS MUCH
to brag about in 2012 and beyond.
Here are a few current points
of pride:
• Chosen as one of the nation’s
best by the Princeton Review and
featured in its forthcoming guide:
The Best 377 Colleges: 2013 Edition.
• Featured on
CollegesofDistinction.com for
demonstrating excellence in four
specific distinctions: engaged
students, great teaching, vibrant
communities and successful
outcomes.
• Selected for inclusion in
The Princeton Review’s Guide to
322 Green Colleges: 2012 Edition
for outstanding sustainability
initiatives.
• A grant from the National Science
Foundation for up to $564,750
over a period of five years for
the “Science & Mathematics
Scholars Program at a Liberal
Arts College.”
• $242,502 grant from the National
Science Foundation that resulted
in a state-of-the-art scanning
electron microscope, the best of
its kind in southeastern Virginia
• Partnerships with numerous
community organizations such as
the Chrysler Museum of Art, where
students now have access to a
world-class glassblowing studio.
• Week-long On-Campus Winter
Homeless Shelter in its sixth year,
the only homeless shelter known
to be operated on the property of
a college campus in the U.S.
/ 12 / MARLIN

Wesleyan Window
Student Spotlight
PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN
Bold Canvases,
Bright Future
KATIE BENNETT ‘13 COMBINES HER LOVE OF
SCIENCE AND ART ON A MICROSCOPIC SCALE
GRAPHIC DETAILS: Katie
Bennett, a dual major in art and
biology, poses with her work in
the Neil Britton Gallery.
THE ITSY-BITSY SPIDER IS NOT SO SMALL WHEN LOOKED UPON BY
Katie Bennett ’13 during the wee hours of the morning in the VWC art studio.
Typical days for the dual major in biology and art include classes, six-mile
afternoon runs, and plenty of time spent using both a state-of-the-art
microscope and a paintbrush.
Honor societies, cross country, and indoor and outdoor track keep Bennett
extremely busy, so she took the semester off from competing to focus on
her paintings. Her artwork is based on black and white micrographs taken
with the recently installed scanning electron microscope in Blocker Hall.
Minute details, too small to be seen by the naked eye, are greatly enlarged
by the time they arrive on Bennett’s canvas. The organs of an arachnid
become mysterious organic shapes in swathes of rosy pink. Others are even
more abstract, bold textures in royal blue and green.
“I’ve always been inspired to do artwork, and the beauty of organisms
has always fascinated me,” she says, “so I’ve incorporated living biology
into my art.”
The aspiring medical illustrator is considering graduate programs
in California and Canada while taking full advantage of her liberal arts
education. Bennett has entered her paintings into a juried art exhibition in
Ohio and hopes to publish her research findings.
PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN
Allison Reeves ‘13 received an AmeriCorps Service Award
for her leadership role in Marlins Read
Ready, Set, Read
KUDOS FOR VWC STUDENT-
RUN MENTORING PROGRAM
VIRGINIA WESLEYAN COLLEGE’S
Marlins Read program was named a 2011-
12 Model Partnership by Virginia Beach
City Public Schools and honored during
a partners-in-education recognition event
in April 2012. Marlins Read is a mentoring
program that pairs Virginia Wesleyan
students with first graders from three Virginia
Beach elementary schools to help improve
reading their skills.
VWC junior Allison Reeves ‘13, the
student coordinator of Marlins Read, also
received the 2012 ADVANCE Outstanding
Service Award from the North Carolina
Campus Compact. The award recognizes
an AmeriCorps mentor whose service and
support goes the extra mile to positively
impact their mentee and service site. Under
Reeves’ leadership, Marlins Read grew from
11 to 27 mentors.
Her service included helping a first
grade class with a Valentine’s for
Veterans project, driving the VWC van
that transports college mentors to the
elementary schools each week, and
facilitating a “Chalk the Walk” project that
encouraged students to express their love
of reading on the school’s sidewalk.
/ 13 /

Student Spotlight
United They Stand
MODEL UN TEAM TRAVELS TO NEW YORK TO
REPRESENT THE AFRICAN NATION OF LIBERIA AT
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
A GROUP OF 14 VWC STUDENTS WENT
to New York City in April 2012 for a
conference that was truly international
in scope. While there, they represented
not only VWC but the entire West African
country of Liberia.
The annual National Model United
Nations Conference brings together more
than 5,000 participants, students and
higher education representatives from
all over the globe. More than half of the
attendees are from outside the U.S. Each
group of students is assigned a country
to represent at the conference.
Mostly political science and
international studies majors, the VWC
students participated in a Model United
Nations group that met weekly on
campus as preparation for the trip. They
studied the inner workings of the UN as
well as the politics and culture of Liberia,
a nation of 5 million people marked
by political upheaval and a variety of
economic and social challenges in the
20 th century.
“Model UN is a fantastic learning
opportunity for any student because
PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN
TEAM LIBERIA: Professor Aubrey
Westfall (center) with Carissa Chantiles
’13 (left) and Michele Kelly ’12, two of the
VWC students who represented Liberia
at the Model UN Conference.
it provides them with real experience
in the practice of diplomatic decision
making,” says Assistant Professor of
Political Science Aubrey Westfall, who
led the group.
Carissa Chantiles ‘13 received an
award at the conference for her position
paper on the Republic of Liberia in the
UNICEF committee. It is the second time
the College has received an award at the
conference but the first time for a paper.
“I hope this will help me be able to
see the world, and my place in it, from
a different perspective,” says Chantiles.
“And I hope the experience I gain from it
will help open doors for me.”
Transfer Student
Success
“I FOUND IT TO BE A DIVERSE, YET INTIMATE
campus,” explains business major Caroline Rutledge,
who transferred to VWC in January 2011 after earning
her associates degree at Tidewater Community
College. “The small classes and student-to-professor
ratios allow for one-on-one attention and a more
customized learning environment.”
Rutledge credits her advisor, Assistant Professor of
Management/Business Economics Paul Ewell, with
helping her quickly acclimate to VWC life.
“As a commuter, I didn’t expect to be so connected
to the campus so soon, but Dr. Ewell has been
a godsend. He assigned projects that extended
my experience beyond the classroom, and I was
introduced to people who are not only concerned
about my success and education, but who challenge
me to be the best leader, citizen and person I can be.”
Transfer students are often attracted by the
College’s exceptional faculty, commitment to
academic excellence, and inspiring location. Recently
announced scholarships for transfer students have
also created new financial assistance opportunities
for students like Rutledge.
Internships
Abound
INTERNSHIPS GIVE STUDENTS OPPORTUNITIES
to apply knowledge they have learned from
the classroom to hands-on professional work
environments. Faculty advisers offer encouragement
and assistance with setting up and choosing
programs that fit students’ needs. Business professor
Bob Albertson is just one of the faculty members who
supervise several types of internships, many of which
lead to outstanding student achievements.
Among the recent successes under
Albertson’s supervision are Gage Collins ’12,
who completed an internship at the Lake Taylor
Rehabilitation Hospital that resulted in his statistical
analysis of patient satisfaction being presented to the
board of the hospital and Scarlett Barham ’12, who
worked part-time at the Virginia Beach Department of
Mental Health and Substance Abuse while completing
a study on the role of trust in the workplace.
In the business world, critical thinking skills are
crucial. When competing for jobs in the market,
graduates must be able to make quick decisions
based on logic, discipline, time management and
effective communication skills. Interning teaches
students these skills and offers insight on how
to excel in a variety of companies, organizations,
industries and institutions.
/ 14 / MARLIN

Wesleyan Window
ATHLETIC ACHIEVERS: Athletic Hall of Fame
inductees for 2012 included (from left)
Julia Green Marks ‘04, Michael C. Duffy ‘96,
John C. Tomasheski ‘03, Thomas R. Brett ‘71,
and Meagan N. DiCave ‘02. Who will be next?
Standouts
ON THE FIELD
FIFTH CLASS OF HONOREES
TO BE INDUCTED INTO VIRGINIA
WESLEYAN COLLEGE’S
ATHLETIC HALL OF FAME
ON FEBRUARY 2, 2013
DO YOU REMEMBER WHO DOMINATED
the court, scored the most goals, jumped the
highest or ran the fastest while you were at
VWC? Now’s your chance to honor these
all-Americans, record breakers and other
extraordinary men and women who have
made their mark on VWC athletics.
During the 2012-13 academic year, Virginia
Wesleyan will induct the fifth class of the
Athletic Hall of Fame. Established in May
MagADM1-2pgAd_Layout 1 8/10/12 2:42 PM Page 1
2007, the Athletic Hall of Fame honors those
whose outstanding athletic achievements,
service or significant contributions have had a
lasting effect on Virginia Wesleyan College’s
intercollegiate athletic program.
Each year, nominations for the Athletic Hall
of Fame are accepted from April 1 through
August 31. Student athletes are eligible
for nomination five years after they have
graduated from the College. Marlin teams,
coaches and friends of athletics may also
be nominated. More information about the
selection criteria and nomination process is
available at www.vwc.edu/AHOFnomination.
The 2013 Athletic Hall of Fame Induction
Luncheon will be held on Saturday, February
2, 2013. Join us for recognition of Marlin
athletic accomplishments and opportunities to
reminisce with fellow alumni and coaches.
THINGS ARE LOOKING UP AT VIRGINIA WESLEYAN COLLEGE
VISIT
Virginia
Wesleyan
and meet our
A-TEAM
VWC DAY
OPEN HOUSE
Oct. 20 & Nov.10, 2012
Feb. 9 & March 9, 2013
Contact our Admissions Office to plan for your future.
Call 800.737.8684/757.455.3208 or email admissions@vwc.edu
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 15 /

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/ 16 / MARLIN

10
Virginia
Wesleyan
College
at
50
A Monumental Year
DURING THE 2011-12 ACADEMIC YEAR, STUDENTS,
ALUMNI, FACULTY, STAFF AND FRIENDS CELEBRATED
THE COLLEGE’S 50 TH ANNIVERSARY
13
14
1. Commencement speaker Maurice Jones (front left), Deputy
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, addressed the Class of
2012. He’s pictured here with VWC President Billy Greer, Dean Timothy
O’Rourke and Chaplain Greg West.
2. Professors Kathy Merlock Jackson (top left) and Terry Lindvall
(second row, center) and students in their “1960s Media and Culture”
class plunged headfirst into exploration about the College’s founding
decade, an era marked by social and political upheaval.
3. Lush Healey, Board Trustee Elizabeth Middleton and Gay Shulman
reminisced about what it took to help launch a fledgling college during
a ladies’ tea that celebrated the accomplishments of the Women
of Wesleyan.
4. Since Virginia Wesleyan’s history is “a tale of two cities,” Virginia
Beach Mayor Will Sessoms (first row, center) and Norfolk Mayor Paul
Fraim (first row, right) were on hand at the 50th anniversary celebration
luncheon. The mayors are pictured with VWC President Billy Greer (first
row, left), Board Trustee Jane Batten (second row, left) and keynote
speaker David Brooks (second row, right).
5. New York Times columnist and author David Brooks served as
the keynote speaker for the 50th Anniversary Community Celebration
Luncheon, which brought together 250 community leaders and friends
of the College.
6. Board of Trustees members Dick Roberts, Bob Boyd, and
Elizabeth Middleton prepared to enter the convocation center for 2012
commencement exercises.
7. "Regeneration" by sculptor Christine Harris '92 was one of the works
featured in the 50th Anniversary Alumni Art Exhibition in the Neil Britton
Art Gallery.
8. Associate Professor of History Sara Sewell organized the
photographic display that tells the story of Wesleyan women during the
last five decades.
9. Graduates of the Class of 2012 Joby Lefever and Joshua Christian
were all smiles following the commencement ceremony.
10. Stephanie Drinkard ’12 and Sarah Imbesi ’13 performed in
Hofheimer Theater in the down-home, feel-good musical Pump Boys
and Dinettes.
11. Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Enrollment Services
David Buckingham donned a leisure suit for a blast-from-the-past photo
with Bob Marlin at Homecoming 2011.
12. Stephen Mansfield, College archivist and former history professor
and academic dean, signed copies of his book Wisdom Lights
the Way: Virginia Wesleyan College’s First Half Century (Donning
Company Publishers), available for purchase in the Scribner Bookstore
on campus.
13. At the Founder’s Reception, VWC President Billy Greer and board
member and Chair of the 50 th Anniversary Committee Emily Miles
unveiled a commemorative plaque that now hangs in the College’s first
home, the Royster Building in Norfolk.
14. Nancy Kelly ’15 and Lex Higbee ’15 participated in the groovy
1960s-themed parade during Homecoming and Parent Weekend.
/ 17 /

A Place
in History
FROM FOLK CULTURE
TO FOREIGN POLICY,
BEEKEEPING TO BUDDHISM
— PROFESSOR DAN MARGOLIES
DISCOVERS MEANING
THROUGH A SITE-SPECIFIC LENS
By Leona Baker
Such Stuff As
Dreams Are
Made On
The Hofheimer
Theater celebrates 30
years of music, theater
and transformations
By Elizabeth Blachman
PHOTO BY JANICE MARSHALL-PITTMAN
STAGES OF SLEEP: Michael
Blankenship and Chana
Kostka in a production of
Three Top Hats by Miguel
Mihura, directed by Rick Hite.
/ 18 / MARLIN

IN TUNE: Dan Margolies picked up the banjo when a
former boss challenged him to learn to play if he truly
loved old-time music. Margolies regularly organizes a
series of Appalachian music concerts on campus.
resumably there is a desk in
Dan Margolies’ small, square-ish office.
If the laws of gravity yet apply, surely a
furniture-like object is serving as a
pedestal for the stacks of books that form a
multicolored miniature skyline that almost entirely
obscures its top surface.
Around the desk, nearly every millimeter of wall
space is covered with shelves, and every shelf is
bursting with books. Books about history. Books
about music. Books about beekeeping. Here and
there are tokens of Margolies’ travels abroad,
including a collection of battery-operated plastic
songbirds from Korea that whistle the tunes of their
respective species.
From behind the stacks, Margolies offers a
scalding hot cup of tea as he settles into his chair
to talk about his latest publications and how his
seemingly disparate passions—from apiculture to
Appalachia—“all relate somehow.”
Given one of Margolies’ other abiding interests,
the politics and culture of spaces and places, it’s
tempting to psychoanalyze the artful chaos of the
room in Blocker Hall with his name outside the door.
Yet his recent academic research explores these
concepts on a far grander scale.
A professor of history and coordinator of the
History Department at Virginia Wesleyan, Margolies’
second book, Spaces of Law in American Foreign
Relations: Extradition and Extraterritoriality in the
Borderlands and Beyond, 1877—1898 (University
of Georgia Press), examines U.S. imperialism
in the late 19th century and how the American
government seized on the legal gray areas of border
disputes and other jurisdictional entanglements to
unabashedly advance its interests in an increasingly
global world.
A significant portion of the book focuses on the
hotly contested Zona Libre along the U.S.-Mexican
border and uses it as a jumping-off point for
characterizing American unilateralism as a whole.
But it was Margolies’ love of conjunto music—not
history—that drew him to that infamous stretch of
geography north of the Rio Grande.
Margolies’ has published numerous articles on
conjunto, a uniquely Mexican-American hybrid
that is as much a lifestyle as it is a musical form.
Born in South Texas, conjunto gets its distinctively
danceable sound from the button accordion and the
bajo sexto, a low-pitched 12-string guitar. The word
conjunto translates literally as “group.”
“The name itself is evocative of more than
just music;” Margolies wrote in a 2008 story for
the Old-Time Herald. “It taps into a deeper sense
of community and culture as well as a fierce
regional pride.”
As a regular visitor to the Tejano Conjunto Festival,
which draws legions of faithful to party conjunto
style each May to San Antonio, Texas, he has
experienced that culture firsthand. He’s even
“monkeyed around” on the bajo sexto as he has
on a number of traditional instruments from the
Southern fiddle to the Mongolian morin khuur.
But it’s the banjo, a gift from a former boss who
told him he should learn to play if he truly cared
about old-time music, on which he’s most at
home. It’s an instrument that figures prominently in
Appalachian music, another of Margolies’ teaching
and research interests.
Margolies regularly organizes a series of
Appalachian music concerts during winter session
at VWC, presenting well known artists of the genre
like champion old-time fiddler Mark Campbell and
ethnomusicologist James Ruchala along with other
guests—from historians and anthropologists to
poets and journalists.
In the summer of 2011, he spent a month in
Mongolia studying traditional music in the remote,
landlocked Asian country. He was especially
interested in what is known as “sustainable culture
and music”—a theory popularized by Brown
University ethnomusicology professor Jeff Todd Titon.
“Issues of sustainable culture and music are
similar across different cultures and different forms
of music,” Margolies explains. “So the concept of
creating a culture of sustainability within
traditional music making is something you can
look at among Mexican Americans in South Texas,
among Appalachian Americans in Appalachia and
then in Mongolia.”
Based on an ecological model of sustainability,
it’s an idea that incorporates not just the music itself
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 19 /

If you think about a space
as either a physical space
or a social space or just
kind of a landscape, it gets
invested with meaning
and becomes a place.
And there are different
scales: local spaces,
regional spaces, an entire
area of country, region or
neighborhood, a house,
a building. Some of it is
smell, some of it is sound,
some of it is image, vibe,
language, food, music.
but who is playing it, how they are playing it,
what support they have from the state, and
how it’s being presented to the public.
“The easiest, most memorable image is
the model of building up soil,” Margolies
says. “So if you are building up soil in a
garden and you have a lot of compost and
you build a really good rich, dark soil then
you can grow a lot plants and sustain a lot
of growth. You are concentrating on building
the conditions for healthy natural systems.
It’s the same thing with music. It’s a culture
you create.”
This way of thinking represents a break
from the past, particularly in Asia, where
cultural heritage has often been treated as
a packaged commodity to be preserved
in amber or put behind glass in a museum
rather than a dynamic living system.
“It’s a process,” Margolies argues, “not
a thing.”
ON A LATE MARCH AFTERNOON,
Dan Margolies unloads a nondescript
white bucket from the back of his pickup
truck, carries it gingerly past the campus
greenhouse and places it alongside the
mismatched cluster of beehives along the
tree line outside of Blocker Hall.
Dressed in a white t-shirt and jeans with
protective netting over his face, he carefully
removes the lid of the bucket. Attached
to the underside of the lid is a massive
buzzing glob of about 15,000 honey bees.
He positions the lid above an open hive box
and gives it a firm tap on the edge. With the
hum of an alien ship, the bees descend en
masse into what will hopefully become their
new home.
As a past president of the Tidewater
Beekeepers Association and a member of the
Beekeepers Guild of Southeastern Virginia,
Margolies is on a call list for local bee-related
emergencies. In this case, it’s a swarm that
took up residence on the side of a building in
Norfolk. Assuming the bees approve of their
new on-campus accommodations and have
a queen to fawn over, they’ll start doing what
honey bees do best.
They’ll also have a chance to serve as
exhibit “A” for students enrolled in Margolies’
beekeeping course. In the class, students
learn about the long history and culture of
beekeeping, also known as apiculture, as well
as the science behind it. But for Margolies, the
bees represent something more.
In a short video called “Buddha in the Bee
Yard” he created along with his wife, Skye,
for a Buddhist film festival taking place in
Washington, D.C. in the summer of 2012,
Margolies muses about a question he is often
asked: “Why do you keep bees?”
“I never had a good answer until I started
to think about beekeeping as practice,”
says Margolies, who lives in Norfolk with
his wife and three young children, including
one-year-old twins. “I began to see that the
reason to keep bees was, in fact, simply
to keep bees—nothing more than this and
nothing less.”
Margolies’ interest in Buddhist philosophy
also ties into his work as a historian and
teacher. Among the classes he offers
regularly at Virginia Wesleyan are courses on
various aspects of Korean and Mongolian
history. Buddhism factors prominently in
both cultures.
EVOLVING LANDSCAPES: Margolies
received a Mednick Fellowship to take
a series of photographs documenting
the ways in which Latino migrants have
transformed the spaces of the American
South. This image of a boy and a low rider
was taken in Asheville, North Carolina.
/ 20 / MARLIN

His primary teaching and research
specialty is American foreign relations and
foreign relations law, but he also teaches
a wide variety of classes on topics such
as globalization and empire, Old and New
South, the Civil War, the 19th century, maritime
history, and radicalism and violence in
American history. Originally from Illinois,
Margolies attended Hampshire College in
Massachusetts as an undergraduate and
thought he wanted to study film.
“Finding out that the U.S. had taken over the
Philippines in 1898, which I just never learned
growing up—I couldn’t really understand that
because it seemed very un-American. That’s
kind of why I became a historian. That piqued
my interest—that concept of the U.S. having
an empire and taking over another country.”
Most of all, though, Margolies seems to be
concerned with the intersections of things,
the crossroads where cultures and ideologies
collide, intermingle and evolve into something
new. More often than not, these intersections
are deeply tied to specific places—“hybrid,
malleable, and ephemeral places.”
A Maurice L. Mednick Memorial Fellowship
from the Virginia Foundation for Independent
Colleges gave Margolies an opportunity to
take a series of photographs documenting
the ways in which Latino migrants, primarily
Mexicans, have literally transformed the
landscape in many areas of the South,
specifically in rural and small town Virginia
and especially North Carolina.
These spaces, “the frayed edges of
modern America in roadsides, abandoned
downtowns, decaying strip malls, churches,
and community halls,” he writes, have been
visually redefined because of “an ongoing
discourse between peoples, cultures,
ideas, systems of power, expressions, and
sovereignties.” It’s an abstract but historically
grounded concept sometimes referred to as
“place making.”
“If you think about a space as either a
physical space or a social space or just kind
of a landscape,” Margolies says, “it gets
invested with meaning and becomes a place.
And there are different scales: local spaces,
regional spaces, an entire area of country,
region or neighborhood, a house, a building.
Some of it is smell, some of it is sound, some
of it is image, vibe, language, food, music.”
He recently taught a class at VWC that dealt
specifically with the idea of place making.
“The point of the class is to think about the
way global cultures have created meaningful
places within the United States. So, in Virginia
Beach, one of those might be the Buddhist
Temple that was in Pungo that’s now right
around the corner from Virginia Wesleyan.
Some of it is I was trying to give the students
the ability to read a place historically and
visually and orally, to think about things in
terms of history but also about the way that
history has shaped the spaces and the places
that people are in and how that has an effect
on historical change.”
In the summer of 2012, Margolies plans to
spend time traversing one of American’s most
storied wild places: the Appalachian Trail. Along
with a friend, he will complete the southern
half the 2,184-mile hike, from Front Royal to
Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. They began the hike at
Springer Mountain in Georgia in 2000.
He is currently working on two book
projects: one is a study of sustainability in
Texas-Mexican Conjunto music and the other
is a comparative global study of free zones,
foreign trade zones, special economic zones,
and exclusive economic zones since the 19th
century. He also edited a recently published
collection called A Companion to Harry S.
Truman (Wiley-Blackwell).
In the late 19th century the United States oversaw a great
increase in extraterritorial claims, boundary disputes,
extradition controversies, and transborder abduction and
interdiction. In this sweeping history of the underpinnings
of American empire, Daniel Margolies offers a new
frame of analysis for historians to understand how
novel assertions of legal spatiality and extraterritoriality
were deployed in U.S. foreign relations during an era of
increased national ambitions and global connectedness.
PHOTO: DANIEL S. MARGOLIES
Spaces of Law in American
Foreign Relations:
Extradition and
Extraterritoriality in the
Borderlands and Beyond,
1877–1898
(University of Georgia
Press, 2011)
/ 21 /

“I came to the point
where I had to
f igure out if I was
carrying out my
parents’ faith or
whether or not I
would really try to
experience God
for myself.”
FREEING is BELIEVING
HOW STUDENTS AT VIRGINIA WESLEYAN AND OTHER COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES EXPLORE ISSUES OF
FAITH AND FORGE THEIR OWN SPIRITUAL— AND, IN SOME CASES, NOT-SO-SPIRITUAL—PATHS
By Elizabeth Blachman
POPULAR WISDOM WOULD HAVE YOU BELIEVE THAT
college students brush the dust of family religions off their
boots and spend four years in a hedonistic orgy of binge
drinking and casual sex. Add to that the undergraduate propensity
for questioning everything, and the result may be what George
Marsden in The Soul of the American University noted was a shift in
academia “from Protestant establishment to established nonbelief.”
Not so, say recent studies, such as a 2004 UCLA survey that
showed that out of 112,000 freshmen polled, more than two-thirds
prayed and nearly 80 percent reported that they believed in God.
Studies of religion on campus in the past decade suggest that
American universities are increasingly becoming places where
students explore faith.
On a Friday afternoon in April, four students gather in Virginia
Wesleyan’s Monumental Chapel. They face east, toward Mecca.
Kneeling on prayer rugs in their socks, they repeat the ancient
words spoken by Muslims for more than a thousand years.
Leading the service, Mohamed Hassan ’14 talks about a man in
the Koran who rose from sleep after 100 years and about how his
own faith in Allah helped him figure out his dorm situation for the
next year.
“We’ve stepped to the plate to help out future Muslims who
come to this school,” explains Jibreel Salaam ’14, who started
the prayer group with Hassan last year and says that the
responsibility of being one of just a few Muslims at VWC has
made his faith stronger.
Student-led groups like this one are a central part of VWC
Chaplain Greg West’s vision for religious life at VWC. On a different
Friday in spring, he says goodbye to two students from his men’s
discussion group outside of his office in the student center. Last
week a student stopped by to talk about human sexuality and
scripture after the issue came up in one of her classes. West, who
spent 11 years as a pastor, has been chaplain at VWC for two years.
“I’m very big on student-led ministry where I’m kind of a
coach,” says West, who helped Hassan and Salaam find a space
to practice Islam.
/ 22 / MARLIN

Another student-led ministry is Under Construction for Christ,
started by Wayne Credle to reach out to African-Americans. Credle,
who graduated in 2012 and is headed to Duke Divinity School, says
he’ll always remember one night on campus when he was able to
positively affect the faith of another student.
“I asked her if she would be willing to talk to me, but she was quiet.
I told her, ‘I know I’m a little fat, but could you talk with me please?’
I said this in an effort to get her to laugh. She laughed.” remembers
Credle. “As I prayed for her, she held on to me so tight.”
Credle and Chiereme Fortune ’13 both attend Midnight Prayer, a
group of students who gather in the chapel on Friday nights at 11 p.m.
“It’s an amazing experience to be in the midst of five to six different
types of people all coming together for one purpose, to lift up our
campus and to invite God to dwell within our hearts in a powerful
way,” says Fortune. “It’s the best part of my week.”
Fortune takes a leadership role in the gospel choir and attends
Marlin Ministries—Reverend West’s weekly gathering of student
leaders on campus. She grew up in a Baptist home and had to adjust
to the more secular environment of the college campus.
“It was challenging at first to be the only member of my circle
who regularly attended church and wanted to be involved in spiritual
life,” says Fortune. “I came to the point where I had to figure out if
I was carrying out my parents’ faith or whether or not I would really
try to experience God for myself in the midst of a not-so-interested
environment that was constantly inviting me to do otherwise.”
Emily Menke ’13 also took control of her faith at college. Menke,
a United Methodist, is part of Marlin Ministries, sings in the SOAR
Worship Team, and attends a LIFE Bible study group.
“I no longer go because my parents say that I have to,” says
Menke. “I am involved because it is something that I truly believe.”
West sees evidence of increased religious involvement. He works
with George Scott, who’s been connected to VWC for the past
eight years—four as a student and four as the leader of the SOAR
Worship Team.
“He’s told me that there were some times that they had two or three
in the chapel for worship,” says West. “Now we’ve got 20 to 30.”
West leads a spring break mission trip to Nicaragua, and he
emphasizes the community service happening at the college. These
small groups and tradition of service link VWC to its Methodist roots.
“The Methodist movement started by the Wesleys and George
Whitefield and others was the only denomination that started on a
college campus as a renewal movement,” says West. “At Oxford
University in the 1700s they started gathering together in small
groups for spiritual well-being, shepherding one another, and the
Methodist Church grew out of that. And it’s really taken a primary role
in education.”
LAST SEMESTER, PROFESSOR OF JUDAIC STUDIES ERIC MAZUR
organized a “Religion on Campus” program in connection with
VWC’s Center for the Study of Religious Freedom. The program
brought together administrators, religious leaders, and student
leaders from local universities, as well as academics.
“We discussed issues such as how competing religious groups
can get along in shared space,” says Mazur, “sharing a chapel,
for example, or a common student meeting room—the image of
religious students in popular culture, the legal issues of religion
on the college campus, and the history and future of campus
religious organizations.”
Mazur says that students at VWC and around the country have
inherited a freedom to find their own views about religion.
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 23 /

“[Students] feel
free to innovate, to
explore, or to be
nothing at all as
easily as they feel
free to deepen their
commitments to the
traditions to which
they were born.”
“They feel free to innovate, to explore, or to be nothing at all—not
atheists, but just completely uninterested—as easily as they feel
free to deepen their commitments to the traditions to which they
were born.”
Statistics show a strong presence of Christian students from
varied denominations on campus—more than 60 percent. Only
four percent of the students characterized themselves as atheist,
agnostic, or “no religious preference,” but more than 30 percent
wrote “unknown” or declined to answer the religion question.
There are only a handful of Muslims, Buddhists and Jews. But
Salaam and Hassan’s organization has a presence on campus;
people in the cafeteria know to steer them away from the pork
dishes. West hopes to gather enough student energy for a Jewish
organization next year. In his “Judaism and Food” class last
semester, Mazur led his students in a Passover Seder.
Terry Lindvall, who teaches in the Religious Studies and
Communications departments and spoke in the “Religion on
Campus” series, says that there’s still a degree of ignorance about
religion among many college students.
“More students know about Indiana Jones’ lost ark than about
King David’s dancing before the Ark of the Covenant,” he jokes.
But, he says, from the relatively small Religious Studies
department at VWC, this year about 10 students are headed
to seminary and graduate programs at schools such as Duke,
Princeton, and Boston University.
“Callings to the ministry of the Church seem to be increasing,” he
says, “with the Methodist tradition of helping the poor, the outcast,
the homeless being combined with service to young people as in
Young Life and Fellowship of Christian Athletes.”
Mazur says that one guest at the discussion series, Professor
John Schmalzbauer from Missouri State University, has
investigated religion on campuses throughout the country.
“He has come to the conclusion that while the official,
institutional forms of religion may not be as vital as they once
were, student innovation and initiative continue to make college
campuses religiously vital places to be,” says Mazur. “Professor
Schmalzbauer also noted that, as a result of this campus religious
vitality, young people who go to college are more likely—not less—
to be religious than people who don’t.”
West says that he is inspired to reach students at this crossroads
in the formation of their identities.
“What has God created you uniquely to do?” he asks them. “And
what has God put in your heart to learn? You can serve your fellow
human beings; you’ve got a role in the planet.”
In the chapel where Hassan and Salaam were praying two days
earlier, where a Catholic priest will say Mass later in the evening, the
SOAR Worship Team sings contemporary hymns accompanied by
piano and guitar. The words of the songs are projected on the walls.
The music swells. Chiereme Fortune closes her eyes. Her arms are
lifted toward the concrete ceiling of the chapel, toward the sky.
Spiritual life groups on campus include: Alpha, Catholic Campus
Ministries (CCM), Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ),
Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), Gospel Choir, Inter-Varsity
Christian Fellowship (IV), LIFE Groups - Living in Faith Everyday,
Marlin Ministries, Soar Worship Team, Under Construction for
Christ (UCC), and Young Life. Worship opportunities include:
Catholic Mass, Muslim Friday Prayer, and SOAR weekly nondenominational
service.
/ 24 / MARLIN

MagCSM1-2pgRev_Layout 1 8/10/12 3:10 PM Page 1
THE CENTER FOR SACRED MUSIC SOUND &SYMBOL LECTURE SERIES
Here Comes the Bride
co-sponsored with the
VWC WOMEN’S AND GENDER STUDIES PROGRAM
An exploraAon of marriagecustoms, the wedding ceremony, and music to match.
SEPTEMBER20
The DisneyWedding
Phenomena –“Some Day
My PrinceWill Come”
Dr.Kathy Merlock Jackson,
Professor of Communication,and
Dr.TerryLindvall, C.S. Lewis
EndowedChair in Communication
and Christian Thought
NOVEMBER 1
Marriage&Ceremony
in the Jewish TradiAon
Cantor Wally Schachet-Briskin,
Ohef Sholom Temple
Polygamy,Polyandry,
Monogamy, Oh My!
Dr.Eric Mazur, Gloria and David
Furman Professor of Judaic Studies
FEBRUARY 28
Marriage&Ceremony
in the ChrisAan TradiAon
Dr.Craig Wansink, Professor of
Religious Studies
The Birth of the “Honor
Me Beauty Pageant”
Dr.Linda Ferguson, Professor of
Management/Business/Economics
Allsessions take place at 11:00 a.m. in Fine Arts 9 • No admission charge • Reservations not required
757.455.3376 • www.vwc.edu/csm
APRIL 25
Marriage&Ceremony
in the Hindu TradiAon
Padmarani Rasiah Cantu
Free-Choice in Mate
SelecAon: Inter-Ethnicity
and Inter-Race Marriages
Dr.Kathy Stolley, Batten Associate
Professor of Sociology
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 25 /

lass Act
NEW PARTNERSHIP WITH THE CHRYSLER MUSEUM OF ART GIVES WESLEYAN STUDENTS
UNIQUE ACCESS TO WORLD-CLASS GLASSBLOWING STUDIO
Photos by Wendy W. Maness
Virginia Wesleyan students are encouraged to
“bring a spark, light a fire” as they embark
on their educational journey at VWC, one
designed to promote a lifelong passion for learning.
Thanks to a new formal partnership between VWC and
the Chrysler Museum of Art, they have an opportunity
to “get fired up” in a whole new way.
As of January 2012, VWC students have access to the
Chrysler Museum’s world-class Glass Studio, which
opened its doors adjacent to the Museum in Norfolk in
November 2011.
Students enrolled in the art course “Topics in Studio
Art: Glass,” taught by adjunct professor and Chrysler
Museum Glass Studio manager Charlotte Potter, travel
to the Glass Studio a minimum of twice a week for an
introduction to the practical mechanics of glassblowing
as well as the conceptual approaches to glass as an art
form and the history of the medium.
The students featured in these photos are among the
first to take advantage of this opportunity to experience
the ancient, collaborative art of glassblowing in a stateof-the-art
facility.
/ 26 / MARLIN

Hot glass inside the furnace
reaches a temperature of
about 2,150 degrees before
being inflated with air,
turned, twisted, shaped,
cut or merged with other
materials.
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 27 /

3
Glass Act
1. There are various methods for adding
color to glass, including dipping the
molten material into pigmented,
granulated glass powders that resemble
colored sugar.
4
1
2
2. Charlotte Potter and students Andrew
Menefee '12 and Brandy Arab ’12 sketch
out ideas in chalk on the floor of the studio
before beginning a new glass piece.
3. A folded wet newspaper acts as a heat
shield when hand-shaping a piece
of hot glass.
4. Although the Chrysler’s facility is
among the most modern in the world,
many of the basic tools and techniques
of glassblowing have remained the same
for thousands of years.
5. Glassblowing is fluid, dynamic process
that requires a team effort. VWC students
Ashton Perry ’12 (foreground) and Rachel
Wolfganger ’13 (in yellow) work together
to make adjustments on a hot piece
of glass.
6. Steam rises as VWC adjunct professor
and Chrysler Museum Glass Studio
manager Charlotte Potter cools a glasstipped
blowpipe in a water bath.
7. Student Josh Hathaway ’12 applies a
hot colored bit of glass to the surface of
his bubble to create a spiral pattern.
5
/ 28 / MARLIN

6
7
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 29 /

the Forest for the Trees
On a peaceful patch of land on the Eastern Shore, Billy and Fann Greer
are making a difference 30,000 seedlings at a time
STORY BY LEONA BAKER
PHOTOS BY JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN
/ 30 / MARLIN

ROAD LESS TRAVELED: The Greers with their dog,
Gracie, on their 200-acre farm near Belle Haven.
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 31 /

I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to
keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old
acquaintance among the pines. Henry David Thoreau
IN
THE LATE 1990S, WHEN
Virginia Wesleyan President Billy
Greer and his wife, Fann, decided
they’d like to purchase a piece of land on
Virginia’s Eastern Shore, they were looking for
a place to build—some woods, some water,
a quiet respite from work life and a gathering
spot for family including their three sons and
four grandchildren. What they found was
something more.
It was Fann who happened upon a
200-acre property off Route 612 near Belle
Haven. It was a lot of space, much more than
they needed or wanted. And it would be a
lot of work. Sections of it had been razed to
the ground, treated with herbicides that are
commonly used in forestry to clear the way
for a new planting. But love—and sometimes
land—chooses us. Not the other way around.
“It was a wilderness, but it had just been cut
over,” says Fann, whose comforting Southern
lilt belies a woman who is right at home
behind the wheel of the utility buggy she and
Billy use to navigate the property as Gracie,
their 2-year-old Goldendoodle, runs happily
a few yards ahead. “It really hurt your heart to
look at it. I kind of had a mystical experience.”
Twelve years later, mystical experiences
are undoubtedly commonplace here. Shaded
paths wind through stands of mature
hardwood trees and along sunlit fields
recently sown with soybeans. Sandy shores
dotted with tall pines overlook the storied
Chesapeake Bay. A graying early 20 th -
century farmhouse adjacent to the Greers’
property greets visitors and speaks to an even
simpler time in a place where “come-heres,”
no matter how long they stay, are not to be
confused with “from-heres.”
The Greers, both natives of Georgia, may
never earn locals’ status on the Shore,
but they have most certainly had a lasting
effect on this little corner of the world. At
the entrance to the long drive that leads
to their home, there is a green and brown
sign officially designating the property a
Stewardship Forest. It’s a status they earned
by adhering to a set of guidelines detailed in
a Virginia Forest Stewardship Management
Plan created specifically for their land at
Billy’s request.
The plan was written by Eastern Shore
Area Forester Robbie Lewis, who has gotten
to know the Greers since he helped them
establish a plan that included planting and
replanting 30,000-40,000 loblolly pine
seedlings with the help of a planting crew in
the deforested areas.
According to Lewis, Billy Greer had a solid
notion of what he was trying to do—from
protecting the aesthetics of the place to
providing cover for wildlife to preparing for
responsible timber harvesting—before the
plan was created.
“He’s a really neat guy, a gentleman,” he
says of Billy, “and he’s got a lot of neat ideas.
For the planting, he designed a layout that
included travel lanes and open feed patches
for wildlife. The idea was to allow plenty of
sunlight to hit the ground to help maintain an
early successional cover. That is critical.”
Early successional cover is created by the
undergrowth that pops up as the seedlings
mature, offering protection from prey for quail
and turkey broods as well as food sources for
these and other animals. After a number of
WHERE THE HEART IS: It was a “mystical
experience” that drew Fann to the place
that has become a 12-year labor of love for
the Greers.
/ 32 / MARLIN

years, the young trees require pre-commercial
thinning or cutting of unwanted hardwoods
and other growth that inhibit the health of
the tree stand as a whole. The thinning also
provides further habitat for foxes and rabbits
as well as turkey and quail.
For their efforts, Billy and Fann were named
Forestry Conservationists for 2011 by the
Eastern Shore Soil and Water Conservation
District. For Billy, a humble guy who grew up
hunting in the woods outside a small country
town in Georgia, trees are in the blood.
“My family didn’t farm, but I was raised with
a dad who believed in planting pine trees,”
Billy remembers. “They were small, and so I’d
have to water them. Of course I hated it then.
Now here I am planting trees.”
These days he’s happy strolling through
those trees with his wife, pointing out a wild
turkey that swoops out of the brush or telling
stories about the Gracie the dog’s motherly
encounters with lost fawns. One of his
favorites activities is “bush hogging,” pulling
a rotary mower behind the family tractor
because, as he puts it, “When I look behind
me, I can see my accomplishments.”
Billy’s genuine love for the outdoors is
reflected in his 20-year tenure as president
of Virginia Wesleyan College. Under his
leadership, the College has been recognized
locally, regionally and nationally including
being selected for the Princeton Review’s
Guide to 311 Green Colleges for 2012.
“Certainly, I have great concern for the
environment,” he says. “It is imperative that we
not only preserve it, but enhance it so for our
children and grandchildren.”
Billy is fond of noting with pride that
Wesleyan is “not a concrete campus.” Its
300-acre wooded oasis of trees, open fields
and flowers also happen to be a designated
bird sanctuary and the home of an old-growth
beech forest.
The President’s Environmental Issues
Council (see below) is the administrative body
tasked with leading the College’s sustainability
efforts, setting standards for responsible
management of resources and promoting
improvement of the quality of the environment
at Virginia Wesleyan—from waste-reduction
and recycling to green building practices and
public transportation. Billy Greer is also one of
more than 250 signatories of the American
College & University Presidents Climate
Commitment.
But out on the farm, as the Greers call the
Eastern Shore property, he’s just a husband,
a dad and “Poppy” to his grandkids—and the
guy who cuts the grass. He also happens to
have planted a few trees.
“It has been a great project, a real learning
experience” says Fann, “and we thoroughly
enjoy it.”
Marlins Go Green
THE FIRST-EVER EARTH DAY WAS CELEBRATED ON THE
campus of Virginia Wesleyan College in 1970, the same year as the
College’s very first graduating class. Throughout the years, VWC’s
greening practices have grown and evolved to include a host of
programs and initiatives designed to contribute not just to a healthier
planet but to a more active and engaged community committed to
sustainable practices in all areas of life on campus and off.
The establishment of the President’s Environmental Issues
Council in 2005 crystallized ongoing efforts to promote a strong
environmental ethic and appropriate policies, practices and
curricula throughout Virginia Wesleyan College. Increased concern
and awareness about environmental issues and global warming
prompted President Greer to lead the charge in changing habits
at Virginia Wesleyan with the ultimate goal of making the College
a more environmentally friendly place with environmentally
conscious citizens.
Through its broad membership, the Council works with campus
leaders to address environmental issues on campus and to promote
conservation and environmental stewardship among Virginia
Wesleyan's students, faculty and staff. The Council has three subcommittees
that work in more concentrated areas. They are the
Curriculum, Policies and Procedures and Budget sub-committees.
The Council also oversees the awarding of the President's
Environmental Challenge Grant.
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 33 /

The Georgia Guitar Quartet comes
to campus November 8, 2012
The Arts at VWC
2012-2013 ARTS CALENDAR
VIRGINIA WESLEYAN
CONCERT SERIES
All performances take place
in Hofheimer Theater unless
otherwise noted. Reservation
number for the concert
series is 757.455.2101.
Ticket prices vary.
September 7, 2012
The Tidewater Guitar
Orchestra
One of only several
orchestras of its kind in North
America, this ensemble of
accomplished guitarists
explores a rich repertoire
ranging from Bach to Bartok
while specializing in music
of the Americas.
Show time: 7:30 p.m.
October 18, 2012
Kumar Das, tabla
Abhik Mukherjee, sitar
Das and Mukherjee perform
music from the 4,000 yearold
Indian classical music
tradition designed to raise
the inner being to divine
peacefulness and bliss.
Show time: 11 a.m.
October 29, 2012
Laurie Baefsky, flute
Lee Jordan-Anders, piano
Performer, educator, arts
administrator and advocate
Laurie Baefsky, longtime
member of the Virginia
Symphony, joins VWC
Artist-in-Residence,
Lee Jordan-Anders.
Show time: 7:30 p.m.
November 8, 2012
The Georgia Guitar Quartet
An exciting new voice in
today’s chamber music
scene, this ensemble
featuring four young men
from the American South
delivers a high-energy blend
of virtuosity and imaginative
programming.
Show time: 7:30 p.m.
November 19, 2012
Andrey Kasparov and
Oksana Lutsyshyn
Pianists Kasparov and
Lutsyshyn have won
critical acclaim around the
world for their compelling
interpretations of diverse
and adventurous repertoire.
Show time: 7:30 p.m.
November 26, 2012
Billion Dollar Trio
A gifted, versatile group of
young musicians dazzle
audiences with their virtuosic
and energized interpretation
of the great classics. Show
time: 7:30 p.m.
February 4, 2013
Eastern Virginia Brass
A Hampton Roads favorite
dedicated to performing the
best of the brass repertoire,
this quintet has been exciting
audiences for more than 30
years. Show time: 7:30 p.m.
February 14, 2013
The St. Petersburg Quartet
One of the world’s most
esteemed chamber
ensembles, winner of
countless prestigious
competitions, performs two
Valentine’s Day programs at
VWC, at 11 a.m (with clarinetist
Patti Ferrell Carlson) and at
7:30 p.m.
February 21, 2013
Lee Jordan-Anders, piano
Treasures from the Virginia
Museum of Fine Arts are
framed with music selected
and performed by pianist
Lee Jordan-Anders, VWC
Artist-in-Residence.
Show time: 11 a.m.
March 8, 2013
“Young Artist Spotlight” –
Nicholas Emmanuel
A PhD candidate in
musicology at the University
of Buffalo, Emmanuel
earned degrees in
piano performance and
musicology at Boston
University and the University
of Pittsburgh.
Show time: 7:30 p.m.
April 23, 2013
The Rose Ensemble
“Land of Three Faiths,” at
once sacred, secular, folk and
classical, showcases medieval
to modern music from around
the world. Co-sponsored by
the Center for Sacred Music
and the Center for the Study
of Religious Freedom. Show
time: 7:30 p.m.
April 30, 2013
The Wren Masters
“Birth of the Baroque”
The Wren Masters, a “crisp
ensemble” with “scrupulous
phrasing and a satisfying
blend of mellowness and
astringency,” (The Washington
Post) present 17th-century
music on period instruments.
Show time: 7:30 p.m.
/ 34 / MARLIN

STUDENT MUSIC
PERFORMANCES
All performances take
place in Hofheimer
Theater. For pricing and
other information, call
757.455.3282.
October 22, 2012
Perspectives
The College Choir and
Wesleyan Singers perform
a survey of choral music
spanning the millennia
through the music of
Schubert, Brahms, Bach, and
more. Showtime: 7:30 p.m.
November 30-
December 1, 2012
“A Wesleyan Christmas”
A celebration of the season,
the College Choir and
Wesleyan Singers perform
the Vivaldi Gloria and the
most beloved holiday carols
with various guest artists.
Show times: Nov. 30 at 7:30
p.m. and Dec. 1 at 4 p.m.
and 7:30 p.m.
February 25, 2013
President’s Masterworks
Series
Schubert’s Mass in G and
the Trio No. 1 in Bb feature
the College Choir and
Wesleyan Singers, pianist
Lee Jordan-Anders, VWC
Artist-in-Residence, and
members of the Virginia
Symphony Orchestra.
Showtime: 7:30 p.m.
April 8, 2013
Emancipation Project –
Songs of Freedom and Hope
The choirs of VWC
and the University of
Alabama-Birmingham
perform works by Glenn
McClure and Michael John
Trotta, celebrating the
anniversary of Methodist
preachers Francis Asbury
and Thomas Coke urging
the Virginia General
Assembly to abolish
slavery 78 years before the
Emancipation Proclamation.
Show time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Virginia Beach
United Methodist Church.
NEIL BRITTON ART
GALLERY
Admission to the gallery,
located inside the Hofheimer
Library, is free and open to
the public. Hours: Monday-
Thursday 9 a.m.-8 p.m.,
Friday 9 a.m.-5 p.m., and
Saturday and Sunday noon-
5 p.m. Phone: 757.455.3257
August-December, 2012
Virginia Derryberry “Third
Nature”
Derryberry’s large scale
narrative figure paintings set
in invented landscapes and
accompanied by costume
constructions are shown
regularly in exhibitions
throughout the U.S. Artist
lecture: September 13, noon.
Opening reception: Sept. 13,
5:30-7:30 p.m.
January-April, 2013
Randy Shull
Randy Shull works
fluidly between a variety
of mediums, including
furniture design, spatial
design, painting, and
landscape design. He is
highly acclaimed for his rich
and sensual use of color
and space. This traveling
exhibition is curated by Janet
Koplos, a former editor of
Art in America magazine.
Reception/lecture dates/
times TBA.
April-May, 2013
Senior Art Exhibition
VWC students display their
senior thesis work.
THEATER
All performances take
place in Hofheimer Theater.
Unless otherwise noted,
general admission tickets
are $10 for adults, $5 for
seniors, students, and
military. For information, call
757.455.3381.
October 3-7, 2012
Noises Off by Michael Frayn
Called one of the funniest
farces ever written, Noises
Virginia Derryberry's large-scale figure paintings will be on display
through December 2012
Off presents a manic
menagerie as a cast of
itinerant actors performing
a flop called Nothing’s On.
Doors slamming, onstage
and backstage intrigue, and
an errant plate of sardines
all figure in the plot of this
classic comedy. Show times:
Oct. 3-5 at 7:30 p.m., Oct. 6 at
2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., and Oct.
7 at 2 p.m.
November 14-17, 2012
Student Directed One-Acts
Free admission; no
reservations required. All
shows are at 7:30 p.m
April 17-21, 2012
Suddenly Last Summer
by Tennessee Williams
Does an aging mother’s
desire to safeguard the
reputation of her dead son
justify the sacrifice of a young
woman’s sanity? Set in New
Orleans’ Garden District, this
drama pits brutality against
delicacy in the way that only
Williams can. Show times:
April 17-20 at 7:30 p.m. and
April 21 at 2 p.m.
PLEASE NOTE: All event
details are subject to change.
For the most current listings,
refer to the College’s website:
www.vwc.edu
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 35 /

Publisher's Desk
Academia
AT HOME ON DECK: Patrick
Goold aboard “Restless,” his
1979 Pacific Seacraft Orion 27,
in Portsmouth. Goold recently
edited a collection of essays
on sailing and philosophy.
PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN
Finding
Meaning
at Sea
Sailing - Philosophy for
Everyone: Catching the
Drift of Why We Sail
Patrick Goold (Editor),
Fritz Allhoff (Series Editor)
Wiley-Blackwell, 2012
“P
hilosophy is the attempt to
think in a disciplined way
about something when we don’t
know exactly what it is we are
thinking about. We cannot begin
until we have realized that we don’t
know. To ordinary consciousness,
this loss of certainty is a step
backward. To the philosopher, and
the reflective sailor, it is progress:
now one may begin.”
When philosophy professor
Patrick Goold first moved to
southeast Virginia in the mid-’90s,
he felt a little cramped.
“I grew up in Oregon. I’m
a Westerner, so I need open
spaces,” Goold explains. “I just
thought it was so overbuilt and
crowded here.”
Enter fellow VWC professor and
sailing enthusiast John Braley, who
discovered Goold had taken sailing
lessons in college and invited
him out one evening to crew on
his boat. Like that, a passion
was reignited. That passion even
decided where Goold and his wife,
VWC math professor Margaret
Reese, bought a house—on the
western branch of the Elizabeth
River in Portsmouth.
/ 36 / MARLIN

Publisher's Desk
“I can look out
and see the river and
know that once I’m on
the river, nobody can
stop me,” says Goold.
“There aren’t any ‘no
trespassing’ signs on
the water. I can get all
the way to the ocean,
and from the ocean, I
can go anywhere in the
world.”
That sense of
freedom on the open
water is a thing all
sailors share. But, as Goold discovered in the
process of editing a recently released collection of
essays on sailing and philosophy, it isn’t the only
thing.
The book, titled Sailing - Philosophy for Everyone:
Catching the Drift of Why We Sail, brings together a
diverse group of contributors, all of whom have a love
for wind and water, from an accomplished seaman
with a distinguished racing career who reflects on the
character traits of great competitors to a Buddhist
who approaches sailing as Zen practice, one means
to “an awakened, flourishing self.”
Some of the writers are philosophers or
academics from other disciplines. They represent
“the intense engagement people have with sailing
craft and with the many different forms that sailing
takes.” There is even an essay by a windsurfer
who draws on Daoism and modern psychology
to interpret his affection for the art. Yet, there are
common threads.
“Without knowing each other at all, they all
came to some very similar lines of thought,” says
Goold, who spent about a year gathering and editing
materials for Sailing - Philosophy for Everyone.
Goold is also working on his own book about sailing
and philosophy.
“My interest is in reason,” he says. “What is
reason? What is rationality? I’m fascinated with
using the general notion of seamanship as a
model of rationality. Maintaining, provisioning and
navigating a boat at sea—that’s an amazing sort
of path that involves the entire intellect and the
senses and all the capacities. There are all kinds of
interesting things that have to be negotiated.”
Dr. Patrick Goold is Associate Professor of
Philosophy at Virginia Wesleyan College. His
current research focuses on defining rationality.
He is co-editor with Steven Emmanuel of the
Blackwell anthology Modern Philosophy from
Descartes to Nietzsche. In addition to maintaining
a small daysailer and a cruising boat of his own,
he frequently crews on the boats of others. He has
sailed the length of the East Coast of the United
States from Hilton Head to Long Island Sound,
made a Bermuda crossing, done club racing in
Brittany, and cruised in the Lesser Antilles.
—Leona Baker
Through the Looking Glass
Self-Objectification in Women: Causes,
Consequences, and Counteractions
Edited by Rachel M. Calogero, Stacey
Tantleff-Dunn, and J. Kevin Thompson
American Psychological
Association, 2011
“I
think that a girl
has to be thin to
feel beautiful,” states
a questionnaire that
asks adolescent girls
to rate their agreement
with this comment on
a scale of one to six. In
Self-Objectification in
Women, VWC professor
Rachel M. Calogero
and her fellow editors,
Stacey Tantleff-Dunn
and J. Kevin Thompson, investigate how Western
culture objectifies women—leading those women
to stare at themselves with that same objectifying
gaze. A 1997 model by social psychologists Barbara
L. Frederickson and Tomi-Ann Roberts shows
how this self-objectification leads to psychological
consequences such as anxiety, depression and
eating disorders.
The book’s various contributors, all psychologists,
explore social, political, and psychological
causes and discuss the consequences that result
when women objectify themselves—and how this
phenomenon can be researched and combated.
One essay recounts the damaging aspects of
Barbie dolls; another notes a study in which women
who saw themselves as subjects rather than
objects were able to throw a softball farther than
women who objectified themselves more.
The second chapter, written by Calogero, evaluates
the tools used to measure self-objectification and
the importance of further research given what she
characterizes as the “toxicity of a culture that sexually
objectifies the female body.” One measure analyzes
whether women care more about appearance-based
attributes like sex appeal or competence-based
attributes like health and strength. Calogero calls for
a refinement of the tools so that they can be more
consistent and so that their use can be expanded to
a more diverse group of women. From the vantage
point of Calogero, Tantleff-Dunn and Thompson, only
by examining women’s responses to the barrage of
social messages can we create a society in which
women can embody themselves.
Dr. Rachel M. Calogero is Associate Professor
of Psychology at VWC. In addition to extensive
research on self-objectification in women, she
also examines sexist ideology, fat prejudice,
disordered eating and exercise practices, and
closed-mindedness.
– Elizabeth Blachman
The Sacred and the
Silver Screen
Academia
Celluloid Sermons: The Emergence of
the Christian Film Industry,
1930-1986
By Terry Lindvall and Andrew Quicke
New York University Press, 2011
An animated talking dandelion proclaims the glory
of free will to a rabbit. A 12-part series chronicles
the life of St. Paul. A horror film shows the terrors
of the Rapture. Celluloid Sermons, by VWC’s Terry
Lindvall and Andrew Quicke of Regent University,
analyzes the Christian film industry’s origins in
the 1930s at a time when many denominations of
Christianity rejected the secular and often decadent
milieu that Hollywood offered America. Chronicling
the studios, trends and key figures in Christian film
from the ’30s through the mid-’80s, Lindvall and
Quicke discuss how out of the same soil that nurtured
Mae West, Betty Boop and Scarface came films about
Bible stories, missionaries, moral lessons and the
beauty of God’s creation.
Lindvall and Quicke portray an industry that
crossed denominations and continents and translated
the Gospel to the visual medium of the camera lens.
The films reached out to people like fiery sermons,
and “like stories in
stained-glass windows,
cathedral stones, and
mystery plays, Christian
film roused spectators
who wept before The
Jesus Film in a Tanzanian
village or trembled before
A Thief in the Night in an
old Baptist church.”
The budgets were
sometimes high and
sometimes low, and the
artistry was by turns
subtly powerful and
heavy-handed. Overall, the Christian film industry as
presented by Lindvall and Quicke reached many with
a moving message of Christ and was responsible for
bringing a secular influence to liberal denominations
as the sacred words were brought into the modern
media era.
Dr. Terry Lindvall is C. S. Lewis Endowed Chair
in Communication and Christian Thought at VWC
and teaches classes in the Communications
and Religious Studies departments. Two of his
previous works, Sanctuary Cinema and Surprised
by Laughter: The Comic World of C. S. Lewis,
were recently released in paperback editions. His
latest literary adventure is The Girl Who Couldn’t
Laugh, a children’s book that he co-authored
with his daughter Caroline, which was released
in summer of 2012.
– Elizabeth Blachman
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 37 /

Animal
Magnetism
AS STUDENTS IN MY ENHANCED SOCIOLOGY
COURSE DISCOVERED, THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
PEOPLE AND THEIR FOUR-LEGGED FRIENDS IS
MORE COMPLICATED THAN EVER
By Kathy Stolley
PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN
/ 38 / MARLIN

Academia
ANTHROPOLOGIST CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS
once observed that animals are “good to think.”
What he meant was that including animals
in our most human of deliberations helps us
learn about ourselves. In a sociology topics
course called “Animals and Society,” which I
taught for the first time during the spring 2012
semester, students from across campus took
this assertion to heart while exploring the growing
interdisciplinary field of animal studies. The class
focused on the relationship between humans
and other animals and the myriad effects of
these interactions, part of VWC’s new curriculum
emphasis on course enhancement and
community engagement.
My academic interest in animals and society
was initially born out of interactions with the
many animals who have shared my life. This
was true for many of the students in the class
as well. All of them had pets, and each identified
as an “animal person.” The diversity of what
this label could mean added to the experience.
Some were vegans; others choose meat at
every meal. Some were hunters; others were
animal rights activists.
At the end of the semester, students
expressed how much more aware and
reflective they had become of animals and their
importance in society—whether those animals
were the squirrels skittering across their path they
now paid more attention to, the source of their
chicken sandwich, media portrayals of animals,
or the feathers in their pillows, the leather in their
car seats, or the ingredients in their household
products. Several even began to shoo spiders
out the door rather than squish them. Some
students reaffirmed or found new directions for
animal-related career choices or future studies.
Consider for a moment how frequent and
diverse human interaction is with animals. Pet
owners (or animal guardians, as they are also
called), farmers and even slaughterhouse workers
are obvious examples. But just as important,
although less often considered, is the vast amount
of human interaction conducted about animals:
neighbors arguing over a barking dog, officemates
gathering around a computer watching a viral kitten
video, a child who cries for a stuffed toy version of
the latest animated animal craze as their parent is
trying to shop. And anyone who has ever walked
a puppy in the park knows firsthand that animals
are social lubricants, facilitating human interaction
even between strangers.
GOING TO THE DOGS: Kathy Stolley with her
certified therapy dog, “Ernest T”
Animals are integral parts of every social
institution, interwoven with human society in
complex and often inconsistent ways. We have
animals in our homes as pets, in our refrigerators
as food, and we call the exterminators on others.
We legislate against animal abuse while allowing
animals to be used in laboratory research.
Religions variously frame animals as sacred to
taboo. Animals reflect our ethical and moral value
systems and highlight systemic inequalities. They
even permeate our language. Many of us know
someone who “eats like a bird,” is “smart like a
fox,” or should just “stop beating a dead horse.”
Looking at how animals fit into American
family life is a good stepping-off point for
thinking about the human-animal relationship
and its meaning for both human society and
for animals. More than 60 percent of American
households include pets. Although dogs and
cats get most of the press, we also share our
homes with an array of birds, reptiles, rodents
and other critters ranging from bunny rabbits
to pot bellied pigs. Indeed, if we include fish in
the count, American households include more
animals than human inhabitants.
The animals that share our homes are
increasingly considered “family.” Those ubiquitous
little stick figure decals of parents, kids, and pets
on the back windows of cars bear this out. Opinion
polls show that fully 50 percent of us consider
the animals that share our homes “just as much
a part of the family as any other person in the
household,” and almost all of us consider them
family at least to some extent. We include our pets
in family portraits and holiday cards, celebrate their
birthdays, and increasingly give them “human”
names like Bella and Max. A quarter of us think our
pets are better listeners than our spouses.
When it comes to the economy, this
phenomenon translates into big money.
Americans spend more than $50 billion annually
on our pets. A considerable chunk of that goes
beyond the “necessities”—from fashionable
monogrammed sweaters and personalized
bowls to “convenience” products like automatic
feeders and even DVD programming to
entertain pets left home alone during the day.
Animal-friendly hotels offer amenities ranging
from gourmet treats to comfy doggie robes,
while innovations in veterinary medicine push
treatment boundaries as humans insist on
more heroic medical measures for their beloved
animals. Animals even get their own Facebook
pages, Twitter feeds and television programming.
As we become more tuned into the
circumstances of animals in our own lives, we
may also be becoming more tuned into the
circumstances of animals elsewhere (scientific
laboratories, for example) and seek changes
on their behalf. Clearly, the way we interact
with and about animals has significant social
consequences for both humans and animals.
For the “Animals and Society” course, I asked my
students not only to consider these ideas but to tie
them to “real-world” experiences and perspectives.
In addition to their reading and written
coursework, students taking the course were
treated to customized “backstage tours” at the
Virginia Beach and Norfolk animal control centers,
as well as the Virginia Zoological Park in Norfolk.
The animal control center tours were followed
by service-learning activities that provided some
hands-on time with the shelter animals. I brought
my own certified therapy dog, Ernest T, to class
to demonstrate what he does best, visiting from
desk to desk ensuring that every student got to
scratch his ears. Dog trainers, accompanied by
their canine co-presenters, a veterinarian, and
animal rights activist all came to the classroom
to share their “real-world” perspectives with
the class. VWC Grounds Supervisor Kathy
Bartkus, our animal welfare advocate certified
in emergency animal rescue, covered animal
welfare efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina
and other events, while philosophy professor
Steven Emmanuel led the class in a social justice
exercise related to animals.
Students conducted interviews with people
who work with animals, researched a wide range
of human-animal issues, and produced a series
of wikis (user-modified websites) covering topics
as diverse as animal hoarding, the military’s
use of animals, dog intelligence, animal cruelty,
and the whaling industry. End-of-semester
debates grappled with the use of animals in
medical research, in sports and entertainment,
and “exotic” animals as pets. But perhaps the
most spirited debate surrounded the question
of whether pets should be allowed on college
campuses. Animals are "good to think"
with indeed.
Dr. Kathy Shepherd Stolley was recently
named Associate Dean for Innovative
Teaching and Engaged Learning at Virginia
Wesleyan. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from
George Washington University. Her emphasis
is applied sociology, using sociological tools
and perspectives to bring about positive social
change. Her published work includes The Basics
of Sociology (2005), The Praeger Handbook
of Adoption (with Vern L. Bullough, 2006),
HIV/AIDS (with John E. Glass, 2009), and
Medical Tourism: A Reference Handbook (with
Stephanie Watson, 2012)..
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2011-2012 / 39 /

MUTANT MOLD: Just when you thought it was safe to go to the pantry.
This is a secondary electron image of a mass of hyphae (a long, branching
structure of a fungus) of a mutant of the common bread mold Neurospora
crassa (you may have seen it on a loaf that’s past its prime). It’s a species
studied intensively by Associate Professor of Biology Philip Rock. This
striking picture is among the first created with the Hitachi S-3400N,
the College’s new state-of-the-art variable-pressure scanning electron
microscope—made possible by a grant from the National Science
Foundation (NSF). Specimen preparation and photo were done by Professor
of Biology Victor Townsend, the primary investigator of the NSF grant.
/ 40 / MARLIN

Academia
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 41 /

ILLUSTRATION: CHRIS GALLAGHER
The Body Binary
COMPUTER SCIENCE PROFESSOR’S VISION FOR HEALTH BALANCES TRADITION AND TECHNOLOGY
IN JOHN WANG’S NATIVE CHINA, THE ANCIENT HEALING ARTS
are very much a part of modern life—a dichotomy as natural as yin and
yang. For Wang, Batten Professor of Computer Science, the balance
between tradition and technology is one struck on a daily basis. Yet
when his wife was diagnosed with cancer, Wang found himself very
much at odds with Western medicine.
“From my cultural point of view, we don’t like chemicals,” Wang says
as he thoughtfully examines the dark green longjing tea leaves floating
in his mug. He doesn’t drink caffeine and hasn’t had so much as an
aspirin for the last seven years. “They are hurtful, bad for the body.
Chemicals deal with one symptom, but the body is a whole system.”
After a grueling round of doctor-prescribed chemotherapy, Wang
and his wife, who was a professor at Virginia State University until she
passed away several years ago, decided they would face the disease
the natural way, relying exclusively on traditional Chinese medicine
and employing techniques such as acupressure, massage and fire
cupping, a process by which local suction is created on the skin by
applying a heated cup.
Her doctors gave her a year and a half to live on a modern treatment
plan. Using only natural remedies, she lived for three. The experience
crystallized Wang’s commitment to a healthy lifestyle—including a
varied diet and moderate exercise—and a holistic approach to healing.
It also translated to his professional life and academic pursuits.
With the assistance of 2010 graduate and computer science major
Tara Santos, Wang recently designed an online database and program
that allow users to enter health-related symptoms and discover the
corresponding acupressure points for relief of those symptoms based
on which points connect most effectively to which system of the body.
“I want to use computers to simulate the immune system, to
support my theory,” says Wang, who believes modern medicine and
popular culture have overcomplicated what should be a simple, almost
instinctive approach to wellness. “It’s a do-it-yourself process. The
computer science can help us use this ancient knowledge.”
Wang’s project falls under the broader field of bioinformatics, a
marriage of contemporary computing power and biology that can be
used to process vast amounts of data. Wang published his “Study
on Acupuncture Points Online Database” in the journal Computer
Technology and Application in 2011.
Colleagues have suggested to him that the system, which also
offers simple instructions on how to perform the acupressure, could be
marketable for the public. But he’s not particularly interested in that. For
him, the motivation is personal, the purpose straightforward.
“I am very focused on quality of life because of my wife. I think the
main purpose is how to make our quality of life better and better.”
Dr. John Wang is a professor of computer science. His research
interests include parallel computing, databases design, web
computing, numerical methods, algorithmic analysis, management
information systems, and decision-support systems.
—Leona Baker
/ 42 / MARLIN

Academia
Beer, Bees
and Blintzes
The liberal arts curriculum at Virginia Wesleyan emphasizes study
across the disciplines—from mathematics to literature, philosophy to
biology, history to foreign languages. For many students, regardless
of major, that also means opportunities to explore unusual topics
that challenge them in unique ways. Included here are a few
examples of popular off-the-beaten-path courses.
CHALLENGING BREW:
Students who sign up
for professor Phil Rock’s
course in zymurgy, also
known as the science of
fermentation (especially
as it applies to the
brewing of beer), thinking
it’s a school-sanctioned
keg party are in for a rude
awakening.
“It’s harder than any biology class
I’ve taken,” says Adult Studies
student Heather Harrell, during a
class tour of the local O’Connor
Brewing Company. Harrell
remembers emailing Dr. Rock in
the wee hours of the morning after
being stumped by a particularly
complex equation regarding the
calculation of hop bittering units.
The class is also about more than
science or beer.
“They call it the beer class,” says
Rock. “I do show them how to
make beer, for sure, but it is a
Senior Integrative Experience
course, so we consider the history
of beer making and the history of
alcohol use by humans, as well
as the scientific, social, cultural,
and legal aspects of the venerable
beverage and its production.”
BUZZ WORTHY: If you’ve spent
time on the VWC campus in recent
years, you may have passed by—
or stopped to wonder at—one of
two collections of bee boxes, also
known as apiaries, located on the
property. Beekeeping has many
environmental benefits, but these
bees are also an educational tool.
Students in Dan Margolies’
beekeeping class get an
introduction to the history,
technique, biology and practices of
apiculture, which includes handson
experience building equipment
and managing the hives.
The class is intended to be a
primer on the fundamentals and
pleasures of keeping bees as
a hobby or a business as well
as a strong introduction to the
science of bees. Essentials such
as building of hive components,
supers, and frames, the capture
of swarms, the installation of
packaged bees, management of
the hive throughout the seasons,
requeening, and the harvesting of a
honey crop are all part of the class.
KEEPING KOSHER: Field trips in
Eric Mazur’s “Judaism Through
Food” class range from an outing
to a local kosher deli to a Shabbat
service at a nearby synagogue.
The Jewish tradition is inextricably
tied with food. How, when, what,
where and especially why we eat—
or shouldn’t eat—certain things
is of great cultural and religious
significance for Jews.
“From feasts to fasts, you will
explore the history, texts, and
traditions of Judaism through the
study and first-hand encounter
with its foods,” Mazur explains in
the class syllabus, “their place,
preparation, restrictions, and
geographical variations that are
central to the religious and cultural
experience of Judaism.”
Of course, there are also plenty
of opportunities to sample the
goodies. Mazur brings in traditional
Jewish foods for the class to try
and even puts on a traditional
Seder, the ritual feast that marks
the beginning of Passover.
PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN
Erica Clark '05 was
the keynote speaker
during the College's
2012 African American
Heritage Month
celebration
Facing Race
ALUMNA ERICA CLARK EXPLORES THE
MINSTRELSY'S EXPLOITATIVE ROLE IN
POPULAR CULTURE AS PART OF HER
DOCTORAL RESEARCH
THE PHENOMENON OF BLACKFACE, POPULARIZED BY LATE
19 th -century minstrel shows and later packaged for the masses in
films like The Jazz Singer, occupies a unique place in the history
of American media and culture. The mainstream popularity of
blackface minstrelsy, in which blacks were routinely lampooned
as “dim-witted darkies” or “dandified coons,” was indicative of
deeply rooted stereotypes that persisted for many years after
blackface faded from the stage.
Erica Clarke ’05, a doctoral student and graduate teaching fellow
at the University of Pittsburgh, became interested in the topic as
part of her post graduate research and is currently completing a
dissertation that explores the “rise, fall and residue of blackface
minstrelsy.” Clarke, who majored in communications at VWC,
says the “assiduous inaccuracies” perpetuated by the form have
persisted into contemporary culture.
“The most enduring effect of blackface minstrelsy,” Clarke
writes, “is the precedent it established in the appropriation,
exploitation, and assimilation of African American culture.
Audiences of various media today are simply being ‘entertained’
with a derivative and more sophisticated form of minstrelsy.”
Clarke was a keynote during the College’s African American
Heritage Month celebration in 2012 when faculty, students and
staff gathered for her presentation, “Crafting Our Own Noose:
The Role of African Americans in a ‘Post-Racist’ Society.”
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine / 43 /

Finders, Seekers
A WEALTH OF TOOLS AVAILABLE TO STUDENTS IN
THE HOFHEIMER LIBRARY AND BEYOND—FROM PRINT
MATERIALS AND MICROFILM TO EXTENSIVE ONLINE
DATABASES—AID IN SUCCESSFUL AND REWARDING
RESEARCH PROCESSES
IT’S HARD TO IMAGINE DUELING WAS ONCE CONSIDERED ACCEPTABLE
forms of conflict resolution among gentlemen in America. This peculiar and
antiquated practice piqued the interest of political science and history major
Bethany Bayles ’12 as she explored topics for her senior thesis seminar, the
result of which would be a 25-30 page research paper. So, she went digging.
“Early on, I chose to research the topic of ‘rough and tumble fighting,’”
Bayles explains. “This eventually morphed into a comparative study of
manifestations of violence and understandings of honor in the antebellum
South and the Western frontier. In order to complete the paper, I had to utilize
Tanya Puccio ’15 ( left) and Bethany Bayles ’12 (right) with Research
Librarian Patty Clark (center) during Spring Honors Convocation
DUEL PURPOSES: Student
Bethany Bayles chose to study the
"manifestations of violence and
understandings of honor in the
antebellum South" for her senior
thesis seminar
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, PRINTS & PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION
nearly every resource available to me.”
That meant scouring online databases for
secondary sources, utilizing bibliographies, and
taking advantage of the interlibrary loan system. It
also meant discovering that old research standby,
microfilm, on which Bayles was able to track
down an 1835 article titled “A Kentucky Fight” in a
newspaper called The New York Spirit of the Times.
The article became a substantial part of her paper.
Bayles and fellow student Tanya Puccio ’15
received the VWC Library Research Award during
the annual Spring Honors Convocation in May,
2012. The award was established in 2010 through
support from the Reverend James and Katheryn
Driscoll, former co-chairs of Virginia Wesleyan
Parents’ Council. The purpose of the award is
to honor young researchers but also to collect
information that will help the College better serve
students’ needs.
“We wanted to recognize students who are
using library resources,” explains Patty Clark,
Research Librarian and Interim Library Director,
“but even more than that, we wanted to find out
how they are using them.”
Effective research skills—particularly in a
world dominated by information overload on the
Internet—are important to academic success,
valuable in a variety of careers and absolutely
critical for students planning to pursue
graduate study.
“Learning how to use and access the databases
and different forms of technology has given me
confidence in my ability to discover the information
I may be searching for,” says Bayles.
—Leona Baker
/ 44 / MARLIN

Living & Learning
Jump in
to RecX
WHETHER YOUR IDEA OF STAYING
active is freefalling from an airplane,
hitting the weight room or just tossing
the beanbag in a friendly game
of cornhole, there’s no excuse for
becoming one with your futon at
VWC. The College’s RecX program
includes outdoor activities, aquatics,
fitness and recreational sports
with a host of activities on campus
and as far away as Hawaii and the
Florida Keys.
“There are so many things that we
offer here that students can come
and do,” says VWC Fitness Director
Willie Harrell. “An active person is
a healthy person, and if they can
get excited about what we’re doing,
they can bring their sororities, their
volleyball teams, their dorms. The
idea is to get as many students
involved as possible.”
During the spring 2012 semester,
RecX introduced “Active April,” a
month-long, student-generated
calendar of activities designed to
promote exploration of healthy
lifestyles. RecX work-study
students were asked to come
up with and lead participatory
activities—from basketball in the
pool to “extreme jump rope”—for
each day of the month.
RecX also happens to be the
largest work-study employer on
campus, providing part time jobs
for as many as 100 students each
academic year. These students help
promote an active atmosphere and
keep the Batten Student Center
humming, but they also take
something away from the experience.
“It’s a family atmosphere,” says
Jason Seward, Director of Batten
Center and Recreational Sports/
Outdoor Activities. “So, we often
see students that really come out of
their shell. They evolve and become
leaders. It’s about caring about
giving back to the campus and really
working together.”
PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL–PITTMAN
Among those students is Gage Collins
’12, who got involved in RecX late in his
VWC career but found himself right at
home working in the College’s fitness
center. A business major, Collins hopes to
parlay his education and work experiences
into a career in healthcare management.
“I feel that RecX has allowed me to utilize
SKY’S THE LIMIT: RecX
work-study student and
business major Gage Collins
’12 gets airborne with a jump
rope assist from Jasmine
Motley ’14
my skills through the management of a
healthcare environment,” Collins says.
“My position and the responsibility that
comes with maintaining fluid operations
and safety in the fitness room became
second nature due to my education and
experience in the classroom.”
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 45 /

PHOTO: CHIEREME FORTUNE
Hope Springs Eternal
REFLECTIONS ON MY LIFE-CHANGING MISSION TRIP TO
HELP WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN NICARAGUA
MAKING CONNECTIONS:
The author with one of her
new found friends at
House of Hope
By Chiereme Fortune ’13
IN A MATTER OF SECONDS AFTER
I boarded an early morning flight along
with nine other students, professor Alison
Marganski and VWC chaplain Greg West, the
sleeping city of Norfolk disappeared beneath
our wings. As I nestled into my window seat
and the sun began to rise, the realization that I
would soon be in Managua, Nicaragua, set in.
The plane descended, the clouds thinned and
my eyes were filled with an endless stretch of
green landscapes dotted with blue pools of
water and high rolling hills.
I had started my junior year with a lot of
things on my plate—from my responsibilities
as a resident assistant and member of Marlin
Ministries to a busy course schedule. Yet,
ever since I became connected with Spiritual
Life on campus, I found myself wanting to
do more—to be more. I discovered a unique
opportunity in the College’s annual alternative
spring break mission trip to Nicaragua.
Often referred to as “the land of lakes and
volcanoes,” this Central America nation of six
million people boasts a biologically diverse
and breathtakingly beautiful tropical climate.
While my goal was to be able to make a
difference in the lives of women and children
through service, I also hoped to see some of
that natural beauty first-hand.
In the time leading up to the trip, my
excitement steadily rose as I met with the
team members to pray, plan, and prepare
for the adventure ahead. The plane landed
around noon, just in time for some traditional
Nicaraguan “gallo pinto” (beans and rice)
prepared by our cook, Jenny, at Quinta Arien
/ 46 / MARLIN

Living & Learning
Guest House, which became our home away
from home. The following week would be a
life-changing experience.
Each morning, we rose early for breakfast,
met in prayer and made our way to the House
of Hope, a nonprofit Christian organization
that rescues, houses, and provides a place of
work and refuge for women and children who
have been enlisted in the underground world
of prostitution and sexual slavery. I’ve always
been interested in any cause that desired to
uplift women and children who faced difficult
situations. Visiting the House of Hope made
every petition I had signed, every pledge I
gave, and every dollar worth the work I put in
to get there.
I found myself ready to help in every
possible capacity. Whether digging through
course sediment to prepare for underground
piping, painting walls or playground
equipment, or holding children while their
mothers worked on greeting cards and
meticulous jewelry making, I felt both the
weight of the world lifted and the result of
hope and trust in God fulfilled everywhere
we looked.
I made a special bond with one House of
Hope resident, a nine-year-old boy named
Enrique who lived there with his mother.
During the week, Enrique borrowed my
camera and had a great fun documenting
our daily activities. As I looked over the
videos and pictures he had taken of his
relatives, women at the shelter, children, and
the VWC team, tears swelled in my eyes for
all the great memories I had created while at
House of Hope.
PHOTO: CHIEREME FORTUNE
At night, my teammates and I formed a
circle of sturdy rocking chairs and a big comfy
couch with our team leader, Greg West, to
reflect on each day and share our highs, lows
and favorite moments. This was one of my
favorite times of the trip as it really helped us
all to cope with what we had encountered or
heard each day that left a mark on our lives.
The last day was spent touring the
volcanoes, waters, markets and major
tourist city of Granada and enjoying plenty
A breathtaking view of a cross
on the rim of the Masaya
volcano, part of Nicaragua's
diverse landscape
of authentic cuisine and good
laughs. The beauty I saw
blew my mind. One of the
most memorable experiences
happened while driving to our
next sightseeing location. I caught
a glimpse of a body of water with
a blue-green tint that shined like
rhinestones in the sun. It was a
rain water lagoon that had formed
in a dormant volcano. We were
not only able to see the lagoon;
we got to swim in it.
As I packed up that night and
said goodbyes to the friends
I had made, I felt the sadness
seeping in as I prepared to leave
my temporary home to travel
back to the U.S. During a layover
in Houston, I spent time with my new family
sharing funny memories, tears and words of
endearment exchanged in a sad, but hopeful
promise that the group would continue to
spend time together and return to Nicaragua
next year. I will always carry Nicaragua in my
heart, and spring break 2012 is a journey I will
never forget!
For more information about House of Hope
visit: www.houseofhopenicaragua.com
At Home and Abroad
Many Virginia Wesleyan students get a chance
to study abroad through one of the College’s
exchange or affiliate programs, faculty-led
travel courses or international internships.
Communication major Heather Spencer ’13
received a Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship to
study at John Cabot University in Rome during
the spring 2012 semester. This prestigious
scholarship is awarded for undergraduate
study abroad through the U.S. Department of
State Bureau of Educational & Cultural Affairs.
Spencer’s love of photography is displayed
in the two self-portraits shown here,
one taken in VWC’s Wilson Arboretum and
the other taken on a street in Rome, Italy.
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 47 /

A Family Affair
DUAL GRADUATION DAYS MARK MAJOR MILESTONES
FOR TWO GENERATIONS OF MARLINS
THE COLLEGE’S 2012 COMMENCEMENT
ceremonies arrived with all the requisite pomp
and circumstance for the nearly 300 students
who completed their undergraduate studies.
But for one VWC family, that picture-perfect
spring weekend was particularly memorable.
Adult Studies student Cyndi Randolph
graduated from Wesleyan on May 19, 2012,
just one day before her daughter, Amber
Randolph, also a graduate of Wesleyan,
received her diploma from University of
Virginia School of Law. Both Amber and Cyndi
were members of the Honors & Scholars
program while at Wesleyan.
Cyndi, mother of Amber ‘05 and Aaron
‘08, decided to fulfill a lifelong ambition after
homeschooling both of her children during high
school and then sending both to Wesleyan.
“I had always wanted to finish school,”
Cyndi says. “I just didn’t have the opportunity.
And my kids had such a fabulous experience
here. Hopefully hearing my story will inspire
other adults to take the plunge and complete
their education. I may be somewhat biased,
but I can’t think of a better place to do that
than Virginia Wesleyan College.”
Cyndi’s family was on campus to celebrate
her graduating cum laude with her B.A.
in social sciences from VWC. It was the
culmination of a journey that included taking
classes sporadically at a community college
before coming to Wesleyan.
“It’s been years and to finally see it come
to fruition is amazing,” says Amber. “I’m so
proud of her. And I think it’s incredible that she
and I and my brother all went to school here.
We’re really keeping it in the family.”
Immediately following Wesleyan’s Saturday
commencement ceremony, the Randolph
family hit the road to Charlottesville where
they would see Amber graduate on Sunday.
With her law degree complete, Amber recently
returned to the area to join Hampton Roadsbased
law firm Willcox & Savage in their
corporate transactional division. Cyndi is
currently employed with the Virginia Beach
Public Library and planning to pursue her
master’s degree in library science.
WESLEYAN WOMEN: Cyndi Randolph
(right) and her daughter Amber (left)
celebrated back-to-back commencements
PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL-PITTMAN
/ 48 / MARLIN

Living & Learning
HereandThen
VWC ALUMS REMEMBER THEIR FAVORITE
SPOTS ON CAMPUS
We asked fans of our alumni Facebook page to weigh
in on the places and spaces they loved most while at
VWC—the spots on campus where former students
liked to study, hang out or just find some peace and
quiet. Here are excerpts from the many responses.
“When my husband and I attended
VWC there weren’t many buildings
or places on the campus, but we
agree that my Rose Hall dorm room
was our favorite because I had the
largest room and everyone would
hang out there playing spades and
watching television (in between our
studying, of course).”
—Mary Ross Withers ‘75
“Definitely the lake. My fiancé and
I and the Episcopal priest who was
to marry us sat back there on a
blanket for a prenuptial marriage
counseling session! We’ve been
happily married 32 years.”
—Beverly Anne (Slamin) White ’80
“The nature trail between campus
and the Hamptons apartments.”
—Dave Weber ’86-’88
“I loved the old (old) snack bar.
I have really great memories of
shooting pool with some of my
favorite people and eating great,
greasy fries.”
—Cathy Hogan ’85
“Loved watching TV and hanging
out with everyone in Birdsong
Lounge as a student. And running
around the library when I went to
work with my mom, Ann Matson,
at age 4.”
—Anita (Matson) Monroe ’86
“I used to do my studying on the
dock at the lake. It was a special
place because it was quiet and
peaceful. I also loved the pine
trees that were planted in rows as
you walked to the lake.”
—Kat Balcom Puryear ’87
“My buddy Glen and I in the middle
of the pine forest to honor John
Lennon’s passing with candles.
The sound of the breeze through
the pine needles was serene.”
—David Porter ’88
“Loved ‘Mole Beach!’ The
courtyard between Old Hall and
the old dining hall.”
—Laura (Balcom) Gadsby ’90
“The Hamptons apartments,
basketball court and softball field
and Winners for me too!”
—Sarah (Garrette) Kellam ’92
“Birdsong when it was a lounge.
On Wednesday was movie night
and Res Life would rent a VHS
tape and pop popcorn.”
—Teresa (Clarke) Rhyne ’92
“I loved sitting in the library by the
windows. I could watch everyone
go by while I read or talked with
a friend.”
—Lynn (Downey) Aydlett ’93
“Watching the 1992 Peekskill
Bolide Fireball fall over the
skies of the United States
from Smithdeal steps. Also
the pinball table at the Grill and
Lake Taylor dock.”
—Sioux (Mathews) Hudson ’94
“When the stress of finals took
its toll, my friends and I would
get dropped off in front of the
cafe with the golf cart and go for
a midnight dip in the fountain.
Frolicking in the moonlight, we felt
like true Marlins!”
—Evan Whitson ’96
“The Hofheimer Library. It always
looked exciting and new.”
—Pedro Fabrega ’98
“Eggleston Hall, second floor
common area. That’s where I
met Josephine Franzese ‘98.
Art studio rooms, late at night,
hanging with the creatives was
always fun, too.”
—Adam Moskowitz ‘98
“There was a big, gnarly tree back
behind Village I. That was my
quiet.”
—Merideth Plimley ’98
“The Marlin Chronicle office! The
old one, in Village I.”
—Nancy Allen ’99
“My two favorite spots: Village III
Phi Tau Suite and playing pingpong
in the Village I Grill. I spent a
lot of time on that table!”
—Michael Daily ’01
“My favorite place was Clarke
Hall. That is where I first met
the love of my life, Eddie
Schuchhardt ‘01 in Mr. Garraty’s
‘Intro to Business’ class. He
proposed under the tree by the
Blocker Hall parking lot. The
continued on page 50
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 49 /

What’s in a
Tradition?
>> The Adirondack Chairs
“The Adirondack is a front-and-center seat into the creative process.
It talks of how things are dreamed up, worked up, changed, tried out,
changed some more, and how things, just simple things, become part
of a living memory of a people.”
—Daniel Mack, The Adirondack Chair
It is a Virginia Wesleyan College tradition for each class of freshmen
to make their initial mark on campus with colorful artwork and
messages painted on Adirondack chairs. The chairs have become a
symbol of campus life as well as homage to the College’s proximity to
the beaches of the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.
The chairs are a relatively new tradition that began as a
get-to-know-you exercise for incoming freshman in the early
2000s when a freshman orientation session was held at YMCA
Camp Silver Beach on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. The College has
enjoyed a productive partnership with the YMCA of South Hampton
Roads for many years.
The chair painting was a hit and the idea stuck, becoming a way for
new Marlins to express themselves and acclimate to their environment
and one another. Now the chairs can been seen all over campus, often
with students studying or relaxing in them.
In recent years one of the oversized versions of the chairs on
campus was painted Marlin blue and adorned with the College’s logo
and mascot by local artist Matt Jackson and has become a popular
photo spot, especially on graduation day as students gather on and
around the chair in their caps and gowns.
PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL-PITTMAN
experiences I had at VWC and
the lasting relationships that
I forged there have been and
always will be a huge part of
my life. ”
—Mandy (Bryant) Schuchhardt
’02
“The bench outside of Johnston
Hall was a great place to see
friends and just relax. We had
a Labor Day cookout there two
years in a row. Even though both
were cooking disasters, we still
had fun.”
—Sean White ’04
“Hofheimer Theatre. That’s
where Dr. Sally Shedd was!”
—Matthew Tefft ’04
“My favorite view was seeing the
Chapel as I was walking from
Godwin to Boyd. I even painted
the scene in one of my painting
classes! That spot was so
incredibly peaceful even though
it was in the middle of everything,
especially in the spring when
there were birds chirping, the
sun setting, flowers blooming
and students happily walking to
classes or to the Batten Center.”
—Vikki Holliday ’05
“The ‘old’ Grill in Eggleston
Commons. The carpet was worn,
the chairs were faded but it was
a good time. Smelled like musty
air, ketchup, honey mustard
and French fry grease. I liked it
because it was full of people
so you didn’t have to eat your
bagel sandwich by yourself.
Also the steps out front were a
good place to talk the freshman
drama of the day.”
—Jen (Thornton) O’Brien ’05
“Playing ping-pong at the Grill
with the baseball guys!”
—Chris Hicks ’06
“Definitely the CMAC since I
spent a lot of time playing roller
hockey in there.”
—Rob Thompson ’06
HereandThen
“I liked the ropes course, great
spot to read a book. Many
people don’t even know it’s
back there.”
—David Dziurzynski ’07
“Mine was the Scribner Bookstore.
I worked there for three years and
I still spent pretty much all my free
time there. I loved being around
all the wonderful women who
worked there. Everyone was so
friendly and caring.”
—Marsha Herron ’07
“I liked to use rooms upstairs in
the Hofheimer Library to study.
It was so nice and quiet and I
could spread out more than on
one of the tables downstairs.
Plus, when I mumbled or read
out loud to myself, there was no
one to give me weird looks.”
—Megan Moore ’07
“I loved the quad outside Batten!
All of the fun things happened
under the sun there; Greek Week
games, President’s Pig Roast,
Seafood in the Dell, kickball and
volleyball, or just laughing in the
Adirondack chairs!”
—Desire Ellison ’08
“I loved the benches and area
right outside of Clarke Hall.
On spring days, you could
soak up some sun, read up
before class, and almost most
always see someone you knew
passing by.”
—Liesl Arrington ’09
“The place I remember most
fondly is the Grill in the Batten
Center, specifically what we called
the ‘Phi Sig Corner.’ If there were
other Phi Sigs sisters there, I could
count on good conversation,
good companionship, and lots
of fun. Some days I would bring
Uno Attack and start a game
and we’d all end up laughing
hysterically. It was also the perfect
place to curl up with a good book,
take a mental break, or even get
writing done.”
— Bronwyn Sciance ’11
/ 50 / MARLIN

Athletics
PHOTO: THOMAS MILLS ’15
New Era for VWC Tennis
WITH A NEW FACILITY, A STRONG COACHING STAFF AND NATIONALLY
RANKED INCOMING PLAYERS, MARLINS ENTER SEASON READY TO SERVE
AT THE NET: Chesapeake native and
biology major Ryan Sadinski ’14 in the
game at the new Everett Tennis Center
THE BRAND NEW EVERETT TENNIS
Center isn’t the only feather in the cap of
the VWC tennis program as it enters the
2012-2013 season. VWC popped up in
both the women’s and men’s listings for
the Top 25 Division III Recruiting Classes
through May 2012 on TennisRecruiting.net.
Virginia Wesleyan’s women took
the spotlight, however, with a class of
newcomers that was ranked No. 25
nationally. VWC was the lone member of
the Old Dominion Athletic Conference in
the listing and one of eight programs to
make a first-ever appearance in the group.
The Marlin men just missed cracking
the Top 25, but received enough
consideration to be included. VWC is
in a solid group that includes Indiana’s
Earlham College, California’s Pomona-
Pitzer College, the University of
Rochester, Skidmore College, and Texas’
Trinity University.
VWC head tennis coach Tom
Drabczyk, who begins his second season
in 2012-13, and assistant Ben Hoskyn,
both former VWC student-athletes, put in
countless hours of effort to draw some of
the best tennis players ever to commit to
Virginia Wesleyan.
Current and incoming players as well
as visiting teams will be able to showcase
their skills in the new Everett Tennis
Center, named after O.L. Everett, Chairman
of the VWC Board of Trustees, and
his wife, Carol, current President of the
Women of Wesleyan. The facility includes
a total of eight new courts, including
two championship courts, two lighted
grandstand courts and four competition
courts, along with court fencing designed
with California corners, stadium seating, a
gazebo, viewing stand and storage.
“These courts will rival any in the Old
Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC)
and will send a great signal to future
Marlins that we take our tennis seriously at
VWC,” says VWC Athletic Director Joanne
Renn, who was the women’s head tennis
coach from 1995 through 1999.
The ribbon-cutting ceremony for the
new Everett Tennis Center, with special
remarks from President Greer and Butch
Everett, will take place at on Saturday,
October 6, 2012, at 10:30 a.m. at Everett
Tennis Center (behind Batten Convocation
Center) as part of Homecoming and
Parent Weekend celebrations.
All are welcome.
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 51 /

Hoop, Hoop, Hooray
ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL SEASON FOR THE MEN’S BASKETBALL TEAM
LEADS TO AN ODAC CHAMPIONSHIP WIN AND A THRILLING TRIP TO THE ELITE 8
PHOTO COURTESY: JOE WASILUK
PHOTO: KEITH LUCAS
IT WAS A SEASON THAT BEGAN WITH
the pressure that often accompanies success.
By October 2011, the VWC men’s basketball
team was tagged tops in the land, earning
number one national rankings from all three
organizations that release preseason polls:
Sporting News, DIII News, and D3hoops.
com. Coach Dave Macedo and the team
took it in stride.
“It’s an honor to be considered among the
best teams in the nation,” said Macedo. “It
excites our fans, it excites the community, and
it also excites our players. The ingredients are
there for winning, but we will need to remain
humble and have consistent leadership
throughout the season. We want to go far and
that’s something we have to do together.”
That they did, with rowdy fans packing the
convocation center throughout a challenging
season to cheer on a group of players lead by
five returning starters from the previous year’s
25-5 team. Their hard work paid off, guiding
the Marlins to a 27-4 record, the 2012 Old
Dominion Athletic Conference championship,
and a thrilling appearance in the NCAA
Division III Elite 8.
Credit goes to a talented group of athletes
that included 15 lettermen, but most notably to
DIVISION CHAMPS: The Marlin men’s
basketball team celebrate their 2012 ODAC
win along with Coach Dave Macedo and
his family
Macedo, who was named the Virginia College
Division Coach of the Year for an impressive
sixth time in the past eight seasons. Entering
his 13th season at VWC in 2012-13, Macedo
has emerged as the most successful men’s
basketball coach in the College’s history with
a 267-85 record. He’s ranked among the
winningest DIII coaches in the nation.
/ 52 / MARLIN

All-Academic
at ODAC
A 2011-12 ATHLETIC SEASON HIGHLIGHTED BY
numerous academic awards for Virginia Wesleyan College's
student-athletes has been capped with a record number of
Old Dominion Athletic Conference All-Academic honors.
A total of 112 Marlins were named to the All-Academic list,
making the second consecutive year that Virginia Wesleyan
has topped 100 honorees. To be eligible for the honor,
student-athletes must achieve at least a 3.25 grade point
average for the year.
Game and
Grades
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL MARLINS
SCORE BIG ACADEMICALLY
VIRGINIA WESLEYAN COLLEGE’S WOMEN’S
basketball team has recorded a first in program
history without touching a basketball. This one was
all done with the books.
For the first time in program history, the Marlins are
ranked among the top academic teams in the nation. In
the summer of 2012, the Women’s Basketball Coaches
Association released its annual Academic Top 25,
and Virginia Wesleyan boasted the number 12 highest
grade point accume among NCAA Division III teams.
The Marlins posted a 3.513 GPA.
“Being recognized in the WBCA Top 25 is a
tremendous accomplishment and a well-deserved
honor, and I am so proud of this team,” said VWC
head women’s basketball coach Stephany Dunmyer.
“Our players are true student-athletes who strive daily
to be champions in every aspect of their lives, and
their hard work and commitment have placed them in
an elite group.”
Dunmyer, a three-time Old Dominion Athletic
Conference Coach of the Year, including 2012,
has stressed academic achievement throughout
her nine years as the Marlins’ mentor. Her teams
have consistently posted a cumulative GPA above
3.00. Strong academic finishes by seniors and
outstanding starts by rookies helped boost the
most recent VWC average.
The WBCA presents its annual
list of academic achievers for
NCAA divisions I, II, and III, as
well as NAIA and junior and
community colleges across
the nation. Teams must
have a 3.00 or better GPA
to be nominated for
the award.
All-Americans
All Around
Athletics
A RECORD FIVE VWC ATHLETES RECEIVED ALL-
AMERICAN HONORS DURING THE 2011-12 SEASON
Jessica Edelmann ’13 (Women’s Soccer) was named a
2011 second team All-American by National Soccer Coaches
Association of America and Continental Tire. Edelman played a
key role in the year’s success, leading the team with 38 points. The
honor adds to a list of accolades for 2011. She was named an
NSCAA/Continental Tire first team All-South-Atlantic Region
honoree, a first-team All-ODAC honoree, and the ODAC/Farm
Bureau Insurance Scholar-Athlete of the Year in women’s soccer.
Tori Higginbotham ’14 (Softball) was one of 46 women
nationwide to earn National Fastpitch Coaches Association
All-America second team honors. She was also a first team All-
Atlantic region honoree, an Old Dominion Athletic Conference
first team honoree, and Virginia’s College Player of the Year.
Higginbotham led the Marlins, and the ODAC, recording 142
at bats, 66 hits, 56 runs scored, and 108 total bases. Her totals
produced two new VWC records in hitting and runs scored.
Kristina Karagiorgis ’15 (Softball) was one of 46 women
nationwide to earn National Fastpitch Coaches Association
All-America second team honors. Karagiorgis and her teammate
Tori Higginbotham are the first two Marlin softball players in the
program’s 31-year history to receive All-American accolades.
Karagiorgis had an impressive start to her intercollegiate
career. She pitched in 117.1 innings and allowed just 25 earned runs
en route to a 1.48 earned run average, ranking No. 42 nationally.
Adam Nycz ’12 (Men’s Lacrosse) received NCAA Division III
All-America honorable mention honors in May 2012 from the
United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA). The
honor came on the heels of Nycz's selection to compete for the
South team in the annual Division III Senior North-South game.
Nycz was one of 64 seniors selected nationwide to compete in
the game, which took place at Harvard Stadium in Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
D.J. Woodmore ’14 (Men’s Basketball) was named a first-team
All-American by the National Association of Basketball Coaches,
making him the fourth Marlins men’s basketball player to earn
All-American honors. It was just the latest in a series of awards
bestowed upon Woodmore, who averaged a team-high 16.1 points.
The ODAC Player of the Year, Woodmore was also tabbed a
fourth-team All-American by D3hoops.com and was named to the
ODAC All-Tournament team after the Marlins’ 65-61 victory over
Randolph College in the title game.
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 53 /

Coach's Corner
Q&A
Going to Bat
AN INTERVIEW WITH HEAD
WOMEN’S SOFTBALL
COACH BRANDON ELLIOT
By Laynee Timlin
PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL-PITTMAN
THE BIG PICTURE: Brandon
Elliott, shown in front of a poster
for the annual cancer benefit he
started in honor of his mother,
encourages his team to be
community-minded as well
as competitive
BRANDON ELLIOTT ‘03 TOOK OVER
as head softball coach with eight games
remaining in the 2007 season. While a
student at Virginia Wesleyan, he majored
in communications and played baseball
on teams that lead the Marlins to two
Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC)
Championships. As a student-athlete, he
compiled a career batting average of .340 and
led the league in stolen bases.
After graduation, Elliott worked as an
admissions counselor and assistant baseball
coach at VWC as well as an elementary
school teacher before taking the reins of the
VWC softball program. Elliott recently received
his master's degree in sport management
from California University of Pennsylvania
and was recognized as a 2011-12 ODAC
Coach of the Year.
He strongly believes in supporting
community causes, especially those near and
dear to his heart. He and his team annually
host a “Strike Out Cancer” day which
has raised more than $25,000 for cancer
research. This event is a tribute to his mother,
Elaine Sears, who lost her battle with colon
cancer in 2008.
This year has been particularly challenging
for Elliott personally. His wife, Laura Mills ‘05,
has been fighting kidney disease while their
newborn son, Cooper, was born 13 weeks
prematurely in January. Support from family
and friends and the Marlin team spirit have
helped keep him on the playing field.
We asked Coach Elliott about his experiences
as a player and a coach and some of the
issues that impact the VWC program and the
game as a whole.
Q: You’ve experienced Virginia Wesleyan
as a student athlete and now as a coach.
Share your insights on athletics at VWC.
A: I really have had a unique experience
here at VWC in that I was able to be a
student-athlete and an assistant coach in
one sport and then turn the table and take
over the reins in another sport. Throughout
all these experiences, I have been able to
see Virginia Wesleyan Athletics inside and
out. I can tell you that as a whole we have
one of the best if not the best collection of
college coaches in the country. The men and
women in that athletic department (support
staff included) do a lot of great things for
VWC, their programs and this community. I
am blessed to have the opportunity to work
with some great mentors.
/ 54 / MARLIN

Athletics
What makes Division III athletics so unique?
Simply put, we give our student-athletes a
chance to be a kid. Here at Virginia Wesleyan we
are still going to prepare the same as we would at
any other division and be extremely competitive,
but we are also going to make sure our studentathletes
have a great ‘college’ experience not
just a ‘softball’ experience. The other great thing
about Division III athletics is that you can really
compete for a National Championship regardless
of your size, funding etc. This is not necessarily
true across the board in Division I.
You are instrumental in bringing a national
college softball community to Virginia Beach
with the Beachblast tournament each year, and
you've raised considerable funds for cancer
research with the Strike Out Cancer event.
Talk about the importance of extending your
program to the community and engaging your
players in a wide variety of activities.
One of the best lessons that athletics has
taught me is that everything is bigger than me.
The team is bigger than me. The college is bigger
than me. Cancer is bigger than me. Unless we get
our players involved in doing things that make
a difference in the lives of others and in our
community, they may not ever realize that simple
truth, and we would have failed them at least in
part. Life has dealt my family a lot of curve balls,
and we have endured a lot of hardships, but
through these things we have connected with
a lot of great organizations and people. Those
experiences give you that drive to do something
to help fix everything.
June 2012 marked the 40th anniversary
of Title IX. How do you think being involved
in college sports affects the development of
women athletes?
Without being cliché, Title IX has changed
the game. The development of women’s
athletics and especially on the college level has
surpassed the expectations of even the pioneers
of Title IX. Athletics is critical in the development
of young leaders and especially our female
leaders. Through athletics, our women are
seen, and they have a voice. They are strong,
competitive and exude passion just like men.
Without Title IX, I am not sure we would be able
to see that.
How have the upgrades to the fields
positively impacted the game?
We take a lot of pride in our facility and
continue to think up more ideas to continually
improve its aesthetics. Not only do the
improvements to our facility create pride in our
players and in our program, but they make being
a part of our program more attractive to recruits
and their families.
This was an exciting year for the softball
Marlins. What are some of your reflections on
the year?
When I look back at this season, I will have
a lot of great memories. Another 30-win
season and a record 17-1 conference finish.
Tori Higginbotham and Kristina Karagiorgis
became the program’s first ever All-Americans,
picking up second team honors. Higginbotham
went on to win conference Player of the Year
and Virginia State Player of the Year Awards,
and Karagiorgis picked up the conference's
Rookie of the Year and Pitcher of the Year
Awards as well. We also garnered six All Old
Dominion Athletic Conference Awards and
four All-Atlantic Region Awards. However, I am
more proud of my players and an extraordinary
coaching staff (Jim Inzana and Jim Quinn) for
leading this program through a year of great
perseverance. We battled many things—from
injuries to not having a field to personal issues.
There were many times we could have thrown
in the towel and shut it down and it would have
been okay in others' eyes. But this group just
knows how to battle. That is special.
Fields of Dreams
INITIAL SET OF IMPROVEMENTS COMPLETED ON MARLIN FIELDS AND MORE TO COME
RECENT UPGRADES TO THE BASEBALL
and softball complex take the Marlins one
step closer to fields of dreams. The initial
set of improvements happened during the
2011-12 school year and addressed urgent
needs such as replacing fencing, installing
new irrigation, grading and sodding the
outfield, and adding wind screens and new
batting cages.
These improvements are just the
beginning, however. Plans for the future
include grandstands for 240 (softball)
and 500 (baseball), new dugouts and
backstops, scoreboards, lighting and press
boxes. With the vision to create one of the
finest baseball/softball facilities in NCAA
Division III, this modernization is sure to be a
hit with players, coaches and fans alike.
Softball Field
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 55 /

Anatomy of
an Athlete
A shining example of one of Virginia Wesleyan’s
remarkable student-athletes, senior and New Jersey
native Jessica Edelman has been a consistent offensive
force for the women’s soccer team, helping lead
the Marlins to an 18-4 season and a 13th
consecutive winning campaign in 2011.
Edelman also happens to be an Honors and
Scholars student who thrives on a busy
schedule that includes practices that
last as long as two and a half hours six
days a week. “I actually like being in
season,” she says, “because I hate
procrastinating. I like knowing my
schedule and knowing what I have
to do. And I’m happy that I ended
up at a Division III school because
it’s a great balance between soccer
and academics.”
[Creature Comforts] “Teddy” has
been Edelman’s constant companion
since she was a kid. In her down time,
she loves going to the beach. Though
she tries to eat a healthy diet, her guilty
pleasures include chocolate and pasta.
Her favorite movie of all time is The
Lion King, and she’s been known to
regale her friends with bad renditions of
Backstreet Boys and Rihanna hits.
[Family Girl at Heart] Edelman’s
father, who has never missed one of her
VWC games despite a five-hour drive,
was “ecstatic” when he found out about
her All-American honors. She is leader
of “Team Alex” for the Juvenile Diabetes
Research Foundation in honor of her
younger sister, who found out she was a
diabetic when she was 8.
[Dressed to Win]
Edelman traveled to Kansas
City in January, 2012, to become
one of 40 women in the country to
accept All-American honors from the
National Soccer Coaches Association
of America and Continental Tire. She
received this jacket as part of the
ceremony. She also received
academic honors at the
same event.
[Hitting the Books]
A star on the field and in the
classroom, Edelman enjoys writing
and carries a 3.94 grade point average
as a business major and communication
minor. Some of her favorite courses
so far at VWC are accounting, public
relations and a class called
“Persuasion and the Media”
with Dr. Linda Ferguson.
[All Yellow] The entire VWC women’s soccer
team including Edelman wraps their left shin guard
with a piece of yellow tape before each game. The
tradition started in honor of former team member
Laura Jackson's father, who died of cancer. Jackson
graduated in 2007.
[Amazing Feats] Edelman didn’t even think she
would play soccer in college because of a broken
foot she suffered during her junior year of high
school. It was Coach Jeff Bowers who convinced
her to come to VWC. “I’m so thankful to Coach,”
she says. “Coming here was one of the greatest
decisions of my life, even if running and practicing
every day kicks my butt!”
PHOTO: AUGUSTA PITTMAN
/ 56 / MARLIN

Make
what
matters
count
Charla - 1967
on the Smith family farm
FOR CHARLA SMITH WORLEY ’72, EDUCATION AND FAMILY REALLY MATTER.
A
fter graduating from Virginia Wesleyan, she pursued her passion –a
career in teaching. Charla's father,John Wesley Smith,encouraged her to
do something that wasn’t availabletohim –get acollege education. Herfather was born
on theSmith’s familyfarm in 1909 on thelandthat isnow thesite of Virginia Wesleyan.
Charlagrewuphere–visitingthe farm, selling vegetables, andlaterraisingand riding
horses. Shesays that her father always valued educationand wished that he could have
gone to college. To pay tribute to her passion and her father’s values and ideals, she
established ascholarshipinhis name to be funded through her estate.
Paytribute
to your
passion
Like Charla, youcan make ameaningful investment in education.
Your deferred gift can be apowerful tool for making what matters
count. Foraconfidential conversation about making alegacy gift,
please contact Mary Kate Andris, Ed.D., Director of Leadership
and Planned Giving at 757.455.2136 or mandris@vwc.edu.

Alumni Pages
Alumni profile
Globe Trotters
Paul Kumpf ’90
Tina Tyson ’93
TINA TYSON AND PAUL KUMPF MET
under the orientation tent on Tyson’s first day
at Wesleyan. Kumpf was an upperclassman
and had spent the day shuttling around
freshmen in golf carts. Kumpf sat next to
Tyson and glanced at her folder.
“And he looked at me and said, ‘Oh my
goodness. You’re a Wesleyan Scholar. Your
life is over,’” Tyson remembers.
Now married and living in Durham, North
Carolina, with their children, Kristina and
Brandon, Tyson and Kumpf have travelled a
long way since that orientation tent. Kumpf
is a supervisor with U.S. Customs and Border
Protection, a component of the Department
of Homeland Security. Tyson is an attorney
working as the chief compliance officer at
Duke University School of Medicine.
Kumpf majored in political science, and
Tyson studied political science and French.
One Valentine’s Day, Tyson was in Kuwait
working on litigation connected to claims
from the first Gulf War, and Kumpf was doing
international assistance work with his advisory
team in Romania.
“I remember standing out in a traffic circle
in Romania trying to get a signal to call her in
Kuwait,” says Kumpf.
Kumpf and Tyson both remember Wesleyan
as the place where they began to understand
the international community and legal
intricacies that they would engage with in their
respective careers. Tyson says that Wesleyan’s
Madame Sullivan set her on the path to an
international internship with a law firm in
Brussels, Belgium. Both Tyson and Kumpf
encountered professors who shaped what
they became by challenging them intellectually.
They laugh together as they reminisce about
killer finals and professors’ bad puns.
“The rigor and analysis helped a great deal
in going to law school,” says Tyson, who got
her law degree at University of Virginia. “There
are times when I listen to things now, and I’ll
think back to Dr. Carlson or Dr. Jones and think
about something from the Federalist Papers.
You have echoes of those things that you
remember forever.”
Kumpf’s political science background
led him to travel overseas and work with
international organizations and the U.S.
government. He worked with the Office of
International Affairs on border projects in the
Caribbean, the Middle East, and in Southeast
Europe, among other places.
While at Wesleyan, Tina Tyson '93 and
Paul Kumpf '90 found a shared interest
in international affairs that would help
shape both of their career paths.
PHOTO: ALEXANDRA COHEN
“I understand why the government works
this way, why bureaucracies are built the way
they are, why international organizations do
what they do, and why foreign people do what
they do because of those classes and that
exposure at Wesleyan,” says Kumpf.
“You are a name and a person at a small
liberal arts school, not just a number,”
says Tyson.
/ 58 / MARLIN

Class Notes
Alumni Pages
1970s
James Fitzpatrick (1975) and Sue
(Louk) Fitzpatrick (1975) are proud
to announce the birth of their
granddaughter, a baby girl, Eleanor
Sadie Fitzpatrick. She was born on
June 3, 2011 to their son, Jim, and their
daughter-in-law, Jessica. She weighed
9 pounds.
William Reece (1977) received a LLM.
(Legum Magister) in Transnational
Business Practice from University of
the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law
on May 12, 2012. Bill practices law in
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii and San Antonio,
Texas. His firm of four lawyers in San
Antonio was recently augmented by his
daughter, Margaret, a 21-year-old lawyer
and Texas Tech School of Law graduate.
Louis Timmons (1979) died on February
10, 2012. Louis completed his degree
at Virginia Wesleyan in 1979. After
graduation he went on to Wesley
Seminary. He retired as Pastor in the
United Methodist Church. Louis served
Churches in Virginia, Maryland and
Delaware.
1980s
Matthew Franck (1980) moved in 2010
to a new position at the Witherspoon
Institute in Princeton, New Jersey as
Director of the William E. and Carol
G. Simon Center on Religion and the
Constitution. Matt was previously
employed for 21 years at Radford
University as a professor of political
science and chaired the department
for 15 years.
Dr. M. Gail Derrick (1982) received a
Fulbright Specialist Award to Hungary
in fall 2010. Gail spent six weeks in
Hungary working with schools and
teachers of Roma youth.
Jim Boyd (1984) has been appointed
by Governor McDonnell as a
Commissioner of the Virginia Port
Authority.
Deborah (Fisher) Stovall (1985)
successfully defended her dissertation,
“Signs and symptoms of opioid
withdrawal in children undergoing
opioid tapering” on April 10, 2012. She
received her Ph.D from the VCU School
of Nursing on May 12, 2012.
In 2006, Harry Warren (1985) created a
side project designing breauhare fonts
(pronounced “bro hair”). Some of his
fonts appear on current albums by
Alicia Keys (The Element of Freedom)
and Olivia Newton-John (Grace &
Gratitude Renewed), and the logo for
The Glen Campbell Goodbye Tour.
Harry’s font designs can be viewed at
www.breauhare.com.
The Reverend Robert Coats (1986) has
been appointed to a three-year term as
a Commissioner for City of Cambridge,
Massachusetts. Rev. Coats serves as
a Commissioner on the City’s GLBT
Commission. His term of office will
expire in 2015.
Brian Ziegler (1986) had an art exhibit at
Gallery 141 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
which ran from July 1 to August 19,
2012. Brian, BA MFA, is an artist,
performer, and educator based in
the Washington, D.C. metro area. His
art has been featured in a range of
settings including One in Ten’s Walk
the Red Carpet event in Washington
DC, The Del Ray Artisans’ Gallery in
Virginia, Camp Rehobeth in Delaware,
as well as other galleries in Maryland
and Virginia.
Carole (Snyder) Heller (1988) is beginning
her second year as an art teacher at
Gan Israel Academy in Fairfax, Virginia.
She also returns for her 20th year
as a second grade Sunday School
teacher at Temple Rodef Shalom in
Falls Church, Virginia. She has spent
over 14 years as a Hebrew School
educator and over four years as a
Bar/Bat Mitzvah and Special Needs
tutor. This past spring an exhibit of her
blankets, quilts, and wall hangings was
on display as Temple Rodef Shalom’s
Artist of the Month.
Sidney Dobrin’s (1989) book,
Postcomposition, won the 2011 W.
Ross Winterowd Award for Best Book
Published in Composition Theory,
and he has been named a University
of Florida Research Foundation
Professor.
1990s
Frank Bottone (1993) recently published
a book titled All About Pugs: A
Collection of Color Photos and Short
Stories. The book reviews the traits and
characteristics that make pugs unique,
including their habits, grooming
requirements, nutritional and other
needs. All About Pugs is available
at leading book retailers such as
Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble.
Victoria (Lowell) Walker (1994) has
accepted a position at Purdue
University, in West Lafayette, Indiana,
as a Clinical Assistant Professor of
Curriculum and Instruction for the
Learning Design and Technology
Master’s Program. She will also be
serving as a program coordinator/
program convener completing various
administrative roles in this new online
education technology program.
Paul Carr (1995), Ph.D. is a professor at
Regent University’s School of Global
Leadership and Entrepreneurship.
Paul hosts the annual Autonomous
Learning World Caucus (ALWC) at
Exeter College and Linton Lodge at
Oxford University, U.K. Recently, Paul
held his eighth caucus and welcomed
27 distinguished scholars and
students to this invitation-only event,
which revisits the enormity of thinking,
learning and mentoring from a Christcentered
perspective, allowing doctoral
students to become doctors instead of
simply getting a doctoral degree.
Laura (Doran) Rifenberry (1995) received
a Master of Arts in Education in
Curriculum & Instruction from University
of Phoenix in January 2012.
Hope (Rountree) Bradshaw (1996)
was named the 2012 Middle School
Teacher of the Year for Suffolk Public
Schools. Hope teaches 6th-grade
history at King’s Fork Middle School
and is in her 15th year of teaching.
Mari (Keefer) Mann’s (1996) debut novel,
Parisian by Heart, was a quarter-finalist
in Amazon’s 2011 Breakthrough Novel
Award. It is a work of literary fiction and
has received many excellent reviews.
She is currently working on her second
novel, entitled Father We Go.
Jaimie Reese (1996) and Dean are proud
to announce the birth of a baby boy,
Hayden Reese Jones. He was born
March 10, 2012 in Alexandria, and
weighed 7 pounds, 6 ounces. Mom
and baby and dad are all doing well.
James MacLeod (1997) is proud to
announce the birth of his baby boy,
Robert “Bobby” James MacLeod. He
was born on September 16, 2011 in
Torrance, California, and weighed 9
continued on page 61
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 59 /

Alumni profile
Kicks are for Kids
As Coaching Director at U.S .Youth Soccer, Sam
Snow '77 has translated a love of athletics that
goes back to his time on VWC's first conferencewinning
team, into a career in education.
PHOTO: VIRGIL STRINGFIELD
Sam Snow '77
SAM SNOW PLAYED MARLIN SOCCER
in 1976 when the team took home the
conference championship.
“We were the first team in any sport at
Virginia Wesleyan to win a conference
championship,” he says.
In those days, Snow recalls, there were
no athletic locker rooms or gymnasium, and
the basketball team played homes games
at Norfolk Academy. Snow was captain of
the Wesleyan soccer team when he was an
upperclassman, and he was an assistant
coach of the team his senior year. He
remembers fellow students on the soccer team
drove the bus to away games. During his senior
year, the Cunningham Gymnasium was built.
“I could see the accomplishments of the
athletic department happening,” he says.
Now, Snow lives in Frisco, Texas, and he
still spends his days on the soccer field. He
is a coaching director at U.S. Youth Soccer,
the largest youth sports organization in the
country with programs in all 50 states. After
he got his master’s at the University of South
Florida, Snow spent his career coaching
soccer players at the high school, college,
state and regional levels. He coached for the
Youth Soccer Olympic Development Program.
Much of his time at U.S. Youth Soccer is spent
training other leaders.
“Coaching the coaches how to coach,”
he chuckles.
His favorite moments happen when he
is teaching.
“Working with a group of players or with a
group of coaches, those light bulbs go on,”
he says. “Seeing those ‘aha’ moments when
things click for them. For a player, it happens
during the game when something that you’ve
been working on comes together.”
An English major who at one point had
intended to become a professional diver,
Snow seems bemused that he was able to
make a career on the soccer field. Interest in
the sport has grown considerably since he
graduated in 1977.
“That was a bit of a pleasant surprise,”
he says.
For Snow, the intimacy of Wesleyan was
an important part of his college experience. He
remembers President Lambuth Clarke walking
into the cafeteria and remembering his name
and where he was from.
“It was notable, the attention that the
professors, coaches and administrators gave
to us individually.”
He’s still connected to many friends from
his time at Wesleyan.
“It was that personal touch, the family
feeling.”
/ 60 / MARLIN

Class Notes
Alumni Pages
pounds, 9 ounces. James reports that
the first month with his son has been
an amazing experience, and that the
baby is healthy and well.
Nicole (Evans) Zucchi (1997) and Steven
Zucchi are proud to announce the birth
of a baby girl, Stella Jane Zucchi. She
was born on February 9, 2012. She
joins siblings Colin, Ava and Brennan
as a wonderful addition to the family.
Darcy (Bumpus) Coyle (1998) and Brad
Coyle are proud to announce the birth
of a baby girl, Brooklyn Sharon Coyle.
She was born on September 4, 2011
in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and
weighed 7 pounds, 10 ounces. Big
brother Braden is loving his little sister.
Jason Hechtkopf (1998) received three
regional Emmy’s at the National
Academy of Television Arts and
Sciences awards ceremony in
Washington, D.C. on June 16, 2012.
Jason is known at WAVYTV as Jason
Marks. The winning entries may be
viewed on wavy.com. Jason is the
brother of Allison H. Whiteman (2000)
and Jenny Hechtkopf (2002).
John Helms (1998) recently accepted a
position at University of North Carolina
Wilmington as Postdoctoral Fellow.
John was previously employed at
Tidewater Community College as
Adjunct Assistant Professor. Having
completed his doctorate in chemistry
at ODU, he will be joining the Marine
and Atmospheric Chemistry Research
Lab at UNCW to study the impact of
increased ethanol production and
usage on rainwater chemistry.
Jennifer (Bender) Knop (1998) and Bill
Knop are proud to announce the birth
of a baby girl, Anna Olivia. She was
born on August 6, 2011 in Lake Forest,
IL, and weighed 7 pounds, 11 ounces.
Big brother Alex has been having fun
getting to know his little sister.
Leslie (McConnell) Taber (1998) and
Michael Taber are proud to announce
the birth of a baby boy, Zachary
Dean. He was born on April 19, 2012 in
Virginia Beach and weighed 8 pounds,
10 ounces. Zach joins sister Daphne,
who is enjoying getting to know her
little brother.
Christine Walter (1998) and William C
Hussey II are proud to announce the
birth of twin boys. They were born on
August 25, 2008 in Bucks County,
PA. William Curtiss “Curt” Hussey III
and Karl Richard Hussey were born
prematurely, but are doing great and
are typical active (overly) energetic
toddlers. Mom and Dad are loving
every minute with them (and the few
moments of sleep they can capture).
Nancy Allen (1999) has recently relocated
to Washington, D.C. where she serves
as speechwriter for the Commanding
General for the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers. She has spent the past
three years in New Orleans with the
Corps’ Hurricane Protection Office,
handling public affairs and strategic
communications on a $6 billion
construction program to provide 100-
year risk reduction to the city.
Jeremy (1999) and Francesca Sykes are
proud to announce the birth of a baby
boy, Giovanni Giorgio Sykes. He was
born on April 21, 2012 and weighed 7
pounds, 7 ounces. Both the mother
and child are doing well.
2000s
Mandy (Bryant) Schuchhardt (2002) and
Eddie Schuchhardt (2001) are proud
to announce the birth of a baby boy,
Harrison Edward. He was born on April
27, 2012 at Brandon Regional Hospital in
Brandon, Flroida, and weighed 6 pounds,
9 ounces. He is the second child for the
Schuchhardts, whose daughter, Shelby
Lynn, was born in 2009.
Bladen Finch (2003) was elected Vice
Chair of the Legislative Information
and Constituent Services Staff Section
for the National Conference of State
Legislatures. He will serve one year as
Vice Chair and automatically become
Chair of the staff section in the fall of
2012. Bladen was also appointed to
serve on the Support and Efficiencies
Subcommittee for the National
Conference of State Legislatures’
Legislative Staff Coordinating Committee.
Delayna Ishee (2004) recently accepted
a position at 20th Century Fox
Television’s American Dad! Although
Delayna graduated with a degree in
the sciences, she has since decided
to pursue her dream of becoming a
screenwriter. She recently moved to
Los Angeles, and is now working as
a production assistant to the writers of
American Dad!
Victoria Holliday (2005) received a
Master's of Business Administration in
Management from Strayer University
on April 2, 2011.
Ashley Carmichael (2006) received a
Master's in Special Education from
Regent University in May 2011. Ashley
now teaches special education in
Virginia Beach.
Suzanne Lazarowitz and Aaron
Johnston (2007) are happy to
announce their marriage on May 18,
2012, at Norfolk Botanical Gardens.
They currently reside in Muskegon,
Michigan. Suzanne is a microbiology
technician for Nestle R&D and Aaron
is the Director of Recreation and
Intramural Sports at Baker College.
Paul Wolfe (2007) and Leonieke
(Nijssen) Wolfe (2006) are proud to
announce the birth of a baby boy,
Mason Austin Wolfe. He was born on
August 2, 2011. This is the second child
for Paul and Leonieke. Both the mother
and baby are doing well.
Kevin Casteel (2009) has published
his first book, My Journey, which
consists of 41 poems that deal with
everything from heartbreak and
death to happiness and love. Most of
the poems featured in the book are
autobiographical and reflect from past
events. My Journey was self-published
on April 12, 2012.
Casie Newton (2009) and Mark Conlon
were married at a ceremony on June
30, 2012, at the Chrysler Museum of
Art in Norfolk, Virginia.
2010s
James R. Bergdoll (H ‘10) was recognized
at the 2011 Virginia Annual Conference
on his retirement after 54 years working
at three United Methodist related
institutions, including the last 12 years
as president of the Virginia United
Methodist Foundation. He previously
served nine years on the staff at
Randolph-Macon College in Ashland
and for over 32 years as assistant to
the president and later vice president
for college relations and development
at Virginia Wesleyan College.
Graham Costa (2010) and Hayley
Hamadyk, both of Newport News, are
happy to announce their engagement.
The wedding ceremony will take place
in fall 2012.
Please note: Class notes are user
submitted are reprinted with only minor
edits for style and consistency.
Virginia Wesleyan College Magazine 2012-2013 / 61 /

Alumni profile
projects in play
A typical work day for TV
development producer
Christine Cipriani Jones
'91 (photographed on
the antique carousel in
downtown Hampton)
includes writing reality
show pitches
PHOTO: JANICE MARSHALL-PITTMAN
Christine Cipriani Jones ’91
WHEN CHRISTINE CIPRIANI JONES WAS AT
Wesleyan, she went to an Alpha Sigma Alpha
party where the students were supposed to
dress as who they thought they were going to
be when they grew up. Christine dressed as
an MGM executive. Back then, she knew she
wanted to be in television.
On a typical day at m2, a television studio
in Hampton, Virginia where she works as
a development producer, Christine writes a
few reality TV pitches for network executives,
arranges the logistics of a film shoot on a farm
in Indiana, meets with her colleagues to decide
which TV projects the company should go
forward with, and interviews the leader of an
African American motorcycle club in Atlanta.
“I always have projects in play,” she says.
Jones, who was a communications major
when she was at Wesleyan, has worked in
the television industry for 20 years—in reality
TV, sitcoms, talk, lifestyle and game shows.
She worked as a producer in New York for six
years, but moved back to the area with her
husband, Ben, four years ago.
Jones remembers that one of her first
classes in the communications department
was with Kathy Merlock Jackson.
“I was a slacker when I first got there,”
Jones says, laughing. “I swear to God, Intro
to Communications was at like eight in the
morning or something ridiculous.”
Jones says that the close-knit environment
at Wesleyan meant that professors like
Jackson noticed and cared whether she
showed up for class.
“Dr. Jackson took me aside and said, ‘Listen
you need to pay attention and come to this
class. I know you can do it.’”
Later Jackson helped Jones get a coveted
Regent University internship with the Family
Channel sitcom Big Brother Jake.
“I can tell you without a doubt I would not
have gotten into television if it weren’t for my
internship,” says Jones.
That internship was the beginning of the
network of connections that created her career
in TV. Now Jones spends her days searching for
stories. One reality TV pitch she’s working on tells
the tale of three generations of boxers in Philly.
Another focuses on a group of girls in small town
North Carolina who spend their time drag racing.
“When I was younger I would never
have thought that I would have had all the
experiences I’ve had,” says Jones. “I’ve been
to Argentina and hung out with a clothes
designer in Buenos Aires. All these weird,
different things that you wouldn’t come into
contact with in normal life. And you get to learn
a little bit about what they do, so it’s like being
in school all over again.”
/ 62 / MARLIN

VWC Homecoming and Parent Weekend
October 5>7, 2012
.
Pull up achair and join us!
Check out our website at www.vwc.edu/homecoming to:
•See the Schedule of Events
•Register to attend
•Find your fellow classmates and faculty who are attending

Alumni Pages
Once a Marlin,
Always a Marlin
STAY CONNECTED. JOIN THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION!
get involved with everything the College has to
offer, from Wesleyan Wednesday and freshmen
move-in to Homecoming and Parent Weekend.
The Virginia Wesleyan Alumni Association
assists the College in remaining a vital and
dynamic institution through community
awareness and financial support. The
Association provides an opportunity for
alumni to help shape the future of the Virginia
Wesleyan educational experience. Members
of the Association are able to reconnect with
professors and fellow classmates and enjoy a
multitude of benefits while participating in efforts
to enhance the College.
Find us online at www.vwc.edu/alumni
or contact Katy Judge, Director of Alumni
Relations, for more information.
KEEP THAT WESLEYAN SPIRIT STRONG BY
staying in touch with your alma mater. We love
to hear about the many accomplishments
of our alumni and to help inspire the current
generation of students in their pursuit of
academic excellence. We encourage you to
Join the Virginia
Wesleyan Alumni
Association today
by scanning the QR
code here.
The Alumni Association Board of Directors
The Alumni Board of Directors represents the Association membership by serving as advocates to the College on behalf of
alumni. They volunteer their time each year to oversee the activities of the Alumni Association, including networking events,
campus activities, Homecoming and Parent Weekend, and other alumni priorities. Meet the members of our 2012-2013 Board.
OFFICERS
Christopher L. Dotolo, 1991
President
Director of Annual Giving
Norfolk Academy
Amy M. Rickard, 1998
Vice President
Vice President of Marketing
AAA Tidewater VA
Richard L. Carmichael, 1986
Treasurer
President/Real Estate Appraiser
R.L. Carmichael & Associates
John B. Haynes, Jr., 1998
Secretary
Campus Minister and Director
Tidewater Wesley Foundation
at ODU
MEMBERS
Wonder L. Burgung, 2009
Retiree/Volunteer
Angela D. Costello, 1987
Senior Advisor of Business
Development and Media/Public
Relations
The Clean Air Action Corporation
Noelle P. Davis, 1991
Adjunct Faculty
Everest College
Desiree M. Ellison, 2008
Director of Housing,
Sigma Tau Delta
Syracuse University
Jesse H. Fanshaw III, 1972
Former Director of Alumni Relations
Virginia Wesleyan College
Bladen C. Finch, 2003
Senate Page Program Director
Senate of Virginia
Laura B. Gadsby, 1990
Director of Enrollment and
Marketing
Beth Sholom Village
Paul C. Mumford, 1991
President
Carrollton Properties, Inc.
Barrett R. Richardson Jr., 1981
Attorney
Richardson & Rosenberg, LLC
Rachel H. Rigoglioso, 2010
Technical Editor
Gryphon Technologies LC
Kimberly M. Sypniewski, 2009
Training Program Director
Community Personal Care
Christopher M. Stefi, 1991
President
Stefi Enterprises & The WDS Co.
Ronald L. Swan Jr., 1977
President
VDS
Beth C. Widmaier, 1999
Registered Nurse
Riverside Regional Medical Center
Carter B. Youmans, 2006
Member Services
YMCA of South Hampton Roads
/ 64 / MARLIN

Connecting
ClassroomtoCareer
Being in the spotlight comes naturally to Kaitlin Harris ’12. A doubleKmajor in English
and Theater, Kaitlin was involved in numerous stage productions at Virginia
Wesleyan. Combining her education with her internship at Studio Center Total
Productions in Virginia Beach paved the way to employment right after graduation.
TheAnnualFundforAcademicExcellencesupportsannualscholarships,undergraduate
research opportunities, study abroad and internships, ensuring that Virginia
Wesleyan students like Kaitlin have access to a 21stKcentury liberal arts education.
CONTRIBUTE TO BRIGHT FUTURES.
Support the Annual Fund for Academic Excellence.
Visit www.vwc.edu/annualfund, call 757.455.3242
or write to President’s Office, 1584 Wesleyan Drive, Norfolk, VA 23502

OFFICE OF COLLEGE
COMMUNICATIONS
1584 Wesleyan Drive
Norfolk, Virginia 23502
757.455.3200
www.vwc.edu
Non-Profit Org.
U.S. Postage
PAID
Norfolk, VA
Permit No. 27
I am
Virginia
Wesleyan.