Sweet Briar Census Tallies a Subterranean Species
Farmville Herald
April 4, 2008
Re: Sweet Briar’s spotted salamanders
SBC and Mind Body Studio to Present Expo
Lynchburg News & Advance
April 15, 2008
Re: GreenSpring Healthy Living Expo
Sweet Briar Plans Spring Fling
Lynchburg News & Advance
April 17, 2008
Gilbert and Sullivan comes to Sweet Briar
Nelson County Times
April 17, 2008
Festival celebrating green living slated for Saturday
Lynchburg News & Advance
April 18, 2008
Re: GreenSpring Healthy Living Expo
“Going Green” Gaining Popularity
WSET/ABC-13
April 19, 2008
Re: GreenSpring Healthy Living Expo
The Rites of Life: Becoming Little Ladies
Lynchburg News & Advance
April 20, 2008
Re: Associate professor of psychology Tim Loboschefski quoted about ear piercing as a rite of passage for girls.
Sweet Briar recognizes Midlothian resident
Richmond Times-Dispatch
April 21, 2008
Re: Mary Dance, Presidential Medalist recipient
County approves Sweet Briar gym
Amherst New Era-Progress
April 24, 2008
Sweet Briar to present ‘Musical Theatre Showcase’
Lynchburg News & Advance
April 24, 2008
Sweet Showcase
The Burg
April 24, 2008
Re: Sweet Briar’s “Musical Theatre Showcase” and “Trial by Jury”
Sweet Briar to present ‘Musical Theatre Showcase’
Hoover’s Online (Austin, Texas)
April 25, 2008
Sweet Briar President Retiring
WSET/ABC-13
April 28, 2008
Sweet Briar president to retire
Lynchburg News & Advance (online)
April 28, 2008
SBC head to retire
Muhlenfeld championed women’s education
Lynchburg News & Advance
April 29, 2008
Tossing Limes
WSET/ABC-13
April 30, 2008
Re: Engineering program re-enactment of the Battle of La Margarita.
Students at Sweet Briar College launch plastic fruit for engineering lesson
WDBJ/Channel 7
April 30, 3008
Re: Engineering program re-enactment of the Battle of La Margarita.
The Battle of La Margarita
Lynchburg News & Advance (front page, local section)
May 1, 2008
Re: Engineering program re-enactment of the Battle of La Margarita.
Her official title will be research professor in the humanities, and the position is effective July 1.
The Tusculum Institute will be born from the reconstruction of Tusculum, an 18th-century plantation that was the family home of Maria Antoinette Crawford, mother of SBC founder Indiana Fletcher Williams.
Sweet Briar became interested in acquiring Tusculum in 2003. Formerly situated a few miles north of the College in Amherst County, the home was to be demolished to make way for new construction.
In 2006, the wooden structure was dismantled by restoration experts and moved to storage to await reconstruction on Sweet Briar’s campus. It was officially purchased by the College a year later.
Around the same time, Sweet Briar also entered into a partnership with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, which subsequently established a satellite office at the College.
The VDHR will assist in the rebuilding of Tusculum and will help the College to develop the Tusculum Institute as an educational resource for both Sweet Briar and the surrounding communities.
Rainville will serve a one-year term as founding director of the institute, reporting directly to College president Elisabeth Muhlenfeld.
According to a statement released by the president’s office, Rainville will “shape the scope and mission of the Tusculum Institute, create an advisory committee, develop a strategic plan for the Institute and generate inaugural programming that supports its strategic mission.”
In addition to her work at Sweet Briar and the University of Virginia — where she taught in 2001 and 2002 and was visiting scholar at the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies from 2002 to 2007 — Rainville has conducted extensive research of African-American burial grounds in Central Virginia, including the plantation cemetery at Sweet Briar.
She also has worked on projects involving the Monacan Indians of Amherst County, including an exhibit co-curated with art galleries director Rebecca Massie-Lane titled, “Family Portraits: Virginian Indians at the Turn of the 20th Century.” The exhibit is currently on loan to several college campuses.
“Her work with the social and physical history of Sweet Briar’s campus and with plantation burial grounds and African-American communities … has led Lynn to establish ties to a number of local communities including the Monacan Indians in Amherst County, and has fueled her long-standing interest in public history,” the statement reads.
“Together, these research interests make her an ideal leader for this new enterprise.”
]]>Suffolk is the hometown of Natalie Cutchin ‘09, who is spearheading the effort.
“By some miracle there was no loss of life however, over 200 individuals were injured and at least 150 homes were completely destroyed. Numerous businesses and even our hospital suffered damage in the terrible storm,” Cutchin wrote in a campus-wide e-mail appealing for help. “I ask you all to please help my hometown!”
The SweetPEAS will place a collection box in Prothro and will be accepting donations to aid in the cleanup and rebuilding efforts. Donations also can be sent to Cutchin’s mailbox at P.O. Box 302.
Checks should be made out to the American Red Cross Suffolk Chapter. Cash is also welcome.
She will leave a community deeply grateful for 13 years of distinguished service, during which she guided Sweet Briar through both good and difficult times. She has chosen this time in large measure because of a successful strategic plan implemented four years ago that has allowed the College to flourish.
In a letter announcing her plans, Muhlenfeld points to “long-deferred projects and aspirations” and a desire to spend more time with family as personal reasons. More importantly, she said, the time is right for Sweet Briar.
“I know that a period of fiscal stability and creative energy is an ideal time for the College to undertake a presidential transition,” she wrote.
Sweet Briar’s board chairman, Dr. Virginia Collier, noted there is never a “good” time for such an extraordinary person as President Muhlenfeld to retire.
“However, largely due to her leadership, the College is in excellent shape, with new or updated facilities, outstanding academic programs, nationally known faculty, highly effective, cohesive senior administrators and sound finances,” Collier said. “As a result, the College is well positioned to meet the challenges of the future.”
Since 2004, Sweet Briar has steadily increased enrollment even as other single-sex institutions made the difficult decision to become co-educational. It has reduced endowment spending and, in 2006, wrapped up a $111 million capital campaign.
Sweet Briar also became one of two women’s colleges in the country to offer engineering degrees. The College enlarged its curriculum in other ways, adding master’s programs in teaching and education, an interdisciplinary Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, several new undergraduate majors, and certificates in equine studies and leadership.
In her letter, Muhlenfeld said the 2003-04 strategic planning initiative, called Shape of the Future, concluded with a recommitment of Sweet Briar’s role as a women’s college and a reaffirmation that 21st-century, liberally educated women must be well-equipped for professional life.
“As a true scholarly community, we have become more collaborative and interdisciplinary, conscious of our obligation to help students understand how to integrate everything they learn. The academic quality of a Sweet Briar education has never been higher,” she wrote.
The College also has expanded its facilities with the opening of the Florence Elston Inn & Conference Center, Prothro Commons and renovations that turned an old dairy into a studio arts complex, a train station into laboratory and classroom space, and a water plant into a nature center and laboratory. As the end of Muhlenfeld’s tenure approaches, a 53,000-square-foot fitness center will be nearing completion.
Muhlenfeld became Sweet Briar’s ninth president in August 1996. She arrived from Florida State University in Tallahassee, where she taught for much of her career and left as the founding dean of undergraduate studies.
She entered higher education after graduating from Goucher College in 1966, teaching high school for several years and raising a family. She completed a master’s in English at the University of Texas at Arlington in 1973 and a Ph.D. in English from the University of South Carolina in 1978.
A student of Southern writers, she is the author of four books and many articles and essays. Muhlenfeld also is active in many professional and civic organizations. She speaks frequently on numerous topics including issues affecting undergraduate education, and she advocates for women’s colleges.
She and her husband, Laurin A. Wollan Jr., have four adult children and six grandchildren. Reflecting on her decision to retire, she said her growing family and personal aspirations tugged against her commitment to Sweet Briar’s future.
Muhlenfeld noted Sweet Briar will embark on a new capital campaign in the next few years, a six- or seven-year commitment of a president’s time. “This is an ideal moment to attract a talented new leader to Sweet Briar, who will be able to get to know the alumnae and friends of the College,” she said.
Finally, she recognized that many Shape of the Future initiatives are still early in their development and need nurturing.
“I realized one day that there would never be a moment when I could say, ‘Well, everything is done, and there are no new projects that interest me. Every new project, every challenge interests me.”
]]>He made the video over spring break in response to that question, which was posed as the theme of a student contest sponsored by Sweet Briar’s women and gender studies program.
For the competition, students could submit essays, fiction, poetry, painting or other creative projects.
“It got me thinking,” Witcombe said, adding he also believes a lot of students don’t know what a feminist is or think the word has bad connotations. “[I wanted to] bring up the issue in a different way.”
As a professor, Witcombe was not qualified to enter the contest but he was “very inspired by the question,” assistant professor of sociology Debbie Kasper said, adding that for his 10-minute podcast Witcombe was declared the “victorious non-winning winner.”
]]>Patience “Pat” Caldwell Richeson, an assistant to three different chaplains over 17 years, promised more than the suggestion of her presence after she retires on May 9. She was reflecting on, among other things, how her beloved Sweet Spirits has flourished since it was founded by former chaplain Guy “Chap” Brewer.
Applications to join the peer mentoring group are at capacity, and Richeson is thrilled with the current Sweet Spirits’ enthusiasm.
To the Rev. Adam White, her boss of the past two years, she said, “And it better keep going after I’m gone, or I’ll come back and haunt you. I’ll ride right through here on my broom stick.”
White wasn’t fazed. He will safeguard the Sweet Spirits, whom Richeson has come to think of as “little nuns” to her “Mother Superior.”
The joke is they are not so nun-like, she confesses, but they do good work through such projects as Habitat for Humanity and the annual Unsung Heroes Banquet for College employees.
To the Sweet Spirits, Richeson is “Ms. Pat.” They work with her in the office, witness to both her genuine mentoring and her puckish humor. Madeline Davis ’10 says Ms. Pat sets an example by “working hard and being open,” but she is something of an instigator, too.
White, Sweet Briar’s genial, guitar-playing and somewhat famously distracted chaplain, bears the brunt of Richeson’s teasing, but it’s not all just for laughs. “She calls him ‘son,’ ” Davis said. “She’ll say, ‘Come here, sonny, you need to do this.’ ”
Brewer, who was chaplain from 2001 to 2006, said working with Richeson was a “trip,” for reasons ranging from her artist’s sensibility to her obsession with felines. He recalled one of her “quirkier” feats was talking him into an office cat. He likes cats, he explained, just not at work.
But after a bunch of mice leaped from Richeson’s desk drawer one day, Callie reported for duty over Brewer’s protestations of allergic students and fur on his good clothes. Callie ensured the latter by sleeping on his chair every night, but he had to concede the students loved the little calico — even if they had to wear masks to pet her.
“Students would come by on the pretext of seeing me, but it was really to see the cat,” he said by phone from his new post at the Anderson University School of Theology. “Pat enjoyed the torture that cat brought my life.”
When Brewer heard that Richeson wants to rededicate herself to art in retirement — she is a former dancer and earned a bachelor’s in studio arts from Sweet Briar — he said, “that’s a great path for Pat. I hope she lives to be a hundred.”
She has an emotional and spiritual deepness about her that helps her “see more than the average person sees,” he said. “And she respects it. She doesn’t want to disturb what she sees. She brings a great beauty and an ability to beautify.”
Richeson said her plans to “retire and re-fire” include taking classes at Sweet Briar, starting with Carrie Brown’s introduction to creative writing course next semester and a studio art class in the spring. She wants to see if the “juice is still there” now that she’ll have more time for art.
There are collage, photography, sculpture and painting projects waiting in the recesses of her home. “I’m going to have to do an archaeological dig to find the missing parts to finish work on them,” she said.
Richeson was running the Clifford School of Dance with her mother when she entered Sweet Briar as a Turning Point student in 1986. Previously she had taken dance classes at the College to stay in shape, and audited an art history class. She began to work at Sweet Briar in 1991, the year she graduated.
“I was on a roll, so I wanted to keep going,” she said, relating next how she was able to transfer in as a sophomore.
She had entered then-Mary Washington College in 1958 but was lured away by a young U.S. airman, with whom she recently celebrated her 49th wedding anniversary. She and Tom Richeson began dating as seniors at Amherst County High School.
“The plan was he’d do his four-year hitch [in the air force] and I’d do my four-year hitch, but we decided we couldn’t wait,” Richeson said.
Not wanting to disappoint their parents, they married in secret. Richeson wore her ring only when she was alone until baby sister Ella — well known to Sweet Briar as professor of dance Ella Magruder — caught her wearing it one day.
Richeson recalls the youngster bolting for the door, yelling, “Oh Mama, Patsy’s got a ring!”
Though she grabbed Ella, who was at the time “old enough to be aggravating,” and extracted a promise of silence, her mother eventually caught on. With the cat out of the bag, she left a year later to join her husband who was then stationed in Germany.
Richeson, who taught Ella dance long before she was Professor Magruder, said their mother encouraged in her four children an interest in the arts. And while she said dance was wonderful, Richeson is ready to immerse herself in the visual arts.
“I love doing it. I absolutely love losing myself in it,” she said. “So you know where to find me if I’m lost.”
Following an on-site assessment by a conservation professional, the museum receives a written report recommending priorities to improve collections care. This report assists museums in educating staff and board members on conservation practices, creating long-range and emergency plans, and raising funds to improve the care of their collections.
The Conservation Assessment Program is supported by Heritage Preservation through a cooperative agreement with the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Museums from across the country have been accepted to participate in the 2008 program, including the Stanback Museum and Planetarium in Orangeburg, S.C., and the Alaska Museum of Natural History in Anchorage. Since 1990, over 2,500 museums have participated in CAP, including museums in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and several U.S. territories.
“The Heritage Health Index survey of our nation’s collections found that 64 percent of small historical societies and museums do not have a current, written, long-range preservation plan,” Lawrence L. Reger, president of Heritage Preservation, said in a released statement. “For these kinds of institutions, the recommendations and priorities outlined in the CAP report can provide the framework for collections care.”
Dawn Gatewood is the new executive secretary to development vice president Heidi McCrory. She is a former employee of Sweet Briar, having worked as an annual fund secretary from 2002 to 2004.
Before coming back to the College, Gatewood operated her own business, The Personal Assistant. She provided services — shopping, bill paying, office help, etc. — to small businesses and individuals, mostly in the Charlottesville area.
Gatewood lives in western Amherst County with her husband, John, and two dogs. She also has three grandchildren. When she’s not working, she enjoys volunteer work, gardening, reading and renovating her house.
Ralph Brimm
Physical plant
Ralph Brimm is a housekeeper/custodian for physical plant. He started on April 7.
These and other interesting subjects will be offered at the sixth-annual Kids In College, a weeklong enrichment program for current third- through eighth-grade students, June 16-20 at Sweet Briar College.
The half-day program runs from 9 a.m. to noon each day, and classes are small — 10 to 16 students. Comprised of SBC faculty, staff and alumnae and other local professionals, KIC instructors build upon each day’s activities to provide a thorough exploration of the topic.
This year, there are 24 classes to choose from, and students select two in which to participate for the week. New or returning offerings this year include Russian for Kids, Learning to Play the Harp, Nature’s Notebook, Storytelling, The Art and Science of Swordfighting, Fun with Flight: Airplanes and Rockets, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing, Nature Writing, Hands-on Economics and Make Art with Nature.
Registration is $80 per child, which includes a KIC T-shirt and all classroom supplies. The lone exception to this is an additional $5 fee required for the swordfighting class.
Deadline for registration is Friday, May 30, and classes are filled on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, registration forms and course descriptions, visit the Kids In College Web page or contact Pam Simpson at psimpson@sbc.edu or Ext. 6443.
]]>While the business management lab students organized several events in support of Amherst County Habitat — logging more than 1,600 volunteer hours and raising more than $1,500 — economics students researched the social and economic impact of the local affiliate.
Along the way, the students gained real-world experience.
In the business management lab, each group of three or four students, supervised by a teaching assistant, was responsible for planning, marketing and public relations, human resources, conflict resolution and donations and accounting.
“This semester, the students in the management laboratory, led by [class CEO] Ruthanne Ratliff and the other business practicum students who served as the ‘executive suite,’ did a really outstanding job,” Tom Loftus, assistant professor of business, said.
“The five events they planned and implemented were not only great educational and fundraising events for our Amherst County Habitat for Humanity, but they were all great social events for the entire campus community.”
In addition to the third-annual Battle of the Bands held March 21, there were some new events this year. The lab hosted a Valentine’s Day carnation sale and penny jars fundraiser in February, a talent show and carnival in March and “Seersucker and Sundresses,” a wine-and-cheese party, on April 25.
On Wednesday, April 23, the lab students made their final presentations to faculty, students and other members of the Sweet Briar community. Held at the Boathouse, the event was followed by the second business management “company picnic.”
In opening the program, Ratliff, a senior at Sweet Briar, thanked Craig Cassell, executive director of Amherst County Habitat, for his support. “Craig showed up to all of the events, answered questions, etcetera,” she said. “It makes it easier to do our job to raise money and support for Habitat when we have such great support coming back at us.”
The feeling was mutual. “I wanted to say everyone in the class should be proud of what they’ve done,” Cassell said, following the presentations. “I’d like to demand that you are proud of your accomplishments. Your support is invaluable to the Habitat affiliate.”
Gene Gotwalt, chair of the business and economics department, also praised the students, and said no complaints had filtered his way, other than hearing, “What do you mean we’re only getting one credit for this class?” from some of the lab students.
“What you’ve done for your sisters at this college, providing them with things to do,” he said. “You did a remarkable job and from what I can tell — correct me if I’m wrong — [lab professor Tom] Loftus had very little to do with it. All he does is stand back and get out of your way. It’s all your doing. … You should all be right proud of yourselves.”
Loftus gave kudos to the Sweet Briar staff members who helped out as guest speakers and in other capacities. “One key to the success of the management lab as a learning experience is the opportunity it gives our business students to work professionally with the staff of the College,” he said.
“Working with students takes a lot of extra time on their part, and particularly so this semester when the projects were bigger and … there also were events we had never attempted before.”
Before she started working on a project to assess the economic and social impact of the Amherst affiliate, econ student Sarah Hall ’09 never imagined the need for such organizations was so great.
“For me, I certainly became more aware of our community’s needs,” she said. “The numbers don’t lie, and there is certainly a desperate call for organizations like Habitat for Humanity in the Amherst community.
“I could never have imagined the level at which such philanthropic organizations are needed. After being a part of this project, I truly feel as if my work has contributed to something greater than myself. In addition, I feel as though I have developed skills that will allow me to put what I study into meaningful practice.”
Over the past three semesters, a small group of economics students — Hall, Allison Hancock ’08 and Natalie Batman ’08 — spent countless hours creating surveys; plowing through census, tax and local records; studying federal government regulatory manuals; conducting phone interviews; and compiling the results of their research into a formal report.
According to Mellody Gotwalt, visiting instructor of economics and faculty advisor for the project, Cassell had approached the College’s business and economics department chair “seeking assistance in providing an economic impact study of their services in Amherst County.”
At the same time, Gotwalt was in the process of developing a program in which students would conduct independent research for rural community service groups. “The serendipity and timing were perfect,” she said.
On April 23, the students presented their findings and a 24-page report to Cassell.
According to the report, more than 10 percent of Amherst County’s population “lives at or below the poverty line,” with apartment or house rental consuming more than 60 percent of their income.
Hall’s work focused on these numbers. “I worked on putting together the data that identified the need for Habitat in our community,” she said. “I looked at current rent rates and their affordability, current income levels, current demographics, and worked on predicting the number of people Amherst would have in poverty and in need of more affordable housing within the coming decade.”
Since 1991, ACHH has built or refurbished 25 houses. The students discovered that these homes account for $22,000 in annual tax revenues, which will increase by $897 with each new Habitat house.
“The desirability of the area for new business investors has also improved due to increased available housing values,” the report states. “For the 25 properties … the Amherst area gained approximately $680,147 in equity value.”
The students also reported that because Habitat homeowners are not paying conventional mortgages or rent, they save thousands of dollars each year. That money is available for daily expenses and/or education and retirement.
Hancock and Batman, who is a resident of Amherst, studied these types of benefits. “I learned a great deal about the needs and challenges facing low-income families in our community,” Batman said, “as well as the tremendous impact Habitat makes [on] individuals and the community as a whole.”
As for Cassell, he calls the work Sweet Briar has done to benefit Habitat — both the econ students and those in the business management lab — “invaluable.” The econ students’ research has already been used in grant writing, he said, and it will continue to be helpful in their day-to-day operations.
“Running a Habitat carries with it a lot of work in multiple directions, all worth one hundred percent of your time,” he said. “When quality help opens its doors to assist, it’s again such a blessing. … Our affiliate values our partnership with [Sweet Briar College] so much. Our partnership has contributed greatly to Amherst County Habitat’s success.”
]]>An announcement for Brower’s lecture notes that, although the monarch is one of America’s most common butterflies and is not endangered as a species, its “marvelous adaptive repertoire has become an endangered biological phenomenon.”
According to the announcement, major threats to the monarch’s annual migration pattern include farming with genetically engineered crops in the North American heartland, forest degradation in the monarchs’ overwintering areas in the volcanic highlands of central Mexico and human encroachment on coastal overwintering habitat.
Brower will consider positive approaches on how to implement successful conservation of the species’ unique biological phenomenon. The lecture will draw on his 54 years of research on monarchs, 31 years of visiting the Mexican colonies, and will be illustrated with still and video imagery taken on the ground, in the air and from outer space.
A C-cup, purple in color.
The two trebuchets made of two-by-fours represent the students’ end-of-semester projects. They had designed, analyzed, modeled, constructed and analyzed some more; it was time to see which machine would perform closest to their mathematical predictions. This is the point in the engineering process where reality and math intersect, Pierce said.
Meanwhile, quite a crowd gathered on the hillside next to Prothro, spurred there by an irresistible invitation e-mailed by Pierce the previous day. They came to watch an epic contest between the two teams, all students in his upper-level dynamics and kinematics class.
The announcement billed the affair as a re-enactment of the Battle of La Margarita when, the e-mail said, on May 5, 1963 a “brave unit of the Mexican Army, outraged by what they perceived as overly conservative political practices by the government of Texas, attacked the Alamo by hurling giant limes at the building using trebuchets.
“The building’s defenses quickly fell, the Mexican flag was raised, and drinks were served. As everyone knows, this is the reason that we celebrate Cinco de Mayo by drinking lime margaritas.”
Minor consternation followed the landing of this historical bomb in inboxes across campus. Some worried Pierce had badly confused his history. Fingers flew to Wikipedia, searching on “Alamo” and “Battle of La Margarita.”
“It’s a joke,” said a bemused Pierce, just a funny story line combining the infamous Alamo defense and Mexico’s Cinco de Mayo holiday. He had figured the minutiae would give it away, sensibly pointing out that lobbing limes at the fort probably wouldn’t have worked.
“Clearly my sense of humor is overrated by myself,” he said. “But my students thought it was hilarious.”
Besides, weaponry had come a long way from the trebuchet, a catapult-like flinging device, by 1963. Still, it was the shooter of choice for the study of rigid bodies in motion — the short definition of dynamics. “The trebuchet is a classic dynamics problem,” Scott said.
For consistency, the projectiles were actually fake limes. The target: An inexact replica of the Alamo, handcrafted by Pierce.
After a series of trials in which the distance and accuracy of each launch were recorded, the students put their heads together to tally the results. “Come on, now,” senior Ruthanne Ratliff piped up amid the ciphering. “We’re engineers. We can do math.”
Team Jose Cuervo won the day, beating Team Los Positivo Fringe by a hairsbreadth. The prize was a candy-filled pińata that came with the option to load it into the winning trebuchet and chuck it.
“We’re throwing this thing,” said Amanda Baker, a junior engineering major.
Sophomore Jenna Wasylenko wasn’t so sure. “I don’t think it will fit in my bra.”