Dear UMW community,
Welcome back! I hope you enjoyed a relaxing yet productive break and are now refocused on starting a new semester of fresh beginnings and opportunities, along with goals of graduation, study abroad, research projects and publications, internships and life after Mary Washington. The beginning of a semester is a welcome time for all of us, faculty, staff and students, to start afresh and continue to strive toward our personal and professional goals.
As we do every January, our campus joins in the national celebration of the life, accomplishments and impact of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement. I invite you to attend the MLK Day Celebration events next week, including the MLK Jr. Day of Service, an event honoring Dr. King’s vision featuring service projects for Fredericksburg-area agencies. The event will take place on Saturday, Jan. 21 from 1-4 p.m. in the Chandler Ballroom inside the Cedric Rucker University Center. In addition, today we recognize the birthday of Dr. James L. Farmer Jr., the late civil rights pioneer, Mary Washington history professor, and namesake of UMW’s James Farmer Multicultural Center and James Farmer Hall.
This month, we also begin the 20th season of the William B. Crawley Great Lives Lecture Series. Over the past few decades, more than 300 figures, including a few non-human subjects and fictional characters, have been featured by prominent biographers and writers, including a number of Pulitzer Prize winning authors. We invite you to share in this honored, one-of-a-kind program in Dodd Auditorium in George Washington Hall throughout the Spring semester.
The new year also offers the opportunity to hear from voices in our campus community. The Princeton Review is offering UMW students an opportunity to complete an online undergraduate student survey, providing important feedback about your experiences at UMW. Your feedback helps prospective students, their high school counselors and their families get a true picture of UMW and determine if it may be the right fit. And, your feedback is solely what determines where UMW places on the rankings lists and school profiles — your feedback matters. The undergraduate survey is anonymous and takes less than 15 minutes to complete. I encourage you to take the time to share your positive experiences at UMW.
We also appreciate your feedback on the new UMW website, and as we continue to upgrade more pages to the new design, we’ll see more opportunities to revisit and refresh content, share the success stories of students, and showcase all that our campus affords.
UMW is unique in offering a wide breadth of experiential academic opportunities like internships, community service learning opportunities, research projects, study abroad programs and more that offer professional work experience, personal growth and career clarity. This semester, take the opportunity to meet with your academic advisor, professors and professional staff and discuss these options to enhance your academic goals.
There is also a wealth of personal and social learning opportunities outside of the classroom right here on our beautiful campus. Whether you’re interested in performing arts, competitive athletics, fine arts, club sports, fitness programs, music, campus recreation, etc., I encourage you to find how you can become more engaged in our community.
As the semester kicks off, I look forward to a robust, meaningful semester and sharing in your endeavors, in the classroom, on the field, on the stage, and in the community.
Troy Paino