FACULTY AND STAFF ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND BEST PRACTICES // June 2025

With co-authors and his partners on a NOAA-funded project, Bill McConnell published an evaluation of the last year of his project in the NOAA repository. The evaluation is entitled, "Shared Waters Year Three: An Upstream-Downstream Collaborative."

Sara Ryan's essay "Fathom" was published in The Common's Dispatches feature, which highlights short creative works that evoke a modern sense of place.

Scott D. Miller's most recent opinion piece, "What responsibility does higher education have to America?," was featured in The Virginian-Pilot. He serves as executive editor of President to President, and its 2024-25 series, "Game Changers in Higher Education," is now available as a free download. President Miller also shares daily reflections and leadership perspectives on his blog, "Dialogue."

In April and May, Bill McConnell served as a visiting professor/researcher at Heidelberg University of Education, teaching "Economy, Ecology, Politics: Dimensions of Education for Sustainable Development." He presented research on "Silent Stances: Exploring Perspectives on Teaching Controversial Issues," co-taught classes, planned international partnerships, participated in collaborative research, and offered feedback on dissertations from an international perspective. He also visited Lucerne University in Switzerland, where he presented his original research on preservice teachers' perceptions of teaching controversial issues. He was also an invited speaker at their inauguration event, celebrating the university’s designation as a UNESCO Chair of Sustainability Education and Global Citizenship.

Annika Quick presented a poster, "Variability and interactions among carbon and nutrients in urban streams: implications for management," at the 7th Symposium for Urbanization and Stream Ecology in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Travis Malone served as co-producer for the premiere of a brand-new play by Adam Kraar. The play was a community partnership production between VWU and Zeider's American Dream Theater in Virginia Beach. The play follows a spirited young woman who concocts a daring scheme to impress her antiquarian father and the captivating actress who has stolen her heart.

Michelle Albert Vachris was the featured guest on the podcast “Multiple Economists Goofing Off (MEGO)” produced by the Economics Department at the College of Charleston. She was interviewed about her research on Adam Smith and innovation in the distilled spirits industry. You can tune in on Spotify.

Katie Harrington and Drian Glyde are participating in Lakeland University Japan's Lakeland Lecture series (ongoing since 2008) with a talk titled "Culture, Cost, and Credibility: Rethinking Learning in the Modern Workplace." The presentation is an exploration of what makes training programs successful and ethical decision-making training.

Maynard Schaus and Vic Townsend presented a poster entitled "Diet Analysis of Harvestmen in Southeastern Virginia Using Stable Nitrogen Isotopes" at the Virginia Academy of Sciences Conference in Charlottesville. VWU students Samantha Vos and Jake Hofstetter were coauthors on the poster.

Caitlin Williams served as a research mentor and accompanied two recent graduates, Landon Rockwell and Audrey Roberts, who presented oral and poster presentations at the Virginia Academy of Science 2025 Annual Meeting in Charlottesville, Virginia. Audrey Robert presented the poster “Finding the binding site of protein CDR20291_1748 in C. difficile,” and Landon Rockwell presented the oral session “Chained Together: Homodimerization of a Signaling Protein in C. difficile.”

OTHER

Kathy Merlock Jackson was quoted in a feature article in Mother Jones titled "Why Is Everybody Hating on Richie Rich?: The Beloved Character Used His Fortune for Good, Unlike Certain Zillionaires." Kathy is the author of two articles on Harvey Comics and is featured in a documentary of the comics company that popularized Richie Rich, Casper, and other characters.

Phil Guilfoyle demonstrated on the potter's wheel for over two dozen residents of Atlantic Shores Retirement Community in Virginia Beach.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Clair Berube's EDUC 350 Assessment and Data Driven Instruction class prepared local 5th graders for science SOL tests. The principal of Arrowhead Elementary School gave them target

study areas. Her students created assessments and lesson plans. They pre-tested the 5th graders, tutored them, then post-tested them (t-tests) and compared group means. All elementary students showed improvement!