Here’s a Web site developed by Washington and Lee students and faculty that is worth visiting. It’s the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues, part of the National Science Foundation’s National Science Digital Library. Frank Settle (chemistry) has been directing development of the site, which began in 2000 through the first of three NSF grants and is now supported by a grant from Gerry Lenfest. According to Settle, about 40 W&L students have participated in the project, which now features more than 2,700 vetted, indexed annotations to diverse references on nuclear topics. Over the past year there have been 172,200 visitors to the site from 163 countries. The library is recommended by the National Science Teachers Association and is referenced by more than 100 complementary websites.
Archive for October, 2008
A story in Inside Higher Ed about increasing efforts to attract more Jewish applicants or build Jewish student life on campus at colleges and universities across the country mentioned Washington and Lee’s campaign for HIllel House and quoted Hillel executive director Joan Robins as expressing her hopes that construction of the planned $4-million structure will be “transformative.” Recently, W&L Rector Don Childress directed that $500,000 of his $5-million gift to the University be used as a challenge to finish the fundraising for Hillel. In describing his gift, Childress indicated he was motivated to choose Hillel as one of the projects he wanted to support because he hoped that W&L could increase the number of Jewish students at the University to the levels that he remembered when he was a student. Childress graduated in 1970.
Joan Robins, incidentally, has recently returned from a meeting sponsored by Hillel International to recognize and support a cohort of seven colleges with small Jewish enrollments and have excellent Hillel programs with just one Hillel professional. The institutions are Bowdoin, Colgate, Franklin & Marshall, Lehigh, Middlebury, Washington and Lee, and Williams. The meeting was held at F&M, which just opened a new Center for Jewish Life.
At a luncheon honoring donors to the Wilson Field project, Washington and Lee President Ken Ruscio referred to a view from the press box and the McLaughlin Suite back toward the campus where the trees part naturally and perfectly frame an unobstructed view of the back of Old George atop Washington Hall. President Ruscio suggested that while Notre Dame has its Touchdown Jesus, W&L now has Touchdown George. To prove the point, photographer Kevin Remington took this shot from the press box on Parents’ Weekend.
Touchdown George
Connelly Examines Partisanship in Times-Dispatch Oped
Published October 28, 2008 General News Closed
William Connelly
William Connelly, the John K. Boardman Professor of Politics at Washington and Lee, explores issues of partisanship in an oped piece published Tuesday in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The piece is based on a presentation that Connelly gave during a Homecoming panel discussion on the election earlier this month. Writes Connelly:
Our Constitution invites constructive partisanship, including often cacophonous, cantankerous, contentious partisanship. The principled differences between our two great parties — whether over the Iraq war, immigration, global warming, or regulating financial markets — do matter.
If you missed last week’s panel on the economic crisis, the event is now available on Washington and Lee’s YouTube site. Ed Wasserman (journalism) moderated the panel of faculty who offered insight on finance, economics, politics, regulation and the media. Panelists were Linda Hooks (economics), Dennis Garvis (business administration), Mark Rush (politics), David Millon (law) and Pamela Luecke (journalism).
Photographer Kevin Remington captured Sitterson breaking the last tackled on a kickoff return for a touchdown.
The Roanoke Times had a wonderful story on Friday’s sports page about Washington and Lee senior football star Stuart Sitterson. As the Times’s Mark Berman wrote, Sitterson’s parents were both star athletes at the University of North Carolina: his father was a pitcher; his mother was a sprinter and a founding member of UNC’s women’s track and field team. But much of his Sitterson’s inspiration comes from his brother, who played baseball for the Tar Heels before he committed suicide in 2004. The story is fascinating on lots of levels, but anyone who has watched Sitterson return kickoffs can appreciate his response to the question about what makes him so good as a kicker returner:
Just not wanting to get hit. Just running away from people.
The Generals face Guilford on Saturday at Wilson Field, and Sitterson, who was injured late in the first half against Hampden-Sydney, is expected to see some action in the game.
Washington and Lee University News 