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Gender and Political Candidacy in Hampton Roads, Virginia
Get PDFAlthough they comprise half of the United States population, women are underrepresented as candidates and officeholders in state legislatures and Congress. This is particularly true of legislatures in southern states where women\u27s representation is acutely low, and these states typically fall in the bottom quintile of women’s representation as tracked by the Center for American Women in Politics. Research on political efficacy by Stauffer (2021) suggests that women’s presence in elected office garners greater trust, confidence, and satisfaction in political institutions and increases their legitimacy. In the retelling of Virginia’s political history, women are often absent, despite their continued presence and significant work in the political arena. When looking at women’s presence in the Virginia General Assembly and its congressional delegation over the last several decades, it is evident that women officeholders primarily come from three areas of the state – Northern Virginia, Richmond, and the Hampton Roads area. As a diverse, growing region of southern Virginia, this research explores Hampton Roads and the women legislators it produces. I examine women’s candidacies for the Virginia General Assembly in Hampton Roads and Norfolk and the corresponding Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District from 2005 to 2023. I find that women from both parties have sought and won legislative seats in the Virginia General Assembly and the U.S. House of Representatives. The party competitiveness of this region provides important opportunities to increase women’s representation and incentives for Virginia Democratic and Republican parties to support their candidates
Dorian and the Double: Repressed Homosexual Desire in The Picture of Dorian Gray
Get PDFWritten for Dr. Chris Foss’s English 478 Seminar on Oscar Wilde, “Dorian and the Double: Repressed Homosexual Desire in The Picture of Dorian Gray” examines one of Wilde’s most infamous and beloved works through the lens of both psychoanalytic and queer theory. Drawing on the Romantic and Gothic traditions’ concept of the “literary double,” this research paper explores the dynamic portrait of Dorian Gray as a double for multiple characters in the text, serving as a representation of their repressed homosexual desire. Namely, Basil Hallward and Dorian Gray himself emerge as the primary focus of this analysis. In addition, the paper asserts that Dorian’s portrait acts as a sort of double for the text itself, which is unable to explicitly acknowledge its own sexual implications, foregrounding the text in the concepts of repression and male same-sex desire and reflecting cultural concerns about sexuality in the Victorian era
Heilbronn im Jahr 1945: Warum Hier
Get PDFDie Stadt Heilbronn, im Südwesten Deutschlands, war und ist ein wichtiger Kreuzungspunkt im südlichen deutschen Raum. Dort kreuzen sich wichtige Handelswege: per Schiff, per Auto, per Zug und zu Fuß. Infolge der Handelswege wurde Heilbronn schnell eine einflussreiche Stadt und Drehpunkt im Land. Im Zweiten Weltkrieg führte das zu Konflikt und Bombardierungen. Wie viele andere deutsche Großstädte kam es 1944 in Heilbronn zu verheerenden Bombenangriffen und dann im April 1945 zu einem neuntägigen Kampf. Dieser Kampf war wichtig, weil er einer der brutalsten Kämpfe der Amerikaner in Deutschland war, und weil es auch der allerletzte große Kampfeinsatz für amerikanische Truppen in Deutschland war. Die Reaktionen und Reportage der Bevölkerung und Truppen werden die Geschichte dieser Ereignisse weitererzählen
UMW Rare Books Spotlight
No full textIn collaboration with Dr. Antonio Barrenechea, professor in English, and UMW Special Collections/Archives we were able to create a few videos (3 currently but 5 total planned) showcasing first edition books held in the university’s rare book holdings. This project was proposed to me by Dr. Barrenechea and the head of Special Collections/Archives, Angie Kemp. Dr. Barrenechea picked the books and wrote the script for each showcase. My job was to help film and edit the videos in order to bring his vision to life. The aim of this project was to show the depth of the University’s archives and hopefully spread awareness of a really neat on-campus resource that is, in my opinion, under appreciated
Ch. 8: Engaging Group-based Exercises
No full textThis chapter appears in the book, Teaching Human Geography: Theories and Practice in Thinking Geographically. Edited by Erin Hogan Fouberg and Janet Stuhrenberg Smith.
Chapter abstract: This chapter contains eight exercises that each incorporates elements of geographic thinking, the development of threshold concepts and a connection to the personalization of learning. This set of exercises involve student engagement in a class setting in which students work collaboratively with other students in groups exploring topics including gender equality, sustainable development goals, global climate change, and commodity chains. Additionally, students examine different perspectives through a guided discussion/debate and by imagining their lives as either Antiguans or visiting tourists. Many of these exercises involve thinking and reasoning with images, maps, and data.https://scholar.umw.edu/geography_books/1004/thumbnail.jp
From Enslaver to White Savior: The Blackford Family and the Memory of the American Colonization Society
Get PDFPart of the same family but with a generation dividing them, Mary Berkeley Minor Blackford and her grandson, Launcelot Minor Blackford Junior, shared much of the same sentiment toward the American Colonization Society (ACS). Mary, active in the ACS before the Civil War, supported the organization despite criticisms wielded by abolitionists of the period. Mary looked to the ACS for salvation from discussions about the morality of enslavement while enjoying the comforts that the thought of an all-white America brought her. Launcelot, writing fifty years after Mary’s passing at the beginning of an emerging national conversation about Black civil rights, looked to the memory of Mary to absolve his family of contributions to the Confederate cause and combat new conversations about race in America. Mary and Launcelot, though from different periods in American history, looked to the ACS and its memory to imagine a world where they had no complicity in racial oppression while supporting a movement that’s main mission resisted Black perspectives and progress in the United States
West Sanctions Russian Aviation, But Moscow Decides to Keep Planes Flying Despite Risks
No full textWhen the U.S. and its allies slapped sanctions on Russia for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, severing aviation links was at the top of the list. Direct flight vanished and Russian airlines lost access to spare parts for their foreign airplanes. In retaliation, Vladimir Putin’s regime impounded foreign aircraft and shut off the world’s largest air space to countries imposing sanctions. Not since the early 1980s—when the U.S. suspended routes to the USSR over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, repression in Poland and downing of a Korean Air Lines plane—have aviation ties between the two countries dipped so low. Aviation sanctions today are having an impact but come with a major risk. If the fatal crash of a jetliner killing hundreds is linked to the lack of spare parts, Putin will blame sanctions and the West. The stakes are high as Russia seeks to use any issue from cluster bombs to soccer to widen cracks in Western unity over Ukraine
A Targeted Study on the Match between Cybersecurity Higher Education Offerings and Workforce Needs
No full textThe Cybersecurity Workforce Gap is a call to action on a two-fold problem: the worldwide shortage of qualified cybersecurity workers and the need to develop a growing highly-knowledgeable, agile, well-trained cybersecurity workforce. This paper presents a methodological approach to achieve this goal in the Northern Virginia area. The area is characterized by an abundance of cyber-related industries, government agencies, and large businesses with high demand of skilled cybersecurity workers; at the same time, academic institutions offer cutting edge education and training access to highly capable students. Central to this methodology is the collaboration between local academia and industry and it includes: an examination of current literature to identify common practices in the development of cybersecurity talent; a Workforce Needs Survey answered by key local industry partners, followed by a thorough analysis of the results; and a review and analysis of the existing cybersecurity educational programs and experiential learning offered by Northern Virginia academic institutions. The outcome is to identify existing pathways to meet workforce needs as well as to reveal gaps in educational programs that need to be addressed. Finally, much needed recommendations for employers, academic institutions and students are presented
A Picture is Worth 1000 Words: Teaching Science Communication with Graphical Abstract Assignments
No full textAn important part of scientific training in undergraduate curriculum involves teaching students how to effectively communicate in science. Scientific writing and oral presentations are important parts of most science classes. The same cannot be said about a new and emerging aspect of many recent scientific articles: graphical abstracts. In recent years, many scientific journals have adopted graphical abstracts as a way to capture both the scientific audience and increase visibility on social media platforms. Graphical abstracts are becoming the norm for many journals; however, there is no equivalent training in undergraduate classes that teaches students the intricate skills of efficient graphical design. In this paper, we share our course design and discuss how students can be taught to design better experiments and excel in communicating their research findings through graphical abstracts
Programmatic Innovations That Accord with the Retention of Women in STEM Careers
No full textGender representation in the physical sciences remains inequitable and continues to lag behind other fields. Even though there exists adequate documentation regarding programmatic postures, difficulties persist within the physics discipline. In this paper, we present innovative, programmatic elements over an 8-year period at an undergraduate, liberal arts, physics program. These elements were added in response to the following two questions: “What practices cultivate an increase of physics major numbers in an undergraduate, liberal arts setting?” and “What practices facilitate a depth of experience for individual physics graduates?” Some of these innovations aligned with published, “best practices” for undergraduate physics programs, while others were novel to the program\u27s context. Within this 8-year period, alterations were separated into curricular and co-curricular elements. Innovations are described, and data are presented in 3-year timeframes before, during, and after their implementation. The number of total majors and graduates increased, including a 200% increase of women degree recipients compared to the previous 10 years. This boosted average graduation rates for women above the national average (30% \u3e 20%). Moreover, women were retained within the undergraduate physics major at a higher percentage during this time period when compared to men in the program. Lastly, these women physics majors maintained careers in science advancement fields at a rate of 80±% after ≤ 5 years post-graduation. While this paper presents a singular case study, the purpose is two-fold: (a) to validate quantitatively the work of national physics organizations within the context of a liberal arts institution, and (b) to suggest that a multi-level approach is most efficacious when considering programmatic innovations