One alumna and two others appointed to Longwood Board of Visitors

July 2011

A Longwood University alumna and two others were appointed to the Longwood Board of Visitors by Gov. Bob McDonnell effective July 2011.

Marianne Moffat Radcliff ’92 of Richmond is vice president of Kemper Consulting and has held several positions in state government, including assistant secretary of transportation. The other new Board members were Thomas A. Johnson of Lynchburg, president of Thomas A. Johnson Furniture Co. Inc., and Jane Sheffield Maddux of Charlottesville, a retired businesswoman and community leader.

Radcliff has been a private sector lobbyist for 13 years and has worked since 2003 for Kemper Consulting, where her practice focuses on transportation, procurement, local government, natural resources and budget issues. She worked previously as a lobbyist for five years for Williams Mullen, a Richmond law firm.

Radcliff majored in political science and minored in history and psychology at Longwood, where she met her husband, Matthew Radcliff ’91. She has a master of public administration degree from Bowling Green State University.

169 educators attend Summer Literacy Institute

July 2011

Longwood’s eighth annual Summer Literacy Institute on July 14-15 attracted 169 educators from across the.

Award-winning children’s author Vaunda Micheaux Nelson was the keynote speaker at the institute, which was sponsored by by the Literacy and Culture and School Library Media programs, both of which are graduate programs in the College of Education and Human Services. The event attracts school librarians, reading specialists, classroom teachers and principals. Some participants earn recertification points, and others attend the institute in conjunction with a hybrid online course.

Student selected for study abroad grant from Phi Kappa Phi national honor society

July 2011

Longwood student Ellery Ruther was one of 45 college and university students from across the country to be selected for a study abroad grant from Phi Kappa Phi national honor society.

Ruther, double-majoring in biology and German, was chosen to study at Heidelberg University in Germany from February through June 2012. She was one of 444 applicants for the annual round of 45 $1,000 grants for undergraduates. She was the only student from a Virginia college or university to be selected.

Longwood has been affiliated with the program at Heidelberg University for American students since the early 1990s.

Chesapeake Bay is focus of course for science teachers

August 2011

Science teachers and Longwood students participated in a four-week course on the Chesapeake Bay in summer 2011.

The course—Summer of Learning: Science Teachers Investigating the Chesapeake Environment (SOLstice)—brought together Longwood faculty from ecology, chemistry, physics and mathematics with practicing school teachers and Longwood students who plan to be science teachers. Scientists and natural resource professionals from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Clean Virginia Waterways and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality provided additional lessons about the Chesapeake Bay, its health and citizens’ roles in its future.

The course (July 11-Aug. 5) included a week at Longwood’s Hull Springs Farm in Westmoreland County, a week on the Longwood campus and two weeks of online instruction. Participants learned scientific investigation skills, and one goal was to prepare teachers to offer meaningful watershed experiences for students.

Longwood named to two ‘best colleges’ lists

August 2011

Longwood was named to two prestigious “best colleges” lists in August 2011.

For the second year, Longwood was included as one of the best colleges in the United States in the annual survey published by Forbes magazine. The list of 650 undergraduate institutions, compiled with research from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, is based on 11 factors measuring the quality of the education each school provides, the experiences of its students and the achievements of its graduates. The list represents the top 20 percent of all undergraduate institutions.

In addition, the university was again one of the best colleges in the Southeast, according to The Princeton Review. The education services company selected Longwood as one of 135 institutions it recommends in the “Best in the Southeast” section of its 2012 Best Colleges: Region by Region survey. For this project, The Princeton Review asks students attending the schools to rate their schools on several issues—from the accessibility of their professors to quality of the campus food—and answer questions about themselves, their fellow students and their campus life.