Nota Bene: 2016-2019 Batten Professorships

May 3, 2016

Since 2004, the distinction of Batten Professorship has been awarded to Virginia Wesleyan College professors for faculty excellence in teaching and scholarship, community contributions, and passion for inspiring excellence in others. Faculty recipients of this prestigious honor carry the title for three academic years and are rewarded with special development funding that enhances the quality of teaching throughout the College.

This year, I’m pleased to share the newly named Batten Professors for 2016-2019:

Dr. Paul Ewell, Associate Professor of Management, Business, and Economics, and Director of the MBA Program

Dr. Kevin Kittredge, Associate Professor of Chemistry

Dr. Taryn Myers, Assistant Professor of Psychology

Ms. Sharon Swift, Professor of Art

Please join me in congratulating these outstanding members of our faculty for this much-deserved recognition.

Kudos Virginia Wesleyan College softball -- ODAC Champs!

Prof. Doug Kennedy and students from REC 206 "Management of Recreation and Leisure Studies I" present Rhonda Marsh, the Development Director at YMCA Camp Silver Beach, with their fundraising efforts toward the "Send a Kid to Camp Fund." This year's fundraising total of $2,552 will send six children to camp during the summer. Since the fund's inception in 2003, VWC students have raised over $62,000, helping over 100 children go to camp.

A gathering of "Friends of Marlin Ministries" today before chapel.

The only "up" of "The Week in Review" (Sports) in today's The Virginian-Pilot -- Virginia Wesleyan College golfer Evan Cox.

Kudos to our Vice President for Enrollment, David Waggoner, on a nice interview on the enrollment process in The Virginian-Pilot: http://pilotonline.com/news/local/columnist/bayside-beacon/bayside-beacon-the-agony-of-college-rejection-letters/article_f24398a3-54b8-5755-98be-3d46d8c5a200.html

Spring Fling '16 now in the Jane P. Batten Student Center.

A bit of our history spotted in downtown Norfolk.

The photo gallery from Wednesday's social of The Wesleyan Society:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/virginiawesleyancollege/sets/72157667669118086

Nota Bene: CSRF's Founding Fellow Robert C. Nusbaum

April 29, 2016

Monday evening, April 25, was a very special occasion for the Virginia Wesleyan College community. We recognized and honored Robert C. Nusbaum for his founding vision in establishing and supporting our Center for the Study of Religious Freedom.

I presented Bob with a special citation honoring him as the Center's Founding Fellow, prior to the Justine L. Nusbaum Lecture which is named for his mother. The excellent lecture this year, “Spirit Voices of an Emerging African-American Community in 18^th-Century America," was delivered by Dr. Cassandra L. Newby-Alexander, Professor of History and Director of the Joseph Jenkins Roberts Center for African Diaspora Studies at Norfolk State University.

 

In November 1995, Bob Nusbaum wrote to the President of the College and proposed the idea for a Center for the Study of Religious Freedom. In his letter, he wrote, “I venture to guess that more persons have been slaughtered in the name of religion than from any other cause… in this continuing saga of man’s inhumanity to man, the one bright light that goes beyond mere tolerance is Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Freedom. It laid the foundation for the First Amendment, and has served as a beacon for all enlightened constitutions ever since.”

 

That letter led to the creation of a center to promote religious freedom and understanding of different faiths. The establishment of the Center for the Study of Religious Freedom at Virginia Wesleyan College was announced in September 1996.
 

Bob Nusbaum and his brother, V.H. “Pooch” Nusbaum, later established the Justine L. Nusbaum Endowed Lectureship in honor of their mother, who was well known for her lifelong volunteer service and dedication to humanitarian causes.

 

More recently, Bob has established an endowment to enable the Center to hold an annual student essay contest. Beginning in the fall, during the 20^th anniversary of the Center’s founding, we will launch an essay contest for VWC students to write about issues of religious freedom. Prize money will be awarded to the authors of winning essays.
 

Bob is concerned that many young people do not understand the heritage of religious freedom. His dream – and our dream, too – would be for every VWC student to graduate with an understanding of the challenges and obstacles that humanity has overcome in attaining religious freedom. Moreover, it is important for our students to have an appreciation of the need to be ever vigilant to maintain those rights.

The founding of the Center for the Study of Religious Freedom, the establishment of the Justine L. Nusbaum Lectureship, and now the Student Religious Freedom Essay Contest—Bob is the driving force behind all of these. It was a pleasure to welcome him, his family and friends to campus and to express our gratitude for his commitment to Virginia Wesleyan College in this vital way.

Congratulations to the Center's coordinators, Dr. Craig Wansink and Kelly Jackson, for hosting a full schedule of enlightening, informative events this year, and for fulfilling so well Bob Nusbaum's founding vision for understanding and promoting religious freedom.