MW Faculty Loses Eight
2 min read
By SARAH FINNEY
Next fall, eight faculty faces will be missing from the ranks of Mary Washington’s professors.
Three members of the faculty announced that they will be resigning from the University at the end of the academic year for personal or professional reasons. Five others will retire following this semester.
Rosemary Barra, interim vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty, describes the basic procedure occurring for the search of retiring professors.
“All of the professors notified me of their plans to retire prior to the start of the current academic year, so we initiated faculty searches for their replacements. We have already completed some of the searches and anticipate filling the rest of the positions soon. The new faculty will start at the University on Aug. 16, 2008,” she said.
The plan for replacing these faculty members involves 22 searches going on this year.
The three departing professors who are not retiring are Stephen Farnsworth, political science and international affairs; Jill Mitten, theatre and dance; and Alejandro Cervantes-Carson, sociology and anthropology.
Farnsworth said his reason for resigning is due to course overload. He will continue to teach at George Mason University. Mitten’s and Cervantes-Carson’s department chairs declined to comment.
Judith Crissman, chemistry; Stephen Griffin, art and art history; Thomas Moeller, psychology; W. Brown III Morton, historic preservation; and Arthur Tracy, history, are all retiring their positions after a collective 159 years of teaching at Mary Washington.
As Moeller continues his final semester at the University, he reflects upon his positive experiences here.
“Teaching at Mary Washington has been an outstanding experience,” Moeller said. “I loved coming to work every day. I loved the small-college atmosphere, the camaraderie and collegiality of my fellow psychology department faculty members, and the interaction with the students.”
Professor Morton has similar feelings. “I will miss the classroom and the Department of Historic Preservation very much,” he said.
“I am, just now, in what I call a period of ‘anticipating nostalgia.’ I value my students, past and present, for their keen interest in historic preservation and for what I have learned from them,” Morton said.
