Benefits
UR Online adding new features
The Alumni Relations Office has launched an updated UR Online—the password-protected Web site that connects alumni to the University and each other.
Partnering with a new vendor, Kintera Inc., the alumni office has completely overhauled UR Online to make it more user-friendly. The service continues to reside at www.uronline.net and is prominently featured on the alumni relations Web site at www.richmond.edu/alumni.
“Our goal for the fall is to do everything that the old system did—only better,” says Robb Moore, ’94, director of UR Online in the alumni office.
The new system allows members to search the online alumni directory more easily. It provides online registration for alumni events, enhanced career networking features and permanent e-mail forwarding. New members of UR Online will receive richmond.edu e-mail addresses, while existing members will be able to switch to richmond.edu addresses or keep their uronline.net addresses if they prefer. Members also can control precisely how much information they want to include about themselves on the new system.
“For next year, we are considering several new features, such as class message boards, personal Web pages, blogging and podcasting,” Moore says. “We have a lot of room to grow with the new system, and the new features will be driven by alumni input.”
Alumni with questions about the new system should send e-mail to alumnioffice@richmond.edu or phone (804) 289-8026.
In addition to UR Online, Richmond alumni enjoy the following benefits.
Continuing Education Discounts: Alumni with bachelor’s degrees qualify for a 50 percent discount on many undergraduate credit classes in the School of Continuing Studies. Contact the school at (804) 289-8133 for details about this and other alumni discounts.
Library Services: Alumni may obtain a special borrower’s card free of charge. Alumni also enjoy free access to the Expanded Academic Index, a database of more than 2,000 scholarly journals, news magazines and newspapers.
Alumni Travel Programs: Great travel opportunities are available through the University of Richmond Alumni Association.
The Penn Club of New York: Alumni may obtain an affiliate membership in The Penn Club of New York. Call the membership office at (212) 403-6627 to request an application packet or to ask questions about the club’s services.
Staff
Moore and Bondy join alumni staff
The Alumni Relations Office has named Robb Moore, ’94, director of UR Online and associate director for volunteer involvement and outreach.
Moore joined the alumni office in April as project manager of the UR Online upgrade. (See related story above). Previously he was the University’s associate chaplain for nearly five years. In addition to managing UR Online, Moore will work closely with the UC/SCS Alumni Association and its board of directors.
The alumni office also has named Julie Bondy, ’06, assistant director for student and young graduate programming. She will be responsible for working with young grad councils across the country, managing the five- and 10-year reunion classes and promoting student engagement in the University of Richmond Alumni Association.
As a student, Bondy worked for Richmond’s Career Development Center.
Awards
Gibb wins UC/SCS alumni award
The University College/School of Continuing Studies Alumni Association has presented its 2006 Distinguished Alumni Award to Andrew Gibb, C’83.
Gibb is founder and managing partner of Commonwealth Commercial Partners, a commercial real estate company based in Richmond. For the past two years, the company has ranked among “The Rising 25,” the fastest-growing private companies in the Richmond metropolitan area.
Several years ago, Gibb endowed the Distinguished Alumni Award as the Gibb Family Distinguished Alumni Award. His daughter, Ashley, is a senior at the University.
Alumna wins national teaching recognition
Carolyn Bixiones Williamson, W’78, squeezed in tight for a group photo, the kind you examine 20 years later with a sentimental smile and a magnifying glass. She glanced nervously at the man standing next to her. He gave her a friendly nudge, and she elbowed him back.
The group included the 100 winners (two from each state) of the 2005 Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. The man standing next to Williamson was President George W. Bush.
“The first thing President Bush said to us as a group was, ‘Thank you for being a teacher,’” Williamson recalls. “Having the leader of the free world take time out of his day to extend his appreciation for a job takes ‘thank you’ to a whole new level.”
When she’s not rubbing elbows with the president, Williamson teaches advanced-placement calculus at Lee-Davis High School in Hanover County, Va.
Alumnae garner NSF fellowships
The National Science Foundation has awarded highly competitive graduate fellowships to Kristin Fuchs, ’04, and Rebecca Pompano, ’05. The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program provides scholarships of $30,000 a year for three years to outstanding graduate students who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics.
Fuchs is a second-year graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she is studying protein diffusion in living cells, using nuclear magnetic resonance and fluorescent techniques. Much of the previous research done in biochemistry has been done within man-made solutions, Fuchs says. “However, conditions may be different inside living cells. Thus, it’s important to move studies from in vitro to in vivo.”
Pompano is a first-year graduate student at the University of Chicago, where she is studying physical chemistry. She plans to conduct research on networks of neurons and gial cells and how they communicate with one another. Gial cells are the dominant cells in the brain. Not much is known about the role of gial cells in neural functioning. Pompano hopes her work will contribute to a better understanding of multiple sclerosis.
Both Fuchs and Pompano were Goldwater Scholars, another national science award, while undergraduates at Richmond.
Notables
Alumni on the move
Meredith Corp. has named Gayle Goodson Butler, W’73, editor-in-chief of Better Homes and Gardens magazine. With a circulation of 7.6 million, Better Homes and Gardens is one of the most successful magazines in the world.
Advion BioSciences has hired David B. Patteson, R’77, as its president and chief executive officer. Based in Ithaca, N.Y., Advion BioSciences is a privately held company that provides analytical services to global pharmaceutical companies.
Walter S. Felton Jr., R’66 and L’69, was elected chief judge by the Virginia Court of Appeals. He was elected to the intermediate appellate court by the General Assembly in 2002.
Reunion
Return of the merit scholars
The University is sponsoring a reunion for alumni who received merit scholarships. For more information, send e-mail to ebush@richmond.edu or call (804) 287-6418.
Books
Mercy in Her Eyes
“Mira Nair has described the process of filmmaking in the most intimate terms, as an act of love in which flowers are ‘coaxed to bloom,’” writes John Kenneth Muir, R’92, in his latest book, Mercy in Her Eyes.
Muir examines the films of Nair, one of the few female directors at the top of a male-dominated profession.
Muir’s book follows Nair from her college acting days in India to her theater work and photography studies at Harvard to her successful documentaries and acclaimed feature films. Muir writes that Nair’s movies “so often represent love letters to the India she knows and adores.”
Other alumni books
Chemistry Case Studies for Allied Health Students. Dr. Colleen Kelley, W’88, and Wendy Weeks. John Wiley & Sons (2006). This workbook gives students in the allied health fields a chance to apply what they are learning in chemistry classrooms to “pseudo real world scenarios.”
The Men Who Loved Trains: The Story of Men Who Battled Greed to Save an Ailing Industry. Rush Loving Jr., R’56. Indiana University Press (2006). Loving, a former associate editor of Fortune magazine, details the chaotic genealogy of Northeastern railroad mergers and acquisitions since the mid-1960s.
The Political Thought of Justice Antonin Scalia: A Hamiltonian on the Supreme Court. Dr. Jim Staab, L’88. Rowman & Littlefield (2006). Staab contends that Justice Scalia’s jurisprudence is influenced by Hamiltonian principles.
Trace of Innocence: A Billie Quinn Case. Erica Orloff, W’85. Silhouette Bombshell (2006). Orloff’s newest heroine, Billie Quinn, fights to clear a man convicted of murder. Quinn’s father and brother are mobsters, but she plays it “mostly straight.”
