News Updates
Edited by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
- Former CIA offical to speak at Waynesboro dinner
- Survey of Virginia trout streams planned for April
- Bridgewater College to honor two at Founders Day
Former CIA official to speak at Friends dinner The annual dinner meeting of the Friends of the Waynesboro Public Library will be held Tuesday April 20, at the Waynesboro Country Club, at 6 p.m., with a keynote speech from Frederick P. Hitz, a senior fellow at the University of Virginia’s Center for National Security Law.
Since 1998 Hitz has been lecturing at the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University and at the University of Virginia School of Law and Department of Politics. He has served extensively in the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, including in the CIA’s clandestine service, as legislative counsel to the director of Central Intelligence, and as deputy director for Europe in the Directorate of Operations.
Hitz was appointed the first statutory inspector general of the CIA by President George H.W. Bush. He served in that capacity from 1990-1998 when he retired. He was awarded the Distinguished Intelligence Medal by the director of Central Intelligence in 1998 and received a Resolution of Commendation from the U.S. Senate upon the fifth anniversary of his tenure as CIA inspector general in 1995. Among the many investigations he led was the Aldrich Ames betrayal.
He has written extensively about espionage and intelligence issues, including in 2004 a book entitled The Great Game: the Myth and Reality of Espionage, published by Knopf. In April, 2008, a second book entitled Why Spy? Espionage in an Era of Uncertainty by Mr. Hitz was published by St. Martin’s Press.
Reservations and checks for the dinner should be received by April 12. Please make checks payable to Friends of the Waynesboro Library. Mail checks to: Ann Ekman, 910 Fairway Drive, Waynesboro, VA 22980
Survey of Virginia trout streams planned for April The Virginia Trout Stream Sensitivity Survey is designed to track the effects of acidic deposition and other factors that determine water quality and related ecological conditions in Virginia’s native trout streams.
The VTSSS 2010 survey will be the third regional survey conducted with the assistance of Trout Unlimited and other volunteer organizations. Previous surveys were conducted in 1987 and 2000. About 458 stream sites will be sampled in 34 counties, representing most of the mountain headwater streams in Virginia that support reproducing brook trout.
Over the years since program inception, VTSSS data and findings have proven important to both local resource management and to the development, evaluation, and implementation of national air pollution control policies.
The 2010 survey will be conducted during the last seven days of April 2010.
Volunteer sample collectors are needed. See the VTSSS 2010 website for information.
The VTSSS 2010 website is http://swas.evsc.virginia.edu/VTSSS-2010/Survey.html.
Bridgewater College to honor two at Founders Day Bridgewater College will celebrate 130 years of its founding on Tuesday, April 6, presenting two awards during the 11 a.m. convocation in the Carter Center for Worship and Music.
President Phillip C. Stone will recognize two faculty members for excellence in teaching. Melanie K. Laliker will receive the Ben and Janice Wade Outstanding Teaching Award, and Mary Frances Heishman, professor of health and exercise science, will be presented the Martha B. Thornton Faculty Recognition Award.
The Founder’s Day observance at Bridgewater commemorates the April 3, 1854, birth of Flory, who at age 26 began a new school at Spring Creek in Rockingham County. The school, first known as Spring Creek Normal School, moved to Bridgewater two years later, in 1882, and changed its name to Bridgewater College on July 12, 1889.
About the honorees:
Melanie K. Laliker: When she was a junior in college at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Melanie K. Laliker did what a lot of students do. She “floundered” about what to major in and what to do with her life.
“I took a communication class and got hooked,” said Laliker, an associate professor of communication studies who has been at Bridgewater since 2000. “I took four more classes with the same professor during my undergraduate program. Even though he was a professor at a large university, he taught and interacted with his students like he was at a small college.”
“He helped me,” she continued, “to realize my own potential and pushed me harder than I’d ever been pushed academically.”
The push worked. Laliker went on to earn her master’s degree in interpersonal communications at UCF and her doctorate in the same discipline from the University of Georgia in Athens. Today, she teaches a host of communications courses that includes interpersonal communication, communication theory, oral communication and communicating sex and gender.
Like that professor at UCF, Laliker seeks not only to impart knowledge, but to inspire, to challenge and to serve as a role model both for students who know what they want to do in life, and those who don’t.
Laliker, who is chair of the communication studies department, has also served on numerous committees and councils dealing with nearly every aspect of student and faculty life at Bridgewater College. A presenter and participant at national and international conferences, she additionally has written scholarly articles for Communication Monographs, Communication Education and Communication Studies. This semester she is on sabbatical, working on a research project investigating communication between romantic partners on Facebook.
Laliker, a native of Melbourne, Fla., is also a member of Omicron Delta Kappa, a national leadership honor society.
Bridgewater alumni Ben and Janice Wade established the award in 1998 to recognize excellence in classroom teaching. Dr. Ben Wade taught religion and served as executive assistant to the president and provost at Bridgewater from 1979-85.
Mary Frances Heishman: Some years ago, a Bridgewater College volleyball player had t-shirts made of “The Three Faces of Coach Heishman.” The three faces were sad, happy and mad. All three showed the same picture – of a smiling Mary Frances Heishman. That optimism and confidence, both on and off the court, is part of her 40-year legacy at Bridgewater.
Heishman, class of 1966, didn’t have aspirations to be a volleyball coach. She hadn’t played the sport and knew only its basics, which she taught in her physical-education classes. But when some BC students asked the school to form a volleyball team in 1975, the role of coach fell to Heishman – at the students’ request.
During her coaching tenure at Bridgewater, Heishman compiled 653 victories, which ended in 2008 when she stepped down as head volleyball coach to focus on full-time teaching in the Health and Physical Education Department. And while she said she misses having contact with the players in a sports setting, she said she draws pleasure and professional sustenance from teaching them, and other students, in the classroom.
“My teaching philosophy is to help each of my students develop to their fullest potential mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually,” Heishman said. “I want to help my students develop self-esteem, self-understanding and personal responsibility, so they will become intrinsically motivated individuals and achieve their highest potential.”
A native of Montezuma, Va., Heishman played three sports while a physical education major at Bridgewater – hockey, basketball and tennis. After Bridgewater, she earned her master’s degree at James Madison University and her doctorate from the University of Virginia. She returned to BC in 1970 as head lacrosse and assistant basketball coach. After establishing the volleyball program, Heishman saw it become an official varsity sport for the College in 1976.
Between 1975 and 2008, Heishman earned seven Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) Coach of the Year honors, coached seven ODAC Players of the Year and 37 All-ODAC first-team honorees.
Today, Heishman has teaching responsibilities in Health Education and Adapted Physical Education and Recreation.
“I try to create a climate of success by having a positive attitude and seeing the best in each of my students,” said Heishman. “I want them to know I care about them as individuals while they are here, as well as later in their lives. We are preparing students for a full, productive life, and I take great pride and satisfaction in their accomplishments when I observe them being so successful in their careers.”
In addition to teaching, Heishman has also conducted original research – including an independent study, “Provisions and Services for the Handicapped in the United Kingdom,” that required travel to England – and written for publications such as The Sport Psychologist and Coaching Volleyball. She has served as president of the Virginia Women’s Lacrosse Association and been involved in many other professional organizations. On campus, she has been intensely active on committees focused on such concerns as faculty and student life, education, curriculum development and convocations.
The Martha B. Thornton Faculty Recognition Award, established in 1990, honors faculty who “provide caring concern for students well beyond the role as teacher.” Thornton, professor of religion emerita, modeled that style of teaching.
Bridgewater College, a private, four-year liberal arts college, enrolls more than 1,500 students. Founded in 1880 and located in the Central Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, it was the state’s first private, coeducational senior college.
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