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College Faculty Receive Quest Awards
The VCU Presidential Research Quest Fund recently announced its fifth round of funding awards totaling more than $850,000. For 2013, 18 awards involving 23 faculty members received funding, including Wendy Kliewer, chair of the Department of Psychology, Indika Arachchige, Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry, and Nicholas Farrell, Professor in the Department of Chemistry. Dr. Kliewer's collaborative research was highlighted by VCU News. |
Support for Student Veterans
The VCU Student Veterans Association and Scholarship Sharing @ VCU are collecting donations for a project for incoming student veterans and their dependents this fall. They are collecting donated items for "Military Back to School Support Kits." Monetary donations are also being accepted for the creation of a scholarship fund for military veterans and their families. WRIC explains how to make a donation. |
Are You Funded by the NIH?
Brigette Pfister, Director of Proposal Development, is working to make sure that awards funded by the NIH are in compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy, which requires scientists to submit final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts to the digital archive PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication. Brigette will be contacting you individually if your project shows up on the “noncompliant” list. OSP's blog has a great deal more detail. |
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Chemistry Dept. Among Most Diverse
 Department chair Scott Gronert has compiled data which demonstrates that our Department of Chemistry was 10th nationwide and 3rd among non-historically black colleges and universities in Bachelor’s degrees awarded to African American students between 2009 and 2011 (the last three years that data is available). Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics, Scott tells us the department also graduated more African-American students than any other College or University in Virginia over the same period. See the complete list here. |
Congratulations Darcy Mays!
 Darcy Mays, Chair of the Department of Statistical Sciences and Operations Research, was recently awarded the Paul Minton Service Award from the Southern Regional Council of Statistics. VCU now has the most winners of this award, named after former Dean of VCU's School of Humanities and Sciences Paul Minton. Details about the award are on our blog. |
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CHS to Conduct Alumni Survey
The College of Humanities and Sciences is working to enhance our overall institutional image and cultivate a deeper, more meaningful relationship with our alumni. To that end, we have started the process of surveying our alumni. We want to learn their perceptions of the College, the value of the education we deliver, and create a set of meaningful goals for future fund-raising. The first phase of the survey was a series of focus groups with targeted alumni. Using information from those groups, the second phase will be sending an e-survey out to all alumni with email addresses in August and September. Results of this survey will be released during the fall semester. |
VCU Day at Nationals Park
 Attention baseball fans: VCU Day at Nationals Park is July 20, 2013! See the Washington Nationals take on the LA Dodgers at Nationals Park, 1500 S. Capitol St. SE, Washington, D.C. 20003. Pregame with VCU Alumni begins at 4:35 p.m. at the Miller Lite Scoreboard Walk Bar. Game begins at 7:05 p.m. Deadline to purchase tickets is June 27th! VCU Alumni has complete details on its Facebook page. |
We Need News!
Summer is quiet, and we need interesting information to share in this newsletter! You can help. Our news and event forms automatically forward to Gregg Johnson, Shirley McDaniel and to VCU News. We will submit your news and events to the VCU Calendar, Telegram, this newsletter and our social media outlets. Keep your colleagues informed by keeping us informed! |
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Assistant professor of biology Andrew Eckert is a 35-year-old plant evolutionary biologist with a lifelong passion for tree biology and genetics. “I’ve always been fascinated by trees,” Andrew tells us, “so when you go outside and look around, most of the plants you see are trees – and trying to understand their biology, their genetics, where they came from – sort of just naturally flows from trees being the dominant plant form on the landscape for me....” 
Stephanie Millican began working for VCU in 1988 as an office assistant after graduating high school one year previously. She tells us she enjoys her work environment mainly for the people, and the growing number of students – many of whom she has gotten to know personally. “My student, that’s sitting right out here, gave me an invitation to her graduation and my invitation was addressed to ‘Mom,” Stephanie said, “So yeah, we’re a family.” 
