October 7, 2014

1) Congratulations to Corrie Williamson (Seminar class of 2000), recipient of the 2014 Perugia Press Prize for a First or Second Book by a Woman for her new book Sweet Husk. Corrie holds a M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Arkansas, where she was a Walton Fellow and Director of the Writers in the Schools Program. She is currently teaching at Helena College in Montana. Her poems have recently appeared in The Missouri Review, The Journal, The Colorado Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Shenandoah.  Corrie was Poetry Daily’s Featured Poet on August 23 (http://poems.com/feature.php?date=16306).

2) Josh Chapman, CS alumnus, current CHS co-director, and graduate of Yale University, has been involved in a spirited national debate this summer concerning Ivy League education and American meritocracy. You can read his opinion piece in The New Republic (July 24) at http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118848/new-republics-ivy-league-takedown-destructive-high-schoolers. Josh also participated in a live interview and debate on the same topic on October 1 on WYPR National Public Radio out of Baltimore.

3) Chuck Wooldridge, who attended CS in the late 1970’s and early 80’s, stopped by campus last spring with his wife and children. Chuck, an assistant professor of history at Lehman College, City University of New York, is anticipating the publication of his new book on Nanjing and the age of utopian visions by University of Washington Press in the next year. Chuck holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University, a M.A. from University of Washington, and a B.A. from Swarthmore College. Read an interview with Chuck at: http://blog.historians.org/2013/06/aha-member-spotlight-chuck-wooldridge/#sthash.ziCwBf9j.dpuf .

4) Audrey Stephenson (Seminar class of 2010) graduated from Salem High School as a Distinguished Scholar (above 4.0 GPA) and received the school-wide World Language Award due to completing Spanish 5 and French 3. She danced this past year in the Senior Company of the Southwest Virginia Ballet. Audrey is currently a freshman at the University of Virginia.

5) Brian Stephenson (Seminar class of 2008) is attending the Engineering School at Virginia Tech. This past June, he was training in West Virginia to be a white water rafting guide. He spends his summers working at Camp Powattan, a Boy Scout camp outside of Dublin.