Campus Events

Career Development: Styles for hire! Your future just got brighter! Shop the latest career wear, shoes, jewelry, handbags, luggage and beyond and receive 30 - 50% off as you build or enhance your professional wardrobe. VWU students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends are invited to participate. Contact Alice Jones, Director of Career Development for more information.

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The Marlin Mural Festival will transform the Neil Britton Art Gallery into a venue for experimental mural and installation artworks by students and members of the VWU community. The creation of works will unfold over an extended period, and the exhibition will pay tribute to the creative process of individuals and collaborations that culminate in finished artworks. 

Advising Weeks for Spring Registration begin on October 2. Prepare for 2024 Spring Registration by visiting Registration Station.

Registration Station

Come home for Homecoming and Family Weekend, Marlins! Join us for a weekend of fall fun and festivities October 6 and 7. Check out the exciting lineup of events.

Schedule of events

After a day of workshops and festivals together, Virginia Wesleyan Camerata and choirs from area high schools join together for a celebratory performance under the direction of Dr. Jamie Hillman. $15 admission; limited free tickets for VWU students, faculty and staff.

The Wesleyan Choirs, Orchestra, and Theatre Department join together for a collaborative production as part of homecoming weekend. Free admission.

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During the last year it has been a rare week when the relationship between Disney World and the state of Florida hasn’t been in the news. But different challenges existed during Disney’s first 100 years. Although the company’s major successes transformed filmmaking and culture, it also had its share of unfinished projects, unmet expectations, and box-office misses. Few people today, for instance, remember Disney comics or Disney’s misstep with “The Watcher in the Woods” (1980), a horror film that starred Bette Davis. At the same time, gems like “The Gnome-Mobile” (1967) have been overlooked, even during a time when eco-fiction is seen as more relevant. And “Babes in Toyland” (1961) didn't turn out as expected. Reflecting on her most recent book, Forgotten Disney: Essays on the Lesser-Known Productions, VWU Professor of Media and Communication Kathy Merlock Jackson points to some forgotten challenges of a company many of us take for granted.

Free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Robert Nusbaum Center at 757.455.3129 or NusbaumCenter@vwu.edu.

Session I | 11:00 a.m. – Noon
Hear Bobby Klepper’s heartwarming story about how his service dog, Recon, not only saved his life but made life for him worth living again. Bobby is a retired member of the Virginia State Police, Vietnam-era veteran, and former Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) technician (a "bomb tech"). Please join Bobby and Recon to learn about their special journey and deep bonds.

Session II | Noon – 1:00 p.m.
After witnessing the positive impact dogs provided to troops returning from overseas deployments, Brooke Corson founded Mutts With A Mission in 2008 to provide specially trained service dogs to assist disabled veterans, first responders, and law enforcement professionals. Learn about how Recon was trained, meet some of the puppies in training, and find out how you can become a puppy raiser and give someone the life-changing gift of a service dog. 

Free and open to the public. Sponsored by the Robert Nusbaum Center in partnership with the VWU Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice. For more information, contact the Nusbaum Center at 757.455.3129 or NusbaumCenter@vwu.edu.

Visit Virginia Wesleyan University during Marlins Day Open House on October 21! Tour VWU's beautiful campus; meet our students, faculty, and staff; learn about academic offerings, scholarship opportunities, the financial aid process, and more. Lunch is on us!

Register for a visit today!

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Contemporary playwright Sarah Ruhl’s lyrical, poetic retelling of the classic Orpheus myth centering on Eurydice’s reunion with her Father in an “Alice in Wonderland”-style Underworld. Written by Ruhl in response to the loss of her own Father, “Eurydice” is a mystical depiction of the bittersweet yet joyful conversations we continue to have with people and places we have loved and lost. . . and a testament to the unbreakable ties that bind us. $15 General Admission; $10 Seniors, Students, Military, Educators, First Responders; Free to VWU students, faculty and staff.

“Eurydice” is presented by Arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com

 Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 26-28, 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, Oct. 29, 2 p.m.

TICKETS

Thomas Brown Ph.D highlights an aspect of policing in 18th-century Charleston, South Carolina, one in which informal policing meant that white men could stop any Black person and take property from them if they suspected it was stolen. In addition, from his research on “Fugitive Slave Advertisements in The City Gazette: Charleston, South Carolina, 1787-1797,” Brown shares a series of human dramas of courage and resistance to unjust authority and reflects on what fugitive slave ads tell us and on why these individual narratives are significant in understanding slavery and law enforcement. Thomas Brown, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Criminal Justice-Sociology at VWU, and is a scholar of ethnic nationalist movements,transracial individuals and groups, racial boundaries in U.S. history, terrorism, gangs, and organized crime.

Free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Robert Nusbaum Center at 757.455.3129 or NusbaumCenter@vwu.edu.

Within the last year, artificial intelligence has come to affect almost every aspect of higher education. This raises philosophical questions about what constitutes authorship, but it also highlights how students can grow in qualitatively and quantitatively different ways. During this session, VWU faculty showcase four pathways they are using to create new experiences for students. Join us for four brief presentations, along with a discussion of new challenges and possibilities in higher education. Presenters include: Rebecca John, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Education; William McConnell, Ph.D., Batten Associate Professor of Education and Director of Teacher Education; Mandy Reinig, M.A., Director of Global Engagement; and Craig Wansink, Ph.D. Batten Professor of Religious Studies and Joan P. and Macon F. Brock, Jr. Director of the Robert Nusbaum Center. 

Free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Robert Nusbaum Center at 757.455.3129 or NusbaumCenter@vwu.edu.

Why do so many communities not trust the police? Why do so many police not trust the communities they serve? In this talk, Robert Perkins highlights how the current state of affairs in policing necessitates a reinvigorated commitment to the critical components of community policing. This involves a critical analysis of the unconscious biases that everyone has and the deliberate cultivation of strategies that increase self-awareness, mutual understanding, and—ultimately—trust. When trust is so elusive, how do we move forward? Please join us for this annual Cookson Lecture with Robert K. Perkins, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology at Norfolk State University, and Program Coordinator for the Master of Arts in Criminal Justice and the Master of Arts in Urban Affairs at NSU.

Free and open to the public. The annual Cookson Lecture honors the legacy of Catharine Cookson, Ph.D., J.D., who was the founding director of the Robert Nusbaum Center, formerly the Center for the Study of Religious Freedom. For more information, call 757.455.3129.

In a world in which UFOs continue to raise questions, in a world in which billionaires seek to travel to space, and in a world in which “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” continue to hold people’s imaginations, how do religions approach outer space? How do they affect space exploration? What do religions say about worlds beyond this one? Join Eric Mazur, Professor of Religious Studies at Virginia Wesleyan University, and editor of “Religion and Outer Space” (published July 2023), as he introduces some of the varied relationships between outer space and the beliefs, scripture, and practices of religion. He also explores the ways in which religion and myth have had a profound impact how we’ve come to visualize the American space program.

Free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Robert Nusbaum Center at 757.455.3129 or NusbaumCenter@vwu.edu.

The Virginia Wesleyan Orchestra, under the direction of Justin Stanley, presents a variety of classic and new works. Free admission.

While white Americans have mostly had positive encounters with police, many people of color distrust and even fear law enforcement officers because of a long history of violence and discrimination. Many police chiefs and officers want more accountability and fairness, but policing policies and reform require crucial decisions to be made. In this deliberation, facilitated by VWU students trained by the Robert Nusbaum Center, participants discuss three broad options for rethinking police practices, each suggesting a different set of reforms and different ways of thinking about how to keep communities safe. The three options offer a framework to tackle tough questions: What should we do? What are the risks and potential tradeoffs? What actions can we support and what might we be willing to give up?

Free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Robert Nusbaum Center at 757.455.3129 or NusbaumCenter@vwu.edu.

Virginia Wesleyan Bravura, Camerata, and Vox Vera join with the Virginia Wesleyan Orchestra to present a concert of holiday carols and classics. $10 admission; free to VWU students, faculty and staff

Friday, December 1, 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, December 2, 4 p.m.