Poetry Tree Tradition Marks Arrival of Spring

You can always tell when spring has arrived. Green grass. Singing birds. Bare feet. And the Poetry Tree.

Every spring, the weeping cherry tree between the corner of Main Hall and the Sundial sprouts green leaves, pink blossoms and verse. Students and faculty use ribbon to hang copies of their original and favorite poems to the tree’s branches.

Jim Peterson, an accomplished poet, playwright, novelist, and Randolph English professor, likes the tradition. “Poems and creativity are as organic to our lives as leaves are to trees. The impulse to shape our thoughts and feelings into a written form that can be shared is one that many people have, and the poetry tree provides them with a non-academic, non-threatening way to do it. And besides, it's just fun.”

Like the origin of many campus traditions, the history of the poetry tree is a bit mysterious.

Retired professor Mary Brewer Guthrow ‘65 places it back as far as the 1960s. “My best memory is that my professor, Margaret Raynal, hung the ‘Loveliest of Trees’ by A.E. Housman out there every year and then other poems from other poem-hangers appeared.” 

Like spring blossoms, however, the beauty is short lived. When the rains came this year, the ink ran, obscuring the words. If you look closely, though, you can still make out a phrase on one stained parchment... “Vita Abundantior.”

2013 Heritage Tree is historic cedar at Randolph College

A large tree that has graced front campus more more than 100 years was honored as Lynchburg’s Heritage Tree of 2013 today.

The award was announced in an Arbor Day ceremony at Lynchburg’s Sandusky Middle School. Mark Gilbert, Randolph’s grounds supervisor, accepted the award on behalf of the College.

Marge Denham speaks about the deodar cedar tree at Randolph College,
named the 2013 Heritage Tree, as Mark Gilbert shows a photo of the tree.

The honored tree is a deodar cedar that stands in front of Main Hall. A few massive branches sweep close to the ground, but there is enough room for a bench just under the tree to provide a great spot to relax, read, and enjoy the beauty of front campus. Gilbert and a forester from the city estimate that the tree is 120 to 140 years old—possibly older than the College.

“You cannot miss it—it is an absolutely gorgeous tree,” said Marge Denham, past president of the Lynchburg Tree Stewards, who presented the award to Gilbert.

Denham said the tree was nominated for the annual award last year. It was selected as Heritage Tree for its beauty and its size. “So many of the deodar cedars in our area are large, but we had a frost a number of years ago and it broke the tops off many of them. But yours was not injured,” she said.

After the Arbor Day ceremony, sixth graders at Sandusky Middle School helped plant trees around their campus.

The Cedar on front campus is just one of many trees that help beautify Randolph College. This afternoon, Randolph students in an organic gardening class planted fig trees on a hill overlooking the College’s tennis courts. Ludovic Lemaitre ’11, Randolph's sustainability coordinator, said the fig trees should bear fruit within two years.

Randolph's sustainability efforts lead to Earth Day media coverage

Emily Richards '16 talks with Tim Saunders from WDBJ 7.

Randolph College's sustainability efforts brought WDBJ 7's Lynchburg Bureau Chief Tim Saunders to campus for a special story on Earth Day. Saunders talked with Ludovic Lemaitre '11, Randolph's sustainability coordinator, and Emily Richards '16, a student involved in the Campus Conservation Nationals 2013, about the ways the College is trying to limit its impact on the environment.

On Monday, Randolph celebrated Earth Day with several events, including a special all-organic meal in the dining hall and a planting ceremony.

The Campus Conservation Nationals 2013 was another recent way Randolph has stepped up its sustainability efforts.The College was one of 200 colleges and universities participating in this competition, which was designed to promote electricity and water use reduction.

For almost three weeks, three Randolph College residence halls were engaged in a battle to see who can save the most energy. West Hall beat out Moore Hall and Webb Hall by decreasing its electricity consumption by 8 percent.

To learn more about the competition, go to this press release.


Check out WDBJ 7's coverage of the story at WDBJ7.com

Lemaitre '11, Randolph's sustainability coordinator,is interviewed about Randolph's sustainability efforts.

Students explore "Activism and Social Change" with American Culture Program

The 2013 American Culture Program took seven students to New Orleans, Nashville, and Memphis this week to explore "Activism and Social Change."

Students visited the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, volunteered with Common Grounds to rehabilitate the wetlands in New Orleans, and experienced the beignets at the world famous Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans.

Read more about their travels this year and view photos at their blog...
http://www.imaginaryonline.com/2013/04/

Fifth annual Symposium of Artists & Scholars showcases student and faculty work

Randolph College’s own Jim Peterson will kick off the fifth annual Symposium of Artists & Scholars April 18-19. Peterson, an accomplished poet, playwright, novelist, and Randolph English professor, will present “The Dynamic Stall” April 18 at 7 p.m. in Nichols Theatre.

Peterson has published four full-length collections of poetry, the Man Who Grew Silent, An Afternoon with K, The Owning Stone, and The Bob and Weave. He has also authored three chapbooks and a novel, The Paper Crown. Peterson’s poetry has appeared in several prestigious journals, and he has won awards including Benjamin Saltman Award from the Red Hen Press and a Fellowship in Poetry from the Virginia Arts Commission. His plays have also been produced in college and regional theatres. During his 15-year tenure at the College, Peterson has served as the coordinator of the creative writing program, the visiting writers series, and as the College’s writer-in-residence.

Randolph’s Symposium of Artists & Scholars spotlights student and faculty research and projects from a variety of academic disciplines and provides students with the opportunity to present the results of their research, scholarship, and creative work to the public.

The scheduled presentations cover everything from “The Antioxidant Power of Pomegranate Juice and Juice Mixes” to “A Local Food Economy as a Solution to Lynchburg’s Food Desert: What Role Can Randolph College Play” to “Developing a Synchronous Puppet Control System for Avenue Q Puppets: Puppet Fabrication and Control System Design.” Many of the projects were supported by the Randolph College Summer Research Program and the Randolph Innovative Student Experience (RISE) Program.

Student presentations begin after the keynote address April 18 and continue Friday. For a complete schedule, please see http://www.randolphcollege.edu/x14435.xml.

College community celebrates 100th birthday of longest-serving president

William F. Quillian, Jr., the longest-serving president in the College’s history, turns 100 on April 13. We were thrilled to join with many others to celebrate this milestone and honor Quillian’s many contributions to Randolph-Macon Woman’s College and Randolph College.

On Thursday, the College surprised Quillian with a conference room named for him in the Student Center. At the event, he also learned of the $13,000 in gifts which College graduates have made to the College in his honor. Alumnae and alumni also recently voted to name Quillian the College’s first honorary alumnus.

On Friday, Lynchburg-area alumnae and alumni and friends gathered at Westminster Canterbury, the retirement community where Quillian lives, to celebrate again.

Quillian was delighted by the attention and the gifts made to the College in his honor. “I have been getting notices of those contributions, and they just keep piling up, along with hundreds of cards. I’m being flooded,” he said. “Today’s mail will have another batch of them.”

Quillian is pleased to have the conference room named for him and the status as an honorary alumnus. “I love the College so much, and I sort of missed a connection with it,” he said. “Now I’m a part of it. Having that connection means a lot to me.”

Quillian served as president of Randolph-Macon Woman’s College from 1952 to 1978, after which he went on to fill other business and civic positions in Lynchburg. For more information about his achievements, read this News & Advance article about a celebration that the Virginia Legal Aid Society hosted at Randolph College.

Art professor receives grants to support book

When did art collecting first boom in the United States? Leanne Zalewski, a Randolph College art professor, believes it happened earlier than many think, and she recently garnered two grants to support a book on the topic.

Her book, Before Impressionism: French Art in New York, 1867-1893, examines the history of postbellum art collections and what that history reveals about art and culture in New York and America as a whole, as well as how the increased interest in art collection changed the country.

Zalewski recently received a Diane and Trevor Morris Fellowship at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, to do research for her book, as well as a 2013 Mednick Fellowship Award from the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges.