Congratulations to Five Members of Our Faculty

Posted on May 17, 2022 by Meredith Woo

Dear Sweet Briar Community Members,

At the close of the academic year, we naturally think of congratulating Sweet Briar’s students for their many achievements. But it’s not just the students who have earned accolades. Five of our faculty members, Tracy Hamilton, Kimberly Morse Jones, Chris Penfield, Dwana Waugh, and Cheryl Warnock, have recently received marvelous news that I want to share with you.

Associate Professor Tracy Hamilton has been awarded two prestigious fellowships that will support her scholarship on the art and architectural patronage of medieval European queens in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. One of these awards is the Bonnie Wheeler Fellowship, a nationally competitive prize enabling women in Medieval Studies to conduct research that will significantly contribute to understanding the medieval past. The other award is the Mednick Memorial Fellowship, sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges.

Associate Professor Kimberly Morse Jones will travel to England this summer with the support of a grant from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, to continue her research for her forthcoming critical anthology on British art criticism from the late eighteenth through the nineteenth centuries. Last year, her research on this project was funded by a VFIC Mednick Memorial Fellowship.

Assistant Professor Chris Penfield has been selected to participate in the Council of Independent College’s Summer Institute, “New Currents in Teaching Philosophy.” Winning a place in any CIC institute is a highly competitive process.  Chris’s participation will benefit Sweet Briar’s philosophy program and the Leadership Core, and carries with it a supplemental grant to the College to support curricular initiatives in philosophy.

Assistant Professor Dwana Waugh, about to become Associate Professor with tenure as of July 1, has also won a spot in a fiercely competitive CIC program. She’ll be heading to Yale for the seminar, “Legacies of American Slavery,” which will benefit her teaching and her ongoing work to help Sweet Briar come to terms with its past as a place of enslavement. She has also been awarded additional CIC funds to conduct archival research at Yale on school desegregation.

Associate Professor Cheryl Warnock is the recipient of the 2022 SGA Excellence in Teaching Award, which is voted on by the entire student body. Cheryl’s award was announced at Saturday’s Commencement ceremony.

Please join me in congratulating Tracy, Kimberly, Chris, Dwana, and Cheryl for their achievements!

Sincerely,
Meredith Woo
President