Grapevine newsletter for University of Mary Washington faculty and staff.

COVER STORY: It's official -- University of Mary Washington

President William M. Anderson Jr., Rector Mona Albertine and the Board of Visitors raise the flag in Jefferson Square on July 1, 2004. The ceremony featured the unveiling of the new University of Mary Washington logo. Photo by Lou Cordero.

This summer, Mary Washington joined the ranks of fine Virginia state universities.

By an act of the General Assembly, on July 1, the College became the University of Mary Washington. That day, President William M. Anderson Jr. and the Board of Visitors celebrated the change with the unfurling of a royal blue flag bearing the new Mary Washington insignia. In a ceremony in Jefferson Square, Anderson and Rector Mona Albertine '71 addressed the crowd that gathered for the event.

“This is a new day for a very old institution,” Albertine said. “When I was here as a student in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Mary Washington College was seen as one of the foremost institutions of higher learning in the Common-wealth of Virginia. Today, the University of Mary Washington is seen as one of
the finest institutions not only in the state of Virginia, but in the entire country.”

Mary Washington has changed names before. In 1908, the “State Normal and Industrial School For Women at Fredericksburg ” was established on the heights above Fredericksburg. At that time, the town limits extended only to Sunken Road. In 1924, the school became “State Teacher's College at Fredericksburg ,” and in 1938, the name “ Mary Washington College ” was adopted.

The official title changed to “ Mary Washington College of the University of Virginia ” in 1944 and stayed that way until a 1972 ruling by Gov. Linwood Holton made the college autonomous and separate from U.Va. At that time, the name reverted to Mary Washington College.

Mary Washington College remains the name of the undergraduate college of arts and sciences in Fredericksburg, Albertine said in a recent interview with The Grapevine. “ University of Mary Washington ” is the corporate name of the institution, she said. It is made up of two colleges: Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg and the College of Graduate and Professional Studies in Stafford .

Albertine wrote about the name changes in an op-ed published in The Free Lance-Star Aug. 8. In her article, she addressed why the Board sought the recent transition to university status.

“The primary reason for seeking university status was to preserve the programs on the Fredericksburg campus, while allowing the Stafford campus to grow and meet the educational needs of the region,” Albertine wrote. “By becoming the University of Mary Washington, the institution has developed a way to combine, under one administration, the operation of two campuses.”

After the July 1 ceremony, the crowd enjoyed cake and punch served in cups bearing the new University insignia.

The logo features four stylized columns reminiscent of the columns of the Jepson Science Center. It was crafted by the Baltimore design firm BMWW, which has worked with many major universities including Yale, Harvard and the University of Virginia.

                                                                    -- Neva Trenis