Honoring 2023 Retirees

When did you begin work at Mary Baldwin?

I came to Mary Baldwin with a textbook management company, College Bookstores of America (CBA),  in the summer of 1990. We opened a store in the King building and then relocated to the Pannill Student Center in 1992. In 2009 Mary Baldwin took ownership of the operations. In 2015 we transitioned to the current online textbook format and opened the retail store in Hunt.  

What job titles did you hold over the years?

I’ve been the manager the entire time. 

Please tell us about any volunteer work that you participated in, or special accomplishments you’d like to highlight (both at MBU and beyond).

With CBA, I was awarded “Manager of the Year” five times.   

Please share any special Mary Baldwin memories.

I have too many to be specific, but I always had a good rapport with most of the faculty. I truly appreciate the support they gave me through the years. I also have many fond memories of former employees and my student workers.   

What are your plans for retirement?

Oh no! You mean we have to have a plan?! I will continue to do the things I do now, only I’ll hopefully have more time. I play guitar in a British rock band and so I’ll continue my quest to become the fifth Beatle! My wife and I plan to travel more and perhaps we’ll go on a few more music cruises. I also enjoy kayaking, going to concerts, and just hanging out with friends and family. 

What will you miss most about Mary Baldwin?

The students are just fun to be around. They keep you young at heart. Even in uncertain times, they give me hope for the future!

Patty Davis
Controller    

When did you begin work at Mary Baldwin?  

1979

What job titles did you hold over the years?  

Too many to list! Began as cashier/receptionist and ended as controller.

Please tell us about any volunteer work that you participated in, or special accomplishments you’d like to highlight (both at MBU and beyond).

I enjoyed teaching karate and self-defense to the students.  

What are your plans for retirement?  

Working for Mitchell Hamline School of Law to help them implement Jenzabar

What will you miss most about Mary Baldwin?  

Co-workers and students

When did you begin work at Mary Baldwin?

I joined the Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) Program in 2016, after being faculty, chair, and program director at four other DPT programs. I was drawn here by my friend Lisa Shoaf who was looking for a neuro faculty member. I was intrigued at the opportunity to be part of a team developing a program from scratch, and by the concept of “Interprofessional by Design.” Murphy Deming College of Health Sciences does interprofessional education with excellence!

What job titles did you hold over the years?

I have been a senior faculty member since joining the program, and program director for the past two years.

Please tell us about any volunteer work that you participated in, or special accomplishments you’d like to highlight (both at MBU and beyond).

During my time at MBU, I created a partnership with the Staunton-Augusta YMCA’s NeuroWellness Program which serves people with neurological conditions. I am proud that MBU DPT students are integrated in this program. As a result, people with neurological conditions experience greater health, fitness, socialization, and quality of life. MBU DPT graduates have greater depth and breadth in neurological rehabilitation. They also develop a keener sense of life with a disability. I’m proud of this work and thankful that this partnership will continue and grow upon my retirement. It is with the excellent leadership of Martha Cullaty, who took over my teaching. Our new DPT program director, Dr. Cassy Turner, is also doing a wonderful job.

At MBU, I served as the Murphy Deming Spencer Center Faculty Fellow for my first two years. I also served two years on the Faculty Status and Evaluation Committee.

In the community, I’ve been active in my churches and volunteer at the Embrace Waynesboro Community Garden.

Please share any special Mary Baldwin memories.

The best part of teaching DPT students is sharing with them about the patient experience. I love watching “light bulbs” light up during classes, labs and, of course, the NeuroWellness Program. Physical therapy education is about so much more than teaching manual skills and techniques. I teach by telling stories about patients who I’ve been honored to treat and how they regained independence in spite of disabling conditions. Students tell me that my stories are the best part of my teaching. They tell me that I help them understand the “human experience” side of our practice.

What are your plans for retirement?

At the moment, I am engaged in some higher ed consulting, which is fun. I also continue to be active in my church, Embrace Waynesboro, and the NeuroWellness Program. I continue to be very busy!

What will you miss most about Mary Baldwin?

I truly love telling those stories as I teach. I love watching students understand a new concept, and most importantly develop a deeper level of empathy because of their interactions with participants at the YMCA or just talking about the human experience. I will miss those conversations and observations the very most!

During her 20-year tenure, Fox launched many strategic initiatives to propel growth and success at Mary Baldwin, including launching a college for healthcare professionals on a new branch campus, transitioning from a college to a co-ed university, emphasizing a strong commitment to diversity and access to higher education, and focusing on meeting student and societal needs through programmatic innovations.

Take a look at a selection of celebratory coverage since Fox announced her retirement during MBU’s State of the University last August:

• Retirement announcement
• Mary Baldwin University president to retire — Virginia Business
• ‘With humility’: Mary Baldwin University president announces her retirement — Staunton News Leader
• Fox and Associate Professor of Philosophy Edward Scott receive the Martin Luther King Jr. Citizenship Award
• State lawmakers honor President Pamela R. Fox with commending resolution
• Fox Futures Initiative seeing success
• Trustees honor President Pamela Fox in special ceremony
• Pamela Fox has led Mary Baldwin during 20 years of transformation — Waynesboro News Virginian 
• Bold choices: Fox’s 20 years as president brought monumental changes to Mary Baldwin — Staunton News Leader

When did you begin work at Mary Baldwin?  

2000

What job titles did you hold over the years?  

I began as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate in 2007 and full in 2014. 

Please tell us about any volunteer work that you participated in, or special accomplishments you’d like to highlight (both at MBU and beyond). 

My biggest accomplishment was securing a National Institutes of Health grant for research on the Asian musk shrew. I maintained a colony of those animals here on campus for almost 10 years. I also developed a program of research on psychology and young adult literature, and published two papers with a middle school English teacher collaborator. As for volunteer work, I have been an American Sign Language interpreter in my church for many years. I was also a Girl Scout leader when my daughter was young and, more recently, president of the Virginia American Association of University Professors. 

Please share any special Mary Baldwin memories. 

I treasure the memories of traveling with students: both the three May Term trips I went on (Cyprus with Dr. Andreas Anastasiou, Italy with Dr. Sally James, and Costa Rica with Dr. Paul Callo) and traveling with students to conferences, including to Portugal, the Netherlands, and Mexico. I also was privileged to teach an honors colloquium with Dr. Rod Owen on human morality. Finally, when I was doing my own Board Certified Behavior Analyst fieldwork, I got to work alongside several recent graduates and former students. Seeing how they conducted themselves in their first job placements was amazing. 

What are your plans for retirement? 

This is early retirement for me, so I will be working as a senior behavior analyst at the Autism Center of Excellence in Charlottesville, starting in August. I hope to be able to provide field placement sites for our Applied Behavior Analysis students and eventually internship slots for psychology students.  

What will you miss most about Mary Baldwin? 

My faculty colleagues. I have never known a more dedicated group of people for whom each day is a labor of love. And, of course, I’ll miss teaching, too. I have been privileged to work with some amazing students over the years. 

When did you begin work at Mary Baldwin?  

I began work at Mary Baldwin College in 1990.

What job titles did you hold over the years?  

I served as associate professor of philosophy from that time until the present. I have also served as the chair of the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department, and for three years I also served as the academic dean of the college.

Please tell us about any volunteer work that you participated in, or special accomplishments you’d like to highlight (both at MBU and beyond). 

I served a four-year term on Staunton’s School Board, and I served on the founding board for the creation of the Blackfriars Theatre. I was a member of the board for the Virginia Humanities and the board of the Blue Ridge Foundation. I also have served since 1996 as the pastor of the oldest church founded by people of color in the city of Staunton, Allen Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church. I am also a member of the Staunton Branch of the NAACP.

Please share any special Mary Baldwin memories. 

My special memories always concern students like Tonquise Jabari who founded Kuumba Players on campus, Christian Peele who served in the White House during Obama’s presidency, Lynette Daughtry whos is now pastoring an AME Church in Florida, and Aubrey Sparks who practices law in West Virginia after graduating from Harvard Law. I could go on and on and on …

What are your plans for retirement? 

I plan an aggressive reading itinerary during retirement: The Divine Comedy, War and Peace, Remembrance of Things Past, and Don Quixote invite my rapt attention. Travel to lands on all points of the compass will figure prominently: Spain, Greece, Greenland, New Zealand, Morocco, and Egypt all come to mind most immediately. I pray to be worthy of service, service, service to square reality with the demands of justice.

What will you miss most about Mary Baldwin? 

I will miss my colleagues and seeing them every day. They were all such a source of encouragement and inspiration to me each day. I’ll miss the classroom most of all, my tiny theatre, sometimes of the absurd, but more often than not, the tiny sanctuary in which to reveal the hidden sacred. But theatre or sanctuary, the classroom meant nothing at all without the students, by turns daft and brilliant, dull and curious, bored and electric, banal and imaginative. The challenge for me was always to convert the former into the latter. What a thrill that has always been!

When did you begin work at Mary Baldwin?  

July 1, 2012 officially, though I participated in the visioning process for Murphy Deming College of Health Sciences during May/June of 2012

What job titles did you hold over the years?  

I was hired as the founding program director for the Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) Program and held that position from July 1, 2012 through December 2020. I also assumed the role of director for the School of Health and Human Performance in July 2017 and held that position as well until December 2020. I became the dean of Murphy Deming on January 1, 2021, and held that position until December 2022. I also served as the vice president/dean for Murphy Deming from July 1, 2022 until December 2022. I served in a consulting role for Murphy Deming from January 1 to March 31, 2023.

Please tell us about any volunteer work that you participated in, or special accomplishments you’d like to highlight (both at MBU and beyond). 

• Completed American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) Fellowship in Educational Leadership in 2014, with a project designing interprofessional curricula for health professions    
• Member of APTA Ethics and Judicial Committee 2017–22, serving as chair in 2022
• Member of APTA House of Delegates that sets national policy for the physical therapy profession 2012–19, serving as chief delegate for Virginia 2011–15
• Member of Quality Review Committee for the Foreign Credentialing Commission on Physical Therapy 2018–22 
• Developed an online educational resource titled “Integrating the Shoulder Complex and the Body as a Whole” in collaboration with Judith Steel, MA, for the International Association for Dance Medicine & Science (IADMS) in 2019
• Presenter internationally at IADMS conferences in 2014, 2017–19, and 2022 on various dance medicine topics
• MBU Committee Service: GEAPC 2021–22, Workload/Benefits 2017–19, IRB 2014–17, and MDCHS EPC 2014–20

Please share any special Mary Baldwin memories. 

I have so many great memories of my 11 years at MBU, but those that stand out the most are from the development and launching of Murphy Deming College of Health Sciences. At the start of the process, I was invited to attend the visioning session that informed the architectural planning for the building. I participated in a discussion about the site design and building planning. This was a new experience for me, and I learned a great deal from the architects and Dr. Linda Seestedt-Stanford who had done this process twice before. I remember during the visioning process thinking that at some point soon I would have a moment when I was at the new building and students had arrived and I would realize we had achieved our vision and it had become a reality. That moment happened in the summer of 2014 when the first occupational therapy and physical therapy cohorts had arrived. Students were out on the back patio studying and talking and playing games on the back lawn. I was watching them from the window of the conference room above and had a moment of great joy to recognize that it all happened as we had envisioned. I won’t ever forget that moment. There were so many great “first moments” including the day we moved into the building in late May of 2014, the day in early June 2014 when the first cohorts of students arrived to start classes, and the first hooding and pinning ceremony on the back lawn at Murphy Deming in the spring of 2017. I was standing on the stage under that huge tent looking at all that first group of Murphy Deming graduates and I felt so proud of each of them, our faculty and staff, and everyone who helped make it happen. I feel that same sense of pride and accomplishment for all of us at Murphy Deming, the executive staff, the Board, and Dr. Fox every time a cohort of Murphy Deming students walks across the stage at graduation. It has been my great honor and pleasure to have been part of creating something so special for MBU and the valley I grew up in. These memories will be with me always.

What are your plans for retirement? 

I am working with a team of PT colleagues through the American Council for Academic Physical Therapy to develop a leadership development program. I am planning to practice as a physical therapist part time in the home health setting. I also hope to continue traveling to visit interesting places and to catch up with friends I have not seen since before the pandemic.  

What will you miss most about Mary Baldwin? 

I will miss all the wonderful faculty, staff, and students it has been my great pleasure to work with at Murphy Deming. I will also miss working closely with the executive staff over the last year on important MBU activities and planning.