The following streets and intersections will be crowded with traffic and pedestrians:

900 block of South Main Street
Intersection of Cantrell Avenue and Paul Street
Intersection of Cantrell Avenue and Mason Street
Intersection of Reservoir Street and Evelyn Byrd Avenue
Port Republic Road and I-81 Interchange
Neff Avenue from Reservoir Street to Port Republic Road
University Boulevard.

Motorists should expect delays and heavy traffic throughout Harrisonburg. Please use caution and be vigilant for pedestrians along the road and crossing streets.
Shuttle buses will also be transporting people from local hotels to the various ceremonies. Bus riders are encouraged to board the bus as early as possible.
During the commencement ceremonies permit parking WILL NOT be enforced.

Traffic information and updates will be broadcast on 1610 AM. Additional traffic and transportation information can be found at http://www.jmu.edu/jmuweb/general/news/general11623.shtml.

On behalf of HPD, congratulations and best wishes to the Class of 2011!

Count senior Stephen Jones as one of the “Wikipedians” at James Madison University who are working hard this semester to improve the content on the popular resource website. In the process, Jones and 80 more JMU students are honing their researching, writing and editing skills.

“Being a Wikipedian allows me to work more confidently with Wikipedia,” Jones said. “It is a great idea for college students to work with Wikipedia because it will help them argue the fact that Wikipedia is useful in scholarly research, while also learning new editing and research skills.”

The students, enrolled in either Instructor Cindy Allen’s Professional and Technical Writing class or Professor Maria Papadakis’ Energy Economics and Policy class, are contributing to the Wikimedia Foundation’s Public Policy Initiative to systematically improve the content of Wikipedia articles about course-related topics. “My students are taking existing U.S. public policy blurbs that were written, but they have lots of problems — they need expanding, editing, citing, etc.,” Allen said.

The nonprofit foundation started the initiative in 2010 to work with college professors to incorporate writing and editing Wikipedia entries into their curriculum. This semester, the 81 JMU students have been diligently working to write new articles and improve existing ones in the areas of U.S. energy policy and U.S. public policy. JMU is one of 22 colleges involved in the initiative to improve the content on the English-language Wikipedia site.

“Wikipedia offered us a list of about 150 articles that needed work, and I let my students pick any topics they wanted to learn more about, to research and to edit,” Allen said. “The students are enjoying working on their articles. Getting to research, write and edit real content and publishing the articles has been exciting.”

Junior Alex Stinson has been involved with Wikipedia since 2008 when he began editing entries and joined Wikimedia D.C., the local volunteer chapter for Wikipedia, in 2009. JMU’s involvement in the initiative began in fall 2010 when Stinson, now a Wikipedia campus ambassador and online ambassador, began facilitating workshops for faculty about teaching with Wikipedia and reaching out to faculty who might be interested in the teaching assignments. Stinson approached Dr. Jeffrey Tang, an associate professor of integrated science and technology, about the project. Stinson and Tang worked together to identify Wikipedia entries that needed improvement and new topics. After beginning the research and talking with other professors, the initiative gained interest campuswide.

“People, especially students, may not understand the Wikipedia community or the processes which go into the site, but they trust it every day as a research tool,” Stinson said. “Wikipedia receives some great content. Students in our Public Policy classes contribute to areas in Wikipedia we would probably never get our volunteers to explore thoroughly. Their expertise in the field in which they are taking classes in allow them to provide a thorough perspective on the topic, immersed in the topic already.”

Editing Wikipedia, with the guidance of trained Wikipedia ambassadors at JMU, the students gain an opportunity to write for a wide audience, in essence, the whole world, according to LiAnna Davis, communications associate for the Wikimedia Foundation’s Public Policy Initiative. The students gain immediate feedback from a large community of Wikipedia editors while learning to follow editorial policies. Each student is paired with a mentor to work with as they write the articles. Wikipedia editing has not only been found to improve students’ media literacy, but also to improve their understanding of scholarly citations, according to the Wikipedia Public Policy course description.

The Wikimedia Foundation Public Policy Initiative is allowing JMU students to incorporate what they are learning in the classroom not simply as a class project, but an experience of writing and editing Wikipedia entries for millions to read and research. “Instead of working solely on a project that only you and your professor see, the entire Wiki world is out there and can help you cite better sources, form better sentences, and overall just do a good job,” Jones said. “It is a great learning tool.” Alex Stinson agrees, “the students’ projects no longer get thrown away at the end of the semester but are being integrated into an ever-growing web resource.”

19-year old JMU IEEE Computer Society member Matt Jeanes first came to JMU from Fairfax, VA as a freshman Computer Science major in 2009. Jeanes and a friend started using the HDPT buses to get across campus to eat at the new East Campus Dining Hall daily. They became frustrated with the need to constantly refer to the paper schedule to determine when the bus would arrive at their stop, so Jeanes, who has been learning how to program computers since before he entered high school, decided to write a simple computer script that would quickly determine which inner-campus bus would be coming by the stops they regularly used next.

After using a Motorola Droid smartphone for a few months, Jeanes realized that he could carry his digital bus schedule program with him if he converted it into an Android application. Jeanes was already familiar with the computer language required to write the app, but he needed to learn the framework specific to the open-source Google Android platform. So, he downloaded a development kit over winter break and started using online documentation to learn the skills he would need to turn his computer application into a mobile phone app. Within a week, Jeanes had a working rough draft of the JMU Bus app on his Droid, and uploaded the first public version to the Android Market in March 2010 for other Android users to download for free. Jeanes said his decision to publish the app, which he initially developed for his own use, for others to download was a “spur of the moment” decision. “I thought it would be cool if I ever saw someone I didn’t know using the app,” he said.

In Fall 2010, Jeanes joined JMU’s IEEE Computer Society and introduced his app to the students in the club. The club members responded enthusiastically and offered for the club to partner with him to help test and market the app. Using feedback from the IEEE club members and user comments in the Android Market, Jeanes added functionality and more routes to the previously-developed free version and also released a premium version of the app that costs $2 in the Android Market.

The current version of the JMU Bus Schedule app allows a user to determine which routes can get them from their current location to their desired destination, and displays the arrival time of each bus based on the schedule published by HDPT. It also includes a simple interface for browsing routes and stop times, and the premium version allows the user to save common trips for quick reference. The app currently estimates actual bus locations by ‘crowdsourcing’ – making use of data contributed by users voluntarily – but once the HDPT buses are outfitted with GPS tracking systems later this year, Jeanes’ app will be able to track routes in real time, including late-night routes with no fixed schedules. The premium app has an average rating of 5 out of 5 stars in the Android Market.

With word about the app spreading due to the JMU IEEE Computer Society members distributing flyers as well asword-of-mouth advertising from club members, friends, and users of the app, the free version now has over 1600 downloads, and more than 100 copies of the premium version have been purchased. Jeanes now sees other students on campus using his bus app and asks whether they have any suggestions or feedback for improving it. Because of the positive feedback he has received about the Android app, Jeanes is currently developing an iPhone version, which he expects to release in April 2011. Jeanes explains he has bigger plans for the app now: “I’m thinking about expanding the bus app to other colleges in Virginia and seeing where it goes from there.”

Cover shot courtesy of The Breeze

Following the incident Harrisonburg-Rockingham Commonwealth’s Attorney Marsha Garst stated, “Never should we be faced with the disrespect toward lawmen that I saw in the videos and the photographs. People think that they can, with immunity, throw bottles and concrete and rocks at our officers. I stand here today to say they will not have immunity. They will pay in a court of law.”

In the week after the Springfest incident a “Special Task Force” that included members of the Harrisonburg Police Department, Virginia State Police and members of JMU faculty combed through images and videos taken of the event, both by police personnel, by local media and those posted online on sites like Facebook and YouTube. The HPD did not put a price tag on the activities of the Special Task Force, but HPD spokesperson Mary Hope Vass stated that the investigation involved seven to ten officers.

HPD Criminal Investigations Commander Lt. Kurt Boshart said that while several suspects were identified as a result of the Special Task Force not all cases were deemed worth pursuing. The post-Springfest investigation also involved a raid on the offices of The Breeze, by Commonwealth’s Attorney Marsha Garst, to obtain photos taken of the incident by Breeze photographers. The incident garnered both national attention as well as condemnation from the Student Press Association and the Society of Professional Journalists and calls for Garst’s resignation from the state Libertarian Party. The Breeze and the Commonwealth’s Attorney office later settled in an agreement where the state Division of Risk Management paid the paper $10,000 to “resolve any monetary payment . . . including compensatory damages, punitive damages, attorney’s fees and costs” and The Breeze released 20 photos from the 926 that had originally been confiscated.

Peter Morgner was one of two individuals identified and charged as a result of the Special Task Force. But according to Morgner’s attorney John Holloran, it wasn’t a Breeze photo or YouTube video that resulted in Morgner being identified. On April 10, after the crowd had been dispersed from the Village Lane area, Morgner witnessed a beating and approached a police officer to report what he saw. Holloran maintains that the officer later recognized Morgner in Springfest photos and used the personal information that Morgner had given with his report to identify and arrest him.

Photo by David Casterline, Courtesy of The Breeze

“If Peter had not approached the police he definitely would not have been arrested,” Holloran stated.

Morgner originally faced 12 charges, including nine felony charges of assault on a law enforcement officer and attempted malicious wounding of a law enforcement officer. Morgner’s attorneys tried to have the trial moved and subpoenaed Commonwealth’s Attorney Marsha Garst to testify at the trial. Both were unsuccessful. On January 27 a failed attempt to select a jury resulted in a mistrial.

On February 22, Morgner’s attorneys and the Commonwealth’s Attorney office reached an agreement where Morgner plead guilty to one count of simple assault felony assault on a police officer in return for having the remaining charges dropped. He was sentenced to six months in jail. Having been in jail since July 2010 for violating his bail, Morgner’s time served was applied to his sentence and he was released. Morgner’s guilty plea resulted in the only felony charge successfully prosecuted from the incidents at Village Lane.

The conclusion of Morgner’s case two weeks ago, along with the trial of Lucie Banting, brought to a close the prosecutions that stemmed from the Springfest incidents at Village Lane.

In total, 26 people were arrested and charged for crimes that occurred at the Village Lane incident. Of that total 15 were arrested by the HPD, five by the Virginia State Police and four by Virginia Alcohol Control Board officers at the scene. Two other individuals were later arrested and charged by the HPD.

Of the 26 arrested, 21 were charged with public intoxication and/or failure to disperse from an unlawful assembly, both misdemeanors. Most of these cases were prosecuted by June 2010. Thirteen were convicted of one of the charges. Four were convicted on both charges. Guilty verdicts resulted in fines of between $25 and $550. Four people had both charges dropped, dismissed or were found not guilty.

The remaining five, including Morgner, had charges that included felonies and that could result in jail time.

• Justin Lyons was found not guilty of assault on a law enforcement officer and participating in a riot with a deadly weapon.
• Japheth Rawls IV was arrested on four counts, including felony assault on a law enforcement officer and participating in a riot with a deadly weapon. He reached an agreement with the Commonwealth’s Attorney where the charges were reduced and he plead guilty to misdemeanor simple assault and participating in a riot and was sentenced to seven months in jail.
• Christopher Dashiell, coverage of whose case was absent in the local media, ended up with the longest sentence resulting from the incident. Dashiell, who was originally charged with felony assault on a police officer and unlawful assembly, pleaded guilty to reduced charges of misdemeanor assault and disorderly conduct. He was sentenced to 20 months in jail.
• Lucie Banting was originally charged with failure to leave an unlawful assembly and felony assault and battery on a police officer and conspiring to incite a riot. The Commonwealth’s Attorney dropped her charges, citing “new information” (“Charges Dropped in Riot Case,” Daily News-Record, Jan. 22, 2011).

“There were inconsistencies as to what officers saw and some of their initial statements proved to be inaccurate,” said Banting’s attorney John Hart.

The Commonwealth’s Attorney later charged Banting with misdemeanor failure to leave an unlawful assembly. She pleaded guilty and received a fine.

Photo by Robert Boag. Courtesy of The Breeze.

“Our biggest concern was the protection of law enforcement officers, as well as those citizens whose property was being destroyed or who were being assaulted,” said Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Alycia Eldridge, who prosecuted most of the cases resulting from Springfest. “We identified as many suspects as we could. Our office was aggressive in prosecuting these cases and I believe we did the best that we possibly could.”

Of the 26 people arrested at Village Lane, ten were not JMU students. Of the five charged with the most serious crimes three, including Morgner, were not JMU students.

In a February 10 article in The Breeze, Commonwealth’s Attorney Marsha Garst stated of the Springfest incident, “It was just a perfect storm that I hope will never happen again. It was not a happy time for anybody. It was awful for the victims, awful for law enforcement, awful for JMU students and awful for anybody who lived here.”

The beating, which Morgner witnessed and reported to the police, is still being prosecuted. The incident happened at the Corner Market parking lot on Port Republic Road at 9 p.m. on April 10, away from the Village Lane area and after the crowd had been dispersed. Six individuals were arrested and charged with beating a single victim. None of the accused were JMU students. Charges were later dropped against five of the suspects. The remaining suspect, Kalvin Lamar Jackson, has a trial scheduled for May 13 on felony charges of malicious wounding and malicious wounding by mob.

Related Links

HPD investigation Moves Forward

JMU Students Charged in Village Lane Riots

Breeze, CA Office Reach Settlement

• In-state enrollment growth
• Increase the number of full-time faculty
• Operations and maintenance of new buildings
• Increase in-state undergraduate enrollments
• Public-private partnership
• Base operating support
• Additional undergraduate student financial aid

As a part of the approved budget, the General Assembly outlined important information regarding the Virginia Retirement System and Optional Retirement Plan for state employees. State employees who are enrolled in the Virginia Retirement System (VRS) and were hired before July 1, 2010, will receive a five percent salary increase effective June 25, 2011. This salary increase will offset the required five percent contribution for state employees hired before July 1, 2010, and enrolled in the Virginia Retirement System (VRS); effective June 25, 2011.

The Optional Retirement Plan will remain unchanged.

“It is gratifying to see that public higher education is once again a priority. We are grateful to the Governor and the General Assembly for reversing the funding trend of recent years. We look forward to using these additional funds to improve our base operations, to add to our faculty, and to serve additional Virginians. We are particularly pleased to note that the Commonwealth is moving to secure state pensions without penalizing employees who have not had a raise in three years,” said JMU President Linwood H. Rose.

JMU also received $12,575,000 in capital appropriations. The boiler replacement and infrastructure project currently under way will receive $3,000,000. State supported bonds in the amount of $4,675,000 will be issued for equipping the new Biosciences Building currently under construction. Furthermore, bonds will be issued in the amount of $4,900,000 to support the renovation and construction of the new Student Health Center, which will be located in the East Wing of the former Rockingham Memorial Hospital building.

“This approved budget provides JMU with the much-needed resources in critical core operations within the university. We are particularly pleased to receive $4.6 million to equip the new Biosciences Building,” said Charles King, senior vice president for administration and finance.

Subjects of Harmon’s articles, including a breast cancer survivor, a mother of a Down’s syndrome child, a mother of a Phelan-McDermid syndrome child and a Huntington’s patient, will join her and discuss their stories.

The stories will be familiar to current JMU freshmen and sophomores who read the DNA Age for their summer reading before attending fall orientation. This will be an opportunity to meet both Harmon and the people she wrote about and to learn more about their stories and the issues they face involving genetics.

The event, to be held in Wilson Hall Auditorium, is free and open to the public and continues JMU’s yearlong discussion on the connection between science and the arts.

High dynamic range image of Newman Lake by John Daniel Reiss (hburgnews Flickr group)

The new regulation guidelines evaluate dams based on major roadways around them. According to the guidelines, any bodies of water that could flood over a major roadway in case of dam failure must be reevaluated. Newman Lake’s proximity to Interstate-81 made it necessary to be re-evaluated.

In order to preserve the lake and cut costs, the Board of Visitors approved to shrink the lake in size instead of installing a spillway structure under Bluestone Drive. (read the full story)

Breeze writer Tyler McAvoy reported that the project is expected to cost $950,000.

In a prepared statement, Rose said:

I have informed rector Jim Hartman and the other members of the Board of Visitors that I will end my service as the president of James Madison University in June of 2012. I announce my intentions now so that the Board and the University will have sufficient time to search for a new president [...]

There is much to be done in the time remaining before I hand the keys to the office to the next president. There are two legislative sessions and four commencements. There will be no “winding down.” We will approach all of our responsibilities with the full intensity and drive characteristic of our work throughout the previous decade. Dr. Ronald Carrier, who prepared me for this job, handed me an institution in great shape in 1998 and I plan to turn over an even better one to the new leadership in 2012.

Jim Hartman, Chairman of the JMU Board of Visitors commented on finding a new president:

I am pleased to announce that Joseph Damico, who has been a member of the board for seven and one-half years, and who served as Rector for two of those years, has agreed to serve as the chair of the search committee. With his consultation I will appoint the membership of the search committee in the near future. Obviously, the major constituent groups of the institution will be represented on the committee.

A search firm will be engaged to assist the committee and the board. Ultimately, the search committee will make its recommendation to the Board of Visitors and the final selection of the new president will rest with the Board. It is always a challenge to predict a timetable in these matters, but it would be my hope that by first quarter, 2012 we will have selected a new president. This schedule provides time for the new president to become more familiar with the institution after selection before taking over the leadership of the university on July 1, 2012.

Photo of Mole Hill by Jstuby, public domain.

Very little is known about Rockingham County’s lone volcano, but that’s beginning to change. JMU geology professor Elizabeth Johnson got permission from the landowner to study the area, and takes students to explore the volcanic formation. (Disclosure: I’m currently employed by the JMU Office of Public Affairs. My tenure in that office ends this week)

Jenny Marder reports for PBS News Hour:

Several times a semester, Liz Johnson, a geochemist and a James Madison University professor, packs her geology students into a van and heads west on Route 33 from Harrisonburg, beyond the local youth center and the Miracle Car Wash, and through the Mennonite part of town. As the van rounds a turn, the mountain looms suddenly into view.

Most of the rocks in Virginia’s Valley and Ridge Region are sedimentary, and date back roughly 300 to 540 million years to the early Paleozoic Era. But Mole Hill, which rises 1,895 feet above sea level, is geologically much younger. Radiometric dating shows that it was formed about 48 million years ago, in the Eocene Era, a time in which the region was otherwise tectonically quiet. “It may not seem obvious if you don’t know a lot about rocks,” says Callan Bentley, a local geologist and professor at Northern Virginia Community College. “But if you’ve got a whole bunch of sedimentary rocks that make up a province, then what the hell is a volcano doing there?” (read more)