Reading the world

It’s very early on a summer morning. Harrisonburg’s Explore More Discovery Museum is quiet, empty. The doors are locked for the moment. Soon, though, a handful of children trickle in with their parents or grandparents. Some are wide-awake, raring to go. Others are sleepy-eyed and hang back. They’ve all gathered for a photo shoot for Madison magazine, along with Dr. and Mrs. Fred Fox. They’ve come to illustrate what’s most important about the museum’s “One World” exhibition. The shoot could be chaos, but it goes smoothly. Perhaps it’s good parenting. Or maybe it’s the books. Or both. Either way, we get it done so we can tell a story that’s important for children in the valley, for families, for the community — and for discovering a wonderful way to get to know ourselves and our neighbors……

A passion for reading the world

Gail and Fred Fox are passionate about literacy, diversity — and their community. That’s why they’ve championed One World, a popular exhibit in Harrisonburg’s children’s museum. The collection features children’s books, many in their native languages, from more than 42 countries around the world. (The number just went up!)

The creation of the exhibit was a bit serendipitous. In 2010, Explore More Discovery Museum was expanding, and the Foxes were asked to help. When Executive Director Lisa Shull (’81,’95M) posed the question, “What kind of exhibits to you want?” the couple suggested one where literacy and diversity would converge.

Gail, who formerly taught reading and literacy at JMU and worked as a reading coach in Harrisonburg City Public Schools for “No Child Left Behind,” and her husband Fred, a local orthopaedic surgeon, proposed an exhibit where Harrisonburg’s rich cultural diversity could be showcased through books.

And then they championed it.

“We’d been in other [children’s] museums where they had reading corners or diversity represented by pictures of children or something, but we felt [it was] very important to have this sort of concept in the museum,” Fred says.

Harrisonburg city schools, one of Virginia’s most diverse school systems, enrolls students from 40 countries, representing 44 foreign languages. More than 100 students are bi-or multi-lingual.

The idea for the exhibit had been percolating with the Foxes for some time. Earlier, through the Harrisonburg Rotary Club, Fred and Gail, along with a librarian at Waterman Elementary School in Harrisonburg, had started a literacy program through the local schools. “It was just an interesting blend of Gail’s background in early childhood literacy and my experience with Rotary,” Fred says. “Out of those two interests we had formed … Project Read, focusing on elementary, helping support children to learn reading in K-3 and in the preschool reading program, which all the [local] Rotary Clubs in some form participated in,” he says.

A longtime Rotarian himself, Fred notes that literacy has long been a focus of Rotary International, so when the opportunity at the museum arose, once again, the fit was right. Many local Rotary Club members donated books they found abroad and brought back to Harrisonburg.

Because of Harrisonburg’s diverse population, the exhibit also presents enormous opportunities for international understanding, which Gail knows is essential for student success in the city’s schools. “It’s the United Nations in every school here,” she says.

The One World book collection’s location within the museum was strategic, the Foxes believe. It brings literacy and diversity into a place where children are automatically drawn. Its international character, Gail explains, “says to children, ‘you have a place here. Your culture is part of what is going on downtown at Explore More.”

Gail adds that children who might not otherwise have access to books can be exposed to them at the museum. “They have them right here in a safe environment where they can come.”

Immigrant families, she adds, are more likely to visit the museum before they visit the public library. And with Massanutten Regional Library located next door, it becomes an entre to the library next door. The placement also aligns with the museum’s longstanding mission to serve all community children.

Fred cites a local family whose child, adopted from Ethiopia, discovered a book in One World from his home country. “It was sort of a ‘wow’ moment,” he says.

Although electronic books and online sourcing is growing, there’s no substitute for a hands-on book when it comes to children, Gail believes. And she is an unapologetic advocate for traditional books.

Gail and Fred Fox help set the lights while the children pick out books.

“Through books you find the language,” she says, “you find how stories work, whether they’re oral or written…. There is such an intimacy between the reader and the child that you can’t get through flicking through a story on an Ipad.”

For a child from a different culture — or any child, for that matter — the experience of sharing a book is potent. Gail says, effusively: “Do you know how powerful it is when you’re reading a book to a child and [the child says] ‘Oh, that person looks like me!’”

The exhibit’s shelves have been filled with the help of several community organizations, including Blue Ridge Community College’s SPECTRUM International Multicultural Club. The group donated more than 40 bilingual books to One World. According to their website: “The purpose of purchasing these books is two-fold; it provides newly immigrated families the ability to read in their native language as well as learning the English language. It also provides SPECTRUM members the opportunity to share their heritage with the community.”

Books have also come from Rockingham Memorial Hospital’s Wellness Center, United Way, and Knitworks, a local business. Several were even sent by a AAA tourist group from Chicago after they visited Harrisonburg.

Impassioned advocates, the Foxes regularly encourage friends to bring books back from their international travels — including Gail’s fellow JMU alumni — to help grow the One World book collection. They hope it will encourage literacy and promote deeper cultural understanding throughout the community — and they believe it will, Gail says, “because children lead the way.”

Many thanks to Fred and Gail Fox, Daphyne Thomas (COB), Cristin Lambert Iwanicki (’03), Grace Tessier Weniger (’03), Sonali Aradhey, and university photographer Mike Miriello (’09) — and especially to Maya, Noah, Anish, Niranjan, Bree, Amaya and Connor for making our very early morning photo shoot a success!

 

Renaissance man

In 1965, Harrisonburg, Va., for a small city, was a shopper’s paradise. The downtown featured large department stores, druggists, gift shops, jewelry stores, music shops, stationery stores, shoe stores, men’s clothing stores and dress shops, furniture stores, bookstores and three “five-and-dimes.” There were counters for lunching and movie theaters for entertainment — two of them, in fact. And much of the business done throughout the entire county was conducted in downtown Harrisonburg. It was a one-stop shopping venue.

All that changed in the 1970s when businesses began moving away from downtown. Many relocated to the newly-built Valley Mall, east of the city. It was part of a nationwide trend that hit Harrisonburg hard.

Leggett’s department store left. JC Penney left. The “five and dimes” and department stores closed or were repurposed. What had been a vital downtown began to see vacant store fronts and — of greatest concern — fewer people. The mall area was draining the life out of downtown.

Eddie Bumbaugh (’73) who had grown up in the area watched the decline. “My father owned a Buick dealership and I worked summers washing and reconditioning cars,” he says. He later earned his masters in social work at Virginia Commonwealth University, but home was always here in the valley.

In 2003, realizing not only the potential but the possibility of a revitalized downtown, Eddie and a group of citizens formed the Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance. He became the executive director.

“When the city decided that Eddie Bumbaugh was the person to lead the revitalization of downtown, it was the wisest decision that could have been made. Eddie is the guiding light,” Glenda Rooney, city resident and former assistant to the provost of academic affairs at JMU, says. “Eddie’s unceasing energy and strong passion for revitalizing Harrisonburg is contagious….It could not have been done without his leadership.”

In well planned and strategic moves, Eddie and HDR worked step-by-step to resuscitate Harrisonburg’s downtown. In the decade that followed, they turned a dying downtown into a vibrant urban center.

One of the biggest differences between the Harrisonburg of the 1970s and today’s Harrisonburg is people — who live there, shop there and meet there once again. According to the Jan/Feb 2013 MainStreetNow magazine, the Journal of the National Trust Main Street Center, the city had 150 houses units in 2003; today that number exceeds 500.

“By having more people living downtown, we could create a strong base for retail,” Eddie told MainStreet Now, which featured Harrisonburg’s renewal as a case study for developing a vital urban downtown. (To read the entire article, including the case study, click on the embedded link above; the case study begins on page 8.)

Eddie’s leadership was critical. Lisa Ha (’04,’10M), assistant director of marketing at JMU and former program manager for HDR, says: “People know him for his genuine commitment to our community and for the unassuming way he has been been bringing people together for the common good of Harrisonburg for more than 30 years. Everybody knows Eddie.”

A decade after it began, HDR’s success is apparent. Today’s city has a thriving and attractive downtown where success has followed success. The Explore More Discovery Museum (another grassroots effort), the public library, the Quilt Museum, art and music venues, restaurants, microbreweries, and a successful community theater all drive the new life of downtown Harrisonburg, as do events like Taste of Downtown, cycling events, film series, MACRoCk, Valley Fourth and First Fridays.

Significant credit goes to Eddie Bumbaugh’s leadership, which is why we’ll soon add him to our Be the Change website. Eddie defines what it means to be an enlightened and engaged citizen. He has been an agent of change in Harrisonburg — which is no longer the city of the 1960s and 70s.

It is  so much better.

To learn more about the turnaround in Harrisonburg’s fortunes, read about Barry Kelley and Andrew Forward and their work to bring people back into the city.

Get your nano on

The best science is accessible science, especially for children. Ask anyone who grew up with Bill Nye the Science Guy or even Mr. Wizard. Often such accessibility is what launches a career or a lifelong interest in science. It can change lives. Perhaps that will happen this weekend at the Explore More Discovery Museum in downtown Harrisonburg.

On Sunday (April 14), students and faculty from James Madison University will gather at Harrisonburg’s Explore More Discovery Museum to explore nanotechnology with any children who come between 1:00 and 4:00 in the afternoon. Nanoscience is the study of very small things — nanometers, a billionth of a meter. Nanotechnology is the manipulation of these ultra small things — like atoms and particles — to create new behaviors and unexpected results.

According to Dr. Costel Constantin, who teaches physics and astronomy at JMU, the need for developing young scientists is critical. He writes:

At a time when the rapid advances in the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology require an increasing number of skilled personnel, coincidentally, the recruitment of U.S. students to science is at an all time low. According to the National Science Foundation by the year 2015, there will be a need for two million workers worldwide in these fields. Of these, nearly one million will be needed in the U.S. Furthermore, an additional of five million workers will be needed in support areas for these fields. To develop this workforce, inclusion of nanotechnology in K-12 education should start with the primary education and continue all the way to high school level.

This need prompted the JMU faculty and local K-12 science teachers to found the Shenandoah Valley Nanoscience Outreach Collaboration in 2011. SVNOC’s goal is to help teachers bring nanoscience into local classrooms. The NanoDays/Making Stuff event is one part of this effort.

On Sunday afternoon, Costel and his colleagues in the departments of physics and chemistry, along with current JMU physics majors, will lead visiting students through hands-on experiments. They’ll also explore current nano research with adults and older children. According to Lisa Shull (’85,’91M), the museum’s executive director, “It’s a great event for the whole family, children of all ages and parents.” Anyone can participate and it’s free.

But the children aren’t the only ones who will benefit. NanoDays is an opportunity for current JMU students to give back to the local community. And, as Costel writes, “Physics students who help with the event will gain invaluable experience in being able to present the science to kids of all ages.”

Not only does the event make science fun for children, it makes it available and social. This kind of overlap between collegians and local children is priceless and can be inspirational. Who wouldn’t be interested in learning about sand that refuses to get wet even under water or water that refuses to spill, two of the planned activities? And what fifth grader isn’t eager to interact with a cool college student? But it’s far more than a neat idea; it’s important science.

“It is important that everybody is able to learn about nanotechnology because it is impacting our lives considerably,” Costel writes. “If you’ve ever wondered how nano transistors and quantum computers work, or how we create smaller and small batteries that can last longer than the conventional Li-based ones, or how we can create smarter drugs that can cure cancer, diabetes and other life threatening diseases, then Nanotechnology can give you an answer.”

Those answers will begin with fun science on Sunday at 1 p.m. For more information, click the museum’s link above or visit them on Facebook.

And if you’d like to get a taste of the opposite of nano (think gigantic), check out the newest issue of Madison magazine, which should hit newsstands and mailboxes very soon. On page 22, you’ll find a story written by Eric Gorton (’86,’09M), public affairs associate, about groundbreaking research into megamasers being conducted by another JMU Constantin, Anca Constantin, professor of physics and astronomy.

Squeegees and the Sigma Nus

Any mom can tell you where kids roam, messes follow. Multiply that by hundreds and you’ll need a cleaning crew.

That’s what downtown Harrisonburg’s Explore More Discovery Museum got recently when members of the Sigma Nu fraternity descended on the museum after hours. They grabbed buckets, rags, mops and squeegees. They wiped tables and counters, cleaned bathrooms, mopped up floors and polished windows. When they left that evening, the museum was sparkling.

Volunteers like the brothers of Sigma Nu are critical to the operation of the museum, a downtown treasure. So we applaud the guys for their volunteer service to the community’s children. It’s a great way to be the change.

To learn more about Explore More Discovery Museum and its JMU connection, you’ll find a story on the JMU website.