Parents and Friends
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For our Alumni, Parents and Friends |
| Spring 2006 |
 Ships at Jamestown. |
CNU joins a 400-Year celebration
Special events are planned to mark Jamestown 2007
By David Chernicky
"The overriding theme on campus is discovery and exploration,” said Dr. Phil Hamilton, associate professor of history at Christopher Newport University. And never was it a better time to be a CNU history professor, as the University joins all of Virginia in planning a yearlong celebration of the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America.
American icon Thomas Jefferson – that is, Clay Jenkinson, a humanities scholar who portrays the historic figure on the Thomas Jefferson Hour on National Public Radio – will kick off a long slate of special on-campus events planned by CNU’s Jamestown 2007 Committee and scheduled to begin next January.
Included in the line-up are panel discussions by Pulitzer Prize-winning historians James McPherson and David Hackett Fischer, a talk by Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison on race relations in the New World, and a performance by an American Indian dance group, said Dr. Hamilton, who chairs the committee. The Jamestown Series of History, Theater and Culture will feature an original play by CNU’s own Steven Breese, director of TheaterCNU.
 Steven Breese is writing a play for the Jamestown 2007 celebration. |
His play revolves around a father and son in contemporary America who learn about the nation’s birth through flashbacks to the 16th and 17th centuries. “One time period informs the other. The characters talk to each other across the centuries,” said Professor Breese, who envisions a cast of 25 to 28 students. He is putting the final touches on the play, which he will name upon completion.
Through extensive research on the Jamestown Settlement and colonial period for the play – research that included a trip to England – Professor Breese discovered that he had become an expert on Christopher Newport, an original investor in the Virginia Company. “He was one of the greatest privateers. He sailed with Sir Francis Drake and helped defeat the Spanish Armada,” Professor Breese said of the University’s namesake.
The CNU Jamestown 2007 Committee hopes events such as these will build upon a Jamestown theme incorporated in the curriculum for students as well as draw American history enthusiasts from across Virginia to the campus.
“Our goal is to make this series available to our students and showcase the Ferguson Center for the Arts,” said Dr. Hamilton, who looks forward to a culturally rich year of celebrations. Glad to be in the middle of it all, he reflects back to his first year on the CNU faculty when he agreed to chair the committee. That was in 2002.
“At the time, it seemed like 2007 was so far away. Once we hit 2006, it’s been like a speeding train.”