Dr. Tracey Schwarze Creates Bequest for Endowed Faculty Chair

The job ad read like a wish list. Christopher Newport University was looking for someone to teach public relations writing and 20th century British literature, among other subjects, as well as direct the writing center.

"I looked at the ad and thought, ‘I can do three of those five or six things, and I bet not many people can'," said Dr. Tracey Schwarze, now chair of the English Department at CNU. "It was a perfect job for me because I like to do different things, and it tapped into my personal interests. It seemed to be tailor-made for me."

Intrigued by the administration's and faculty's momentum and vision for improving the University, she joined the CNU faculty as an assistant professor in fall 1999.

"It really is a place where individuals can make a difference, make things better," Dr. Schwarze said. "I like the way people talk about teaching and talk about students – you can tell a lot about a school from how faculty talk about students."

The reality of working in the English Department exceeded her initial expectations.

"There's a tremendous energy in the department," she said. "We are involved in so many things throughout the university, we're a large department with a lot of resources. It's a good department to be brought up in as a junior faculty member. I saw how to be involved, and I was helped to be involved."

From 1999 to 2004, she directed the Alice Randall Writing Center , where she developed the writing associates program, which hires upper-class students who are strong writers to coach underclassmen. She chaired the undergraduate curriculum committee and was a faculty senator for two years before becoming president of the faculty senate. She researched and wrote extensively about James Joyce, including publishing a book, "Joyce and the Victorians," in 2002. She was promoted to associate professor in 2003.

In 2005, she was invited to lecture at the prestigious University College in Dublin and helped five CNU students attend summer school there. She coordinated public relations internships for the English department and is working on a second book, "Dirty Linen: James Joyce, Victorian Scandal, and Identity in the Modern Moment." And she recently became chair of the English Department.

Dr. Schwarze has found that the quality that brought her to CNU – the opportunities to become involved in so many different things – has proved to be one of her biggest challenges.

"I have to pick and choose; I could fill every minute," she said. "Faculty members walk a line of needing and wanting to be involved with students and needing to protect time they use for preparing and reflecting on classes and producing scholarship. It's an interesting balancing act."

Dr. Schwarze wanted to find a way to make it easier for faculty members to balance research, teaching and university involvement, and she found it as she was reorganizing her will. She created a bequest for an endowed faculty chair in English or the humanities.

"There's something special about CNU faculty. It's a teaching school, so expectations are high in the classroom, but they also have to stay current in their field and publish," she said. "An endowed chair would make it possible for those in the future to have the luxury of time to strengthen one area."

Dr. Schwarze said the bequest is set up with flexibility so that the money can be used for a chair in the humanities if one is not needed in English at that time. Another part of the bequest will fund scholarships for first-generation college students with strong academic records, because they have more difficulty in attending college, she said.

The opportunity to go to college has the potential to change lives like nothing else can," she said. "It's the silver bullet in our society. It can produce social mobility in a way apart from simply acquiring wealth. It opens opportunities. The Liberal Learning curriculum opens up a world to students who haven't been exposed to such things. The Humanities nourish the soul and also have practical applications, skills you can use."