Last year, NOVA Fortnightly, the newspaper of Northern Virginia Community College, became the first publication of the college to ever win a Virginia Press Association award.

Traci J. Brooks, Joshua Davis and Ling Lee won awards in photography and photo illustration for work published in 2010. They competed against mainstream newspapers.

Well, they’ve done it again.

Brooks and KJ Mushung have won VPA awards for work published in 2011, again competing against mainstream newspapers in the non-daily newspaper division.

Brooks won for the second year in a row, taking second place for photo illustration. And Mushung won first place in Virginia for pictorial photo.

NOVA Fortnightly is led by Mushung, who serves as the Newspaper Training Director. Dr. Jimmie McClellan, Dean for Liberal Arts, serves as Faculty Advisor. Brooks is the newspaper’s Photography Director.

“It’s ambitious for a college newspaper to even be a member of the Virginia Press Association,” said McClellan. “It is an extraordinary achievement for a college newspaper to be recognized.”

The Virginia Press Association holds one of the largest news contests in the nation, annually attracting more than 5,000 entries.

The mission of the VPA is to support its membership through responsive services and resources. The organization represents newspaper interests in the General Assembly through lobbying efforts. It also champions the common interests of Virginia newspapers and the ideals of a free press in a democratic society.

NOVA Fortnightly would like to thank its hard-working staff, Dr. McClellan, College-wide Student Activities Coordinator Brian Anweiler and the Virginia Press Association.

Certified Massage Therapist, Kelly Johnson, brings Spinal Reflex Therapy (SRT) to Ashburn, Virginia, making Modern Concepts Salon the first treatment center in this area.

SRT is a specific protocol developed to turn off the Axial Spinal Reflexes (pain) that develop in the body. It is a neurologically-based treatment of the soft tissues of the body. A person needs to understand that reflexes occur without the brain telling them to do so. A reflex is a cord mediated (your spinal cord) response NOT interpreted by cognitive reason. In short, a reflex is just something our body produces, without thought, in response to unpleasant stimuli. Reflexes are defensive by nature.

Developed by Dr. Frank Jarrel in 1993, SRT identifies specific Axial Spinal Reflexes, or indicator points, that have been turned on, causing painful areas within the body. These reflexes are on 24/7 and the only way to stop the cycle is to turn them off. A person may not feel debilitating pain in the actual indicator points but they can feel unrelenting pain elsewhere. By use of specific tools, a Spinal Reflex Analysis (SRA) is done to determine the course of action for the practitioner.

The SRT session begins in the same manner at every visit, an SRA will be completed to identify which Axial Spinal Reflexes, or indicator points, are turned on. Using this information the practitioner consults a chart of attachment points to determine where the specific muscle fiber/ligament is and where to apply pressure. Once determined, work will begin on those specific fibers that are “stuck” in a positive feedback loop from repeated reflexive contracture. The practitioner holds pressure on a single point, with no movement, anywhere from 30 to 3 minutes, or until a relaxation of the muscle/ligament is experienced.

“Communication throughout the process is extremely important for an effective session. It is thoroughly explained to the client that they will have an initial flash of pain during the times when I begin applying pressure; there must be a ‘pain fade’ within the first 20 seconds or you will know that I am not treating the correct ‘fiber.’ Feedback from my client makes me more accurate. The end result is truly amazing. Most people can’t believe how different they feel. Some patients have described almost euphoric feelings while others want to curl up and sleep,” commented Johnson.

Once the session is complete the patient is asked to move around and assess what they are feeling, their current level of pain (if any) and to ask any questions. It is vital to follow post- treatment instructions. Patients need to realize that once the acute pain is turned off there may be other areas of minor pain that they begin to notice are now surfacing and can be treated in the next session.

SRT is a neurologically-based soft tissue therapy that has achieved profound results.

“As a therapist, my goal has always been to get my clients to a place where they are as pain-free as they want to be. I was fascinated after hearing about this from a former professor and reading about SRT. I knew this was something I needed to get into my tool kit. The Basic and Professional levels of training were intense, but extremely worthwhile. I look forward to offering this treatment to anyone suffering from chronic pain,” stated Johnson.

Johnson further noted that this is not a massage, it is a therapy. A typical session is 30 to 45 minutes, and each person will receive an individual treatment plan based on the evaluation results at each visit. There are only four other certified SRT practitioners in Virginia.

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Stephanie Tipple
Staff Reporter

As adults getting an education, NOVA students come in a variety of ages and many have or are starting families. In order to serve these students, the new Office of Pregnant and Parenting Student Support (OPPSS), which is based in the Medical Campus in Springfield, will begin making visits to the other five NOVA campuses. When on the NOVA campuses, students can work with the staff to get referrals to medical professionals in their area, informational resources about pregnancy and related health questions, along with workshops on how to parent, the dangers of domestic violence and what to do in the instance of sexual assault.

And while they do offer many resources for expectant or new mothers, the OPPSS is also ready to help new or expectant fathers. They offer many programs and educational information about parenting, geared toward students with children younger than school age, with the hopes that this will help adult learners on campus perform well in school and complete their degrees.

In order to offer these programs and information, the OPPSS is funded by the Support for Pregnant and Parenting Teens and Women Grant. This grant allows them to work on and improve all of the services available to parenting students, services and information about how to handle domestic violence, stalking and assault, and to help these parenting and pregnant students overcome any challenges that can serve as a roadblock in their education.

While the bulk of their time will be spent on MEC in Springfield, the OPPSS team will have a mobile van that will visit each campus once or twice a month. A calendar of the dates that OPPSS will be on each campus is available at nvcc.edu/current-students/student-life/oppss/calendar.

To contact OPPSS, e-mail OPPSS@nvcc.edu or call 703-822-2010.

Tony Lepore

Press Release

The Northern Virginia Community College men’s lacrosse team begins its 2012 season on March 4 with a new coach.
Anthony LePore is the new lacrosse head coach. LePore previously coached lacrosse for 10 years at Stonewall Jackson High School in Manassas, where he will continue as a social studies teacher. He has also been involved in numerous other lacrosse activities.

On his appointment, LePore said, “I am very thankful for this opportunity, and I look forward to coaching these student-athletes at the collegiate level. My time coaching at Stonewall was special… However, I am very excited about this next challenge.”

While at Stonewall, LePore’s lacrosse teams won two district championships and earned six regional playoff berths. He coached the school’s first All-Americans and numerous players who went on to play at the NCAA level. The News and Messenger newspaper named LePore its boy’s lacrosse all-area Coach of the Year for 2011.

“We are thrilled to attract a candidate with the credentials of Coach LePore,” said Brian Anweiler, NOVA’s college-wide student activities coordinator. “He is a talented coach with a proven ability to place students at the four-year college level.”

LePore played collegiate lacrosse at The Citadel from 1996 to 1999 and then at State University of New York at Geneseo from 1999 to 2000 while working on a graduate degree in secondary education.

He is originally from Rochester, New York and currently resides in Manassas.

LePore replaces Matt Blarney, NOVA’s first coach who, although having helped start the program, resigned in early August to join Sonoma State University in California as an assistant lacrosse coach.

NOVA will play eight matches this spring, beginning March 4 and ending on April 26. Its first three matches will all be on the road, while the final eight will be played at home locations.

There will be home-and-home matches with the Community College of Baltimore County-Catonsville and Delaware Technical & Community College-Terry. Six of the matches will be against Maryland community college teams.

The vote in this poll, go to PotomacLocal.com.

Professor Poland

Press Release

Dr. Charles Poland of Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) has received the 2012 Outstanding Faculty Award, administered by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia and sponsored by Dominion.

Poland is one of 12 faculty members from Virginia’s public and private colleges and universities who received the award, the highest honor bestowed upon faculty in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The award recognizes excellence in teaching, research, knowledge integration, and public service.

“On behalf of the NOVA community, we would like to express our congratulations to Dr. Poland for being selected as a recipient of this prestigious award,” said NOVA President Robert G. Templin Jr. “Dr. Poland has touched the lives of thousands of students since he began at the College in 1967. Students have embraced and praised his hands-on approach in directly engaging history and its artifacts. This is evidenced by the mobile Civil War museum now installed at NOVA that includes hundreds of historical documents and objects.”

Poland teaches courses in U.S. and local history, Western civilization, and the Civil War at NOVA’s Annandale Campus. His teaching career spans more than five decades. Since 1977, he has conducted celebrated field-trip courses to major and minor battlefields of the Civil War. He has traveled more than 120,000 miles to battlefields from Alexandria to the Ohio River and from Gettysburg to Appomattox, giving hundreds of lectures to students varying in age from teenagers to senior citizens.

He has received awards for teaching excellence including the “Most Outstanding Faculty Member” and the NOVA Alumni Federation Faculty of the Year.

Poland has a deep appreciation for local history, which is due in part to having ancestors that trace back to the colonial period in Loudoun County. His published work on the subject includes “From Frontier to Suburbia: One of America’s Fastest Growing Counties,” “A Loudoun County Story” and “The Lure of Loudoun: Centuries of Changes in Virginia’s Emerald County.”

As a scholar of the Civil War, he has placed special emphasis in his publications on little known military activities and now forgotten heroes who dominated public opinion in 1861. His writing reveals citizen soldiers’ romanticized expectations of glory and their dreams shattered by cruel realities of war.

Poland holds a doctorate in American history from Western Colorado University. He and his wife live in Loudoun County and have two daughters.

NOVA Serves: Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service
Press Release

Join in for NOVA’s third annual NOVA Serves: MLK Day National Day of Service on Monday, Jan. 16. Over the past two years, NOVA Serves has offered 14 service projects and engaged over 750 students, faculty and staff in service. The projects are located throughout NOVA’s service area, and participant volunteers represent all of NOVA’s campuses.

Option 1: Operation School Supply, Alexandria Campus
3001 N Beauregard Street
Bisdorf AA Building, Room 196
Alexandria, VA 22311
Time Commitment: 1 p.m. – 3 p.m.
Volunteers are needed to donate school supplies and help build school supplies kits for school children in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries where US troops are stationed. In cooperation with the Operation International Children organization, these school supply kits will help US troops bring school supplies to needy children.

Option 2: Habitat for Humanity ReStore, Chantilly
4262 Entre Court
Chantilly, VA 20151
Time Commitment: 9:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Habitat for Humanity ReStore locations reuse and recycle new and used building materials. The proceeds from the sale of these items support Habitat for Humanity building projects. Volunteers will assist with incoming donations and test donations to make sure they work and clean, assemble or repair as needed. Volunteers will price donations and place them on the sales floor. Volunteers will organize the sales floor and assist customers on the sales floor.

Option 3: Habitat for Humanity ReStore, Alexandria
7770 Richmond Highway
Alexandria, VA 22306
Time Commitment: 9:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Habitat for Humanity ReStore locations reuse and recycle new and used building materials. The proceeds from the sale of these items support Habitat for Humanity building projects. Volunteers will assist with incoming donations and test donations to make sure they work and clean, assemble, or repair as needed. Volunteers will price donations and place them on the sales floor. Volunteers will organize the sales floor and assist customers on the sales floor.

Option 4: Habitat for Humanity ReStore, Manassas
9506 Center Street
Manassas, VA 20110
Time Commitment: 9:30 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Habitat for Humanity ReStore locations reuse and recycle new and used building materials. The proceeds from the sale of these items support Habitat for Humanity building projects. Volunteers will be receiving donations, helping customers, hanging light fixtures, etc.

Option 5: Loudoun County Animal Shelter, Sterling
39820 Charles Town Pike
Waterford, VA 20197
Time Commitment: 9 a.m. – 12 p.m.
The Loudoun County Animal Shelter is an open-access shelter, meaning they take in any and all animals that are surrendered by Loudoun County resident or are found stray in Loudoun County, regardless of reason or circumstance. Volunteers are needed to assist with cleaning and organizing projects for the shelter as well as animal adoption and animal care preparation activities.

To register as a volunteer, visit http://bit.ly/xgjpVI.

Ruth Neaville, who plays Joyce, and Jim Johnson, who plays Detective H.E. Weber, listen to feedback from director Matthew Randall. Photo by Traci Brooks.

Traci J. Brooks

Director of Photography

A small collection of actors gathers in the Waddell Conference room at Loudoun campus, bearing scripts and pencils. As they sit, their specific beverage marks their spot — Arizona Green Tea for one, seltzer water for another.

Despite the dignity of the room, the atmosphere is anything but somber as Taking Flight Theatre’s cast and crew rehearse for their upcoming performance of Earth and Sky, a play by Douglas Post.

Earth and Sky is a play in the style of a film noir, a mystery whose ending the cast and crew are keeping tightly under wraps. The basic plot revolves around Sara, whose boyfriend is murdered and who finds herself delving into the seedy world around her to find out who killed him.

While the majority of a play’s rehearsal time is spent on stage, this step of creating a show is just as essential as standing in front of an audience. “Table-work,” as actors call it, is essential for an actor to understand his character’s role in the play. They practice different vocal inflections, discuss how they’ll stand and where they’ll move. They discuss the characters’ relationships to each other and draw connections between the actors’ lives and those of their characters.

“This is a very character-driven show,” director Matthew Randall explains, noting that he always does approximately a week of table-work in his shows.

“It’s the foundation of the entire show,” Jim Johnson, who plays Detective H.E. Weber, says of table-work. “It’s an opportunity to dig into the characters before we get on stage.”

Questions fly as actors read a line, pause for feedback from Randall and then respond to his probing as to their character’s motivation. The actors don’t even go by their real names, instead responding when Randall addresses each of them using their character’s name.

“I don’t think Sara is at all present,” Randall comments.

“She is so checked out,” agrees Lauren Palmer Kiesling, who plays Sara.

“Then, try a line delivery that shows you’re checked out.”

She thinks for a second and nods.

They work the same two-minute scene again. And again. The speed and volume of the lines change slightly from one run-through to another.

“That was beautiful,” Randall finally says.

He turns to Ruth Neaveill, who plays Joyce, a fellow librarian with Sara, to give feedback on her physical actions during the scene, “You could even drop one book while you’re talking, she picks it up for you, you continue talking, you drop it again.”

After another run-through, Randall compliments Neaveill: “Your vocal quality is perfection for this role.”

It’s a fluid, dynamic way to see a play performed. Without costumes and lights, it’s almost easier to hone in on the most important part of the show: the words. The ear and eye watch every nuance of the actors, picking up on subtleties that might be purposefully hidden when they are on stage — a wink, a hesitation before a word. Here in this room, the actors’ motivations and thoughts are an open book, giving an unparalleled look into the work of building a show.

Earth and Sky runs 100 minutes with no intermission. It will be performed Feb. 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19, 24 and 25 at the Waddell Theatre on Loudoun’s campus.

For more information, visit tftheatre.org.

Lauren Palmer Kiesling, who plays Sara, reads through a scene. Photo by Traci Brooks.

Ruth Neaville, who plays Joyce, performs a monologue, showing that being seated doesn't mean being still. Photo by Traci Brooks.

Rick Johnson, a former golf professional turned massage therapist, chats with Ashley Owusu-Sampah while giving her a massage. Photo by Traci Brooks.

Traci J. Brooks

Director of Photography

Looking for a way to relax during finals? Almost 50 lucky students at Loudoun got a free massage to help relieve stress on Dec. 2.

Rick Johnson, one of the massage therapists, said he got into massage therapy because of his own injuries from being a professional golfer. He noted that massage therapy was “tremendous for circulation and stress relief,” and that it releases endorphins to ease pain.

Valerie Morgan, a former nurse who has been a massage therapist for 11 years, agrees with Johnson, noting that massage therapy is great for students. “They spend a lot of time at the computer hunched over, so they get a lot of tension in their shoulders and neck,” she commented.

And the students? This was Ashley Owusu-Sampah’s first time getting a massage. She said the massage was “awesome and ticklish.” Robert Olson, an engineering student, called the massage relaxing and “definitely rewarding.”

Robert Olson enjoys a massage in between classes. Photo by Traci Brooks.

Ashley Owusu-Sampah receives a complimentary massage to help relieve the stress of finals. Photo by Traci Brooks.

Daquan Paige performs "Swim Good" by Frank Ocean at the Loudoun NOVA Idol auditions. Photo by Carina Thornton.

Ana Guerra
Staff Reporter

It’s back. Northern Virginia Community College’s popular singing competition, NOVA Idol, has returned and the crown is up for grabs yet again. NOVA Idol has gained much popularity throughout the past years through intense competition and even a little controversy.

Last year’s first-place winner, Jasmine Williams, is also the daughter of the vocal coach for NOVA Idol. The first-place achievement by Williams raised eyebrows, leaving people wondering: can the judges cast a sincerely unbiased vote when a colleague’s daughter is competing and a large amount of money is on the line?

That’s right. Students are not just competing for a title or a medal. Four thousand dollars is awarded to the first-place winner. The second-place winner receives $2,500. And $1,000 goes to the third-place winner.

The cash prizes do not have to be used toward schooling; the money can be utilized as the winners see fit.

This year’s auditions ran from Nov. 3 to Nov. 15 at the various campuses.

Those chosen will move on to the semi-finals, judged by previous NOVA Idol winners, to be held Friday, Jan. 20, 2012. Students are invited to attend this performance. The judges will select six contestants to perform at the finale on March 23 in the Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center at the Alexandria campus. The votes of both the audience and judges will be tallied to determine the first, second, and third-place winners.

For more information, visit NOVAIdol.com.

Performing "Chasing Pavements" by Adele, Krista Frost sings for a chance to move on to the semi-finals at NOVA Idol. Photo by Carina Thornton.

Zach Boren sings "Your Song" as performed by Ewan McGregor in the movie, "Moulin Rouge." Photo by Carina Thornton.

Bria Daniels, a student at Potomac Falls High School, performs "Hypothetically" by Lyfe Jennings. Photo by Traci Brooks.

Kristin Deegan, a student at Robinson Secondary School, earns positive feedback from the judges for her rendition of "Who You Are" by Jessie J. Photo by Traci Brooks.

Erik Johnson, a student at Loudoun Campus and employee at the UPS Store, sings "Superstar" by Luther Vandross. Photo by Traci Brooks.

Erika Anderson sings "I'm Going Down" by Mary J. Blige while auditioning at the Alexandria campus. Photo by KJ Mushung.

Robert Duquette auditions for the 2012 NOVA Idol competition by singing "The Christmas Song" by Mel Torme. Photo by Kama Storie.

Jin Shin auditions for the 2012 NOVA Idol competition by singing "Open Arms" by Journey. Photo by Kama Storie.

Alexandra Langley auditions for the 2012 NOVA Idol competition by singing "Hero" by Mariah Carey. Photo by Kama Storie.

A lively performance by Mari Gragne, a ministry student from Woodbridge campus. Photo by Dave Gent.

Vanessa Lopez, an education student, at the NOVA Idol auditions. Photo by Dave Gent.

H. James William Jenkins, an engineering student, impresses the judges panel with his own song. Photo by Dave Gent.

Courtney Quick, a student from Manassas, likes what she hears from the judges. Photo by Dave Gent.

Kyung "Sophia" Lim, a science student from Manassas, performs for the judges at the NOVA Idol auditions. Photo by Dave Gent.