Jim and Kathy Beveredge Brazell ’68 never wondered if the painting that had been in their family for decades was valuable. But when an art dealer offered them $12,000 for it, they had the work appraised. They soon discovered the painting they had been referring to as “The Children at Sunset” was actually “At the Doorway,” one of French Academic artist Émile Munier’s earliest works, valued at $200,000. “Then there was the question of what do we do with it?” says Jim, an English professor at TCNJ from 1969 to 2003. “And we thought, this is a chance to give something back to the college. The beauty and innocence of children, depicted so vividly in this painting, remind us why so many graduates have chosen teaching as their profession.” The painting now hangs in the Reference Room of TCNJ Library for all to see, and the Brazells, who now live in Florida, look forward to visiting it in its new home when they’re next on campus. “It is at a place that is so important to us,” says Jim. “And when we come back to the area, we will stop in and see it. We had a copy made, but it’s just not as good
as looking at the real thing.”
DEATH, TAXES, AND WOMEN’S TENNIS DOMINATION >
To the adage about life’s two certainties, we offer a third: TCNJ’s women’s tennis will win the New Jersey Athletic Conference. The program did so again last fall for the 33rd consecutive time, and in the process extended its winning streak in conference play to 165-0.
UNDERGRAD RESEARCH DONE RIGHT >
The college received the first Campus-wide Award for Undergraduate Research Accomplishment from the Washington, D.C.–based Council on Undergraduate Research in January. The award was created to recognize institutions that provide exceptional undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative activity programs. TCNJ was one of only three schools in the nation cited.
Quiet clubbing events are all the rage in cities and at music festivals across the country. Last fall’s Silent Disco brought the sensation to campus. Donning wireless headphones that streamed music from one of the event’s DJs, students quietly danced the night away on the lawn behind Green Hall.
NO FASHION FAUX PAS HERE >
Wearing white after Labor Day would normally be a no-no, but it wasn’t for the 70 nursing majors who proudly participated in the School of Nursing, Health, and Exercise Science’s inaugural White Coat Ceremony last November. The students, all sophomores, begin their clinical rotations this spring—the first step in their transformation from students of nursing into nurses. Last fall’s ceremony, during which faculty presented white coats to the students, was a formal welcome into the profession.
#llamaface >
Students got up close and personal with a menagerie of goats, hedgehogs, sloths, and reptiles, as well as a somewhat standoffish llama, during CUB’s Zooner, held in October in the Alumni Grove.