Our Highlanders are using their education to do extraordinary things. In this column, we highlight some notable mentions from local, regional, national and international news media. Whether our students, alumni, faculty and staff are featured as subject matter experts in high-profile stories or simply helping make the world a better place, we’ll feature their stories.
Center of “Gravity”
Unique experience alert: You now have just under two weeks left to check out “The Alchemy of Gravity,” a provocative exhibit that’s currently on display at the Radford University Art Museum (RUAM) in the Covington Center.
The interactive work, created by Raleigh, North Carolina-based installation artist Jane Cheek, incorporates monolithic sculptures, sound, lights and music. It seeks to interrogate the hidden psychic and emotional weights that individuals often deal with in secret.
“Burdens, things that we cope with, things in our lives … and how you might not kind of recognize what anyone else is carrying from looking at them,” was how Cheek recently described it to Radio IQ’s Roxy Todd.
Todd’s Jan. 27 news piece, which can be streamed via WVTF, offers intriguing audio of what visitors can expect, and the spot includes interviews with art museum manager Theresa Rykaczewski as well as current students Calvin Dean, Megan Fonseth and John Godfrey.
“This is actually an exhibition that is typical of a much larger city, where it’s a completely immersive experience,” Rykaczewski told Radio IQ. “I love it.”
“The Alchemy of Gravity” is free to the public and remains open through Feb. 20. Operating hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday from noon to 4 p.m.
The museum will also host a reception and artist’s talk with Cheek on Wednesday, Feb. 18, at 3 p.m.
A different beat
This week, when longtime law enforcement officer Courtney Ballantine ’00 ascended to the rank of chief of the Georgetown University Police Department (GUPD), he brought a familial perspective to the job.
“I’ve gone to orientation for college twice for my own children, and it’s a big deal to leave your child behind at a college,” he recently told a reporter for the school, spelling out his departmental goal in serving Georgetown’s students: “We’re going to provide a safe environment so that they can be successful.”
After 25 years with the Alexandria (Virginia) Police Department, Ballantine on Feb. 2 took the helm of the university’s force, which has now expanded to include the Capitol Campus Department of Public Safety (CCDPS).
A Jan. 22 story for Georgetown’s news site offers a profile of Ballantine, going all the way back to when he was a teenage public safety enthusiast who went on police ride-alongs in his hometown of Enfield, Connecticut; touching on his criminal justice studies at Radford, where he volunteered with city fire department and the student-run rescue squad; and moving on into his tenure in Alexandria, where among other efforts he founded a crisis intervention team to provide officers with training in verbal de-escalation techniques and familiarize them with mental health disorders and substance abuse issues.
Ballantine said he hopes to bring that level of empathetic response to his latest role: “There’s nobody in this department who wants anything other than for [students] to be successful, and we’re going to do that. We’re on their side.”
New novelist shines “… Under the Lights”
As the New River Valley recovers from some tenacious winter weather of late (did everyone enjoy their brush with snow that had to be chopped before it could be shoveled?), let’s take a welcome look ahead to one warmer prospect of the season to come.
In this case, we’re talking about Publishers Weekly’s Spring 2026 Writers to Watch list, and if you scroll down that prestigious roll, you’ll spot Cassie Miller ’07.
Miller, a former high school English teacher, is about to publish her first book, the young-adult rom-com “Meet Me Under the Lights.”
Earlier this week, Miller described her book to us as “a summer romance set in a small farm town run by tradition and baseball, where a rich girl with big ambitions and her childhood friend-turned-enemy find themselves in the middle of a decades-long feud between their families, threatening to tear them and their dreams apart.”
Publishers Weekly, which focuses on books and bookselling, wrote: “Miller, an elementary school librarian in Southwest Virginia who is married to a high school band director, says the inspiration for the story developed while watching summer collegiate baseball team the Pulaski River Turtles.”
“I was immediately intrigued and inspired by the way that this gorgeous baseball stadium could fit itself inside such a small town,” Miller told PW, “and how that entire town seemed to come out for every home game to support the team.”
The author also recently sat down with podcaster Elizabeth Lyons for an extensive interview about her life and work.
“Meet Me Under the Lights” will be available March 3. Online shoppers can pre-order it locally through Blacksburg Books and will receive a signed copy, a bookmark and a trading card of one of the story’s characters. It’s also available through most other major book outlets, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell’s, Target and Walmart.