Pianist Rachel Franklin to Perform May 3

Chestertown, MD, April 20, 2001 — The Washington College Concert Series closes its 2000-2001 season by hosting accomplished pianist Rachel Franklin on Thursday, May 3, 2001 at 8:00 p.m. in the College's Tawes Theatre.

As a Pro Musicis International Award winner, British pianist Franklin has given solo debuts in the Carnegie Recital Hall, New York, and Jordan Hall, Boston, as well as European Pro Musicis solo debuts in Paris and Rome. Franklin, who studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School with Vlado Perlemuter and Louis Kentner, has garnered glowing reviews on both sides of the Atlantic. Her style combines impeccable fingerwork, sensitivity to the unique architecture of each piece, and a wide range of dynamic gradations, and she has earned admiration for her meticulous yet nuanced performances that remain alive and responsive to phrasing, dynamics and rubato.

An accomplished jazz pianist as well, Franklin has performed with many jazz ensembles and has broadcast solo jazz on BBC Radio 3. Much in demand as a teacher, performer and speaker, Franklin is a faculty member at the University of Maryland and an associate faculty member at the Peabody Conservatory of Music. She gives courses and lectures for many organizations including the Smithsonian Associate Program, the Levine School, The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra.

The Washington College Concert Series is now in its 49th season. Single admission tickets are available only at the box office before performances and are $12.00 for adults and $5.00 for youth 18 years of age and under. For season tickets, inquire at the box office on performance night or write the Washington College Concert Series, 300 Washington Avenue, Chestertown, MD 21620-1197. For further information, call 410-778-7839.

College Establishes Sigma Xi Chapter

Society Supports Excellence, Opportunities for Scientific Research and Education

Chestertown, MD, April 17, 2001 — Washington College has been granted a charter to establish a new chapter of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society. The chapter received its charter during an installation ceremony held Tuesday, April 10, 2001 in the College's Casey Academic Center Forum.

"The primary benefits of our Sigma Xi affiliation will be an increased availability of research grant money for faculty and student projects, and opportunity for a greater exchange of ideas and for interdisciplinary collaboration with researchers from other institutions," said Dr. Michael Kerchner, an associate professor in the College's Psychology Department and first president of the newly formed chapter.

Founded in 1886, Sigma Xi is a non-profit membership society of more than 80,000 scientists and engineers elected to the Society because of their research achievements or potential. In addition to publishing the journal American Scientist, Sigma Xi awards annual grants to promising young researchers, holds forums on critical issues at the intersection of science and society, and sponsors a variety of programs supporting honor in science and engineering, science education, science policy and the public understanding of science. The affiliation allows Washington College faculty and students to advance scientific education and research through grants, travel awards, conferences, and visiting scientists.

For the last five years, Dr. Kerchner has been part of a core of faculty working to bring Sigma Xi to the College. "There has been a dedicated core of Washington College faculty, primarily in the natural sciences, working to establish this chapter," he said. "Their three-year plan for the chapter that includes a schedule of events and speakers, membership recruitment strategies, professional development plans, community outreach initiatives, and programs to foster research opportunities for undergraduates demonstrates our commitment to Sigma Xi's ideals."

Officers serving for 2001-2002 will be Michael Kerchner, president; assistant professor of biology Martin Connaughton, president-elect; assistant professor of biology Doug Darnowski, chapter secretary; and assistant professor of chemistry Leslie Sherman, treasurer. For more information on Sigma Xi, visit www.sigmaxi.org.

Lecture to Address Fraud in Psychiatric Legal Testimony

Chestertown, MD, April 17, 2001 — Dr. Margaret A. Hagen, professor of psychology at Boston University, will give a talk titled, "Whores of the Court: The Takeover of the American Legal System by Psychoexperts" on Thursday, April 26, 2001, at 6:30 p.m. in Litrenta Lecture Hall, Dunning Hall, Washington College. The talk is free and the public is invited to attend.

Dr. Hagen is the author of Whores of the Court: The Fraud of Psychiatric Testimony and the Rape of American Justice (HarperCollins, 1997). In a provocative lecture, Dr. Hagen, past director of the graduate programs in developmental, personality and social psychology at Boston University, will explore how psychology as a science is in its infancy, and may be fundamentally inadequate to meet either the legal criteria for the admission of expert testimony into court or the countless demands placed on it by our modern legal system.

"Lawyers often refer to these psychoexperts as 'whores'," said Dr. Hagen. "They are the growing ranks of psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers who give psychological testimony in our courtrooms today on subjects as varied as competency, dangerousness, amenability to rehabilitation, parental fitness and custody, child sexual abuse and recovered memory." In far too many cases, she believes, psychoexpert testimony falsely shapes prosecutions, verdicts and sentencing, and leads our judicial system away from the path of justice.

Dr. Hagen's talk is sponsored by the Washington College Campus Events and Visitors Committee.

'Whose Line Is It Anyway?' Comic Wayne Brady to Perform April 26

Also Performing Acoustic Guitarist Tim Reynolds

Chestertown, MD, April 4, 2001 — Wayne Brady, comedy genius of the hit ABC show "Whose Line is it Anyway?", and acoustic guitar wizard Tim Reynolds, who has recorded and played with the Dave Matthews Band, will appear Thursday, April 26, 2001, at 8 p.m. in Washington College's Johnson Lifetime Fitness Center.

Wayne Brady has been called one of the funniest comedic actors on TV today. His hilarious improv antics on ABC 's hit comedy series "Whose Line is it Anyway?" paired with his ability to impersonate just about anyone have won the laughs of many Americans. By age 16, the Orlando, FL, native had already decided on a career in the military, but a chance performance in a high school play would garner rave reviews and permanently alter his long-range plans. While in Florida, Brady immersed himself in the central Florida theater community, performing in numerous stage productions including "A Chorus Line," "Fences," "A Raisin in the Sun," "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "I'm Not Rappaport."

He moved to Los Angeles and performed at the prestigious Mark Taper Forum in its production of "Blade to the Heat," and made television guest appearances on series such as "I'll Fly Away," "Home Court" and "In the Heat of the Night." Brady was a series regular on the syndicated sketch comedy show "Kwik Witz" for two seasons, and hosted the VH-1 comedy series "Vinyl Justice," KABC's "Countdown to the American Music Awards," and was seen opposite Drew Carey in ABC's "Gepetto." Wayne also brought the house down in an appearance at the 2nd Annual TV Guide Awards.

In fact, Brady was so well embraced by the industry that the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences invited him to perform solo at the 52nd Annual Emmy Awards in September 2000, where he spoofed many of the season's top shows, including "The Sopranos" and "Survivor." One critic said "Brady Out-Crystaled Billy Crystal." He is currently working on a pilot for ABC, "The Wayne Brady Hour," which he will star in and co-write. The sketch comedy/improv show is scheduled to debut this year.

Tim Reynolds is well known as an occasional guitarist with the Dave Matthews Band and has been called an "unplugged guru" with an uncommon command of melody and dissonance. Reynolds' horizons are so broad, his technical skills so immaculate, that it is difficult to attribute his playing to any one general style. With over 20 CDs in his discography, Reynolds has released his sixth solo CD, "Nomadic Wavelength," this April.

"I'm a fan of experimentation," says Reynolds. "So when it's just me on stage, I really have to focus my energy differently. It's much more crucial that I connect with my audience on some fundamental level."

College Hosts Irish Poet Paul Muldoon on April 17

Chestertown, MD, April 4, 2001 — Irish poet Paul Muldoon will read from his works on Tuesday, April 17, 2001, at 7 p.m. in the Sophie Kerr Room of Washington College's Miller Library. Sponsored by the Sophie Kerr Committee, the reading is free and open to the public.

Muldoon was born in 1951 in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, and educated in Armagh and the Queen's University of Belfast. From 1973 to 1986, he worked in Belfast as a radio and television producer for the British Broadcasting Corporation. Since 1987 he has lived in the United States, and is now the Howard G. B. Clark '21 Professor in the Humanities at Princeton University, where he also directs the creative writing program. In 1999 he was named professor of poetry at the University of Oxford.

A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Muldoon was honored with an American Academy of Arts and Sciences award in literature for 1996. His other awards are the 1994 T. S. Eliot Prize and the 1997 Irish Times Poetry Prize. He has been described by the The Times Literary Supplement as "the most significant English-language poet born since the Second World War." His published collections of poetry are New Weather (1973), Mules (1977), Why Brownlee Left (1980), Quoof (1983), Meeting the British (1987), Madoc: A Mystery (1990), The Annals of Chile (1994), Hay (1998), and Poems: 1968-1998 (2001).

Dinshaw to Speak on Gender and Queer Studies

Chestertown, MD, April 4, 2001 — Dr. Carolyn Dinshaw, professor of English and director of the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University, will address the topic "Gender Studies, Queer Studies: Local and Global Perspectives" on Wednesday, April 18, 2001, at 4:30 p.m. in the Sophie Kerr Room of Washington College's Miller Library. Sponsored by the Sophie Kerr Committee, the talk is free and open to the public.

Dr. Dinshaw helped to establish the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality (CSGS) which opened at NYU in the fall of 1999. A medievalist by training, Dr. Dinshaw received her Ph.D. in 1982 from Princeton University. She has taught courses on Chaucer, Middle and early modern English language and literature, European medieval literature, feminist studies and queer studies. She also founded a program in gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender studies at the University of California-Berkeley, where she taught from 1982 to 1999.

Dr. Dinshaw believes that dialogue on the issues of gender and sexuality gains greater complexity and detail when viewed with a long historical lens and she is fascinated by the forms that bodies and pleasures might have taken before they were specifically formulated into modern sexualities in the West. With David M. Halperin, she is founder of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies (Duke University Press), the leading scholarly journal in the rapidly expanding field of queer studies. Her current research articulates queer literary-historical studies with the insights of postcolonial studies.