Washington College SIFE Team Wins At Regional Competition

Chestertown, MD, April 27, 2004 — The Washington College SIFE Team matched its educational outreach projects against other SIFE Teams at the 2004 Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) Regional Competition and Career Opportunity Fair, April 7, 2004, in Philadelphia. A panel of judges honored Washington College SIFE with a Regional Champion award, making the team eligible to advance to the SIFE USA National Exposition, hosted by the Kansas City Business Community May 23-25.

Students In Free Enterprise encourages students to take what they are learning in the classroom and apply it to real-life situations, using their knowledge to better their communities through educational outreach projects. Washington College SIFE touched the Kent County community this year in several ways, including: educational outreach to two elementary schools, participation in two Kent County High School Opportunity Fairs, and seminars for Washington College students covering topics such as job search techniques and principles of investments. Washington College SIFE students both developed the materials for these programs and conducted them. Members of the Chestertown business community were also involved in a mock interview session. Additionally, the WC SIFE team brought experts to campus such as Lee Colan, author of Sticking to It: The Art of Adherence.

At competition, teams are judged on how well their projects taught others the principles of free enterprise. Susan A. Vowels, assistant professor of business management, serves as advisor for the SIFE Team and was named a Sam M. Walton Free Enterprise Fellow in recognition of her leadership and support of the SIFE program at Washington College.

“The Washington College SIFE team exemplified the principles of teamwork, communication, leadership and improving the lives of others as they interacted with fellow WC students, elementary school students, high school students, and the business community,” Vowels said.

Founded in 1975 and active on more than 1500 college and university campuses in 37 countries, SIFE is a non-profit organization that works in partnership with business and higher education to provide students the opportunity to make a difference and to develop leadership, teamwork and communication skills through learning, practicing and teaching the principles of free enterprise.

For more information, visit www.SIFE.org.

English Lecturer Erin Murphy Wins National Poetry Award, Releasing New Book In June

Chestertown, MD, April 27, 2004 — Erin Murphy, a lecturer in English at Washington College, has been named first-place winner of the National Writers Union Poetry Award. Her poem “ZipCodeMan” was selected by acclaimed poet Donald Hall to receive this annual award. The award includes a $500 cash prize and publication in Poetry Flash, the National Writers Union's poetry journal.

A 1990 graduate of Washington College, Murphy also will release “ZipCodeMan” and other poems in her forthcoming collection of poetry, Science of Desire, to be published by Word Press in June. This is the first full-length collection for Murphy, who teaches creative writing and literature courses in the College's English Department. Her poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming in such journals as The Georgia Review, Field, Kalliope, The Paterson Literary Review, Nimrod International Journal, and Literal Latte. She resides with her family in Chesapeake City, MD.

“The poems in Science of Desire focus on the ways in which memory informs experience, and vice versa,” said Murphy. “If my poems were Venn diagrams, the gray part in the center would be the overlap of language, experience and memory. I find that it's impossible to think of these things separately.”

A reading and book signing for Science of Desire will be held Friday, June 18, 2004, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. at the Elkton Arts Center, 135 E. Main Street in Elkton, MD. The event will be in conjunction with a display of poetry and painting titled “Life, Still: Prints & Paintings by Belle Hollon and Poems by Erin Murphy.” The event is free and open to the public.

To order Murphy's forthcoming book, available as of June 2004, visit Word Press online:http://www.word-press.com. Fall reading and book signing at Washington College to be announced.

Washington College Announces Summer 2004 Graduate Courses In English, History And Psychology

Chestertown, MD, April 27, 2004 — Students, educators and mental healthcare professionals are invited to register for Summer 2004 graduate courses at Washington College. The College offers Master's degree programs in English, History, and Psychology, as well as graduate courses in Education that can help to meet requirements for advanced professional certifications. Summer English courses begin the week of May 3-7 and end the week of June 7-11. History and Psychology courses begin the week of June 7-10 and end the week of July 26-29. Education courses are scheduled on an ongoing basis at a number of Maryland locations. The following degree program courses will be offered this summer:

ENG 597-10 From Aeschylus to Pinter: Pivotal Moments in Western Drama, Tuesday/Thursday, 6:30-9:30 p.m.
ENG 599-10 2Pacalypse Now: The Cult of The Heart of Darkness among Twentieth Century White Male Anglophone Intellectuals, Monday/Wednesday, 6:30-9:30 p.m.
HIS 501-10 Jefferson, Jackson and the Coming of the Civil War, Monday/Wednesday, 7:00-9:30 p.m.
HIS 598-10 Leading Economic Changes in Western Europe in the 18th and 19th Centuries, Tuesday/Thursday, 7:00-9:30 p.m.
PSY 598-10 Neuropsychology, Tuesday/Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
PSY 598-11 Family Counseling, Monday/Wednesday, 7:00-9:30 p.m.
PSY 598-12 Theories of Learning, Tuesday/Thursday, 7:00-9:30 p.m.
(Course held at the ESAC Higher Education Center, Chesapeake College)

All summer graduate classes are held on Washington College's Chestertown campus unless otherwise noted. Students must pre-register prior to May 10 to guarantee texts. The Bookstore will be open 6:00-7:00 p.m. May 3-4 and June 7-8 for students to purchase texts. Graduate tuition is $770 per course plus a non-refundable course registration fee of $55. A late registration fee of $150 per course will be assessed for students who register after the first week of classes. Pre-registration forms will be accepted at the Registrar's Office in person, by mail, by phone at 410-778-7299, or by fax at 410-810-7159.

For complete information on Washington College's graduate course offerings, including detailed course descriptions and registration forms, visit http://grad.washcoll.edu.

The College's graduate Education course schedule and registration materials are located online at http://www.regionaltrainingcenter.org.

Charles Willson Peale Topic Of April 23rd Lecture

Chestertown, MD, April 22, 2004 — Washington College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience presents “Peale's Artist in His Museum and the Nineteenth Century Emblem Problem,” a lecture by David Steinberg, Visiting Scholar at the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture in Williamsburg, VA. The lecture will be held Friday, April 23, at 4:30 p.m. in the College's Casey Academic Center Forum, and will explore the intersection of the central problems in visual representation, theology, and natural science through one of Peale's most famous paintings, Artist in His Museum. The event is free and open to the public.

Known primarily as a portrait painter, Charles Willson Peale was born in Chestertown, MD, in 1741. He was apprenticed to an Annapolis saddler at the age of nine, and as a youth, Peale taught himself to paint by observing the techniques of portraitist John Hesselius. He also acquainted himself with the work of John Singleton Copley on a visit to Boston, after which Peale won the patronage of the Annapolis gentry. A number of Peale's Annapolis patrons financed his 1767 trip to London to study with renowned painter Benjamin West. Returning to America in 1769, Peale lived in Annapolis until 1775, and during those six years, he traveled throughout the Middle Colonies painting numerous portraits of colonial leaders.

In 1779, Peale was elected to the Pennsylvania legislature and was politically active for several years. In 1784 he established what was known as “Peale's Museum,” which was moved to Independence Hall in 1802. Besides a series of portraits of eminent Americans by Peale and his son, Rembrandt, the museum contained a number of Native American relics, waxworks dummies, and specimens of natural history. He invented his own system of taxidermy and was a century ahead of his time in his concept of placing each animal in a simulated natural environment. In 1801, he formed the first scientific expedition in American history. From a New York state farm he exhumed the skeleton of a mastodon, assembling and restoring the remains for his museum. The Artist in His Museum (1822, Penna. Acad. of the Fine Arts) is one of two major examples of Peale's fascination with science, and depicts Peale revealing his prized museum to the viewer.

A true “universal man” who plunged with equal enthusiasm into taxidermy, “moving pictures,” making false teeth, and designing mechanical farm equipment, Charles Willson Peale is best remembered as the “Artist of the American Revolution.” He was the patriarch of what became an extraordinary family of American painters, which included his children Raphaelle (1774-1825), Rembrandt (1778-1860), Rubens (1784-1865), Titian Ramsay (1799-1885), with niece Sarah Miriam Peale (1800-1885), and nephew Charles Peale Polk (1767-1866).

The lecture is part of the C.V. Starr Center's American Pictures Series, featuring close-up looks at individual images that have shaped the nation's life, art, and politics, and it is co-sponsored by the Washington College Department of Art. The C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, an innovative forum for new scholarship about American history. Drawing on the special historical strengths of Washington College and Chestertown, the Center is dedicated to exploring the early republic, the rise of democracy, and the manifold ways in which the founding era continues to shape American culture. News about upcoming events is available online at http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu/, or by calling Program Manager Kees de Mooy at 410-810-7156.

Walter Isaacson On Benjamin Franklin And America's Values, April 22

Chestertown, MD, April 15, 2004 — Washington College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience presents acclaimed journalist Walter Isaacson speaking on “Benjamin Franklin and America's Values,” Thursday, April 22, at 4:30 p.m., in the College's Hynson Lounge. The event is free and the public is invited to attend. A booksigning will follow.

Isaacson is the president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, an international education and leadership institute founded in 1950. Born in New Orleans, Isaacson is a graduate of Harvard College and of Pembroke College of Oxford University. He began his career in journalism as a reporter for the Sunday Timesof London and the New Orleans States-Item. He joinedTime Magazine in 1978 and served as a political correspondent, national editor and editor of new media before becoming the managing editor of the magazine in 1995. In 2001, he became the chairman and CEO of CNN. His critically acclaimed biography, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003), examines the brilliant inventor, charming diplomat and complicated visionary, who—more than anyone else in the founding period—created the archetype of the American “self-made” man. In addition, Isaacson is the author ofKissinger: A Biography (1992) and co-author of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (1986). He lives with his wife and daughter in Washington, DC, and Aspen, CO.

The Isaacson lecture is sponsored by the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, an innovative forum for new scholarship about American history. Drawing on the special historical strengths of Washington College and Chestertown, the Center is dedicated to exploring the early republic, the rise of democracy, and the manifold ways in which the founding era continues to shape American culture. News and information about upcoming events and lectures is available online at http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu/, or by calling Program Manager Kees de Mooy at 410-810-7156.

International Relations Club To Sponsor Culture Night 2004, April 17

Chestertown, MD, April 13, 2004 — The Washington College International Relations Club cordially invites you to attend Culture Night 2004—an evening of international cuisine, music, performance, dance and fashion celebrating the rich cultural diversity on our campus.

Whet your appetite with traditional dishes from Turkey, India, Kenya, Lebanon, Cyprus, France, Mexico, Japan, Liberia, Columbia, Costa Rico, Italy, American Samoa and the Philippines.

Enjoy dance and musical performances from Slovenia, India, Africa, France, American Samoa, Japan, and the Middle East.

Plus an International Fashion Show! Culture Night is FREE to all Washington College students, faculty, staff and their guests!

Saturday, April 17
Casey Academic Center Gallery
Dinner 6 p.m.
Performances 8 p.m.
International Fashion Show 9-9:30 p.m.

The Ancient Art Of Hunting: Anthropology Club Hosts Second Annual Atl Atl Throw, April 18

Chestertown, MD, April 9, 2004 — Long before the Atkins Diet was the craze, ancient humans stalked “big game” to keep family and village supplied with their daily requirement of protein. With the invention more than 40,000 years ago of a small but ingenious device—the Atlatl—our ancestors vastly improved their chances of survival in their life-or-death, hunt-or-die existence. Washington College's Anthropology Club, in celebration of Archaeology Month, will exhibit this early advance in hunting technology with a free public demonstration of Atlatl spear throwing, Sunday, April 18, 1-3 p.m. on the Campus Lawn. Tours of the College's Archaeology Laboratory will be held 4-6 p.m. the same day at the Custom House on High and Water Streets in Chestertown.

The Atlatl (from the Aztec word for “spear thrower”) is a device that imparted incredible mechanical and technical advantage to prehistoric humans. Increasing spear velocity 15 times and striking power 200 times, Atlatls were used worldwide prior to the advent of the bow and arrow. The oldest known Atlatl artifact is more than 19,000 years old, although it is believed that the Atlatl was in common use more than 40,000 years ago. An example of how human technology directly affects the natural environment, the Atlatl provided a tremendous hunting advantage and, conversely, might have contributed to the extinction of many large mammals throughout the world. The power that the Atlatl imparted to the spear was so great that the Aztecs readopted the technology for its armor-piercing ability against Spanish Conquistadors in the Sixteenth Century. The Atlatl is now attracting thousands of enthusiasts around the world for sport and competition throwing.

As part of the demonstration, participants will have a hands-on chance to test their ability and accuracy of throwing using the Atlatl by spearing a seven-foot tall straw target, “Murray, the Mastodon,” constructed by the Washington College Anthropology Club. Instruction will be provided and safety precautions maintained. For more information, contact Liz Seidel, staff archaeologist, at 410-810-7164.

Kresge Foundation Issues $750,000 Challenge Grant For New Washington College Science Center

Chestertown, MD, April 8, 2004 — The Kresge Foundation of Troy, Michigan, has awarded Washington College a challenge grant of $750,000 for its new 45,000-square-foot Science Center, currently under construction. The funds are contingent upon the College raising $2.8 million to support funding for the project by January 1, 2005.

“The grant from The Kresge Foundation represents a major endorsement of the College,” said Jack S. Griswold, chair of the College's Board of Visitors and Governors. “The Kresge Foundation scrupulously examines all aspects of an institution while considering a proposal. Its grant to the College is a ‘Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval' of which we are very proud.”

“This vote of confidence from The Kresge Foundation is tangible evidence that the momentum of our highly successful Campaign for Washington's College is continuing,” said Thomas H. Gale, chair of the Development Committee of the Board of Visitors and Governors.

“Now the challenge for all of us is to build on the momentum of that magnificent effort with this new campaign for the Science Center,” added Gale.

The Campaign for Washington's College, which ended on December 31, 2003, raised $103.4 million—the largest capital campaign in the College's 222-year history and the single largest ever conducted by a Maryland undergraduate college. Funds raised are supporting a range of initiatives, from new faculty chairs, professorships, and academic programs, to scholarships, technology enhancements, new academic research and outreach centers, and new facilities such as the Science Center, which will double the size of Washington College's science teaching and research complex.

Designed to provide a lab-rich environment for supporting new and evolving models for teaching the sciences to undergraduates, the $23-million Science Center will have state-of-the-art teaching and research laboratories for biology, chemistry, environmental studies, physics, psychology, and math and computer science, as well as a vivarium to support psychological research and greenhouse on the top story.

Classrooms in the Science Center will follow a new trend in science facilities: small-group instruction rooms equipped with mobile “white boards.” A three-story glass atrium—to be named in honor of the late Washington College president, chemistry professor and alumnus Joseph McLain, Class of 1937—will connect the Center with the existing Dunning-Decker Science Complex.

The Kresge Foundation—an independent, private foundation unaffiliated with any corporation or organization—was created in 1924 by Sebastian S. Kresge “to promote the well-being of mankind.” In 2003, the Foundation awarded grants totaling more than $105 million to 145 charitable and nonprofit organizations operating in the areas of higher education, health and long-term care, arts and humanities, human services, science and the environment, and public affairs.

Concert Series Hosts Soprano Julianne Baird, April 23

Chestertown, MD, April 8, 2004 — The Washington College Concert Series concludes its 2003-2004 season with a performance by the renowned soprano, Julianne Baird, Friday, April 23, at 8 p.m. in the College's Tawes Theatre, Gibson Performing Arts Center. Single tickets can be purchased at the door, $15.00 for adults and $5.00 for youth 18 and under.

Julianne Baird has been hailed by critics as “one of the most extraordinary voices in the service of early music that this generation has produced.” Maintaining a busy concert schedule of solo recitals and performances of baroque opera and oratorio, Baird has performed with many major symphony orchestras, including the Cleveland Orchestra, Brooklyn Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Her recent performances include appearances at the International Lufthansa Festival in London, in solo cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach, and at Tanglewood's Ozawa Hall in the Mozart Requiem. With over 100 recordings to her credit, Baird is considered one of America's most recorded women and, as a teacher and scholar, is regularly asked to provide master classes at universities and music schools throughout North America. A distinguished professor of music at Rutgers University, Baird is recognized as one of the few instructors who can both demonstrate the full range of the singer's art and explain it.

Call 410-778-7839 or 800-422-1782, ext. 7839, for ticket information. For more information on upcoming lectures and events at Washington College, visit http://calendar.washcoll.edu.

Dr. John Toll, Governor Robert Ehrlich To Be Honored At Washington College's 222nd Commencement, May 16

Winner of Nation's Largest Undergraduate Literary Prize to be Announced

Chestertown, MD, April 1, 2004 — On Sunday, May 16, Washington College will honor the accomplishments of its outgoing president, Dr. John S. Toll, and Maryland Governor Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. during the College's 222nd Commencement. Ceremonies will conclude with the presentation of degrees and academic awards, including the College's highest academic honor, the George Washington Medal and Award, and the Sophie Kerr Prize—the largest undergraduate literary prize in the nation, valued at $56,000 this year, the 37th year that the prize has been awarded.

Commencement begins at 10:30 a.m. on the campus lawn. In the event of rain, Commencement ceremonies will be moved indoors to Cain Gymnasium. Only ticket holders will be admitted to the Gymnasium and designated remote simulcast viewing sites.

While the College prepares to inaugurate its 24th president, Baird Tipson, next fall, it wishes farewell to Dr. John S. Toll, whose exemplary career in academia stretches over six decades. Under his tutelage for the past nine years, Washington College has achieved unprecedented levels of success—greater donor support, a larger applicant pool and increased selectivity, more resources for faculty research and teaching innovations, an expanded physical plant, a quadrupled endowment, and a merit scholarship program that supports more than half of its students. Paying tribute to the legacy he leaves to the College and to the renewed sense of vision and strength that he has imparted, the College will present to him the highest honor that it can give, making him an Honorary Doctor of Science from Washington College.

Joining Dr. Toll, the Honorable Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr., Governor of Maryland, will receive an Honorary Doctor of Law in recognition of his accomplishments during his 18 years in public service and policy as a state legislator, congressman, and now governor. A lifelong Maryland resident, Governor Ehrlich became Maryland's 60th governor on November 5, 2002—the first Republican to hold the office in 36 years. Raised in the working-class Baltimore suburb of Arbutus, the only son of Nancy and Bob Ehrlich, Sr., Governor Ehrlich attended the Gilman School in Baltimore, Princeton University and Wake Forest University Law School. He began his political career as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, serving from 1987 to 1995, and later spent eight years representing his district in Congress from 1995 to 2003.

Governor Ehrlich is known as a tireless crusader for fiscal responsibility and accountability, public safety, and improving education and the business climate of the State of Maryland. Recently, he has taken one of the strongest steps forward in Chesapeake Bay environmental policy—the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund. Designed by the Governor and approved by the General Assembly at the conclusion of this past 2004 legislative session, the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund will tackle one of the Bay's biggest problems—overburdened municipal sewage systems. Hailed as “one of the most important pieces of Bay legislation in 20 years” by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Fund will finance, through an annual surcharge to state homeowners and businesses, much-needed upgrades to Maryland's sewage treatment plants, a move which will reduce nitrogen pollution—the most significant factor in the Bay's degradation—by 7 million pounds per year, cutting current levels nearly in half. For this and many other efforts to improve the lives of Maryland's citizens, Washington College honors the career of Governor Ehrlich this Sunday.

In addition to the awarding of honorary degrees, the Washington College Alumni Association will present the 2004 Alumni Citation for Excellence to songstress Susan Dunning Matthews '75 in recognition of her contributions to the performing arts as an accomplished lady of jazz. A gifted musician with three solo recordings to her credit, Matthews came to Washington College from Amstersdam, NY, drawn to the drama department and the small, intimate environment for learning. Here Matthews found a perfect stage from which to launch her singing career, performing with the College Chorus and with “Fat Shadow,” a college band playing original compositions arranged by classmates. Today, she performs in top jazz clubs and festivals around the world, most recently in concert in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and at the Saluzzo Music Festival in Italy. With her band “Guys and Doll,” she is a favorite guest artist at the annual Clifden Festival in Ireland, and has presented a program of American jazz and blues in schools in Hungary, by invitation of the Fulbright Commission. Among her performance credits are featured soloist with the Canadian Calgary Philharmonic, the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Showcase, and the Seventh Annual Cabaret Convention held at New York City's Town Hall.