A Message From President Baird Tipson

In Memoriam: Townsend Hoopes

Chestertown, MD, September 23, 2004 — It is my sad duty to inform the Washington College community that Townsend Hoopes, Senior Fellow of Washington College, died on September 20, 2004 from complications of melanoma.

Tim had a long and extraordinarily distinguished career in public service and the private sector. He graduated from Yale University in 1944 where he was captain of the football team and a member of Skull and Bones. During World War Two he served as a marine officer in the Pacific and fought on Iwo Jima. Following the war, he served in a number of positions at the heart of the newly organized national security apparatus of the United States. He was assistant to the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee from 1947-1948, and assistant to three Secretaries of Defense from 1948-1953, James Forrestal, George Marshall and Robert Lovett.

Tim followed that service with eleven years in the private sector, but was never far from influence in the government, and played a major role in the preparation of the 1958 Rockefeller Report on defense policy and strategy. In 1964, he returned to government as deputy assistant secretary of defense for international affairs. In 1965 he became Principal Deputy for International Security Affairs at the Pentagon, and from 1967 to 1969 he was Undersecretary of the Air Force.

Following his distinguished career in government, Tim turned to the writing of books, and here too he found great distinction. His first book, The Limits of Intervention (1969), brilliantly probed the series of miscalculations at the highest levels that had led to the escalation in Vietnam. The Devil and John Foster Dulles (1973) received the Bancroft Prize for its richly evocative portrait of President Eisenhower's Secretary of State. Driven Patriot: The Life and Times of James Forrestal (1992), co-written with Douglas Brinkley, won the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Naval History Prize. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Creation of the UN, also co-authored with Douglas Brinkley, appeared in 1997. In addition, Tim's novel, A Textured Web, appeared in 2002.

That same year, Tim and his wife Ann moved to Chestertown from Washington, and instantly embraced their new lives in the Washington College community. Tim found a particular home in the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, where visitors to the Custom House often found him chatting amiably with students and expressing his deeply informed opinions about U.S. foreign policy. Those opinions were given full expression in a series of lectures that Tim gave before the college, both in the Custom House and on the main campus. Tim also helped the Starr Center in countless other ways, from addressing the South Asian students of the American Studies Institute to organizing visits from other dignitaries, including last spring's talk by Ambassador Joseph Wilson. His clarity of vision, energy and devotion to Washington College and the C.V. Starr Center were a source of pride to all of us, and he will be greatly missed.

In Chestertown, Tim was active in a number of local causes, including the Church Hill Theatre and the Presbyterian Church. The memorial service will be held this Sunday, September 26, at 2 pm in the Presbyterian Church of Chestertown, 905 Gateway Drive, just off Route 213. Burial will be at Arlington National Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests contributions to the Church Hill Theatre (P.O. Box 91, Church Hill MD 21623) or Yale University (New Haven CT 06520).

- Baird Tipson

Expert Discusses Democratization And Electoral Observation In Latin America, Sept. 27

Chestertown, MD, September 21, 2004 — Washington College's Goldstein Program in Public Affairs presents “Witness to Change: Democratization and Electoral Observation in Latin America,” a lecture by Thomas W. Walker, Professor of Political Science and former Director of Latin American Studies at Ohio University, Monday, September 27, at 7 p.m. in the Hynson Lounge. The event is free and the public is invited to attend.

Professor Walker is one of the United States' leading authorities on Central American politics. His books include The Christian Democratic Movement in Nicaragua (1970); Nicaragua: The Land of Sandino (1991); Nicaragua in Revolution (1982); Nicaragua: The First Five Years (1985); Reagan Versus the Sandinistas: The Undeclared War on Nicaragua (1987); and, as co-author, Understanding Central America (1993), Revolution and Counterrevolution in Nicaragua (1991), and Nicaragua Without Illusions: Regime Transition and Structural Adjustment in the 1990s (1997).

In 1984, 1989, 1990 and 1996, Professor Walker served on international delegations that observed Nicaragua's national elections. In August 2004, he was a member of the Carter Center's electoral observation team on the presidential recall referendum in Venezuela.

Philosophy Lecture To Address Psychologism In Logic, Oct. 1

Chestertown, MD, September 21, 2004 — Washington College's Department of Philosophy and Religion and Philosophy Club will host a lecture by Dr. Sanford Shieh of Wesleyan University addressing “Psychologism in Logic,” Friday, October 1, at 4:00 p.m. in the Sophie Kerr Room, Miller Library. The event is free and open to the public.

Dr. Shieh is an assistant professor of philosophy at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT, and holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University and bachelor's degrees from Cornell and Oxford. He is widely published in the field of logic and contemporary philosophy and is currently working on a book titled Modality and Logic in Early Analytic Philosophy. Dr. Shieh's research interests include the question of the compatibility of the notion of intuition and logicism in the epistemology of mathematics and the conceptual history of the notion of necessity in early analytic philosophy.

Student Organizations And Clubs Join Together With Community Groups For One-Day Event Promoting Extracurricular Activities

Chestertown, MD, September 14, 2004 — On Sunday, September 26, the Washington College Student Service Council along with the Washington College Student Government Association (SGA) will sponsor Fall Club Fair in Kent Circle from 12pm until 4pm. This event is free and open to the public. Live music from the Musicians' Union as well as interactive activities and games sponsored by each club will be provided. Participants will have the opportunity to meet representatives from over 30 Washington College Clubs and Organizations. Community organizations will also emphasize the importance of volunteering for a variety of different causes in Chestertown such as mentoring, working with the Chester River Association, and volunteering at the Community Food Pantry.

Club Fair is a great way for new students, as well as returning students, to learn about what clubs and organizations Washington College has to offer. Extracurricular activities have become an extension and application of the liberal arts philosophy. Therefore, Club Fair showcases what students are doing on campus and gives new students the opportunity to join in these endeavors. Organizations that are participating include academic clubs, language and culture organizations, art and music groups, service organizations, support groups, advocacy groups, honor societies, and athletic organizations. With these rich and eclectic perspectives, we hope that all students will benefit from this fun-filled day.

For more information, please e-mail Christianne Datu or Adrienne Nash.

John Barth On Browsing: New Literary House Press Chapbook Celebrates The Origin, History And Pleasures Of Libraries

Chestertown, MD, September 14, 2004 — Tired of Internet surfing? Then it is time to rediscover the pleasure of browsing. For any reader who has ever plunged joyously headlong into a book or sought the mysteries of life in an obscure tome hidden in the library stacks, the publication of John Barth's Browsingwill be a special treat. Released this month by Washington College's Literary House Press, Browsing takes the reader on a literary ramble through the history of libraries, both real and imaginary, to explore what the author of The Floating Opera and The Sot-Weed Factor calls “the browserish aspect of human consciousness.”

Adapted from a speech given by Barth in celebration of the shelving of the 200,000th volume in Washington College's Clifton Miller Library, Browsing is a book for true book-lovers, a delight for the mind as well as the eye, with specially commissioned woodcut illustrations by Chestertown artist Mary Rhinelander. In this extended essay combining humor, erudition and intellectual exuberancy, Barth visits such topics as the hazards of reading on the beach; the Library of Pergamum and Borges' infinite Library of Babel; hypertexts and the Pandemonium Model of Utterance; and the challenges of deciphering another's marginalia (“In short the reader has changed the book, as well as vice versa, and I was reading the reader as well as reading the writer and, by extension, reading the writer that that writer was writing about.”)

Browsing is available in paperback for $10 from Washington College's Literary House Press, 300 Washington Avenue, Chestertown, MD 21620, or by calling 410-778-7899. Proceeds support the operations and publications of The Literary House Press alone.

Founded in 1994 by faculty, staff and students of Washington College, The Literary House Press has released more than a dozen works of fiction, poetry, essays and travel writing. The publication of Browsing was made possible with a grant form the College's Sophie Kerr Committee, which oversees the legacy of Sophie Kerr, a writer from Denton, MD, whose generosity has done so much to enrich Washington College's literary culture. When she died in 1965, she left the bulk of her estate to the College, specifying that one half of the income from her bequest be awarded every year to the senior showing the most “ability and promise for future fulfillment in the field of literary endeavor” and the other half be used to support Washington College's creative writing program by bringing visiting writers to campus, funding scholarships, and defraying the costs of publications.

Fall Poetry And Fiction Readings Feature New Talents And Modern Masters Of The Literary Arts

Chestertown, MD, September 3, 2004 — Washington College's O'Neill Literary House and Sophie Kerr Committee welcome the public to the fall series of poetry and fiction readings featuring some of the young lights and the accomplished practitioners of contemporary poetry and fiction, including two graduates of the College's Creative Writing program.

The following readings are scheduled for this fall:

Diana Abu-Jaber, Novelist

Thursday, September 9, 4:30 p.m., Sophie Kerr Room, Miller Library

Born in 1959 in Syracuse, NY, to a Jordanian father and an American mother, Abu-Jaber graduated with a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from SUNY Binghamton in 1986, studying with John Gardner and Larry Woiwode. Her first novel, Arabian Jazz, set in upstate New York, was published by Harcourt Brace in 1993 and won the Oregon Book Award, and was a finalist for the National PEN/Hemingway award. Abu-Jaber won a National Endowment for the Arts award to support the writing of her second novel, Memories of Birth, based on the life of her Bedouin grandmother. Her second published novel, Crescent, was released by W.W. Norton in 2003.

Erin Murphy, Poet

Thursday, September 23, 4:30 p.m., Sophie Kerr Room, Miller Library

Murphy, a 1990 graduate of Washington College, received her MFA in Poetry from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The first-place winner of the 2003 National Writers Union Poetry Award, she has just released her first collection of poetry, Science of Desire, published in June by Word Press. “It's the mixture of verbal sensuousness and quick intelligence that appeals most strongly to me in these vivid poems,” said award-winning poet Eamon Grennan of Murphy's poetic style. “There's something intrepid, honest, insistent in her ability to negotiate at speed between facts and feelings.” Murphy's poems have appeared in The Georgia Review, Field, Nimrod, The Paterson Literary Review, Literal Latte, and Kalliope, and her awards include a Pushcart Prize nomination and a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award. Her second collection of poetry, Too Much of This World, has garnered the Anthony Piccione Poetry Prize and will be published by Mammoth Books.

Brian Clements, Poet

Thursday, September 30, 4:30 p.m., O'Neill Literary House

A Texas-based technical writer with a poetic turn, Clements is the founding editor of the small press Firewheel Editions (http://firewheel-editions.org) and its journal Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics. He is the author of the collections Essays Against Ruin (Texas Review Press),Flesh and Wood (Mbira Press), and Burn Whatever Will Burn: A Book of Common Rituals.

Elizabeth Spires, Poet

Tuesday, October 5, 4:30 p.m., Sophie Kerr Room, Miller Library

Spires is the author of five collections of poetry—Globe (1981), Swan's Island (1985),Annonciade (1989), Worldling (1995), and Now the Green Blade Rises (2002)—and of five books for children. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review,The New Criterion, and in the anthologies Contemporary American Poetry and The New Bread Loaf Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry. She has been the recipient of a Whiting Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Amy Lowell Travelling Poetry Scholarship, and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1998 she received the Witter Bynner Prize for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Spires teaches English and creative writing at Goucher College in Towson ,MD, where she holds a Chair for Distinguished Achievement, and lives in Baltimore with her husband, the novelist Madison Smartt Bell, and their daughter.

Peter Turchi, Novelist

Wednesday, October 13, 4:30 p.m., Sophie Kerr Room, Miller Library

Turchi, a 1982 graduate of Washington College and winner of the Sophie Kerr Prize, is the author of four books, including the forthcoming Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer, The Girls Next Door, and Magician. He is co-editor, with Andrea Barrett, of The Story Behind the Story: 26 Stories by Contemporary Writers and How They Work and, with Charles Baxter, of Bringing the Devil to His Knees: The Craft of Fiction and the Writing Life. Turchi's fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, Story, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Denver Quarterly, and his short stories “The Night Sky” and “Night, Truck, Two Lights Burning” were recognized in Best American Short Stories. Turchi received his MFA from the University of Arizona, and taught creative writing at DePaul University, Loyola University, Columbia College, the College of DuPage and Northwestern University. In 1993, he moved to Asheville, NC, to direct the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

Colum McCann, Novelist

Thursday, November 11, 4:30 p.m., Sophie Kerr Room, Miller Library

McCann is the author of five previous books of fiction: Everything in This Country Must (2000), This Side of Brightness (1998), Songdogs (1995), Fishing the Sloe-Black River (1993), and his most recent novel, Dancer, published by Henry Holt in January, which is a fictional journey into the life of the late Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev. He has also written essays and articles for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, and GQ. McCann was raised in Dublin and in County Derry in Northern Ireland, but has traveled the world and lived in locales as diverse as Texas and Japan. He is the recipient of numerous writing awards, including the Pushcart, the Irish Hennessy, Butler, and Rooney awards, as well as the 2002 Princess Grace Memorial Literary Award.

This series of readings is sponsored by the Sophie Kerr Committee to honor of the legacy of the late Sophie Kerr, a writer from Denton, MD, whose generosity has done so much to enrich Washington College's literary culture. When she died in 1965, she left the bulk of her estate to the College, specifying that one half of the income from her bequest be awarded every year to the senior showing the most “ability and promise for future fulfillment in the field of literary endeavor” and the other half be used to support Washington College's creative writing program by bringing visiting writers to campus, funding scholarships, and defraying the costs of student publications.

September's Tea & Talk Lectures Celebrate Poet Pablo Neruda, Tackle Male-Female Brain Differences

Chestertown, MD, September 1, 2004 — The 2004-2005 season of Washington College's Rose O'Neill Tea & Talk Series begins with two exciting lectures in September. The talks are free and all are welcomed to enjoy tea, conviviality and discussion in the comfortable surroundings of the O'Neill Literary House. Tea served at 4 p.m., talks begin at 4:30.

On Wednesday, September 22, the Literary House, in conjunction with the Department of Foreign Languages, Literatures and Cultures, hosts a Tea & Talk “Celebration in Memory of Pablo Neruda,” the famed Chilean poet, diplomat and political activist, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. Neruda's works reflect the history of political and social struggle in South America during the first half of the 20th century. Spanish professors George Shivers and Thomas Pabon will provide a bilingual poetry reading and comments on Neruda's life and work in honor of this centenary year of his birth.

The Tea & Talk Series takes a foray into modern neuroscience on Wednesday, September 29, when Professor George Spilich of the Department of Psychology addresses the question, “Do Male and Female Brains Differ?,” and explores sex differences in human cognition. The talk is cosponsored by the Washington College's Gender Studies program.

The Rose O'Neill Tea & Talk Series showcases the research, writing and talent of Washington College's faculty and is held in the College's O'Neill Literary House. Established in 1985, the Literary House was acquired and refurbished through a generous gift of alumna Betty Casey, Class of 1947, and her late husband Eugene, and named in memory of his late mother, Rose O'Neill Casey. Now approaching its 20th anniversary year, the O'Neill Literary House reflects the eclectic spirit of Washington College's creative writing culture.

27 New Faculty Join Washington College This Fall

Chestertown, MD, September 1, 2004 — As Washington College launches the 2004-2005 academic year with a new president and 345 new students on campus, the College welcomes 27 new faculty members, nine of which join the faculty as assistant professors in tenure-track positions in the humanities, social and natural sciences.

Assistant Professors

Erin K. Anderson, B.S., Boise State University, 1996; M.S., Purdue University, 1999; Ph.D., Purdue University, 2004. Assistant Professor of Sociology

Jeffrey D. Brown, B.A., Grinnell College, 1993; Ph.D., University of Washington, 1999.Assistant Professor of Biology

David P. Dudek, B.S., State University of New York-College at Fredonia, 1994; M.L.S, University at Albany, 1999. Assistant Librarian, Reference Instruction/Electronic Services Librarian

Hugh Everett Jarrard, B.S., Haverford College, 1989; Ph.D., University of Oregon, 1997.Assistant Professor of Biology

Alisha R. Knight, B.A., Spelman College, 1993; M.A., Rutgers University, 1995; Ph.D., Drew University, 2004. Assistant Professor of English and American Studies

Anne Marteel-Parrish, B.S., Ecole Polytechnique Universitaire de Lille, 1999; M.S.; Université des Sciences et Technologies de Lille, 1999; Ph.D., University of Toledo, 2003. Assistant Professor of Chemistry

Corey Olsen, B.A., Williams College, 1996; M.A., Columbia University, 1997; M.Phil., Columbia University, 2000; Ph.D., Columbia University, 2003. Assistant Professor of English

Shaun Ramsey, B.S., University of Delaware, 1999; University of Utah, 2004. Assistant Professor of Computer Science

Aileen Tsui, B.A., Yale University, 1988; M.A., Harvard University, 1992; Ph.D., Harvard University, 2001. Assistant Professor of Art

Michele Volansky, B.A., Washington College, 1990; M.A., Villanova University, 1992.Assistant Professor of Drama

Visiting Professors

Joshua Gold, B.A., M.A., University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1993; M.A., Princeton University, 1999; Ph.D., Princeton University, 2004. Visiting Assistant Professor of German

John H. Walker, B.A., B.S., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1990; Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1999. Visiting Professor of Anthropology

Lecturers

Catherine Sentman Anderson, B.A., The College of William and Mary, 1979; M.M., The Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, 1985; D.M.A., The Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, 1990. Lecturer in Music

Damon Bradley A.B., Boston University, 1964; M.Div., Yale University, 1968; M.Phil., Syracuse University, 1976. Lecturer in Education

Sabrina Brougher, B.A., Ripon College, 1993; M.S., University of Maryland, 1998; Ph.D., University of Maryland, 2002. Lecturer in Biology

Angela Di Pietro Dover, B.A., University of Virginia, 1990; M.S., University of Delaware, 1992.Lecturer in Mathematics

Alvin P. Drischler, B.A., University of California, Berkeley, 1969; Ph.D, Princeton University, 1973; MBA, Johns Hopkins University, 2000. Lecturer in Political Science

Frank Fitzgibbon, B.S., University College Cork, 1999. Lecturer in Biology

Shelagh H. Grasso, B.A., University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1968; M.A., University of Illinois, 1969. Lecturer in Education

Sarah Kleintank, B.A., Towson University, 2002. Lecturer in Spanish

Susan B.M. Langley, B.A., University of Toronto Trinity College, 1980; M.A., University of Calgary, 1983; Ph.D., University of Calgary, 1994. Lecturer in Anthropology

Todd Lineburger, B.A., Washington College, 1997; M.A., Washington College, 2004. Lecturer in English

Joe Matanoski, B.S., University of Maryland, 1993. Lecturer in Biology

Maureen M. O'Brien, B.A., Benedictine College, 1991; M.A., The Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University, 1994; M.A., University of Notre Dame, 1995. Lecturer in History

Mikki Senn, B.S.A.S., University of Delaware, 1978. Lecturer in Education

Anke A. Van Wagenberg-Ter Hoeven, M.A., Vrije Universiteit, 1987; Ph.D., Vrije Universiteit, 1997. Lecturer in Art

Miles A. Varner, B.A., Beloit College; M.F.A., Rhode Island College of Design. Lecturer in Art

Canadian Drug Importation And Prescription Affordability Topic Of Medical Ethics Forum, September 10

Chestertown, MD, September 1, 2004 — “Drug Wars: The Battle for Affordable Prescription Medications” is the topic of the Community Healthcare Ethics Committee (CHEC) fall forum and dinner on Friday, September 10, at Washington College. The annual forum for CHEC members and the community at-large is co-sponsored by Chester River Health System and the Philosophy and Religion Department of Washington College.

The forum will focus on the issue of prescription drug importation from Canada into the United States, and will be led by David Newell, Ph.D., a medical ethicist and professor at Washington College, and Patrick Shanahan, M.D., family practitioner. U.S. Representative Wayne Gilchrest, (R-Md.), Donna DeLeno, a representative from the AARP, and Lori Reilly, a representative from the pharmaceutical industry, will also serve as members of the ethics forum panel.

“This is a pertinent ethics issue within our community and therefore we feel it should be addressed by CHEC,” noted Linda J. Hickman, Ph.D., R.N., vice president of patient care services and CHEC event chair. “Our panel members, led by Dr. Newell and Dr. Shanahan, will bring new insight to the subject of Canadian drug importation.”

An optional reception and dinner will begin at 5:30 p.m. Tickets to the dinner are $25.00. The free public forum commences at 7:30 p.m. in the Norman James Theatre.

CHEC was formed in January 2003 with the purpose of providing an educational forum for staff, volunteers, families and residents of its member organizations; reviewing and developing recommendations for resolving ethically problematic cases; and offering ethical advice and recommendations on organizational policies and procedures. Members include Chester River Hospital Center, Chester River Home Care & Hospice, Chester River Manor, Chestertown Nursing & Rehabilitation and Heron Point.

For more information about CHEC's annual fall forum call Leslie Stack at 410-778-7668, extension 4061.