Chestertown, MD — Washington College is pleased to announce that Jeremy Rothwell, a member of the junior class who recently returned from service with the Maryland National Guard in Iraq, has been selected as the College's 2008-2009 Robert W. and Louisa C. Duemling Presidential Fellow.
The prestigious Presidential Fellows Program is an annual institute presented by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for the Study of the Presidency (CSP), and open to one student from each of 85 leading American colleges and universities. Through Washington College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, this special opportunity is open to WC students.
"Jeremy Rothwell exemplifies the combination of scholarship and service that is the best of the Washington College tradition," said Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of the C.V. Starr Center. Rothwell was selected by a faculty committee that included representatives from Political Science, International Studies, American Studies, and History.
"Jeremy's curiosity and passion for research have driven him to delve deeply into subjects from the philosophical underpinnings of local government in Maryland to the medieval origins of the British constitution,'" Goodheart said. "And his commitment to his community and nation has led to public service in places as far afield as Cecil County and Northern Mesopotamia."
While serving as a medic in Iraq, Rothwell performed a wide range of duties, first in Mosul and later in an outlying base. He worked operating/emergency-room shifts. He oversaw the company aid station. He did gate security and perimeter patrols. He ran obstruction-and-IED clearance missions on highways. And he went out for week-long shifts in small outposts along the Tigris River.
A political science and history major at Washington College, Rothwell was appointed in 2004 to the Citizens Advisory Committee to the Chesapeake Bay Program by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency office in Annapolis. In 2005 he went to France with a delegation from Virginia to study the influence of Asian-species introduction on the French oyster industry.
"Jeremy Rothwell is one of the most motivated and hard-working students I have taught at Washington College," said Associate Professor Melissa Deckman, chair of the Political Science department. "I have little doubt that he will bring a unique perspective to the Fellows program given both his experience working in local and state government and his recent tour of duty in Iraq."
"I was quite surprised to have been selected," said Rothwell. "I look forward to serving alongside many of the nation's best and brightest undergraduate students."
With its inclusion into the Presidential Fellows Program in 2007, Washington College joined a distinguished roster of participating American colleges and universities, including Harvard, Yale and Princeton. For more than 35 years, CSP Fellows have been coming to Washington, D.C., to learn about leadership and governance, to share their outstanding research and scholarship, to develop as future leaders of character, and to be inspired to careers in public service.
The Presidential Fellows Program is a non-resident, part-time, year-long opportunity to study the U.S. presidency, the public policymaking process, and the Chief Executive's relations with Congress, allies, the media and the American public.
"The program offers Washington College students an experience that—perhaps second only to a job in the White House—provides a close-up, insider's view of the U.S. presidency," said Goodheart. "Jeremy will be taking his place among the best and brightest from America's leading colleges and universities."
Washington College's participation in the program comes courtesy of a generous gift from Robert W. and Louisa C. Duemling, longtime friends and benefactors of the College.
Robert Duemling is former U.S. Ambassador to Suriname and former Director of the National Building Museum. In addition to having taught in Washington College's Department of Art, he is a Board of Visitors and Governors member emeritus and is Chairman of the Starr Center's Advisory Board.
Louisa Duemling is a former director of E.I. duPont deNemours & Company, where she provided guidance for many years to the third largest chemical manufacturer in the nation. She is a former trustee of the Maryland/D.C. chapter of the Nature Conservancy, a former advisory committee member of the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy, and a former director of the Corcoran Gallery and the National Parks Foundation.
Established in 2000 with a grant from the New York-based Starr Foundation, the C.V. Starr Center explores our nation's history—and particularly the legacy of its Founding era—in innovative ways. Through educational programs, scholarship, and public outreach, and especially by supporting and fostering the art of written history, the Starr Center seeks to bridge the divide between past and present, and between the academic world and the public at large. From its base in the circa-1746 Custom House along Chestertown's colonial waterfront, the Center also serves as a portal onto a world of opportunities for Washington College students. Its guiding principle is that now more than ever, a wider understanding of our shared past is fundamental to the continuing success of America's democratic experiment.
In addition to the Presidential Fellows Program, the Starr Center also offers a range of special programs and extracurricular opportunities to Washington College students, including the Comegys Bight Fellowships and Frederick Douglass Fellowships, as well as weekend road trips and summer programs. For more information, visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.
May 18, 2008
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