Frederick Douglass Fellows at Washington College Explore Race, Education in U.S.

Chestertown – Education has long been viewed as the fundamental stepping-stone to success in American society. But the relationship between education and opportunity sometimes breaks down. Exploring the racial dimensions of this breakdown has been a journey of discovery for Beverly Frimpong ’12 and Brian Suell ’12, this year’s recipients of the prestigious Frederick Douglass Fellowship at Washington College (shown in photo, far right and far left, flanking, from left: Suell’s mother, Mary Mooney, and faculty advisers Jill Ogline Titus and Joseph Prud’homme.)

Now in its fifth year, the Frederick Douglass Fellowship supports independent student work in African-American studies, Native American studies, and related fields. The fellowship, which provides annual grants of up to $1,500 to Washington College sophomores or juniors and $500 honorariums to faculty mentors paired with the students, is administered through the College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience.

Frimpong’s project, “W.E.B. DuBois & Booker T. Washington: An Ideological Fusion for the 21^st Century,” explored the political and social ideologies of the two leading spokesmen for black America at the turn of the 20^th century. Going beyond their famous rivalry, which included a basic disagreement about the relationship between education and opportunity, Frimpong detailed the intricacies of their visions for black advancement.

A political science and international studies double major who emigrated to the United States from Ghana as a child, Frimpong brought the issue into the present with an argument that minority groups in 21^st-century America could benefit from a fusion of these adversaries’ ideals.

Frimpong and her faculty mentor, Dr. Joseph Prud’homme, Assistant Professor of Political Science, plan to continue their exploration over the summer. Thanks to grants from the Cater Society of Junior Fellows and the Institute for Religion, Politics, and Culture of the Goldstein Program in Public Affairs, they will spend a week researching DuBois’s Pan-African activities at the University of London’s Oriental and African Institute.

Suell’s project, “The Essence of Equality: An Investigation of the Current State of Education and Poverty in American Cities,” focused on urban education in majority-minority communities, using Newark, New Jersey, the tenth poorest city in America, as a case study.

A native of the Greater Newark area, Suell constructed his study around an extensive  series of personal interviews with those most qualified to comment on the educational prospects of urban students: classroom teachers and students in the Newark schools, Head Start and charter school administrators, child psychologists, public defenders, and officials in the juvenile justice system.

Blending the information gleaned from these interviews with statistical and historical data, Suell, a sophomore political science major, argued strenuously that educational revitalization is the most promising avenue for dismantling the structures of de facto discrimination that continue to handicap many young African Americans.

Suell worked closely on the research with his faculty mentor, Dr. Jill Ogline Titus, Associate Director of the Starr Center, and plans to continue his investigation as a senior thesis project. During the summer of 2010, he will intern with the Essex County Office of the Public Defender, which will provide him a firsthand opportunity to explore the connections between educational deprivation and criminal activity.

The Douglass Fellowship was established to encourage students to develop independent projects exploring the culture and history of diverse sections of the American population. Each year, during the spring semester, it also brings to campus a visiting professional (scholar, writer, musician, or artist) actively engaged in the study or interpretation of African American history and related fields. This year’s Frederick Douglass Visiting Fellow, civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law, spent a week in residence at Washington College in March. During her visit, Ifill gave a public talk on the role of race and gender in the process of judicial decision-making – her current project – and discussed restorative justice with students in the Pre-Law Program. Both fellowships are supported by gifts from Maurice Meslans and Margaret Holyfield of St. Louis.

The author, activist and diplomat Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), for whom the fellowship was named, was born in Talbot County, Md., about 30 miles south of Washington College, and retained a deep attachment to the Eastern Shore until the end of his life.

In addition to the Frederick Douglass Fellowship, the Starr Center also offers a range of special programs and extracurricular opportunities to Washington College students, including the Comegys Bight Fellowships and the Presidential Study Fellowship in Washington, as well as weekend road trips and summer programs. For more information, visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

American Pictures Series at Smithsonian Concludes with Historian David Hackett Fischer

Chestertown — On Saturday, May 1, in Washington, D.C., cultural historian David Hackett Fischer will close the 2010 "American Pictures" series with a conversation inspired by Emanuel Leutze's iconic painting "Washington Crossing the Delaware" (1851). The talk will take place in the Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium inside the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery.

A joint program of Washington College, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the "American Pictures" series offers a highly original approach to the visual arts, pairing great works of art with leading figures of American culture. This spring's all-star line-up features a trio of Pulitzer Prize winners: Fischer, Civil War historian James McPherson (who opened the series on April 10), and cartoonist/author Jules Feiffer (who appeared on April 17). Each speaker chooses a single powerful image and investigates its meanings, revealing how artworks reflect American identity and inspire creativity in many different fields. The series director is historian and essayist Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of the College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience.

David Hackett Fischer received the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in History for Washington's Crossing (2004, Oxford University Press), an analysis of Washington's battles in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania that was partially inspired by Leutze's romanticized rendition of this pivotal moment in American history. The New York Times called the book "a highly realistic and wonderfully readable narrative of the same moment that corrects all the inaccuracies but preserves the overarching sense of drama."

Fischer is one of this generation's leading scholars of American culture and history, and has described his own work as "a deep affirmation of American values." His other books, (all from Oxford University Press) include Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America, (1989); Paul Revere's Ride, (1995); Liberty and Freedom: A Visual History of America's Founding Ideas, (2004); and Champlain's Dream, (2008) the authoritative biography of French explorer and visionary Samuel de Champlain. A graduate of Princeton and Johns Hopkins Universities, Fischer serves as the Earl Warren Professor of History at Brandeis University, where he has taught since 1962. He is presently at work on two books, a comparative political history of the United States and New Zealand, and a history of the endurance of African folkways in America.

All "American Pictures" events take place at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, located at 8th and F Streets, N.W., in Washington, D.C. Fischer's talk will begin at 4:30 p.m. in the museums' Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium. Tickets are available in the G Street lobby, beginning at 3:30 p.m. No reservations are necessary for the general public.

Students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of Washington College may reserve tickets to this and the other "American Pictures" events on a first-come, first-served basis. The Starr Center is also running free buses from Chestertown to Washington for each talk. For details, please call 410-810-7165 or e-mail lkitz2@washcoll.edu. For more information on the American Pictures series, visit starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

About the Sponsors

Founded in 1782 under the personal patronage of its namesake, Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, upholds a tradition of excellence and innovation in the liberal arts. The "American Pictures" series is a project of the college's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and its Department of Art and Art History.

The National Portrait Gallery tells the stories of America through the individuals—poets and presidents, visionaries and villains, actors and activists—who have built our national culture. It is where the arts keep us in the company of remarkable Americans.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the nation's first collection of American art, is an unparalleled record of the American experience. The collection captures the aspirations, character and imagination of the American people from the colonial period to today.

Washington College Lit House Director Mark Nowak Named Guggenheim Fellow

CHESTERTOWN—Documentary poet Mark Nowak, Director of the Rose O’Neill Literary House at Washington College, has been appointed a 2010 Guggenheim Fellow, an honor the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation awards on the basis of “achievement and exceptional promise.” Nowak was one of 180 Fellows selected from some 3,000 applicants throughout the United States and Canada. His Guggenheim funding will support research for his third book, which will address the lives of workers in low-wage food and retail jobs.

Nowak’s first book, Shut Up Shut Down (Coffee House Press, 2004), explored the collapse of the American manufacturing economy. His second, Coal Mountain Elementary (Coffee House Press, 2009), is a moving chronicle of the dangers of the global mining industry and the aftermath of its disasters. He continues to follow the mining industry, posting updates on coal mining accidents and safety issues on his “Coal Mountain” blog: http://coalmountain.wordpress.com.

Nowak was named director of the Rose O’Neill Literary House in 2009. The Lit House, as it is known on campus, is a haven for the writing arts. It regularly hosts prominent authors, poets, scholars and editors for public talks and workshops. For more information, visit http://lithouse.washcoll.edu.

Poetry Slam Champ Patricia Smith to Perform at Rose O'Neill Literary House

CHESTERTOWN—Patricia Smith, four-time champion of the National Poetry Slam and a National Book Award finalist, will bring her powerful writing and dynamic performance style to the Rose O’Neill Literary House at Washington College Tuesday, April 27 for a 5 p.m. reading.

In addition to her renown as the most successful slammer ever in the national competition, Smith has been lauded for the emotional impact and lyrical beauty of her published works. Her latest book, Blood Dazzler (Coffee House Press), a collection of poems that chronicle the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina, was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and was named one of National Public Radio’s Top 5 books of 2008. Reviewers have described Blood Dazzler as “a fierce, blood-in-the mouth collection” with the “whiff and feel of folklore,” and as a narrative of a shameful tragedy that is “lyrical and beautiful, like a hymn we want to sing over and over until it lives in our collective memory.”

Her four previous books are Teahouse of the Almighty (Coffee House), which was included in the National Poetry Series and won the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Poetry, Close to Death (Zoland Books), Big Towns, Big Talk (Zoland), and Life According to Motown (Tia Chucha). Her poem “The Way Pilots Walk” won a 2008 Pushcart Prize. In addition to her poetry, Smith has published a companion book for the PBS documentary "Africans in America" and a children’s book titled Janna and the Kings.

While in Chestertown, Smith also will join two Washington College faculty members for a special workshop for students at Kent County High School. It will be the culmination of a “Spoken Word Assembly” project that Literary House director Mark Nowak and Robert Earl Price, a lecturer in creative writing and drama, have conducted for a group of about 30 KCHS students who have shown special interest and talent in poetry. For more information on Smith, visit http://www.blueflowerarts.com/patricia-smith.

The Tuesday reading at Washington College is free and open to the public. The Literary House is located at 407 Washington Avenue in Chestertown.

Volunteers to Clean Shores of Eastern Neck Island Wildlife Refuge on Saturday, May 1

View photos from last year's shoreline cleanup

CHESTERTOWN – The Center for Environment & Society (CES) at Washington College and the Friends of Eastern Neck, Inc., will host a shoreline clean-up at Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge on Saturday, May 1, from 1 to 4 p.m. “Volunteers are needed to help pick up trash and debris that accumulate on Eastern Neck Island over the winter months,” says project manager JoAnn Fairchild, who is senior program manager at the CES.

Trash bags, gloves, sunscreen, bug spray and bottled water will be provided for all volunteers. The event is free and open to the public. Meet at the Refuge Office and Visitor Center, located at 1730 Eastern Neck Road in Rock Hall. Contact jfairchild2@washcoll.edu or call 410/778-7295.

The Center for Environment & Society works to instill a conservation ethic by connecting people to the land and water. It supports interdisciplinary research and education, exemplary stewardship of natural and cultural resources, and the integration of ecological and social values. The Friends of Eastern Neck, Inc. is a non-profit organization that supports the missions of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Eastern Neck NWR through financial, advocacy, and volunteer support. To learn more about volunteer opportunities at Eastern Neck, visit www.fws.gov/northeast/easternneck/ or call (410) 639-7056.

Timothy Hurley Selected as Washington College's Representative to the Presidential Fellows Program

CHESTERTOWN – Washington College is pleased to announce that Timothy Hurley ’12 has been selected as the College’s 2010-2011 Robert W. and Louisa C. Duemling Presidential Fellow.

Since 2007, thanks to a generous gift from Robert W. and Louisa C. Duemling, Washington College students have participated in the prestigious Presidential Fellows Program at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress.

An annual institute open to one student from each of 85 leading American colleges and universities, the program offers an up-close and personal view of the American presidency second only to a job in the White House. Through Washington College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, this special opportunity is open to WC students.

“I’m delighted that Tim will have this opportunity to participate in the Presidential Fellows Program,” said Jill Ogline Titus, Associate Director of the Starr Center. Hurley was selected by a faculty committee that included representatives from Political Science, International Studies and American Studies.

“Given his interest in defense and security initiatives, a very timely issue in Washington, I have no doubt that Tim will make a valuable contribution to the program,” Titus said.

Hurley, a resident of Stoneham, Massachusetts, is pursuing a double major in history and political science at Washington College. As a freshman, he played an important role in launching an on-campus political newspaper, and participated in the filming of an award-winning documentary about the College’s new student orientation program. He also works part-time as a dispatcher in the Washington College Public Safety office.

In the summer of 2009, Hurley completed an internship with the Massachusetts Republican Party, immersing himself in the day-to-day work of state politics. As an intern, Hurley conducted legislative research, tracked bills of importance, communicated with members of the Massachusetts Republican State Committee, and kept track of candidates running for office across the state.

“I'm grateful for the opportunity to research an aspect of politics that I find interesting and to be able to work alongside students from some of the best colleges and universities in the nation,” Hurley said. “I look forward to getting a close, inside view of the American presidency.”

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, the Presidential 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.

Washington College’s participation in the program comes courtesy of a generous gift from longtime friends and benefactors of the College – Robert W. and Louisa C. Duemling.

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.

Student Artwork Showcased in Annual Exhibition

CHESTERTOWN—The thesis works of Washington College senior Studio Art majors and selected works from other art students on campus will be showcased in two exhibitions, April 22 through May 15, in gallery spaces inside the Daniel Z. Gibson Center for the Arts. A reception for the exhibiting artists and for other students in the art and art history departments will be held Thursday, April 22, from 4 to 6 p.m.

The “2010 Senior Capstone Experience in Studio Art, Visual Art Thesis Exhibition,” on display in the Kohl Gallery, will feature the culminating projects of seven graduating seniors. The artworks reflect the diversity in the visual arts today. On exhibit will be an interactive sculptural installation by Darby Hewes focused on an individual's effect on nature, masks by dual Psychology and Studio Art major Karen Hye, and a multimedia slideshow with photographs and recorded voices by Christina Izzo.

Also displayed will be Michael Komar’s large-scale figurative paintings on wood, Alexandra Moffat’s paintings investigating movement, depth, and detail, Caroline Perry’s site-specific installation, and Sarah Sheppard’s unique paper dresses.

The Annual Student Art Show, on display in the William Frank Visual Arts Hallway adjacent to the Kohl Gallery, will include art created in Washington College studio classes in drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, and ceramics. The artists, professors and lecturers who led those classes were Ricky Sears, Alex Castro, Marilee Schumann, Scott Woolever, Denise Campbell, and Lauren Abshire.

The exhibitions are free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Tues., 2 to 8 p.m., Wed. through Fri., 2 to 5 p.m., and Sat., 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Closed Sunday and Monday.)

Washington College Jazz Combo Joins Afro-Cuban Ensemble for Concert April 22

CHESTERTOWN–The rhythms of Cuban musical traditions will mix with American jazz when the Washington College Afro-Cuban Ensemble and Jazz Combo perform on Thursday, April 22, at 8 p.m. in Hotchkiss Recital Hall, Gibson Arts Center.

The Afro-Cuban Ensemble was founded in 2005 by percussionist and ethnomusicologist Kenneth Schweitzer, D.M.A., of the Washington College Department of Music. Schweitzer also leads the Washington College Jazz Combo, a small group of Washington College students who show exceptional talent and motivation. This spring, with Professor Schweitzer on leave, both ensembles are being directed by Visiting Instructor David Font-Navarrete, an ethnomusicologist and specialist in Afro-Cuban music.

Thursday’s concert will include straight-ahead jazz, bossa nova, batá drumming, and rumba. The performance is free and open to the public.

Journalist John Harwood to Address 2010 Washington College Graduates on May 16

CHESTERTOWN—John Harwood, Chief Washington Correspondent for CNBC and political writer for The New York Times, will address graduates at Washington College's 227th Commencement ceremonies Sunday morning, May 16. Harwood will receive the honorary degree Doctor of Letters. Also being honored is Dr. Richard A. Meserve, president of the Carnegie Institution and former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Dr. Meserve will be awarded the honorary degree Doctor of Science.

The highly anticipated announcement of the winner of the Sophie Kerr Prize, the largest undergraduate literary prize in the nation, will be made during the ceremonies, as well. This year the winning senior will receive a check worth $64,243.

Commencement ceremonies will begin at 10:30 a.m. on the Campus Lawn. (Rain location is the Benjamin A. Johnson Lifetime Fitness Center, by invitation only.)

Chosen to speak by the Senior Class, Harwood not only covers Washington for CNBC, but also offers political analysis on MSNBC, NBC's "Meet the Press" and "Nightly News," and on the PBS show "Washington Week in Review." He has covered each of the last seven presidential elections. He grew up in the Maryland suburbs near the nation's capital, where his father, Richard L. Harwood, was a long-time political reporter for the Washington Post.

Harwood studied history and economics at Duke University and graduated magna cum laude in 1978. He subsequently joined the St. Petersburg Times, eventually moving into roles as Washington Correspondent and Political Editor. He spent the 1989-90 academic year as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and in 1991 joined The Wall Street Journal as White House Correspondent, covering the administration of President George H. W. Bush. He went on to cover Congress and to serve as the Journal's Political Editor and Chief Political Correspondent. Harwood joined CNBC as Chief Washington Correspondent in March 2006. The following year he also joined The New York Times, where his duties include writing the "Caucus" column.

A resident of Silver Spring, Md., Harwood helps curate the Richard L. Harwood Endowment Fund at Washington College, established in memory of his late father to sponsor campus lectures and colloquys on American journalism and national affairs. The Harwood Fund also underwrites internship opportunities for student journalists.

Dr. Richard A. Meserve became the ninth president of the Carnegie Institution in April 2003, after serving on its board of trustees for 11 years. Prior to that, he chaired the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for four years, from 1999 to 2003. As NRC Chairman under Presidents Clinton and Bush, Meserve was the principal executive officer of the federal agency, responsible for ensuring public health and safety in the operation of nuclear power plants and the use of nuclear materials. He led the NRC in responding to the terrorism threat after the 9/11 attacks.

Meserve received his undergraduate degree from Tufts University in 1966. Early in his career, he served as legal counsel to the President's science advisor and was law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun. Before joining the Commission, Meserve was a partner in the Washington, D.C., law firm of Covington & Burling. With a law degree from Harvard and a Ph.D. in applied physics from Stanford, he devoted his legal practice to technical issues arising at the intersection of science, law, and public policy. This work involved nuclear licensing, environmental and toxic tort litigation, and counseling scientific societies and high-tech companies.

Meserve has served on numerous legal and scientific committees over the years, including many established by the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering. He is currently chairman of the International Nuclear Safety Group (chartered by the International Atomic Energy Agency) and of the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, and Phi Beta Kappa and is a member of the governing Council of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Also being honored at the 2010 Commencement is alumnus Dean G. Skelos ’70, a New York State Senator now in his 13th term. The author of Megan’s Law, requiring sex offenders to register, he more recently has championed laws enforcing fiscal responsibility. Skelos, who as Republican Leader is the highest ranking Republican in New York State government, majored in history at Washington College and earned his law degree at Fordham University. He will receive the Washington College Alumni Citation in recognition of his outstanding achievements as a legislator.

This commencement for 275 graduating seniors marks the conclusion of Baird Tipson’s six-year presidency, which brought about a dramatic transformation of Washington College’s physical campus. The Tipson legacy includes the renovated and expanded Gibson Center for the Arts and the brand new Hodson Hall Commons, both of which opened in Fall 2009, plus ongoing improvements in plantings and landscaping.

College to Christen Research Vessel "Callinectes" Saturday, April 17

CHESTERTOWN –Washington College has exciting plans for the Callinectes, the new research vessel it will christen Saturday, April 17, at 1:30 p.m. at the foot of High Street in Chestertown.

Named after Maryland’s famous blue crab species, Callinectes sapidus, the 46-foot fiberglass boat was designed for teaching and research on the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. It was built by Chesapeake Boats in Crisfield, Md., with generous grant funding from the U.S. Department of Education. Callinectes can carry 35 passengers and is fully equipped with the latest electronics and environmental instrumentation, including trawls, sonar, acoustic seabed classification systems, magnetometers and positioning systems.

“This vessel will provide college undergraduates, faculty and research scientists a platform for exploring the nation’s largest estuary,” says John Seidel, Director of the Center for Environment & Society and chair of the sociology and anthropology departments at Washington College. It also will serve high-school teachers and students in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs, he adds.

Over the next few months, the vessel will complete the certification process with the U.S. Coast Guard and do survey work on the Chester River, with teaching opportunities for high school and college students. By fall, it will be ready for Washington College classes in biology, chemistry and environmental studies.

The christening ceremony, which is open to the public, will include remarks from former U.S. Congressman Wayne Gilchrest and the Maryland director of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, Matthew P. Mullin. Washington College First Lady Sarah Tipson will share actual christening honors with Elizabeth Seidel, director of the Archeology Laboratory. A reception will follow.
For more information, contact the Center for the Environment and Society at Washington College, 101 S. Water Street, Chestertown, Md., 21620, (410) 810-7161 or visit the web at http://ces.washcoll.edu.

Washington College Dance Company Presents Spring Concert

CHESTERTOWN – The Washington College Dance Company, under the direction of Professor Karen L. Smith, will present its annual Spring Dance Concertat the College’s Decker Theater in the Gibson Performing Arts Center, Thursday through Saturday, April 22-24. The concert, which will kick off the beginning of National Dance Week, commences with a special matinee for local schoolchildren on Thursday, April 22, at 1:15 p.m. Subsequent performances are Friday, April 23, at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, April 24, at 2 p.m.

This year’s program will feature a variety of dance styles—classical and contemporary ballet, modern dance, jazz, hip hop, tap, lyrical, and pom—performed by more than 35 students.

Ensemble dances include “Veins” and “Chicago Medley” choreographed by Riley Carbonneau ’10; “Come Dance With Me” choreographed by Kathy Bands ‘10; “Celtic Sundance” choreographed by Nichole Hovermale ’10; “Curbside Prophet” and “Are you Gonna Go My Way?” choreographed by Rachel Dittman ’11; “At Last” and “Everytime We Touch” choreographed by Jessica Hohne ’12; “Jazz: A Retrospective” choreographed by Alyssa Velazquez ’12; “Hit the Floor” choreographed by Elle O’Brien ‘12; and “ABC–Dance with Me” choreographed by dance program director Professor Karen L Smith.

A trio of choreographers – Rachel Dittman ‘11, Sarah Hartge ’12, and Megan Gentry ’12 – will perform their contemporary number. Tap and modern pieces by Mary Fletcher ’10 and two ballets – ”Brahms Waltz” and “Quasi Una Fantasia,” choreographed by ¬student dancers, round out the program.

The show also will feature three dances from the repertoire of Sho’ Troupe, the Washington College Dance Team, titled “Diva” choreographed by Elle O’Brien, “Let’s Get Loud” choreographed by Emily Hordesky ’12, and “B.O.B.” choreographed by Stephanie Golub ’13.

Three solos will be performed by choreographers Mary Fletcher, Jessica Hohne, and Emily Hordesky. A duet will be performed by choreographers Kathy Bands and Ally Happel ’11.

In addition to the choreographers, performers in the concert include: Juniors Jenny Hobbs, Eve Nealon, Sara Prickett, Kelly Topita; Sophomores Ryan Adams-Brown, Amanda Johnson, Virginia Long, Grace Swanson, Emily Simpson, Kris Smith, Veronica Spolarich, Kristian Wilson; and First year students Emma Bolles-Bevins, Cortnee Doll, Devon Garges, Tasha Guzie, Aubrey Hastings, Jessica Kreppel, Laurie McDade, Asmae M’nebhi, Kelly Sipko, and Kimberly Zepeda.

The Spring Dance Concert will feature a raffle for a chance to win “A Night at the Movies” and “Eastern Shore” themed baskets filled with goodies. Tickets for the raffle cost $1 and can be purchased during all three performances. The winners will be drawn at the end of the Saturday performance.

The Spring Dance Concert is open to the public; a $1 donation is welcomed. For more information, call 410/778-7237.

Washington College Focuses on Local Food, Nutrition in Celebrating "Earth Day" 2010

CHESTERTOWN – Washington College will mark Earth Day 2010 on Thursday, April 22, by celebrating local food sources with a mid-day farmer’s market on campus, a lunch menu based on ingredients from area growers, and a documentary film about an activist mom’s efforts to improve school lunches. The following evening, Friday, April 23 at 7 p.m., in Hynson Lounge, Hodson Hall, journalist Sally Fallon Morrell, author of Nourishing Traditions, will discuss the dangers of low-fat processed foods and the benefits of natural food sources.

Thursday, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., vendor tables along the Cater Walk (the brick thoroughfare that runs in front of the new Hodson Hall Commons) will sell vegetables, flowers, herbs and meats. In the new dining hall inside the Commons, which is open to the public, Chef Kent Tilton’s lunchtime menu will be designed around locally sourced ingredients. The offerings will include salad greens from Chesapeake Greenhouse, asparagus from Godfrey’s Farm, and bacon from Cedar Run Farm—all three located in Sudlersville—plus grass-fed beef from St. Brigid’s Farm in Kennedyville, Bay Blue cheese (Maryland’s first raw-milk cheese) from Chapel’s Country Creamery in Easton, and oysters harvested from the Chesapeake Bay. Donna Dhue, the Director of Dining Services at Washington College, also hopes to have local tomatoes, honey, and herbs on her menus, depending on vendor availability that day.

Also inside the Commons, in the first-floor performance space known as “The Egg,” the documentary Two Angry Moms will be playing continuously from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Presented by the Department of Anthropology, the 2007 film follows nutrition crusader Susan Rubin, founder of Better School Food, as she fights to put healthier options onto school lunch trays.

Dhue says the message behind the day’s events reflects that of the broader “locavore” movement, which encourages consumers to buy fresh foods closer to home. Buying locally provides fresher, more flavorful foods, supports farmers and small businesses in the community, and reduces the cost and pollution of transporting foods long distances. Dhue hopes the Earth Day offerings will increase students’ awareness of how consumer choices affect local land use and the environment. “I also want this to be a fun day for students, staff, faculty and the greater Chestertown community to come enjoy some great food from local growers,” she adds. “And to learn more about how food choices impact the health of the individual and the community.”

Friday night’s speaker, Sally Fallon Morrell, is an outspoken critic of the food-processing industry who views “low-fat propaganda” as a conspiracy to enrich businesses at the expense of Americans’ health and vitality. She decries the overuse of refined carbohydrates and oils derived from corn and soybeans and calls for a return to organic farming, pasture-fed livestock and whole foods.

Fallon and her research colleague, Mary G. Enig, Ph.D., an expert on lipids, defend animal fats and cholesterol as vital factors in the human diet. They also stress the value of traditional broths and age-old methods of preserving and cooking foods. Presented by the Anthropology Department, the lecture is free and open to the public.

Washington College Presents "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum"

CHESTERTOWN – The Washington College Department of Drama will stage the musical “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, April 15-17 at 8 p.m. in the new Decker Theatre, Gibson Center for the Arts.

The play’s famous opening number sums up what audiences can expect: “Old situations, new complications, nothing portentous or polite. Tragedy tomorrow. Comedy tonight!” The popular song helped further the career of composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, who turned 80 on March 22 of this year, and it sets the tone perfectly for what follows on stage: bawdy, rowdy fun.

Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart (the latter wrote the movie Tootsie and the TV show Mash) created the musical’s book, drawing heavily from ancient farces by the Roman playwright Plautus (c. 254–184 BC). The plot follows the adventures of the wily slave Pseudolus, who wants his freedom so badly that he will do anything to win it. That includes using all the age-old comic devices—mistaken identity, lying, dressing in drag, threats, deception—and, of course, singing.

The show also includes a bevy of beauties, a young hero and his love, the battle-ax and her henpecked husband, their hysterical servant, a procurer, a befuddled old man in search of his missing children, a vain general, and three clowns who play multiple roles.

Forum was originally conceived as a vehicle for old-time comedians who had appeared in vaudeville and burlesque shows. Consequently, it relies on old-school comic devices, or “shtick” from that era. Think Jerry Lewis, Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Phil Silvers – if you are of a certain generation. For contemporary audiences, think Eddie Murphy, Jim Carrey, David Allen Grier.

Students in lead roles include Stephan Jordan as the slave Pseudolus; his twin brother Antoine Jordan as Lycus, purveyor of courtesans; Josh Smith as Hysterium, the chief slave of a well-to-do Roman citizen; and Michael Zurawski as the young Hero, who falls in love with the virgin Philia, played by Nina Sharp. Professor Jason Rubin directs, and choreography is by Professor Polly Sommerfeld. Musical director Kate Bennett plays keyboard and is accompanied by Ian Trusheim on bass and Jake Deal on drums.

To reserve tickets ($8 adults; $5 students) call 410-778-7835, or email drama_tickets@washcoll.edu.

Legendary Chesapeake Skipjack Captains to Appear with Author Christopher White at Washington College

"Skipjack: The Story of America's Last Sailing Oystermen"

On Sunday, April 25th, Christopher White, author of the newly published and critically-acclaimed book, Skipjack: The Story of America's Last Sailing Oystermen (St. Martin's Press), will appear at the Decker Theatre on the campus of Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. Joining White will be four legendary skipjack captains from the Eastern Shore, including 89-year old Captain Arthur Daniels, Jr. and his son Captain Stan Daniels, both of Deal Island, plus Captain Wade Murphy, Jr. and Captain Stanley Larrimore of Tilghman Island.

Skipjack: America's Last Sailing Oystermen is the story of a quickly vanishing way of life and a culture unique to the Chesapeake Bay. The skipjack, an iconic wooden sailing vessel, has been used for dredging oysters since the nineteenth century. Once numbering in the hundreds, the number of working skipjacks has fallen to little more than a handful as the annual oyster harvest has been drastically reduced due to disease, pollution, and mounting social and economic pressures. At Washington College, the author and captains will be speaking up about the traditions and future of this singular way of life. A way of life that has sustained the watermen and their communities for generations is now on the verge of extinction.

Christopher White moved to Tilghman Island for two years in order to immerse himself in the watermen's culture. During that time he crewed on skipjacks owned by the island's most formidable captains, such as Captain Wade Murphy, Jr. of the Rebecca T. Ruark and Captain Stanley Larrimore of the Lady Katie. White also ventured down to Deal Island to work with the Chesapeake's oldest working skipjack captain, 89-year old Arthur "Art" Daniels, Jr. and his sons and grandsons aboard the skipjack City of Crisfield.

The book that came of out this experience chronicles a life of hardship and frequent danger as these men work through the winter navigating unpredictable waters and an equally volatile economic seafood marketplace. The story beautifully reveals the abiding passion these watermen hold for working the waters of the Chesapeake Bay.

Skipjack: America's last Sailing Watermen is co-sponsored by the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and the Center for Environment and Society at Washington College. The event will also include an exhibition of skipjack-inspired art, including photography by Marion Warren, A. Aubrey Bodine, M.C. Wooten, Constance Stuart Larrabee and others, plus ship models, poetry and a post-program reception. All events will take place in the Daniel Z. Gibson Center for the Arts at Washington College in Chestertown, Md.. The conversation with Christopher White and the Chesapeake watermen will begin at 5:00 p.m.

For more information or to make reservations, contact Michael Buckley, Program Manager, C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, Washington College (410) 810-7156, or emailmbuckley3@washcoll.edu. This event is free and open to the public but reservations are strongly suggested.

About the Starr Center

The C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience 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. For more information on the Center, visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

American Pictures Series at Smithsonian Features Civil War Historian James M. McPherson

CHESTERTOWN, MD – On Saturday, April 10, Civil War historian James McPherson will kick off the 2010 “American Pictures” series with a discussion of Alexander Gardner’s stirring 1862 photograph “Confederate Dead by a Fence on the Hagerstown Road, Antietam,” one of the first pictures to bring the shocking realities of war before the eyes of the American public.

            A joint program of Washington College, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the “American Pictures” series offers a highly original approach to the visual arts, pairing great works of art with leading figures of American culture. This spring's all-star line-up features a trio of Pulitzer Prize-winners: McPherson, cartoonist/author Jules Feiffer (who appears on April 17), and cultural historian David Hackett Fischer, who will appear on Saturday, May 1. Each speaker chooses a single powerful image and investigates its meanings, revealing how artworks reflect American identity and inspire creativity in many different fields. The series director is historian and essayist Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of the college's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience.

            James McPherson is America’s leading historian of the Civil War. He won the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, which was a New York Times bestseller and is widely acclaimed as the best single-volume history of the Civil War ever published. The success of Battle Cry of Freedom helped launch an unprecedented national renaissance of interest in the Civil War. McPherson served as an historical consultant on two PBS documentaries, Ken Burns’s The Civil War and Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided, and on the 1993 film Gettysburg. In 1991, the United States Senate appointed him to the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission, which determined major battle sites, evaluated their conditions, and recommended strategies for preservation.

McPherson is George Henry Davis ’86 Professor of American History, Emeritus at Princeton University. In 2007, he received the first Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for lifetime contributions to the field of military history. In addition to Battle Cry of Freedom, he is the author of several other important books on the Civil War, including For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War, Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War, and Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, all published by Oxford University Press.

            All “American Pictures” events take place at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, located at 8^th and F Streets, N.W., in Washington, D.C.  McPherson’s talk will begin at 4:30 p.m. in the museums’ Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium. Tickets are available in the G Street lobby, beginning at 3:30 p.m. No reservations are necessary for the general public.

Students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of Washington College may reserve tickets to this and the other American Pictures events on a first-come, first-served basis. The Starr Center is also running free buses from Chestertown to Washington for each talk. For details, please call 410-810-7165 or e-mail lkitz2@washcoll.edu. For more information on the American Pictures series, visit starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

                                                   

About the Sponsors

            Founded in 1782 under the personal patronage of its namesake, Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, upholds a tradition of excellence and innovation in the liberal arts. The American Pictures series is a project of the college’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and its Department of Art and Art History.

            The National Portrait Gallery tells the stories of America through the individuals—poets and presidents, visionaries and villains, actors and activists—who have built our national culture. It is where the arts keep us in the company of remarkable Americans.

            The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the nation’s first collection of American art, is an unparalleled record of the American experience. The collection captures the aspirations, character and imagination of the American people from the colonial period to today.

Encore Presentation of 'In Search of Polin: Chasing Jewish Ghosts in Today's Poland,' April 14

Chestertown – Washington College’s Office of the Provost & Dean will present “In Search of Polin: Chasing Jewish Ghosts in Today’s Poland,” a lecture/slide presentation by Dr. Gary S. Schiff, Adjunct Professor of History, at the Casey Academic Center Forum on Wednesday, April 14, at 7 p.m.

“In Search of Polin” is an encore presentation of a lecture Schiff gave last November based in part on his summer 2009 trip to Poland, where, in addition to tracing some of his family roots, he was on the trail of “a thousand years of Jewish history.”

Prior to the Holocaust, the largest concentration of Jews in Europe was to be found in Poland – 3.3 million people, or roughly 10 percent of the Polish population.

The percentage was actually much higher in the cities; in Warsaw, for example, Jews comprised about a third of the population. In other cities, such as Bialystok, Jews were in the majority.

Poland’s Jewish population density was due to its rare open-door policy during the Middle Ages, when Jews were not only welcome, but invited with incentives. As early as the 13^th century, Polish kings, in order to help bring their nascent land up to the economic standards of their contemporaries, offered liberal charters of rights and economic opportunities to entice more Jews to relocate there.

As restrictions, persecutions and expulsions periodically reared their heads further west throughout the medieval period, Jews continued to flock from throughout western and central Europe into Poland.

In the 1880s, pogroms under Russian rule spurred a mass exodus of Polish Jews to the United States. Poland was the largest source of Jewish immigrants to America.

Of the 3.3 million Jews in Poland at the onset of World War II, 3 million were killed in the Holocaust. Most of the survivors emigrated. Only a handful remain. Before the war, there had been more than 500 synagogues in Warsaw. After the war, only one remained.

In addition to the shocking death toll of Polish Jews, the vast majority of Jews from throughout Europe who were killed in the Holocaust died in Poland, where they arrived by the trainload to the infamous Nazi death camps built there.

The lingering echo of such horrors is the reason, said Schiff, that some Jews today consider Poland “one big Jewish cemetery, and won’t go back there, even to visit.”

But there is much of great historical interest left to see there as well, he notes. Schiff’s journey into Poland’s Jewish past included the personal – he toured the area where his family had lived since the 18^th century and unearthed old family marriage records in the town of Ostrow’s City Hall – to the deeply historical – in Krakow, the old royal capital and the first Polish city to acquire a major Jewish presence, he found “a gold mine of Jewish history,” including famous synagogues and graves dating back to the 15^th century.

On the other end of the spectrum, Schiff also visited the horrific concentration camps of Treblinka, Majdanek, Plaszow (where “Schindler’s List” was filmed) and Auschwitz, where at that site alone 1.1 million Jews, including 200,000 children, were put to death. “It’s so vast,” Schiff said of Auschwitz, “it’s hard to imagine evil on such a massive scale.”

 Admission to “In Search of Polin: Chasing Jewish Ghosts in Today’s Poland” is free and open to the public.

Acclaimed Material Culture Scholar Returns to His Local Roots to Discuss Collections, Collecting, and Why We Love "Antiques Roadshow"

On Tuesday, April 13, at 7:30 p.m., the noted material culture scholar Robert Blair St. George will visit Washington College to give a multimedia presentation titled 18th-Century Souvenirs: From the Founding Fathers to the Antiques Roadshow. Immediately following the talk, he will join Patrick Henry Writing Fellow Marla Miller and Linda Eaton, Curator of Collections at Winterthur, for a public conversation on the role of objects in American memory, from the Revolutionary era to "Antiques Roadshow." This event is free and open to the public.

As a town brimming with "18th-century souvenirs" (featured just this month in both Early American Life and This Old House), Chestertown is an ideal spot to explore the different meanings that objects hold for scholars, owners, and collectors. It is also one of the places that first hooked St. George on reading architecture, a passion that has become his life's work. While visiting the Eastern Shore as a young man, he began to look closely at the buildings around him, finding clues to the past in their architectural details.

Robert Blair St. George is Associate Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, where he serves as Director of the Program in Public Culture. He is the author of four books on American cultural history and material culture, including Possible Pasts: Becoming Colonial in Early America (2000) and Material Life in America, 1600-1850 (1988), a perennially popular textbook in material culture classes.

A graduate of the prestigious Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, St. George received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1982. He has held fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the American Antiquarian Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Gilder-Lehrman Institute for American History.

St. George's talk will include clips from the hit PBS show, "Antiques Roadshow," and a discussion of the show's impact on popular interest in collections and collecting. Public conversation hosts Marla Miller and Linda Eaton will draw the audience into the discussion, turning the conversation toward the ways in which objects are assigned subjective meaning by their owners and users.

Marla Miller, Washington College's 2009-10 Patrick Henry Writing Fellow, is Associate Professor of History and Director of Public History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Linda Eaton is Curator of Collections at Winterthur, one of America's best-loved period estates.

St. George's talk is cosponsored by the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, the Department of Art & Art History and Winterthur. The program will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Litrenta Lecture Hall, John S. Toll Science Center.

About the Starr Center

The C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience 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. For more information on the Center, visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

About Winterthur

Winterthur, known worldwide for its preeminent collection of American antiques, naturalistic garden, and research library for the study of American art and material culture, offers a variety of tours, exhibitions, programs, and activities throughout the year. General admission includes a tour of some of the most notable spaces in the 175-room house, as well as access to the Winterthur Garden and Galleries, special exhibitions, a narrated tram tour (weather permitting), the Campbell Collection of Soup Tureens, and the Enchanted Woods children's garden. Winterthur, located on Route 52, six miles northwest of Wilmington, Delaware, and five miles south of U.S. Route 1, is committed to accessible programming for all. For information, including special services, call 800.448.3883, 302.888.4600, or TTY 302.888.4907. Online, visit winterthur.org.