WC Art Professor Studies Early Christian Sculptures during Summer Research at Harvard's Dumbarton Oaks

Chestertown, MD, July 18, 2006 — For nearly two decades, Donald McColl, the Nancy L. Underwood Professor of Art History at Washington College, has immersed himself in one of art history's mysteries—the origins and function of a group of early Christian sculptures, called the "Jonah Marbles", representing Jonah and the Good Shepherd, which first appeared on the New York art market in the mid-1960s and now reside in the Cleveland Museum of Art.

"The sculptures are extraordinary works, and are exceedingly rare examples of pre-Constantinian sculpture in the round," says McColl. "Yet lingering doubts as to their authenticity, attributable in large part to their having no verifiable provenance—that is, either a verifiable archaeological context or a long and continuous record of ownership—to say nothing of the sheer exuberance of their forms, which recall pagan, Hellenistic art—have had the effect of excluding the works from important discussions of Early Christian art."

This June—courtesy of a 2006 Summer Fellowship in Byzantine Studies from Harvard's Dumbarton Oaks Library and Research Collection—McColl began to take stock of his decade-long researches on the origins of the sculptures, which have included travel to Turkey; isotopic analyses of the marble from which the objects were carved, conducted in conjunction with conservators from the Cleveland Museum and the Center for Archaeological Sciences, University of Georgia; and examining the papers of the late Ernst Kitzinger, former Director of Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks and one of the most important scholars to have made a close study of the works.

The Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, located in Washington, DC, is an international center for scholarship, providing resources for study and publishing scholarly works in Byzantine, Pre-Columbian, and Garden and Landscape Studies. Begun as a private collection by Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss in 1920, and given to Harvard University in 1940, the library and collections include art, objects, artifacts, manuscripts, and rare books.

McColl joined the faculty of Washington College in 1997 after receiving his Ph.D. in art history from the University of Virginia, and completing postdoctoral study at Northwestern University, supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He holds a B.A. in art history and criticism from the University of Western Ontario (1986) and an M.A. in art history from Oberlin College (1992). His professional research focuses on the visual culture of northern Europe in the early modern period and on late antique/early Christian art and archaeology. He is currently working on a book titled Troubled Waters: Seeing the Samaritan Woman in the Reformation World.

College Appoints Historian, Essayist Adam Goodheart to Head C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience

Chestertown, MD, July 5, 2006 — Washington College has appointed historian and essayist Adam Goodheart as the new director of the College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, the Office of the President announced Wednesday, July 5. Goodheart, who served as a visiting fellow of the Center during the past four years, succeeds Ted Widmer, a presidential historian and former speechwriter for the Clinton Administration's National Security Council, who directed the Center since its inception in 2000 and will now direct the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.

"During his tenure as a C.V. Starr Fellow, Adam proved himself indispensable to the Center, helping to establish learning and research opportunities for our undergraduates, outreach and programs for the broader public, and an intense focus on the rich history of Chestertown and our region," said Baird Tipson, President of Washington College. "I am confident that as director Adam will continue to find new opportunities for the Center that enhance our student experience and break new ground in the study of American history."

"I'm honored to be asked to serve an institution I love, Washington College, in this new capacity," Goodheart said. "The Starr Center has accomplished some great things in its few short years of existence, but I think the best is yet to come. Right now more than ever, it is clear that a deeper understanding of our shared history is essential to the success of America's continuing democratic experiment. I hope that the Center—and Washington College as a whole—can play an ever-greater role in that urgent national conversation."

A historian, critic, and prolific essayist, Goodheart appears frequently in many national publications, including the New York Times, National Geographic, Smithsonian, The Atlantic, and The American Scholar, writing on American history, culture, and politics. Throughout his career, his work has focused on drawing connections between the past and the present.

Goodheart was a founder, senior editor, and columnist at Civilization, the magazine of the Library of Congress, which won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence in its first year of publication.

He was appointed one of the youngest editorial board members in the history of The American Scholar, the Phi Beta Kappa Society's distinguished quarterly, where he continues to serve as a contributing editor. He is a contributing editor at Preservation, the magazine of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and at Travel & Leisure, as well as a member of the Board of Incorporators at Harvard Magazine and the Board of Contributors at USA Today. He served as Deputy Editor of the New York Times Op-Ed page and remains a frequent contributor to various sections of the paper. He has appeared on National Public Radio, PBS Television, CNN, C-SPAN, and many other broadcast outlets.

Among the prizes Goodheart's work has received are the Lowell Thomas Award of the Society of American Travel Writers (2004) and the Henry Lawson Award for Travel Writing (2005); his essays have appeared in numerous anthologies—including the prestigious Norton Reader—and received numerous citations in the Best American Essays series. He is currently writing a book on slavery in early America, under contract with Alfred A. Knopf.

Since 2002, Goodheart has been a part-time visiting fellow and lecturer at Washington College, where he has taught courses in American Studies, English, and History. Through his affiliation with the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, he has created and implemented a wide range of successful programs, including the Senatorial Colloquy on American History and Politics (with former U.S. Senator Birch Bayh), the Frederick Douglass Fellowships, and the Chestertown History Weekend.

Goodheart is a 1992 graduate in American history and literature, magna cum laude, of Harvard College, where he won the Thomas T. Hoopes Prize and the Henry Russell Shaw Fellowship, among other honors. A native of Philadelphia, he now lives on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Established in 2000 with a grant from the New York-based Starr Foundation, the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience draws on the special historical strengths of Washington College and colonial Chestertown to explore the early republic, the rise of democracy, and the manifold ways in which the founding era continues to shape American culture through innovative educational programs, scholarship, and public outreach. In cooperation with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and George Washington's Mount Vernon, the Center administers the George Washington Book Prize, a $50,000 annual prize recognizing outstanding published works that contribute to a greater understanding of the life and career of George Washington and/or the founding era.

News about upcoming events and programs sponsored by the Center is available online at http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

Marx Meets Buddha as WC Philosophy Professor Explores the Spiritual Dimensions of Humanistic Socialism

Chestertown, MD, June 28, 2006 — Karl Marx's materialistic philosophy of history might seem to exclude all possibilities of a spiritual dimension to human existence. But, according to Marx scholar Kevin Brien, chair and professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Washington College, the core of humanistic Marxism contains a latent spiritual view of human existence. In the second edition of his book Marx, Reason, and the Art of Freedom (Prometheus/Humanity Books, 2006), Brien analyzes not only the concept of freedom as developed throughout the philosophical works of Marx but also the convergence of humanistic Marxism and Buddhism through their nontheistic view of human flourishing.

In his analysis of the problem of freedom from a humanistic-Marxist perspective, Brien draws on the full chronological spectrum of Marx's writings to reconstruct the mature Marx's view of freedom. While recognizing that many students of Marx have noted two distinctly different perspectives in early and late Marx, Brien interprets Marx's philosophy as a coherent organic whole, demonstrating that Marx's thought is principally and systematically an elaborated philosophical-scientific theory of freedom.

"In 1987 I published the first edition of this book because of my belief that Marx's scientific/philosophical paradigm, when seen in the appropriate way, stands as the most viable currently available perspective for understanding human cultural evolution; and also because of my belief that Marx's paradigm, when properly understood, provides extremely fruitful guidance for nurturing a development toward a new plateau of human culture and of human freedom," Brien writes. "In undertaking to publish this second edition after the break up of the Soviet Union, and now well into the twenty-first century, these beliefs still function as my basic motivation."

New to this second edition is Brien's presentation of a humanistic-Marxist interpretation of spirituality and the viability of a nontheistic spiritual dimension, a "liberation spirituality" that provides a moral ground for common social action among adherents of different beliefs.

"It is my deep belief that a nondogmatic, nonsectarian, this-world oriented attitude concerning the spiritual dimension holds great promise for building such transcending holistic coalitions that could nurture developments toward a new plateau of cultural evolution—while acknowledging and even cultivating diversity," Brien says.

Brien received his Ph.D. from Boston University in 1978 and has taught in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Washington College since 1986. His areas of specialization and interest include Eastern philosophy and religion, philosophy of science, Marx, Nietzsche, and the history of philosophy. He is currently working on a new book tentatively called Toward a New Liberation Spirituality, aiming a critical synthesis of Marx, Nietzsche, and Buddhism.

2006 George Washington Book Prize Awarded to Stacy Schiff for A Great Improvisation

Ceremony at Historic Mount Vernon Honors Best New Book on the Founding Era

Mount Vernon, VA, May 24, 2006 — The second annual George Washington Book Prize was awarded at Mount Vernon on Tuesday, May 23, to Stacy Schiff for her book, A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, published in 2005. The $50,000 prize honors the most important new book about the founding era. Schiff, winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for biography, tells the story of the eight years Benjamin Franklin spent in France beginning in 1776 wooing French support for the American War for Independence.

"In this time of renewed interest in the founding period, it is especially gratifying to be recognized for my efforts to bring a little-known chapter of Ben Franklin's life to light," said Schiff. "To receive this significant award at the home of another illustrious founder is a true honor."

Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in New York City, and the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association collaborated in 2005 to create the prize, awarded in its inaugural year to Ron Chernow for Alexander Hamilton. At $50,000 the George Washington Book Prize is one of the most generous book awards in the United States.

In A Great Improvisation, Schiff draws from new and not widely known sources to illuminate the least-explored part of Franklin's life. She brings to the surface an unfamiliar chapter of the Revolution, a tale of American infighting, and the backroom dealings at Versailles that would propel George Washington from near decimation at Valley Forge to victory at Yorktown. A particularly human and yet fiercely determined Founding Father emerges as readers get a sense of how fragile, improvisational, and international was our country's bid for independence.

"In sparkling prose, burnished to a high gloss, Stacy Schiff tells the tale of Benjamin Franklin in Paris with piquant humor, outrageous anecdotes worthy of the finest French farce, and a wealth of lapidary observations... C'est magnifique," said last year's prize winner Chernow.

The event at Mount Vernon, complete with fireworks and candlelit tours of Washington's Mansion, also celebrated the works of the two other finalists before an audience of guests from political, academic, and diplomatic arenas. Finalists were Edward Lengel for General George Washington: A Military Life and Stanley Weintraub for Iron Tears: America's Battle for Freedom, Britain's Quagmire: 1775-1783. The books were selected by a three-person jury of early-American history scholars: Carol Berkin of Baruch College, City University of New York; Walter Isaacson of the Aspen Institute; and Gordon Wood of Brown University.

"In each work selected, the jury saw refreshing perspectives on our nation's founding era," said Ted Widmer, Director of Washington College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, which administers the prize.

"This prize is a tremendous way to recognize exceptional scholarship on perhaps the greatest period in American history," said James Basker, President of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

On Wednesday, May 24, Schiff delivered a lecture about Franklin for a younger audience, more than 100 students from School Without Walls, a high school based on the campus of George Washington University. School Without Walls is the only Gilder Lehrman history school in the District of Columbia.

Schiff is the author of Véra, which won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for biography, and Saint-Exupéry, a finalist for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and was a Director's Fellow at the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. Schiff lives with her husband and three children in New York City.

Caplin, Matthews Exhort Grads: "Get In the Game"

Chestertown, MD, May 21, 2006 — At one end of the spectrum was Mortimer Caplin, a corporate tax attorney and World War II veteran who landed on Omaha Beach. At the other was Chris Matthews, a fast-talking television journalist who, during the 1960s, served in the Peace Corps in Swaziland, teaching business classes and exploring remote villages on a Suzuki motorbike.

Caplin graduated from University of Virginia School of Law hours after Hitler and Mussolini invaded France. He and many of his classmates soon headed off to war. Matthews, the host of MSNBC's Hardball, graduated from Holy Cross College at the height of the 1960s and set out on wild, youthful adventures that shaped who he is today.

Despite their generational differences, their messages to Washington College's Class of 2006 were similar: "Get involved."

Caplin, who has devoted much of his life to public service, urged the graduates to aspire to be public citizens—to vote, to contact elected officials directly, to give some thought to public service. "This is the people's government and you are in a position to contribute to the common good. Imagine," he said, "what Paul Revere could have done with an e-mail account and a cell phone."

Matthews told the 318 graduates to "go do something a little wild and crazy before you knuckle down and start chasing the buck, because whatever you do in your 20s will have a lot to do with who you become. Be true to your ideals." And when the time goes to get that job, he said it's not whom you know but whom you get to know, that matters.

"Get yourself in the game. Just go where the game is played and find out how to get into the game. Learn the lingo, the manners, the culture, the jazz of the game you want to play.

"There's a false assumption out there that talent will be recognized. Don't believe it," Matthews continued. "The job goes to the person who is standing right there."

Caplin and Matthews were each presented with honorary degrees—doctor of laws and doctor of letters respectively.

As part of the May 21st Commencement ceremonies, the College recognized Jean-Francois Seznec '70 with the Alumni Citation for Excellence. An expert in the political economy of the Persian Gulf, Seznec teaches at Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. With more than 25 years of experience in international banking and finance—ten of which were spent in the Middle East—Dr. Seznec is a frequent commentator in national and foreign media.

He shared a remarkable story of a lost family heirloom that was returned to him during Reunion Weekend—reason enough, he said, to keep returning to "this jewel of a place."

As is tradition at Washington College, Commencement concluded with the awarding of eight distinguished senior honors and prizes.

The George Washington Medal and Award, given to the senior demonstrating the greatest promise of understanding and realizing in life and work the ideals of a liberal education, went to Brenna Schneider, an international studies major with a minor in economics. Schneider, who spent three months in a Burmese monastery and then lived in a Tibetan refugee settlement, is returning to India to work for a non-governmental organization. She also received a departmental award.

The Clark-Porter Medal, given to the student whose character and personal integrity have most clearly enhanced the quality of student life, went to George A. Best, Jr., a business management major from Chestertown.

The Sophie Kerr Prize, valued at $55,906 this year, was awarded to Marshall Shord, an English major from Berlin, MD. Shord was selected to win the largest undergraduate literary prize in the country based upon the strength of his critical thesis examining three novels of Thomas Pynchon, along with a portfolio of essays, stories and poems.

The Henry W. C. Catlin 1894 Medal, given to a senior man outstanding in the qualities of scholarship, character, leadership and campus citizenship, went to Timothy Kerr, a history major.

The Eugene B. Casey Medal, given to a senior woman outstanding in the qualities of scholarship, character, leadership and campus citizenship, went to Sarah McCloskey, anthropology major. McCloskey, who graduated first in her class, also received the Anthropology Award, the Lambda Alpha Gamma Senior Award and the Margaret Horsley Award.

The Louis L. Goldstein '35 Award, given to a graduating senior with unusual interest, enthusiasm and potential in the field of public affairs, went to C. Michael Shaffer, a political science major. He also won the Jonathan A. Taylor Jr. Leadership Award.

Marian F. Royer, a biology major, received the Jane Huston Goodfellow Memorial Prize, in recognition of her scholastic excellence and her abiding appreciation of the arts and humanities.

The Gold Pentagon Awards, given by the Omicron Delta Kappa Society in recognition of meritorious service to Washington College, went to Jim Siemen, professor of psychology, and Brooke Burkett, a biology major from Avon Lake, OH.

Maryland College Awards Nation's Largest Undergraduate Literary Prize at 224th Commencement

21-Year-Old Senior from Berlin, MD, Wins $55,907 for Critical Writing and Poetry

Chestertown, MD, May 21, 2006 — Most college seniors will look back on their graduation ceremony as a day of pomp and circumstance culminating in a handshake and a diploma. For Marshall Shord, 21, a Washington College English major from Berlin, Maryland, the ceremony brought another reward: a check for $55,907. Shord's critical thesis on Thomas Pynchon, along with his portfolio of essays, stories, and poems, earned him the largest literary award in the country exclusively for undergraduates—the Sophie Kerr Prize—presented Sunday, May 21, 2006, during the College's 224th Commencement ceremonies.

The awarding of the Sophie Kerr Prize, given annually to the graduating senior who demonstrates the greatest "ability and promise for future fulfillment in the field of literary endeavor," has in recent decades been a highlight of the commencement ceremony at the 224-year-old liberal arts college. The Prize, worth $55,907 this year, is among the largest literary awards in the world. Washington College has awarded more than one million dollars in prize money since it was first given in 1968, most often to writers of poetry and fiction. Scholarly and journalistic works, though less often selected, are given equal consideration. Shord was one of 31 to submit a portfolio for consideration, but it was a critical thesis on novelist Thomas Pynchon that earned him departmental honors from the English department and caught the attention of the Sophie Kerr Committee. In making the award, they praised his "intellectually adventurous" thesis while also noting the quality of his poetry.

English Professor Richard Gillin, who presided over the committee's deliberations, stressed that the prize can be awarded for student writing outside the submitted portfolio—in this case, the critical thesis Shord submitted as a graduation requirement. But it was clear that the committee was also impressed with Shord's creative writing and especially his poetry. Gillin praised Shord's poems for their "stark imagery and slowly developing realizations that are often plangent and unsettling."

Professor Thomas Cousineau, Shord's thesis adviser, echoed Gillin's enthusiasm for this year's winner, calling Shord's examination of Pynchon's major novels one of the best theses he had ever seen.

"I was especially impressed by his complex reading of these novels as the work of a 'second generation' modernist writer who managed to find highly original ways of imitating the methods of his high-modernist master James Joyce," Cousineau said. "Marshall also offered intriguing applications to these novels of the reinterpretation of the Narcissus myth that Marshall McLuhan proposed in his landmark Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man."

Shord's professors expect him to continue on to graduate school. "In fact, we will insist on it," Cousineau said with a smile.

The Sophie Kerr Prize is the namesake of an Eastern Shore woman who made her fortune in New York, writing women's fiction during the 1930s and 1940s. In accordance with the terms of her will, one-half of the annual income from her bequest to the College is awarded each year to the graduating senior demonstrating the best potential for literary achievement. The other half funds scholarships, supports student publications and the purchase of books, and brings an array of visiting writers, editors, and publishers to campus to read, visit classes, and discuss student work. Her gift has provided the nucleus for an abundance of literary activity on the bucolic Eastern Shore campus.

Washington College is a private, independent college of liberal arts and sciences located in historic Chestertown on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Founded in 1782 under the patronage of George Washington, it is the first college chartered in the new nation.

In Memoriam: Michael Bailey, Professor Emeritus of Economics

Chestertown, MD, May 21, 2006 — William Michael Bailey, a longtime professor of economics and one of the longest-surviving heart transplant recipients, died of cancer on May 20, 2006. He was 68.

Dr. Bailey had just retired after 31 years as a Professor of Economics at Washington College. As chair of the Department of Economics for twelve years (1975-1987), he helped to shape one of the College's most popular majors. In recognition of this achievement, he was named the inaugural Hodson Trust Professor of Economics in 1977.

After a successful heart transplant in 1988, Dr. Bailey became a community advocate for organ donation and often spoke with students in the philosophy department's medical ethics class about his personal experience of benefiting from someone else's loss and the ethical responsibility that came with that gift. He often said that he wanted to live his life in a way that would be "some small recompense" for the life of the 25-year-old heart donor whose life was lost.

On campus, he was highly regarded among his peers for his keen intelligence, his passion for economic history and his philosophical grounding in economics. On his retirement, students lauded him for his ability to explain difficult concepts; one former student called Dr. Bailey "a man of stories and words." His teachings sparked ideas and understandings not only in the field of economics, but on life lessons as well. Former students paid tribute to his virtuosity as a teacher by naming a classroom for him. In the wider Chestertown community, he had distinguished himself as chairman of the Kent County Historical Trust. A proud liberal Democrat, he served for eight years on the Chestertown Town Council, which his wife, Margo, now leads as Mayor.

Beneath his brilliant intellectual capacity and his professional accomplishments, Michael was a family man.

"Michael's greatest passion, the thing he most liked to talk about, was his family: his wife and his eight children, whom he adored," said Robert Lynch, chair of the department of economics. "When I think back over the many conversations I had with Michael what stands out are his brilliance, his thoughtfulness, his kindness, his sensitivity, his wise council, his deep affection for his family, and his love of humanity. His passing is a great loss."

He earned a bachelor's degree in economics from North Texas State University and a Ph.D. in economics from University of Maryland College Park. Before coming to Washington College, Michael served as a professor of economics at both the University of Maryland and at American University.

Dr. Bailey had served as chair of Washington College's Finance Committee and as a faculty advisor to the Young Democrats Club and the Investment Club. He had also served on the Governor's Council on Libraries.

Dr. Bailey is survived by his father, William Leonard Bailey of Houston, Texas; a brother, Richard Bailey, also of Houston; his wife of 24 years, Margo Bailey of Chestertown, and eight children: sons Joel, Eric, Keith, Colin and Owen; and daughters Nancy, Carrie and Maren, and ten grandchildren. His youngest son, Owen, who was five when his father received his new heart, is a senior at Washington College.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations in his name to the Kent County Public Library. A private memorial service will be held on Tuesday, May 23.