Martin Luther King Remembrance And Celebration Set For January 19

Chestertown, MD, January 12, 2004 — Washington College will host “MARTIN LUTHER KING: A DAY OF CELEBRATION,” Monday, January 19, in honor of the memory and the legacy of the late Civil Rights leader. A program of remembrance will be held at 1:30 p.m. and the film Separate But Equal will be shown at 6:30 p.m., both in the Norman James Theatre, William Smith Hall. The events are free and the public is invited to attend.

At 1:30 p.m., students, faculty and other members of the Washington College community will reflect on the “Power Of Integration” and the life of Dr. King through anecdotes and readings in a service of remembrance and celebration in the Norman James Theatre. At 6:30 p.m., the College will show the 1991 film Separate But Equal that documents the legal and moral struggle to desegregate America's public schools. The film features Sidney Portier as the future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall—then a lawyer for the NAACP—and the case that lead to the Supreme Court's 1953 decision to abolish racial segregation in schools. Both events are sponsored by Washington College's Martin Luther King Celebration Committee, Black Student Union and Cleopatra's Daughters.

Speaker To Discuss Choices And Challenges Faced By Minority Business Women

Chestertown, MD, March 28, 2003 — Washington College presents “CHOICES AND CHALLENGES OF A MINORITY BUSINESS WOMAN,” a lecture by Dr. Adrienne McCollum, President and CEO of Research Assessment Management, Inc., on Wednesday, April 2, at 4:30 p.m. in the College's Hynson Lounge. The event is free and the public is invited to attend.

Dr. McCollum has operated her management consulting firm for 20 years, doing business with the private sector and performing contractual work for a variety of government agencies and organizations, including the Agency for International Development, Department of Transportation, National Institute of Mental Health, Bureau of Education for the Handicapped, the Office of Child Abuse and Neglect, the While House Conference on Aging, the Head Start Bureau, and the United States Postal Service Office of the Inspector General. With a doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and as a minority business woman managing a full-time staff of 45, in addition to numerous contractual consultants, Dr. McCollum understands the importance of teamwork and diversity in modern business and has developed and implemented workshops on “Working In A Diverse Work Force.”

In addition to her other activities, Dr. McCollum teaches at the University of Phoenix and has made presentations at American University, the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority and Benedict College. She has received honors and awards from the Bureau of Education for the Handicapped, the National Council of Negro Women, and the White House Conference on Aging, and she has served on the Board of Trustees of Benedict College for 10 years and on the Board of Directors of the William L Clay Research and Education Scholarship Fund. Dr. McCollum's other business experiences include the ownership of Burger King franchises, and presently, with her spouse Dr. R. Dale McCollum, four gas and convenience stores, and she is currently in the process of patenting a new invention.

Dr. McCollum's talk is sponsored by Washington College's Department of Business Management, the Goldstein Program in Public Affairs, the Campus Events & Visitors Committee, the Black Student Union and Cleopatra's Daughters.

Your Move: Speaker Teaches Life's Lessons Through Chess

Chestertown, MD, January 6, 2003— Washington College's Department of Business Management, Black Student Union, Education Club and Goldstein Program in Public Affairs present “CHESS AND LIFE: PARALLEL LESSONS,” a talk by Eugene Brown, Founder and Director of Washington, DC's Big Chair Chess Club and Deanwood Chess House, Thursday, February 6, 2003, at 7:30 p.m. in the College's Hynson Lounge. The event is free and the public is invited to attend.

At age 56, Eugene “Chess Man” Brown is a grandfather, a real estate agent, a master barber, and a mentor who aims to help inner city youth in Washington, DC avoid the hard lessons that he had to learn. The founder of DC's Big Chair Chess Club and Deanwood Chess House, Brown uses chess to help both children and adults learn life skills for success. The chess club's motto is also Brown's philosophy for life: “Always think before you move.”

Since its founding in 1993, Brown's Big Chair Chess Club has coached groups of students to city and community chess championships over the past seven years. Through chess instruction and playing, Brown and his volunteers teach others to avoid wrong thinking and poor decision-making that lead to problems and learn the methods of right thinking that can lead to their personal success. The Club shows children and adults how to play chess as a method to realize the practical personal and social benefits of concentration, cooperation and planning; critical, strategic, and analytical thinking; and self-discipline.

When Bones Talk: Bioarchaeology And The African Diaspora

Chestertown, MD, October 8, 2002 — The Washington College Department of Sociology and Anthropology, the Anthropology Club, the Black Student Alliance, the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, and the Gamma Chapter of Maryland of Lambda Alpha present BIOARCHAEOLOGY AND THE AFRICAN DIASPORA, a lecture by Michael L. Blakey, National Endowment for the Humanities Professor of Anthropology at the College of William and Mary. This free talk will be held Thursday, October 17, 2002, at 7:30 p.m. in the Casey Academic Center Forum. The public is invited to attend.
With a crossdisciplinary background in human anatomy and anthropology, Dr. Blakey will discuss how archaeology works with such disciplines to discover how humans lived in the past and were affected by their living conditions. An Adjunct Professor in Anatomy at Howard University College of Medicine where he had for many years been Curator of the W. Montague Cobb Human Skeletal Collection, Dr. Blakey currently directs the New York African Burial Ground Project involving interdisciplinary study of 400 skeletons of Africans enslaved in 18th century New York City. In addition to his field work, he has taught at Spelman College, the University of Rome, Columbia University, and Brown University, and has served as a Research Associate in Physical Anthropology in the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. He is a past President of the Association of Black Anthropologists, a member of the Executive Council of the Society for Medical Anthropology, United States Representative to the Council of the Fourth World Archaeological Congress in Cape Town, and Permanent Representative to Washington for the African Bureau of Education Sciences in Kinshasa and Geneva. Dr. Blakey earned his B.A. at Howard University and the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

March 28th Student Conference To Address Ethnic Diversity And The American Identity

Chestertown, MD, March 25, 2002 — Washington College and Goucher College are proud to present "Redefining the American Identity: A Student Conference on Ethnic Diversity," Thursday, March 28, 2002, at 4 p.m. in the College's Casey Academic Center Forum. The conference will open with keynote speaker Dr. Seble Dawit, a former human and women's rights consultant in Africa and now director of the peace studies program and visiting assistant professor at Goucher College, Towson, MD. All members of the community are encouraged to attend.

Twelve students will present papers addressing the complex issue of ethnic diversity and national unity in the United States. The presentations will tackle such issues as civil rights, religious freedom and identity, and the variety of and change in people's political and social worldviews since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2002.

Session I will begin at 4:30 p.m., addressing the issue "Where Self-Identity and National Identity Meet: Looking at Solutions to Conflict." Session II will begin at 7:30 p.m. and address the issue of "E Pluribus Unum: Making it Work." Keynote speaker, Dr. Dawit, will conclude the conference at 9:30 p.m.

"The goal of the conference is to make students really think deeply about the complexities of these questions and to offer their analysis and potential solutions to these pressing issues of our society," says Bonnie Ryan, organizer of the conference and Jessie Ball Dupont Scholar in sociology and anthropology at the College. "After the tragedy of September 11, the question of our nation's diversity and unity really came to the fore. The attacks affected thousands of people of different backgrounds, nations, races and creeds, while others acted out in anger against innocent Arab-Americans. This conference will serve as a forum for our students to explore and to discuss these issues that support or challenge the diversity of the United States and the unifying forces of democracy that hold our nation together."

This student conference is sponsored by the Goldstein Program for Public Affairs, Goucher College, the Campus Events Office, the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Lambda Alpha, the Anthropology Honors Society-Gamma Chapter, and the Black Student Union.

Taylor Branch to Speak on Civil Rights in the Wake of the September 11th Terrorist Attacks

Chestertown, MD, January 17, 2002 — In celebration of Black History Month, the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, the Center for the Study of Black Culture, and the Black Student Union of Washington College present "FREEDOM, FAITH, AND TERROR: THOUGHTS ON THE DAWNING AGE," a talk by Taylor Branch, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on Tuesday, February 12, 2002, at 8 p.m. in the College's Norman James Theatre, William Smith Hall. The event is free and the public is invited to attend.

Branch's talk will focus on reinterpreting the legacy of Martin Luther King in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and how the ideals of the Civil Rights Movement can be carried on amidst concerns for national security and public safety. Branch is the award-winning writer of a multi-volume history of the Civil Rights Movement and the work of Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63" and "Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-5." These exhaustive treatments of the early history, personalities and politics of the Civil Rights Movement—representing 13 years of writing and research—have established Branch as a national authority, and he frequently advised President Clinton on racial matters and civil rights issues during his terms. Currently Branch is working on the third and final installment in this history, titled At Canaan's Edge.

The C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College opened in Fall 2001 to encourage the broad study of American history and culture and the ways we give daily new meaning to what George Washington called "the great experiment." In keeping with the special history and character of Washington College, the Center focuses on the nation's founding moment, ideals and experiences by highlighting contemporary scholarship and research in these areas.

Biehls to Speak on Justice and Empowerment in South Africa

Chestertown, MD, March 21, 2001 — On Monday, April 9, 2001, Washington College will host Peter and Linda Biehl speaking on "Restorative Justice: 'Ubuntu' Revisited" at 7:30 p.m. in Washington College's Casey Academic Center Forum. The Biehls are the founders and directors of the Amy Biehl Foundation and Amy Biehl Foundation Trust, named in honor of their daughter who sacrificed her life at the age of 26 to serve the underrepresented, downtrodden and disenfranchised in the struggle for democracy in South Africa.

Originally from Southern California, Amy Biehl was a young American Fulbright Scholar in South Africa in 1993, when she was stoned and stabbed to death by an angry mob while driving friends home to a black township near Cape Town. Working in the politically charged atmosphere in the last days of Apartheid, she journeyed to South Africa to help disenfranchised voters and to empower the women of the country to ensure the protection of their interests under the country's majority-rule system. In 1999, Biehl's life and work was honored posthumously with the Immortal Chaplains Prize for Humanity, given to those who have risked their lives to protect others of a different race or religion.

Linda and Peter Biehl have established the Amy Biehl Foundation and Amy Biehl Foundation Trust to continue their daughter's work and have been highly supportive of groups concerned with alleviating the lasting effects and injustices of Apartheid. In the United States, the Amy Biehl Foundation seeks to encourage a new generation of social activists and freedom fighters in middle schools, high schools and colleges. The foundation supports scholarships and internships for South African students to study in the United States and for American students to study in South Africa. In South Africa, the Amy Biehl Foundation Trust directs a holistic and comprehensive violence prevention initiative comprised of more than 15 individual, community-based programs targeted at adolescents and care-givers in South Africa's marginalized communities. Programs are offered in health, education, arts, recreation and economic empowerment.

The talk is sponsored by the Leadership Development Office, Anthropology Club, Black Student Alliance, Center for Black Culture, Cleopatra's Daughters, Goldstein Program, International House, Student Athlete Mentors and the William James Forum. The program is free and the public is invited to attend. For further information, call 410-778-7849.

Author of Nappy Hair to Speak on the Contexts of Women's Beauty

Chestertown, MD, March 7, 2001 — Carolivia Herron, author of the award-winning children's book Nappy Hair(Knopf 1997), will speak on "Nappy Hair and the Contexts of Women's Beauty" on Wednesday, March 21, 2001 at 7:30 p.m. in Washington College's Norman James Theatre.

Dr. Herron is a scholar in the field of classical epic and African-American literature and an Assistant Professor of English at California State University, Chico. Nappy Hair is an award-winning, vibrantly illustrated children's book that uses the African-American call-and-response tradition, as a family talks back and forth about the main character, Brenda's, hair. The family delights in poking gentle fun with their hilarious descriptions, all the time discovering the beauty and meaning of Brenda's hair. The book encourages the recognition and celebration of beauty in racial diversity and the diversity of beauty.

The talk is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Black Culture, the Sophie Kerr Committee, the Diversity Planning Task Force, the International House, the Black Student Union and Cleopatra's Daughters. The public is invited to attend.