Expertise on Politics, Religion and Gender Put Professor Deckman in Media Spotlight

Deckman participates in a Brookings Insitution event that discussed
the findings of the 2012 American Values Survey.

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Political science professor Melissa Deckman has been busy on the media circuit, sharing her expertise on how religion and gender are affecting voter attitudes in the presidential election through appearances on nationally broadcast panels and in interviews with radio and print journalists.

            At an October 22 event at the National Press Club in D.C., sponsored by Catholic University's Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies and covered live by C-SPAN, she shared her research findings on the gender gap among Catholic voters. You can see C-SPAN video of her observations here.

            The following day, as an Affiliated Scholar with the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), she participated in a panel discussion hosted by the Brookings Institution to announce the results of PRRI’s “2012 American Values Survey,” the organization’s annual comprehensive look at how values and beliefs affect voting behaviors. Deckman addressed several key areas of the survey: the correlation between religious affiliation and support for Romney or Obama, perceptions about the state of religious freedom in the U.S., and Tea Party opinions on social issues. Video of the event is available on the Brookings Institution Web site (Deckman’s segment begins about an hour into the video).

            Most recently, she was videotaped talking about religion’s impact on the presidential election for a segment of the PBS show “Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly,” which is scheduled to air on PBS stations across the country starting Sunday morning, Nov. 4.  (The show is carried locally on MPT2 that day at 6:30 a.m. and on Washington-based WETA at 10:30 a.m. For other station schedules, visit the show’s website.)

            She also appeared on Baltimore’s WYPR radio to discuss the election with Midday Show host Dan Rodricks, and was quoted in a piece by Philadelphia Inquirer columnist John Baer.

            “This election season has been busier than usual because being an Affiliated Scholar with the Public Religion Research Institute has brought exciting new opportunities,” says Deckman, who is the College’s Louis L. Goldstein Professor of Public Affairs. “As someone who has studied political behavior for a long time, I’ve enjoyed sharing my knowledge in these different settings.”

Appearing as part of an event at the National Press Club, Deckman
discussed Catholics and the gender gap in presidential politics.

Speaker to Examine Phillipine Politics

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Gary Gador Dionisio, a professor of diplomacy and a consultant on Phillippine politics and legislative affairs, will speak at Washington College on Monday, Oct. 29, on “Shaping Philippine Politics in 2012-13; State and Religion Nexus.”

            Sponsored by the Near Eastern Studies Program, the talk will take place at 5 p.m. in Hynson Lounge, Hodson Hall, on the College campus, 300 Washington Avenue. It is free and open to the public.

            Dionisio is an assistant professor in the Consular and Diplomatic Affairs Program at De La Salle–College of St. Benilde, in Manilla. His consulting clients include the City Government of Pasay, the National Union of Workers in Hotel Restaurant and Allied Industries, and the AKBAYAN Party.

WC Alum and Scholar to Share Story Of Correspondence Among Separated Austrian Jews

Dr. Jacqueline Vansant.

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Sometime between March and August of 1938, a small group of 15- and 16-year-old Jewish schoolboys stood on a bridge in Vienna and said goodbye to each other “forever.” Their families were about to flee Austria to avoid the increasing Nazi persecution. But pledging to stay in touch, the boys first devised a complicated plan for a group correspondence or “round robin.”

On Tuesday, October 23, Washington College alumna  Jacqueline Vansant ’76, a professor of German studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, will share the story of the remarkable correspondence the young men maintained for more than 15 years across three continents.  Her presentation, “Making Connections over Space and Time: The Extraordinary Group Correspondence of Jewish-Austrian Schoolboys,” will take place at 4:30 p.m. in the Washington College Hillel House, 313 Washington Avenue. It is free and open to the public.

Vansant says she was first drawn to exile studies as a student of Washington College professor of German Erika Salloch, who had fled Nazi Germany. She has long focused her research on post-war Austrian literature and culture and in 2001 published Reclaiming ‘Heimat’: Trauma and Mourning in Memoirs of Jewish-Austrian Reemigres.

When Vansant heard about the correspondence among the nine Viennese schoolboys, she saw an opportunity to study how the experiences of the youth compared with those of the adult Jews who escaped Austria. “I was also fascinated by the thought of looking at texts that were contemporaneous with the historical events described in them,” she adds. “The letters indeed are amazing!”

 John Kautsky.

Vansant has worked closely with one of the original correspondents, John Kautsky, now a professor emeritus of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis. She also met the son of correspondent Ali Hector, who emigrated to Erez Israel, and learned more about Ali’s life after the correspondence ended.

“My conversations with John Kautsky have given me a fuller understanding of just how important the correspondence was for the young men,” says Vansant. “John remained friends with some of the correspondents until their recent deaths. His wife, Lilli, has also shared her experiences of flight from Austria, which bring home how many stories are out there to be told.”

The Oct. 23 talk is sponsored by the Department of Modern Languages; the Institute for the Study of Religion, Politics, and Culture; the Office of Multicultural Affairs; and Hillel House.  For more information, contact Nicole Grewling at (800) 422-1782, ext. 5763, or by email, ngrewling2@washcoll.edu.

The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, Security Advisor Juan Zarate Discuss the Secrets of National Security

Seymour Hersh's investigative reporting
has earned every major journalism award.
Image courtesy of U. of Minnesota.

CHESTERTOWN, MD—How does a democratic society, facing serious threats of terrorism, strike the right balance between the government’s need for secrecy and the public’s right to know? In a special event at Washington College on Monday, October 8, one of the nation’s preeminent investigative journalists and a top security analyst who has served in the front lines of counter-terrorism efforts will offer their answers and perspectives.

             “Secrecy, the Media and National Security,” a conversation with Pulitzer-Prize winning New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh and former Deputy National Security Advisor Juan Zarate will be moderated by Washington College president Mitchell B. Reiss. The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 4:30 p.m. in Decker Theater, Gibson Center for the Arts, on the College campus, 300 Washington Avenue. It is sponsored by the Goldstein Program in Public Affairs.

            “This is a special opportunity to hear true voices of experience address this complex and important issue from different perspectives,” says President Reiss. “We could not ask for a better expert to represent the view of journalists than the legendary Sy Hersh. And Juan Zarate brings great insight from his years in the thick of the battle to protect the country from an increasingly dangerous matrix of threats.”

            In a career that spans more than five decades, Seymour M. Hersh has won dozens of accolades and every important award in his profession, including a Pulitzer Prize, five George Polk Awards, and two National Magazine Awards. He earned the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting with his expose of the My Lai Massacre and its cover up during the Vietnam War. More than thirty years later, he was uncovering abuses at Abu Ghraib prison.

            Hersh wrote his first piece for The New Yorker in 1971 and has been a regular contributor since 1993, focusing heavily on military and security issues. He is the author of nine books, most recently Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib, and is currently at work on a volume about the Cheney vice-presidency.

Juan Zarate provides security analysis for CBS News.
Image courtesy of CBS News.

            Juan C. Zarate is Senior Adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies
(CSIS), national security analyst for CBS News, and a Visiting Lecturer at Harvard Law School. He served as Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism from 2005 to 2009. Today he advises companies and organizations on homeland security, financial-related terror risks, new  technologies and investments.

            In the George W. Bush Administration, Zarate was responsible for
 developing and overseeing implementation of the U.S. government’s counterterrorism
 strategy. He also oversaw policies related to transnational security threats, including counter-narcotics, 
maritime security and critical energy
infrastructure protection. 
Earlier, as the first Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for
 Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, Zarate expanded the Treasury Department's powers to advance national security interests. 



            Mitchell B. Reiss, a scholar in international affairs, became president of Washington College in July 2010 after serving as Dean and Vice Provost for International Affairs at the College of William & Mary. As Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department from 2003 to 2005, he provided Secretary Colin L. Powell with independent strategic advice.  And as the President’s Special Envoy for the Northern Ireland Peace Process from 2003 to 2007, he led historic progress towards ending “the Troubles.” In 1999 Reiss helped manage the start-up and operations of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, leading its negotiations with the North Koreans. His most recent book is Negotiating with Evil: When to Talk to Terrorists (2010, Open Road). 

Photos courtesy of University of Minnesota and CBS News.

Community Boosts Student Fundraising for Japanese Town Hit Hard by Tsunami

CHESTERTOWN, MD—As part of a weeklong Spring Break trip to Japan, a group of Washington College students will carry goodwill and aid from Kent County to the people of Matsushima, a seaside city ravaged by last year’s tsunami. Their gifts will include a cash donation of more than $7,000 to fund a new library building on Miyato, one of the 33 islands that are part of Matsushima, plus a collection of children’s picture books to start filling the shelves.

In efforts begun soon after the tsunami hit Japan’s coast in March of 2011, the Asian Culture Club and other student groups at Washington College raised more than $2,600 through a campus sushi night, the sale of origami birds, and donations from area residents, many of them members of the Washington College Academy of Lifelong Learning (WC-ALL). More recently, large gifts from the Friends of Miller Library, the Hedgelawn Foundation, and College Trustee Thomas Crouse and his wife, Kay Enokido, a native of Japan, boosted the relief funds enough to cover the estimated cost of a new library space for the people of Miyato.

Professor Noriko Narita, a lecturer in Japanese at the College who is spearheading the relief effort, says the library will be either a small pre-fabricated building or a dedicated space in a larger community building. Whatever form it takes, she adds, it will be named the Washington College Miyato Library.

Narita says the outpouring of help has been touching. “I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to the WAC community, WC-All members and citizens of Chestertown who supported us throughout the year by generous contributions of money, books and prayers,” she says. “They reached out when the Japanese people needed the help most, and deeply touched our hearts.”

The students started collecting picture books over the holiday break, and the community again joined the cause. Appeals went out through the Friends of Miller Library and the Washington College Academy of Lifelong Learning (WC-ALL), who were invited to leave their donations at the Miller Library. “The response has been terrific,” reports College Librarian Ruth Shoge. “We have filled five boxes with books so far. ” Professor Narita is translating some of the donated children’s books from English into Japanese.

Anyone who wishes to contribute to the relief effort is invited to deliver checks (made out to Washington College, with Japan Relief Fund on the memo line) and/or children’s picture books to the Miller Library by March 7, or contact Noriko Narita at nnarita2@washcoll.edu, 410-778-7861. The group will depart for Tokyo on March 10, 2012 to arrive on the one-year anniversary of the disaster.

The two-day service trip to Matsushima is part of a weeklong visit to Japan (March 10-17) made possible by a generous grant from the Japan Foundation’s Center for Global Partnership (CGP). It was organized by Associate Professor of Political Science Andrew Oros to enhance his course on Japanese politics and foreign policy. Click here to read more about the trip.