Town and College Announce Agreement on Armory

CHESTERTOWN, MD—The Town of Chestertown and Washington College have announced an agreement that will, if fully realized, transfer ownership of the Chestertown Armory to the College. The announcement follows a Town Council vote Monday night, December 5, on the most recent proposal from the College.

Under the agreement, the College agrees to pay the remaining debt service on the Armory property, estimated at $320,000, to reimburse the Town for approximately $10,000 already spent on an environmental study of the property, and to bear the costs of all future environmental remediation of the site. In addition, the College will provide easements that allow the continuation of the Chester River promenade along the waterfront portion of the Armory site, and will provide access to the promenade from Quaker Neck Road. Finally, the College pledges to provide no fewer than five days per year of community access to the Armory.

The Town and the College will now begin the lengthy process of negotiating the transfer of the property with the Maryland Department of Planning’s Clearinghouse for surplus state property, the Maryland Department of General Services, and the Board of Public Works. Included within this process will be negotiations with both the Maryland Military Department and the Maryland Historic Trust on appropriate easements and other conditions for the transfer.

Once the College assumes ownership of the property, it must undertake a full evaluation of the conditions of the buildings and grounds, retain the services of an architectural firm to develop plans for the renovation, and launch a fund raising drive before any work can commence. The College has pledged to work collaboratively with the Town Planning Commission in the rehabilitation of the Armory property.

In a letter to the Council dated December 5, Washington College President Mitchell B. Reiss reported that the school’s Board of Visitors and Governors, following discussions held during its regularly scheduled meeting December 2 and 3, agreed to make a gift of $200,000 to the Town of Chestertown.

“The Board wanted the College to make a significant contribution to advance Chestertown’s vision for the Chester River waterfront,” Reiss explained Tuesday in acknowledging the agreement. “The $200,000 will assist the Town with master planning, infrastructure, and recreational initiatives.”

President Reiss expressed his appreciation to the Town Council, Mayor Margo Bailey and Town Manager Bill Ingersoll for their persistence and faith in pursuing a fair and mutually beneficial resolution to the issue. “We look forward to working with the Town as we go forward with plans to build a state-of-the art waterfront campus — plans that will incorporate the historic Armory property and be a point of pride for Washington College and the entire Chestertown community.”

College Seeks Nominations for President’s Medal, Distinguished Service Awards by December 9

Chestertown, MD—Washington College president Mitchell Reiss has called for nominations for two annual honors – the President’s Medal and the President’s Distinguished Service Awards – that recognize meritorious service to Washington College and/or Chestertown and the greater Kent County community. The College is accepting nominations through December 9, 2011. Award recipients will be honored at the College’s George Washington’s Birthday Convocation on Friday, February 24, 2012.

Through the President’s Medal, the College honors an individual or organization from the greater Kent County community who has established an exemplary record of sustained positive contribution to the quality of life in the region and/or at the College. The candidate’s career or organization’s work should be distinguished by service to their fellow human beings and reflect the ideals represented in the Washington College Mission Statement (http://academics.washcoll.edu/missionstatement.php). In addition, a nominee should have at least five years of demonstrated service in a particular area.

Last year’s recipient was Community Food Pantry president Jim Fouss. Previous recipients include Richard Miller, Leslie Raimond, Ruth Briscoe, Nancy Dick, Chris Havemeyer, Jim Siemen, the Chestertown Volunteer Fire Department, the Kent Family Center, Tracey Davenport, Summer Days Math & Science Camp for Girls, Eileen Dickey, and Jane Hukill.

The President’s Distinguished Service Awards go to Washington College employees who through exceptional performance, leadership and service have made distinctive contributions to the operation of their departments or the campus community as a whole. Nominees can be any members of the faculty or staff who have been employed by Washington College for at least five years.

As many as five Distinguished Service Awards may be given each year. The 2011 recipients were Associate Professor of Mathematics Louise Amick, faculty secretary Catherine Naundorf, John Toll Professor of Psychology George Spilich, Director of Waterfront Activities John Wagner, and Advancement Office secretary Patsy Will (since retired).

Nominations for both awards involve a letter of recommendation, two or three seconding letters, and a résumé or bio recounting the person or organization’s history and accomplishments. Nominations will be reviewed and evaluated by the five-member President’s Awards Advisory Committee. The faculty and staff members who make up the advisory committee for the 2012 selections are George Spilich (Chair), Kate Moncrief, Debby Bergen, Darnell Parker, and Chris Rainer.

Complete nomination information and criteria for the awards are available online at http://president.washcoll.edu/presidentsawards. Completed nomination materials should be sent to: President’s Awards Advisory Committee, c/o President’s Office, Washington College, 300 Washington Avenue, Chestertown, MD 21620.

Photo: Community Food Pantry president Jim Fouss accepts the 2011 President's Medal from Mitchell Reiss during the George Washington's Birthday Convocation in February.

Questions for Thursday's "9/11 NOW" Panel Can be Submitted through Wednesday Night

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Do you have a question about American security in a post 9/11 world for four top counter-terrorism experts to address? If so, you can email it in advance of the special panel discussion taking place Thursday, Sept. 8, at Washington College. Marking the 10-year anniversary of the Al Qaeda attacks on the United States, the panel, titled “9/11 NOW,’’ will convene in Decker Theater, Gibson Center for the Arts, at 5 p.m

To submit questions or topics for the panel, email them by midnight, Wednesday, Sept. 7, to Matthew Icenroad, Assistant to the President, at micenroad2@washcoll.edu.

Sponsored by the College’s Richard L. Harwood Colloquy and the Goldstein Program in Public Affairs, the event is free and open to the public. No tickets or reservations are required. Those unable to get to campus can watch the event live from the College Website: www.washcoll.edu.

College President Mitchell B. Reiss, author of Negotiating with Evil: When to Talk to Terrorists (2010, Open Road), will moderate. (CNBC’s Chief Washington Correspondent John Harwood was originally announced as moderator but had to cancel because of a work conflict: he will be covering President Obama’s speech on job creation later that evening.)

The panelists will be CIA veteran Cofer Black, retired U.S. Navy Admiral Dennis Blair, George Mason University professor and author Audrey Cronin, and Harvard professor of international affairs Sarah Sewall. Each brings a unique perspective based on his or her experiences or research in the fields of warfare, intelligence and international security issues.

To read more about the panelists, click here for an earlier article on the event.

Panel of Top Counterterrorism Experts To Assess U.S. Security a Decade After the 9-11 Attacks

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Marking the 10-year anniversary of the Al-Qaeda attacks on the United States, a panel of top counterterrorism experts will convene at Washington College on Thursday, September 8, for an important dialogue on the current state of national security. The event, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 5 p.m. in Decker Theatre on the Chestertown campus and will be simulcast through the College website, www.washcoll.edu.

Members of the Washington College community and the general public are encouraged to submit questions and comments for the panelists in advance by email to Matthew Icenroad, Assistant to the President, at micenroad2@washcoll.edu. The deadline for submitting questions is midnight, Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Washington College president Mitchell B. Reiss, author of Negotiating with Evil: When to Talk to Terrorists (2010, Open Road) and a leading expert on American foreign policy, will serve as moderator. The panelists will be CIA veteran Cofer Black, retired U.S. Navy Admiral Dennis Blair, George Mason University professor Audrey Cronin, and Harvard professor of international affairs Sarah Sewall. Each brings a unique perspective based on his or her experiences or research in the fields of warfare, intelligence and international security issues.

In a career with the CIA that spanned nearly three decades, Cofer Black completed six operational tours abroad before serving as director of the agency’s Counterterrorist Center. From 2002 to 2005, he helped develop, coordinate and implement U.S. counterterrorism policies in the office of the Secretary of State.

2008 profile in Men’s Journal described Black as “the foremost expert on counterterrorism in the world today.” He is credited with tracking and helping to capture noted terrorist Carlos the Jackal in Khartoum, Sudan in 1994 and was later targeted for assassination by Osama Bin Laden.

After leaving the CIA, he joined the private business sector, first as Vice Chairman of the controversial private-security firm Blackwater Worldwide and then as Chairman of Total Intelligence Solutions. Since 2009 Black has been Vice President for Global Operations at Virginia-based Blackbird Technologies, which provides technology solutions for clients in the defense, intelligence, and law enforcement communities.

Admiral Dennis Blair, U.S. Navy (Ret.), served 34 years in the Navy, retiring in 2002 as Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command. He served as Director of National Intelligence from January 2009 to May 2010, leading 16 national intelligence agencies and administering a budget of $50 billion while providing integrated intelligence support to the President, Congress and operations in the field.

From 2003 to 2006, Blair was president and CEO of the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA).From 2006 to 2008 he held the John M. Shalikashvili chair in national security studies studies at the National Bureau of Asian Research and the Omar M. Bradley Chair at the Army War College and Dickinson College.

He has been awarded four Defense Distinguished Service medals and three National Intelligence Distinguished Service medals. In addition, he has received decorations from the governments of Japan, Thailand, Korea, Australia, the Philippines and Taiwan. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Blair earned a master’s degree in history and languages from Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar.

Audrey Cronin, the author of How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns (2009, Princeton University Press), recently joined the faculty of George Mason University’s School of Public Policy in Arlington, Va. Prior to that, she was director of the core course on military strategy at the U.S. National War College, where she revised the curriculum for senior military officers to include the study of Thucydides and an emphasis upon classics in the history and theory of war.

Cronin joined the War College in 2007 after a two-year stint at Oxford University (Nuffield College) as Director of Studies for the Oxford/Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War. Earlier in her career, she taught in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where she created a renowned graduate course on political violence and terrorism. She also has taught at the University of Virginia, the University of Maryland and Columbia University.

In addition to her 20-year career as a professor, Cronin, a graduate of Princeton University, holds extensive experience applying her research for government and military groups. She has served in various positions within the U.S. Navy and the Department of Defense. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, she advised members of Congress as a Specialist in Terrorism at the Congressional Research Service. Her previous books include Ending Terrorism: Lessons for Defeating al-Qaeda (Routledge, 2008) and Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy (Georgetown University Press, 2004).

Sarah Sewall, professor of international affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, has worked at the intersection of national security and humanitarianism throughout her career in government, academia, and non-governmental organizations. Her research focuses on U.S. national security strategy, civil-military relations, and the ethics of fighting insurgencies and terrorism.

Sewall is the founder and faculty director of the Mass Atrocity Response Operations (MARO) program, which she created in 2007 while serving as director of the Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. MARO’s mission is to create a military concept of operations for intervening to halt mass atrocities. Sewall subsequently co-wrote Mass Atrocity Response Operations: A Military Planning Handbook. She is also the co-author of Parameters of Partnership: U.S. Civil-Military Relations in the 21st Century (2009, CreateSpace). She led a seminal study for the U.S. military on efforts to reduce civilian casualties in 2010, and in 2008 directed the Obama Transition’s National Security Agency Review process.

Sewall was the first U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Assistance during the Clinton Administration and previously served for six years (1987-1993) as Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell. A graduate of Harvard College, she received her doctorate from Oxford University.

The “9/11 Now” panel is sponsored by the College’s Richard L. Harwood Colloquy and the Goldstein Program in Public Affairs. No tickets or reservations are required.

Washington College Is a National "Best" in Princeton Review's Newest Guides

CHESTERTOWN, MD — Washington College is one of the country’s best institutions for undergraduate education, according to The Princeton Review. The education services company features the historic college, which was founded under the patronage of George Washington in 1782, in the new 2012 edition of its annual college guide, The Best 376 Colleges. About 15 percent of the nation’s four-year colleges are represented in the book.

The Princeton Review uses both institutional data and student input to create its profiles of selected colleges and universities. Students say Washington College is all about “gaining a distinctive and strong education in the liberal arts through personalized programs and hands-on experience.” A litany of praise for this small, tight-knit community included mention of its “beautiful campus,” “an intimate and personalized educational experience,” and personable, highly educated professors “who love to teach” and who are “willing to bend over backwards to ensure your education.” Students consider the English and creative writing programs among “the best in the country.” The school’s location scored big points, too. “The Eastern Shore is an incredible place to be.”

Robert Franek, Princeton Review's Senior Vice President for Publishing, commends Washington College for its “outstanding academics,” which is the primary criterion for selecting schools for the book. “Our choices are based on institutional data we collect about schools, our visits to schools over the years, feedback we gather from students attending the schools, and the opinions of our staff and our 28-member National College Counselor Advisory Board,” he explains. "We also work to keep a wide representation of colleges in the book by region, size, selectivity and character."

Princeton Review also recommends Washington College among its "Best in the Northeast" section of its website feature, "2012 Best Colleges: Region by Region," that posted August 1, 2011 on PrincetonReview.com.

The Princeton Review asks students to rate their own schools on several issues—from the accessibility of their professors to quality of the campus food—and answer questions about themselves, their fellow students, and their campus life. Washington College students were most recently surveyed in 2010-11, since the opening of the new Gibson Center for the Arts and a new dining hall/student center.

All evidence suggests students are happy with their college choice. “Washington College is a “melting pot of individuals from different backgrounds, but the typical student is open-minded, ambitious, and extremely innovative. Athletes and burgeoning writers alike “have strong pride and love for our school.”

College President Mitchell B. Reiss is not surprised at the outpouring of affection for Washington College. “This is a remarkable institution, steeped in tradition, nestled on the beautiful Eastern Shore and committed to the highest public good—preparing young men and women to become responsible citizens willing and able to assume positions of leadership. General Washington would be proud.”

Bead by Bead, WC's First Lady Puts Her World's Record to Good Use to Fight Breast Cancer

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Elisabeth Reiss set out to break a world record when she single-handedly strung 40,000 pink beads—each bead representing one of the 40,000 American lives lost each year to breast cancer—into one continuous strand. She finished the project in the fall of 2009 and learned this past November that she had, indeed, earned recognition from the Guinness World Records organization.

Now that she has the world’s attention, the First Lady of Washington College wants to put those 40,000 beads to good use, raising funds for breast cancer research and education. Her goal: to raise at least $40,000 for the Susan G. Komen Foundation by selling sponsorships for every bead. Reiss has created a Web site for the fundraiser, www.buyabead.org, where anyone who donates at least $1 can dedicate a bead to a friend or family member affected by the disease.

Reiss, who became First Lady of the College on July 1, 2010, became motivated to advocate for breast-cancer causes soon after marrying Mitchell Reiss and moving to the United States from her native England. Her mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law are among the many women she would watch battle breast cancer. Reiss has participated in a number of breast-cancer related fundraisers over the years, especially in Williamsburg, where the family lived for 11 years while Mitchell taught law and diplomacy at the College of William & Mary.

But the idea of doing something on her own came while she was volunteering as a tutor in the Rita Walsh Literacy Center in Williamsburg. One day she found herself trying to persuade a young man who was just learning how to read that he could make a big difference in younger students’ lives by, in turn, helping them learn to read. “He was making all these unrealistic, impossible plans for himself, and I was trying to convince him that sometimes doing one very simple thing could make a big difference,” she explains.

Soon afterward, she decided to take her own advice when it came to breast health. “I read in the Guinness Book of World Records about a young girl in England who had set a record by stringing what was then the world’s longest strand of beads. And I thought, now that’s a simple thing that I could do—I could string beads. And I could break the record for beading in a way that called attention to the staggering number of people the disease claims each year.”

The task took approximately 400 hours, during which the Reiss dining room and front parlor became her beading workshop. She refused the many offers of help from family and friends. “I wanted to make sure that I met the Guinness standards by doing all the work myself,” she explains.

The end result, officially unveiled and notarized in October of 2009, stretched 1,048 feet, greater than the length of three football fields. With help from her husband and members of the Phi Mu sorority at William & Mary, Reiss laid out the strand in a continuous pattern on the floor of a meeting room on that campus. “It really had an impact on people when they realized that each of those beads represented a life,” she says.

Now she hopes her fundraising efforts will make a significant difference in the Komen Foundation’s work to eradicate breast cancer. And in the meantime, she’s brainstorming about what to do with that 1,048-foot colossus of pink beads. First, she wants to create an easy way to transport it without tangling or breaking so it can be displayed at events such as Race for the Cure and Relay for Life. She might eventually shape it into a large halter bra, an outsize symbol of the need to get mammograms, to do breast self-exams, to fund research for a cure.

An oversized pink-beaded brassiere? Sounds like another one for the record books.

(To learn more about the Buy a Bead project, visit the Web site (www.buyabead.org) or email your questions to buyabead@yahoo.com. To contribute, send a check, along with the name of the cancer survivor or victim you wish to honor, to Buy A Bead, P.O. Box 771, Chestertown, MD, 21620. )

Photos: Top, Elisabeth with her record-breaking strand of 40,000 beads, representing the lives lost to breast cancer each year in the United States. Middle, Daughter Michael and husband Mitchell were on hand to help Elisabeth Reiss tie off her 1,048 foot-strand the day her feat was officially measured and notarized for submission to the Guinness World Records. Bottom: Friends in Williamsburg helped Elisabeth lay out the immense strand of pink on the floor of a conference room.