Important Health Update For The Washington College Community

The following announcements were made by President John Toll on January 19, 20 & 28, and precautions were taken by the College's Health Services to ensure the welfare of Washington College students, staff, and faculty. Medical professionals have ruled out SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and bacterial meningitis in the diagnosis of the student who passed away. In addition, in a letter dated January 30, 2004, from Maryland State Epidemiologist David Blythe, MD, MPH, to President Toll, the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene assured him that its investigation of the student's illness "has not identified any evidence of a situation that requires special disease prevention actions on the part of you, the campus community, or other persons in Maryland." Concerned parents and students may contact Dean Maureen McIntire in the Office of Student Affairs.

Chestertown, MD, January 19, 2004 — This afternoon, a Washington College student was transported from the Chester River Hospital Center to the University of Maryland Hospital, where the student is being treated for influenza-like symptoms. There is no clear diagnosis at this time, but because of the student's travel and contacts over the holiday break, the Chester River Hospital Center included severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) as one of several possible causes. Tests are being conducted today, and doctors hope to have a conclusive diagnosis soon.

As a precautionary measure, members of the College's Health Services have identified and screened all of the student's close contacts on campus, and have advised the student's living companions to undertake a thorough disinfection of the shared living spaces.

Our medical staff believes that it is highly unlikely that this student has, in fact, contracted SARS, an infectious respiratory illness that shares early signs and symptoms with the common cold. Nevertheless, all students who come down with a respiratory ailment and who have a fever of 100.4 or greater should contact the College's Health Services or their primary care provider. If neither is available, students should seek medical attention at the Chester River Health Center emergency room.

To prevent the spread of all respiratory viruses, students should cover their mouths when coughing or sneezing, and wash their hands frequently.

We will keep you apprised of any further developments as the information becomes available.

Chestertown, MD, January 20, 2004 — Please note the following important update to yesterday's report of a Washington College student transported to the University of Maryland Hospital with influenza-like symptoms. State health officials have now informed us that the student's signs and symptoms are NOT consistent with SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome).

Nevertheless we reiterate the need for vigilance among all members of the Washington College community during this flu season in taking precautions such as hand washing, and in reporting cold or flu symptoms accompanied by fever to the College's Health Services, a primary care provider, or, if neither is available, to the doctor on duty at the Chester River Health Center emergency room.

Poet Michael Waters To Read From His Works, February 12 At Washington College

Chestertown, MD, January 28, 2004 — Washington College's Sophie Kerr Lecture Series presents poet Michael Waters, professor of English at Salisbury University, reading from his works, Thursday, February 12, at 4:30 p.m. in the Sophie Kerr Room of the College's Miller Library. The event is free and the public is invited to attend. “I cannot call to mind anyone of Waters' generation who is currently writing better poetry,” said critic Floyd Collins of Waters in The Gettysburg Review. A prolific poet whose works have appeared in such distinguished journals as Poetry, Antioch Review and The Yale Review, Waters is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes and has been awarded several fellowships in creative writing. His recent books include Parthenopi: New and Selected Poems (BOA Editions, 2001), Green Ash, Red Maple, Black Gum (BOA Editions, 1997) and Bountiful (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1992). He also has edited several volumes, including Contemporary American Poetry (Houghton Mifflin, 2001) and Perfect in Their Art (Southern Illinois University Press, 2003). Waters' poetry has been called vivid and sensual, willing to embrace humanity's imperfections and to speak of love, loss and emotional aftermaths.

Born in Brooklyn, NY, Waters attended SUNY-Brockport (B.A., M.A.), the University of Nottingham, the University of Iowa (M.F.A.), and Ohio University (Ph.D.). He has taught in the creative writing programs at Ohio University and the University of Maryland, has served as a Visiting Professor of American Literature at the University of Athens, Greece, and was as a Banister Writer-in-Residence at Sweet Briar College in Virginia. He has taught at Salisbury University since 1978.

The reading is sponsored by the Sophie Kerr Lecture Series, named in honor of the late Sophie Kerr, a writer from Denton, MD, whose generosity has done so much to enrich Washington College's literary culture. When she died in 1965, she left the bulk of her estate to the College, specifying that one half of the income from her bequest be awarded every year to the senior showing the most “ability and promise for future fulfillment in the field of literary endeavor” and the other half be used to bring visiting writers to campus, to fund scholarships, and to help defray the costs of student publications.

In Memoriam: Simon Hultman, Class Of 2004

Chestertown, MD, January 28, 2004 — To the Washington College Community:

I write with the sad news that Simon Matthew Hultman, a Washington College senior, passed away Monday, January 26, at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, after a serious illness.

Simon was an international studies major with a concentration in East Asian studies. According to his advisor, Professor Tahir Shad, Simon was an excellent student who “loved all things Japanese.” During his sophomore year, Simon traveled to Japan, attending classes at Meiji Gakuin, and obtaining a deep knowledge of the Japanese language and culture. This past fall semester, Simon became the first student to study at the University of Pecs in Hungary.

“That's the kind of student he was,” Dr. Shad commented. “He loved to learn and took advantage of every opportunity Washington College presented him.”

Closer to home Simon distinguished himself as a generous and loyal friend to many in the Washington College community, especially to those international students who are far from their homes.

We were very fortunate to have Simon here with us for the past three and a half years. His contributions were many and we will miss him very much. Simon is survived by his mother, Diane Hultman of Pahoa, Hawaii, and by his siblings.

In remembering him, we will celebrate the intellectual curiosity that fueled his travels and his achievements as well as his immense generosity of spirit. A campus memorial service in his honor will be held Friday, January 30, at 3 p.m. in the Tawes Theatre. The College community is invited to honor and to remember Simon's life and accomplishments.

In memory of Simon, the Japanese Club will also show two films: Grave of the Fireflies, this Friday, January 30 at 7 p.m. in Goldstein 100, and Empire of the Sun, Friday, February 6, at 7 p.m. in Goldstein 100. All are welcome.

Information about funeral arrangements will be shared with you as soon as it is available.

John Toll
President

Lecture Series Marks 50th Anniversary Of Brown V. Board Of Education Desegregation Decision

Chestertown, MD, January 28, 2004 — May 17, 2004, will mark the 50th anniversary of the unanimous Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which outlawed segregation in public education. In honor of Black History Month, Washington College—in cooperation with the Maryland Humanities Council—will host a lecture series to examine the context, impact and legacy of this historic turn in Civil Rights. All lectures are free and open to the public and will begin at 7 p.m. in the College's Hynson Lounge on their respective dates.

On Tuesday, February 3, Jeffrey L. Coleman, assistant professor of English specializing in multicultural/American literature at St. Mary's College of Maryland, will speak on “Pride and Protest: Poetry of the American Civil Rights Movement.” Dr. Coleman's lecture will explore the relationship between social forces and art during the late 1950s, the 1960s, and the early 1970s, and how the Civil Rights Movement of this period is expressed in the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks, Alice Walker, Amiri Baraka, Michael S. Harper and others.

Dr. Coleman has worked as poetry editor for Hayden's Ferry Review and advertising copywriter for Young and Rubicam in New York. He earned his Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of New Mexico, his M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Arizona State University, and his B.A. in Communications from Winthrop University.

On Wednesday, February 11, 2004, Debra Newman Ham, professor of history at Morgan State University, will present “Expert Witnesses: The NAACP's Brown Case Strategy.” While many people know about the attorneys who argued many of the cases leading up to Brown v. Board of Education—Thurgood Marshall, Constance Baker Motley, Robert Carter and Jack Greenberg—few realize the number of scholars from various disciplines who were called upon to build or strengthen the school desegregation cases in courts around the country. Dr. Ham will look at the contributions of scholars such as historian John Hope Franklin and social psychologists Mamie and Kenneth Bancroft Clark, and the way the NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund strategized their assault against segregation in American schools with the aid of such scholars.

Dr. Ham received her Ph.D. in African History from Howard University, her M.A. in African History from Boston University, and her B.A. in history from Howard University. She served as curator of the NAACP Papers at the Library of Congress from 1986 to 1995. She teaches African, African-American, archival and public history at Morgan State.

On March 23, 2004, the Brown v. Board of Education Lecture Series will conclude with a talk by Dr. Lenneal Henderson, distinguished professor of Government and Public Administration at University of Baltimore. Dr. Henderson will discuss “Brown at 50: New Challenges of the Hardening of the Categories,” taking a deeper look at Brown and its trail of cases leading up to today's controversies in educational equity. His lecture will address the shift in demographic, socioeconomic and educational context and content of school segregation; the shift from rights to resources and the problem of equitable public school financing; battles over curriculum and tracking, including the disproportionate number of non-white students in special education and learning disability tracks; and the quality of education and issues of multiculturalism and diversity.

Dr. Henderson serves as a Senior Fellow at the William Donald Schaefer Center for Public Policy and a Senior Fellow in the Hoffberger Center for Professional Ethics at the University of Baltimore. He has been a consultant to federal, state and local government, the corporate sector, and the nonprofit sector for more than 30 years in the areas of housing, education policy, energy management, environmental policy and public management. He received his A.B., M.A., and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

The Brown v. Board of Education Lecture Series is sponsored by Washington College's Office of International & Diversity Affairs, Goldstein Program in Public Affairs, Campus Events and Visitors Committee, Student Government Association, Center for The Study of Black Culture, Black Student Union and Cleopatra's Daughters, in cooperation with the Maryland Humanities Council and the Kent County Chapter of the NAACP.

Tea & Talk Series Welcomes Washington Post Feature And Travel Writer, Hank Stuever, February 3

Chestertown, MD, January 27, 2004 — The Rose O'Neill Tea & Talk Series and the C. V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience present “A Conversation With Hank Stuever,” feature and travel writer for The Washington Post, Tuesday, February 3 at the O'Neill Literary House. The event is free and all are welcomed to enjoy tea, conviviality and discussion. Tea served at 4 p.m., talk begins at 4:30.

Stuever is recognized as one of the most engaging and original voices on the staff of The Washington Post, and in 2002 was lauded by The Columbia Journalism Review: “When people talk about innovative voices at the Post, they refer most frequently to the thirty-four-year-old Style writer Hank Stuever.” With the enviable job of an “at-large” reporter, he covers assignments ranging from a lengthy feature about a haunted waterbed store, to a heartfelt appreciation of Velma of "Scooby Doo" fame, to coverage of the 2002 Olympics and the 2003 explosion of the space shuttle Columbia. Stuever has twice been named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing—once for a story about a wedding (1993) and again for a story about the days following the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in his hometown of Oklahoma City (1996). He has won several state and national writing awards, and his work appears in the anthologies The Best American Travel Writing 2003, Telling Stories, Taking Risks: Journalism Writing at the Century's Edge and Best Newspaper Writing 1994. He has taught writing workshops in Portland, Seattle, Austin, Minneapolis and Atlanta. A collection of his essays, Off Ramp: Adventures and Heartache in the American Elsewhere, will be published this year by Henry Holt.

Stuever was born and raised in Oklahoma City and received his B.A. from Loyola University in New Orleans in 1991. He has been a reporter at The Albuquerque Tribune and the Austin American-Statesman. He has also written for the Los Angeles Times, Slate and L.A. Weekly. A selection of his work can be found online at www.hankstuever.com.

The Rose O'Neill Tea & Talk Series is held at Washington College's O'Neill Literary House, a large, eclectic Victorian home that reflects the spirit of the College's creative writing culture. Established in 1985, the Literary House was acquired and refurbished through a generous gift of alumna Betty Casey, Class of 1947, and her late husband Eugene, in memory of his late mother, Rose O'Neill Casey.

Author Jan Pottker To Read From Her Biography Of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, February 5

Chestertown, MD, January 22, 2004 — Washington College's Sophie Kerr Lecture Series and Gender Studies Program present a reading by author Jan Pottker from her book, Janet and Jackie: The Story of a Mother and her Daughter, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Thursday, February 5 in the Sophie Kerr Room uptairs in Miller Library. A reception will be held at 4 p.m.in the Hodson Hall Study Lounge with the reading to follow at 4:30 p.m. The event is free and the public is invited to attend.

Although many biographies of Jackie Kennedy Onassis have been written, most focus on her relationships with the men in her life. Pottker takes a different approach and examines the role of her mother, Janet Lee Auchincloss, in the shaping of her identity and personal destiny. The book presents a portrait of Auchincloss and surprising facts about this mother-daughter relationship.

A writer and public speaker fascinated with the history and personalities behind America's political and financial family dynasties, Pottker has been is a guest lecturer for Celebrity Cruise Line and has appeared on NBC's Inside Edition, ABC's Working Woman, CNBC'sBusiness Today, and CNN's Sonia Live. In addition to her regular lectures, she has been interviewed on more than 200 radio shows and has spoken to more than 60 social, business and professional groups nationwide. Her published works include, Crisis in Candyland: Melting the Chocolate Shell of the Mars Family Empire, Born to Power: Heirs to America's Leading Businesses, and Dear Ann, Dear Abby: An Unauthorized Biography of Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren, which sold more than 270,000 copies. Pottker lives in Potomac, MD, with her husband, Andrew S. Fishel.

The reading is sponsored by the Sophie Kerr Lecture Series, named in honor of the late Sophie Kerr, a writer from Denton, MD, whose generosity has done so much to enrich Washington College's literary culture. When she died in 1965, she left the bulk of her estate to the College specifying that one half of the income from her bequest be awarded every year to the senior showing the most “ability and promise for future fulfillment in the field of literary endeavor,” and the other half be used to bring visiting writers to campus, to fund scholarships, and to help defray the costs of student publications.

Red States, Blue States: Speaker Examines Regional Divisions In American Politics, February 4

Chestertown, MD, January 22, 2004 — Washington College's Goldstein Program in Public Affairs presents “Red States, Blue States: Regional and Cultural Divisions in American Politics,” a lecture by Michael Lind, Senior Fellow with the New America Foundation and noted author of Made in Texas and The Radical Center, Wednesday, February 4 at 7:30 p.m. in the College's Hynson Lounge. This is a free event and the public is invited to attend.

Lind is the Whitehead Senior Fellow and director of the American Strategy Project at the New America Foundation, an independent, non-partisan, non-profit institute that explores public policy ideas that transcend the conventional political spectrum. He is the author of The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics (with Ted Halstead) and Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics (New America Books/Basic, 2003). Lind has been an editor or staff writer for The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, The New Republic and The National Interest. He has written for The Atlantic Monthly, Prospect, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Financial Times and other leading publications, and he has appeared as a guest on CNN's Crossfire, C-SPAN, National Public Radio and The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. He has also been a guest lecturer at Harvard Law School.

Lind's first three books of political history—The Next American Nation (1995), Up From Conservatism (1996) and Vietnam (1999)—were all selected as New York Times Notable Books. He has also published several volumes of fiction and poetry, including The Alamo (1997), which the Los Angeles Times named as one of the Best Books of the year. He is currently working on a study of Abraham Lincoln titled What Lincoln Believed: The Values and Convictions of America's Greatest President, which will be published by Doubleday this year.

The talk is sponsored by Washington College's Goldstein Program in Public Affairs, established in honor of the late Louis L. Goldstein, 1935 alumnus and Maryland's longest serving elected official. The Goldstein Program sponsors lectures, symposia, visiting fellows, travel and other projects that bring students and faculty together with leaders in public policy and the media.