Washington College Students Spend Spring Break Building Houses With Habitat For Humanity

Chestertown, MD, March 11, 2002 — Twenty students from Washington College are spending spring break in Columbus, GA, building houses through Habitat for Humanity's Collegiate Challenge program. The groups will join 350 other college students from 18 colleges and universities across the nation spending the week of March 9-17 to build 15 houses. This is the largest Habitat for Humanity build in the country this year.

The College's team leaders, Audra Barbour '03, Minety Abraham '04, and Nicole Moore '05, an SGA service representative, led the Habitat team in a two-week fundraiser that brought $2,470.00 in donations to support the trip. The money will be given to the Columbus Area Habitat for Humanity to help build homes in the area.

"This is the third year we have participated in the program and each year the number of students participating has doubled," said Vicky Sawyer, Washington College's associate director of career development and coordinator of campus service learning. "It's a very popular program, and our students are always recruiting more people to do it for the next year."

Sawyer and Leah Newell, director of international students and programs, will accompany the students.

Collegiate Challenge is a year-round program, coordinated through the Campus Charters and Youth Programs department at Habitat for Humanity International in Americus, Ga. More than 10,000 students from more than 450 colleges, universities and high schools will work at more than 200 sites nationwide for the Collegiate Challenge Spring Break 2002. Many of the Washington College students joining the Collegiate Challenge program are active members of the Washington College Student Service Council, as well as the campus' service organizations such as Hands Out, FORCE and Target Tutoring. This program allows students the opportunity to help others build new homes, new hope and new lives, while bringing back skills, experiences and enthusiasm to share with the rest of their campus.

Visiting Fellow To Discuss The Changing Face Of U.S. Politics

Chestertown, MD, March 11, 2002 — Washington College will host Anita Perez Ferguson, Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow, the week of March 17-20, 2002. Ferguson, current Chair of the Inter-American Foundation, will visit classes and talk to students about internship opportunities as well as give a public presentation on Tuesday, March 19. This lecture, "The Changing Face of U.S. Politics," begins at 7 p.m. in the Hynson Lounge. The event is free and the public is invited to attend.

Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellows connect a liberal education with the world beyond the campus by bringing successful practitioners to colleges for a week of classes and informal discussions with students and faculty. Fellows, who include government officials, business leaders, journalists, environmentalists and medical ethicists, help illuminate for students the roles they can play as professionals and active, informed citizens.Current Chair of the Inter-American Foundation, former president of the National Women's Political Caucus, author of A Passion for Politic, and a frequent NPR commentator, Ferguson has been "praised as a speaker who offers both substance and inspiration as she reaches out to engage and challenge each person in the audience." Ferguson has been named one of Roll Call newspaper's "Politics Fabulous 50," and one of the "100 Most Influential Hispanics in the United States" by Hispanic Business magazine. Born in Puerto Rico, Ferguson received her a M.A. in counseling psychology and the University of Santa Clara and an M.A. in management from the University of the Redlands.

Ferguson's visit is sponsored by Washington College's Goldstein Program in Public Affairs, named in honor of the late Louis L. Goldstein, the College's former Chairman of the Board of Visitors and Governors, a 1935 alumnus, and Maryland's longest-serving elected official. The Goldstein Program sponsors lecture series, symposia, visiting fellows, travel and other projects that bring students and faculty together with leaders experienced in developing public policy.

Choosing The Write Path: Alumni Share Experiences Of The Writer's Life March 23

Chestertown, MD, March 7, 2002 — The Washington College Alumni Council invites all alumni, students and the community to learn more about the professional writer's life during Life After Liberal Arts, Saturday, March 23, 2002, at 1:30 p.m. in the College's O'Neill Literary House. The program will feature four Washington College alumni who have made successful careers through writing—as editors, advertising copywriters, publishers, journalists and novelists. This is a free, open forum—all are encouraged to attend. Reception to follow.

Alumnus Brandon Hopkins of the Sophie Kerr Prize in 1997 and, since graduating, has worked in the editorial and managing editorial departments of Scholastic, Penguin Putnam and Macmillan. Currently a development editor at Educational Design, a Manhattan publishing house specializing in test preparation and educational products, Hopkins is also a freelance copywriter.

Lee Ann Chearney '81 is founder and creative director of Amaranth, an independent book producer established in 1995. Amaranth specializes in developing general nonfiction and popular reference content for publication through both print and electronic media. Chearney has held positions as assistant publisher at The Putnam Publishing Group and as associate publisher/senior editor at Ecco Press, a prestigious small publisher where she worked with renowned Nobel Prize- and Pulitzer Prize-winning authors. She also served as managing editor of the literary magazine, Antaeus. While executive director of The Philip Lief Group, Inc., Chearney developed and produced a diverse range of titles from The American Medical Association's Women's Complete Healthbook (Dell) to The National Gardening Association Dictionary of Horticulture (Viking).

Sue DePasquale '87 has served as editor of Johns Hopkins Magazine since 1994. Under her editorship, the magazine has earned top honors from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) for writing, design and reporting on higher education issues. In 1998, it was named the top college/university magazine in the nation by Newsweek. DePasquale joined Johns Hopkins University in 1988, soon after completing her master's degree at the Columbia University School of Journalism. In addition to her work at the magazine, she squeezes in freelance writing assignments and she serves as consulting editor to The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Magazine. Sue lives in Lutherville, MD, with her husband, John Musachio '87, a research chemist at NIH, and her two young sons.

David Healey is a 1988 graduate and English major. He is now the managing editor of the daily Cecil Whig newspaper in Elkton, MD, and he teaches journalism at Cecil Community College. He is the author of the Civil War novel, Sharpshooter.

Noted Oceanographer Dr. Jerry Schubel To Develop Alternative Futures Forum At Washington College

Forum To Foster Student Environmental Leadership, Support Community Outreach

The Alternative Futures Forum will use the techniques of scenario building to identify and to explore alternative futures, said Dr. Schubel. Participating students will learn to develop possible futures by identifying, researching and studying critical factors and conditions that influence trends and by studying how various choices determine different future outcomes. Dr. Schubel is an expert practitioner in scenario development who will guide Washington College students through the essential process and methods for conducting and utilizing such studies with an emphasis on addressing sustainability issues facing communities and their natural environments.Chestertown, MD, March 7, 2002 — Washington College announces that Jerry R. Schubel, Ph.D., distinguished oceanographer and former president of the New England Aquarium, has been appointed Director of the College's Alternative Futures Forum at the Center for the Environment and Society and Visiting Professor in Biology and Environmental Studies. An accomplished "scenario" builder in the field where community, business, government and the environment interact, Dr. Schubel will create a forum in which college students explore—with the help of scholars, policy makers, researchers, community leaders and other practitioners—alternative futures for environmental systems large and small, local to the Chesapeake Bay and across the world.

"All the sciences—including the social sciences—plus engineering, the humanities and the arts will be brought to bear on the environmental scenarios that students will explore," said Dr. Schubel. "Every effort will be made to secure a client for each study and to involve community decision makers, so that the students' work will make a real impact on communities interested in creating a better environmental future."

With a long record of research, academic honors and appointments, Dr. Schubel has specialized in coastal oceanography with a focus on estuaries and other environments. He is a graduate of Alma College in Alma, MI, and received his Ph.D. in oceanography from John Hopkins University in 1968. From 1968-1974, he served as a research scientist and associate director of the Johns Hopkins' Chesapeake Bay Institute. In 1974, he left the institute to teach and to direct the Marine Sciences Research Center at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, which he helped to transform from a small research unit into one of the world's most distinguished coastal oceanographic institutions specializing in the application of research to solving coastal problems and educating the next generation of researchers. In 1983, he became Dean of Marine Sciences at SUNY Stony Brook and later served as the university's Acting Vice Provost for Research and Graduate Studies, and its Provost.

After leaving SUNY Stony Brook in 1994, he became president and Chief Executive Officer of the New England Aquarium in Boston, MA.

Dr. Schubel has chaired numerous national and international committees and panels dealing with a wide range of environmental issues, and presently chairs the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's committee assessing the effects of the proposed expansion of San Francisco International Airport on the San Francisco Bay. He is vice president of the Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System and has lead the development of a public outreach program for Census of Marine Life—a decade-long exploration of the ocean that will be one of the most ambitious programs of ocean exploration ever undertaken. Earlier in his career he wrote extensively about the environment of the Chesapeake Bay in The Living Chesapeake and Life and Death of the Chesapeake Bay.

"The College is proud to welcome Jerry Schubel to our faculty," said Dr. John Toll, president of the College. "Environmental studies is one of our most popular majors. By developing the Alternative Futures Forum, we will greatly enrich our curriculum in order to prepare our students for environmental leadership roles and to tackle the environmental challenges that face the whole world."

College Hosts Author Hugh Gregory Gallagher

Chestertown, MD, March 5, 2002 — Washington College welcomes author, scholar and well-known advocate for the disabled, Hugh Gregory Gallagher, speaking on his recently published work "Nothing to Fear: FDR in Photographs," on Thursday, March 21, 2002, at 5 p.m. in the College's Casey Academic Center Forum. The talk will include a slide show of rare photographs from the life of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The event is free and the public is invited to attend.

An award-winning writer and historian based in Washington, DC, Gallagher is well-known for his acclaimed critical biography of Roosevelt, "FDR's Splendid Deception". The work examined more fully than previous biographies the extent and effect of polio on Roosevelt's life and career and how his disability was masked by the press during his lifetime. "Nothing to Fear" (Vandamere Press, 2001) adds to Gallagher's previous research by illustrating FDR's complete life, including rare glimpses of his adult years through hard-to-find photographs. These compelling and wonderfully descriptive photographs provide a unique document of the challenges that FDR faced and the vision and strength that he gave to a nation in the midst of financial and strategic crisis.

Gallagher contracted polio at age 19, Roosevelt at age 39. Gallagher has dedicated his life to writing, documenting and speaking on history and disability. While working for two senators for nine years and for the Johnson Administration, Gallagher trained not only in the methods of politics but produced many improvements for the disabled, ranging from a ramp at the Library of Congress to the development and enactment of the Architectural Barriers Act. His published works include the autobiographical "Black Bird Fly Away: Disabled in an Able-Bodied World", "By Trust Betrayed: Patients, Physicians and the License to Kill in the Third Reich", "Etok: A Story of Eskimo Power", and "Advise and Obstruct: The Role of the United States Senate in Foreign Policy Decisions". He is a Pulitzer Prize nominee and winner of the 1995 Henry B. Betts Award in recognition of his lifelong contributions to disability thought. He lives in Cabin John, MD.

This event is sponsored by the Washington College Office of Development, Alumni and Parent Relations.

Washington College Joins With Regional Public Schools To Form K-16 Council

Initial Project To Focus On Mathematics And Science Education

School superintendents from Caroline, Cecil, Dorchester, Kent, Queen Anne's, Somerset, Talbot, Wicomico and Worcester counties signed a Memorandum of Understanding for Partnership at Chesapeake College. Also signing the agreement were Dr. John Toll, president of Washington College, and the presidents of Chesapeake College, Cecil Community College, University of Maryland – Eastern Shore, Salisbury University and Wor-Wic Community College.Wye Mills, MD, March 1, 2002 — Representatives from the Eastern Shore public school systems and area colleges met at Chesapeake College Thursday, February 28, 2002, to form the Eastern Shore Regional K-16 Council. The organization will work to establish seamless educational transitions for students from kindergarten through college.

The primary goal of the council is to ensure quality education for all citizens on the Eastern Shore. To achieve this goal, the member institutions will recruit, prepare, and retain high quality teachers and other school personnel. According to the agreement, each institution will put a high priority on teacher education. The members will provide top quality clinical experiences for pre-service teachers and meaningful professional development for in-service teachers.

The council plans to create a seamless learning community through collaborative projects and other initiatives. The members will use the council to share the best information about teaching learning and instructional technology.

This new organization is an extension of the State of Maryland K-16 Council. The regional council, one of the first in the state, will participate in the national pilot project "The Bridge Project: Strengthening K-16 Transition Policies."

"This partnership is a good example of the cooperation we have among educators on the Eastern Shore. Students at all educational levels on the Shore will benefit from the collaboration of our member institutions," said President Toll, who will chair the council. "This agreement formalizes and extends already existing partnerships under which we combine our strengths and share our innovations to ease the transition of students from one level of education to the next."

Chesapeake College President Dr. Stuart Bounds added, "The segments of the Shore's educational systems have always worked collaboratively; with this new regional council, we expect to make that collaboration routine and to significantly improve the transition from high school to higher education."

The initial project, if funded, will bring teachers together to find ways to help students prepare for college coursework in mathematics and science. Educators and administrators from local schools will meet in a yearlong series of workshops at Chesapeake College beginning this spring. The participants will identify curriculum gaps, and develop ways to improve both learning and teaching in Maryland.

"The instructional and curricular implications of this effort are extraordinary," said Dr. Allan Gorsuch, director of the Eastern Shore of Maryland Educational Consortium. "School systems are raising the expectations for what students will be required to know and be able to do before they graduate from high school. Through this project participants will work collaboratively to assure that the transition from high school to college is seamless in the areas of mathematics and science."

The local project—Closing Hidden Gaps: Creating Regional Partnerships for Science and Mathematics Teaching and Learning—is funded by the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professional Development Grant through the U.S. Department of Education.

Rusted Root To Perform At Washington College April 5th

College's Homegrown Astralyte To Open Show

A colorful and multifaceted band, Rusted Root has a winding history. Mike Glabicki (lead vocalist, guitarist and songwriter) and Liz Berlin (vocalist, guitarist and songwriter) initially started working together in their college years. Jim Donovan (drums, percussion and background vocalist) and Patrick Norman (bassist, guitarist and background vocalist) joined in 1990, providing a uniquely driving rhythm section. They began performing together in their hometown of Pittsburgh and were later joined by multi-instrumentalist and visual artist John Bunyak who added the signature flute and pennywhistle melodies featured on the band's first hit single, "Send Me on My Way." The band has been rejoined for this tour by former member Jenn Wertz, along with percussionist and keyboardist John McDowell.Chestertown, MD, March 1, 2002 — Rusted Root will perform Friday, April 5, 2002, beginning at 8 p.m. in Washington College's Lifetime Fitness Center. Washington College's homegrown Astralyte will open the show. Doors open at 7 p.m. Tickets are $15 each for Washington College students, faculty and staff, $25 for general admission, and available at the Washington College Campus Center Café and from Ticketmaster by calling 800-551-SEAT. Ticket sales begin March 18, 2002.

In response to a growing public enthusiasm, Rusted Root released its first independently produced full-length CD, Cruel Sun, in 1990, which attracted the attention of Mercury Records who subsequently signed them to a major label recording contract. In 1994 they released When I Woke, which spawned the hit, "Send Me On My Way," as well as other Rusted Root standards such as "Ecstasy," "Martyr" and "Drum Trip." When I Woke went certified platinum in 1996. A more introspective album, Remember, released in 1996, was recorded at Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, CA, and the band's self-titled disc, Rusted Root, released in 1998, featured a spirited cover of the Rolling Stones' classic, "You Can't Always get What You Want." In addition to these recordings Rusted Root has released three EPs entitled "Evil Ways," "Live" and "Airplane," as well as a full-length live video. Their music has been used in several major motion picture films, such as Home for the Holidays, Race the Sun and Mathilda, and they have toured with some of the icons of rock music, including the Grateful Dead, Page and Plant, the Allman Brothers Band, Sting and the Dave Matthews Band.

Opening for Rusted Root will be Washington College's own homegrown band, Astralyte, which includes former members of Ghostbox. Comprising recent graduates Ted Knight '97, Andrew Stein '99, Greg Parent '00, Tim Parent '97, and Ross Dettmering '00, Astralyte's sound is a mix of organic jams, electronic rhythms, and spacey beats, influenced by such artists as Radiohead, The Disco Biscuits, Widespread Panic and Groove Armada. Knight, Stein, and the Parents were founding members of Ghostbox, a campus band that produced two CDs together, while Dettmering formerly played in another campus band, NRG.

The concert has been organized by the Washington College Student Events Board and Student Government Association.