Washington College Awarded Clare Boothe Luce Professorship

Chestertown, MD, May 24—Washington College has been granted a Clare Boothe Luce Professorship in Chemistry by The Henry Luce Foundation, Inc. of New York. Leslie A. Sherman, an analytical and environmental chemist, will be the first Clare Boothe Luce Professor in the College's history. The CBL Professorship was granted by the Clare Boothe Luce Program Selection Committee and funded through The Henry Luce Foundation.

The Luce grant is designed specifically to enhance the academic careers of women in science, engineering and mathematics. Active in journalism, the theatre and governmental service, the late Clare Boothe Luce created the program to advance her keen interest in helping women achieve their potential. Under the terms of her will, Mrs. Luce established a legacy that benefits women with talent and ambition in areas where they are still largely underrepresented—science and engineering.

"Since women were first admitted to Washington College in 1891, they have challenged cultural attitudes toward women in education, in sports and in professions. We are proud of our record in encouraging women to pursue the baccalaureate as well as careers in the sciences," John S. Toll, President of Washington College said. "The endorsement of our efforts from this prestigious source will enable us to make even greater strides in advancing the causes championed by Clare Boothe Luce." Washington College is a private liberal arts and sciences college located in historic Chestertown on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Founded in 1782 under the patronage of George Washington, it was the first college created in the new nation.

Sherman, a graduate of Carleton College, holds a M.S.C.E. degree in water chemistry from the University of Minnesota, Department of Civil Engineering, and a Ph.D. in soil chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition to her teaching and research positions, she has been a program analyst with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a marine science policy fellow for NOAA's National Sea Grant Program. She served with the Peace Corps for two years as a science teacher in Cameroon, West Africa. Most recently, she taught environmental studies, water resources and environmental chemistry.

Sherman will add a strong science component to the College's recently established interdisciplinary major in environmental studies, Frank Creegan, chairman of the Chemistry Department said. In direct response to expressions of interest by students, Sherman will also offer upper level courses in analytical chemistry emphasizing limnology, the scientific study of bodies of freshwater, and marine science. In addition to courses in chemistry, Sherman will develop a freshman seminar focused on women in science.

The Luce grant of $403,548 will support the expenses of the professorship for five years. The College will also provide funding for two student research assistants each summer, as well as one teaching assistant and one student assistant during the academic year.

Washington College Awards Nation's Largest Undergraduate Prize

Chestertown, MD — Most college seniors will look back on their graduation ceremony as a day of pomp and circumstance culminating in a handshake and a diploma. For Christine Lincoln, a 34-year old single mother and English major at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, the ceremony brought other rewards: top honors, a dream fulfilled and a check for $54,266. Lincoln's creative writing portfolio, which she describes as an exploration of "what it means to be African-American," earned her the largest undergraduate literary award in the country — the Sophie Kerr Prize.

The awarding of the Sophie Kerr Prize, given annually to the graduating senior who demonstrates the greatest "ability and promise for future fulfillment in the field of literary endeavor," has in recent decades been a highlight of the commencement ceremony at the 218-year-old liberal arts college. The Prize, worth $54,266 this year, is among the largest literary awards in the world. Washington College has awarded more than three quarters of a million in prize money since it was first given in 1968, most often to writers of poetry and fiction. Scholarly and journalistic works, though less often selected, are given equal consideration.

Lincoln's winning submission was a collection of mostly short fiction entitled "Sap Rising."

"Christine is a superior storyteller as well as a perceptive critical writer" said Professor Richard Gillin, chair of the English Department and of the Sophie Kerr committee which selected Lincoln's text from a pool of 23 submissions. "She integrates scene and mood, uses haunting rhythms, dramatic tensions, and gathers these elements and fuses them to make the ordinary world come alive with insight."

Robert Mooney, Director of the O'Neill Literary House who served as Lincoln's thesis advisor described Lincoln as "a true storyteller, a natural, one mindful of the past that has made the present who carries it forward to keep it alive and, in the process, enriches the lives around her." He adds "The profound courage that undergirds Christine's characters mirrors her own."

An admirer of such diverse writers as William Faulkner, Somerset Maugham and Toni Morrison, Lincoln says it was her grandmother who taught her "the magic of words" and inspired her to become a storyteller. Lincoln remembers hearing story after story on the porch of an old farmhouse in Lutherville, Maryland, the community where Lincoln grew up and which she fictionlizes as "Grandville," in many of her stories. Lincoln says her stories enact the tension between personal desire and the struggle to belong to a community, a conflict she finds at the heart of the African American experience where the African conciousness of "we" meets the American obsession with "I."

Lincoln's exploration of cultural issues took her twice to South Africa during her undergraduate years. She received grants from the Washington College Society of Junior Fellows to spend time in that country studying problems of domestic violence. Closer to home she worked with other student leaders to found the Center for the Study of Black Culture on the Washington College campus. All this while raising Takii, her six-year-old son in an apartment near campus.

Lincoln was working as a radiology technician in Baltimore when her son was born seriously ill. "I gave up everything — my house, my car — to pay his medical bills for the two years." Faced with the prospect of starting over she decided to pursue her dream of the writing life. A newspaper article about the Sophie Kerr prize drew her to Washington College, the only school to which she applied as a transfer student from Baltimore City Community College. "I read about their community of writers and knew that was the place for me," Lincoln said.

Lincoln plans to pursue a Ph.d. in African Literature at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The Sophie Kerr Prize is the namesake of an Eastern Shore woman who made her fortune in New York, writing light women's fiction during the 1930s and 1940s. In accordance with the terms of her will, one-half of the annual income from her bequest to the College is awarded each year to the graduating senior demonstrating the best potential for literary achievement. The other half funds scholarships, supports student publications and the purchase of books, and brings an array of visiting writers, editors and publishers to campus to read, visit classes, and discuss student work. Her gift has provided the nucleus for an abundance of literary activity on the bucolic Eastern Shore campus.

Washington College is a small liberal arts college on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Founded in 1782, it is Maryland's oldest chartered college, and the tenth oldest in the nation.

Green Party Candidate Ralph Nader Speaks at WC April 30

Chestertown, April 20—Ralph Nader will speak at Washington College on Sunday, April 30, at 7:30 p.m. Ranked third in polls on presidential candidates, Nader will talk about how government, corporations, and free trade will affect the global environment in the 21st century. His appearance in the Casey Academic Center Forum on campus is free and open to the public.

Nader is a noted lecturer whose simple message of being an active citizen touches a chord in his audiences. Years after they graduate, college students tell him how his lecture evening changed their lives.

Honored by "Time" magazine as one of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century, Nader has devoted his life to giving ordinary people the tools to defend themselves against corporate negligence and government indifference. After publication of his 1965 book "Unsafe at Any Speed," about potentially fatal mechanical defects in some cars, and the Senate hearings that resulted from it, Nader was catapulted into the public sphere. Seat belts and air bags in automobiles resulted from Nader's expose.

Nader was instrumental in the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA; the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA; and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. He helped draft and pass the Safe Water Drinking Act, the Meat and Poultry Inspection rules, and the Freedom of Information Act. Nader has formed numerous citizen groups, including the Center for Auto Safety, Public Citizen, Pension Rights Center, the Coalition for University in the Public Interest, and the student public interest research groups that operate in more than 20 states. He is now also working with alumni classes, including his own at Princeton University and Harvard Law School, to redirect their efforts from parties and reunions to volunteerism and community projects.

This William James Forum lecture is also sponsored by the Louis Goldstein Program in Public Affairs, The Society of Junior Fellows and the Campus Events and Visitors Committee.

Washington College Names Widmer Head of C. V. Starr Center

Annapolis, April 19—Governor Parris N. Glendening joined Washington College president John S. Toll today to announce the appointment of Edward "Ted" Ladd Widmer as director of the C. V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College in Chestertown, MD

A Harvard-educated historian, Widmer comes to the College from the White House, where he was Special Assistant to the President and director for speechwriting at the National Security Council. Widmer holds a Ph.D. in the history of American civilization; an A.M. in history; and an A.B., magna cum laude, all from Harvard University. He was an instructor in history and literature at Harvard and also taught at the Rhode Island School of Design.

About the Center, Widmer says, "The C. V. Starr Center will devote itself to the study of one of the most remarkable metamorphoses in history: how in the brief span of two centuries, a loose agglomeration of colonies at the periphery of the British empire evolved into the greatest power ever known."

Widmer envisions an active role in public life for the Center, saying, "Through a wide variety of public programs, the Center will encourage the broad study of the American experience and the countless ways we give daily new meaning to what Washington called 'the great experiment.' In keeping with the special history and character of Washington College, the Center will pay close attention to the nation's founding moment."

In addition to directing the C. V. Starr Center, Widmer will teach undergraduate and graduate courses in history as an associate professor at Washington College.

Widmer's published works reflect his broad knowledge of American cultural, intellectual, and political history. His book Young America: The Flowering of Democracy in New York City (Oxford University Press: 1998) is a study of politics and culture in the Jacksonian period. Widmer examines the career of John O'Sullivan, author of "Manifest Destiny," and the influence of his magazine, the Democratic Review. He was a contributing editor for the magazine George and has written for The American Heritage History of the United States, The Whitman Encyclopedia, The Encyclopedia of New England Culture, The Encyclopedia Africana, Harvard Magazine, and Rhode Island History. He is also a consultant for a variety of other magazines and journals. His second book, on the troubled early history of African-American music, has been accepted for publication by Oxford University Press.

The new director received the Dena Epstein Award for Excellence in Music History in 1998, a Charles Warren Center Fellowship in American History in 1997, a W. E. B. Du Bois Fellowship in Afro-American Studies in 1996, the Stephen Botein Prize for Teaching Excellence in 1994, a John Carter Brown Library Fellowship in 1994, and the Mark DeWolfe Howe Fellowship in the Study of Civil Liberties in 1991. From 1985 to 1993, Widmer held the Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities.

The headquarters of the C. V. Starr Center will be in the Custom House, a Colonial period building located on the Chester River in Chestertown, MD The Custom House was given to the College by the late Wilbur Ross Hubbard, a long-time member of Washington College's Board of Visitors and Governors. The building is being restored with assistance from grants from the Maryland Historic Trust and the C. V. Starr Foundation.

WC Named to Yahoo's Most Wired List, Ranked #1 in Maryland

Chestertown, April 18 — Washington College placed at #38 in the nation on Yahoo's Most Wired Colleges list. According to the elite list, widely considered the authoritative source for rating the best campus technology in the U.S., Washington College was also rated #1 in the state of Maryland.

Yahoo's list is determined by how colleges rate according to certain criteria important to students, including the capabilities to allow students to apply electronically, offer Internet access in classrooms, offer students more than 25MB of server disk space, and provide computer equipment or labs in a variety of buildings around the campus.

The list specifically cited the Washington College web site, pointing out that the Mellon Grant portion of the site showcased digital projects that students had created.

Washington College Hosts Premiere of Sacred Ritual Film

Chestertown, April 17—"An Offering to Appeal for Rain" will be shown at 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 27, in the Casey Academic Forum at Washington College. After the screening, film makers Alan R. Sandstrom and Pamela Effrein Sandstrom will discuss its significance and answer questions from the audience. Admission is free.

This will be the premiere of the video. No outsiders other than the film makers have ever witnessed this sacred ritual—a dramatic pilgrimage to the top of a sacred mountain to ask the water spirit for rain.

Anthropologist Alan R. Sandstrom has been conducting ethnographic research among Nahua Indians of Veracruz, Mexico, since 1972. Pamela Effrein, his wife, has accompanied him on all of his expeditions since their marriage. The Sandstroms' early research on ritual led to a groundbreaking analysis of ritual paper cutting among the Nahua, Traditional Papermaking and Paper Cult Figures of Mexico. Nahua medicine was the focus of Sandstrom's research, which led to the publication of The Image of Disease: Medical Practices of Nahua Indians of the Huasteca and to a volume co-edited with Brad Huber, Mesoamerican Healers. In 1981 Sandstrom published a study of curing and crop rituals, Traditional Curing and Crop Fertility Rituals among Otomi Indians of the Sierra de Puebla, Mexico: The Lopez Manuscripts.

Sandstrom's Corn is Our Blood: Culture and Ethnic Identity in a Contemporary Aztec Indian Village, now in its third printing, is the culmination of years of field research on the ethnic identity and culture change among the Nahua. The Sandstroms' most recent research examined milpa horticulture among the same population. In "An Offering to Appeal for Rain," the Sandstroms participated in a fantastic pilgrimage to the top of a sacred mountain to ask the water spirit for rain.

Alan Sandstrom received his Ph.D. in anthropology from Indiana University, Bloomington, and is professor of anthropology at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, where he has taught since 1975. He was recently appointed distinguished professor by the Academia Mexicana de las Ciencias (Mexican Academy of Sciences). Pamela Effrein Sandstrom has a Ph.D. in Library and Information Science from Indiana University and is head of reference at the Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne library.

The video premiere and Daniel Z. Gibson and John A. Wagner lecture are also sponsored by The Campus Events and Visitors Committee, The Department of Sociology & Anthropology, The Art Department, The Program in International Studies and the Louis L. Goldstein Program in Public Affairs.

Performance Artist and Professor Holly Hughes to Appear at WC

Chestertown, April 14—Holly Hughes, whose National Endowment for the Arts grant was denied because of the content of her work, will perform selections from her work at 7 p.m., Friday, April 21 in the Tawes Theatre on the campus of Washington College. Admission is free.

Critics consistently praise Hughes's work. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner writes, "She's phenomenal. When you encounter a mind like Holly Hughes, it wakes you up." The Chicago Tribune calls Hughes "One of the most insightful, funny and entertaining storytellers around."

The Raleigh-Durham Spectator called Hughes "part pundit, part comedian, and part exhibitionist. A gifted comedian, she has a fresh and very funny point of view, and her wry observations on contemporary society appeal to a wider audience than she might imagine."

Hughes is an Obie-winning writer, performer and teacher and is considered a central figure in America's culture wars.In 1990 Hughes became what some have called "a notorious poster girl of the free speech movement" when she and three other artists were denied funding by the National Endowment for the Arts. After recommending Hughes for a grant, the NEA reversed its decision on the grounds that Hughes's work was too "controversial." The artists sued and settled successfully out of court.

Hughes's performance is sponsored by the Drama Department of Washington College and the Robert Julian Emory Memorial Fund.