goucher Today photo by Michael Navarre
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Surveying the Maryland Scene
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Mileah Kromer is one of several new professors on campus this year. For information about other new faculty members, visit www.goucher.edu/quarterlyextra.
Calling for Governmental Transparency In celebration of Constitution Day, Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot spoke Sept. 18 on campus about the financial state of Maryland and the importance of government transparency. In his speech “The Constitution, Our Founding, and Why Maryland Matters,” Franchot, who is considered a likely candidate for governor in 2014, called for a more rapid and complete disclosure of the state government’s spending. Franchot also is a member of the Board of Public Works and vice chair of the State Retirement and Pension System of Maryland. He has spoken out against the use of slot machine gambling to lessen the budget crisis and has worked to upgrade tax collection technology that could prevent tax evasion. §
GOUCHER TODAY
he Sarah T. Hughes Field Politics Center at Goucher last fall launched an initiative aimed at improving discourse among Maryland residents on topics from hydraulic fracturing and environmental sustainability to gambling and political gridlock. Called the Goucher Poll, the effort will encompass four to six public surveys conducted by students each academic year and will be overseen by Mileah Kromer, the new director of the Hughes Center. “We hope it will become the voice of Maryland citizens, that when the media, the politicos, or the policy makers want to know what is on the minds of Marylanders, they will turn to the poll,” Kromer says. Kromer, an assistant professor of political science, came to Goucher last summer from Elon University, where she was the assistant director of the Elon University Poll. The center, funded by the late Judge Sarah Tilghman Hughes ’17 and the Maurice and Laura Falk Foundation, sponsors a variety of activities and internships to facilitate student involvement in political affairs in the Baltimore-Washington region, a mission that dovetails with the college’s commitment to social responsibility. Results of the first Goucher Poll survey, which was completed in late October, were published by several mainstream media outlets including the Baltimore Business Journal and the Washington Examiner. In addition to being available to the media, Kromer hopes that data from the surveys also will inform undergraduate and faculty research. “We want to give citizens the opportunity to enter into a dialogue and to be part of the political conversation,” she says. For more information about the Goucher Poll, visit www.goucher.edu/hughescenter. §
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