Washington College Magazine - Spring 2020

WASHINGTON COLLEGE MAGAZINE SPRING 2020

PICTURE THIS

Photos by Pamela Cowart-Rickman

Making It Rain The Shorewomen are battling to qualify for the 2020 Centennial Conference Tournament in late February. The squad jumped out to a 6-2 mark, their best start since the 2012-13 campaign. The Cain Athletic Center has been an exciting place to be this season as the team has gone 6-3 on their home court. Senior point guard Caitlyn Clark leads the team in scoring and ranks second in the league in assists/turnover ratio. She is also fourth in steals per game. Classmates Taylor Samuels and Cassidy Quattro are among the leaders in the conference in blocks and rebounds, respectively.

Sophomore Crystal Jones goes up for the shot.

F E AT U R E S

22 Like a Girl

We’ve collected stories from some alumnae who are rock stars in their chosen professions.

by Wendy Mitman Clarke M’16 and Marcia C. Landskroener M’02

Contents

34 The New Face

of America

Professor Melissa Deckman shares her insights about the current political climate and the rise of Gen Z progressives.

by Wendy Mitman Clarke M’16

38 Scientists in the

Drone Age

Three recent alumnae are finding careers in the cuttingedge science of using drones and remote sensing to study coastal and marine environments.

by Wendy Mitman Clarke M’16

D E PARTM E NTS

1

Picture This

3

Editor’s Note

4

President’s Letter

6

News Semans-Griswold Environmental Hall: A Model of Sustainability

16 Faculty Katherine Charles, Assistant Professor of 18th- and 19th-Century Literature, will carry on the Kiplin Hall program.

18 Students A summer research project brought together scientists to consider the human impact on native oyster populations in the upper reaches of the Chesapeake Bay. 48

Alumni Update Class notes. Alumni spotlight.

62 Development Beth Warehime ’13 supports students in the business program.

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WASHINGTON COLLEGE MAGAZINE

22 38

EDITOR’S NOTE

Volume LXX No. 1 Spring 2020 ISSN 2152-9531

Suffragist Lucy Gwynne Branham, who was jailed for picketing the White House in support of passage of the federal women’s suffrage amendment, speaks about her experience during a “Prison Special” tour stop in 1919. Branham, a 1911 history major at Washington College, was affiliated with the National Women’s Party. Photograph by Harris & Ewing, from the Library of Congress.

EDITOR

Marcia C. Landskroener M’02 ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Wendy Mitman Clarke M’16 CREATIVE ART DIRECTOR

Joy Alma Hayes STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Pamela Cowart-Rickman CLASS NOTES EDITOR

Nina Fleegle ’06 CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

David Gansell Karen M. Jones

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ORIGINAL MAGAZINE REDESIGN

B. Creative Group | agencybcg.com

PRINTING AND MAILING

HBP

Dear Readers, I

n this “Year of the Woman,” as we celebrate the centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment, we remember the struggle for gender equality at the polls and the extraordinary women who stood up then, and who continue to stand up, to demand a voice in shaping the future of our nation. In the Fall 2018 issue of WCM, we first introduced readers to alumna Lucy Branham, the suffragist whom Andrew Darlington ’19 came across when he was helping the National marcia c.

Constitution Center mount an landskroener exhibition marking the 100th m’02 anniversary of the Constitutional Amendment granting women the right to vote. The stories of contemporary women we share with you in this issue couldn’t have been written without Branham’s activism and sacrifice, so she graces the cover of “The Women’s Issue.”

It was easy to identify Washington College women who are following in Branham’s footsteps, but impossible to feature them all in one issue. In the months ahead, we will continue to share stories of women challenging the status quo, engaging in the political process, charting new territory, building stronger communities, and speaking truth to power. The woman who spent two months in prison because of the strength of her convictions was described this way in the 1910 Pegasus yearbook: “The most impetuous member of Junior Class. She cannot talk fast enough so she employs both hands and eyes to aid her in spirited conversation.”

Though it would take her another ten years, she ultimately got her message across. Speak on, sisters.

— MCL

Washington College Magazine (USPS 667-260) is published twice a year by Washington College, 300 Washington Avenue, Chestertown, Maryland 21620 Copyright 2020 Washington College.

www.washcoll.edu

Address correspondence to Washington College Magazine, 300 Washington Avenue, Chestertown, MD 21620, or by email to mlandskroener2@washcoll.edu.

(Telephone: 410-778-7797). www.washcoll.edu PRINTED IN THE USA.

WashingtonCollege @washcoll WashingtonCollege @washcoll

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PRESIDENT’S LETTER

Women’s Place W

College President Kurt Landgraf chats with students outside Bunting Hall. Photo: F.J. Gaylor

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WASHINGTON COLLEGE MAGAZINE

ashington College has always attracted strong women.

In its earliest days, it became the first college in the nation to employ female instructors. Since a group of local girls talked their way into Washington College nearly 130 years ago, the College has produced generations of women who have made significant contributions in the arts and sciences and humanities. And it has attracted the patronage of women who have loved this place and what it stands for.

Some of their names are familiar. Sophie Kerr endowed what became the largest undergraduate literary prize in the nation.

Lelia Hodson Hynson provided the impetus for what would become a powerhouse rowing program and a showcase waterfront campus.

Just last fall, Lynn McLain orchestrated the installation of a stunning piece of public art.

Their names are on academic buildings and sports facilities: Ellen Bordley Schottland ’42, Barbara Townsend Cromwell ’55, Dorothy Williams Daly ’38, Rebecca Corbin Loree ’90. Sheila Bair, our first female president, has personally and quietly given more than $1 million in scholarship money.

And when it comes to individual giving to capital projects and scholarships alike, one woman leads the way—Betty Brown Casey ’47 is the single most generous benefactor in the history of Washington College, second only to The Hodson Trust. Never one to seek the limelight, she has shown her deep affection and that of her late husband, Eugene, for Washington College through her acts of generosity and has used her philanthropy to honor those individuals she loves and wishes us all to remember.

What is it about women that compels them to give? It’s heart. Women are known to be more empathetic, more altruistic. And they are driven to make a difference. As reported in Forbes magazine in 2016, a large study conducted by the Korn Ferry Hay Group found that women outperform men in 11 of 12 emotional intelligence competencies.

They are more likely to remain calm during turbulent times, to inspire and build team consensus, and to mentor and coach the next generation of professionals. That bodes well for Washington College as the number of alumnae grows—women typically comprise 60 percent of the student body in any given year.

By Kurt Landgraf

And it bodes well for the future of our nation as women take on greater leadership roles in business, politics, education, technology, the arts, social justice, and so much more. As more high-profile, confident women come up through the ranks, society will change for the better. I’m proud to see many examples of female leadership in this issue of WCM. What we do here at WC is a good example of how to go about creating opportunities for everyone, regardless of gender, sexual identity, race, or ethnicity. The internships and field experiences students find here help them develop the leadership skills and make the personal connections that launch them into the workforce. And it is my fervent belief that the young women who graduate from Washington College will find equal opportunities for equal pay. This gender wage gap wherein women are paid just 80 cents for every dollar men make absolutely must change.

Given the resources, it can happen in a single day. When I became president of DuPont Merck many years ago, I asked my team to look at every position throughout the organization and compare men’s salaries to women’s salaries. Male district sales managers versus female district sales managers. Male account executives versus female account executives. In virtually every case, women with the same job and the same level of experience were being paid less than men. That day, I changed the salaries of 300 women, bringing them on par with their male counterparts. I have a long history in the corporate world of promoting women and paying them what they deserve.

We still have work to do on this front at Washington College, but as we mark the centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment, please know that I remain committed to this core value and express my deep gratitude to the women who have made Washington College history and for those who are shaping its future—members of my senior leadership team, the faculty who are mentoring this new generation of strong female leaders, and our alumnae who care so deeply for this institution. You are the heart of Washington College.

CAMPUS NEWS | BY THE NUMBERS

Women’s Work The field of higher education is typically welcoming to women, offering leadership and service opportunities in institutional governance, administration, and outreach. That holds true at Washington College, where women hold seven of the ten seats on the senior administration and more than half of the faculty are women. Alumnae ultimately find greater opportunities too, as female undergraduates now comprise 60 percent of the student body.

Susie Chase ’90 P’20,

Patrice DiQuinzio,

Sarah Feyerherm,

Lorna Hunter,

Laura Johnson,

Carolyn Burton,

Mary Alice Ball,

VP for Advancement,

Provost and Dean

VP of Student Affairs,

VP for Enrollment Management

VP of Finance

Director of Human Resourcess

Dean of Library and

Alumni Affairs, and Relations

of the College

Dean of Students

Ann Horner ’80,

Lynn L. Bergeson P’14,

Rebecca Corbin Loree ’00,

Valarie A. Sheppard ’86,

Daryl Swanstrom ’69,

Deborah Moxley Turner ’77,

Vice Co-Chair

Secretary

Member

Member

Member

Member

Academic Technology

Senior Leadership Team Board of Visitors and Governors Alumni Leadership Kate Van Name ’91,

Jenn Svehla ’03,

Susanne Hewes ’91,

Latoya Gatewood-Young ’11,

Chair of The 1782 Society

Co-Chair, Alumni

Incoming Chair,

Classes & Reunions Committee

Communications Task Force

Alumni Board

Alisha R. Knight,

Anne Marteel-Parrish,

Lisa Daniels,

Faculty Moderator

Faculty Council Chair

Chair of Service

Faculty Leadership

and Scholarship

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CAMPUS NEWS

TOP: Guests toured the Watershed Innovation Lab, which serves as the home of Chester River Watershed Observatory.

LEFT: State Comptroller Peter Franchot, College President Kurt Landgraf, Truman Semans, Jay Griswold, former board Chair Larry Culp, and Center for Environment & Society Director John Seidel clap after the ribbon is cut.

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WASHINGTON COLLEGE MAGAZINE

CAMPUS NEWS

Semans-Griswold Environmental Hall: A Model of Sustainability

O

n a perfect Eastern Shore afternoon in October, with the Chester River shimmering behind them, a standing-room-only crowd gathered to dedicate Semans-Griswold Environmental Hall, a new home for Washington College’s Center for Environment & Society. Decades in the making, the facility will help propel the College’s environmental and sustainability programs to a national level.

The event culminated in a ribbon cutting, after College President Kurt Landgraf conferred special honors on the building’s namesakes, Truman T. Semans and Jack S. “Jay” Griswold. Semans, who over a lifetime of conservation efforts and action helped found the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and is considered a pioneer in the field of sustainability, was awarded the honorary degree, Doctor of Public Service. Griswold, chairman emeritus of the College’s Board of Visitors and Governors and interim president of the College in 2014-15, was awarded the Truman Semans Lifetime Achievement Award in Conservation.

“With great optimism and foresight, College leaders identified the perfect spot for the center’s waterfront home, right here—a former brownfields site where a fertilizer plant and a fuel depot once stood,” Landgraf said. “The College’s decision to rehabilitate this land and to design a low-impact building that would rely solely on renewable energy sources speaks volumes about the institutional commitment to environmental conservation and the values of responsible citizenship we hope to impart to our students.”

Noting the living laboratories of the Chester River, Chesapeake Bay, and the College’s 4,700-acre River and Field Campus nearby, Center for Environment & Society Director John Seidel said that the new building “is

going to help us take advantage of place as never before. I do believe this is a game-changer.”

State Comptroller Peter Franchot noted that the state, which provided $4 million for the building, will continue to be a positive partner for the College as it builds its environmental and sustainability programming.

“You’re filling a growing need in our sciences with your environmental science programs,” Franchot said. “It’s fulfilling crucial research on the Chesapeake Bay. I couldn’t be prouder of this facility.”

Former board Chair Larry Culp, who spearheaded the fundraising campaign— helping raise $11.5 million in just six months—said that the building’s efforts to meet the rigorous, holistic standards of the Living Building Challenge (LBC) personify its larger purpose and that of the people who helped make it happen.

“The LBC requires the building to give back more than it takes,” Culp said. “This is what Truman Semans and Jay Griswold, in their humility and achievements, exemplify…We thank everyone who helped make our waterfront renaissance a reality.”

Among its innovative design features is a state-of-the-art marine science lab with a river flow-through system, bringing ambient water from the Chester River to support a teaching and research lab. In the Watershed Innovation Lab, students monitor water quality, deploy side-scan sonar to explore the river floor, construct autonomous underwater vehicles, and develop innovative processes that incorporate the latest technology in watershed science.

The 11,500-square-foot Semans-Griswold Environmental Hall also provides academic and lab spaces for the College’s growing biology and environmental programs.

TOP: As part of the weekend festivities, Jay Griswold’s presidential portrait was unveiled.

The portrait, painted by Lee Baskerville, hangs in Semans-Griswold Environmental Hall.

BOTTOM: Students enrolled in the Chesapeake Semester use this lounge area as a study space.

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CAMPUS NEWS

Innovation on the Horizon at RAFC

Dixon Valve Donates High Street Property

Matched by a $1 million grant from a friend of Washington College, the Maryland Department of Commerce grants $1 million to endow a director for the College’s River and Field Campus.

A behemoth clean-industrial complex is springing up on the outskirts of Chestertown, as one of Kent County’s largest employers expands operations with new corporate headquarters and a 150,000-square-foot warehouse distribution center for its global enterprise.

Students at the River and Field Campus conduct experiments in one of the streams on the property.

What, then, will become of Dixon Valve’s existing plant in downtown Chestertown, an 11-acre complex where Washington College student interns train and where so many alumni are employed?

W

ashington College has won a $1 million grant from the Department of Commerce’s Maryland E-Nnovation Initiative Fund (MEIF) to establish an endowed directorship of its River and Field Campus, an award matched by $1 million from an anonymous donor.

It’s the fourth time in four years that Washington College has won an MEIF grant, and it will mark a turning point for the River and Field Campus (RAFC), which will become a research and experimental hub for a holistic rural land management model that supports the co-existence of sustainable land conservation and profitable agriculture.

Already a research center for faculty and students in disciplines ranging from biology to anthropology, RAFC is now poised to launch groundbreaking work focused in innovative agriculture, natural resource management and restoration, and agroecotourism and recreation.

“Supporting innovation in Maryland is an essential part of keeping our state competitive, spurring business growth, and paving the way for the jobs of the future,”

KRM Development Corporation and Dixon Valve & Coupling Company officials answered that question in late December, when they announced they would donate the 800 High Street property to Washington College. Under the terms of the gift, the company will maintain manufacturing operations and administrative offices at 800 High Street until its new business campus is completed—in about two years. That gives Washington College plenty of time to develop strategies for making the best use of the property.

said Maryland Commerce Secretary Kelly M. Schulz. “Funding from the Maryland E-Nnovation Initiative will help four of our leading colleges and universities continue the important research that helps move our state forward.”

“Once again, Washington College is leading the way in environmental and sustainability studies, this time in the completely unique and unmatched living laboratory of the River and Field Campus,” says College President Kurt Landgraf.

“We could not have accomplished these remarkable goals without the immense and consistent support of those environmental stewards who understand that agriculture and conservation must work hand-in-hand to the benefit of all.”

Michael Hardesty, currently Director of Programs and Staff at the College’s Center for Environment & Society (CES), will be named the new Director of the River and Field Campus. With over 15 years of experience in agriculture development and policy as well as environmental restoration and policy, Hardesty has overseen RAFC programming and development since 2012.

“Dixon and KRM have been consistent supporters of the College, by hiring our alumni, creating terrific internships for our students, and standing shoulderto-shoulder with us on so many of the challenging issues which face Chestertown and Kent County,” College President Kurt Landgraf said. “Our gratitude is deep and heartfelt for this remarkable donation, and for all of their continued and many-faceted contributions to Washington College.”

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CAMPUS NEWS

Preserving Stories from the Chesapeake Heartland Washington College’s new community history initiative, Chesapeake Heartland: An African American Humanities Project, is gaining rapid momentum with the announcement of an $800,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, an $89,000 grant from the State of Maryland, and a $100,000 gift from a private foundation.

D

eveloped at Washington College’s Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, and with a broad array of community partners, Chesapeake Heartland will launch a three-year initiative to digitize, share, and curate more than three centuries of African American history while developing a new model of public history that can eventually serve other communities around the Chesapeake region and beyond. This innovative project also collaborates with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), whose Community Curation Project will travel to Kent County, Maryland, in April and give county residents unprecedented resources to preserve their history, ranging from family photographs and letters to recordings of oral histories and musical performances.

“Chesapeake Heartland will take the study of history beyond the textbook and the classroom and enable us to rewrite history together,” says Patrick Nugent, the Starr Center’s deputy director, who serves as project director. “Kent County is full of exceptional individuals, organizations, and communities that care deeply about the past as well as the

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present, and we invite everyone to bring Kent County’s African American history to life, celebrating its role in the American story more fully, and turning toward the future proud and united.”

The Starr Center’s primary local partners are Sumner Hall, the Kent County Arts Council, and the Kent County Public Library.

Through these groups and others, the project will also engage and support smaller nonprofits, schools, faith communities, mentor groups, artists, and writers.

Washington College faculty and students, and local citizens. Individuals and groups will be able to apply for direct grants drawing on the Mellon funds.

A supplemental grant of $100,000 from a private family foundation will specifically fund involvement for Kent County secondaryschool students and teachers. And the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority granted $89,000 for a “Chesapeake Heartland African American Humanities Truck” that will serve the county as a mobile oral-history studio, digitization station, and flexible exhibition space.

Chesapeake Heartland is built around the concept of the Chesapeake region as

a heartland of African American history and culture, going back to the arrival of the first Africans near Jamestown in 1619 and stretching through the March on Washington and beyond. Kent County, in the heart of Maryland’s Eastern Shore, is in turn a microcosm of that history. African Americans arrived in Kent County in the mid-1600s, and their descendants fought for freedom in the American Revolution and Civil War, played leading roles in the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad, marched in the 1960s Civil Rights era protests, and carried rich artistic and cultural traditions through the generations.

PHOTO: Staffers from National Museum of African American History and Culture and the College’s Starr Center tour Garfield Center for the Arts, one of the sites they’ll use for the public history project.

The Business of Art Music. Art. Poetry. Theater. Dance. These creative expressions speak to the human experience and feed the soul. But, students and their parents often worry, can they also pay the rent and put food on the table?

A Tree for Martha Marking Arbor Day this April 17, Washington College will add a new specimen to its Virginia Gent Decker Arboretum—a tulip poplar descended from the lineage of a tree still standing at George Washington’s Mount Vernon.

A new minor in Arts Management and Entrepreneurship, which launched last fall, puts those worries to rest. The interdisciplinary program introduces students to a host of career possibilities in the arts industry and provides the core skills they will need to succeed. The minor also connects students to internship opportunities in arts management and helps them develop a clearer understanding of potential career paths.

“There are so many jobs in the arts that students don’t know about; it’s a huge industry,” says Laura Eckelman, Associate Professor and Interim Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance who is directing the arts management program with the assistance of Benjamin Tilghman, Assistant Professor of Art History. “We want to help those students understand that there are very real ways to make a living in the arts, either as independent artists who are well-equipped with business skills or as professionals working at an arts organization in arts advocacy, fundraising, or the commercial arts industry.”

Targeting students who are already majoring or minoring in the arts or in business management, the program is easily adaptable to the student’s artistic interests, says Eckelman. In addition to required coursework in financial accounting and marketing, students might choose classes in arts administration, literary editing and publishing, museum studies, creative and information economies, organizational behavior, or entrepreneurship.

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Clemson University, has been working at Mount Vernon for the past 50 years. In addition to his work as caretaker of George Washington’s gardens and grounds, he has conducted various programs concerning the principles and practices of 18th-century gardens for the Smithsonian Institution, the American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta, American Horticultural Society, U.S. Botanical Garden, Maryland Historical Society, and Colonial Williamsburg.

According to organizer Frank Creegan, Professor of Chemistry Emeritus, “the occasion celebrates both Resilience, the theme for the 20th anniversary of the Center for Environment & Society, and the revitalization of the College’s Virginia Gent Decker Arboretum,” now under the curation of Martin Connaughton, associate professor of biology. Washington College recently adopted a tree care plan, which is an integral component of the College’s application to the Arbor Day Foundation for Tree Campus USA status.

artha Washington likely enjoyed the shade of the tulip poplar that generated the sapling that will soon cast its own shadow over Martha Washington Square. Returning home from his service in the Revolutionary War, husband George embarked on a major project to redesign the grounds, adopting the less formal, more naturalistic style of 18thcentury English garden landscape designer Batty Langley, but adapting those ideas to his own tastes and needs. In 1785, among the native trees and shrubs he had transplanted from the surrounding forests were tulip poplars, the tallest eastern hardwood. The tulip poplar making its way to Washington College was started from a seed from the original tulip poplar that still survives on the Bowling Green.

On Arbor Day 2020, Dean Norton, the director of horticulture for the Mount Vernon Estate, will be on hand for the tree planting that morning. He will give a public talk and receive the honorary degree, Doctor of Science, that afternoon.

Norton, who holds a degree in plant sciences and ornamental horticulture from

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CAMPUS NEWS

Watching the Market Fresh from a visit to GE offices in Boston, students enrolled in the Brown Advisory Student-Managed Investment Fund Program considered how the aerospace industry was moving on the market.

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ashington College students are high on GE stock, and not just because College Trustee Larry Culp ’85 is leading the company out of its doldrums.

At a class session in December, student investors considered United Airlines’ recent move to purchase 50 Airbuses in the wake of Boeing’s grounding of the 737 Max aircraft.

“This impacts GE,” notes Teague Sauter ’19. “GE supplies Boeing with their engines, so if Boeing can’t push planes, it affects GE’s bottom line.”

Chris Shaffer ’20 acknowledged that GE’s aerospace division was going to take a hit in the short-term, but after meeting with GE personnel, he’s confident the company will continue to rebound. “In the next five or ten years, I think they’ll be at the $20 target.”

They were among the group of business and economics students who in November visited GE’s quarters, a former Necco candy factory

in the South Boston Waterfront where staffers shared their optimism about the future.

“Out of all the offices we visited, this had more of a warehouse feel,” said Kyle Ogden ’20.

“It wasn’t super flashy, and I think that was a good thing. The people there are focused on their work and are happy about the way things are going with the transformation of GE. I knew people would be supportive of Larry Culp but didn’t expect to see such enthusiasm.”

Richard Bookbinder, the Distinguished Executive-in-Residence who leads the investment class, suggested that students consider GE for the long-term. “The purpose of our visit was to open your eyes and see the real world. GE is a company with a lot of problems.

GE is going to make it but the question is how long will it take? It’s a classic case of a turnaround. And we think the right guy is there to do it. Culp is determined not to put the company or the shareholders at risk.”

Several of the students also thought that GE might be a good place to work.

“For a young professional, it would be a great place to start,” Ethan O’Malley ’21 says.

“Because they are undergoing something transformational you could be part of something special.”

In addition to their visit to GE, the student investment group also met with three other firms: Ceres, Breckinridge Capital Advisors, and HarbourVest, where they were hosted by Michael Scaldini ’14. Ceres works with Fortune 500 companies to help them integrate environmental sustainability into core business practices. Breckenridge is an asset management firm recognized for its outstanding approach on ESG (environmental, social, and governance) and climate integration into its investment strategy.

HarbourVest is a global private markets investment firm.

PHOTO: Students met with financial professionals at four Boston offices, including GE headquarters.

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WASHINGTON COLLEGE MAGAZINE

‘

‘

At Water’s Edge

The Food Network

“Many waterside communities face increased risk, but Chestertown is especially susceptible.

Research indicates that, in the Chesapeake Bay, ‘sea level is rising about twice as fast as it is globally,’ says Seidel. As much as a three-foot rise is expected by the end of the century. But Washington College, established here in 1782, can’t draw far back from the river. It has staked much of its appeal to prospective students on environmental science. And so it is building by the water.

“The focus of the Eastern Shore Food Lab is to connect everyone who comes through these doors—all of our students, faculty, staff, community—with food, real food, and through that to connect them with everything that it means to be human: understanding our place in the environment, understanding diet and health, understanding community.… A lot of our inspiration does come from the past…focused on a real understanding of our three-and-halfmillion-year-long dietary past that built us both biologically and culturally as humans. A lot of what we do is focus on understanding what ancient diets were like and most importantly how to translate that information into real-world applications for improving and addressing modern diet and health today.

“Semans-Griswold Environmental Hall is under construction about 100 feet from the Chester, where it will house teaching and lab space for environmental science. It has been designed to be zero-energy, and as low-impact on the immediate environment as possible. Situated nine feet above the usual waterline, it should withstand another 30 years of sea-level rise and another Isabel without serious flooding. But it might not escape a bigger storm.

“‘We recognize that, in many instances, building that close to the water is not a smart thing to do,’ Seidel says. ‘But there are certain activities that by their very nature have to be there, and this is one of them, so we’re trying to be as smart as we can about it.’’’ http://bit.ly/2ueirXv

John Seidel, Director of the Center for Environment & Society, in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

CAMPUS NEWS | CITED IN THE NEWS

“‘They’re more willing to have a bigger role for government to play in our lives,’ she said. ‘This younger generation is growing up seeing what deregulation is doing to the Earth, is doing to their ability to afford college, among other things. I think that’s why they’re finding democratic socialist ideas appealing.’

Some of their parents were introduced to socialism during the Cold War, giving the word an entirely different meaning.

‘Older Americans who lived during the Cold War, they link socialism strongly to communism.

So there’s this idea that if we raise socialism, our freedoms, especially religion, are going to be compromised,’ Dr. Deckman said. ‘And I don’t think that sort of baggage matters to younger Americans.’”

“The lessons, the techniques, the technologies, the approaches are all actually very, very simple and accessible. And one of the things we’re advocating is you come through these doors and then go back home… and apply all of this there… once you have that knowledge and know-how, that basic understanding. So it’s about the connection. My advice is, no matter where you are, what your socio-economic status is, what your access to resources is, try to learn to access and cook your food entirely from scratch at least once. And when you do that…you can walk into a grocery store, a farmers market, a restaurant, and pull back the veil and see food for what it really is. It’s probably one of the most empowering approaches to food and diet possible.” http://bit.ly/ESFLonMPT

Bill Schindler, Director of the Eastern Shore Food Lab, on Maryland Public Television’s State Circle program. The interview runs from 13:35 to 25:06.

The New Age of Socialism

http://bit.ly/DeckmanNYT

Melissa Deckman, Chair and Professor of Political Science, in The New York Times

Taking on the Corruption Kings

“Even with the mission’s support, Mr. Santos has faced significant challenges. The 46-yearold prosecutor works from behind a desk buried in paperwork in a small office [in Tegucigalpa, Hondoras]. He and his team are often outnumbered in court by defense lawyers.

“Congress has reduced sentences for corruption and drug trafficking convictions, and it has ignored calls to permit the use of plea bargaining and wiretapping, vital tools for prosecutors.

“‘They fully intend to protect themselves,’ Christine Wade, a political scientist with a focus on Central America, at Washington College, said of the country’s elite. ‘It is about protecting their own interests.’”

“Dr. Deckman attributes the rise of the Y.D.S.A. (Young Democratic Socialists of America) to the changing perceptions that younger voters and soon-to-be voters have about government and democratic socialism, and the idea that younger people tend to be more liberal with each passing generation.

http://bit.ly/Wade0812

Christine Wade, Professor of Political Science and International Studies in The Wall Street Journal

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CAMPUS NEWS

Students Rally Against Racism After a series of racially-charged incidents in which Washington College students of color have been harassed by local juveniles, the Black Student Union organized a rally to coincide with George Washington’s Birthday Convocation.

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he occasion was meant to honor some extraordinary faculty and staff members as well as several people who are making important and ongoing contributions to our society.

Among the honored guests at Convocation were Lakota Sioux elder Henry Red Cloud, who was recognized for his work to develop and share renewable energy technologies for Great Northern tribes to become energy independent, and Tina Bjarekull, retiring president of the Maryland Independent College and University Association.

It also became an opportunity for peaceful student activists to draw attention to an untenable situation that threatens the safety and wellbeing of persons of color—particularly black women who have borne the brunt of hostile affronts.

Before the ceremony on Feb. 21, a group of students entered the auditorium to express the urgency of confronting the hatred and bigotry they have experienced. In recent months, members of the local community driving through campus—all believed to be juveniles —have targeted students of color with racial slurs and intimidation.

In response to two incidents reported to Public Safety in a single

week, the Black Student Union mobilized to make their case to the administration, the Board of Visitors and Governors, faculty, staff, and other guests in attendance.

Even before protesters briefly disrupted Convocation, students had met several times with College President Kurt Landgraf and key members of the administration to voice their concerns. Students have asked that more safety measures be put into place, that the entire campus be notified immediately when a threatening racial incident occurs, and that they have access to a safe room where they can gather in the wake of such incidents. Landgraf has also called for meetings with the Mayor of Chestertown, the Superintendent of Public Schools, and local school principals to explore how they might collaborate on initiatives to undo racism.

“The message was loud and clear,” says Landgraf, who applauded the Black Student Union for exhibiting the moral courage to stand up to reprehensible racist behavior. “This was Washington College saying ‘enough is enough.’ We will not tolerate hatred and we stand together as a community of individuals who look out for one another.”

Photo: Trish McGee ’81

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Recovery Through the Arts Melissa Stuebing M’16, Hjordis Lorenz ’16, and Professor Lauren Littlefield study the quantifiable value of using expressive arts in treatment of people with substance use and mental health disorders in an original curriculum. Their study was published in Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly.

Melissa Stuebing M’16 with trainees in Ndola, Zambia.

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n Lusaka, Zambia, 30,000 youth live on the streets.

One-quarter admit to substance use, though actual numbers are likely higher. How can this population be served, particularly if access to health care for substance use disorder is limited?

Melissa Stuebing M’16, a drug and alcohol counselor, also runs the humanitarian organization CoLaborers International. Founded 13 years ago, CoLaborers works alongside indigenous-led efforts reaching women and children in Zambia, Costa Rica, and India. When Stuebing moved to Chestertown, she enrolled in the College’s graduate program in psychology advised by Professor of Psychology Lauren Littlefield.

“I often shared with Dr. Littlefield the work we were doing through CoLaborers,” Stuebing says. “In Zambia, one issue we were running into is that kids were coming into Chisomo Centers high. We were looking for places to refer them, and there wasn’t anything accessible or appropriate at that time. So Dr. Littlefield suggested that I develop something and run a study of it as my master's thesis.”

Stuebing developed a curriculum called “Literacy-Free 12 Step Expressive Arts Therapy.” It weaved cognitive behavioral and rational emotive therapy techniques into a scripted group counseling manual using Zambian expressive art modalities as a therapeutic metaphor to work through the 12 Steps of addiction recovery. The first clinical studies began in 2015 through CoLaborers International and WC. Meanwhile, working as a crisis counselor at A.F. Whitsitt Center, an inpatient rehabilitation center in Chestertown, Stuebing was encouraged to develop a U.S. version of the curriculum to meet the needs of psychiatric patients not engaging with conventional treatment.

Stuebing turned to Littlefield, who introduced her to Hjordis Lorenz ’16.

“It was obvious to me that Melissa and Hjordis should work together,” Littlefield says. “Melissa needed someone responsible and caring to administer the curriculum, and Hjordis needed an internship placement that would challenge her.”

With Stuebing’s supervision, Lorenz ran the first U.S. study of the curriculum at Whitsitt which was later published. Trainings in the US version of the curriculum are endorsed by MD's Board of Professional Counselors & Therapists for continuing education.

Lorenz later served with CoLaborers International to run a onemonth study of the Zambian version of the curriculum with homeless youth reached by Chisomo Centers in Lusaka. By 2017, Zambia’s Ministry of Health recognized the need to offer substance use disorder rehabilitation and in 2018, they endorsed training in the "LiteracyFree 12 Step Expressive Arts Therapy" curriculum. Funding from The Rotary International Foundation enabled Stuebing, Lorenz, and other CoLaborers International staff members to train 36 organizations in the curriculum across Zambia.

A six-month follow-up study found substance use significantly decreased among clients, and the intervention both combatted stigma and increased open sharing, as well as personal motivation to change.

Years later and with five studies completed, Littlefield, Stuebing, and Lorenz continue to mentor Washington College students. Alexis Desai ’20 is running a new study design to evaluate the U.S. curriculum for her Senior Capstone Experience. Now a Kenyan version and a Spanish language version are in development, and Lorenz is working on her second doctorate, in clinical psychology, at the University of Oxford in England.

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FA C U LT Y

Keep Calm and Hike On Katherine Charles, Assistant Professor of 18th- and 19th-Century Literature, will carry on the Kiplin Hall program.

LEFT: Professor Rich Gillin’s summer course on the English Romantic writers has been based at Kiplin Hall, the ancestral home of the Maryland Calvert family. ABOVE: Professor Gillin sets out on a hike through the English countryside with Cailey Hall and Assistant Professor Katie Charles.

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ast spring, with the impending retirement of English Professor Rich Gillin and the declining health of his wife, Barbara, the fate of the popular Kiplin Hall Summer Program—which he and Barbara had directed for the past 20 years—hung in the balance. Luckily, another scholar of 18th- and 19th-century literature at Washington College also happens to be an avid walker.

Katie Charles, a huge fan of the Brontë sisters who trained to be an outdoor nature leader while an undergraduate at Princeton, traveled to the Lake District with the Gillins last summer, accompanying them on some of their favorite walks, including Dove Cottage and Michael’s Sheepfold. Enlisting the help of a colleague from UCLA, Charles will be taking a group of students to the Lake District this June. In addition to experiencing that landscape and connecting specific hikes with specific poems, she hopes to include a visit to the Brontë parsonage in Haworth and a walk through the Peak District, the upland area where Elizabeth Bennett in "Pride and

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Prejudice" engaged in what Charles calls radical female walking.

“Part of Elizabeth Bennett’s resonance for modern readers is that she is so independent, and one of the ways she signals that is that she’s a great walker,” Charles says. “She feels completely competent and capable of walking on her own. Rich and Barbara have always followed this tradition of Romantic walking, with the idea that you’re connecting your body to the landscape in a different way when you are putting one foot in front of the other out in the elements.”

The Gillins shared logistical details, and introduced Charles and her colleague, Cailey Hall, to a number of hikes that could be accomplished between Grasmere and Ambleside. During the 10-day trip, participants will undertake the big Lake District hikes while reading literature that illuminates the connection between individuals and the natural world.

“For Cailey and me, we are both interested in environmental humanities and literature about nature,” Charles says. “That was always

one of the throughlines of this course as the Gillins conceived it. Now, with many of our students double-majoring in English and environmental studies, there is this desire to find new narratives to tell about the ways we interact with the environment. This trip is one way we can help students merge those interests.”

Rich Gillin, who concluded his 46-year teaching career at Washington College in early December, lost his wife just three weeks later. To honor their legacy, the family suggests donations to the Gillin Fund, which will support two annual scholarships—one to send a student with financial need to Kiplin Hall, and another to support an English/ humanities major at WC. To give, please visit https://washcoll.edu/giving/gillin-fund/

Poe’s Difference Rich De Prospo, Professor of English and American Studies, has a reputation for going against the grain in his literary scholarship. His latest work, Poe’s Difference, is no exception.

Arguing that Edgar Allan Poe has much more in common with Early American, medieval, and ancient writers than the modern and post-modern writers with whom Poe scholars typically associate him, De Prospo challenges the status quo once again.

He suggests instead that Poe is more neo-medieval than proto-modern or post-modern.

Parallel History English professor Kim Andrews explores her FilipinoAmerican heritage in an acclaimed poetry collection.

A Brief History of Fruit explores this uncovering with “poems that refuse any convenient definitions of what poetry, politics, or identity should be, because Andrews knows that the fiction of convenience can only root us without nourishing us,” writes Mia You, author of the poetry collection I, Too, Dislike It.

I "People who take Poe seriously— and they’re in the minority among Americanists—think he's worth studying because he was ahead of his time. I'm calling him backward. Most Poe scholars aren't likely to welcome that," De Prospo says. “If Poe is backward, and he’s appealing to a popular readership, maybe the majority of the 1830s and 1840s popular readership in the U.S. is equally backward. And I suppose them to be backward in particular where human rights are concerned, which would make chattel slavery in the United States—which lasted long past its cultural moment in the global West—not just economically profitable but culturally acceptable.

Maybe human beings hadn’t yet come to count for as much in the antebellum U.S. as it had come to count for in the parent cultures of Europe, which casts into doubt a much broader contemporary U.S. scholarly consensus than just that of the current Poe professoriat.”

that hitches together the rust belt and the coal belt,” in the shadow of the shuttering Bethlehem Steel plant.

Growing up, the racial difference between her mother and father wasn’t something anyone ever talked to Andrews about. “It’s not that I didn’t know that [my mother] was from the Philippines and that my grandparents were from the Philippines,” she says, “but the actual implications of that in terms of race had never really occurred to me.” She describes her mother’s upbringing as one inflected by “hard assimilationism,” in which immigrants decide, effectively, “that if you’re going to be in the ‘land of opportunity,’ you’re going to be an American in that land.”

The poems in A Brief History of Fruit interrogate the consequences of that type of self-erasure. While pursuing an MFA at Penn State University, Andrews decided that to better understand not only this heritage but also this decision, she would go.

She found a summer program for Filipino-Americans looking to reconnect with their families and learn about Filipino history. Absorbing more Filipino culture in that summer than she ever had from her immediate family, Andrews says the visit “changed the entire way I thought about how I was going to write about it, and how I thought about my relationship to this culture.”

t’s never easy being of two worlds, even harder when those worlds are mostly obscured in a family’s past.

It’s that binary tension and mystery that Kimberly Quiogue Andrews, assistant professor of English and creative writing, sought to explore when she began the poems that comprise her first collection, A Brief History of Fruit, winner of the 2018 Akron Poetry Prize.

Released in February by the University of Akron Press, the collection “offers up history—personal, familial, postcolonial, geopolitical, ecological—and indeed the history of fruit, fruit as sustenance, pleasure, exploitable product, as image, parent, love, and wound,” writes Diane Seuss, 2018 Akron Poetry Prize judge. “These are hard-won poems, fought for, lived through. They do not resolve; to resolve would equal selfabandonment. Nor do they locate or repair the single center that will not hold. Instead they inventory a parallel history”—one that, as Andrews says, is a way of “doing the work of [familial] excavation that I wasn’t getting just by talking to my parents.”

Andrews’s mother was born in the Philippines but grew up in Detroit, and her father is from rural central Pennsylvania.

Andrews grew up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, an area she calls “the buckle

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STUDENTS

The Oyster Whisperers A summer research project brought together scientists to consider the human impact on native oyster populations in the upper reaches of the Chesapeake Bay.

Top: Julie St.Clair ’22 prepares to set clod cards for the flow study at Land's End Farm. Left: Prof. Jill Bible and St.Clair return the young oysters to the creek.

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t the very tip of Land’s End Farm, a dock stretches out into the Chester River. From here you can see where the water has gnawed away the center of Nichols Point. In the distance, a log canoe glides by, preparing for the upcoming Governor’s Cup races. Osprey whistle and circle away overhead. It is high summer on the Eastern Shore—still, hot, idyllic. This is where Julie St.Clair ’22, a young environmental scientist, spent her summer days—collecting data about water flow at various depths and measuring its effects on spat and young oysters that she and her professor, Jillian Bible, are monitoring as part of a larger oyster study in collaboration with Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences (VIMS).

For St.Clair, a sophomore from suburban Philadelphia who chose Washington College on the strength of its environmental science program, it’s hard to believe she was lucky enough to land a summer internship, funded by the John S. Toll Fellows summer research program, that required her to conduct testing at four sites along the Chester and Corsica rivers.

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St.Clair worked closely on this oyster project with Bible, an assistant professor of environmental science and studies who joined the Washington College faculty in 2018. Bible had previously taught at University of California, Davis, where her dissertation in marine ecology focused on local adaptation among Olympia oyster populations and how scientific research can inform conservation and restoration efforts.

“There is no longer a harvest of native oysters on the West Coast. Aquaculture of other species has supplanted natural harvests, but there is a lot of interest in restoring the native species for the ecosystem services that it provides similar to the oysters on this coast, i.e., filtering water and providing habitat for dozens of small organisms at the base of the food chain,” Bible says. “On the West Coast I studied both how oysters are affected by climate change and invasive species, and also whether some populations are more vulnerable to human stresses, and whether some are more robust. Looking at small-scale evolution of populations, we found that some are more, and some less, vulnerable, which helps us prioritize what areas we want to conserve to

make sure we have really robust oysters for all the future stresses that are coming.”

For her, it was an easy transition to the Chesapeake region, where oyster populations are also struggling.

“Getting a job at Washington College was ideal for me,” Bible says. “Teaching is my love and passion. Being in a place that has this wonderful environmental program is exactly what I wanted. But also the location is perfect for my research. Although we have a different species of oyster out here and some different human-caused impacts affecting them, my basic research question of how humans impact these really important coastal species like oysters is very easily transferable.”

Lead Like a Girl

Rising Star Daniel J. Brown ’21 is having a major impact on the basketball court and in the community.

Marking the Women’s Centennial, Washington College has invited Sylvia Acevedo, chief executive officer of the Girl Scouts, to deliver the 2020 Commencement address on May 17.

A lifelong Girl Scout, engineer, rocket scientist, and advocate for girl empowerment and STEM education, Sylvia Acevedo credits her own Girl Scout experience with propelling her to success in the corporate and philanthropic sectors.

She was one of the first Hispanic students, male or female, to earn a graduate engineering degree from Stanford University—an MS in industrial engineering— and she holds a bachelor of science degree with honors in industrial engineering from New Mexico State University.

She began her career as a rocket scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where she created algorithms and analyzed data from Voyager 2’s spacecraft flyby of Jupiter and two of its moons, Io and Europa. She has been an engineer and executive at Apple, Dell, Autodesk, and IBM. She was tapped to lead the Girl Scout organization in 2017.

“I understand the power of Girl Scouting. I understand how it changes destinies because it changed mine,” Acevedo said in a 2016 interview. “Through Girl Scouts, I launched a rocket into the clear, blue New Mexico sky to earn my Science badge. Girl Scouts gave me the courage, the confidence, and the character to enter the engineering field at a time when girls didn't do that, when people of my background didn't do that."

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“I had a lot of interest from other colleges, but I felt that Coach Goodman did a really good job of recruiting me,” he says.

“Coach attended my last five or six games of high school, including my regional final game. I ended up taking two recruiting visits and really liked the school. It was very important to me that Washington College is prestigious academically.”

While he began his first semester with the idea of pursuing engineering, Brown changed his mind after taking a couple of computer science classes, in which he excelled. He hopes to work for the government in cybersecurity.

On the court, the 6' 6" Brown has seized a new role this season, taking a major leap as a dependable scorer and a leader for his teammates, both on and off the court. He is posting a career-high 12.1 points and a team-best 6.2 rebounds per game. Brown has also swished game-winning buzzerbeaters against Gettysburg and Dickinson.

“A lot of high school players get caught up in the different levels of the NCAA when making their college decision,” Brown says.

“I just wanted to go where I had a chance to play and where I could also make an impact in the community.”

he game of hoops is not the only interest that Daniel Brown absorbed during his formative years. His parents, Terence and Sheila Brown, instilled values such as giving back to those in need as well as the importance of education. These pillars are still essential to the computer science major, a key member of the men’s basketball team.

Service is what defines Brown more than anything else. The junior forward is in the process of developing a non-profit body that he named Project ATM, which stands for “Achieve the Mountain.” The organization, which has been in the works since his senior year at Paint Branch High School in Montgomery County, has put on a basketball tournament for the past four years; the fundraising event continues to grow in popularity. Even more, the group regularly prepares sandwiches and distributes fruit to feed the hungry in Washington, D.C., and is currently raising money to assist less fortunate kids in Zimbabwe.

A city boy at heart, Brown’s decision to come to Chestertown was made easier because of the efforts of head men’s basketball coach Aaron Goodman.

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STUDENTS

In the Driver’s Seat For his senior capstone project, this physics major and self-described “car nerd” will investigate what different bends in exhaust tubes do to sound in car exhaust systems.

Xaeza Olt ’20 (standing) and Thomas White ’23 work on a bike in the College’s mechanics shop, located in the old boathouse.

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aeza Olt ’20 almost wasn’t a physics major at Washington College.

He’d been wait-listed at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and told that if he reapplied the following year, he’d get in. But after his first year at Washington College, he chose to stay.

“Pretty quickly in freshman year, Washington College became my home,” says Olt, who also minored in mathematics. “Dr. Kehm and Dr. Thuecks are great teachers, and I was able to connect with them on an academic level and on a personal level. The physics department is very close-knit. We have seminar together for five semesters, unlike most other departments, which really provides an opportunity for upperclassmen to mingle with underclassmen and for the professors to get to know all the students.”

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Olt came to WC for the Division III men’s rowing program, too, but after he hurt his back during sophomore year, he decided to refocus his attention on his other growing interests, including founding the Washington Automobile Club, being an RA, helping organize the monthly “Cars on High” event in downtown Chestertown, becoming a driver and fleet director for Safe Ride, and most recently joining Model UN. During the summer before his senior year, he was chosen to be a McLain Fellow, doing one-on-one research in the College’s mass spectrometry lab with Kehm, the department chair.

For his Senior Capstone Experience, Olt plans to draw on a class he took in acoustics— related to cars, of course. “I’m a huge car nerd apparently … When you hear a car, what you

hear is the explosion in the engine resonating through the exhaust tube, and there’s lots of different shapes and lengths that will create different sounds. That’s what I want to do my project on: a simplified version of an exhaust system and how different shapes affect its pitch and tone and loudness. There’s less research in what different bends do to sound, so I think I’m going to go in that direction.”

Olt ultimately plans to specialize in mechanical engineering. He’s considering joining the U.S. Coast Guard and becoming a mechanics officer, overseeing the maintenance of the agency’s vehicles and helicopters. He’s also still considering applying to graduate school for engineering, or to a trade school for mechanics that could lead him into a mechanical engineering specialty in the automotive industry.

Best In Class When you look up the word student-athlete, the name Allison Gallagher ’21 ought to appear in bold print. A record-holder on the women’s swim team, the pre-pharmacy student excels in the classroom as well.

Muddy Studies During her 10-week REU, Olivia Butler ’21 studied how climate change is affecting a delicate balance in the northern Florida salt marsh ecosystem. sediment—and the primary salt marsh vegetation of cordgrass, saltwort, and black mangrove.

“This is an important study because benthic microalgae are part of the foundation of the food webs here,” Butler says, “so if the amount or composition of it changes as these mangroves are moving into the salt marsh, then it is probable that the overall ecosystem will change as well.”

Her parents encouraged Allison and her twin, Hillary, to start taking swim lessons at the age of nine. The Gallagher sisters excelled from the start and coaches at the University of Rhode Island, where they trained, began to take notice of the duo. It was only natural that competitive swimming would be in their future. In fact, Hillary is a backstroke specialist at Springfield College in Massachusetts.

Although swimming has been a huge part of her life, Gallagher also discovered in high school that she has a talent for chemistry.

Last summer, the chemistry major with a minor in biology received a grant from the College’s Cater Society of Junior Fellows to complete an internship at Brown University, where she performed research on proteins that are found in higher concentrations in patients who have cancer and arthritis.

Gallagher is so gifted in her studies that she was asked to become a senior course tutor, serving as a resource if tutors have their own questions about the subject matter. Gallagher also sits in on a general biology class during weekly review sessions. Students can ask her questions about the course material, and she helps them prepare for exams.

She ranks among the top 10 Shorewomen of all time in two events—the 100 and 200 backstroke—and somehow finds the time to play steel drums in the College’s music ensemble, participate in a sorority, work as a lifeguard, and give swim lessons.

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livia Butler ’21 has spent much of her summer in the mud, which is just what she’d hoped for when she applied for an REU—Research Experiences for Undergraduates—at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Florida. Butler, an environmental science major, spent 10 weeks conducting field research in the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve, helping understand how climate change is affecting the salt marsh ecosystem.

Specifically, Butler worked on a National Science Foundation-funded project called WETFEET (Warming Ecosystem Temperatures in a Florida Ecotone Experiencing Transition), trying to understand the effects of black mangrove migration that is being observed on the northeastern Florida coast.

The effects of climate change are lessening the number of extreme cold snaps in winter that kill off black mangroves in their northern ranges. This is letting the mangroves migrate into salt marsh habitat, and scientists are trying to understand how that will change the salt marsh—a vital ecosystem that protects the coastline and sequesters enormous quantities of carbon.

Butler worked with a graduate student and mentor Nikki Dix, a research coordinator at the reserve, to examine the relationship between benthic microalgae—algae in the uppermost centimeters of the

The majority of her work was in the field, taking sediment samples, then analyzing them in the lab. Ultimately the project’s research likely will be published, and Butler hopes that her participation will be recognized among its authors.

“It’s been challenging. I haven’t really had an opportunity to research at this level before, and it’s been a lot of troubleshooting,” she says.

“I love being in the field, and I’m getting my hands dirty quite literally since I’m out in the marsh all day.”

As an REU, Butler’s internship was fully funded through the National Science Foundation. She learned about REUs—a highly competitive, national program—through Ben Ford at the College’s Center for Environment & Society, who was among the leaders of the Chesapeake Semester in which Butler participated. Butler also this year won a $1,000 Environmental Sciences Academic Scholarship from the Friends of Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge.

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Lisa Turner ’74, an avionics manufacturing engineer, refused to follow the traditional career path for girls.

By Wendy Mitman Clarke M’16 and Marcia C. Landskroener M’02

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Like a Girl “Like a girl.” Is that an insult or a rallying cry? Run like a girl.

Throw like a girl. Fight like a girl. Those turns of phrase, at the core of an advertising campaign for a feminine products company, challenged the idea that girls and women are slower, weaker, less than capable. And that ad campaign, which won 150 awards in 2015, was the creative work of a Washington College alumna, Angel Capobianco ’03.

Five years later, #LikeAGirl is now part of the lexicon that is changing the narrative about what women are capable of. And so, with kudos to a former theater major from Washington College, WCM adds its voice to this rallying cry. Read these stories of strong, smart, courageous, independent, and capable women like a girl—with heart and gratitude for women who are unafraid to be themselves. We begin, of course, with Angel Capobianco’s story.

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very time someone says “like a girl” in a positive way, Angel Capobianco ’03 gets a little choked up. The advertising campaign she devised for feminine-care products—inspired by her own experience as an adolescent girl belittled by boys—set out not just to influence buyer behavior, but to change social behavior. The Always® brand #LikeAGirl campaign, which first aired in June 2014, touched a chord with women around the world.

Just two years after earning a master’s degree in marketing and communications in London, Capobianco was working for the Leo Burnett agency there when the client came in. Embracing its corporate social responsibility to empower women and girls, Always® was providing feminine-care products and sponsoring educational programs in places where it’s menstruation is taboo. In addition to teaching girls about health and biology, educators also bolster their self-confidence. The client wanted an advertising campaign that would support its corporate philosophy of female empowerment.

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Burnett’s creative teams in Chicago and Toronto were also briefed and each office went to work to come up with their own ideas. Teams from each office would then get together for a process of elimination to choose which campaign would be presented to the client. #LikeAGirl was Capobianco’s idea.

“I was reading about what causes the drop in girls’ confidence during adolescence,” she says, “and I ended up on a Buzzfeed list called ‘Why we still need feminism.’ It was one of those features where Buzzfeed reporters go to college campuses and have students hold up whiteboards with their answers. One was ‘Because I used to call my brother a girl as a legit insult.’ I was like ‘YES!’ I remember growing up with brothers and playing sports with them. The worst thing you could say was ‘you hit that like a girl’ or ‘you throw like a girl.’ Meanwhile I could kick most of their asses. It always made me so angry, but I didn’t know why.”

She successfully pitched the idea to the creative director at the London office and #LikeAGirl was one of the campaign proposals

Angel Capobianco ’03 Senior Creative Copy Writer

With 150 awards, including an Emmy, for her #LikeAGirl advertising campaign, Angel Capobianco ’03 was recognized as the “Most-Awarded Copywriter in the World” in 2015.

presented at the big agency meeting. In the ad, people asked to run, throw, and fight like a girl each demonstrated weak, awkward, ineffectual actions, implying that doing something “like a girl” has a negative connotation. When the same questions were asked of young girls, they ran, threw, and fought with all their might. They were fast, accurate, and powerful.

“When I read that out, everybody knew this had the potential to be game-changing,” Capobianco recalls. “But I don’t think we weren’t prepared for how big it was.”

Within a matter of two hours of the video posting on YouTube in June 2014, social media blew up, with Olympians, celebrities, and public figures boasting of their “like a girl” accomplishments. And then the campaign aired during Super Bowl Sunday in January 2015. It was the first time a feminine-directed product had ever been advertised on game day. The message? To do anything like a girl is not about weakness, but about strength. The confidence that young girls exhibit

shouldn’t be suffocated by gender bias. It clearly resonated with women and with the creative community.

Capobianco and her husband were on their honeymoon in the Canary Islands as the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity awards got underway. #LikeAGirl won the Grand Prix as well as the inaugural Glass Lion, offered for culture-shifting campaigns.

In all, the #LikeAGirl campaign would garner 150 awards and earn Capobianco the 2015 title for “Most Awarded Copywriter in the World.”

That success also opened doors for her professionally. As a freelancer, she now works on special projects for an agency in Geneva.

And it has impacted the marketing profession.

“There’s been a huge change since that campaign in the way brands in general talk to people,” Capobianco says. “Women want to be spoken to in a way that’s real. And it’s much more rewarding to affect social change than try to change buyer behavior.”

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Kim Last ’07 Deputy Editor, Live Journalism and Special Coverage Wall Street Journal, New York City

Kim Last ’07 (far left) took part in a live event with business leaders discussing what their companies are doing differently to diversity the workplace.

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his is not your father’s newspaper. Rather, live journalism is everything media—events in real time also covered in digital, video, audio, and even print forms—maximized to bring top newsmakers to consumers where they live. And Kim Last ’07, a former Elm editor at Washington College, is in the thick of this world of modern media. She is now deputy editor of live journalism and special coverage at the Wall Street Journal.

With a dual degree in American studies and political science and an internship with the nonprofit New York Women in Communications, Last launched her career as a digital journalist with Forbes.com. She spent her days pitching Forbes stories to various Internet platforms and helped organize events for Women in Communications on the side.

“I was just looking to learn as much as I could across the media industry,” Last recalls.

“Coming from an editorial background, I had no exposure to how you monetize that. When I realized that I enjoyed the events work more than my day job, I transitioned from consumer media to become a conference producer for a B2B publisher. I was organizing live events not realizing that this would be a thing in media.”

Some might call her keenly perceptive.

By 2011-2012, she noticed that media organizations were adding events to their business offerings. That’s when she went to work for Quartz, launching live events and ideas festivals for the digital news organization owned by The Atlantic. A year

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later Fast Company recruited her to sit on their editorial board and help launch their signature events.

“That was special to me because I had been a fan of the magazine all through college,” Last recalls. “It was a dream job. I was working on the programs, deciding on speakers, brokering for celebrities. I absolutely loved it. I spent almost four years there developing their suite of events and picked up some other duties like hosting their video series and doing some writing.”

Then there was that time she landed Oprah Winfrey for a Fast Company event in Los Angeles, followed by a magazine cover story.

“A big part of my job at Fast Company and now at the Journal is tracking people. I’m reading everything. I’m meeting with the people who work for the big-name executives.

And I knew this was the right time to go to Oprah and say, ‘why don’t you be involved in what we’re doing here?’ And it happened.

Eight months later, there she was, meeting our audience. It was incredible.”

Fast forward five years and Last is now part of a new team inside the Wall Street Journal’s newsroom that oversees the agendas and subsequent news coverage of a wide array of executive events across print, online, video, and audio. She works alongside the Journal’s top editors to bring newsmakers from business, technology, and media together to share their stories in front of a live audience, and then develops the news plan to reach readers who could not be in the room.

The Journal’s Future of Everything Festival is a multi-day, multi-stage event that brings together top CEOs, dynamic entrepreneurs, and cultural leaders to share their predictions for the future of business in front of more than 3,000 attendees. She was on the job just eight weeks before the first Festival of Everything happened, confirming headliners Sarah Jessica Parker, Alex Rodriguez, Bobbi Brown, and Amber Tamblyn and handling “all the screw-tightening” required to pull off the inaugural events.

“I love working in this space because you can see how effective you can be—from idea to full-fledged execution. What I think about all the time is the news value of what we’re doing when we invite a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, or a best-selling author, or an activist on climate change, or a celebrity who has parlayed an Instagram following into a legitimate brand and business,” says Last. “I never thought I would end up at the Wall Street Journal ever in my career and it's an exciting time to be a part of a growth area in the media industry today. If I am doing my job right, our audience will not only get to experience some of the spontaneity that can come with reporting, but also be a part of a ‘moment.’”

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rom the moment she learned, in high school, that there were veterinarians who treated animals like her beloved turtles, Allison Tuttle ’98 knew what she wanted to do. Since graduating from Washington College with a double major in psychology and biology, then veterinary school at North Carolina State University, she has done all of that and much more.

Today, she is senior vice president of Zoological Operations at Mystic Aquarium, where she began her veterinarian career and quickly rose to senior director of Animal Care and Veterinary Services, then vice president of Biological Programs. As VP of Zoological Operations, she oversees multiple departments—animal husbandry (which includes all of the aquarium’s different species), dive operations, veterinarian operations, the marine mammal rescue operation, and environmental quality, which is the water quality lab and life support areas.

“What I was doing before was a lot of veterinary care, managing the veterinary team directly, managing the clinical lab directly, and since 2015 [when she was promoted to VP of Biological Programs] doing more management and leadership for the aquarium,” Tuttle says. “Now I sit on the aquarium’s leadership team which makes decisions for the whole aquarium across the board.”

In a media release announcing the move in January 2019, Larry Rivarde, the aquarium’s executive vice president and COO, said Tutttle, “is recognized as one of the top leaders in veterinary science and animal care in the nation.”

She’s also taking her role to a broader level, after completing the 14-month executive development leadership program within Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA).

In the AZA, she sits on multiple boards and serves as an accreditation inspector—a job that takes her around the nation and the world auditing organizations that are applying for accreditation. In 2018, she was lauded as AZA’s inspector of the year.

She also was asked, through the Fulbright Specialists Program, to travel to the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium in Taiwan, where she spent three weeks auditing its veterinary care program, focusing on marine mammals and specifically beluga whales—a species that Mystic is known for.

Tuttle also teaches in the specialty veterinary courses, Aquavet and Marvet, and is adjunct faculty at North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine, as well as an associate clinical professor at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University.

“I always tell people I haven’t really worked a day in my life, even though technically we work hard and I’m really active. It’s a labor of love. It’s energizing. I’m never that person who doesn’t want to go work in the morning,” Tuttle says. Shifting into this larger role has been deeply fulfilling, because “there’s always that little voice in the back of your mind that you want to be working to another goal, or trying to figure out how else you can contribute…How can I learn and grow, or how can I impact these animals or conservation on a greater level instead of the individual animal? This has been really been an opportunity for personal development as well as to broaden my impact, which is really satisfying.”

And anytime the desk work gets too intense, “I just have to walk outside and look at all the beautiful animals here at Mystic Aquarium, and it reminds me why I am here and why I do what I do, and that the ultimate goal for the whole aquarium is for our animal ambassadors to inspire people so that they want to care for and protect the ocean in their own lives and take action to do that.”

Allison Tuttle ’98 Senior Vice President of Zoological Operations, Mystic Aquarium, Mystic, Connecticut

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Lisa Turner ’74 Engineer, Pilot, Writer Hayesville, North Carolina

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he was at Washington College, majoring in philosophy with English and education minors, when the little voice in Lisa Turner’s head starting making itself heard through her hands.

“When I was in college I bought an old Triumph, and I was working on it, and it was really fun. I thought, ‘I’m not supposed to be doing this, I’m supposed to be setting up a career for myself,’’’ Turner says. “I thought I was going to teach English. As soon as I graduated I was going to work at the local high school. Then I turned it down. I realized this isn’t it; I need to go fix things.”

These days, young people are expected to graduate with a career firmly in their sights. But Turner says her liberal arts education, along with a stubborn independent streak, gave her the wherewithal to pursue a career that has taken her along paths she never imagined, including owning a bicycle shop and becoming a power supply engineer, a management trainer, a pilot, and a writer. She pursued advanced degrees in engineering from Palm Beach College, a master’s in business, and a doctor of management science, both from Nova Southeastern University.

And, along the way, she learned to fly.

“When I was little I used to have a dream about taking off from my back yard,” she says. “I always had an obsession with transportation 28

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and machinery and airplanes. I wasn’t reading Nancy Drew; I was reading Tom Swift. I was reading about rockets.”

She started taking flight lessons soon after college but couldn’t afford to continue them. Finally, in 1995, she completed her training.

Then, when she learned how much it would cost to rent a plane, or even buy a used one, she decided she could build one instead.

So she did. In her garage and driveway, from a kit, she built a Pulsar XP, a 150-mph composite aircraft.

“I would dream about it every night, how it would feel when I took off on my first flight, and it was every bit and more,” she says. In 1998, she flew the small plane from south Florida to Maine and back. Her latest book, an adventure-filled memoir, is Dream take Flight – An Unconventional Journey, that details her journey in the airplane and her journey through life.

“I hope it’s inspirational to readers,” Turner says. “Not just to get people building and flying airplanes, but to get people thinking about all the things they really want to do in life. It can be anything—starting a business, learning the piano, writing a book.”

To see more of Lisa Turner’s work, visit DreamTakeFlight.com

Nancy Whiteman Greene ’93 Attorney, Chairman, Miles & Stockbridge Baltimore, Maryland

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hen the principals of Miles & Stockbridge asked Nancy Greene to lead the law firm where she had risen from first-year associate to equity partner, the widely respected attorney was surprised at first. She knew several other well-qualified candidates were being considered. A practice group leader in real estate and finance with 20 years’ experience, she would be the first woman to lead the Maryland-based law firm, and one of only 15 female chairs among the top 200 firms in the country.

In 2018 Greene was elected chair of the second-largest law firm in greater Baltimore, where she continues to push for greater diversity among its legal team. In addition to unconscious bias training, Miles & Stockbridge uses broad hiring practices that encourage individuals to interview regardless of gender identity, race, sexual orientation, or ethnic background.

Greene’s experience as a woman in a male-dominated field has been overwhelmingly positive. She credits that to her early education at an all-girls school, parents who both worked, and environments where women are really supported. She recognizes that she’s been fortunate in that regard.

“I never had a mindset that I would be any different in any profession – almost naively so,” Greene recalls. “I will say while at

Washington College I felt very empowered and I didn’t feel like there were any real gender differences in class participation or opportunities or access to professors. I had a similar experience at law school. When I joined Miles & Stockbridge, I came into a practice group that was definitely male-dominated. I was at the time the only female associate in my practice area. And all of the clients I interacted with were male.

That was a real eye-opener. ‘Wow,’ I thought. ‘This is a male-dominated profession?’ But all the men I worked with at the firm were completely supportive of me. I always had really good role models and mentors.”

One of her responsibilities as chairman is to make sure that those mentoring programs remain robust.

“I have an open-door policy. I will mentor anyone who comes in for questions about the work I do in real estate and finance,” she says.

“We have mentoring programs firmwide and within specific affinity groups. Within our Women’s Network, for instance, many informal mentoring relationships have developed through the years. Because of their success, we are taking it a step further this year by asking more seasoned women in our firm to formally mentor our associates who are up for partner in the next year or so—advising them on what to expect and the soft skills needed to make partner.”

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Rebecca Corbin Loree ’00 Founder and CEO, Corbin Advisors Farmington, Connecticut

What will it take for women to have a greater role in corporate leadership?

performance, but also as a part of the broader Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) dialogue.

Drive, Tenacity, and Grit.

Why is it important that women have a seat at the table on corporate boards?

Women and men enter the workforce at roughly the same rate, and recently the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded to women has moved past 50% for the first time. So, the talent is there, but there is a clear difference between the start and end point. In fact, women in S&P 500 companies represent only about 36% of mid-level roles and only about 27% of executive and senior level roles.

Having spent over a decade engaging with highly successful women in the boardroom, C-suite, and those in my network, I often guide young women in three key ways: Be Bold. Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone is not easy, but it is essential. Take the stretch assignment, network with the leader at an off-site event, give people a sense of your strategic vision for yourself— and ask for their help in executing it.

Overdeliver and Showcase Your Strategic Mind. Many people overdeliver on their expected results and then stop there. What makes the difference is when you use this “overdelivery” to open the door to what you bring to the leadership table strategically. When you are presenting, take that opportunity to add a perspective, a different insight, more value—but in a strategic context. And don’t belabor your point.

Network Broadly and Intentionally. My network is a source of wisdom, perspective and insight—and I built it intentionally. When you are networking, focus on relationships that not only can support your learning directly today but also new growth-oriented relationships outside of your focus area. Prepare for those gifts of time, ask questions that matter, and listen intently. Develop relationships with at least two or three seasoned and successful mentors to help you navigate the professional world.

There has also been an important change in discussions at the board and C-Suite level. Gender diversity is becoming increasingly important across the Fortune 500—as part of an overall focus on improving

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Value Creation and Investment Brand.

My business is driving corporate performance and linking that to the improved valuation of global public companies. One of the key drivers of near-, mid-, and long-term corporate performance is the diversity of a company’s board. When Fortune 500 companies were ranked by the number of women directors on their boards, those in the highest quartile achieved a 40 percent higher return on sales and return on equity, clear linkage between gender diversity, and the value created for stakeholders.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, I had the opportunity to lead a panel on advancing equality in the workplace. This was a prevalent topic throughout Congress Centre, networking and business meetings, and dinner conversations. It’s an important discussion and it’s clear that organizations are beginning to understand the need to build a pipeline of talented women in order to compete and differentiate their organizations as we enter the Digital Age. How are you mentoring young women?

It starts at home.

I’m the proud mother of four daughters. While one is already pursuing a successful career, I hope that by building a thriving business I’m inspiring them all to learn how to guide their generation from the front, whatever their chosen field.

As someone who has benefited from several incredible mentors, I feel a special obligation to “pay it forward.” Each of us can and should play a role in readying the next generation of leaders, both professionally and personally, and I’m excited to be part of a world where more and more women are emboldened and supported to accomplish whatever we set our minds to.

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Joyell Arvella ’10 Racial and Gender Equity Strategist, Law Professor and Womanist Writer, Baltimore, Maryland

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he was called the N-word on campus. She was harassed on one hand, and trotted out as the first Vincent Hynson Scholar on the other.

Professors discouraged her from studying premed because, they said, “someone like her” wouldn’t be able handle it. At the time, Joyell Arvella felt wronged, but she says she didn’t have the language to understand why it was wrong. Her classes with Pamela Pears, Professor of French, and Alisha Knight, Associate Professor of English and American Studies, gave her the first inkling of her own internalized oppression.

“I grew up in a family that was very much about survival and picking yourself up by your bootstraps,” Arvella recalls. “I did not know about Francophone studies, or Zora Neale Hurston, or other incredible writers my professors introduced me to. It was the first time I was able to see that what they were describing is what I was experiencing but did not realize was wrong, because we had

normalized white supremacy. That was my a-ha moment. I understood it then: Even if I do everything right, I can still lose in life.”

As a woman raced as Black who has experienced more than her share of racial bias and bigotry, Arvella decided that if she were going to bring about change for women like her, she would need to do so from within the system. The principles of restorative justice she learned in law school gave her a way to humanize the practice of law and to teach others how to build relationships based on empathy and respect.

“I probably won’t see that systemic change in my lifetime,” she says, “but I can only contribute by giving people tools to begin to behave differently, to begin to address their prejudices, to address misinformation, and to unlearn harmful narrative.”

Over the past 12 years, as a racial and gender equity strategist working through her consulting company Harp & Sword, Arvella has brought these practices of restorative

justice to tech companies, higher education, public schools, and nonprofits who want to take the first steps toward normalizing restorative justice practices in which black and brown women are no longer silenced, or spoken over, or spoken for.

“What people typically look for from me is, how do we begin to have these conversations and expose practices that have created a toxic office culture, to see how they may be operating or providing services in a tokenizing or harmful way. It begins with people looking at themselves to see how we internalize racism and sexism as individuals, even without knowing it. And how we can begin to see it, address it, and move forward.”

For some people, she says it’s hard to see that some of the things we consider “normal” are rooted in oppression and racism. “We need to get to a place of changing that and calling it out and finding the new normal. Race. Gender, Misogyny. They are all constructs, so they can be deconstructed.”

PHOTO: In addition to her teaching and training, Joyell Arvella ’10 lends her physical features to companies owned by women or brown and black people. She hopes that her modeling can combat colorism.

Photo: Schaun Champion

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Photo by Jessica Podraza on Unsplash

The New Face of American Politics

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ne of the most astute observers and inquisitive researchers in American politics today is Melissa Deckman, the Louis L. Goldstein Professor of

Public Affairs and chair of Washington College’s Department of Political Science. She’s presently on sabbatical researching a new book on how Gen Z, particularly Gen Z women, is changing the political landscape. With the presidential election only 9 months away, we thought it would be timely to ask her when a woman might be elected president, and what she is learning about the upcoming generation of young women.

By Wendy Mitman Clarke M’16

In 2016, you wrote an essay for WCM about why the nomination of Hillary Clinton mattered. Among other reasons, you said it would inspire the next generation of young women, and also potentially encourage more women to run for political office because it would help dispel the notion that women can’t succeed in the highest realms of the political arena. Then, she lost the election. Do you still think that message holds true? Or are more young people and women running for office as a response to her failure and the election of Donald Trump?

In mid-January The New York Times co-endorsed Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren for the 2020 Democratic nomination. What do you make of that?

That’s a good question; in fact, I’ve been doing some work with focus groups with young Americans to uncover the answer to that question. What I’m finding is that the surge in women running for office and in young women’s activism is really a response to the election of Donald Trump. His record on women’s issues, his past treatment of women, his misogynistic language, and his conservative policies don’t appeal to a lot of women, especially younger women. Some of my research into Gen Z Americans has shown that it’s progressive women who are most engaged in politics now. It’s really Trump’s rise, his policies, and his behavior that have motivated women to become more involved in politics.

There is the notion that a woman can’t beat the Republican incumbent, Donald Trump, in this nation’s current polarized political climate, that it’s too risky to nominate a woman. Do you think that notion has currency?

I have mixed opinions about that. The job of an editorial board is to endorse one person, so the split is a bit odd. At the same time, I think it’s a positive development that The New York Times endorsed two female candidates in what is still a crowded field. The paper did endorse Hillary Clinton in 2016, so it’s not a new phenomenon that it’s endorsing women.

The sad part to me is that this conversation is still happening.

That Trump cannot be beaten by a woman is somewhat ludicrous. Now, it might be that he won’t be beaten by Elizabeth Warren, but it won’t be because she’s a female. Her position on some issues, such as Medicare for All, perhaps may not resonate with more moderate voters in certain states. The reality, too, is that you have to take the Electoral College into

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Panelists for the 2019 program, hosted by Goucher College in November, included Maryland legislators (from left) Senator Adelaide C. Eckardt (R), Senator Mary Washington (D), Delegate Brooke Lierman (D), and Delegate Melissa Wells (D).

consideration. Hillary Clinton got three million more votes than Donald Trump. That fact seems to get glossed over. In fact, there were about 78,000 voters in three states that ultimately determined Donald Trump’s election.

The other factor to consider is the depressed voter turnout we saw in that election. Had African Americans turned out as much as they had for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton would be president today. Look at what happened in 2018. There was a surge of voter turnout that really helped capture the House for the Democrats. Now that we’ve had three years under Trump, I think you’re going to see record turnout on the Democratic side.

In 2016, your book Tea Party Women was especially timely about the growing role of women in electoral politics. Do you believe the role or influence of women has grown or changed since then?

I do think there has been a lot more activism by women on the political left. What happened in 2018 with the record number of women who ran for office and won was largely a Democratic phenomenon. With respect to the Tea Party, I don’t see conservative women necessarily rising to the top of the political right.

Trump’s cabinet is largely male. Congressional leaders on the Republican side are largely male. Granted, there have been some female success stories: Kristi Noem was elected governor of South Dakota. Nikki Haley was appointed to Ambassador to the United Nations; it’s probably no secret she’s going to run for president at some point. But generally speaking, most of the gains made by women in Congress and state legislatures in 2018 were Democratic gains.

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Tell us about your current research and new book.

I noticed a couple of years ago that young women are becoming more engaged in politics than young men, which is fascinating because this represents a significant shift in what has been a male-dominated arena. I wanted to see why that is and what it means for the future of American politics. With Gen Z—these are the youngest Americans, born after 1996—it’s now young women who are the face of politics. Consider Greta Thunberg from Sweden, who has become the face of the environmental movement worldwide; Emma Gonzalez, one of the survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting who became the face of the #Neveragain movement; Aly Raisman, the Olympic gymnast who’s become an important voice for the #MeToo movement, sharing her story about being sexually assaulted by her doctor. These stories of young, outspoken women coming to the forefront of American politics is notable, and I wanted to explore what that all might mean. So last summer, funded in part by Washington College, I surveyed 2,200 Americans aged 18 to 23 from across the country. I’m finding again that young women are significantly more engaged in politics than young men. And now I’m in the middle of unpacking all that data. This semester on leave, I’m also doing interviews and focus groups with Gen Z Americans to address this trend.

You’ve said young people are looking at policies that more closely resemble socialist policies then democratic policies.

Yes. They definitely seem more supportive of things like eliminating student loan debt, free college tuition, and Medicare for All. They’re also more skeptical of capitalism than older

generations. I’m not saying that every Gen Z American eschews capitalism, but I do think they’re more open to messages from people like Bernie Sanders. His viewpoint and policy proposals resonate with them.

I’ve got reams of data now from young Americans about their views on political issues ranging from the environment and gun control to health care, jobs, the state of the economy, reproductive rights, and women’s rights. I’m interested to see to what extent these issues have galvanized young women to be involved, especially.

What about the role of the transgender and LGBTQ community?

What’s fascinating about this new demographic is the extent to which Gen Z Americans are far more gender fluid and more comfortable expressing that they’re not straight. I’m finding that roughly only seven out of ten Gen Z American say they’re straight. Why this is interesting politically is that my research is finding that LGBTQ Americans are also more engaged in politics than their straight counterparts. Not only is gender identity and sexual orientation spilling over into politics among Gen Z, the growing diversification of this generation with respect to race and ethnicity is also having political ramifications. Many Gen Z Americans who are diverse along these lines look at someone like Donald Trump as anathema to them.

Also, there was this unrealistic optimism among many Americans after Barack Obama’s election that somehow we were living in a post-racial society. Trump’s election demonstrated the extent to which that is not true. Gen Z Americans are grappling with that reality in ways that are open and difficult, and forcing conversations that are hard to have, but ultimately productive for society.

Here we are in 2020, and we’re still talking about this gender gap, that we still haven’t seen a woman be president. What’s your feeling about that?

I fervently believe we’ll see a woman president in my lifetime— within a generation, I expect, mainly because we’re seeing more talented women coming up through the pipeline. We’re seeing more women governors, more women senators. It’s not a coincidence that the two women endorsed by The New York Times are both now in the Senate.

Women still face some handicaps, but I’m optimistic that with a growing pool of talented women in politics today we will see a woman nominated, at least on the Democratic side. I’m less optimistic about the Republican side, frankly. It’s harder to see a path for a Republican woman. The Republican party doesn’t really value diversity. In fact, they look unfavorably on identity politics, which hurts them in the long run, because when younger women aren’t seeing people who look like them in that party, they’re less inclined to want to be supportive of that party.

One of the things I’m looking at specifically in my book is the idea of role models—whether seeing someone who looks like you makes you more inclined to be involved in politics. What I’m finding in my initial experimental research is that for young women who strongly identify with gender, being exposed to candidates who are not older white males makes them more likely to engage in politics. So, I do think that seeing other young women in the political arena, especially, is having a positive effect on the political decisions of young women. That’s really important to bear in mind when we think about the future of American politics.

Do you think Gen Z Americans will put their money where their mouth is and go to the polls?

That is always the big question with young voters. Because voter turnout among young people is typically really low. However, there was a big jump in turnout from 2014 to 2018 among this age group, which leads me to suspect there’s going to be a much bigger turnout in 2020.

Professor Deckman is the author of Tea Party Women: Mama Grizzlies, Grassroots Leaders, and the Changing Face of the American Right. She also chairs the board of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute. Deckman’s insight is routinely sought by the national news media and those trying to understand the shifting trends in politics with respect to

A candidate-training workshop for college women, “Training Ms. President,” was created

by Washington College professors Melissa Deckman and Christine Wade and a colleague from Goucher, Mileah Kromer. Since the inaugural workshop in 2015, Hood College and Mount St. Mary’s University have joined the program.

gender and religion.

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Scientists in the Drone Age From Antarctica to Belize to Bermuda, three recent alumnae are finding careers in the cutting-edge science of using drones and remote sensing to study coastal and marine environments.

By Wendy Mitman Clarke M’16

Cordie Goodrich ’15 (left) readies an autonomous underwater glider at BIOS with Ruth Curry, the lead scientist in the MAGIC lab.

Photo: Tiffany Wardman, BIOS

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ashington College students participating in the Bermuda Environment field course last summer got an unexpected surprise at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) when they found WC alum Cordie Goodrich ’15 working as a glider specialist in the center’s Mid Atlantic Glider Initiative and Collaboration lab.

Goodrich, a math major with minors in biology and computer science, is one of three recent alumnae who are working in the cutting-edge science of using drones and remote sensing to study coastal and marine environments.

Anna Windle ’16, who majored in environmental science with minors in anthropology and biology, is working with satellite remote sensing to measure

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water quality as part of her PhD studies at the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science Horn Point Laboratory. And Kelly Dobroski ’16, an environmental science major with a biology minor and concentration in Chesapeake regional studies, is part of a collaborative project with Duke University, the World Wildlife Fund, and three local non-profits using drones to map mangroves and coastal habitats in Belize.

For all three, it was a path they didn’t predict as undergraduates, yet in Goodrich’s case, it has already taken her as far afield as Antarctica and now Bermuda, where she programs and flies autonomous underwater gliders that can stay at sea three months at a time, measuring data in the water column.

About once a month, she goes offshore

aboard the BIOS research ship for a week to take calibrations close to where the gliders are sampling, “just to make sure all of our measures are looking good.” Then she goes back to the lab and analyzes the data.

“I think that’s what I really enjoy about this position,” Goodrich says. “If someone said, ‘Tell me your dream job,’ I would get to work with these robots and then analyze the data, and that’s where it’s landed right now.”

Goodrich started the two-year position in late spring 2019, after spending December through February running underwater vehicles under the Nansen Ice Shelf in Antarctica, a project through UC Davis, where she had started as a technician and then had entered the PhD program. She first started working with drones at UDEL’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment,

where she interned during the summer before she graduated from WC and subsequently earned her master’s degree—in part studying the Antarctic ecosystem.

When the opportunity arose to do drone research in the Antarctic from a Korean research vessel, Goodrich already had the background knowledge and skills. Specifically, she was helping in groundbreaking research into the movement of water beneath the ice shelf in that part of Antarctica.

“It was a high-risk mission sending this vehicle under an ice shelf and thankfully it came back out,” Goodrich says. “We were going down to 1,000 meters, and when we actually went under the shelf we were at 350 to 650 meters.” Along with two lab mates, Goodrich coded the vehicle, piloted it, and ran the mission files.

After the project, she left UC Davis to take the opportunity in Bermuda. She says her path at Washington College, “although I did not know it at the time, set me up perfectly to go into this field of oceanography so that I have enough biology to understand what’s going on, as well as the computer skills; because my background was so broad, I was able to catch on to more things more easily than if I had been just a biology or math major.”

Windle and Dobroski were introduced to the field while studying for their master’s degrees in environmental management at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and its Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing Lab. Windle says she used terrestrial rovers to travel down the beach at night to study the effects of light pollution on sea turtle nesting, and aerial drones to study intertidal oyster reefs.

“I’ve always been interested in geospatial technology and science,” says Windle, whose PhD work is focused on optical remote sensing. “At Horn Point, right now I’m learning satellite remote sensing, how to download and process and analyze satellite imagery.” Specifically, she’s working on a project that uses satellite imagery to analyze water quality in the Chesapeake Bay and is working to improve the numerical algorithms to detect optical properties such as sediment and algae in the water.

“I’m using all new software and coding that I’ve never used before. It’s hard, but I am so interested in it, and the more I’m understanding everything, the more I’m like, ok we can do this and this and this,” says Windle.

Dobroski started working at Duke’s “drone lab” in a yearlong project to use drones to examine coastal habitats, starting with salt marshes.

“The traditional way is to walk through the marsh, literally counting stems,” Dobroski says. “Drones can more rapidly assess the status of salt marshes.”

That experience positioned her perfectly to be project manager of a collaboration among the World Wildlife Fund, Toledo Institute for Development and Environment, the Southern Environmental Alliance, and the Sarteneja Alliance for Conservation and Development to use drones to map mangroves and coastal habitats in Belize.

“I was not actually flying the drones, but I was helping with capture and release because we were launching from a boat,” she says. “My role was managing the project, making sure the team was communicating well about data management and making timelines.”

Above: Anna Windle ’16 collects water samples to compare to satellite estimations of chlorophyll.

Left: Kelly Dobroski ’15 prepares to catch a drone in Belize.

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The Journey By

By Fred Fred Wyman Wyman

The former tennis coach who transformed the men’s tennis program into a national powerhouse grieves for the player who made it all possible. Claudio Gonzalez ’87 passed away Sept. 18, 2019, but not before returning to Chestertown to visit with old friends.

Claudio Gonzalez ’87 at the top of his game.

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ate last summer I learned a hard lesson: Sometimes the longest journey isn’t achieved by traveling the greatest distance. Rather, it’s overcoming the most pain on the path. I found that out when Claudio Gonzalez came back to Kent County to visit his old college teammates for the last time.

Don’t get me wrong: Claudio came a long way—from Mexico City—to see us. But he had to overcome an awful lot to get here.

At the time, Claudio was wasting away from colon cancer. So much so there was barely anything left of him. His once thick and beautiful black hair was all gone, lost to rounds of chemotherapy. His athletic and graceful body that had thrilled fans of great tennis back in the 1980s had shrunk to less

was a very fine basketball coach who put in time on the tennis court as a favor to Ed Athey ’47, the legendary athletics director who wanted a tennis team even though expectations were low.

As any old Shoreman knows, spring in Chestertown is all about the clash of sticks. Washington College has always been a lacrosse school. Back in the 1980s, the stickmen under Coach Terry Corcoran were as good as those of any Division I program in the country. They always played Hopkins closely, and they beat Navy and their national Player of the Year, Glen Miles, twice.

Washington also beat Hobart in those years, and Hobart beat Division I, number-one ranked Syracuse.

reality. “Well, frankly,” I said, “we’re not playing for fun anymore.”

He left the team and never came back. It was a new day.

I had big plans for Washington College tennis. I wanted to assemble a perennial NCAA national championship contender as soon as possible. But I wasn’t sure I was even up for the job. The fact was, I had never been a head tennis coach before. Outside of a few tournaments, I had never played competitive tennis. Most importantly, I hadn’t yet recruited a single player to our program.

And then my luck changed. I went up against a young player in a summer tournament in Delaware. He had just

Tennis was never competitive and was never expected to be. It wasn’t a sport for “real” athletes; it was for ordinary students who liked tennis. The year before I took over, the team’s record was 2 and 8.

Soon after I was named head coach, one of the top players from the old regime noticed that I was pursuing a higher-caliber athlete for the squad. He came to see me and asked about the future of players like him who had played for fun.

I patted that nice young boy on the shoulder and then let him in on a harsh

graduated from high school. I lost to him but admired what a tough competitor he was. So, I made the most of the encounter.

“Where are you going to college?” I asked.

“University of Delaware.”

“Well, have you ever considered Washington College?”

“Nope.”

I put the full court press on Dave Marshall and soon he was packed and headed to Chestertown. And that was just the beginning. After that, a University of Maryland player named Ross Coleman came

The 1985 tennis team included (front row, from left) Ross Coleman ’87, David Dill ’88, Paul Bress ’87, Dave Marshall ’88, and Claudio Gonzalez ’87. Back Row: Coach Fred Wyman, Bryan Bishop, Tim Gray ’86, Dulin Clark ’86, and Coach Tom Finnegan ’65.

than 100 pounds. His legs and arms were stick-thin. His gait was labored and slow. And his skin was now translucent and so sensitive to sunlight that he had to wear a large hat to protect his face and neck.

Many of Claudio’s old friends were there to greet him and spend time with him. It’s unlikely that they would have attended Washington College or starred on its nationally prominent tennis teams if it had not been for him.

I took over coaching the tennis team back in 1984. My predecessor, Tom Finnegan ’65,

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to play in a tournament that Marty Kabat ’63, Holly Bramble ’74, and I ran in Chestertown.

He wasn’t getting much playing time at Maryland, so I asked if he would consider coming to WC too.

He did. I warned him that Washington College was nothing like his home in Northwest Baltimore or College Park, and he said he didn’t mind. But it only took two weeks of small-town life before he wanted out.

Luckily, his father stepped in.

“Give Fred and Washington College a chance,” Dr. Coleman told his son. “Stick it out at least until the end of the semester.”

With Ross newly committed, he took me to College Park to meet some other players who might be willing to jump ship. Ross introduced me to Tim Gray and Paul Bress.

Tim was an incredibly good athlete and Paul was so skilled he would ultimately become our number one.

And there was one more player at Maryland—a small, slightly built Mexican kid named Claudio Gonzalez.

Claudio wasn’t even enrolled at Maryland.

He was only there visiting a friend. He actually went to school in Mexico City.

On the way back to Chestertown, Ross and I talked about convincing Paul and Tim to come play with us. And then we discussed trying to find one more player.

“How about Claudio?” Ross asked.

I didn’t think we had much of a chance.

We’d have to uproot him from his home country and convince him that if he did leave Mexico then Washington College was the right school for him.

And there was just one other problem.

Claudio couldn’t speak a word of English.

I have to admit I was floored when somehow Ross convinced him, and Claudio told us he wanted to be a Shoreman. But there was still the small matter of his language barrier.

Professor George Shivers stepped up and tutored Claudio every day. He was a bright and intense student, and after just a few months he could speak English as well as I could—in other words, just well enough to be admitted to Washington College that January.

From that day on, Claudio became the pivotal man in everything I had hoped to achieve.

That spring, with all of our new players, including Claudio, we won 17 matches. That was a far cry from the previous year’s two lonesome victories. Playing in the critical number five position, Claudio dominated his competition and made all of that success possible.

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“Off the court he was small, only 5 feet, 6 inches tall and 140 pounds, with a winning smile and an easy sense of humor. But on the court, with his wavy black hair aind inky dark eyes, he was transformed into a matador. He was fearless and ferocious out there, and he hardly ever lost.”

Off the court he was small, only 5 feet, 6 inches tall and 140 pounds, with a winning smile and an easy sense of humor. But on the court, with his wavy black hair and inky dark eyes, he was transformed into a matador. He was fearless and ferocious out there, and he hardly ever lost.

In fact, he won 50 matches that year, singles and doubles combined—more than anyone else on the team.

It was a triumphant season for Claudio and our team, but we barely had time to enjoy it. Early the next year, our best player, Paul Bress, informed me that he was going to return to the University of Maryland. So everything we had achieved the year before was plunged into doubt.

I didn’t say anything to the team, but without Paul, I was pessimistic about our chances of building on our success. In fact, I thought it was more likely that we would regress.

As everyone got ready to scatter for winter break, I was down. Then came a voice I never expected. Claudio told me he was going back to Mexico for the break.

“Don’t worry, Federico,” he said. “I’ll find us some players.”

And, boy, did he.

Claudio came back to the U.S. with Enrique Leal and Alejandro Hernandez. The second season that began with so much uncertainly ended as a triumph. We won 23 matches, including a monumental upset against Emory University in Atlanta that catapulted us into the NCAA national tournament for the first time in school history.

In those days only eight schools made the tournament and it was incredibly hard to get there. We went with the expectation of winning, but we had the unfortunate luck to be pitted against Kalamazoo College, the defending national champs, in our first match. We lost to the Hornets who went on to win the title for the second straight year. We never stopped battling, and finished seventh.

It was, considering where we had come from, an incredible achievement.

And none of it would have been possible without Alejandro and Enrique, the two players Claudio recruited for us in Mexico.

Those two became our first-ever tennis AllAmericans. Alejandro finished the season as the number four player in Division III across the entire United States.

Claudio, through his play and his recruiting efforts, had almost singlehandedly transformed our program into one of the best in the country.

He loved Washington College, but the truth was, he was unique here. The student body at that time, during Ronald Reagan’s era, was uniformly homogenous. Claudio personally diversified the place. He eventually brought in 11 All-American players to our program from South America. Eight of them became Washington College Hall of Famers and all but one of them graduated. The tennis team led the way for school diversity. In addition to the Latinos, we also had a player from the Deep South, a couple of players from South Africa, an Irishman, Germans, Poles, a Soviet, players from the former Yugoslavia, a Frenchman, Canadians, a New Zealander, an Indian, a Pakistani, and several Jewish players.

Despite the cultural differences on our team, they were a happy band of brothers.

We felt it was good example for the rest of the College and, for that matter, the Eastern Shore too. And it all started with Ross Coleman and Claudio.

Long after Claudio left Washington College, the pipeline he created continued to sustain the program. In 1992 my former player and protégé Tim Gray got the job to replace me as coach. His 1994 team won the NCAA Division III national championship with three Latinos on the squad.

After a stint at Harvard for graduate classes, Claudio reversed his course and went back to Mexico. Not surprisingly, he was a success in both marriage and business. He loved woodworking and designed and built the house he shared with his wife, Rosemary.

Of course, we welcomed Rosemary into our Washington College family too—not only because she was Claudio’s wife, but also because she loved him so dearly. Whenever I saw her or spoke to her on the phone, she was effusive in expressing how much she admired her husband. After he became sick, she took care of him like few others would have. If you knew them, you could feel their mutual desperation as they prepared for the possibility, even the inevitability, that their story would soon end and they would be forced to take divergent roads.

If you knew them and saw this, you couldn’t help but be touched by the beauty of their love for one another, and the anguish of their prospective parting.

As he aged, and even as he got sick, Claudio never stopped being the young bullfighter I remembered from the 1980s.

He played well enough to be ranked number one in his age group in Mexico. After he got cancer, he was forced to play while wearing a colostomy bag.

I admired his unwillingness to give in to his disease even while the humiliation of it all made me ache for him.

But there was nothing in Claudio that I witnessed over the years or appreciated so much as that long, last journey he made to Chestertown. Knowing that he was getting closer and closer to the finish line, he didn’t want to go to some exotic locale. He craved the familiar.

Here in Chestertown he conversed and dined one last time with the teammates that he treasured and that he himself had played such a huge role in assembling. Staying at Crow Vineyards’ bed-and-breakfast, he didn’t have enough energy to walk through the vineyard after dinner, but he mustered the strength to play tennis in the morning with his usual gusto.

He played that day on a court named in his honor. One last time, he ran back and forth and smashed his forehands down the line and outfoxed his opponents, all the while looking at his own name, looming over the Washington College tennis complex.

As I watched this, I couldn’t help but think how fitting it was.

Now that he is gone, I often wonder which was longer: his journey to Chestertown the first time, when he had the courage to come so far from home as a boy? Or the last time, when he fought through the pain that was killing him, just to be here with his old coach and teammates?

I guess I’ll never know the answer to that one. But I’ll tell you what. As long as I’m alive, he’ll never leave Chestertown again. Claudio will always be right here with me, in my head and in my grateful heart.

Claudio Gonzalez ’87 (center) returned to Chestertown to visit old friends, including (from left) Peter Maller ’90, Alberto Diaz ’94, Vince Maximo ’90, and Tim Gray ’86.

One of Fred Wyman's earliest dream teams included (from left) Claudio Gonzalez ’87, Tim Gray ’86, Dave Marshall ’88, and Paul Bress ’87. Coaches Finnegan and Wyman are also pictured.

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By Jillian Clark Gibson

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Tales from the President’s Daughter Hynson-Ringgold House has been the official residence for Washington College presidents for more than 70 years, but during only one presidential tenure have the songs of children’s laughter, family music sessions, and teenage parties punctuated the official business of College entertaining. The daughter of former Washington College President Daniel Gibson reflects on her childhood there.

T

o the students and faculty of Washington College and to Chestertown visitors, the HynsonRinggold House is a stately, colonial-era mansion overlooking the Chester River.

Some people may have seen the house during a visit to the campus; others may have enjoyed its colonial charms during a tour of Chestertown’s historic homes.

The Hynson-Ringgold House is all of those things for me, too. But first and foremost, it is my childhood home, where I lived from the time I was 18 months old until I was nearly 22.

By the late 1940s, when the house became the official residence for Washington College presidents, it had passed through many hands in its storied 200-year history. It had served as a drinking club for the Redcoats during the Revolutionary War. It had played host to George Washington (yes, Washington slept there), Ben Franklin, Sam Houston, Rembrandt Peale, and other notables. James Alfred Pearce, a U.S. Senator and diplomat

who had helped settle disputes between the North and South prior to the Civil War, owned the house at one time. Among its 20th-century owners were Henry and Ilma Catlin; in 1932 Mrs. Catlin sold the original paneling over the fireplace in the East Room to the Baltimore Museum of Art, where “The Chestertown Room” can still be seen. That paneling is unique in that it features a carving of Lord Baltimore’s two ships, the Ark and the Dove.

My father, Daniel Gibson, became President of the College in 1950 and we were the first family to live in the house following its restoration. While many presidents have occupied the house in the nearly 50 years since we vacated its premises, my dad and my mom, Helen, were the only presidential occupants with very young children. I was not quite 2 when we moved into the house; my brother Dan was 8 and my late sister Mary Laurent was 6.

I have fond memories of college students living with us, helping my mother with child

care. These were students who had tuition scholarships but couldn’t afford room and board. Our first au pair was a young woman named Laimdota Sausais, an émigré from Latvia, who lived with us for all her college years. I said a tearful goodbye to Laima when she graduated in 1955. Shortly thereafter, Ilona Mathé from Hungary, another Iron Curtain émigré, lived with us for two years.

One of the first things my mother did after moving in was to purchase antiques for the house. She had a real eye for what was appropriate for a colonial-era home and she used her limited budget wisely. The home became a real showplace. She also planted a magnificent rose garden and cultivated the two Magnolia granda flora trees that stand in the garden to the side of the house. I still remember the aroma of fresh magnolia blossoms that filled the house each spring.

My parents entertained a lot. In fact, my mother thought nothing of hosting 70 or 80 people for dinner. She filled all the downstairs SPRING 2020

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“I’d love to know whose idea it was to pose me in yellow Doctor Denton’s with a big teddy bear in my arms!” rooms with small dining tables and brought her flair for entertaining to the festivities.

Every Christmas they hosted faculty and spouses for a buffet dinner. One year, an electrical outage struck a few hours before the dinner; John Linville, head of the College food service at the time, took his cue from my mother who simply turned the occasion into a candlelit dinner.

Growing up as the daughter of the College president in a small town was not easy.

Many people depended on the College for employment, and decisions made by my father, particularly when it came to staffing, reverberated through town and often affected us in school. But life in the Hynson-Ringgold House was a blast. It is a house filled with nooks and crannies, perfect for hide and seek.

I loved escaping to my favorite attic room to read a new book, or having friends over to explore the dirt basement with its tunnels that were rumored to be part of the Underground Railway. And because the house was so big, we each had our own bedroom, with plenty of space for guests. At that time the house had 11 working fireplaces. I even had one in my bathroom, which had been the nursery during the house’s colonial years. During the winter the fireplaces were in constant use.

My mother was a gifted classical pianist with a master’s degree in piano from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. She was a true partner to my father, and I’m proud to say that she started not only the Women’s League of Washington College, but also the classical concert series that continues to this day. Our home was filled with music—all the time. If it wasn’t Mother on the Steinway grand piano in the drawing room, it was my sister or me practicing the scales or struggling through a new piece of piano music, or my brother practicing the violin, or me on the clarinet, or my sister on the flute.

On Saturdays the sounds of the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts filled the house.

On Monday nights, my mother would gather in the drawing room with history professor Nate Smith (violin), philosophy professor Bob Harder (violin), local jeweler and Renaissance man Bob Forney (viola), and other assorted musicians who filtered in and out to play classical music. Beautiful chamber music 46

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filled our home. Through her studies, my mother had made the acquaintance of a Kentucky balladeer by the name of John Jacob Niles, and their friendship had deepened through the years; John Jacob would visit with his myriad musical instruments. I have fond memories of sitting at his feet while he played the balalaika or mandolin.

There was no better house for parties. My classmates at Chestertown High School loved to party, and I had the perfect venue. I believe I hosted the very first “boy-girl” dance party.

When we got a bit older and were starting to experiment with drinking beer, I remember my friends would walk down Water Street, throw their six-packs over the brick wall that surrounds the front of the house, walk in and greet my parents (“What nice young boys and girls you are”) and then, once my parents had retired upstairs, retrieve their beer from the garden.

And then there was the ghost. After all, what 18th-century home doesn’t have one?

Ours was reputed to be the widow of a ship’s captain who had died at sea; the widow wandered the halls of the house asking everyone she met: “Where are you going”? I never saw her, but I believe I heard her a couple of times, as did several of my friends. During my father’s tenure as president, he and my mother regularly hosted members of the Board of Visitors and Governors and their spouses for lunch or dinner. On one such occasion, a board member’s wife asked my mother about the ghost; my mother demurred but the woman was apparently insistent. My mother told her the legend that, if you walked up the “wrong” side of the double antler staircase, you might encounter her. This woman decided to test out the theory. She was gone for what seemed like a long time and, to hear my mother tell the story, when the woman returned, she was visibly shaken, refused to talk about her experience, and vowed to never set foot in the house again—and she never did (even though her husband remained on the board for some years).

In the mid-1950s, lightning from a violent summer squall felled the huge mulberry tree in the side garden, literally cutting the house in half. For months, we had to walk outside in order to get from the kitchen to the front of

the house. It was fortunate that no one was in the house when the tree fell. Also in the mid1950s, we had an early spring snowstorm that knocked out power to Chestertown for several days. As luck would have it, my parents were out of town and missed the whole thing.

Because we had fireplaces to heat the house, several faculty members who had elderly parents living with them camped out with us. We had sleeping bags and mattresses all through the house with beautiful warming fires blazing through all hours.

In April 1954, National Geographic magazine ran a feature on Maryland’s colonial homes called “Roving Maryland’s Cavalier Country.” The Hynson-Ringgold House was one of the homes pictured and the photo used was of my family sitting in the living room between the two sides of the antler staircase. I was 5 when the picture was taken; I’d love to know whose idea it was to pose me in yellow Doctor Denton’s with a big teddy bear in my arms!

I loved living in the H-R House. While growing up as the daughter of a small-town college president had its challenges, living in that house was special. My father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1965; as his health deteriorated, it was clear he needed to step down as president and so, in 1970, after 20 years working to build his beloved Washington College, he retired. It was a difficult time for all of us. My father loved Washington College and he poured his life into it. For me, the hardest thing about Dad’s decision was leaving the only home I’d ever known. Yes, I was an adult by that time and, yes, I was away finishing college, but it was still painful.

It’s hard for me not to think of the HynsonRinggold House as “my” house. I will be forever grateful to President Landgraf for inviting me to revisit the house last year. I spent several hours exploring every nook and cranny, really for the first time since I moved from the house nearly 50 years ago. Oh, the memories that washed over me. Thank you for the opportunity.

The Gibson family occupied the 18th-century Hynson-Ringgold House throughout President Gibson’s 20-year tenure. Pictured clockwise from far left in this circa 1954 photo: President Daniel Gibson, young Dan, Mary Laurent, Jillian, and Helen Gibson. National Geographic photo from the Gibson family collection

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CLASS NOTES 4 8 | BIRTHS & ADOPTIONS 55 | WEDDINGS 56 | OBITUARIES 58

In October 2019, a small alumni group traveled to Cuba with Ken Schweitzer, Associate Professor of Music, and Aaron Lampman, Associate Professor of Anthropology to experience Cuban music, art, culture, cuisine and politics. Missed out? There's another trip to Cuba in the works, as well as a summer trip to Ireland and a trip to the Southwest United States in September. For more information contact Nina Fleegle ’06, Associate Director of Alumni & Constituent Engagement, at nfleegle2@washcoll.edu.

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exotic ‘semester abroad’ programs, so we have seen them on the odd weekend traipsing over from Madrid/Lugano/Dublin.

To think that you and I used to be happily satisfied with a beach party at Betterton or Rock Hall!”

WC Alumni: Share your news!

We are proud to share your stories with our community in “Class Notes.” Submit your alumni news and photos to

1958

CLASS_NOTES@WASHCOLL.EDU

Jenny Butler ’79, who starting flying 43 years ago, is still working as a commercial pilot, flying the Airbus 330 on international routes (mostly to Dublin, Ireland) for American Airlines. A Pickleball addict, she spends her days off either drilling or playing.

1956

Ed Bair has moved from San Diego to a retirement community in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, where he is closer to children Jon, Bridget, and Jeanette.

James Bedrock ’11, an economics major with more than 10 years’ experience in the financial services industry, has returned to Chestertown to work as a financial adviser with Valliant Wealth Strategies. After graduation, the former participant in the Brown Advisory Student Investment Fund Program spent eight years in institutional sales and marketing in New York and New Jersey. Valliant Wealth Strategies is an independently owned financial services practice on the Eastern Shore.

After 30 years living in Avalon, New Jersey, and with “relentless pressure” from their children, Chuck Covington, and his wife, Lynn Covington ’54, moved to a continuing care retirement community in Ambler, Pennsylvania. Their move date happened to coincide with their 63rd wedding anniversary on May 30.

John Richey and his wife, Panna, are staying close to home in Wormley, a village in Surrey, England, where they are able to spend quality time with the grandchildren. They took one grandson to Austria/Switzerland in late June for a little holiday, as he performed well academically and qualified for the International Baccalaureate program in St. Petersburg, Florida. Writing to classmate Chuck Covington, John says: “The other grandchildren are mostly old enough to be swanning around with today’s

William Rex Lenderman has been an attorney in Maryland, specializing in financial and estate planning, for more than 50 years. He began working in the trust department of what is now PNC Bank, where he noted that all the top executives held law degrees. With financial support from his employer, he earned the Doctor of Jurisprudence degree in 1961. He has received a number of honors and awards, including Worldwide Who’s Who VIP of the Year, Social Book Global Who’s Who Executive Professional of the Year, and Cambridge Professional of the Year in Financial and Estate Planning. He has served as president of the Baltimore Estate Planning Council and as a board member of the University of Baltimore School of Law, where he earned his JD. James W. Lewis played in the Lindsay Tanton ’88 Memorial Tennis Tournament with fellow alumni and members of the WC tennis team on Sept. 21, 2019.

Jim was also vice captain of the USTA Northern tennis team that recently won a national title in Arizona.

1972

Martha Schilpp Gound has retired and lives in Kernersville, North Carolina, with her husband of 46 years. They are close to their two daughters and three grandchildren.

1976

Six years ago, Susan Duffin retired from the Georgia Dept. of Labor and launched a writing and editing business. It has been a great success and she continues to support writers in their goals.

For the past four years, Susan

has been living on the coast of Florida—her dream destination.

She hopes to see classmates at the 50th reunion a few years from now.

1979

Mary Anne Espenshade retired in August after 40 years spent programming computers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. She joined a local knitting group in Columbia and ran into Eilene Koenigsberg there. She’s also still playing recorder in Consort Anon, which recently marked their 40th year performing at the Maryland Renaissance Festival.

1981

Kathy Waye, of Penn Yan, New York, received Keuka College's Donald and Corinne Stork Award for Community Service in 2018. The Stork Award recognizes those individuals who exemplify the college's historic commitment to the value and benefit of using individual initiative for the common good.

1982

Arlene Lee retired two years ago. She enjoys traveling and spending time as a pro bono immigration lawyer and as an active member of the Kent County Social Action Committee for Racial Justice. “Busy as ever.

Retirement is awesome!!”

1984

James Porter retired from Prince George’s County Fire/ EMS Department, with the rank of Lieutenant. In his 20-year career, Jamie served as a paramedic, crew on the fire boat, and for the last two years as a shift officer on the HAZMAT unit.

1993

Eleanor Shriver Magee and her family have relocated to Baltimore County. Her son, now 15, is attending boarding school in upstate New York. She enjoys her work as chief operating officer for Players Philanthropy Fund, which allows her to help her SPRING 2020

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Over the 2018 Thanksgiving holiday, Linda Brettschneider Drawsky ’76 and her husband, Mike, visited Washington College friends including Jeff and Susan Aiken Coomer ’77 in Chestertown and Nancy Beery Gabell ’73, husband Greg Gabell ’75, and sister Suzie Beery Ebbert ’76 in the Towson area. Jeff and Susan have built a lovely home in the historic district of Chestertown, and Nancy and Greg live in a spacious restored home, originally constructed in 1888 in Towson. Linda and Mike always enjoy reconnecting with family and friends in the Maryland and Pennsylvania area Pictured: Linda Brettschneider Drawsky ’76, Suzanne Beery Ebbert ’76, Greg Gabell ’75, and Nancy Beery Gabell ’73.

Pictured: Jeff Coomer ’77, Susan Aiken Coomer ’77, and Linda Brettschneider Drawsky ’76.

Jacob Risner ’07, Emily Storm Risner ’07, and their family have lived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, since 2015. Jacob works for RTI International, an independent nonprofit research institute, and is the operations director for the USAID-funded All Children Reading-Cambodia project. The project supports the Cambodian Ministry of Education to improve children’s early grade Khmer-language literacy.

sister Pam with her philanthropy.

Eleanor continues to volunteer for WC’s Hall of Fame Committee and admissions efforts.

Yvette Hynson is hosting a new radio show on WKHS, 90.5 FM, “The Sunday Jazz Experience.”

She plays classic, traditional, and contemporary jazz and blues Sunday evenings from 6-8 pm.

The show also streams live at www.wkhsradio.org.

1999

Eric Johnson is the new emergency management planner for the Queen Anne’s County Department of Emergency Services. In this role, Eric, who grew up in Queen Anne's County, is responsible for the emergency plan’s development and execution, exercise planning/design,

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grant writing, and work with the emergency operations center staffing/planning.

2000

Chad Dean recently visited his 50th state on a national parks trip to Alaska. He has now experienced 365 of the 419 units of the National Park System.

Kirsten Krauss, a social studies teacher at Kent County High School for the past 20 years, has been named the Kent County Teacher of the Year for 2019-20.

Dan Vayda welcomed a new son at the end of last year; James William was born Dec. 30, 2018, and siblings Brendan, 7, and Mullaney, 5, are very excited. He is divisional director for family and outreach therapy at Aspire Health Alliance in Boston.

2001

Amanda Sutton Delcher sends a big hello from Willow Street, Pennsylvania, reporting that she has been married to husband, Josh, for 17 years.

They have two boys, ages 15 and 9. She works as a support coordinator for Lancaster County Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, setting up services for individuals with intellectual disorders and autism.

Scott DeVore has been appointed chairman of the board for the Jacksonville, Florida-based 501c3 non-profit organization, The Right 2 Work Corporation (R2W), having previously served as a board member since 2017. R2W is a federal contractor that provides disabled persons with vocational training and is designed to include not only employment

opportunities but offers an excellent learning experience to help in making better individual decisions concerning their own lives, their welfare, and their personal support. In addition to his advising roles, Scott runs his construction and real estate firm DeVore Capital Contracting Consulting Inc., which he launched in 2013 with offices in Jacksonville, Florida and Los Angeles, California. He operates multiple DBAs under his firm to cater to the business specialties he serves: DeVore Capital Construction, DeVore Capital Roofing, and DCRE (DeVore Capital Real Estate).

Scott has obtained multiple professional certifications/licenses over the years including Certified General Contractor, Certified Roofing Contractor, Real Estate & Business Broker, and Project Management Professional.

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2004

Brian Krist is living with his family in New York and has been working for the past three years as a special assistant corporation counsel to the New York City Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement. He advises the part of the Mayor’s Office charged with coordinating quality-of-life enforcement to make the city a better place to work and live.

Jan van Ewijk started a new job as a policy officer at the Netherlands Financial Markets Authority in Amsterdam in September 2019.

2011

James Winn received a Master’s of Agriculture (Range and Wildlife Management) last spring from Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas.

2007

2012

The Maryland Chamber of Commerce hired Ashley Duckman as the vice president of government affairs last July. She leads advocacy efforts on behalf of the 4,500+ members of the Maryland Chamber before the Maryland General Assembly and on the federal level.

2013

In late February 2019, Brandon Righi started a new job with the global commercial insurance brokerage firm Lockton Companies, joining the firm’s New York City office. He is the acting risk manager for a Lockton client based in Edison, New Jersey.

2009

In May, Seth Olson graduated from Yale School of Management, earning his MBA with a concentration in asset management. On July 6, 2019, he and Becky Staiger were wed in Norwich, Vermont, among family and friends. At the end of the summer, he left Bridgewater Associates after nearly 10 years as they packed up their East Coast lives and road-tripped across the U.S. with their black lab puppy Ruby, to start their next chapter in the San Francisco Bay area. Seth has a managerial position within eBay’s accounting systems team in San Jose, California.

Chris Todd advanced to the semifinals in the 2019 Austin Film Festival script competition in the comedy television pilot category.

The Austin Film Festival is a highly regarded writing competition and the semifinalist distinction represents roughly the top 2 percent of all screenplay entries.

Dylan Rose Grimes ’19, daughter of Maria Rose Hynson ’15, graduated from Washington College on May 19, 2019, having completed both her B.S. in biology and her B.A. in art & art history. Dylan was awarded the Lynette Nielsen Juror’s Choice Award for the most outstanding work of art in the Senior Capstone Exhibition. A member of the College’s Habitat for Humanity Club all four years of her collegiate career, Dylan began full-time work as the volunteer coordinator for the Central Delaware Habitat for Humanity affiliate the week after Commencement.

Courtney Burton completed a PhD in neuroscience through the Biomedical & Health Sciences Institute of the University of Georgia. She now holds a contract position as a neuroimaging researcher at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

Jenny Lee and her husband, Ricky, live in Chestertown with their cat, Minnie. Jenny, an environmental major, now works for Kent County's Soil Conservation District helping farmers protect soil and water quality on their farms. Ricky is a talk radio producer working in Milford, Delaware.

2014

Ashley CarolFingerhut is the executive director of the Louis Shulman Hillel Foundation at the University of Iowa’s Aliber Center for Jewish Life.

Misato Nakayama,an international studies major from Japan, has been awarded a Fulbright grant for graduate study of journalism/data studies in the United States. She is applying now for admission to an Ivy League school this fall.

Kim Uslin recently accepted a new position as the communications and marketing specialist at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service in Baltimore.

Shelley Sharp ’78, CEO of the Ryan Nece Foundation, led a hurricane relief volunteer project in the Florida Panhandle with high school students in the Community Leadership Program. Shelley enjoyed seeing Deborah ’78 and Eric ’74 Stoll in Tampa last winter and attended the inaugural Tampa Bay Toast to George event with them.

Washington College’s 2018-19 sports performance staff—three alumni and two student interns—attended the National Strength and Conditioning Association conference last summer in Washington, DC. This was an opportunity for them to learn from nationally recognized strength and condition and fitness professionals so they can better serve Washington College athletes.

Pictured from left: Maddie Mullen ’17, Clare Ingersoll ’19, Jonnie Jenkins ’07 M’09, John Weston ’15, and Charlie Wittich ’21. Mullen has since accepted a position at Salisbury University, where she is a graduate assistant coach, and Ingersoll has joined the WC staff full-time. Wittich, a history major with a minor in German studies, is also an intern in the Eastern Shore Food Lab.

From left, good friends Bill Williams ’76, Peter Murphy ’76, and Jerry Moye ’75 got together in Baltimore last March for a Joe Bonamassa concert.

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Kelly Ward graduated in May 2019 from Notre Dame of Maryland University School of Pharmacy with a doctor of pharmacy degree.

2015

Darius Johnson was promoted to communication manager at Eastern Shore Land Conservancy in October 2019. He previously served as community revitalization project manager there.

2017

Alexis Jordan, a four-year letter winner and a team captain for the Shorewomen volleyball team, has returned to WC as an assistant volleyball coach. For the past two years she has coached volleyball in her native Florida—at Palm Beach Central High School in Wellington and with Tribe Volleyball Academy in Pompano.

As a student-athlete at WC, she was a three-time Centennial Conference Academic Honor Roll qualifier and was Washington’s representative on the conference's All-Sportsmanship Team as a senior.

Norman Memorial Prize 17/18 for the most outstanding MSc Economics dissertation. She returned to the San Francisco Bay Area in January 2019 where she works for Western Digital as a business marketing analyst on the pricing team; she is responsible for pricing products within Latin American markets.

2018

Breanna Caruso is an assistant preschool teacher at Peacock Family Services in Bainbridge Island, Washington.

2019

Kaitlyn Marino is a PhD student in the neuroscience training program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is supported fully by a training grant that allows her to explore research in multiple laboratories before committing to a lab for her dissertation research. She recently started her second of four rotations through lab that focus on the mechanisms of the brain’s recovery from traumas such as seizures and strokes.

From left, Alan Payne ’68, King Seeger ’67, Cynthia Peddicord Lehmann ’68, and Ed Lehmann ’67 got together to celebrate making it to 75 years.

Erin Coffman is working as the Front of House manager at a local professional theatre, which is something she very much enjoys. Two summers ago Erin directed a play at the New Jersey State Fringe Festival and did a little acting as well. She directed another at this year’s New York Summerfest.

Correction: Jim Scott '59 wrote in to let us know that we misidentified one of the young men pictured with him and his fellow Kappa Alpha brothers. The student identified as Bob Warren ’60 is not Scott’s little brother Bob Warren ’60, but is actually a Phi Sig, Edgar Dryden ’59.

Audrey Utchen graduated in December 2018 from the University of Exeter in England with her Master’s in Behavioral Economics and Finance. She received a Distinction—the highest academic recognition in the UK education system— for both her overall result and for her dissertation, which investigated the impact of gender bias as it relates to online fundraising campaigns.

She also received the Philip

2020 Alumni Broadsides Series

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Will Brandenburg ’93 M’95 (pictured with Mary Warthen Brandenburg ’61 at left) celebrated his daughter Darby’s graduation from Notre Dame Prep School in Towson last spring. Darby is enrolled in the aerospace engineering program and is part of the honors college at University of Maryland.

The couple’s son William is in his sophomore year of high school at Loyola Blakefield in Towson.

Attention Writers!

Submissions are due April 25 to series organizers Sarah Ensor ’00 (write2sarah@gmail. com) and Raymond Cummings ’99 (elisionbebop@gmail. com). Please limit individual, single-page submissions to five. Five finalist entries will be posted around campus during Commencement and Alumni Weekend, May 15-17.

Elizabeth McGee ’93 was excited to find her dream home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

A L U M N I U P DAT E | C L A S S N O T E S

Sean Rapelyea ’08, a political strategist who has worked for the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and most recently for Illinois gubernatorial candidate J.B. Pritzer, received the Alumni Horizon Ribbon Award at Fall Convocation in August 2019. He is now Pritzer’s deputy chief of staff for external affairs.

Tamzin B. Smith Portrait Photography

On October 19, 2019, the newest class of inductees joined WC’s Athletic Hall of Fame. Pictured left to right: Quincy Miles Samus ’00 (field hockey), Justin Daniel ’01 (men’s soccer), Chris Brandt ’90 (men’s basketball), and Anna Germain Scozzafava ’03 (women’s rowing).

In early July 2019, together with College Trustee Tom Crouse ’59 and his wife, Kay Enokido, International Studies Professor Andrew Oros organized the College’s first formal gathering of alumni in Japan. Pictured at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Tokyo are, from left to right: Tom Crouse ’59; Maoko Ishikawa ’09, an analyst at Russell Investments in Tokyo; Rie Nakayama Aihara ’07, a consultant at Kroll International; Mahiro Nakamaru ’16, who completed a master’s in public policy and then joined Japan’s Ministry of Finance; Kazuma Moribatake '14, who is working in real estate development; Kana Takio Oshima ’09, who completed a master’s degree in public health at Harvard in May 2019 and was married in Chestertown on June 1, 2019; Prof. Oros; Suzuka Kokubu ’18, who was among the first WC grads to complete the dual-degree program in engineering with Columbia University; Misato Nakayama '15, who works in shipping insurance for a UK company; and Koichi Nagamatsu, who helped arrange the meeting in Tokyo.

On April 11, 2019, Professor of Chemistry Emeritus John Conkling ’65 (at right) and Chris Mocella ’01 (center) presented at the induction of the Gamma Eta Chapter of the Gamma Sigma Epsilon National Chemistry Honor Society. The event, titled “The Chemistry and the Poetry of Fireworks,” was a treatise given

by Mocella in the scholarly lineage of his work with Conkling, and Conkling’s work with the late Professor of Chemistry Joseph McLain ’37. This also served as the “book release” event for the third edition of “The Chemistry of Pyrotechnics” by Conkling and Mocella, first published in 1985. Also in attendance was Joseph Domanico P’19 (at left), a long-time collaborator with Conkling, a mentor to Chris, and the father of biology major and field hockey player Morgan Domanico ’19.

Phil '83 and Gwen '83 Heaver and Kathy '83 and Brian '83 Corrigan in Grand Cayman in November 2019.

Bob '85 and Dana Tutela and Kathy '83 and Brian '83 Corrigan in Orlando in November 2019.

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Water Works Todd Rowley ’86, a former political science major at WC, is running for Pennsylvania’s 13th Congressional District. The Democratic candidate is a retired FBI Special Agent, former police officer, and state trooper/flight paramedic. Public education, healthcare, climate change, and comprehensive immigration reform are among the issues important to him.

After retiring from a 30-plus year career on Wall Street, Washington College Trustee Emeritus Zung Nguyen ’77 launched ZTN Capital Consulting LLC, a boutique firm that works with a select number of asset and wealth management firms in areas relating to business strategies, product development, marketing, and governance. The firm also provides executive recruiting services as part of the holistic approach to the strategic consulting practice. www.ztncapital.com

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A geopolitical expert examining water security and its role in policymaking in the Middle East and African nations, Ambika Vishwanath ’05 visited campus in October as part of Goldstein Program’s Young Alumni Lecture Series.

A

mbika Vishwanath ’05, co-founder at Kurbernein Initiative in Mumbai, brought an unusually positive message to WC’s undergrads interested in geopolitics and the role that water plays in global security.

The predicted “water wars” are not likely to happen, she said, and water-stressed countries are much more likely to reach mutually beneficial agreements than they are to escalate competing interests into conflict.

Vishwanath studied political science at Washington College and then earned a master’s degree in policy science at American University in Cairo. She trained to be a negotiator between countries that want to work on treaties or agreements on matters of water.

“Since the 1950s, 200+ treaties, agreements, or MOUs have been signed on cooperation over water,” Vishwanath said. “We hear about the 30 conflicts. I have chosen to work on the cooperation part of it. The point of the treaties is to share equitably, but not necessarily equally.”

It’s usually not lack of water that causes conflict, she said, but rather lack of regulation, poor infrastructure, or failure to communicate.

She cited as an example the cooperation that’s happening between India and Pakistan, who are not generally on friendly terms.

“India and Pakistan share six rivers. The river basin feeds 350 million people. You would imagine that people in ‘cold peace’ for the past 70 years would have gone to war over water. It hasn’t happened,” she said. “They have been at the brink of war on other issues, but this treaty is unlikely to be abrogated because there is a certain level of dialogue around the subject.

That water stress has brought people together.”

In West Africa, four countries share the Senegal River basin. As Guinea, Mali, Senegal, and Mauritania emerged from decades of

Ambika Vishwanath ’05, co-founder. Kurbernein Initiative in Mumbai.

colonialism, there was no industry, little agriculture, and home-grown terrorism.

One might think that access to water would be a point of contention among those that rely on the river for energy production, land irrigation, and potable water.

“Yet somebody said managing the river together is something we can do,” Vishwanath noted. “Following years of drought, they created the Senegal River Basin Development Organization—one of the best examples of river basin organization—and put into place a legal and administrative mechanism that has systematically implemented the principle of equitable sharing among member states. They built two dams. And they have some of the cleanest water in the world.”

As a life source, water is no small thing. Yet in policy matters, water has always been considered a small component of larger issues. Those tides will turn, if Vishwanath has her way.

“I want to make water the subject at the forefront of national security and domestic policy conversations,” she says. “When we create economic policy, we think about water.

When we think about urban planning, we think about water.”

A L U M N I U P DAT E | B A B I E S

Oh Baby!

Brandon Righi ’07 and Katherine Honold Righi ’08 had their second child on March 5, 2019. The new addition—named George!—is already fast friends with his 3-year-old brother Bennett. The family lives in Summit, New Jersey.

Charles Grigg ’10 and Meredith Young Grigg ’11 welcomed their second son, Isaac Martin, on Nov. 25, 2018. Everyone is in love, especially big brother Peyton.

In July, Adrienne Nash Melendez ’05, and her husband, Carlos, welcomed their 2nd son, Azari, into the world. Kalel is thrilled to be a big brother.

Jamie Frees Miller ’12 and her husband, Craig, welcomed their son Bodhi on April 14, 2019.

Anna Cowden ’10 and her husband, Bogi Árnason, welcomed their second child, Jóhanna María Cowden Bogadóttir, on Dec. 6, 2018 in Reykjavík, Iceland. Brother Ýmir Bragi adores his little sister.

Natalie Grace Cotterell, daughter of Tyler Cotterell ’13 M’15 and Elizabeth Carbone Cotterell ’12, was born Dec. 2, 2019. She’s already very good at dribbling.

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Just Married

Allison Halt Donehower ’16 was married on May 10, 2019. She is pictured with her Zeta Tau Alpha sisters (left to right): Maddie Morrissette ’17, Ceara Scanlon Williamsen ’16, Andrea Muniak ’15, and Anne Harra ’19.

Alyssa Wagner ’12 married Brandon Walters at Sacred Heart Church in Bethlehem, Pennyslvania, on June 22, 2019. Alumni in attendance included Denise Petrik Dolan ’11, Jennifer Senkevich ’12, Joanna Boczon ’12, Mandy Moore Prowitz ’11, and Margaret Rohde ’12. The couple lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Hilary Badger ’14 married Stephan Jordan ’12 on June 14, 2019 at Springfield Manor Winery & Distillery in Thurmont, Maryland. Pictured (front row left to right): Allison Valliant ’11, Ray Pagano ’11, Meghan Livie ’09, Mollie Binotto ’08, Brooke Burghardt ’17, Lauren White ’14, Hilary Badger ’14, Rachel Scarola Peters ’14, Gina DeBartolome ’12, Stephan Jordan ’12, Katherine Greenlee ’11, Catherine Petrick ’12, Obella Obbo ’14, Antoine Jordan ’12, and Sarah Winters Mills ’14. Pictured (back row left to right): Emily Hoyle ’14, Max Glass, Albin Kowaleski ’07, David Mooney ’17, Britt Weaver ’14, Michele Volansky ’90, Maria Rose Hynson ’15, Ben Peters ’12, Matt Priester ’09, Kate Livie (staff), Ben Ford (staff), Stephen Pappas ’13, Kevin Lynch ’12, John Wilson P’03 ’05 ’09 ’20 Sarah Feyerherm (staff), Penny Weintraub, Ross Mills ’12, Morgan Phillips Cameron ’12, Devin Miller ’12, Matt Colletti ’12, Laura Johnstone Wilson P’03 ’05, ’09 ’20, and Steve Cameron ’12.

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On July 6, 2019 Jennifer Lee ’13 married Ricky Freebery at Emmanuel Church in Chestertown with a reception on the Chester River. Three of the bridesmaids are alumni: Gabby James ’13, Nicole Musho ’13, and Mariah Perkins Sheehan ’13. The Freeberys took some wedding photos on campus, including a really fun bouquet toss to George. Alumni present included Keiko Kabashima (international student), Ashley Beavers ’15, Ellen Huffman ’13, Nicole Musho ’13, Devin Sheehan ’12, Mariah Sheehan ’13, Sara Paul ’13, Gabby James ’13, Asmae M'nebi (attended 2009-10), Amanda Tokash-Peters ’16, and Ivan Tokash ’16. Craig ’75 and Andy ’78 Jackson were also in attendance.

Zachary Fuller ’13 married Emily Fuller ’12 on June 1, 2019, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. “Ain’t no party like a Scranton party.” Pictured (left to right): Kelley Freeman ’15, Emily Simpson ’12, Elle Bassett ’12, Ian Holstrom ’12, Emily Fuller ’12, Zachary Fuller ’13, Grant Hughes ’15, Kelsey Hallowell ’12, Bennett Cord ’13, Brooke Cord ’12, Mike Pierandri ’13, Gabrielle Pierandri ’12, Matt Lewis ’13, Isabell Blakey ’13, Brian Alexa ’15, and Allison Farrow ’11.

Michael Pierandri ’13 married Gabrielle Devaud ’12 on June 23, 2018, in Bristol, Rhode Island.

Brooke Paulshock ’12 married Bennett Cord ’13 on July 6, 2019, in Annapolis.

Alumni present included: Brooke Cord ’12, Bennett Cord ’13, Rachel Sayyad ’14, Michael Pierandri ’13, Gaby Pierandri ’12, Patrick Coyle ’13, Jonny Poe ’13, Emily Fuller ’12, Zachary Fuller ’13, Mollie Smith ’13, Amanda Crew ’16, Grant Hughes ’15, Tim Kerr ’06, Carrie Kerr (staff), and Jeff and Liz Shirk (staff).

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In Memoriam Davy H. McCall, Emeritus Professor of Economics, died Dec. 1, 2019, at his home in Chestertown.

He was 97. Hired as an adjunct professor in 1984, Dr. McCall later became department chair and curator of the Douglass Cater Society of Junior Fellows. Though he retired from teaching in 2001, he remained active in campus life, attending public lectures and symposia, participating in the Washington College Academy of Lifelong Learning, and sharing his World War II experiences with students as part of the Starr Center's StoryQuest program. He also funded the Davy McCall Prize in International Economics, which is awarded to a graduating senior each May.

Elizabeth H. Booth ’39 died June 3, 2019. At WC, she was active in several organizations, including her beloved sorority, Zeta Tau Alpha. Elizabeth graduated from Drexel with a degree in library science. She worked at George Washington University as a librarian and then at the Federal Works Administration and the Federal Public Housing Authority.

She returned to work as a librarian at the Akron-Summit County Public Library.

Elizabeth E. James ’43 died Sept. 9, 2019. She was 97.

She met her first husband, Charles E. Fetter Jr. ’43, at WC. He was lost in action in 1944 during World War II. After the death of her second husband in 1991, Elizabeth earned a master's degree in education from Loyola University Maryland.

She taught special education students in Baltimore City public schools and then for two decades in Baltimore County.

Frank A. Guba Jr. ’42 passed away at age 99 on April 25, 2019.

Frank served during World War II in the United States Air Force as a B-29 flight engineer and was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal with Three Oak Leaf Clusters, an American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, and the WWII Victory Medal.

He completed his education in engineering at North Carolina State University.

John Zajic Jr. ’43, aged 96, died Oct. 26, 2019. John attended Washington College until he was recruited as an engineer to the Navy Yard to work on the development of sonar for submarines during World War II. John spent his career at the Navy Yard until he retired early in 1961, then lived on his historic farm in Nanjemoy, Maryland, owned at one time by George Washington.

He later farmed in West Virginia.

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Harold G. Applegarth ’44 passed away Feb. 15, 2019. A United States Navy veteran, he served on active duty from 1944 to 1946 as a radarman, second class on the USS Finch, and served again from 1951 to 1953, stationed at Fort McHenry in Baltimore. Harold worked in real estate and property management throughout his life.

Vivian B. Clow ’48 passed away Aug. 27, 2019. She was 92. She worked at Playtex in Dover, Delaware, until 1953 when her son Tom was born. She later worked for Kent General Hospital in the business office for 15 years, retiring in 1989. She was a member of Wesley Church in Dover for more than 60 years.

David M. Eliason ’49 died March 7, 2019. After he graduated from Chestertown High School and then Washington College, he enlisted in the United States Army. Following his discharge, he returned to WC to finish his

degree in economics and political science. He received his MBA in industrial relations from the Wharton School. For most of his career, David worked as a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch.

Isabel Frazee ’49 passed away Sept. 30, 2019. She worked for Prentice Hall Publishing in Washington, D.C., where she covered the Supreme Court.

Eventually, she went on to work for 32 years at Happy Happy Gifts Hallmark store.

Jean K. Hebert ’49 completed the nursing program at Temple University hoping to become an Army nurse but was injured during the clinical training and went on to graduate from Washington College with honors in biology. She met and married a GI veteran at WC, Jack W. Earnshaw ’49, and she worked for the Baltimore Department of Social Services. Jean completed her master’s degree in education at Towson State Teachers’ College (now Towson University).

After she married Armand Luke Hebert, she taught science at Baltimore City College. Later, she worked as a medical technician.

Ruth Roe Blizzard ’51 , a retired teacher, passed away Jan. 5. She was 89. A history major with a minor in Spanish at WC, Ruth was class valedictorian and president of her sorority, Alpha Chi Omega.

Following graduation, she married Louis George Blizzard ’50 and moved to Delaware, where she taught for 18 years at Delaware Preschool in Wilmington. She was an active member of the American Association of University Women (AAUW), and an avid hostess and bridge player. The family suggests donations to Washington College in her memory.

Richard Leon "Dick" Coss ’51, 89, died Sept. 9, 2019. Richard graduated from Chestertown High School in 1947. He attended WC before being drafted by

the U.S. Army; he served until November 1953, seeing action in Korea. Richard went to work at Landis Machine Co. and then Mack Trucks, retiring in 1987. A lifelong Democrat, he belonged to numerous Washington County Democratic associations and was a candidate for the Maryland House of Delegates in 1966.

He served on the Washington County Board of Elections from 1989-2003.

Eugene B. Handsberry ’51 passed away April 18, 2019. He was 90. As a young man, Gene’s skill on the ballfield caught the eye of the Philadelphia A’s. In the summer of 1951, not long after he was signed by the A’s, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. After serving for two years in Korea, Gene played semi-pro ball for both Smyrna and Kent in the MarDel and Bi-States Leagues. His baseball career culminated with his induction into the Delaware Baseball Hall of Fame in 2010.

Gene began his business career at Farmers Bank and opened Smyrna Sporting Goods, which he owned and operated for 50 years.

The Reverend Dr. Willard L. Robinson Jr. ’51, age 95, died May 5, 2019. Willard was in the United States Army and was stationed in Japan after World War II. After WC, he received a master's degree from Temple University and a doctorate of ministry from Drew University.

He served eight churches during his ministry in the Peninsula Delaware Conference of the United Methodist Church.

Annette O. Slasman ’51, a passionate gardener and an avid reader, passed away March 6, 2019 at the age of 89. Mickey went to The Bryn Mawr School and then attended WC, where she was a member of Zeta Tau Alpha. For decades, she traveled throughout the Mid-Atlantic area, giving presentations about flower design and horticulture.

Cornelius A. Tilghman, Jr. ’53 died Sept. 22, 2019. He was 88.

After WC, he received his master’s degree in computer science from Texas A&M. He served 20 years in the United States Air Force, retiring with the rank of major. During that time, he flew as an aircrew navigator with the 48th Air Rescue Squadron, which included support for the early stages of Project Mercury. After his military service, Neal worked for the Delaware State Police and then the Delaware Criminal Justice Information System as their first executive director.

Joseph J. Geissler III ’54, aged 86, passed on April 15, 2019.

After WC, Joe earned a master’s degree at Virginia Tech and spent 44 years as a research consultant at U.S. Steel Corporation.

Ellen T. Gale ’56 passed away April 11, 2019. She was 85.

She was a descendant of the earliest settlers of Kent County.

Ellen was an avid golfer and played at Chester River Yacht and Country Club, where she was a longtime member of the ninehole circuit. She was a member of the Kent and Queen Anne's Hospital Ladies' Auxiliary.

Lt. Bernard H. Thomas ’56 passed away March 4, 2019.

Self-taught in piano, he earned extra money during his college years playing in local hangouts.

Joining the Marine Corps in 1956, Bernie flew F4 Phantoms over Vietnam with multiple tours and received numerous medals, citations, commendations, and ribbons. After his military career, Bernie earned his master’s degree in human resources from Pepperdine University. He spent 20 years with Chesapeake Center as the director of Chesapeake Bay Industries.

Deborah H. McKnight ’57, a retired artisan of miniature ceramics, died Sept. 24, 2019.

She was 83. She taught special education until she founded

McKnight Miniatures and produced fine ceramic food, plates, bowls, pitchers, and entire sets of china at the 1-inch-to-a-foot scale.

She was a fellow and charter member of the International Guild of Miniature Artisans. Among her survivors is C.J. McKnight ’84.

Nancy Jalbert Wooldridge ’57 died May 25, 2019. She was 85 years old. An animal lover, Nancy founded and operated All Creatures Pet Sitting.

James R. Halpin ’58, aged 84, died Sept. 7, 2019. Jim earned a master’s degree in library science at CW Post Library School and served as a member of the United States Army from 1959-1962 as a proud member of the 507th, attached to the 7th Army. Jim went on to serve in the Army Reserves until 1965. He worked as the head of reference at Newburgh Free Library in New York from 1970-2000.

Katharine D. Gregory ’60 died Aug. 6, 2019. Kathie majored in history and English at WC and devoted her life to teaching. Her last 14 years were spent in the Unionville School District where she was part of an experimental team at C. F. Patton Middle School in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Kathie served on several boards and committees.

Norman A. Phillips Jr. ’60 passed away May 2, 2019. He was 80. He excelled in basketball and baseball, graduated with a degree in economics, and was recruited to work at Eddie Leonard Sporting Goods in Annapolis.

Norm eventually opened his own business, Team Distributors. In October 1994, he was inducted into the Washington College Hall of Fame. In 2015, he was inducted into the Eastern Shore Baseball Hall of Fame.

Dr. Philip J. Whelan ’61 passed away June 15, 2019, at the age of 80. He graduated from the University of Maryland School of

Medicine in 1965. He served in the United States Navy submarine service from 1967 to 1969.

Philip completed his residency in pathology and a fellowship at the medical examiner's office in Baltimore City before joining Maryland General Hospital as a pathologist. He loved gardening, reading, traveling, and spending time with his family.

Elwyn Edward Cooper, Jr. ’64 died July 14, 2019. He taught math at Worcester Prep School in Berlin, Maryland, until retiring in 1989. He enjoyed spending his summers as a park ranger at Assateague Federal Park. He served as a volunteer fire fighter and EMT with both Stockton and Snow Hill fire companies. Ed enjoyed photography, reading, and spending the last few years with his dog, Smokey.

Mary Anne D. Berry ’66 died Feb. 14, 2019. Mary Anne earned a degree in philosophy and married Thomas H. Berry ’66 after graduation. A U.S. Marine Corps wife from 19661969, during the Vietnam War, she received a commendation letter presented by a Marine Corps general in 2015. An avid reader and solver of crossword puzzles, Mary Anne was active in several book clubs. She enjoyed gardening, sailing, and bocce.

Clinton G. Weimeister ’70 passed away May 22, 2019, at age 72. As an undergrad, he majored in math and was active in student leadership. After college, Clint joined VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) and spent two years doing community organizing in Palm Beach County, Florida. He then embarked on a career in criminal justice, working in a pre-trial release program.

He was active in Movement for a New Society, a group working for nonviolent social change. He continued his criminal justice work as a community corrections officer for the state of Washington.

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Evelyn M. Yokos ’70 passed away Nov. 3, 2019. She majored in history and completed a teaching certificate at WC, and then worked as an elementary school teacher. Evelyn was a selfdescribed religious agnostic, a lifelong Democrat, and a member of the Unitarian Universalists.

Linda H. Fenwick ’74 died April 10, 2019. She was 66. With a chemistry degree from WC, Linda spent five years at Lamotte Chemical in Chestertown. She continued her work as a chemist for Whittaker Bioproducts and eventually retired after 18 years.

Linda was an active volunteer at St. Peter Catholic Church, where she was involved in the church's stained-glass program, creating stained-glass ornaments and decorative pieces including the windows of the chapel. She was also a member of the Big Pine Key Botanical Society and the Key West Orchid Society.

Christopher Barnes ’75, age 66, passed away Feb. 2, 2019. Chris played a major role in the poultry industry, working for several prominent companies on the Eastern Shore. Through dedication and hard work, he earned his way to vice president of sales for Perdue Farms then later accepted a position as director of sales with Mount Aire Farms. After his retirement from the poultry industry, he transitioned to working as a realtor for Long & Foster.

Matthew K . Clark ’75 passed away March 31, at the age of 71.

He served with the United States Navy and received his bachelor's degree in philosophy from WC. He enjoyed building custom cabinets and owned several cabinet shops on the Eastern Shore. Matthew was passionate about sailing, water skiing, and camping. He enjoyed reading, movies, cooking his favorite recipes, and listening to the Bee Gees and doo-wop.

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Nancy S. Miller M’75, age 79, passed away March 25, 2019. She cherished the horses she began riding as a child. This love would follow her throughout her life and career as a mother, teacher, farm manager, and standard-bred trainer. After earning a master's degree in education from WC, she taught in Kent County elementary schools, retiring in 2003.

Kevin D. Coomer ’76, of Bethlehem Township in Pennsylvania, passed away Nov. 20, 2019. Kevin spent most of his career in the commercial insurance business. He was a lifetime member of MENSA. Kevin enjoyed playing the guitar, singing, and reading. Among his survivors are daughters Stephani Coomer Chamberlin ’02 and Stacey L. Coomer ’04.

Betty W. Elburn M’77 died Feb 25, 2019. She was 77. After receiving her master’s degree from WC, she went to work for Sudlersville Middle School, where she taught for 32 years before retiring in 2004. Betty loved her farm, tending to her cows, and canning everything she grew.

She also enjoyed spending time with her grandchildren and taking trips with her family to Pennsylvania and Ocean City, Maryland.

William D. "Drake" Roberts Jr. ’78 passed away Jan. 8, 2019.

A gifted athlete, he grew up skiing and playing tennis, soccer, and lacrosse. He worked in insurance and mortgage brokerage services.

Gwendolyn T. Rodney M’80 P’95 died unexpectedly on March 3, 2019. A lifelong member of the Kent County community, Gwen was a nurse for more than 30 years with the Kent County Health Department, where she was instrumental in starting hospice care. After retiring from the county, Gwen went to work as a nurse for The Kent Center (formerly Angels’ Haven), which she helped to start many years

There was a bittersweet gathering on May 26, 2019 to celebrate the life of Jim Del Priore ’64. Del passed last October 2018 at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Pictured from left to right are his son Todd Del Priore ’87 P’18, Christian Engle ’87, Jon Gonella ’87, Kathleen O’Donnell ’86, grandson Blayney Del Priore ’18, and daughter Erika Del Priore ’89.

Erika, Todd, and Blayney were proudly wearing their WC Legacy pins they all received when Blayney graduated in May 2018.

ago. Gwen was a faithful member of First United Methodist Church.

Among her survivors is Sherri Rodney ’95.

Alyson L. Gordon ’84 died July 3. 2019. After WC, she earned a master's degree in education and became a reading resource specialist. She taught the elementary age group during her career, teaching in Oregon and Virginia, most recently as a reading resource teacher at Huddleston Elementary.

Claudio Gonzales ’87 died Sept. 18,2019. See page 40.

Holly S. Short ’92 died July 13, 2019. She was 50. She worked for the State of Delaware as a paraeducator with the Christiana School District’s autism program.

Holly had been a member of the Chestertown Volunteer Fire Company's Ladies Auxiliary and an EMT with the Kent and Queen Anne's Rescue Squad. She was also a member of Rock Hall United Methodist Church.

Robert Ervin Meeks ’95, of Louisville, Kentucky, died Jan. 22, 2019. He was 62. An English major, he worked at various jobs including farming and carpentry.

Ervin enjoyed hunting, trapping, crabbing, playing pool, his dogs, gardening, reading, and vacationing in Hawaii.

Alexander Brooks Mudge ’07, of Baltimore, died Sept. 1, 2019. He was a sailor who competed in the Transatlantic 2015, sailed in races throughout Europe, and who lately sailed out of San Diego. He taught sailing on many levels and coached collegiate club teams.

Jarrod R. Nickoloff ’07 died March 19, 2019. At WC, he studied English with minors in creative writing and physics.

He later graduated from the University of Oregon School of Law. He was a talented artist, writer, and author who loved to share obscure vocabulary and otherwise engage in wordplay.

Maryann Wellington ’11 died Feb. 15, 2019, in Northeast Baltimore. Wellington, 29, was a mother to a 3-year-old son.

From the Archives

Barbara Gillin, who with her husband, Professor of English Richard Gillin, directed the College’s Kiplin Hall program for the past 20 years, passed away Dec. 28, 2019. Barbara’s teaching career spanned five decades and included elementary, middle, college, and graduate-level courses. Among her survivors are Erin Gillin Rothwell ’99 M’02 and Courtney Gillin Fitzgibbon ’01 M’04. The family has requested that memorial donations be made to the Richard and Barbara Gillin Fund which will support two annual scholarships: one to send a student with financial need to Kiplin Hall and another to support an English/humanities major.

Michael Goldstein, who taught psychology at Washington College from 1975 to 1984, passed away Jan. 12 in Fitchburg, Wisconsin. He was 80.

Dr. Goldstein came to Chestertown after nine years in the Department of Psychology at Lawrence University in Wisconsin. He was elevated to acting chairman of the department in 1976 and was named chairman in 1977. Much beloved by his students, Dr. Goldstein was awarded the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1979.

May Matthews First Female Grad 1895

I

t was a group of young women from Chestertown who in early September 1891 first posed the question to a Washington College professor they encountered on a steamer bound for Baltimore. “Why aren’t women allowed to attend classes?”

Professor Procter, who taught biology and chemistry, had no ready answer. Sensing the professor’s hesitation, the women presented a well-executed argument and Proctor found himself warming to their cause. He promised to take their case before President Charles Reid once he got back to Chestertown.

By the end of the month, at President Reid’s urging, the Board of Visitors and Governors adopted a resolution to permit females to attend classes and lectures (mostly for pecuniary reasons, historians speculate today), and the first 11 young women became members of the student body.

Among them was Mary L. “May” Matthews.

Matthews distinguished herself academically, taking first prize for an oration she delivered before the student body, and serving as vice president of the Pieria Literary Society—founded by the female students who were excluded from the males-only club. Enrolled in the “scientific course” as opposed to the “classical,” Matthews took a full schedule of Latin, German, political economy,

science, psychology, elocution, and composition in her senior year.

By that spring of 1895, the student body included 24 women, eleven of whom were enrolled in college classes.

She also caught the eye of J.S. William Jones, a professor of mathematics and natural science who had earned his degree from Washington College in 1889, and the two were married. Her husband later became Dean of the College and served as Acting President from 1918-1919.

A member of the College’s second coeducational graduating class, Mary C. Burchinal helped lay the foundation for the foreign language curriculum in Philadelphia public schools and earned a PhD from Johns Hopkins University in 1911, only four years after the university trustees approved the admission of women to graduate study. Burchinal, who taught in the Chestertown public schools and at Washington College, would later become the first woman to serve on the College’s Board of Visitors and Governors. She remained on the board until her death in 1935, and donated her extensive library of French and German literature to Washington College.

Excerpted from Washington: The College at Chester and from the Revolutionary College Project

SPRING 2020

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A DVA N C E M E N T

A Big Finish for Forge Washington College wrapped up its Forge a Legacy comprehensive campaign at the end of 2019, six months earlier than scheduled, having exceeded its record-breaking goal of $150 million.

Support for Semans-Griswold Environmental Hall helped drive the Forge a Legacy campaign to an early conclusion. Photo: Pamela Cowart-Rickman

T

he Forge A Legacy campaign has drawn to a successful conclusion.

Among the campaign’s notable results are $12.7 million for Semans-Griswold Environmental Hall, $8 million for the College’s River and Field Campus, $2.68 million for the Hodson Boathouse, and $38.44 million in endowed and annual scholarships.

Funds will also support faculty projects and research, experiential learning and study abroad, career planning and programming, and other student opportunities.

“This campaign would not have exceeded expectations without the unwavering support of the campaign committee, the Board of Visitors and Governors, The Hodson Trust, and a host of others who have a deep passion for the mission of Washington College and a vision for fueling its future,” said Susie Chase ’90 P’20, vice president of College Advancement.

College President Kurt Landgraf applauded the campaign leadership’s focus 62

WASHINGTON COLLEGE MAGAZINE

on the institution’s distinctive strengths, investment in the student experience, and support for educating a new generation of environmental stewards.

“Environmental education is where Washington College really shines,” President Landgraf says. “Few schools are lucky enough to have access to a river as beautiful and storied as the Chester, an expanse like the River and Field Campus that inspires students to protect our natural resources, or innovative programs—like the Chesapeake Semester and the Eastern Shore Food Lab— that provide students with immersive, handson experiences.”

“The Forge a Legacy campaign inspired a new vision for Washington College that strengthens its position as a national environmental leader and an exceptional model of liberal arts education,” said Larry Culp ’85, College trustee and chair and CEO of General Electric. Culp spearheaded campaign fundraising for Semans-Griswold

Environmental Hall, helping raise $11.5 million in just six months.

The Forge a Legacy campaign also saw the rise of the 9,200-square-foot Hodson Boathouse. Support came from The Hodson Trust and more than 150 other donors, including former rowing and sailing team members and other alumni.

The campaign’s success creates extraordinary opportunities for current and future students, not the least of which is more than $38 million for scholarships, ensuring an exceptional education for promising students, regardless of means.

“We are so grateful to everyone who gave to this campaign; each and every donor shares in this success,“ says Chase.

“Washington College still has so much more to achieve, and so much promise. With all of us working together, we can do more, and be more, than we might imagine.”

Alumna’s Family Foundation Endows Business Program Beth Warehime ’13 is paying it forward for a new generation of business management majors. me into the person I am today. Without the small classes, allowing for a great student/ professor interaction, I would not have been able to customize elements of my education that enabled me to focus on my particular interests,” she says. “I had such an incredible experience during my four years as an undergrad, and I would love to be able to help others have that same experience.”

The Warehime Fund for Student Excellence in Business will support a variety of opportunities including: funding advanced research techniques; supporting student

participation in professional conferences, case competitions, and other experiential learning activities; providing start-up funds for student entrepreneurial projects; and establishing a Warehime Fellows program.

The grant will “help the department go to another level,” Vowels says. “The innovative part of this fund is that this will evolve as the curricular needs evolve, as student interests evolve, as the business world evolves, and as external opportunities evolve.”

W

ashington College’s Department of Business Management is preparing to launch an ambitious new effort next fall focused on student research and experiential opportunities thanks to a $1 million grant from the JHC Foundation, a Warehime family foundation. The funding will create the Warehime Fund for Student Excellence in Business, which, when fully matured, will provide the department $50,000 a year to support student research, entrepreneurship, professional networking, and other initiatives to complement the department’s curricular offerings.

“It’s extraordinary, and we are so grateful to Beth Warehime and the foundation,” says Susan Vowels, chair and associate professor of business management. “Our goal from this gift is to provide the opportunity for every one of our students, whether in the major or in the minors we offer, to participate in at least one of these experiences.”

Beth Warehime ’13, an MBA candidate at Loyola University Maryland who majored in business management with a minor in sociology, says choosing WC’s Department of Business Management was “a no-brainer … as one of our main focuses as a foundation is on education. I’ve always valued my liberal arts education, and I do think it’s shaped

At Washington College, all doors lead to opportunity.

You can choose what matters most to you. You’ll find doors that lead to thriving habitat, celebrations of the arts, winning teams, health care research, entrepreneurial start-ups, blooming greenhouses, career advice, and so much more. Your gift makes you the architect of new possibilities, creating spaces to explore, excel, perform, mentor, and discover.

So open a door. See what’s possible.

Your gift makes a world of difference.

Visit washcoll.edu/opendoors.

SPRING 2020

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Arts Calendar April 17-18 Spring Dance Concert An evening performance on Friday and a matinee performance on Saturday.

Decker Theatre, 7:00 p.m. and 1 p.m.

April 20 Student Honors Recital Hotchkiss Recital Hall, 7:30 p.m.

April 24-25 Carmina Burana The Concert Series season closes with a performance of Carmina Burana by members of the Annapolis Chamber Orchestra and the Annapolis Chorale, with Ernie Green conducting.

Advance tickets available through Eventbrite, or you may request ticket holds at concertseries@ washcoll.edu Decker Theatre, 7:30 p.m.

April 30 Symphonic Band and Jazz Ensemble Decker Theatre, 7:30 p.m.

May 1 Vocal Studio Recital Hotchkiss Recital Hall, 4 p.m.

MUSIC Feb. 23 US Naval Academy Chamber Winds Ensemble Hotchkiss Recital Hall, 4 p.m.

Feb 27-29 The Who’s Tommy Hotchkiss Recital Hall, 7:30 p.m.

March 4 John D. McRae ’20, Tuba (SCE*) Hotchkiss Recital Hall, 7:30 p.m.

March 28 Washington College Piano Festival Lessons, workshops, competition for prizes, and performances. Featured guest artist Caroline Oltmanns, Professor of Piano at Youngstown State University, offers a master class and an evening concert as part of the Washington College Premier Artists Series.

Gibson Center for the Arts, All Day April 8 Noe Perales ’20, Piano (SCE) Hotchkiss Recital Hall, 7:30 p.m.

April 9 Megan Dietrich ’20, Mezzo-soprano (SCE) Hotchkiss Recital Hall, 7:30 p.m.

April 16 Mikala Herlihy ’20, Piano (SCE) Hotchkiss Recital Hall, 7:30 p.m.

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WASHINGTON COLLEGE MAGAZINE

May 1-2 WACappella Evening performances at 7:30 p.m. and a 2:00 p.m. matinee performance on Saturday.

Hotchkiss Recital Hall

THEATER All performances, which are free and open to the public, begin at 7:30 p.m. in Tawes Theatre, Daniel Z. Gibson Center for the Arts, unless otherwise noted. For ticket reservations, visit the Eventbrite page at bit.ly/WCTheatreTickets Please direct any questions to: theatre_tickets@washcoll.edu March 27-28 The Effect (SCE)

by Lucy Prebble. A performance SCE from Lexy Ricketts ’20 April 10-11 Antigone (SCE)

by Jean Anouilh | translated by Christopher Nixon A performance SCE from Chris Hanna ’20

DANCE April 17-18 Spring Dance Concert Presented by the WC Dance Club in Decker Theatre. Friday evening performance at 7 p.m. and Saturday matinee at 1 p.m.

LITERARY HOUSE SERIES Feb. 25 Writers as Editors Series: Aimee Nezhukumatathil Award-winning poet and nature essayist Aimee Nezhukumatathil has been featured in The New York Times and on the PBS NewsHour ArtsBeat.

She is the poetry editor for Orion Magazine.

Rose O’Neill Literary House, 4:30 p.m.

March 17 Sophie Kerr Series: A Reading by Casey Cep Rose O’Neill Literary House, 4:30 p.m.

April 2 Writers as Editors Series: Paul Hendrickson and Jonathan Segal Jonathan Segal ’66, vice president and senior editor at Alfred A. Knopf, appears with one of his writers, Paul Hendrickson, a staff feature writer at the Washington Post and author of seven books, including Hemingway’s Boat (Knopf, 2011), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

April 14-15 Literary House Series: Kathryn Nuernberger Award-winning poet and creative nonfiction writer Kathryn Nuernberger, the 2020 Mary Wood Fellow, reads from her work on Tuesday, and offers a craft talk the following day, same time. A collection of lyric essays, Brief Interviews with the Romantic Past, won The Journal’s Nonfiction Prize. Her third poetry collection, Rue, is forthcoming this spring (BOA).

Rose O’Neill Literary House, 4:30 p.m.

April 21 Senior Reading Rose O’Neill Literary House, 4:30 p.m.

May 15 Sophie Kerr Prize Event Finalists for the 2020 Sophie Kerr Prize will read from their works and the winner will be announced.

Hotchkiss Recital Hall, 7:30 p.m.

June 1-30 Cave Canem Residency The Rose O’Neill Literary House partners with Cave Canem, the nation’s leading organization for African-American poets, to provide a monthlong residency in Chestertown. The 2020 Fellow will be announced at a later date.

July 15-18 2020 Cherry Tree Young Writers Series A writing conference for high school students.

Look for details at www.washcoll.edu/ywc. * Senior Capstone Experience

Join your fellow Washington College alumni for two weekends of fun, tradition, and memories for a lifetime.

Spring Migration

Alumni Weekend

April 24–25

May 15–17

Have you marked your calendar? Last year our campus filled to capacity with alumni from across decades

We heard you. So many of you wanted to put Alumni Weekend back together with Commencement weekend,

gathering to enjoy an incredible weekend in April. Don’t miss out this year! Come back, meet up with friends, and get ready for a great roster of athletics events, including tailgating, varsity matchups, alumni games, and the epic annual fish fry (limited attendance). Our hospitality tent is open to all. We will be expanding the events offered this year, so don’t miss the Center for Environment & Society’s

and we are making it happen. Mark your calendar, call your friends to coordinate an unscheduled or scheduled reunion, and join your fellow alumni for a weekend full of connection, camaraderie, and incredible memories.

We have so much to celebrate together, and this year

20th anniversary evening concert and festival in Wilmer Park. Come for the day or stay for the weekend — just

back at Washington College? We cannot wait to see you.

migrate home!

Questions? Visit www.washcoll.edu/alumni, or contact: Fannie Hobba Shenk ’84 P’15 ’19, fshenk2@washcoll.edu, 410-810-5764 Nina Fleegle ’06, nfleegle2@washcoll.edu, 410-810-7139 Sean Flanigan ’15, sflanigan2@washcoll.edu, 410-778-7233

will bring a lot of new opportunities for fun. What could possibly be better than getting a pass for a weekend

I College Magazine 300Washington College Avenue Volume LXVII No. 2 Spring 2017 ISSN 2152-9531

Chestertown, Maryland 21620 Washington College Magazine Volume LXX No. 1 Spring 2020, ISSN 2152-9531

In Person: Rachel Martinez ’18

F

rom the windows of U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar’s office on Capitol Hill, legislative staff assistant Rachel Martinez ’18 is beginning to see her future. The California native has known since her sophomore year that she wanted to run for political office. At Washington College, under the tutelage of strong female role models— professors Erin Anderson, Melissa Deckman, and Christine Wade—Martinez began to realize that the success of the American democracy depends on a new generation of woman leaders coming up through the ranks, and how much she could bring to the table as an “intersectional feminist” and openly bisexual woman who understands that women of all identities deserve to be heard.

With an academic background in sociology, political science, and gender studies, Martinez focuses on legislative issues that disproportionately affect women, such as women’s reproductive rights, paid leave, domestic violence, and other issues that intersect with gender in a significant way. One of her recent projects challenged the National Highway Transportation Safety Board to change the design of the 5-foot, 110-pound female test dummies used to rate car safety.

“Because female crash test dummies weigh significantly less and are much shorter than the average American woman,” Martinez says, “they don’t react the same way in crash tests that real women would. Women’s actual experiences aren’t accounted for, so car manufacturers aren’t creating protections for those experiences. According to the agency’s own report, women are 17 percent more likely than men to be killed in a car crash and are at a much greater risk of suffering significant injuries.”

Martinez hopes to get more legislative experience in Washington over the next few years and then return to California to begin her own run for political office.

Tamzin B. Smith Portrait Photography

non-profit org us postage paid chestertown, md permit no. 2