The Hill, Autumn 2016

The M c D A N I E L C O L L E G E | Autumn 2016

WELL-SUITED FOR CHANGE

The

McDaniel College Autumn 2016 Vol. 31, Number 3 The Hill is published three times yearly by: McDaniel College 2 College Hill Westminster, MD 21157-4390 www.mcdaniel.edu Associate Vice President of Communications and Marketing: Gina Piellusch Editor: Kim Asch Staff Writers: Peggy Fosdick, Cheryl Knauer Design: Lilly Pereira Alumni correspondence to: alumni@mcdaniel.edu or The Office of Alumni Relations McDaniel College 2 College Hill Westminster, MD 21157-4390 All other correspondence to: kasch@mcdaniel.edu 410/857-2290 or The Office of Communications and Marketing McDaniel College 2 College Hill Westminster, MD 21157-4390 McDaniel College, in compliance with federal and state laws and regulations governing affirmative action and nondiscrimination, does not discriminate in the recruitment, admission and employment of students, faculty and staff in the operation of any of its educational programs and activities as defined by law.

The diverse views presented in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or official policies of the College. ©2016 McDaniel College

On the cover: Erica Wormley ’06 works her sense of style and business savvy to change lives.

Photograph by John Waire

More than 600 students, faculty, staff and members of the local community filled Big Baker Chapel Oct. 24 for NAACP President Cornell W. Brooks’ talk, “Unless Black Lives Matter, All Lives Can’t Matter.” See page 2.

F E AT U R E S

10 I Dwell in Possibility

Barbara Thomas ’70 travels the globe with Habitat for Humanity and finds herself at home in the world.

14 Well-Suited for Change

Erica Wormley ’06 finds her fit with a style-savvy Baltimore nonprofit that equips men who are completing job-training programs with professional attire, presentation skills and confidence.

D E PA RT M E N T S 2 Carpe Diem

18 Invested

6 Insights

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Alumni Updates Life since college

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Back Story What they were thinking

News around campus and beyond

Advancing the vision

Celebrating the “aha!” in learning

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Double Take

Sights worth a second look

C. KURT HOLTER

Class Noted Guess who is living in Latvia on a Fulbright Award to study the music culture of the “country that sings”?

See page 52.

News around campus and beyond

C. KURT HOLTER

Activism a Matter of Heart & Intellect

NAACP President and CEO Cornell WIlliam Brooks urged students to use their hearts and minds for the greater good.

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NAACP President & CEO Cornell William Brooks addressed an attentive audience of 600-plus in Baker Memorial Chapel Oct. 24. His message focused on the power of college students to advance the interconnected causes of equal rights for women, the LGBT community, immigrants and people of color. He urged the Millennial generation to help solve what he described as some of America’s most pressing problems: income disparity, racial profiling, mass incarceration and voter suppression.

“This is a moment where we need an interracial, inter-ethnic, interfaith band of freedom fighters to take up this cause,” said Brooks, who is both an ordained minister and an attorney. “We have too many who are yet divided on this silly word divide, ‘All Lives Matter’ versus ‘Black Lives Matter.’” Brooks said the rallying motto can be understood by anyone who has taken a course in logic: “‘Black Lives Matter’ is the moral predicate to the ethical conclusion that ‘All Lives Matter,’ and lest the first is true, the second can never be true.”

Brooks said activism is both a “heart activity” and an “intellectual activity.” He encouraged students to read the U.S. Constitution in its entirety, to explore the works of great philosophers and to become well versed in the nuts and bolts of how democracy functions. “Demonstrating, protesting is important, but it’s important to focus on not just shutting City Hall down, but once you walk in the building, be able to write the ordinance or write the law.”

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“Are you stressed? Frustrated? Come write your worries, fears, stress on a pumpkin and

SMASH

it to smithereens! All fundraising will go to our Green Terror Mascot Makeover.”

—In a campus announcement from the Student Alumni Council and Green Life

Hollywood Insider Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication & Cinema Jonathan Slade ’88 returned to the scene of his early career in the television industry when he joined 24 other professors from colleges and universities nationwide selected for a prestigious fellowship to the 2016 Television Academy Foundation Faculty Seminar in Los Angeles. Television Academy members — the same industry insiders who host the national Emmy Awards — chose the finalists, offering them an expenses-paid opportunity to be immersed in the entertainment industry for an intense, week-long experience in November.

Slade, who earned an MFA in Cinema-Television from the University of Southern California, worked briefly in Hollywood before returning to Maryland

Autumn 2016

to become an Emmy Award-winning writer-producer with Maryland Public Television (MPT). Since joining the fulltime faculty in 2003, he has continued to produce documentaries for MPT. The itinerary for Television Academy Fellows included panel discussions with producers and directors from shows including “Scandal,” “The Voice,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Parks & Rec” and “Blackish.” They toured Warner Bros. Studios (including the set of “Big Bang Theory”) and went behind the scenes at CBS’s Fairfax studio to watch “Dancing with the Stars.” During a panel discussion about the role of executive producer, Michael Spiller of “The Mindy Project” explained that the best way to succeed in the television industry is to choose a liberal arts education rather than a large film school.

“Sounds like McDaniel Cinema is doin’ it right!” says Slade.

DAVID SINCLAIR ’00

[OVERHEARD ON CAMPUS]

Students engaged in respectful discourse during a presidential debate-viewing party.

First-Time Voters During the weeks leading up to Nov. 8, students found various ways to get involved in the first presidential election for which most of them would be eligible to cast a vote. Students from five Art classes and two English classes contributed political signs, cartoons, quilts and zines highlighting issues like climate change and human rights for the exhibition, “Turnout 2016.” McDaniel’s League of United Latin American Citizens launched a voter registration drive.

Mario Fernandez ’19, a History and Political Science double major, said he was not at all surprised that the debate-viewing party he organized with student groups on campus representing a diversity of viewpoints — including the Progressive Student Union and the Young Republicans — was both wellattended and civil. “I have more faith in McDaniel’s students than I do in our political candidates,” said Fernandez, who is president of Global Zero, which advocates for a world without nuclear weapons. “We can disagree without our discourse devolving into a shouting match and at the end of the conversation we can still be friends.”

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C. KURT HOLTER

Double Legacy, Twice the Reward

Maggie Bechtold ’20 and her mom, Kathleen Bechtold MS ’06

Maggie Bechtold, a freshman from Crofton, Md., represents a new kind of McDaniel student: the double legacy. She is the daughter of Kathleen Bechtold MS’06, who teaches fourth grade at Robert Frost Elementary School in Prince George’s County. And she is the recipient of McDaniel’s new $100,000 Educator’s Legacy scholarship.

Prospective students who meet admission requirements and have a parent or guardian with at least four years of current and consecutive employment in K-12 education qualify for the annual $25,000 scholarship, which is renew▲ Money magazine ranked able each year so long as recipients maintain McDaniel among its “100 Best Colleges 2016–17” and named satisfactory academic progress.

McDaniel to its list of “50 Most The 56 members of the inaugural class Affordable Private Colleges” of Educator’s Legacy recipients are a varied and “50 Best Liberal Arts group. They are first-year and transfer stuColleges.” dents who come from big cities and small towns from states across the nation, including ▲ Washington Monthly’s 2016 Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania ranking includes McDaniel as and Florida. They are athletes, class presione of the nation’s “Top 30 dents, cheerleaders, volunteers, musicians Liberal Arts Colleges” and a and honor students. Only a few are children “Best Bang for the Buck.” of McDaniel alumni, but they are all connected by the common thread of a parent or guardian in K-12 education. Any service in a K-12 school qualifies, such as teachers, counselors, nurses, support staff or administrators.

The scholarship helped clinch Maggie Bechtold’s decision to follow in her mother’s footsteps on the Hill. So far, so good, she says: “I love it here. It’s the best thing ever.”

QUANTIFY

$750,000

Grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to McDaniel and nine other Baltimore-area colleges and universities to collaborate on generating new strategies to prevent, respond to, investigate, and hold offenders accountable for sexual assault and dating violence, and strengthen trauma-informed victim services on campus and in the community. The coalition plans to build on the extensive set of response, prevention, and training initiatives already in place.

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11.10.16

Date when the McDaniel Madrigal Singers performed on the Millennium Stage at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The concert can be viewed at www. kennedy-center.org.

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Number of gold-medal figure skaters among the Class of 2020. A competitive Irish dancer and a state surfing champion are also among the diverse and talented first-year class. One freshman earned state awards for conservation work.

Another built a 3,000-piece origami swan and another auditioned for “The Voice” and “America’s Got Talent.” They’re accomplished philanthropists, raising thousands of dollars for Make a Wish, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and other charities. One student completed the FBI future agents program and another runs her own baking company.

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Inhabiting History

Recipe from Home

It’s one thing to read about Socrates, Julius Caesar and Van Gogh, but imagine taking part in the Greek philosopher’s infamous trial for treason, standing among angry senators in the Forum of ancient Rome or defending your radical new art style in late 19th-century Parisian salons. That’s just what Reacting to the Past is — students researching and re-enacting moments in time. Art History professor Gretchen McKay, an early adopter of the active-learning pedagogy, was recently appointed chair of the national consortium board representing more than 40 member colleges and universities that currently oversee the curriculum. McKay will lead the board through a five-year strategic planning process. On the agenda are plans to expand the adoption of the pedagogy, to diversify the disciplines in which it is used and to develop more international Reacting games. “Every time I walked into class, I was no longer Drew Scott, average Division III football player — I was Marcus Antonius, prestigious Roman,” says Drew Scott, a junior Sociology major, explaining how the Reacting format made history come to life for him.

There’s no better way to soothe a homesick heart than with a favorite dinner cooked just like Mom or Dad make it. Englar Dining Hall’s Rita Webster launched the Recipes from Home contest last year, inviting students to submit their family favorites.

Several times each semester, Glar chefs prepare and serve up dinners from the submitted recipes and students vote their top picks. The latest winner, submitted by Kaitlin Michael ’18, will go into the regular menu rotation.

CHICKEN & DUMPLINGS 1 whole chicken, cut into pieces 2 Tbsp. olive oil 1 Tbsp. butter salt and pepper ½ cup finely diced celery ½ cup finely diced carrot 1 medium onion ½ tsp. ground thyme ¼ tsp. turmeric 6 cups low-sodium chicken broth For the dumplings: 1½ cups + 2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour ½ cup yellow cornmeal 1 heaping Tbsp. baking powder 1 tsp. kosher salt 2 cups half-and-half, divided 2 Tbsp. minced parsley

12:45

Time, in the morning, when the bus returns to campus from a late-night bowling outing organized by the Office of Residence Life.

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7,500

Hours logged last year by 350 McDaniel students volunteering with the Boys and Girls Club of Westminster. McDaniel’s partnership with the club was honored Nov. 2 by the Maryland-DC Campus Compact (MDCCC) with its Campus Community Partnership Award.

Brown the chicken in the oil and butter in a large pot. Add salt and pepper to taste. Remove the chicken and add the celery, carrot and onion. Stir in the thyme and turmeric, then add chicken broth.

Add chicken, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

For dumplings, sift flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt in a bowl, then add 1½ cups of the half-andhalf, stirring gently to combine. Add the remaining half-and-half to the pot, and drop the dumplings in for about 15 minutes (simmering). Allow to sit for 10 minutes before serving. Garnish with parsley.

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insights

Celebrating the “aha!” in learning

Crustacean researcher makes connections in Maine

BY KIM ASCH

Jacobs, who was raised in Maine and New Hampshire, studies the behavior of tiny crabs and lobsters as they make the transition from larvae swimming in the water column to juveniles crawling on the bottom. When she arrived in August for two months of research at Darling Marine Center in Walpole, she not only found a home base for her field work, she connected with other crustacean biologists, including University of Maine’s Rick Wahle.

Through her McDaniel network, Jacobs also met Bill Hamblen, father of mathematics professor Spencer Hamblen, who lives in nearby Booth Bay Harbor. Bill volunteered to take Jacobs out on his boat Sea Owl during the specimen-collection phase of her work.

Bill Hamblen’s knowledge of local waters proved invaluable for picking suitable sites for the traps — not too shallow and not too deep, where the current wasn’t strong. Spencer and his wife, Anne Nester, were vacationing in Maine in August so they were able to join Jacobs and Bill for their first outing to deploy the traps. Nester took photos to document the work while Spencer concentrated on learning a bit about his faculty friend, whose expertise is in an altogether different discipline.

“I know very little about marine biology so it was very fun to learn about Molly’s exploration of the habitat and life cycles of crabs,” Spencer says, adding, “These are not your Maryland crabs.”

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ANNE NESTER

Although 584 miles separate the University of Maine’s Darling Marine Center and the Hill, Biology professor Molly Jacobs experienced a dual sense of homecoming while conducting sabbatical research and laying the groundwork for future collaborations with her students at the coastal field station.

Professor Molly Jacobs deploys a trap designed to catch tiny juvenile crabs.

Four species of crab are the focus of Jacobs’ research and only one of them — the native Cancer irroratus, or peekytoe crab — is widely considered to be edible. Together with the American lobster, these large decapod crustaceans are critically important players in the ecology of intertidal and shallow subtidal habitats. This is especially true in the Gulf of Maine, where the previous groundfish predators, such as cod, have been virtually eliminated by overfishing.

Jacobs says that understanding how these creatures behave when they are very small — how they find shelter and how much time they spend hiding versus foraging for food — could be crucial to the conservation and management of important fisheries species, such as the American lobster. It will also be useful to understand how these behavioral strategies change as the crabs and lobsters grow.

A new invasive species of crab — Hemigrapsus sanguineus, or the Asian The Hill

BRUCE JACOBS

ANNE NESTER

“I know very little about marine biology so it was very fun to learn about Molly’s exploration of the habitat and life cycles of crabs.”—Spencer Hamblen

Top: Bill Hamblen (left), father of Mathematics professor Spencer Hamblen (right), consults his navigational chart to find a good spot for setting traps.

Bottom: Professor Molly Jacobs collects crabs from their intertidal habitat at a beach near the Darling Marine Center.

Fall 2016

shore crab — has disrupted food webs and outcompeted other crab species in southern New England since its introduction in the 1980s. Jacobs says the invader “has recently been reported on the coast of Maine as far north as Casco Bay, but its impacts on Maine shores are still poorly quantified.”

Jacobs brought juvenile crabs she collected back to the Darling Marine Center lab, where she conducted a series of experiments to measure and compare cryptic behaviors, energy budgets and habitat choice. She plans to devote the rest of her fall sabbatical to data analysis and writing projects, and expects to recruit McDaniel students to help with data analysis. This summer’s research was supported by a McDaniel faculty development grant, and she hopes to win further funding to support collaborative research with her students in Maine next summer.

“This work is timely and important,” she says. The data from her behavioral assay, along with long-term data collected by Wahle and his team, will be used to test hypotheses about behavioral differences between species that may strongly affect adult distributions. “My work will help scientists assess some of the ecological risks associated with the Asian shore crab invasion, and it will also help to establish a baseline so that we can quantify any changes in recruitment behavior and juvenile survival that may occur as the Asian shore crab spreads up the coast.”

Sample Sabbatical Plans Spring 2017 Sabbaticals free faculty members from their regular duties, allowing them to pursue their scholarly and research interests full time while maintaining their professional standing so that they may return to their posts with renewed vigor, perspective and insight.

• English professor Robert Kachur plans to create two new courses: Humor Writing for English majors and writing minors, and a sophomore interdisciplinary course, The Power of Comedy.

• Spanish professor Tom Deveny will research cultural identity in contemporary popular Spanish cinema, focusing on what constitutes “Spanishness,” for a new course.

• Assistant Professor of Sociology Richard Smith will complete a book proposal and subsequent manuscript, tentatively titled A Brief Moment in the Sun: Black Progress, American Backlash.

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double take

Sights worth a second look

Ready. Set. Green Terror!

Student-athletes currently comprise a whopping 30 percent of the undergraduate population and are well represented among the College’s highest academic achievers. Among the highlights this fall: Women's soccer beat Hopkins for the first time in 20 years and advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16; Football won its first game since 2014, ending the season 3-6 in conference play.

Photos by David Sinclair ’00

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The Hill

Autumn 2016

I DWELL IN POSSIBILITY Barbara Thomas Travels the Globe with Habitat for Humanity and Finds Herself at Home in the World

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BY KIM ASCH

C. KURT HOLTER

he prosaic day-to-day concerns of nearly 2 million people around the globe who make their homes in slums, and of the 100 million who don’t have anyplace at all to live, have focused Barbara Thomas’ boundless energy and organizational genius for the past 15 years.

And yet, while crisscrossing the globe with Habitat for Humanity International, Thomas ’70 has discovered a kind of poetry in the real connections she has forged with people from vastly different cultures while working side by side with them on construction sites.

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Autumn 2016

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The vision she works to realize with the humanitarian organization is both lofty and grounded in the dirty boots and sweaty hard hats worn proudly by legions of volunteers: a world where everyone has a safe, decent, affordable place to live. Since its founding in 1976, Habitat for Humanity has opened more than 1,400 local affiliates in the United States and more than 70 national organizations around the world helping 6.8 million men, women and children improve their living conditions.

Thomas has effectively served in both staff and volunteer roles, from Board member to executive director of affiliates in the United States to leadership positions in Bratislava, Slovakia, and Warsaw, Poland.

She raises community awareness, handles logistical details, mobilizes finances and building materials, and leads Global Village building teams composed of volunteers — most with no prior construction experience — to such far-flung places as Jordan, Romania, Northern Ireland and India.

Learning to put up drywall, lay block with mortar, and use power tools has been unexpectedly liberating. More important, Thomas says, “I’ve found an intellectual and spiritual home with Habitat for Humanity — one with a welcome mat spanning across the United States and around the world.” ome is a concept Thomas has spent much time contemplating over the decades. She arrived on the Hill as an undergraduate with what she describes as “very narrow horizons” laid out for her future. Most women of her era were raised to believe their primary adult roles should be as wives and mothers; global activist was not a job description she envisioned for herself. Says one of her best college friends, Barbara Payne Shelton ’70: “Women were only supposed to become social workers or teachers.”

A German major with an education minor, Thomas planned to return to her high school alma mater in nearby Silver Spring, Md., and replace the terrible teacher she’d had to endure as a teen. “I didn’t 12

Barbara Thomas (left) leads a crew of McDaniel friends — Sue Yingling ’70, Barbara Payne Shelton ’70 and English professor Kathy Mangan — on a build near campus in Westminster. expect to travel very far from my childhood home, and I thought I had a pretty clear picture of what the trajectory of my life would look like,” she says. “But education — especially an immersive liberal arts education like the one at McDaniel — has a way of endowing us with the tools and the confidence to venture beyond our original blueprint and become innovators of our own lives.”

Thomas married Kip Killmon ’70 and did teach for a year (in Pennsylvania, not Maryland) while he was in graduate school.

After settling in Northern Virginia and working as a stay-at-home mom to daughter Kristen for a while, Thomas launched a career in the corporate world and took evening classes at Virginia Tech’s new Dulles Airport outpost. She earned an MBA in 1980 and advanced through a series of challenging, if not particularly satisfying, jobs on Capitol Hill and in the banking, legal, defense and information technology industries. It wasn’t until she moved with her current husband, Tom Gasparini, to Orange County, Calif. — 2,600 miles away from her home state — that she found the work that truly called to her.

At that point, she was looking for meaningful ways to spend her spare time while son John Gasparini was in school. She attended an orientation meeting at the

Orange County Habitat affiliate and learned its Family Selection committee needed volunteers. “I have good organizational and communication skills,” she thought. “I can do this.” And because she would be interviewing a lot of Spanish-speaking families, she coaxed husband Tom, a proficient Spanish speaker, to volunteer too.

They interviewed several families, including Raoul and Mercedes Ramirez, who with their two little boys were sharing a cramped three-bedroom house in Mission Viejo with two other families. She recalls: “At the end of the selection process, we had the honor of visiting them at that house with a bouquet of flowers and balloons to share the happy news that they had been accepted. It was an awesome moment.

It was when I knew this was something I could care about — not just something I could do well — but something I could really feel passionate about.”

She and Tom signed up to be the family’s sponsors and worked with them through the process of completing their homeowner training, getting in their 250 hours of sweat equity, and becoming homeowners. Soon after, she was invited by the Orange County affiliate’s executive director to assist with fundraising and she eventually chaired the strategic planning committee and then became Board Chair.

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When her family moved back East to Beaufort, S.C., in 2002, one of the first things she did was call on LowCountry Habitat. She learned that the affiliate was in major need of repair and, at the United Way’s request, she agreed to take on the job of executive director for six months. No less than three years later, she had opened a Habitat ReStore — a nonprofit retail shop selling new and gently used home-improvement items — purchased property, got multiple houses under construction and hired a new executive director. “Those successes fortified my confidence in the skills I had and in my ability to learn new ones,” she says. “I began looking farther afield for my next opportunity.”

She enrolled in the training offered

by Habitat to become a Global Village team leader and in 2008 began leading teams of volunteers to work on building projects overseas.

Her horizons continued expanding as she seized more opportunities: a six-month stint living and working in Bratislava, Slovakia, where she coordinated the efforts of Habitat for Humanity International, the International Red Cross and the United Nations to present the first Europe and Central Asia Housing Forum in 2011; a year consulting with Habitat for Humanity Northern Ireland to open the Belfast ReStore, the first Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Europe; another nine months in Bratislava for an assignment as the Global Village manager; and an eightmonth job as national director of Habitat for Humanity Poland.

To date, she has led 14 volunteer builds to Armenia, Brazil, Costa Rica, India, Jordan, Macedonia, Malawi, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Northern Ireland and Romania. arbara is at home anywhere in the world. That’s one of the things I really admire about her,” says English professor Kathy Mangan. “There’s a kind of courage in going to a new place, making friends with strangers and building something. She’s literally building houses, Autumn 2016

“She’s literally building houses, but she’s also building friendship and she’s building peace.” but she’s also building friendship and she’s building peace.”

Thomas, who serves on McDaniel’s Board of Trustees, has found ways to engage students, faculty and alumni in her lifechanging work. In 2014, Thomas assembled a force of McDaniel students, faculty and alumni to wield drills and digging irons while helping to build five townhouses in Westminster, just down the Hill off Union Street. Volunteers included Shelton and Mangan, Trustee Carroll “Splinter” Yingling ’68 and his wife, Sue Morales Yingling ’70, another of Thomas’ close college friends.

A year earlier, Thomas partnered with Social Work professor Jim Kunz, who spent the spring semester on the faculty at McDaniel’s Budapest campus, to co-teach a course on homelessness. The course was offered during the May mini-term, which operates much like Jan Term on the main campus, and culminated in a week-long build in the small village of Beius, Romania, where participants in the class worked to lay the foundations of 10 homes.

Among the volunteer laborers were Pam Zappardino ’71 and her husband, Charles Collyer, co-directors of the Ira and Mary Zepp Center for Nonviolence & Peace Education, as well as Mangan and her husband, John Willis. Mangan had been following Thomas’ adventures on Facebook and felt pulled to take the trip so she could make a hands-on contribution.

“Barbara is a great role model for many of us who’ve watched her,” says Mangan, who found plenty of work she could do on the

construction site despite a recent back surgery. “She has a confidence in herself that works to amplify the confidence in the people around her.”

Kunz says he was gratified to see the impact the week of hard work had on his students from all parts of the world. One senior from Hungary, where volunteerism isn’t a cultural norm, had complained at the outset that he couldn’t get a good cappuccino in Beius. “By the end of the week, he was filthy dirty and smiling. He said the course had really changed him and the kind of work he wanted to do.”

In August, Thomas accepted a new role as Habitat for Humanity International’s volunteer engagement manager. She now spends three days per week at the organization’s headquarters in Atlanta working on ways to improve the experience for people who donate their service and sweat for the cause.

Thomas understands that the most meaningful component of any international build is the time volunteers spend getting to know members of the local community, including the people who will occupy the newly constructed homes. She will never forget the epiphany she had in Mexico during her first overseas assignment. The locals held a fabulous feast for the volunteers at the end of the weeklong project.

Everyone stood together in a circle, and the volunteers were presented with handmade gifts of cornhusk dolls and tiny terra cotta houses. People began to make impromptu speeches.

“Miguel, a 12-year-old boy, stepped into the circle and said, ‘I can’t believe you came all this way to help us. I can’t believe it.’ I was so moved,” she recalls.

At that moment, Thomas says she realized that sending money is not enough to make a difference in the world: “You have to go there and you have to connect and you have to do. And in going there to help make people’s lives better, what happens is that it makes our lives better.”

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The Hill

BY KIM ASCH

JOHN WAIRE

An MBA finds her fit advancing a stylish nonprofit

Autumn 2016

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t’s a rare day when Erica Wormley ’06 rolls out of bed and throws on any old outfit. Even on weekends, she carefully assembles her look, coordinating colors, patterns and styles that reflect her personality, are appropriate for the activities on her agenda, and satisfy her jazzy aesthetic. For work, she favors distinctive jackets and fedoras, bright bow ties, skinny jeans in bold colors and whimsical lapel pins.

“When you’re interviewing for a job it’s important to show up in a suit that projects professionalism and confidence.”

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“What we wear is a personal expression of ourselves.

No matter how blah I’m feeling, I still want to project a self-confident, optimistic person,” she says. “I’m a creative person and I regard fashion as a form of art.”

These days, Wormley can often be found wearing a measuring tape draped around her neck as she works to advance the mission of Sharp Dressed Man. The Baltimore nonprofit provides men completing workforce development programs with a personal styling session to fit them with a gently used suit and accessories. During the process, these men — many of whom have overcome hurdles like homelessness, addiction and incarceration — also learn presentation pointers so they look and feel ready to ace their job interviews.

Wormley completed a self-designed major in African-American Culture and a Music minor at McDaniel and earned an MBA at University of Maryland University College. She has a diversity of work experience, from positions in media sales and advertising to job development, but she didn’t know how to use a measuring tape to size a suit until she decided to volunteer as a stylist at Sharp Dressed Man just before Christmas 2015. “I had to learn as I went, but it was such a joy to me. It was the perfect marriage of my passions,” says Wormley. The idea of combining her sense of style with her entrepreneurial skills and desire to help people proved irresistible.

“I met with the executive director and asked, ‘What else can I do?’”

A lot, as it turned out.

Sharp Dressed Man was conceived in 2012 by custom men’s clothier Christopher Schafer and founded by the Baltimore Fashion Alliance in partnership with the Living Classrooms Foundation.

It was a small operation; Schafer and son Seth collected clothing and operated out of the spare offices of social service agencies. In December 2015, when Wormley first got involved, the nonprofit had just

established its own downtown location in a small storefront at 235 Park Avenue. Both Christopher and Seth Schafer intended to continue volunteering as president and vice president of the board, but the time had come to hire a small full-time Before staff to operate the nonprofit on a daily basis and expand its services. Wormley had previously met Schafer at Fashion Awards Maryland while covering the event for TAGDMV, a blog and events organization she operates as a sideline business to promote the region’s arts scene. She admired Schafer’s vision to use fashion to effect positive change. Sharp Dressed Man presented a perfect fit for her next career move.

“There was never a doubt in my mind that she had the smarts, the creativity, the discipline and the drive to do whatever she wanted to do. It was just a matter of finding out what was going to light her fire,” observes Jon Seligman, Wormley’s drum teacher and one of her many cherished mentors in the music department. One afternoon last spring, she wandered up to campus on a whim and wound up jamming with Seligman’s African drumming class and telling him about Sharp Dressed Man. Music professor Robin Armstrong, who was Wormley’s advisor, remembers her former student as “quiet and not at all flashy. Someone who is fully present and highly engaged with the world around her,” and whose distinctive style set her apart from the typical undergrad. “Doing good work, and doing work well, was always important to her,” Armstrong says.

Since signing on full time in February as director of service partnerships, Wormley has never stopped asking what else she can do to grow Sharp Dressed Man. She devotes much of her energy to developing relationships with social service organizations like The Arc and Catholic Charities, encouraging them to schedule their clients for sessions with Sharp Dressed Man as a “capstone experience” to their job training. She also establishes connections with large retailers, such as DXL and Jos. A. Bank, who donate new threads for the cause. Her contact with The Hill

Who would you rather hire?

Before

Before-after photos of some of Sharp Dressed Man’s successful clients.

After

J. Shoes, an international footwear brand with U.S. headquarters in Baltimore, reaped 640 new pairs of Oxfords, loafers and wingtips. She has recently started accepting speaking invitations from service providers like Urban Alliance and Living Classrooms to share insights about professional presentation and etiquette.

“Erica has become a superstar; she plays an absolutely vital role here,” says Executive Director Ralph Bolton. “Her consistency, her effort, her passion and her humility are vital assets to this organization — we wouldn’t be here without her.”

The past year has seen much growth for Sharp Dressed Man, despite an electrical fire in March that rendered its storefront uninhabitable and that could have signaled the demise of the entire enterprise. News coverage of the fire instead put the nonprofit on people’s radar, raising funds and awareness about the important niche it fills for the city.

Although several Baltimore organizations, such as Potential Me, provide professional attire and coaching to women, Bolton says Autumn 2016

there aren’t any other local nonprofits similarly geared to men: “That’s why we feel so strongly about our mission.”

By mid-April, Sharp Dressed Man had reopened in a bigger, better space comprising 20,000 square feet a block from Lexington Market. The Baltimore Development Corporation donated the storefront free of charge, albeit on a temporary basis. Since February, Wormley has recruited 17 new service partners, bringing the total to 32.

More than 1,200 men have been suited by Sharp Dressed Man; every week, at least two dozen men enter the boutique, as it’s called, for their appointed styling session.

On a Wednesday in late September, Wormley meets a visitor at Sharp Dressed Man while a volunteer stylist finishes up with a client. The space is airy and bright, with natural light shining through the large front windows; it looks as well-appointed as the men’s department in the old Hochschild Kohn store that once thrived nearby on the corner of Lexington and Howard streets.

Scores of suits are organized by size on wall hangers while separates adorn circular racks arranged in a neat grid on the floor. Neckties of various widths and a dazzling array of patterns brighten the accessories area, where full-length mirrors bear witness to each man’s dramatic transformation.

Wormley avoids the phrase “dress for success” and instead stresses with her clients how important it is to dress for the occasion.

“There’s a dress code for everything we do, and when you’re interviewing for a job it’s important to show up in a suit that projects

After

professionalism and confidence.” She tells them that a shirt cuff should fall below the suit sleeve. Their tie, she says, should add a visual pop to a neutral-colored suit and shirt: “You want that tie, like yourself, to stand out.”

A video on the nonprofit’s website features one client who, after shedding his winter hat and heavy coat for a smart wool suit, declares: “I feel real good today. I feel like I could compete with anybody.”

Sharp Dressed Man is careful not to oversell its impact on men’s lives. “We don’t guarantee that their suit will get them the job,” says Executive Director Bolton. But it’s important to acknowledge that judging a book by its cover is inherently human, he adds: “Within a couple of minutes of meeting someone new, people look each other up and down and make assumptions based on appearance. Is this guy smart? Is this guy dangerous? Do I really want to be associated with this person?

“A new suit won’t close the deal, but it will open the door.”

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invested

Advancing the vision

Bright Light

Dynamic new scoreboard memorializes a standout student-athlete

BY PEGGY FOSDICK

C. KURT HOLTER

Mike Marks’ family and friends — including his parents, Joseph and Barbara Marks, and his Green Terror lacrosse teammates — all helped dedicate a new electronic scoreboard Sept. 17 in his memory at Kenneth R. Gill Stadium during halftime of the opening home football game.

Marks’ parents, of Ellicott City, Md., donated $150,000 for the new scoreboard in memory of their son, Michael J. Marks, who was a leader on the McDaniel campus in both the classroom and as a four-year starter for the men’s lacrosse team, serving as co-captain during his junior and senior years. He died on June 15, 2013, as a result of an automobile accident.

Mike Marks graduated cum laude from McDaniel in May 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Studies. He volunteered all four years with Tournament of Champions, an annual event at McDaniel for special-needs students in grades K–12, and had been accepted to begin graduate studies at American University in International Studies.

Barbara Marks spoke of how he loved the College and how it was a perfect fit for him.

“He grew and flourished and fell in love here,” she said.

“Mike lit up every room he walked into. He lit up the classroom, the campus, the athletic field and the locker room.

And so it is fitting that the scoreboard for Mike will light up the field and the campus.”

President Roger N. Casey remembered Marks as an inspiration to all who knew him.

“Mike exemplified what it means to ‘be McDaniel’ and we are here to honor his life as we continue to mourn the untimely death of a young man who had a promising future,” Casey said, noting the Marks’ generosity in remembering their son in a way that touches every member of the McDaniel community.

In addition to the new scoreboard, McDaniel also debuted a new turf field as part of a donor-funded trackand-field renovation project. Both directly support

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First put into play for football season, the new scoreboard shone with pride at Homecoming when the Green Terror beat Dickinson 14–7.

The Hill

Alumni Bring their Talents to the Board

(Top) Loved ones of Mike Marks, including parents Joseph and Barbara, helped dedicate the scoreboard and a commemorative plaque in the concourse of Kenneth R. Gill Stadium. (Bottom) Mike Marks ’13 was a student leader and co-captain of the men’s lacrosse team.

McDaniel students. Over one-third of McDaniel students are student-athletes and Exercise Science and Physical Education is one of the College’s top majors. The Kenneth R. Gill Stadium is used by McDaniel’s intercollegiate sports teams, such as Green Terror football, women’s field hockey, men’s and women’s lacrosse and men’s and women’s track and field, as well as for special events. A new track and areas for field events are expected to be completed summer 2017.

A plaque honoring Marks was placed in the concourse of Kenneth R. Gill Stadium.

Par Excellence A new golf teaching center, supported by a bequest of more than $100,000 by Edgar Coffman ’53, will allow the men’s and women’s golf teams to practice yearround on an indoor driving range and putting green.

Coffman ’53 was an Economics major who earned a juris doctor degree from George Washington University School of Law. An Army officer and avid golfer, the longtime Fairfax County, Va., resident built a career at Northwestern Mutual that spanned from 1956 until his death in 2013. An active alumnus, Coffman served on his class reunion committee and helped to recruit prospective students to the College. He also donated to the College’s Green and Gold Golf fund and the Fund for McDaniel. His widow, Joan Coffman ’54, was on campus in November to help dedicate the facility. McDaniel is the only college with its own golf course and golf teaching center in the Centennial Conference.

Autumn 2016

William “Bill” Butz ’89 of Monkton, Md., is chief executive officer for Maxim Healthcare Services, the largest privately held healthcare staffing company in the nation, which is headquartered in Columbia. He was previously president of Erickson Living and worked with Allegis Group for 15 years in a number of financial leadership roles, including as chief financial officer of Aerotek, Allegis Group’s largest operating company. He served as a member of the Maryland Business Roundtable for Education, a coalition of more than 100 leading employers focused on supporting education reform and improving student achievement in the state of Maryland. Butz has coached more than 20 junior league basketball and soccer teams and was named commissioner of his local youth basketball program. A CPA, he majored in Economics and Business Administration. He and wife Kimberly Weir Butz ’89 have four children. Their son, Brennan, is a senior at McDaniel.

Sam Hopkins ’80 of Raleigh, N.C., has held managerial, scientific and executive leadership positions in the pharmaceutical industry at the Wellcome Research Laboratories, Trimeris Inc., Parion Sciences and Scynexis Inc. He is currently the acting president of Valanbio Therapeutics, where he directs the clinical research program for autoimmune technologies. He also provides independent consulting services in drug discovery and development through IOTEC Pharma Consulting LLC. Throughout his career, he has participated in multiple aspects of anti-viral drug research. He was responsible for designing and implementing the clinical and regulatory strategy that led to the global approval of Fuzeon® (enfuvirtide) for the treatment of HIV-1 infection, which was recognized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2003 as a major milestone in HIV-1 drug development. He and his wife, Pamela, have three children.

Their oldest daughter, Rachel, is a freshman at McDaniel.

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back story

What they were thinking

Summer 2016: Ian Kasaitis ’18 jumps off the Corwith Cram, the research vessel he sailed across the Atlantic this summer.

Anchors Aweigh. Before heading to Woods Hole, Mass., and boarding the tall ship he would help sail to Ireland, Ian Kasaitis ’18 had never been farther from his Maryland home than New Jersey. But the lure of a summer adventure coupled with encouragement from Biology professor Katie Staab prompted his application to SEA (Sea Education Association) Semester for what would be a life-changing experience. He was among a group of 15 college students, four scientists, four sailing interns and a crew of six who sailed a 134-foot, two-masted sailing research vessel named the Corwith Cram across the Atlantic while conducting oceanic research.

“The first week we were all seasick, the second week we adjusted, the third week we loved it and the fourth we were all saying, ‘Oh no, we don’t want to see land,’” says Kasaitis, who is following a pre-med program of study and plans to become a pediatrician. Kasaitis studied and collected data on myctophids, a deep-sea fish that makes up 65 percent of the mesopelagic biomass 660 to 3,300 feet below the ocean surface. He learned celestial navigation, how to deploy nets and how to plot a course. On two watches during the final week of the voyage, he was given control of the Corwith Cram and the lab as a junior watch officer.

He says: “I also learned that I have the capacity to push myself past what I thought were my limits.”

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The Hill

E Tenebris in Lucem Voco

I Call You Out of Darkness Into Light CHALLENGE: In what year did the committee charged with overseeing design of the College seal introduce this motto to the Board of Trustees?

A. 1867 B. 1871 C. 1902 D. 1932

Prize Answer this question correctly and be entered into a drawing for a McDaniel College sweatshirt.

Deadline February 8, 2017

Submit College Motto, The Hill magazine, 2 College Hill, Westminster, MD 21157.

Or email kasch@mcdaniel.edu

Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage

PAID

2 College Hill Westminster, MD 21157-4390

Burlington, VT Permit No. 58

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I especially want to thank the admissions committee for the Class of 1964 for admitting the young lady with the

Because that laugh has brightened my day for the last 52 years.

— Joe McDade ’62 about wife Judy during his remarks upon receiving the Alumni Professional Achievement award.

----------------------------------------------------Joe McDade ’62, internationally known as the research microbiologist who isolated the causative agent of Legionnaires’ disease, was among several high-achieving alumni who were recognized with awards this year. Read about them on page 36.