The Hill, Spring 2017

The Mc DA N I E L C O L L E G E | S p r i n g 2 0 17

THE SKY’S NO LIMIT How David Moskowitz helped launch DISH Network and is ready to ride the next wave of change

The

McDaniel College Spring 2017 Vol. 32, Number 1 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. ©2017 McDaniel College

On the cover: David Moskowitz ’80, an attorney and senior executive, helped launch DISH Network Photograph by Craig Ambrosio

Student performers prepare for a dress rehearsal of Eve Ensler’s infamous play The Vagina Monologues.

Their production was in association with V-Day, a global movement to stop violence against women and girls.

F E AT U R E S

14 The Sky’s No Limit

How David Moskowitz ’80 helped launch DISH Network and is positioned to ride the next wave of change.

18 Literary Sleuths

With the help of their student researchers, English professors LeRoy Panek and Mary Bendel-Simso have discovered hundreds of early detective stories and published them on their website, The Westminster Detective Library.

D E PA RT M E N T S 2 Mail

Missives to and from The Hill

4 Carpe Diem

News around campus and beyond

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3 First Jobs

McDaniel degrees at work 10

In the Archives

Uncovering College history

12 Insights

Celebrating the “aha!” in learning

22 Invested

Advancing the vision

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Alumni Updates Life since college

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Back Story What they were thinking

C. KURT HOLTER

Class Noted Guess who is pursuing a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and recently earned her joker card for completing the 52 Peak Challenge? See page 48.

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COLLEGE MOTTO CONTEST WINNER In the Autumn 2016 issue, we asked you to identify which year the committee charged with overseeing the design of the College seal introduced the motto to the Board of Trustees.

Sue Shermer Seevers ’71 correctly answered 1871 and won the drawing for a McDaniel College sweatshirt.

Missives to and from The Hill

Building Homes, Leadership & Better Lives Where can you volunteer half a day and forever change the world? The story in the Autumn 2016 issue featuring Barbara Thomas’ work with Habitat for Humanity illustrates how volunteers and donors who work alongside a hard-working Habitat homeowner build a newly improved world.

Thomas’ journey continues on a global scale as the McDaniel community builds the Habitat mission within blocks of the Westminster campus. No doubt about it: the construction site is a transformative place. The McDaniel student finds space to sharpen their leadership skills while they answer a call to serve.

Likewise, Habitat homeowners sweat alongside students and share their unique and hard-earned journey to homeownership.

This mission-work empowers us all. As Ms. Thomas reflects, “You have to go there 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.” Learn how to build with us in Carroll County at cchabitat.org.

Phil York Director of Development Habitat for Humanity of Carroll County, Md.

Righting the ship I read with interest the Back Story article in the Autumn 2016 edition of The Hill. There seems to be a typo in the name of the research vessel that student Ian Kasaitis sailed on across the Atlantic. The tall ship is actually the SSV Corwith Cramer, named after Corwith “Cory” Cramer, Sea Education Association’s founding director.

Thomas N. Mitchell ’85 Baltimore, Md.

Let your voice be heard The Mail department is your place to sound off about what you read in The Hill.

Letters should include your full name, address and phone number or e-mail address so we can contact you for confirmation.

Letters may be edited for length, style, clarity and/or civility.

Send to: Kim Asch, managing editor, The Hill magazine, 2 College Hill, Westminster, MD 21157.

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The Hill

S AVE TH E DATE

HOMECOMING October 20-21, 2017 Join us for the Alumni Association Awards Banquet, our 150th birthday party, tailgating and sporting events, reunions and more!

For more information go to 150.mcdaniel.edu

News around campus and beyond

Wade Bishop and Will Giles at the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland.

Where in the World Were Will and Wade?

Wade Bishop and Will Giles, both junior Communication majors, may have set a McDaniel study abroad record — they visited 14 countries while earning 16 credits each last fall at McDaniel Europe in Budapest, Hungary.

With few exceptions, they planned their own weekend getaways, scouring the internet for bargain flights and accommodations. During the week, they went to class, learned to cook and played soccer with Hungarian friends. When Friday rolled around, they were packing backpacks for their next adventure exploring a place they had never been and meeting people who more than likely did not speak the same language.

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[OVERHEARD ON CAMPUS]

“You should never underestimate the power of a girl’s makeup; it can be anything. It can be a disguise. It can be war paint.

It can give a girl confidence. Today, I think it’s armor.”

— Darby Bortz ’18, talking to a reporter for the McDaniel Free Press, as she got ready to go to the Washington, D.C. Women’s March Jan. 21

To save money, the They touched down pair looked up friends in Amsterdam, of friends or friends of family who were liv- Copenhagen, ing or studying abroad Dublin, Paris, and were willing to lend Vienna, Krakow, them a sofa for the night. Venice, Rome, They stayed at Airbnbs Prague, London, and once a youth hostel, Istanbul,Slovakia, where someone in the Slovenia, Croatia. bunk next to Giles was snoring “as if he were trying to expel a demon from deep within his body.”

Ireland tops their list of favorite places, but London is a close second, a trip which included tickets to see Giles’ favorite Tottenham Hotspur take on Manchester City in a Premier League soccer game. They brought back plenty of stories of good Samaritans who gave them directions, picked up the tab at pubs, helped them with bus and train schedules and discussed international relations.

“The thing is that we tend to think that the U.S. is the center of the universe,” says Giles. “Over there, you realize how big the world is. It’s amazing how much they know about us and how little we know about them.”

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Poe, Remixed Edgar Allan Poe is regarded as one of America’s most provocative, imaginative and unconventional writers of the mid-19th century, so it was only fitting that Mable Buchanan’s presentation about his work at the Maryland Collegiate Honors Conference in March be a little bit edgy.

The junior English major received a standing ovation for her performance of an original rap she composed to close her talk, “Rue Morgue Gone Rogue: Poe, an Information Revolution, and the Real Life American Sensation Tale.”

She says it was a meta-presentational joke to employ a remix in the unexpected genre of rap after asserting in her award-winning abstract that Poe used remix in the unexpected genres of short story and novel.

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C. KURT HOLTER

Next Stop: Dijon, France

Jocelyn Diaz won a prestigious Gilman Scholarship to study in France.

Jocelyn Diaz ’18 will realize her goal to study abroad in Dijon, France, thanks to support from a competitive Gilman Scholarship. She is the fifth McDaniel College student to receive the prestigious award.

The triple major in Business Administration, Accounting Economics and French will receive $2,500 to fund her immersion experience at the International Center for French Studies (CIEF) at the University of Burgundy for 12 weeks this summer.

“Cooking is one of my hobbies, and one of the things that interests me the most about Dijon is the thriving gastronomy for which it’s known, specifically Dijon mustard,” says Diaz, who is already fluent in Spanish and English. “To me, learning a language doesn’t only mean learning the grammar of it; learning about the culture where the language comes from is also really important.”

The Gilman International Scholarship Program, sponsored by the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, provides grants to U.S. citizen undergraduate students of limited financial means to enable them to study abroad. The program aims to diversify the group of students who study abroad and their destinations, and prepares students to assume significant roles in an increasingly global economy and independent world.

Diaz was born in El Salvador and came to the United States at the age of 11. She is an advisory board member for the College’s Global Bridge Program for U.S.-based students who were born or grew up abroad or are bicultural or binational. She is president of the Campus Catholic Ministry and is past president of the Hispano-Latino Alliance and Palabras to Words, a student organization that tutors native Spanish speakers in English. She serves as a French tutor, a resident assistant and an outreach specialist with the Wellness Center at McDaniel, and has volunteered with the College’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program.

She is currently interning at Strauss and Associates, P.A., CPA, in Owings Mills, Md. “When I was little and growing up in El Salvador, I would dream about learning many languages and traveling the world,” she says. “The Gilman Scholarship was made for students like me. Students who come from a group of people to whom these types of things do not usually happen.”

QUANTIFY

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Age, in years, of Theodor Geisel — aka Dr. Seuss — were he still alive today.

As part of the national “Read Across America” celebration of Dr. Seuss’ birthday, members of the football, men’s soccer and women’s soccer teams read to students at Westminster Elementary School. McDaniel College Student Alumni Council members, along with the GFCW Woman’s Club of Westminster, also read to students.

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Cost to take merengue lessons with members of the Hispanic-Latino Alliance one evening this spring at the dance room in Gill.

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Day in March when American poet Gary J. Whitehead delivered the 31st annual Bothe Poetry Reading. A poet, painter, teacher and crossword constructor, Whitehead’s poetry books include, The Velocity of Dust, published in 2004, Measuring Cubits While the Thunder Claps, published in 2008, and A Glossary of Chickens, published in 2013. He is also the author of three chapbooks of poetry, two of which have been award winners at national competitions.

The Hill

McDowell County, W. Va., isn’t the most popular spring break destination by any measure, but don’t tell that to the 13 students, led by senior Jeb Shingler and professor Mona Becker, who grabbed warm clothes, solid shoes and work gloves before heading to the impoverished region of southern Appalachia for a week.

Shingler, an Environmental Chemistry major, has made the trip several times with Becker, his Environmental Studies professor. They’ve conducted stream-water-quality research and continued to forge what has become a robust partnership between the College and the McDowell community.

Hoping to share the experience with other students while enlisting their help with a long list of projects, Shingler applied for and received one of the College’s Griswold-Zepp Awards in Student Volunteerism. The award of $3,000 covered their housing, food, gas and vehicle rental. They stayed at a decommissioned school in dormitories supplied by the School for Life, a nonprofit that brings in volunteers in mission work groups and organizes projects.

Students on campus collect everything from prom dresses to toiletries for the residents

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Time in the evening when Bruce Friedrich, executive director of The Good Food Institute, presented the annual Ridington Lecture on April 11.

Having held leadership roles at food advocacy organizations promoting protein alternatives to meat, dairy and eggs, he explained why these products are gaining popularity and how they will change how the world eats.

Spring 2017

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AP PHOTO/DAVID GOLDMAN

Addressing Poverty in Coal Country

McDowell County, W.V., hard hit by the loss of the coal-mining industry, was the spring break destination for 13 students and their professor, who spent the week engaged in service projects for the community. there who struggle for a marginal existence in the town of Gary, hard hit by the boom-bust of the mechanization of coal mining. Lack of garbage disposal and waste-water management have resulted in water quality so poor it sometimes must be boiled to be used for cooking, cleaning and drinking. Jobs, food and inhabitable housing are all in meager supply.

The group led activities for the kids, held a cookout and dance with the townspeople and

Members of the McDaniel College Model United Nations club who participated at the National Model United Nations conference in New York City in March. Led

by Francis Grice, assistant professor in the Political Science and International Studies department, McDaniel’s delegation represented Singapore.

worked on renovations for a new daycare for the town. One group played John Denver’s “Country Road” on repeat while painting the fire escape of a church building — a memory junior Phuc Truong will remember long after the callouses on his hands have softened. The Chemistry major from San Jose, Calif., says: “This experience also spoke to my career goal of pursuing a Ph.D. in Materials Science, focusing on solar energy. This renewable energy source can create new jobs, which will greatly benefit the people of McDowell County.”

Most of the students hadn’t experienced anything close to what they found in the McDowell community, but the proud people there left indelible prints in their hearts and minds just as the students left behind a lavish dollop of McDaniel spirit.

“The best part of the trip for me was working with the local residents of McDowell. There is something special about the individuals who call those hills home,” says Franklin Kuhl, a senior Environmental Policy major from McLean, Va. “I came expecting to find a depressed and impoverished region with little hope, and while poverty is rampant and solutions are not easy, the people living there are some of the nicest, most accepting and welcoming folk I’ve ever met.”

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McDaniel degrees at work

Successfully La La-Landed Tricia Meola’s co-workers couldn’t quite understand why she was so excited when her former professor, Jonathan Slade ’88,

and his wife, Novia Campbell, visited her at LLP Production Services in Los Angeles, where she works as a production assistant for producer Jim Wilberger ’72.

“It was so much fun to be able to show him my world,” says the 2015 alumna, who majored in Cinema with a minor in Communication. “But no one I work with really got it. Most of them went to large universities and didn’t have the kind of connection with their professors that would have them check up on their grads all the way across the country.”

Slade was in L.A. for a week-long fellowship to the 2016 Television Academy Foundation Faculty Seminar. During his visit, Meola and Wilberger gave him a tour of LLP’s three sound stages and backlot, a magical world filled with props, sets and storefronts where they produce TV movies that air on the Hallmark Channel. While together, the three alumni also attended an alumni gathering in Newport, Calif.

McDaniel connections, Meola says, are what shaped her direction in the film industry. The first time the Stillman, N.J., 8

native ever stepped foot in the Hollywood area was when she arrived for a six-week summer internship with Wilberger. “It completely changed my life,” she says of her time learning how to manage the logistical responsibilities of a production assistant, or PA, as they say in the industry. She also shadowed crew in the camera and sound departments, and was allowed to practice on the equipment. “It was as hands-on an experience as you could get. Jim was there to mentor me and help me to get acclimated. By the end I knew it was the role of PA that felt right.”

Wilberger recommended Meola attend a PA Boot Camp in L.A. during spring break of her senior year. “It was a way to hone my skills but to also confirm that this was something I really wanted to do,” she says. “I met up with Jim during that week and told him he couldn’t get rid of me.”

Later that semester, while Wilberger was making one of his frequent visits to campus as a guest lecturer, he told Meola a PA position had opened up on his team. “It’s very rare in the industry, but I did have a job in my field before I packed up my car and moved,” she says. “My parents were thrilled.”

The Hill

Young Lawyer Follows Her Own Beat

Head in the Game Three years after he first connected with Hertzbach & Company, Calvin Benevento ’15 was back on campus recruiting for his employer during Interviewing Day. Sponsored by the Economics and Business Administration department, the event brings two dozen businesses — many represented by alumni — to campus to conduct 20-minute “speed interviews” with students interested in careers at accounting firms, banks, insurance agencies and investment companies. Typically, more than 150 interviews are conducted in a three-hour time period.

As a junior back in 2014, Benevento interviewed with Hertzbach, but he was mostly interested in getting practice polishing his resume and talking about his skills and interests, something professors and employers encourage. In the fall of his senior year, the triple major in Accounting, Economics and Business Administration was more focused on landing an internship. He started as an intern with Herzbach in January 2015 and earned a full-time job offer before he graduated. As a staff accountant on the healthcare team, he works with nursing homes and other clients to prepare tax returns and provide various attestation services, such as audits and reviews.

Both the nature of his work and the company culture are good fits for Benevento. He was a relief pitcher for the Green Terror baseball team and thinks his favorite sport and his profession share some similarities. “Playing baseball, I was never the strongest hitter or the fastest runner, but I was really good at the mental side of the game. And just like in baseball, I really enjoy the analytical aspect of my work.”

An added bonus, he says, is that Hertzbach’s flexible scheduling allows him to work from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., so that he can get home in time to play on his recreational baseball team.

Spring 2017

After graduating with majors in Music and English, Hanna Martin ’13 entered Cardozo Law School in New York City never having taken a Political Science course and with only a high school education in law, courts and the Constitution. She says she excelled because of the most important skills she learned at McDaniel — to think critically and to know what to do with the information she was learning.

Now a brand-new attorney with a large Manhattan law firm, she recently returned to campus on a mission: to extol the value of a liberal arts education over two days of meetings with students representing a wide range of majors, classes and interests.

“Critical-thinking skills are what a liberal arts education delivers uniquely out of all other educations,” she says, explaining that employers and graduate schools don’t have time to teach people how to rationally and objectively analyze data. “If you have these skills, you have complete control over your own life.”

Martin passed the New York bar exam on her first try and was sworn in on Dec. 22 in New York. Her Music professor, Robin Armstrong, made the trip to applaud her achievement.

Martin says her studies in music added emotional intelligence to the life skills she brings to her new career with the global law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. Her music studies exposed her to diverse cultures and differences in how people live in other countries.

“It seems silly to have to say you have to be nice to people who are different from you, yet employers say this is missing from my generation,” she said, adding that her English major also helped her hone the writing skills she uses every day. “Being able to work with people who have perspectives different from yours makes you a competitive applicant, whether it’s for a job or law school.”

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in the archives

Uncovering College history

Pins worn with pride Before the introduction of confidential PINs, another sort of personal identifier was ubiquitous on campus. Students proudly wore these decorative, three-dimensional adornments to signify their membership in honor societies, social societies — even secret societies. Although men and women belonging to certain campus organizations sometimes still wear pins, these particular artifacts represent a distant period of College history.*

*Source material provided by

Fearless and Bold: A History of McDaniel College, 1866–2002, by James E. Lightner ’59, professor emeritus of Mathematics and College Historian.

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In 1894, some women students founded a secret club known to everyone on the Hill as the JGC, short for the Jeune Geist Club. All senior girls were invited to join and some junior girls were also welcomed to ensure the traditions continued. Former members described the JGC as a club just for fun, but the initiations were scary and “ghostlike.” The 1910 Aloha yearbook includes a mock-horrified description of how the young women were summoned for initiation “in deep sepulchral tones” from their waiting area at the foot of the steps to the tower of the Old Main building. Those left below could hear “clanking chains, shrieks of pain, and cries for mercy” before the last trembling woman was summoned. “Soon after this may be seen the transformed beings sitting round a table, enjoying life and thanking their stars they have been through the mysteries of JGC.” The club wasn’t considered a sorority, but was sanctioned by the College. In 1924, the student newspaper created a furor on campus by denouncing the “degrading and childish” initiation rites of the JGC; the editor declared it should “turn itself into a purposeful organization.” In 1938, the group reorganized, selected a sponsor, drafted a constitution, and began functioning like a sorority. During 1942-43, its name changed to Iota Gamma Chi.

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The Browning Literary Society, named for Elizabeth Barrett Browning, was formed by and for women students during the 1868– 69 school year. Entertainments included music, literary readings and tableaux vivant — a popular cultural amusement of the time — in which a cast represented scenes from literature, art, history or everyday life on a stage. After the curtain went up, the models remained silent and frozen for roughly 30 seconds.

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1914 Music Medal

3. WMC 4.

Class of ’95 — that’s 1895

Ward Medal

C. KURT HOLTER

5. The Philomathean Society was formed in January 1882, adding another popular literary society for women. (The Webster society for men had also formed. By 1930, the 60-year-old literary societies would combine to become the Irving-Webster and Browning Philomathean societies.)

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6. When the College opened in 1867, The Irving Literary Society, named after Washington Irving, was given space in the tower of the Main Building, which students dubbed “Angel’s Roost.” Its purpose was to enhance the intellectual life on the campus while providing opportunities for social and cultural entertainment for both men and women, but it became strictly male after women decided to start their own.

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Sophomore Honor

8. 1888

Junior Honor

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insights

Celebrating the “aha!” in learning

Finding a future in pediatrics 5,000 miles from home

BY PEGGY FOSDICK

One day during her pre-med internship in Santiago, Chile, Rowail Khan traveled an hour and a half to a small clinic in a village on the outskirts of the capital city. The line of villagers hoping to be seen stretched out the clinic’s door. The waiting room was packed. Khan was separated from the other interns, and when she couldn’t reconnect with them, she went out into the waiting room to get to know the patients.

“My Spanish was too limited to talk with the adults, so I made friends with the little kids,” she says. “I showed them different Snapchat filters and played with them. A nurse from the clinic joined us and helped translate for me so I could learn more about the people.”

Khan saw that a scarcity of local physicians meant these families don’t get to form any kind of personal bonds with their doctors, as Khan had been able to do growing up in Westminster, Md. To her surprise, she also discovered through multiple encounters during her internship that she loves working with kids — infants to teens, disabled or not, sick or well.

“Everything I do is toward my goal of becoming a doctor,” says Khan, who set her mind on her career path in sixth grade. “But no one, including me, thought I would consider pediatrics. Kids just didn’t interest me.”

First-hand experiences in an underserved area more than 5,000 miles from home changed her direction.

“That made me want to work with kids in communities that are understaffed with doctors, perhaps in another country,” says Khan, who is also a McDaniel Global Fellow.

“I would certainly consider going back to Chile as a doctor.”

The Jan Term internship, through IES Abroad, was the right opportunity for the sophomore Biology major with a minor in Chemistry — and a packed schedule. Study abroad can be more complicated to arrange for students majoring 12

in a science because of lab courses and prerequisites. But studying abroad was important enough to Khan to explore options that would allow her to pursue it all. She used the three weeks in January for experiential learning in Chile and has carefully plotted her semester schedules so that she will be able to spend a semester at McDaniel’s Budapest campus during her junior year.

Khan says the internship intensified her passion for medicine, and she also hopes it serves as

Rowail Khan, a sophomore Biology major, completed a pre-med internship in Santiago, Chile.

The Hill

an empowering example to other science majors that study abroad is indeed within their reach.

“I want everyone in the Biology and Chemistry departments to go abroad,” she says. “I got to

more than a month later and explaining that she’s always wanted to become a surgeon. “I was so intrigued that I just didn’t care that I was standing for hours — it was really, really cool.”

“Everything I do is toward my goal of becoming a doctor. But no one, including me, thought I would consider pediatrics.”

—Rowail Khan

experience everything from being able to navigate my way through Santiago like a local to studying in a classroom and learning about healthcare policies all the way to standing over an operating table and seeing someone’s organs.”

The internship involved three days a week in the hospital or a clinic and two days of classes, among them Survival Spanish. Her language studies were completely in the spoken word and included medical Spanish — importantly, she learned the word for “pain.”

She spent time in maternity and watched the delivery of a baby. Khan also spent time rotating with her fellow interns at different clinics and hospitals.

“It was like doing rotations in med school. We saw every specialty,” she says.

During her time in the operating room, she stood by the side of a surgeon performing surgery on the digestive tract of a patient. After watching for 10 minutes, she thought she recognized it as a complex and extremely long surgery, known as a Whipple, which involves removing part of the pancreas, part of the small intestine and the gallbladder. The doctor, obviously surprised, confirmed Khan’s suspicions.

“I don’t think I’ll ever forget that, my Whipple experience,” she says, still smiling at the memory Spring 2017

Since the internship was a total immersion opportunity, Khan truly expected the people in a capital city such as Santiago to speak English.

Born in Pakistan, she speaks English, Hindi and Urdu, but not Spanish.

“The people of Santiago are immersed in their culture and do want to speak their own language. So, no, they didn’t speak English,” Khan says, adding that she is now taking Spanish at McDaniel. “I love the language. I don’t want to forget anything I learned there so I want to continue learning it. I even listen to Spanish music now.”

The immersion extended to Khan’s home away from home in a 13th-floor apartment with a Chilean family — a 62-year-old grandmother and her family — in the center of the city and a two-minute walk from the school. Each of the 17 interns from colleges all over the U.S. stayed with a different Chilean family but quickly became the best of friends. Already the group is planning reunions and Khan is Facebook friends with three of her professors from the program.

“I loved it so much — I wouldn’t change a single thing,” she says. “We learned about a completely new culture and language not as tourists but by living with local people and being totally surrounded by it.”

Rx for Success

Highlight’s from sophomore Rowail Khan’s LinkedIn profile: Sept. 2016–Present Creator/Writer The Odyssey Online Sept. 2016–Present Peer Mentor McDaniel College Dec. 2014–Present Founder To Love, Learn & Heal (TLLH) July 2016–Jan. 2017 Certified Nursing Assistant Right at Home Sept. 2015–June 2016 Pharmacy Technician Weis Markets Activities and Societies: • Asian Community Coalition • Muslim Student Association • Global Fellows Program • Aaja Nachle Bollywood Dance Team • Phi Mu Sorority • Second Year Student Council

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The Hill

How David Moskowitz helped launch DISH Network and is positioned to ride the next wave of change

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n December 28, 1995, everything David Moskowitz ’80 had worked so hard to achieve rocketed through the clouds before finding its orbit 22,200 miles above the Earth. The Echo I satellite had smoothly and successfully deployed from Xichang, China, and a young company known as Dish Network was about to take off.

Moskowitz had joined the business just five years earlier as its first general counsel. At the time, the company was EchoStar, a manufacturer and distributor of costly, 10-foot satellite dishes and related equipment typically used to broadcast programming to cable operators. But Moskowitz and the founders shared a bold vision: they were certain they could compete against the cable companies if they launched a different kind of satellite using radio waves with a stronger signal, giving viewers access to hundreds of channels they would receive with 18-inch dish antennas mounted directly to their homes.

Spring 2017

BY KIM ASCH • PHOTOS BY CRAIG AMBROSIO

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DISH owns possibly the most valuable portfolio of wireless spectrum licenses in the United States.

The hurdles were many. Building and launching a satellite costs hundreds of millions of dollars, money EchoStar did not have. “We leveraged everything,” Moskowitz recalls.

A broadcasting license had to be secured from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Waivers for U.S. trade sanctions against China had to be won in Washington, D.C., before EchoStar could realize the cost savings of doing business with Beijing. Already millions in debt, EchoStar executives watched nervously as a Chinese rocket launched from the same facility crashed and burned earlier in the year.

Moskowitz describes the experience as stressful, exhilarating and formative both for him and Dish: “I believe calculated risks are important to personal and business growth,” he says.

Braving the odds has paid handsome dividends for Dish Network, which has grown from a private business with 300 employees to a public company with almost 30,000 employees and more than $15 billion of revenue per year. By 2006, Moskowitz had helped Dish evolve into the third-largest pay TV provider in the U.S. with about 14 million customers, and he had earned the financial freedom to step back from his daily work responsibilities and focus more of his attention on wife Hallie and their four children. Now a senior advisor and member of the board of directors, Moskowitz has helped position

Dish to ride the next wave of change — this time, in mobile communications.

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hen Moskowitz arrived on campus in the fall of 1976, prime time commercial television was limited to just three networks: ABC, CBS and NBC. “Happy Days,” “Laverne and Shirley” and “M*A*S*H” were the top shows. “All the President’s Men” was among the most popular movies. Of course, you had to watch it in theaters, because it wouldn’t be released on VHS tape for home viewing until 1986.

No matter; there was plenty on the Hill to focus Moskowitz’s attention. Thinking he would go to law school or enter politics, he majored in Political Science and English. After a year as president of the College’s Republican Club, he says, “I decided that law school would be the better choice.”

Dr. Kurt Linkoff ’81, now a dentist practicing in Sykesville, Md., attended Randallstown High School with Moskowitz and was his roommate for three years. He remembers watching his brilliant friend ace classes without seeming to break a sweat: “He had this amazing ability to read, retain and apply information.”

John Spaar ’81 was impressed by Moskowitz’s negotiating skills when they applied for part-time jobs at what was then a popular local joint, Frisco Pub. As Spaar remembers it, Moskowitz outlined the specific shifts they could work and insisted that they always work together. He also successfully argued for free pizza after their shifts.

During the summer between sophomore and junior years, Moskowitz and Spaar drove from Texas to Denver to California and back in Spaar’s 1976 Honda Civic, the 8-track tape player blasting Jackson Browne, Little Feat and Dave Mason. It was during that trip Moskowitz learned how much he loved hiking, camping and big-sky country. “Seeing the snow-capped mountains of Colorado on that cross-country trip gave me one of those ‘aha’ moments — when you just know something feels right,” he says.

It was no surprise when the Phi Beta Kappan who graduated summa cum laude was accepted into many of the nation’s best law schools. He chose to accept a full academic scholarship at the National Law Center of George Washington University in D.C.

<< As more and more consumers use their mobile devices to stream shows via Netflix and the like, the wireless spectrum that’s currently in use will become overloaded.

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ands-on work experiences helped Moskowitz discover his direction. He helped a criminal law professor aid indigent clients in D.C.-area jails, and says: “Two visits to the Lorton Correctional Facility and one very risky visit in a business suit to a sleazy downtown bar while trying to confirm an alibi convinced me that criminal law was not for me.” His volunteer work at a small business clinic was much more to his liking.

After he graduated in 1983, the idea of pursuing jobs in a big metropolis already loaded with lawyers, like D.C. or New York, didn’t appeal to him. He figured a small but growing city would offer more opportunity; Denver beckoned. But after three years working at a job with a big firm there, he realized he wasn’t happy consulting with businesses only when they needed specialized help and billing his time in five-minute increments. A mentor suggested he try in-house practice, which back then was widely considered to be a step down from a position at a firm. For him, it was a calculated risk that made all the difference. He spent three years as a corporate and securities lawyer for a national homebuilder. “There, I learned the value of community involvement and charitable giving from the company founders, including a Holocaust survivor who spoke eight languages, had a heart of gold, and remains one of my role models to this day.”

In 1989, a friend told him about an intriguing opportunity to become the first in-house attorney of a fairly small, private satellite-television company.

Moskowitz had long shared a fascination with science and space with his physicist father and his mother, a mathematician who used innovative technologies to teach upper-level high school courses.

(He still reads at least one physics book every year.)

Going into his interview with Dish founder Charlie Ergen, Moskowitz remembers, “Creativity and business possibilities filled my head.”

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hat first meeting might have blown up Moskowitz’s chances to become a leader at Dish. Notoriously frugal, Ergen is also known for his intensity, which some people find intimidating. Ergen told Moskowitz he didn’t think he’d be a good fit for the company because he had been spoiled by the luxurious trappings of his cushy job with the national homebuilder. If Moskowitz came to work for him, Ergen said, they’d need to share a hotel room when they traveled to keep expenses low.

Moskowitz was not daunted. “I told him that was absolutely ridiculous,” he says. “If we were going to be on the road working 15-hour days, wouldn’t we

Spring 2017

need a good night’s sleep without having to deal with each other’s snoring?” The two got into a shouting match, but Moskowitz got the job.

“Charlie respected me for having an opinion and the guts to stand my ground.”

Over the years, Moskowitz muscled Dish to new heights. He negotiated with Wall Street banks to raise more than $20 billion, and managed deals with Russia and other entities around the world to construct and launch more than 20 satellites, each costing more than $300 million. He traveled constantly, doing business in regions of China, Kazakhstan, South America and the South Pacific rarely seen by outsiders. He led lobbying teams in D.C. and all 50 states and testified before Congress on various legislative initiatives Moskowitz says were designed to “level the playing field” for satellite TV providers.

About 10 years ago, Dish executives determined the company’s business model would need to evolve and started looking for the next big thing.

“Satellite is a business that has peaked and is on the decline,” Moskowitz explains, because it’s difficult to compete with the high-speed internet services offered by cable in urban and suburban territories. Rural America now comprises the majority of Dish’s customer base, and while the company is still profitable, he says, “We see satellite TV as mainly historical, kind of like a landline phone.”

Back in 2007, Ergen predicted that demand for the type of spectrum, or radio frequencies, that allow mobile devices to communicate would skyrocket as consumers came to expect the same connectivity they enjoyed in their homes.

“The FCC has been auctioning off licenses for slices of that wireless spectrum and we have spent about $20 billion acquiring it from the government and private companies,” Moskowitz says. “Now, Dish owns possibly the most valuable portfolio of wireless-spectrum licenses in the United States.”

As more and more consumers use their mobile devices to stream shows via Netflix and the like, the spectrum that’s currently in use will become overloaded. For now, Dish is sitting on its wealth of undedicated spectrum while it explores the most profitable ways to utilize it as technologies advance.

The company may decide to launch a service that’s in direct competition with the AT&Ts and Verizons of the world or it could lease its spectrum to already established providers so they can offer better service. Moskowitz believes the company will reap great rewards from the calculated risk of its huge expenditure. If this were a game of Monopoly, he says, “We would own Boardwalk, Park Place and all the green properties.”

LAUNCH YOUR CAREER INTO THE STRATOSPHERE David Moskowitz was on campus in March for a SmartTALK with President Roger Casey. Here is what he advised students would take them far.

In his words: HARD WORK Most students have pulled an allnighter to cram for a test. But an all-nighter is not enough. By hard work, I mean putting forth a focused, smart and sustained effort for long periods of time.

THE THREE Ps Passion: It’s a common mantra that if you do what you love, success will follow. I believe that phrase is overused.

The problem is, that with respect to career, passion rarely finds you. You need to cultivate it. So how does that happen? Perhaps you’ll take up a hobby that becomes a passion and career, but for most, that doesn’t happen. There isn’t much room for yet another successful craft-beer brewer.

The good news is there’s one almost sure way to find passion that’s often overlooked: commitment.

I find that the more often I do something — and take the time to do it with pride — the more confident I become. That hard work and confidence breeds success, and those good feelings often cause you to love what you do.

Pride: Take the time to produce the best work that you can, and you will differentiate yourself and be successful.

Personal Integrity: I understand its importance better today than when I started my career. I can tell you that impressions last. Those whom I felt were ethical in college and law school I still think of as honest. Those who were less so, I still think of in that vein, though they may well have improved over time.

SOCIAL SKILLS + INTERACTION Perhaps you’ve heard the old adage that the A students end up working for the B students. I can tell you this is often true. People want to give jobs to, and do business with, those they know, like and trust. Treat everyone you meet as a unique individual from whom you can learn. Even complete jerks can teach you how not to act, and even they usually have positive traits you can find and appreciate.

COMMON SENSE + INTELLIGENCE These are self-explanatory, especially to those who work to cultivate both.

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Extra

BY PEGGY FOSDICK

Two profs and their student sidekicks discovered hundreds of forgotten whodunits in historic newspapers

SLEUTHS

LITERARY

Spring 2017 McDaniel College

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English professors LeRoy Panek and Mary Bendel-Simso investigate early detective fiction.

• 13 Rediscovered Whodunits

• Profs publish new book

• Detective stories that beat Poe to newspapers

JOHN WAIRE

Both fans of the genre, the profs were perusing newly digitized editions of old newspapers in search of journalistic accounts of real-life detectives.

Quite unexpectedly, they also discovered works of detective fiction printed for readers’ entertainment dating back to the 1830s, long before “Rue Morgue.”

This was circa 2006, when the online publication of periodicals by initiatives like the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America was just getting started, providing access to previously unavailable resources. The duo realized they could search millions of pages of historical magazines and newspapers published in small towns and big cities across the nation. They pored over the longforgotten pages. Then they turned to the books and magazines found on Google Books and various online periodical databases. The trail of forgotten whodunits published before and between “Rue Morgue” and Sherlock Holmes was hundreds of titles long.

From their years and years of literary sleuthing, Panek and Bendel-Simso have compiled the Westminster Detective Library, a one-of-a-kind online collection of more than 1,300 early crime fiction published in newspapers and magazines.

Seventeen student researchers have also gotten involved during summers, assisting with all facets of finding and publishing stories on the website (wdl.mcdaniel.edu).

Now crime-fiction stories dating back to 1824 are easily accessible to everyone. The earliest to be discovered thus far is “The Blasted Tree,” published in the London magazine The Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction.

The shortest might well be the 239word “A Detective’s Ruse,” published in Pennsylvania’s Chester Daily Times on Aug. 8, 1880, and repeated under

t was a literary cold case so frigid that most academics assumed it had already been solved.

As far as they were concerned, Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” was the first detective story to appear in print, in 1841. Another long-standing belief held that the next work of gumshoe fiction didn’t appear in America until 1891, with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s syndicated Sherlock Holmes series.

Then, about a decade ago, English professors LeRoy Panek and Mary Bendel-Simso stumbled upon their first incontrovertible piece of evidence to the contrary — a veritable smoking gun.

either Panek nor Bendel-Simso considered detective stories worthy of serious academic study earlier in their careers. Panek, a devotee of Shakespeare, Chaucer, Wordsworth and the like, hadn’t given the genre much thought at all. For most of his 40-plus years on the Hill, the classically educated Shakespearean was recognized as an international literary

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roof,” says Panek, a professor emeritus of English who is recognized as one of the world’s premier experts on detective and crime fiction. “Pictorial magazines were exploding as entertainment for the middle class. Magazines and newspapers were inexpensive and easily carried along for reading virtually anywhere — on railroads or at home.”

With a plethora of modern-day whodunits to choose from, no one seemed particularly interested in finding the 150-year-old stories until Panek and Bendel-Simso hopped on the case.

“These stories have value in what they reveal about the people and their times,” says Bendel-Simso. “Order is restored, good triumphs over evil — there’s historical context. We found 85 stories about counterfeiting from the 1850s. What does that tell you?”

The Essential Elements of the Detective Story, 1820–1891, released in February, is a collaboration by co-authors LeRoy Panek and Mary BendelSimso that examines detective fiction during its formative years while focusing on such crucial elements of the stories as setting, lawyers and the law, physicians and forensics, women as victims and heroes, crime and criminals, and police and detectives.

The book is the result of a decade of super-sleuthing by the authors and the compilation of their vast collection of 19th-century crime fiction into an online resource they created, the Westminster Detective Library. It’s the second collaboration for Panek and Bendel-Simso — the first is Early American Detective Stories: An Anthology.

NEW RELEASE

different titles in newspapers over the next year in Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa and Manitoba, Canada. Lax copyright laws opened the doors to widespread pirating of stories, and it was not unusual to find the same or a similar story published in many different publications.

Most are anonymous, but some familiar names appear as authors, including Mark Twain and Walter Whitman — before he was the poet Walt Whitman.

Abraham Lincoln’s “The Trailor Murder Mystery” was published in 1846 in the Quincy Whig. Charles Dickens published “Hunted Down” in The New York Ledger in 1859.

These pop-culture gems were there all along, but every detective worth a magnifying glass knows that one of the secrets to solving a mystery is figuring where to look. In the case of the lost stories, books proved to be a dead end.

Novels simply weren’t as accessible or affordable to 19th-century readers as were newspapers and even magazines.

After his novels failed to attract public attention in the 1880s, even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had to take his now-famous Sherlock Holmes to magazines for readership. “When Conan Doyle switched to the short story and was published in the magazine The Strand, his popularity went through the

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scholar, having published studies of works from four centuries of American and British literature.

Bendel-Simso relished reading mysteries for fun. First introduced to them as a child growing up with a physician father who consumed hundreds a year, she loved snuggling up with a good British “cozy,” a subgenre featuring intricately plotted stories typically set in a small town with everyday people as the private eyes. To Bendel-Simso, they were recreational and delightful — an escape from everyday life — but never in the running for academic research or professorial specialty. (American and Southern literature from the 19th and 20th centuries are her primary areas of expertise.)

Panek was first to tap into the genre for a course at the College. It was in 1979 or so, and he was looking to create a Jan Term course, something uncommon that would pique his students’ curiosity and give them something new and different to explore. He considered focusing on popular fiction and that led him to detective stories.

“I had never read a detective story before that,” says Panek. “I discovered that there was virtually no criticism about the topic. Crime fiction was an intellectual plaything of American academics — certainly not scholarly pursuit.”

Over the next 20 years, Panek wrote a few pieces on Edgar Allan Poe, considered the father of detective fiction, but mostly turned to 20th-century crime fiction. By 2006, he had authored seven books on police and detective novels and one on spy novels. None of the books focused on detective stories in the 1800s, but Panek’s research had begun to turn up crime fiction published during that period in newspapers and magazines.

published in Every Saturday in January of 1868. Mathews found value in all the stories, even if they were rubbish.

“Some stories were terrible. But those were almost as enjoyable as the really good ones, in large part because you could see where the detective story started — where the ‘detective elements’ first emerged — and you knew where it was headed, how far it would go,” says Mathews, explaining that the content is very different in her current role in financial publishing but the approach is much the same. “Getting caught up in each piece, trying to spot the clues or the inconsistencies within the text, and then finishing it only to turn to the next with its entirely new cast of characters — that’s something that has made me a more productive and detailoriented editor.”

Recent student researchers have similar memories. Junior Tyler Van Dyke, an English and Philosophy major currently studying abroad at McDaniel’s European campus in Budapest, appreciated the opportunity to work with five other students and Dr. Mary, their nickname for Bendel-Simso, reading and watching how trends in themes and characters changed throughout the decades.

“Some stories were really great — some not so much. It was still a new genre when these stories were being written, and a lot of authors just didn’t know what they were doing,” Van Dyke says, adding that his group of student researchers created a quotation wall of the sentences they deemed absolutely hilarious. “The summer research gave me the opportunity to see firsthand what searching for primary texts is like, and how databases of all sizes take shape. It’s an incredibly time-consuming process that requires a meticulous attention to detail, which is no easy feat.”

Most of these stories dating back to 1824 are anonymous, but some familiar names appear as authors. There’s Mark Twain and Walter Whitman — before he was the poet Walt Whitman.

Abraham Lincoln’s “The Trailor Murder Mystery” was published in 1846 in the Quincy Whig.

JOHN WAIRE

nne Mathews ’13 remembers the piles of stories to be edited, organized and uploaded — “a never-ending grab bag,” she says. Now managing copy editor for The Oxford Club in Baltimore, Mathews remembers each story bringing with it “that underlying pragmatic detective tone, that threat of impending disaster (whether imagined or not).”

Mathews and another researcher, Cassandra Berube ’14, still joke about the memorably awful “Ledfoot’s Plot,”

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“I started collecting 19th-century crime fiction from hits I was getting when I searched different aspects of detective stories, such as women detectives, for books I was working on,” Panek says. “It was like discovering a gold mine — apparently there was incredible interest in crime fiction in the 1800s, and I began to see researching it as an opportunity to do something that would be useful to people.”

Bendel-Simso, who joined the English faculty in 1995, remembers watching Panek approach her office from the opposite end of Hill Hall to make his pitch that they collaborate on a project. After all, they were two of a kind in the English department.

Panek explains: “It has been my good fortune to have taught, studied and been friends with the most intelligent, kind and generous colleagues. But, engrossed in reading Pynchon or Rushdie or Nora Roberts, they treated my obsession with detective fiction as if it were a mildly disfiguring dermatological disorder.

Until Mary.”

Together, they took the first steps in deliberately collecting early detective stories. Quickly overwhelmed by the mountain of stories their research uncovered, the professors enlisted the help of student research assistants.

There is never a shortage of students who want to sign on to be summertime sleuths for the Westminster Detective Library. Compensation of a small stipend plus room and board is supported by grants from the Student-Faculty Collaborative Summer Research Fund and the Mellon Foundation. In April, Bendel-Simso was awarded a fellowship from the newly established Charles A. Boehlke, Jr., Engaged Faculty Fellows program, which will allow her to bring on more student researchers.

Students chat about the stories while working and often have a laugh or two over some of them. Junior Camden Ostrander’s crew of students dubbed “The Fatal Potato,” published in the Franklin Gazette in October of 1889, as a favorite example of some of the more absurd stories they encountered.

“In mystery stories especially, we could see a reflection of the fears of society at the time,” says Ostrander, an English major also studying at McDaniel Europe this semester. “The worries faced by people of the time are similar to today, and these stories stand as a great testament to societal problems and our belief in human ingenuity to solve or overcome them.

“Over the decades we saw a rise of forensic science and the seeming expansion of what was possible,” he says, “and that led to some stories that stretched the imagination.”

In fact, Bendel-Simso points out, some basics of forensic science were first imagined in these early detective stories. The Locard principle — that the perpetrator of a crime will leave behind some identifying evidence, however minuscule, and will also inadvertently carry something from the scene — was mentioned in “The Long Arm,”

by Mary Wilkins Freeman and Joseph Edgar Chamberlin in 1895, long before Dr. Edmond Locard confirmed the theory of trace evidence.

“Before Locard, when Wilkins and Chamberlin were writing about it, this became known as ‘the trace fallacy’ after Carolyn Wells, in her 1913 The Technique of the Mystery Story, declared the idea of perpetrators always leaving behind trace evidence as stupid and absolutely untrue,” says Bendel-Simso.

“Fingerprints and blood were both used as evidence in fiction 20 years before they were accepted as such in real life.”

Even the use of dental records to identify a corpse can be traced to 19thcentury crime fiction. One such story from 1898 is The Phoenix of Crime,

by Rodriquez Ottolengui. In 1903, a local sheriff remembered reading The Phoenix and called in a dentist to help identify a murdered girl found floating in a river near Yonkers, N.Y. Just as the Westminster Detective Library will never be finished, Panek and Bendel-Simso never tire of telling the tales of their detective-story odyssey. In 2014, they authored their first book together, Early American Detective Stories: An Anthology, and in February of 2017, their second book, The Essential Elements of the Detective Story, 1820–1891, was released by their publisher, McFarland. A result of their research for the Westminster Detective Library, this most recent volume examines detective fiction during its formative years, looking at common elements such as setting, physicians and forensics, crime and criminals, police and detectives, and women as both victims and heroes.

For the two professors, investigation is just another word for research on a trail that may never go cold. They could stop now and their contribution to early crime fiction would be both unprecedented and unparalleled. But there’s always that new clue, the story not yet discovered, the trace evidence within its words. Clearly, neither is declaring this case closed.

Listen to Professor LeRoy Panek narrate an overview of the detective-fiction research at www.mcdaniel.edu/uploads/audio/ DetectivesNarrFinal.mp3

LOCKED ROOM: “The Mysterious Occurrence in Lambeth,” by G. P. R. James, published August 1855 in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine.

CHASE: “Seventy Miles an Hour,” by James M’Cabe Jr., published June 16, 1866 in Flag of Our Union.

FORGERY: “At the Right Time: A Lawyer’s Story,” published October 12, 1876 in Fayetteville Observer.

COUNTERFEITING: “The Detective’s Story,” published November 8, 1872 in The Daily Kennebec Journal.

POISON: “The Apothecary’s Compound,” published July 21, 1866.

FORENSIC: “Story of a Thumb-Mark, Remarkable Detection of a Murder,” published on February 14, 1882 in The Wellsboro Agitator.

GENDER BENDER: “A Detective’s Experience: The Romance,” published on October 3, 1868 in The Corrector.

HUMOR: “The Detective,” published on November 8, 1881 in The (Albert Lea, Minn) Standard.

AMATEUR: “An Amateur Detective,” published September 22, 1889 in The Syracuse Sunday Standard.

FEMALE: “Personal to Mr. Gimblett,” published February 1, 1885 in The Fort Wayne Gazette.

CHARACTER: “Mr. Furbush,” published in April 1865 in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine.

LEGAL: “Defense without Evidence,” published September 15, 1866 in The New York Ledger.

PUZZLE: “T4FG2G: A Detective Experience,” published December 4, 1858 in Harper’s Weekly.

Check out these stories, identified by category, at The Westminster Detective Library (https://wdl.mcdaniel.edu/)

13

DISCOVERED WHODUNITS

invested

Advancing the vision

BOB HANDELMAN

$1.825 Million Gift Supports Financial Awards for Exceptional Faculty

BY KIM ASCH Biology professor Katie Staab guides students in 3D printing skulls of animals for their specimen-preparation project. She was recently named a Charles A. Boehlke, Jr., Engaged Faculty Fellow.

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Years of experience as a business executive taught Chuck Boehlke ’78 an essential lesson: “All good organizations not only attract good people, they retain good people. And one of the ways they do that is to reward them for their good work.”

His recent commitment of $1.825 million includes the establishment of the Charles A. Boehlke, Jr., Engaged Faculty Fellows program, and does just that. Starting this year, fellowships will be awarded annually to as many as five McDaniel faculty members who provide strong mentorship and experiential-learning opportunities to students, especially within the areas of independent student research, community-supported learning, internship support and study-away experiences.

Faculty members who are named Engaged Fellows each receive a stipend of $5,000 per year or a course release, plus up to an additional $2,000 per year for professional development or other engagement-related work. Engaged Fellows will be named for a two-year period and are not eligible to reapply for a five-year period.

“Strong mentorship and innovative use of applied learning are valuable components of the McDaniel experience,” says Boehlke, who joined the Board of Trustees in 2015.

“This gift is designed to recognize professors who do those things really well.”

Boehlke majored in Economics, and says the rigorous coursework and “two-way” conversation encouraged by

The Hill

Spring 2017

ROSIE JOCHUM

professors like Ralph Price and Al Law developed his critical thinking and made earning an MBA at University of Miami in 1980 “relatively easy.”

He cut his teeth in finance as the treasurer of his fraternity, Gamma Beta Chi. “I was the guy telling people they couldn’t come to our parties because they hadn’t paid our $10 dues.” It was later that he came to appreciate the courses outside his major embodying the full liberal arts experience. “Sitting in the classroom, you don’t always recognize why it’s necessary, but it all comes together in your career,” he says. “It’s that wide range of knowledge that helps you think outside the box.”

During his 17 years at Black & Decker, Boehlke was promoted to various positions, including chief financial officer for Black & Decker Mexico. As a regular guest lecturer in McDaniel Business classes, he likes to share the story of the company’s rocky launch of its professional line of power tools. “It’s a lesson in ‘perception versus reality,’” he says. “The perception was that Black & Decker makes consumer products and therefore their power tools for professional contractors must be junk.”

The reality was that focus groups of professional contractors showed Trustee Chuck Boehlke ’78 they loved the tools when says rewarding excellence they didn’t know they were keeps the College strong. made by Black & Decker.

“We didn’t have a quality problem, we had an image-perception problem,” he explains. The solution? “We changed the name of the label and launched DeWalt.”

Boehlke left Black & Decker for MSC Industrial Direct, a publicly traded distributor of industrial supplies headquartered in Melville, N.Y., where he ultimately served as executive vice president and chief financial officer. He also served on the company’s board of directors until his retirement in 2011.

“The Charles A. Boehlke, Jr., Engaged Faculty Fellow awards celebrate the many ways our faculty support students outside the classroom,” says McDaniel Provost Julia Jasken. “Strong mentorship and quality experientiallearning opportunities are two hallmarks of a McDaniel College education. We are grateful for this gift that gives us the opportunity to honor some of our most engaged faculty.”

First Class of Boehlke Fellows The first five professors to receive Charles A. Boehlke, Jr., Engaged Faculty Fellow awards are (from left) English professor Mary Bendel-Simso, Biology professor Katie Staab, Psychology professor Holly Chalk, Biology professor Cheng Huang and Environmental Studies professor Jason Scullion.

Each is dedicated to connecting students’ classroom instruction to meaningful experiential-learning opportunities, such as hands-on research and internships.

Love, McDaniel-Style There was no shortage of affection during McDaniel’s third annual I Love the Hill campaign in February. A record 1,377 love-note hearts were received plus gifts totaling $282,231 toward The Fund for McDaniel’s annual goal of $1.95 million.

As of March 31, $1.1 million had been raised this year.

Students, alumni, faculty and staff alike attended special events and embraced this year’s theme of “love notes,” dedicating their hearts to professors, departments, roommates, teammates, friends, mentors, Glar, President Casey and the College itself.

You can still show your love by making a gift to The Fund for McDaniel at www.mcdaniel.edu/ makeagift.

23

back story

What they were thinking

April 4, 2017 A hawk’s nest just outside Whiteford Hall provided hours of entertainment for three freshmen MATTHEW OGORZALEK ’20

this spring.

Can you help i.d. this hawk? Share your wisdom with us at kasch@mcdaniel.edu

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New in the Neighborhood. My friend, Hannah Smith, lives above me on the fourth floor. After spring break, she spotted this hawk’s nest just 10 or 12 feet outside her window. Hannah’s the nature girl in our group so she notices these things. She got me interested, too, and now I spend a lot of time watching and photographing them. There’s the female she named Siddie, because she’s constantly sitting on the eggs. Hannah named the male Focker — but with a “u” — because he scratched our friend Chase when he stuck his head out of the window to get a closer look. The eggs are Billy Bob and Joe, at least until they hatch, and then we might rename them.

I can’t wait to watch them learn to fly.

— Matthew Ogorzalek ’20

The Hill

BOB HANDELMAN

CHALLENGE: The gazebo, now known to all as Carpe Diem, was first installed on campus to be used as an icehouse until refrigeration became widely available. In which year was it converted to its current use as a lovely campus gathering space?

A. 1893 B. 1907 C. 1917 D. 1931

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

Submit Carpe Diem, The Hill magazine, 2 College Hill, Westminster, MD 21157. Or email kasch@mcdaniel.edu Deadline May 22, 2017

Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage

PAID

2 College Hill Westminster, MD 21157-4390

Burlington, VT Permit No. 58

Change Service Requested

“CRIME FICTION WAS AN INTELLECTUAL PLAYTHING OF AMERICAN ACADEMICS — CERTAINLY NOT A SCHOLARLY PURSUIT.” — LEROY PANEK, professor emeritus of English

English professors LeRoy Panek and Mary Bendel-Simso, along with several of their students, have devoted a decade of serious literary sleuthing to finding forgotten detective stories from the 19th century.

A trove of early whodunits can be accessed for free at the website they created, the Westminster Detective Library. Read all about it on page 18.