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President: Tuajuanda C. Jordan, PhD

Microinternships

February 2017

Microinternships: A Great Way to Explore a Career In its second year, participation in the microinternship program at St. Mary’s College of Maryland doubled. The program, coordinated by the Career Development Center, is a highly interactive career exploration program that connects students with alumni for a 1-2-day job shadow.

Microinternships serve as a way for students to receive hands-on experience in a particular job field, explore different fields and refine their goals. As an added bonus, approximately a quarter of the host sites use the program as a hiring tool.

A newsletter for the community, faculty, staff and students.

Jonathan Gorel, Jerome Burley, Drew Merryman, Noah Walsh microinterned at Cyber Point Int’l in Baltimore.

This winter, 60 students participated in a microinternship program at one of 37 host sites compares to 29 participants and 26 sites last year. Here is a sampling of what students did: In her one-day microinternship at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., Caitlin Andrews ’17 was paired with Jen Maliszewski Nikolich ’05, collections manager and curatorial assistant at the museum.

Andrews said, “The microinternship has given me great exposure to the three facets of museum work-- collections, education, and curatorial-- and has helped me to better understand where I might fit into the working world as a young college graduate. … The experience helped to confirm that this was a field of acute interest for me, one that I would certainly like to pursue for a career.”

Sara Eaton’17 completed a microinternship with Ecosystems, a consulting company in McLean, Va. She was paired with Allison Smith McFall ’13, a value consultant with the company.

In addition to observing McFall’s work as a value consultant, Eaton presented her own work, based off a sales scenario given to her as an example of the work expected of a value consultant. She analyzed data provided to her on printers and quantified and structured it to determine the value of replacing a printer before five years.

McFall ’13 said this was the first time Ecosystems participated with a microinternship program and the company would be willing to do it again based on the positive experience. She said staff gave Eaton similar exercises job candidates would get and they

Emily Lohff (left) and Simon Kolbeck (front center) microinterned at Mayson-Dixon Strategic Consulting in Baltimore, where Ivan Messi (far right) interned last summer. Business owners Jayson Williams’03 and Matt Newcomer ’05 (second and third from left) hired NIck Pfisterer ’14 (back right) as senior associate.

Rachel Solomon also microinterned at Mayson-Dixon Strategic Consulting in Baltimore.

had more time to talk with Eaton than they would in a typical job interview.

Eaton said she enjoyed that the microinternship gave her the opportunity to experience a job with time to try out other work experiences. She said that is important for students in order to find out what best suits them. “If you don’t like the field, you don’t have to commit a significant proportion of time,” she said. “If you do enjoy it, then you can experience it more thoroughly through a full-time summer internship. It’s also a great opportunity to network.”

Want More?

News, Student and Faculty accomplishments: www.smcm.edu/news Campus Events Calendar: www.smcm.edu/events/calendar 240.895.2000 | www.smcm.edu

State of the College Dr. Tuajuanda C. Jordan, president of St. Mary’s College of Maryland, delivered the State of the College address on January 17. The theme of her address, “A Bonis ad Meliora,” translating to English as “From Good to Better,” highlighted strategic planning milestones the College has achieved; student, faculty and staff accomplishments; and fundraising successes, among other topics.

Read the transcript at www.smcm.edu/president.

Bookbag to Briefcase Fifty-eight juniors and seniors started the spring semester early by participating in the annual Bookbag to Briefcase conference, Jan. 12-14, put on by the Career Development Center and the Office of Alumni Relations.

Sessions focused on financial skills, interviewing and networking skills, workplace social skills like managing up, handling social change, and work/life balance.

The 31 alumni who attended provided students with advice in small group sessions.

The conference closed with a networking reception with alumni, community members and the Board of Trustees. Each brought a diverse set of expertise, including experience with corporate life, gap year programs, graduate school, and entrepreneurs who started their own businesses.

“The budgeting presentations really helped me to start thinking about what I can do now to prepare for the workforce,” said Caitlin Andrews ’17. “I enjoyed talking with alumni who were once in my shoes and learning about their transition so that I am more prepared for the future.”

Spot l i ght :

Garrey Dennie, associate professor of history

Garrey Dennie joined the faculty in 1992.

We are a campus in a small, isolated, historic location in Maryland. How has the history of St. Mary’s influenced you as a professor? How do you think it influences the students?

Knowing that St. Mary’s City was Maryland’s first capital, and knowing that St. Mary’s City was one of the earliest sites on which Americans began the continuing struggle to establish a civic virtue that embraces the humanity and equality of all persons, this knowledge has had a profound effect on how I have sought to center my students’ awareness on the continuing relevance of the past to our present lives.

What is your favorite period in history to teach and why?

I enjoy teaching the history of American slave systems, the Caribbean experience, and the history of South Africa. These histories offer three separate examples of racial injustice in the modern era - and the extraordinary and ultimately successful efforts by oppressed peoples to overcome historic burdens against overwhelming odds. So the historical era that really interests me above all is the history of the modern world from around 1400 to the present.

In your view, what event or what individual in history has been most overlooked and why?

This is no real answer to this question. Historical research is driven by researchers’ interests.

These usually reflect the evolution of the discipline. Hence, over the past two hundred years different generations of historians have been motivated by different impulses bringing into the gaze of the discipline subjects and events which were overlooked by earlier historians. Undoubtedly, this process will continue. As a Caribbean man I would like to see more work done on the cultural history of the modern Caribbean.

Garrey Dennie teaches Historical Foundations of the Modern World to 1450; History of Apartheid; the Caribbean Experience; and Hunters, Poachers, and Takers: A history of the African Environment.

Do you see certain patterns of history repeating themselves?

How so?

History is the study of change in human societies through time.

I do not see time as cyclical. I see instead infinite linearity. It allows for the probability that some events and processes would bear remarkable similarities to other events and processes of an earlier time and from which we might draw some meaningful lessons. After all there are fundamental forces which act on all human beings across time and space, above all the necessity to draw sustenance from the environment. But recognizing time as a linear phenomenon also signals a simple truth: things change - and sometimes very differently from anything that has previously occurred.

What inspired you to pursue history?

I became a professional historian because I was interested in the struggle for freedom in South Africa. I wanted to take part in that struggle both as a scholar and as an activist. In that regard I was fortunate to serve as a speech writer for Nelson Mandela in the battle to end apartheid. My interest in history today, however, extends beyond South Africa and covers the entire Africa Diaspora.

What’s Happening in Sports Junior captain Rachel Sonnenberg and the rest of the Seahawk men’s and women’s swim teams look forward to welcoming the Capital Athletic Conference to the Aquatics Center at the Michael P. O’Brien Athletics and Recreation Center for the 2017 CAC Men’s and Women’s Swimming Championships on Feb. 17-19.

Spring Sport Opening Days: Baseball: Feb. 11 at Randolph-Macon Men’s LAX: Feb. 18 vs. Dickinson at St. Paul’s School, Brooklandville, Md. Women’s LAX: Feb. 18 at Southern Va. Sailing: Feb. 18 at Old Dominion Univ.

Tennis: Feb. 25 at Randolph-Macon

Internship in San Francisco Founded by Alumnus Jamie Krantz ’17 (philosophy) was the fourth SMCM recipient of the John Bell ’95 Internship Scholarship that provides funds for students to intern with the GLBT Historical Society archives and museum in San Francisco, California. Her internship this past summer focused on museum and archival operations. Bell, a St. Mary’s College Foundation Board member and board member at GLBT HS, brokered the relationship between the college and the GLBTHS. “The work I did with the GLBT HS was often event-centered but all of it provided me with great experience working with people and promoting and preserving queer history and art,” says Krantz. Now, five months later, “I still find ways

Jamie Frantz with the staff of the GLBT Historical Society (top); Jamie working on an exhibition item (bottom). Photos by Lenore Chinn.

to talk about it and relate my experience to current projects every day.”

Physics in Scotland for Srinivasan’s Final Semester Arvind Srinivasan ’17 (physics, math) is interning abroad this semester in Scotland at a physics lab at the University of Strathclyde.

There, he is working with underwater transmissometry of laser beams with orbital angular momentum. Besides working in the lab, he will also participate in experiments on a research ship. Arvind plans to return for graduation and go straight to work at NAWCAD courtesy of the Science, Mathematics And Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship from the Department of Defense. The scholarship covers tuition and expenses.

Kudos to...

Laraine Glidden, (distinguished prof. of psychology emerita) was one of three participants last month in a webinar from the American Assoc. of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities on the public health approach to the issue of maltreatment of children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities across the lifespan.

Geoffrey Bowers (asst. prof. of chemistry) recently had an article published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry C titled “Role of Cations in CO2 Adsorption, Dynamics, and Hydration in Smectite Clays under in Situ Supercritical CO2 Conditions.” It is the first paper from a new collaboration with scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Michigan State University, and St. Mary’s College.

Christine Adams, (prof. of history) had an Op-Ed titled, “America Hates Older Woman” published in the Baltimore Sun on Jan. 11.

Robert W. Paul (prof. of biology) took office on Jan. 1 as chairman of the Board of Directors of the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay. Paul served as chairman-elect for 2015-16, and now will serve a two-year term as chair.

The Alliance is one of the oldest and well-respected non-profits working throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Jennifer Cognard-Black, (prof. of English) will offer a three-day writing workshop titled “Edible Essays: Adventures in Food Writing,” March 1012, for The Iowa Writers’ House, Iowa City. In her workshop, CognardBlack will ask participants to consider the recipe as a form of familial storytelling and meaning-making all its own and provide participants with the opportunity to excavate their own recipes for family stories and write an extended memoir essay, or “Edible Essay.”

Julie King (prof. of anthropology) recently received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities that will help fund a conference in May 2017.

The conference will bring together participants from an NEH-funded project entitled “The Lower Potomac at Contact” (ca. 1500-1720 AD) with the goal of producing a book for publication in Sept. 2017. The book will describe the archaeological research focused on the history and development of the lower Potomac River valley before the age of Washington.

Alison Curry ’16 (history, anthropology) is continuing her work first begun as a St. Mary’s Project on the remembrance of Jewish material culture in Poland, specifically focusing on Jewish cemeteries and mezuzah impressions. Curry is currently completing a digital history certification at George Mason University.