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President: Tuajuanda C. Jordan, PhD
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Alumnus Nathan Hesse ’11 Embarks on New Career, Anchors at St. Mary’s College on the Way to Cuba in mid-November. The crew docked at St. Mary’s College on October 16-17 and offered deck tours to the public. While docked, Hesse arranged for the onboard students to get a taste of what life is like at the college, where they windsurfed, hiked, and enjoyed a bonfire at Church Point.
Nathan Hesse ’11 recently began working with Ocean Passages LLC as director of public and cultural affairs. Ocean Passages owns and operates the Harvey Gamage, a recreated 18th-century schooner built by its namesake in 1973 for use as an educational ship. Ocean Passages offers a program designed for gapyear students aged 18-24. Hesse and crew set sail from Portland, Maine, on Sept. 9, headed south with a planned arrival to Cuba
November 2017
A newsletter for the community, faculty, staff and students.
The layover also provided a unique opportunity for the International Languages and Cultures students at St. Mary’s College to discuss the implications of these gap students traveling to Cuba as citizen diplomats for the United States. From St. Mary’s College, they traveled up the Potomac River to Washington, D.C., where the crew met with members of the House and Senate to encourage open relations with Cuba. You can track their voyage and learn more at www.ocean-passages.org.
A little something for everyone at Hawktoberfest 2017 St. Mary’s College of Maryland welcomed more than 1,000 visitors to its beautiful waterfront campus for a weekend full of festive fall activities Oct. 20-22. With a crab feast, river cruises, guided tree walks and a great bamboo boat race, there was something for everyone to enjoy. There was even a kid’s corner where little ones painted pumpkins, played with bubbles and participated in other fun activities. Pictured: First-year student Cooper Clark ’21 with his family took top prize in the bamboo boat race.
Library Dedicated to Hilda C. Landers President Tuajuanda C. Jordan, Don Mering (senior council for Baker, Donelson and overseer of the Landers trusts), and Sven Holmes (chair of the St. Mary’s College Board of Trustees) pose by the sign dedicating the Hilda C. Landers Library on Oct. 21.
St. Mary’s College of Maryland’s Board of Trustees and President Tuajuanda C. Jordan dedicated the Hilda C. Landers Library on Saturday, Oct. 21, named after an alumna whose support for the College has touched the lives of nearly 2,000 students and counting.
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
Hilda C. Landers was a longtime friend of the College and in her lifetime, her giving was anonymous. Her philanthropy at St. Mary’s College began more than 50 years ago with a gift of $1,000. Her generosity continued year after year and through trusts, gifts in her name will continue to support St. Mary’s College students. Support to date from the Landers and their trusts (Hilda C. Landers Trust and the Arthur E. Landers, Jr. and Hilda C. Landers Trust) is estimated at $6.4 million.
Jamie L. Roberts Stadium Project to Get Underway
Sydney Cunniff Presents Research at Symposium Chemistry and environmental studies double major Sydney Cunniff ’17 presented part of her St. Mary’s Project research, overseen by Geoffrey Bowers (asst. prof. of chemistry) at the regional Undergraduate Research Symposium in the Chemical and Biological Sciences.
Work on the new Jamie L. Roberts stadium is scheduled to begin as early as November. Upon completion, the lighted stadium, including team rooms, a track, bleachers, a sports medicine room, press box, restrooms and concessions, will be situated between synthetic and grass fields on Mattapany Road. Maury Schlesinger, capital projects manager/planner with the College’s planning and facilities department, said the College is on an aggressive schedule and work on the synthetic field will begin in mid-November pending all appropriate permits and approvals are received. The grass field for the complex will be an expansion on one of the existing practice fields. Work on the stadium structure is slated to begin in January. Schlesinger anticipates the complex will be completed in time for the fall 2018 season. The stadium is named in honor of Jamie L. Roberts, a St. Mary’s College class of 2011 economics major and three-sport star athlete who was tragically killed in June 2014 while riding her bicycle across the country in the 4K for Cancer event, which raised money for the Ulman Cancer Fund to support young adults impacted by cancer.
The Jamie L. Roberts family gift is the single largest gift in the history of the College. The capital campaign will also support the completion of a new 52,289-squarefoot academic building to house the College’s music department, a 700seat auditorium, educational studies department, which includes the Master of Arts in Teaching program, and a multi-discipline learning commons area. Completion for this portion of the project is planned for 2022. Last year, in the process of conducting the required archaeological survey, artifacts indicating evidence of slave quarters were discovered. Since that time, there have been campus and community discussions about how to commemorate the area. Schlesinger says that plans will continue to develop for commemorating the site. The stadium complex was awarded to RAD Sports, a company based in Massachusetts with experience designing and building sports facilities for secondary schools and colleges on the east coast.
The Jamie L. Roberts family donated $2.2 million to the College, with a portion of their total donation enabling the College to complete its $2.5 million capital campaign. The completion of the campaign allowed the College to utilize more than $75 million in State of Maryland funding.
What’s Happening in Sports
Photo collage by Nairem Moran ’99
It’s winter sports season! Mark your calendar so you don’t miss any varsity action. Game schedules can be found at www.smcmathletcs.com.
“I completed the data collection while at Pacific Northwest National Lab,” says Cunniff. “My research looked at a novel carbonate formation reaction that occurs in clays when exposed to high pressure carbon dioxide. This project is relevant to carbon sequestration and the storage of carbon dioxide in underground formations.” The research involved the use of a suite of unique high-pressure research instruments designed
Sydney Cunniff at the Undergraduate Research Symposium in the Chemical and Biological Sciences.
to study the interactions of variably wet supercritical carbon dioxide with minerals underground. More than 250 undergraduate research posters from students in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and surrounding states were presented at the symposium, with Sydney’s work being selected as the second place poster in a Chemical Sciences group.
Flexing the Brain Muscle with Hexaflexagons n Saturday, Oct. 21 Susan O Goldstine (prof. of mathematics) led a Southern Maryland Celebration of Mind workshop featuring hexaflexagons .
Participants were invited to create their own hexaflexagons (mathematically inspired folded paper toys). Celebration of Mind was developed by the Gathering 4 Gardner Foundation and it is designed to bring people together to explore and enjoy puzzles, games, math and magic.
Kudos to...
Kate Shirey, (dir. of career development) was selected as one of 31 Southern Maryland leaders for the Leadership Southern Maryland 2018 class. LSM is designed to develop leaders from the Southern Maryland area for regional collaboration. Todd Eberly (assoc. prof. of political science) had an op/ed printed in The Baltimore Sun. The piece was adapted from a portion of his newly released book with Steven E. Schier, “The Trump Presidency: Outsider of the Oval Office.” Nathan Foster (asst. prof. of psychology) co-wrote an article, “Do people use category-learning judgments to regulate their learning of natural categories?” published in the Memory & Cognition Journal. Charles Musgrove (assoc. prof. of history) had an article published in the scholarly journal Twentieth-Century China vol. 42, no. 3. The article explores the relationship between public space and the emergence of democracy in Taiwan by focusing on the transformation of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall from a site for legitimizing one-party Kuomintang rule to one where protest was tolerated and pluralism celebrated.
David Kung (prof. of mathematics) gave the keynote address “Music and Mathematics” to the Panamanian national science and math group at a conference hosted by the National Secretariat for Science, Technology, and Innovation in September. He went on several speaking engagements in October. Among them, he gave the closing presentation at the Shenandoah Undergraduate Mathematics and Statistics Conference at James Madison University. He visited St. Olaf in Minnesota to speak on diversity in STEM education and math and music. While in Minnesota, he also spoke on “Mind Bending Paradoxes” at Carleton College. He then went to the University of the Pacific, where he spoke to their first-year class on paradoxes and diversity in STEM education. Adriana Brodsky (assoc. prof. of history) delivered a public talk at Hofstra University in New York titled “Between Israel and Argentina: Youth, Gender and Politics.” The talk explored the paths taken by Argentine Jewish men and women in these politically charged times. David Froom (prof. of music) had his newest commissioned work, “Ribbons,” performed at the National Flute Association convention in Minneapolis. His music also was performed this year in Salt Lake City, Boston (New England Conservatory Chamber Orchestra), Washington, D.C. (Smithsonian), Maryland (College Park), Virginia (International Saxophone Symposium), and Québec (Orford Festival).