St. Mary's College of Md. News Briefs


An Evening to Honor the Legacy of Lucille Clifton

The Office of the President presents "Nurturing the Compassionate Community: An Evening to Honor the Legacy of Lucille Clifton" on Wednesday, March 1 at 7:30 p.m. (doors open at 7 p.m.) in the Daugherty-Palmer Commons. The event, co-sponsored by the VOICES Reading Series, is free of charge and open to the public. The evening will feature poetry readings and reflections to honor St. Mary's College's former Distinguished Professor of the Humanities Lucille Clifton.

Yona Harvey will receive the Lucille Clifton Legacy Award during the event. Harvey is an assistant professor in the Writing Program at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of the poetry collection, "Hemming the Water," winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award from Claremont Graduate University and finalist for the Hurston-Wright Award.

Harvey was nominated by Toi Derricotte. Derricotte is the author of "The Undertaker's Daughter" and four earlier collections of poetry, including "Tender," winner of the 1998 Paterson Poetry Prize. Her literary memoir, "The Black Notebooks," received the 1998 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Non-Fiction and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Derricotte is the co-founder of Cave Canem Foundation, professor emerita at the University of Pittsburgh and a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Both Harvey and Derricotte will perform original works of poetry during the event.

Two St. Mary's College employees will receive the President's Lucille Clifton Award: Raymond Raley, operations manager at the Campus Store, and Sybol Anderson, associate professor of philosophy. Nominated by seniors of the College, the President's Lucille Clifton Award is given to employees who best embody the spirit of caring, compassion and nurturing that characterized Lucille Clifton's tenure at the College.

Lucille Clifton was one of the most distinguished, decorated, and beloved poets of her time. She won the National Book Award for Poetry and was the first Black recipient of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement. Her honors and awards give testament to the universality of her unique and resonant voice. In 1987, she became the first author to have two books of poetry— "Good Woman" and "Next"— chosen as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in the same year. She was named a Literary Lion of New York Public Library in 1996, served as Chancellor of the Academy of American Poetry and was elected a fellow in Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Novelist and Social Commentator Walter Mosley to Speak

The Inaugural Presidential Lecture Series presents Walter Mosley, "The Only True Race is the Human Race," at St. Mary's College of Maryland on Tuesday, March 7 at 8 p.m. (doors open at 7:30 p.m.), in the Michael P. O'Brien Athletics and Recreation Center. An audience question and answer period will take place immediately following the event and a book signing will begin at 9:30 p.m. Seating is first-come, first-served and the event is free of charge and open to the public.

Mosley is one of the most powerful and prolific writers working in any genre today. He is the author of more than 40 books, ranging from the crime novel to literary fiction, nonfiction, political essay, young adult, and science fiction. The New York Review of Books called him "a literary master as well as a master of mystery," and The Boston Globe declared him "one of the nation's finest writers."

Mosley's books have been adapted for film and television, with new projects in development at FX, Cinemax, and HBO. With over a dozen entries, his Easy Rawlins detective series began with "Devil in a Blue Dress," which was made into a feature film starring Denzel Washington. His latest Rawlins mystery, "Charcoal Joe," was released in June 2016.

Mosley's nonfiction, such as "Twelve Steps Toward Political Revelation" and "Life Out of Context," examines contributions to economic inequality, politics, and justice in America. An editorial board member of The Nation, he conceived "Ten Things," a monthly feature connecting readers to opportunities for advocacy and activism.

The first African American to serve on the board of directors of the National Book Awards, Mosley has received an O'Henry Award, The Sundance Risktaker Award, a Grammy, and two NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Literary Work. In 2016, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Annual Edgar Awards and was named the first African American "Grand Master" by the Mystery Writers of America.

The novels "Devil in a Blue Dress" and "Black Betty" will be available for purchase during the book-signing portion of the event.

"On Contentious Grounds" Runs March 1-5 in the Bruce Davis Theater

(St. Mary's City, MD) Feb. 7—"On Contentious Grounds" opens on Wednesday, March 1 at 8 p.m. and runs through Sunday, March 5 in the Bruce Davis Theater, Montgomery Hall, on the St. Mary's College of Maryland campus. Ticket prices are $4 for teachers, students, senior citizens, and Arts Alliance members; $6, general admission. To make reservations, email the Theater Box Office at boxoffice@smcm.edu or telephone 240-895-4243.

Produced by the Department of Theater, Film, and Media Studies and directed by faculty member Daniel Bear Davis, "On Contentious Grounds" is a devised movement theater piece developed from interviews Davis conducted with Palestinian occupants of the West Bank about their experiences of movement in their daily lives and ancestral histories. Davis has spent considerable time in Israel and Palestine as a teacher and practicing theater artist.

"There has rarely been a place I felt as at home with the people than I did in Israel," Davis says. "While I was there I spent a great deal of time asking Israelis about their experience in the military, the history of the land, and their relationship to the West Bank."

It is there, Davis says, that he got a "first-hand understanding of what was happening on the other side of the separation wall" separating Israel from Occupied Palestine. He also wanted to hear directly from Palestinians about their daily lives on the other side of the wall.

"I spent about 10 days in Ramallah and Jericho traveling, talking to people and working with dancers who teach in refugee camps and schools, and asking around to find out how performance was being used to create dialogue and to address trauma.

"I set up a project to interview Palestinians in subsequent trips to the region. These interviews form the inspiration and much of the content of 'On Contentious Grounds'."

The ensemble of performers in "On Contentious Grounds" uses dance, theater, and personal story to investigate the intersections between daily life in Occupied Palestine and present-day issues relevant to our own lives. By alternating between the contested borders of Israel and Palestine and the students' own histories of contested borders, the performance creates an intimate reckoning with the privileges and impossibilities of movement in our world.

"How do borders shape bodies?" Davis asks. "Borders—in the form of walls, laws, language, access to information, etc.—shape our mobility and experience of the world."

"On Contentious Grounds" performs March 1-4 at 8 p.m. and March 5 at 2 p.m. An informal talk-back with cast, crew, and director follows each performance.

Cokie Roberts to Deliver the Benjamin Bradlee Distinguished Lecture in Journalism

One of the most celebrated women in broadcasting history, Cokie Roberts will deliver the Benjamin Bradlee Distinguished Lecture in Journalism on the topic "Resilience and Resistance: Coping in Hard Times" at St. Mary's College of Maryland's Michael P. O'Brien Athletics and Recreation Center on Wednesday, March 8 at 7 p.m. Presented by the Center for the Study of Democracy, this event is free of charge and open to the public. A book sale and signing will follow the lecture.

Cokie Roberts is a political commentator for NPR's "Morning Edition" and ABC News. She has won three Emmys and is included in the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame. She is considered by the American Women in Radio and Television to be one of the fifty greatest women in broadcasting history. In addition to her reporting, Roberts has written six New York Times bestsellers, mainly focusing on the roles of women in U.S. history. In 2008 the Library of Congress named her a "Living Legend," one of the very few Americans to have attained that honor.

The book sale and signing, following the lecture, will feature the books: "Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation," "Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848-1868" and "We are Our Mothers' Daughters."

The Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) explores contemporary and historical issues associated with the ideas of democracy, liberty and justice in national and international contexts. It supports research that enhances our understanding of liberal democracy and its critics. CSD facilitates activities that strengthen democracy and the rule of law; enhance security and individual freedoms; invigorate the civil society; encourage free enterprise; and increase economic, environmental, educational and cultural equity.

Professor J. Jordan Price published in Royal Society Journal "Proceedings B"

J. Jordan Price, professor of biology and Steven Muller Distinguished Professor of the Sciences at St. Mary's College of Maryland, and co-author Simon C. Griffith from Macquarie University, Sydney, had a paper titled, "Open Cup Nests Evolved from Roofed Nests in the Early Passerines," published on Feb 1 in the Royal Society Journal "Proceedings B." The paper focuses on how among passerine birds, a group which includes more than half of all avian species, most species build open cup-shaped nests. A minority build more elaborate roofed structures. Their study shows that, contrary to previous assumptions and despite their relative rarity, roofed nests were constructed by the common ancestor of all modern passerines. Open cup nests evolved multiple times independently during early passerine evolution on the Australian continent, eventually becoming the most common nest type across the world today. The roofed nests of many well-known Australian songbirds, including lyrebirds and fairy-wrens, reflect this ancestral form.

The full paper can be found online: rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/284/1848/20162708

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Geoffrey Bowers Continues Research for U.S. Department of Energy

Geoffrey Bowers, assistant professor of chemistry, is continuing a long term collaboration with scientists at Michigan State University and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The research, for the U.S. Department of Energy, develops general principles for understanding the role natural solid surfaces play in our energy infrastructure.

Bowers recently received funding that will enhance new instrumentation in the SMCM museum studies' program. He and his undergraduate researchers will use it to study how carbon-based molecules adhere to the surfaces of model and natural geological materials such as shale. They will also be able to examine how such materials decompose when exposed to heat.

"My collaborators at Michigan State and I have been working for the past seven years on understanding behaviors of molecules at places where solid surfaces and fluids (liquid or gas) meet out in the environment," Bowers said.

Bowers said he and his collaborators are looking to identify the rules nature follows when a surface, like the outer surface of clay, comes in contact with fluid.

The College currently has a thermogravimetric analyzer/differential scanning calorimeter that will allow Bowers and colleagues to take composite materials and track the amount of mass lost at a given temperature and how much energy it took for it to happen.

Bowers said the TGA/DSC is a powerful instrument on its own but by attaching the output to an infrared spectrometer, they will be able to analyze and examine the chemistry of what is leaving the sample, an important component to their research.

Having a TGA/DSC integrated with an infrared spectrometer he said is "a unique feature for St. Mary's College." He suspects the number of non-research first institutions that have that kind of instrument and capability is "extraordinarily small."

Bowers explained that this project is a building block in the creation of a macroscopic understanding of such things as pollutant transport, nutrient cycling, non-conventional gas extraction, and subsurface CO2 sequestration.

"Ultimately, predicting the fate and transport of contaminants in the soil or our watershed or even in the deep subsurface comes down to understanding the ways molecules interact with complex interfaces in complex fluids. We're privileged to work on basic scientific questions that have practical impacts on society now and in the future. There are lots of great people working on these issues and I am happy that my undergraduate students and I can contribute to making the world a better place now and for generations to come," he said.

St. Mary's College of Maryland, designated the Maryland state honors college in 1992, is ranked one of the best public liberal arts schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Approximately 1,700 students attend the college, nestled on the St. Mary's River in Southern Maryland.

This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Science, Chemical, Geological, and Biological Sciences Program, under Award Number DE-FG02-08ER15929

This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes and warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof.

President Tuajuanda C. Jordan Among Newly Appointed Directors to Association of American Colleges and Universities

At its recent Annual Meeting in San Francisco, California, the Board of Directors of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) named President of St. Mary's College Dr. Tuajuanda C. Jordan among six new directors.

Dr. Jordan was appointed director along with the following college presidents: Marjorie Hass, Austin College; Carol A. Leary, Bay Path University; Laurie Leshin, Worcester Polytechnic Institution; Mary Papazian, San Jose State University; and Robert L. Pura, Greenfield Community College.

The AAC&U is the leading national association concerned with the quality, vitality, and public standing of undergraduate liberal education. Its members are committed to extending the advantage of a liberal education to all students, regardless of academic specialization or intended career. Founded in 1915, AAC&U now comprises nearly 1,400 member institutions—including accredited public and private colleges, community colleges, research universities, and comprehensive universities of every type and size.

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