Special Academic Opportunities
Washington College offers several opportunities for students to enhance their academic experience and to take full advantage of resources available beyond the classroom.
The American Chemical Society Chapter
The Student Affiliates of the American Chemical Society Chapter are strongly committed to the celebration and promotion of chemistry education on campus and in the community through various events including lectures, fieldtrips and the celebration of National Chemistry Week. They also take part in an annual "Chemistry Magic Show" at local elementary and middle schools. Other outreach activities include food and toiletry drives each fall. The Student Affiliates are also striving to become a "Green" chapter, focusing on ways to make chemical products and processes safer for human beings and the environment. The club is not strictly for students who major or minor in chemistry, but is open for anyone who is interested in learning more about the field. Anne Marteel-Parrish, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, serves as faculty advisor.
The Douglass Cater Society of Junior Fellows
The Douglass Cater Society of Junior Fellows, established in 1990, provides special opportunities for academically outstanding students. Its purpose is to foster intellectual exchange beyond the classroom and to encourage creative and independent projects beyond particular course requirements. The Society funds independent projects designed by its membership and meets regularly throughout the year to exchange student works-in-progress. Students become eligible for membership at the end of their sophomore year. Nominations to the Society are made twice each year. The Douglass Cater Society of Junior Fellows is directed by Austin Lobo, Associate Professor of Computer Science.
The Louis L. Goldstein Program in Public Affairs
The Louis L. Goldstein Program in Public Affairs was established in 1990 to encourage students to enter public service by introducing them to exemplary leaders both in and out of government.
The Goldstein Program sponsors lectures, symposia, visiting fellows, student participation in models and conferences, and other projects that bring students and faculty together with leaders experienced in developing public policy.
Recent speakers have included Kweisi Mfume, President and CEO of the NAACP; Jeff Birnbaum, Washington Bureau Chief for Fortune magazine; Anita Perez Ferguson, former president of the National Women's Political Caucus; Christian Parenti, author of Lockdown America; and James Lindsay, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, and Jack Spencer, Policy Analyst for Defense and National Security, Heritage Foundation, in a Symposium on National Missile Defense. The Goldstein Program is directed by Tahir Shad, Associate Professor of Political Science.
Hodson Science Fellowships
While many students participate in undergraduate research in the natural sciences during the academic year, many choose to continue their work in the lab during the summer months. The College's summer undergraduate research program supports collaborative projects in all the sciences, culminating in poster presentations of their work on campus and, often, at regional and national scientific meetings. Entering students who plan to major in the natural sciences, mathematics, or computer science could receive a $6,000 fellowship to support their summer research with a faculty member. The fellowship may also be used to defray research expenses during the academic year.
The Sophie Kerr Program
With income from a handsome endowment created in 1967, this program brings to campus a succession of distinguished writers, editors and literary scholars. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, Joseph Brodsky, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lucille Clifton, James McBride, Peter Matthiessen, Toni Morrison, and Bobbie Ann Mason are just some of the writers and scholars who have come to Washington College in the last decade to teach, lecture, and conduct writing workshops.
The Sophie Kerr Fund also supports the Sophie Kerr Prize, the largest undergraduate award in the United States and one of the largest literary awards in the world, totaling more than $60,000 in 2007. The prize is awarded annually to a graduating senior "having the best ability and promise for future fulfillment in the field of literary endeavor."
The Sophie Kerr Fund also provides scholarships for entering English majors who show promise in English or American literature.
The Joseph H. McLain Program in Environmental Studies
The Joseph H. McLain Program in Environmental Studies was established in 1990 to focus attention on and augment study in the fields of aquatic and environmental studies.
The Program supports lectures and symposia featuring visiting scientists and other professionals on matters of environmental interest, particularly relating to the Chesapeake Bay. Past speakers have included Sylvia Earle, an underwater explorer and chief scientist at NOAA; environmental writer Tom Horton; Stephen Leatherman, Director, Laboratory of Coastal Research, University of Maryland; Edward Hoagland, author and editor, Penguin Series on the Environment and Natural History; Herman Daly, Senior Economist, Environmental Department, the World Bank; Christopher D. Clark, internationally recognized sporting artist; Simon Levin, Director, Princeton University Environmental Institute.
The McLain Program is directed by Donald Munson, the Joseph H. McLain Professor of Environmental Studies and Professor of Biology.
Silver Pentagon Society
The Silver Pentagon Society provides special opportunities for students who have demonstrated a high level of academic achievement. The Society is open to first- and second-year students who have achieved a grade point of 3.5 or higher. It brings Pentagon Fellows into close relationship with peers of similar interests and abilities. Fellows participate in programs sponsored by Omicron Delta Kappa and the Douglass Cater Society of Junior Fellows, and they work on special projects designed by the group and its faculty advisor. The Silver Pentagon Society is directed by Garry E. Clarke, Professor of Music.
The C. V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience
This Center, located in the historic Custom House on the Chester River, builds on Washington College's national tradition as the first college founded in the new nation under the patronage of General George Washington. The Center seeks to trace the evolution of modern American thought from its roots in the ideas of the nation's founders. One of its signature programs is the George Washington Book Prize, launched in 2005 in partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and George Washington's Mount Vernon. The Prize awards $50,000 annually to an author of a published work contributing to a greater understanding of the life and career of George Washington and/or the founding era. Director: Adam Goodheart
The Center for Environment & Society
This Center is the natural outgrowth of the College's environmental setting, its partnerships with regional environmental centers, and its own environmental studies program. The work of the Center addresses the academic and policy issues in the earth sciences as well as cultural archaeology and cultural resource management. This Center is located in the Custom House. Director: John Seidel
The Rose O'Neill Literary House
The Rose O'Neill Literary House stands at the center of Washington College's thriving literary community. With support from the Sophie Kerr endowment, some of the nation's most distinguished writers, editors, critics, and scholars have given readings and broken bread with Washington College writers on the Literary House's wraparound porch or within its poster-clad Victorian walls. Students handset their own poetry broadsides in the Literary House's pressroom annex or perfect their prose in one of the student writing rooms on the upper floors. The Rose O'Neill Literary House is both physical space and a programmatic center within a campus environment in which all students, regardless of discipline, are expected to develop the arts of writing and speaking well. Director: Joshua Wolf Shenk
Academic Resources
Clifton M. Miller Library
Miller Library is a dynamic place where active teaching and learning occurs at all times. The library provides: a rich collection of resources befitting the curriculum; technology to facilitate innovative forms of electronic delivery of our resources and services any time and from anywhere; a research instruction and reference program designed to empower students to become independent learners and to cope with the rigors of research papers, projects, and the culminating senior thesis; an environment equipped with teaching and learning spaces and workstations for individual and group study, research and computing; and librarians and staff who are confident, innovative, and dynamic facilitators and communicators. The library faculty encourages in students a sense of curiosity and a desire to explore a wide range of information, fosters their critical thinking skills, and teaches them how to select, evaluate, and organize information. The staff strives to support faculty in their individual intellectual endeavors and to foster a total community of active learners.
More than 500,000 books, periodicals, newspapers, government documents, microform, and multimedia resources comprise the library's collection. A fully networked integrated library system provides access to more than 20,000 electronic periodicals, 25,000 e-books, and numerous links to Internet sources. Furthermore, any resource not available in Miller Library's collection can be obtained through interlibrary loan. Course materials are reserved in electronic format and therefore can be viewed and downloaded remotely from the library's home page at any time. State of the art technology enables students to use wireless laptops anywhere in the library.
Through a collaborative initiative with the Office of Information Technology and Academic Resources, the library environment is greatly enriched with the addition of the Multimedia Production Center, the Beck Instructional Technology Laboratory, the Math Center, and the Office of Study Skills and Learning Differences.
Academic Computing
Computers and technology play a very important role in all aspects of college life. Students, faculty, and staff rely on e-mail and the Web to communicate and share important information. Increasingly, library resources, academic and course information are accessible online. To benefit from the College's academic environment, students must have the tools to access and work with digital resources. Therefore the College provides high speed Ethernet access in all residence halls, the computing centers, and in all public access areas.
Wireless access is also available in the residence halls and in all academic buildings. Students have access to Windows or Macintosh computers in the computing centers, Miller Library, and in the public access locations in the residence halls. Every classroom has Internet access and about half have computer-assisted capabilities. The 75-seat lecture hall in Goldstein Hall is equipped with individual network connections to accommodate a personal laptop.
Using Blackboard, the College's course management system, professors can place their course materials, instructional activities, assignments, grades, interactive presentations, and assessments on their Blackboard course web site. With Blackboard, students can participate in synchronous and asynchronous online class discussions. Blackboard helps faculty to enhance the student learning experience.
In the Multimedia Production Center (MPC), faculty, students, and staff can create multimedia projects using industry standard applications running on state of the art equipment. With a variety of programs and services, the campus community can learn to enhance their communications using multimedia technologies. Users can learn digital video production, create graphics and animations, and develop web or CD-ROM based interactive presentations. To complement the MPC's multimedia workstations and laptop computers, a comprehensive loaner pool allows faculty, students, and staff to borrow equipment including digital video camcorders and digital still cameras. The Multimedia Production Center is located on the ground floor in Miller Library.
The Writing Center
The ability to write clearly and concisely is essential to professional success—for businessmen writing reports, teachers creating curricula, or scientists drafting grant proposals. Thus, Washington College is deeply committed to cultivating a student's expository writing skills. To this end, in addition to offering a curriculum rich in opportunities to write, the College requires that students enroll in writing-intensive CNW courses during their freshman year.
The Center provides resources for students who wish to sharpen their writing skills, to generate new ideas through discussion, and to review their work with a tutorial instructor in writing. The Center offers individual conferences and small group instruction.
The Writing Center will also be an important resource for all students completing their two writing-intensive courses.
Beyond helping students meet these formal requirements, tutorial instructors are available to anyone in the College community—freshmen through graduate students—desiring to schedule individual conferences at any stage in the writing process. In a supportive, non-evaluative atmosphere, students may reflect on their ideas as they emerge in writing, measuring and testing their clarity and power.
The Math Center
The Math Center has relocated to a newly renovated area of the main floor of the Miller Library, in the former location of the Current Periodicals room. Students who desire assistance with quantitative skills in Math, Computer Science, Business, Economics, and other disciplines will find friendly, welltrained peer tutors available to help them on a drop-in basis. The Math Center is open Monday through Thursday, between 12 noon and 5 p.m. Evening hours and other times are available by appointment. The Math Center posts tutoring hours and other helpful information on their Web site at http://mathcenter.washcoll.edu.
Office of Study Skills and Learning Differences
The Office of Study Skills and Learning Differences is located on the second floor of the Miller Library. This newly renovated space is available to all students who wish to acquire additional learning strategies and support for academic success at Washington College. In addition, the office supports the curricular needs of students with documented learning differences and special needs.
Development of Learning Strategies
Through individual and small group instruction and discussion, the Study Skills director assists students in acquiring helpful strategies and techniques necessary to excel in college-level work. These skills include topics such as discipline-specific study strategies, time management, testtaking, test anxiety, and reading for comprehension and retention.
Students with Special Needs
Students with documented special needs or learning differences who seek accommodation from the College should provide copies of appropriate documentation to the Director of Study Skills in the Office of Study Skills and Learning Differences. The Director will meet individually with students to discuss their needs, choices about disclosure, and how to approach professors about accommodation. Students who suspect they may have learning differences can bring their concerns to the Study Skills Center for a preliminary evaluation.
Peer Tutors in a variety of subjects are also available by registering with the Study Skills Center. An individual tutor in the appropriate discipline can be assigned within two weeks. Early requests are highly encouraged. Additionally, students having learning problems may find help through participation in the Target Experience for Academic Mentoring (TEAM) Program sponsored through the Dean's Office. This program pairs a staff TEAM Mentor with a student for weekly meetings regarding academic issues and progress.
The Career Development Center
This center assists students in defining and achieving their goals by providing counseling, assessment, and career and graduate school information.
The Office of International Programs
This office serves as a resource center for students contemplating study abroad, and for international students. Staff members provide study abroad advising, application guidance, and preparation for student experiences abroad. International students are offered a full range of services and find support for their academic, social, personal, and cultural adjustment to Washington College.