College Students

Before sunrise Monday, Kevin and Shelley Taylor set out from their Millersville home to a new employment center for the Maryland Live! Casino, a slots parlor next to the Arundel Mills mall seeking workers for 1,500 jobs. Having tracked the progress of what will be the state's largest casino, the Taylors believe the facility could provide opportunity for their five-member family. Though Kevin Taylor has a job, he wants a better-paying one. And Shelley Taylor has been out of work for several months.

On the day before graduating from Howard Community College, Jennie Wang of Columbia considered the arduous road she had traveled and her studies at the Johns Hopkins University that lie ahead. One thought came to mind: "If my Hammond High School teachers could see me now ... " "If they [discover] I'm going to Johns Hopkins, they're going to be like, 'What? Jennie Wang? Really?' In high school, I was the worst student ever," said Wang, 22, who also became pregnant shortly after graduating from high school, leaving her estranged from her parents, who immigrated to the U.S. with her from China when she was 10. Determined to dispel stigmas attached to young single mothers, Wang excelled at HCC, eventually becoming student government president and vice president of Phi Theta Kappa, the national honor society for students at two-year colleges.

On the day before graduating from Howard Community College, Jennie Wang of Columbia considered the arduous road she had traveled and her studies at the Johns Hopkins University that lie ahead. One thought came to mind: "If my Hammond High School teachers could see me now ... " "If they [discover] I'm going to Johns Hopkins, they're going to be like, 'What? Jennie Wang? Really?' In high school, I was the worst student ever," said Wang, 22, who also became pregnant shortly after graduating from high school, leaving her estranged from her parents, who immigrated to the U.S. with her from China when she was 10. Determined to dispel stigmas attached to young single mothers, Wang excelled at HCC, eventually becoming student government president and vice president of Phi Theta Kappa, the national honor society for students at two-year colleges.

When Mark Chewning was a kid, he dreamed of being an artist. But at some point, the Baltimore resident's dream became all but dormant, giving way to about 27 years in the photograph-retouching business and a stint as supermarket deli clerk, as well as marriage, parenting, unemployment, divorce and self-doubt. Last week, Chewning, 54, was honored as the Student of the Year at Howard Community College. The single parent says his dream of becoming an artist will probably never come to fruition.

Most of us might feel overwhelmed owing tens of thousands of dollars. Not college students. A study by Ohio State University, found that young adults not only see debt as positive, but being in hock boosted their self-esteem. The more credit card and college loan debt they held, the “higher their self-esteem and the more they felt like they were in control of their lives,” according to a release about the study. These feelings were more pronounced among students from low-income families, the study found.

Jonathan Jayes-Green graduated near the top of his high school class but couldn't afford to attend the four-year colleges that accepted him. Now he's an honor student at two-year Montgomery College, and he'd like to head off cuts to the school's budget. The second-year student from Silver Spring was one of hundreds from Maryland's community and independent colleges rallied in Annapolis and lobbied legislators Thursday to avert cuts in Gov. Martin O'Malley's proposed higher education spending.

About 40 college students from four schools are trying to defend their networks from a team of hackers during the fifth annual Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition. Saturday was the second day of competition. Participating are students from Asheville-Buncombe Technical College, Community College of Baltimore County, Millersville University and Towson University. - Associated Press

Something happened in Maryland on the way to the not-so-Great Recession: We recognized that, for today's college students, it's not where you start, it's that you finish. On May 13, the state's political and education leaders gathered to honor University System of Maryland Chancellor Brit Kirwan and to announce the establishment of "A Matter of Degrees: USM Leading the Way in College Completion," a $2.5 million fund to support degree completion for USM students. The fund was launched by a $500,000 Carnegie Corporation Academic Leadership Award Mr. Kirwan received in recognition of his commitment to excellence in higher education.

Erica Christian , of Laurel, was named to the dean's list for the fall semester at the University of Mary Washington, in Fredericksburg, Va. Alexander Lindblom Pendleton , of Laurel, received honor roll distinction for the fall semester for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan. He is a senior biology major. Ki Hoon Koh , of Seoul, Korea, was named to the fall semester honor list of Oxford College, the two-year liberal arts division of Emory University, in Oxford, Ga. He is the son of Joongwha Koh, of Laurel.

"Of course we're going to riot," Paul Howard, a 24 year-old aerospace engineering student at Penn State University, told The New York Times. "What do they expect when they tell us at 10 o'clock that they fired our football coach?" The coach in question, as we all know, is Joe Paterno, the decades-long patriarch of Penn State football. Mr. Paterno was fired by the board of trustees for his part in a reprehensible non-response to the alleged rape of a 10-year-old boy in the locker room showers.

Baltimore County police are making another plea for help in finding the killer of Joann "Jody" LeCornu, a 23-year-old Towson University student who was shot in the back near her car in a shopping center on York Road in 1996. Metro Crime Stoppers has upped an reward to more than $30,000 in the 15-year-old case. The student was killed about 3:40 a.m. March 2, 1996 in the back of the Drumcastle Shopping Center, and managed to drive across the street to what was then York Road Plaza, where she died.

Savannah Bass, 21, who grew up in Ruxton and graduated from Roland Park Country School in 2008, is working to curb binge drinking on college campuses and along the beach during spring break. As one of 13 University of Alabama students in charge of LessThanUThink, she is using a humorous approach to convey the message that excessive drinking can have unintended, even embarrassing consequences. "We found through research that students don't respond to messages that are negative," she said.

The creators of the language-learning software Rosetta Stone have made it simple to grasp the complexities of Spanish. But can they back it up and Dougie? " Usted and ustedes if you're talking to a group. Start with the ' yo ' form and throw it for a loop!" says "E Rap de Mandatos," a Spanish-learning tune by South River High School foreign language teacher Jodie Hogan, who rewrote the lyrics to the popular song "Teach Me How to Dougie," by Cali Swag District. Hogan has created a book of songs that break down Spanish language concepts into catchy, rhythmic verses that are sung to such melodies as Ricky Martin's "La Copa de la Vida," the "Oompa Loompa Song" from "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," and the theme from "Gilligan's Island.

In reviewing "Savage U,"  MTV's  sex advice show featuring Dan Savage, I predicted that it was going to be a culture-wars lightning rod at some point. The show debuted with an episode set at the University of Maryland April 3. Well, it didn't take long. On April 7, Brent Bozell, publisher of the right-wing media watchdog website NewsBusters went absolutely off the rails with a column attacking MTV and Savage as merchants of "smut. " Here's how Bozell started his column, and he was only warming up: MTV is now trying to lure young viewers with a saucy sex show in the “advice” category.

Perhaps the editors of The Sun can explain why a story about a stressed-out student at the University of Maryland includes not only where his parents live but also what they paid for their house and its current assessed value ("UM student charged in threat was 'stressed out,'" March 13). The front page story about 19-year-old Alexander G. Song, who is alleged to have threatened a shooting rampage on campus, first seems to steer off course by reporting that the accused does not have an adult criminal record but notes that he did receive a traffic ticket for failure to stop at a sign and received a $90 fine.

Erica Christian , of Laurel, was named to the dean's list for the fall semester at the University of Mary Washington, in Fredericksburg, Va. Alexander Lindblom Pendleton , of Laurel, received honor roll distinction for the fall semester for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan. He is a senior biology major. Ki Hoon Koh , of Seoul, Korea, was named to the fall semester honor list of Oxford College, the two-year liberal arts division of Emory University, in Oxford, Ga. He is the son of Joongwha Koh, of Laurel.

When painting student Jennifer Tam studied a series of Marcel Duchamp prints of boldly colored, spinning discs, she became convinced that the enigmatic works had to be included in the big new show opening Sundayat the Baltimore Museum of Art . "Twelve Rotoreliefs," the 1935 series by the French Surrealist master, is deceptively simple. Duchamp originally conceived of the record-shaped platters as children's toys and tried unsuccessfully to sell them at Macy's. But a professor later used the reliefs to restore the illusion of three-dimensional sight to a World War I veteran who had been blinded in one eye. "Art can have value in the most unexpected ways," the 22-year-old Tam told her classmates in the Johns Hopkins University's museums and society program.

Lytia Solomon had never met a park ranger or taken a family vacation to a national park. And growing up in Philadelphia as a "complete urban city girl," she never knew what a park ranger did. Yet the rising college sophomore with an interest in criminal justice discovered that such a career path could be right up her alley, thanks to a new initiative that's recruiting college students to help combat a looming shortage of National Park Service rangers....

The Rev. James J. McNamee III, a retired Episcopal priest who had pastored St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Annapolis, died Friday of cancer at his home in the Ambassador Apartments in Tuscany-Canterbury. He was 76. Mr. McNamee was born in Baltimore and raised in Roland Park. "His father was killed during World War II and his mother managed apartment houses," said Dr. John W. Payne, Richey Hospice medical director and a boyhood friend. After graduating from City College in 1953, he studied at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service for two years and spent his junior year abroad at the Sorbonne in Paris.

A high school English class at Baltimore City College will be featured in a virtual field trip Tuesday afternoon at 1 p.m., where students and teachers nationwide can go to the Folger Shakespeare Library and discover techniques for reading and understanding Shakespeare language.  An English I class at City was filmed for the documentary film, which will be featured on PBS and online in the coming weeks. According to a description of the fim, we'll see "a  high school classroom in Baltimore to see students grappling with the language of Shakespeare and using performance to discover meaning, take a trip backstage with professional actors rehearsing for a Shakespeare performance, see original documents relating to Shakespeare's life and times, and enjoy special behind-the-scenes access to the Folger.