Faculty Members

The University of Maryland College Park has bestowed its highest academic award, the title of distinguished university professor, on 13 of the school's faculty members.The distinguished university professors are Ivo Babuska, mathematics; Stephen Brush, history; Guillermo Calvo, economics; Sankar Das Sarma, physics; David C. Driskell, art; Bruce L. Gardner and Richard E. Just, agricultural and resource economics; Ted Robert Gurr, government and politics; Edward Ott, electrical engineering and physics; Jose E. Pacheco, Spanish and Portuguese; Azriel Rosenfeld, center for automation research; John D. Weeks, chemistry and biochemistry; and James A. Yorke, mathematics.

Kathryn Manion was "at a loss for words" Tuesday night — shortly after being honored for her way with them. At a private club in New York, Manion, 22, was named the 2012 winner of Washington College's Sophie Kerr Prize, which at more than $58,000 this year is considered the most lucrative undergraduate literary award in the country. The senior English major, a Clarksville native and graduate of Notre Dame Prep in Towson, said late Tuesday that her win was still sinking in, but that she was honored.

Fourteen faculty members at Western Maryland College were awarded money for research next year through the college's Faculty Development Committee. The faculty members are: Tom Deveny, foreign languages. He will continue studying Spanish film, traveling to Spain to research the Young Spanish Cinema. Sherri Hughes, psychology and assistant dean of graduate and professional studies. Hughes will continue her research on participants in Alaska's Iditasport ultramarathon. Lauren Dundes, Roxanna Harlow, Deb Lemke and Jean Shin, all of the sociology department.

William Arthur "Bill" Seal III, a retired McDonogh School dean, faculty member, coach and dormitory parent, died of an apparent heart attack Monday at Carroll Hospital Center. The Reisterstown resident was 65. In nearly four decades at McDonogh, Mr. Seal taught lower school science and upper school psychology and history, guided the senior class, and coached soccer, lacrosse and wrestling. He was inducted into the McDonogh Athletic Hall of Fame in 1999 and received the Alumni Association's Distinguished Service Award in 2007.

Western Maryland College has welcomed nine full-time and 13 part-time undergraduate faculty members for the 1996-1997 academic year.The new full-time members are:Timothy J. Baylor, assistant professor, sociology. He has researched the Native American culture, including the American Indian Movement (AIM).Lauren Dundes, assistant professor, sociology. Dundes is coordinator of the Integrated Youth Apprenticeship Method, a nonprofit summer enrichment program in East Baltimore.Susan Futeral-Myrowitz, visiting assistant professor, social work.

South Carroll High School has welcomed six new members to its faculty for 1995-1996.* Matt Davis, business teacher, has a degree from York College. He taught previously in Baltimore County.* Dawn Geisler is a special education resource teacher. She has a bachelor's degree in physical education and certificate in special education from Towson State University.* Julie Horwitz has been hired as an English Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) instructor to assist those who speak English as a second language.

For some reason, there don't seem to be as many art exhibitions on the occasion of Black History Month this year as I remember from former years. Programs yes, but exhibitions no. One of the exceptions is Dundalk Community College's "In Celebration of Black History Month," which brings together 10 African-American faculty members from local colleges and universities.This is not a theme show, for these artists' interests are as wide-ranging as their media -- from painting to sculpture to prints to paper wall reliefs to ceramics.

Western Maryland College held a reception yesterday for seven longtime faculty members who are retiring this year.The seven are William T. Achor, professor of physics; Charles C. Herrman Jr., associate professor of sociology; Melvin D. Palmer, professor of comparative literature; Keith N. Richwine, professor of English; Helen B. Wolfe, associate professor of education; Ira G. Zepp Jr., professor of religious studies; and Evelyn H. Winfrey, associate professor...

Carroll Community College has added several new faculty members and an administrator during the current semester.* Laura Bittner joined the faculty as a full-time psychology instructor after having taught at Essex, Harford and Baltimore City community colleges and the Baltimore City Police Academy.She also worked as a mental health counselor developing treatment plans and doing group therapy for a state-run agency for children and as a mental health therapist for youth for the Johns Hopkins Medical Plan and Hopkins Hospital.

The chairwoman of Baltimore City Community College's board resigned during its monthly meeting yesterday amid a heated dispute between faculty members and the school's president about his management style. Rosetta Kerr Wilson quit without explanation at the beginning of the session. Later, the board narrowly passed a surprise 15-point resolution supporting President Sylvester E. McKay and denouncing his critics among the faculty and staff. Wilson is a director of government relations for Comcast Cable who has served as chairwoman of the board since July 2002.

The Rev. Thomas Walsh, a Franciscan friar and pastor of a Rosedale congregation who had been the longest-serving Archbishop Curley High School religious faculty member, died of a heart attack Saturday at Union Memorial Hospital. He was 60. The pastor of the Roman Catholic Church of the Annunciation, he had spent more than 25 years as a teacher and guidance counselor at the Northeast Baltimore boys school, which will be closed Friday to honor his life and to allow students to attend his funeral.

Concerts Pianist Brian Ganz will return to his hometown of Columbia to once again perform at the Sundays at Three chamber music concert series this Sunday, Nov. 6, p.m., at Christ Episcopal Church, located at 6800 Oakland Mills Road. Ganz is now based in Annapolis and regularly performs all over the world and earlier this year performed works by Chopin in that composer's homeland, Poland. He is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory, where he studied under Leon Fleisher.

Terence Kennedy, a financial consultant and adjunct faculty member of Stevenson University, died Aug. 12 of heart failure at St. Joseph Medical Center. He was 73. The son of a construction worker and a telephone operator, Mr. Kennedy was born and raised in Jersey City, N.J., where he graduated in 1956 from St. Peter's Preparatory School. After attending college for two years, he enlisted in the Army in 1959, where he attained the rank of specialist working in communications.

More than 4,000 students graduated from Howard County's 12 high schools in the past two weeks, but a different sort of commencement exercise was held June 7 at the Ten Oaks Ballroom, in Clarksville. There, 65 retiring educators received their own special farewell at the system's annual retiree reception. Deputy Superintendent Mamie Perkins officiated the mock graduation, filled with laughter and only a few tears. "I want you to recognize that you're graduating from the finest schools in the country, so I don't want any shenanigans," she teased.

Dr. Edward Henderson Richardson Jr., a retired gynecologist and women's urologist who was an accomplished photographer, died Thursday of pneumonia at his home in Roland Park Place. The longtime Ruxton resident was 98. Dr. Richardson, who was the son of a gynecologist and a homemaker, was raised at 9 E. Chase St., which eventually became his office, and moved in 1925 with his family to Guilford. After graduating in 1930 from Gilman School, he earned a bachelor's degree from Princeton University in 1934.

Dr. Christopher Dyer Saudek, founder and director of the Johns Hopkins Comprehensive Diabetes Center and a pioneer in the development of the implantable insulin pump, died Wednesday of metastatic melanoma at his Lutherville home. He was 68. "We have lost one of our giants," said Dr. Edward D. Miller, dean of the faculty of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and CEO of Johns Hopkins medicine. "He always tried to make things better for patients. I so enjoyed referring patients to him because I knew that he would not only give them great medical care but that his compassion and understanding of the human condition was unsurpassed," Dr. Miller said.

The story goes that Beethoven was thoroughly annoyed at the long-lasting popularity of his Septet for winds and strings from 1800. He was bursting at the seams with much bigger, bolder musical ideas, and people kept harping about the charms of that old lightweight piece of chamber music. Today, the public is much more interested in that bigger, bolder stuff, but the Septet has hardly lost its appeal. All it takes is a sterling performance to unleash it, as happened Tuesday at Peabody Conservatory, where seven faculty members got together to explore the work.

Western Maryland College welcomed more than 490 new students and honored several faculty members at its Aug. 25 convocation, the official start of the fall semester. After the ceremony, students were invited to join the WMC community by ringing the Old Main bell. In four years, the college president will ring them out as graduates of the class of 2004. Honored faculty members were: Thomas Deveny, professor of foreign languages; Steven "Bo" Eckard, lecturer in music; Francis "Skip" Fennell, professor of education; Volker Franke, assistant professor of political science; Mary Hawkins Hackman, graduate program lecturer; Henry Reiff, associate professor of education and associate dean of academic affairs; Herbert Smith, professor and chairman of political science; McCay Vernon, professor of psychology emeritus; Brian Wladkowski, assistant professor of chemistry; and Thomas Zirpoli Jr., Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education and professor of education.