Graduate School

NEW YORK -- His introduction to the big leagues hasn't been quite the way Tommy Shields dreamed it would be, but it has postponed his retirement."I had pretty much decided if I didn't come up this year, I was going to retire," Shields said. That decision had been reached despite the urging of several people, including Jerry Narron, manager of the Rochester Red Wings, the Orioles' Triple-A affiliate, that he give himself at least another year."Jerry and a few other Triple-A managers told me to hang in there," Shields said.

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.

My daughter will graduate with a bachelor's degree in May and might go to graduate school. What type of financial aid is available for grad school? Does she fill out a FAFSA or something else? - R.S.F., via the Internet Financial aid for graduate school is different from what you've experienced so far. For graduate programs, the student must apply for financial aid and fill out the complex Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), the same form used to determine a family's ability to pay for undergraduate programs.

Columbia Pro Cantare is marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of two composers who were born in 1862, Debussy and Delius, as well as the 100th anniversary of the death of Massenet in 1912, at its concert Sunday, March 18 at 3 p.m. at First Evangelical Lutheran Church, in Ellicott City. Those long-dead European composers are worth commemorating, of course, but Howard County concert-goers can't be blamed for also showing interest in the local classical debut of a home-grown talent.

Robert Seager II, an award-winning historian who established the University of Baltimore's graduate school, died Wednesday of heart failure. He was 79 and lived in Reston, Va. A specialist in American military and diplomatic history, Dr. Seager held several teaching and administrative posts at Maryland schools during his career. He taught history at the Naval Academy in Annapolis from 1961 to 1967 and was dean of Washington College in Chestertown from 1970 to 1972. Dr. Seager then became president for academic affairs at the University of Baltimore.

HARTFORD, Conn. -- A group of entrepreneurs with a lofty idea for a graduate school that emphasizes personal growth, not career training, has won a license to start a college from scratch.Connecticut officials have authorized the group to proceed with plans for an unusual institution that will operate in real classrooms and through computer hookups.The Graduate Institute -- offering master's degrees in areas such as "holistic thinking," "conscious evolution" and "experiential health and healing" -- is believed to be the only school of its kind in the nation.

Peter Lorenzi remembers when a blackboard and dusty nub of chalk where the only tools a teacher needed. Those days are quickly fading.When the dean of Loyola College's graduate school of business steps into his classroom these days, he can brush a small touch-screen panel with his finger and dim the lights, jolt the videocassette recorder to life, call up a Web page on a giant projection screen or cut to a television show.When Lorenzi lectures, he no longer has to turn around to read from the blackboard.

Maren Hassinger points to a pile of flimsy pink plastic shopping bags in one corner of her office/studio at the Maryland Institute, College of Art. "Those bags are from one of the happiest days I've spent here," she says.On a lovely afternoon last spring, Hassinger decided that students in her performance workshop at the Rinehart School of Sculpture would tie the pink bags together and weave them in and out of the trees outside.People ended up chasing the bags in the breeze, and, as Hassinger describes it, the day unfolded like an idyllic scene out of an 18th-century painting - except that chasing the bags involved dodging cars.

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.

Katie Blaha leaves her job in Hunt Valley at 5 p.m. every day to return to a house in Catonsville she shares with roommates who are a good bit older than her and ask a lot of personal questions. Even though she's got solid employment and has weathered the worst of the economic downturn, Blaha, like so many in her generation, is back living with her parents. "I want to save money, so I'm not just getting by," said the 22-year-old who graduated from Washington College in 2009, and spent nearly a year working internships — paid and unpaid — before she could put her degree to use in a marketing firm.

Marvin T. Haw III, who had held administrative positions with several heavy equipment and trucking companies, died Jan. 26 of a heart attack at his Timonium home. He was 75. Mr. Haw was born in St. Louis and raised in Bonne Terre, Mo., and West Lafayette, Ind., where he graduated in 1955 from West Lafayette High School. He earned a bachelor's degree in business administration in 1959 from the University of Missouri and later attended graduate school at the university.

Eugenia A. "Genie" Kennedy, a former Peace Corps volunteer and teacher, died Jan. 7 of multiple organ failure at her Bel Air home. She was 82. A daughter of a businessman and a homemaker, Sarah Eugenia Asbury, who did not use her first name, was born and raised in Delta, Pa. After graduating from Delta High School in 1947, she earned a bachelor's degree in business education in 1951 from Russell Sage College in upstate New York....

Shirley L. Tansey, a retired mental health counselor and licensed clinical social worker who had worked at Taylor Manor Hospital and the Johns Hopkins University, died Saturday of Alzheimer's disease at the Charlestown retirement community. She was 92. The daughter of a letter carrier and a homemaker, she was born Shirley Llewellyn and raised in Anaheim, Calif., where she graduated in 1936 from Union High School. After graduating in 1939 from the University of California at Berkeley, she did graduate work at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

Churchill Davenport received the Davis & Elkins College Spirit award for outstanding achievement in student life during the Davis & Elkins College 2011 Honors Convocation. An environmental science ands sustainability studies major, Davenport is from Owings Mills, and is the son of Churchill Davenport and Laurie Fader. Mariya Makhlyagina, of Reisterstown, is among 40 juniors and seniors inducted into the McDaniel College chapter of Phi Beta Kappa at a May 1 ceremony held on campus.

Katie Blaha leaves her job in Hunt Valley at 5 p.m. every day to return to a house in Catonsville she shares with roommates who are a good bit older than her and ask a lot of personal questions. Even though she's got solid employment and has weathered the worst of the economic downturn, Blaha, like so many in her generation, is back living with her parents. "I want to save money, so I'm not just getting by," said the 22-year-old who graduated from Washington College in 2009, and spent nearly a year working internships — paid and unpaid — before she could put her degree to use in a marketing firm.

My wife and I and our dog attended my aunt's funeral recently. We drove from our home in Washington early Sunday morning to the funeral home and then joined family and friends at the cemetery. My wife and I were both born in Baltimore (delivered by the same obstetrician), but she left when she was 1. I have deeper roots. I left Baltimore for college over half a century ago, then went on to graduate school and a career in universities in the United States and abroad. But I know Baltimore - my parents were born there and lived their whole lives there; my brother and I both grew up in Baltimore; my sister and her family, and my son and his family, and other relatives live there.

When Desta Fisseha was growing up in Ethiopia her grandmother told her that education was the path to independence and a better life. That meant sacrifices along the way, like wearing her hair chopped short and making herself plain so boys wouldn't call and interrupt her studies. Fisseha brought versions of these rules to the raising of her children. "I didn't allow sleepovers or watching TV," she said. "And there was no dating until they finished high school." Now, based on their academic and personal achievements, Fasika and Tinsay Woreta, her identical twin daughters, have won graduate-study scholarships worth $400,000.

Columbia Pro Cantare is marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of two composers who were born in 1862, Debussy and Delius, as well as the 100th anniversary of the death of Massenet in 1912, at its concert Sunday, March 18 at 3 p.m. at First Evangelical Lutheran Church, in Ellicott City. Those long-dead European composers are worth commemorating, of course, but Howard County concert-goers can't be blamed for also showing interest in the local classical debut of a home-grown talent.

ALEXANDER HEARD, 92 Education adviser for 3 presidents Alexander Heard, the chancellor of Vanderbilt University in the 1960s and 1970s and an education adviser under three U.S. presidents, died Friday. He was 92. The university said Heard died at home after a long illness. As head of the private university in Nashville, Tenn., Heard helped guide it through turbulent political conflicts that struck many other schools. He defended students who organized a slate of speakers that included Martin Luther King Jr. and Stokely Carmichael, a supporter of black power.

WASHINGTON - In what could be an encouraging sign of change in America's long-standing shortage of graduates prepared for high-tech careers, the hottest subject on college campuses across the nation right now seems to be renewable energy - a surge of interest driven largely by the specter of global warming. Concern about climate change is apparently galvanizing more students to turn toward a subject involving science and engineering, educators suggest, in much the way that Moscow's launching of the Sputnik satellite jolted baby boomers to turn their eyes to the stars.