Graduate School

Jonathan Slade, a Western Maryland College graduate and independent filmmaker, had every intention of showing his first feature-length film, "Forest for the Trees," at the recent Sundance Film Festival, even though the work had been rejected by organizers.Although he brought a projector along, he never got up the nerve to show his film at the prestigious festival in Utah. But he will show it at 7: 30 p.m. today at a Western Maryland College Honors Program lecture in Alumni Hall."Forest for the Trees" was produced on a $26,000 budget, financed by two of Slade's credit cards.

Washington -- Gen. Colin Powell, the nation's top-ranked military officer, retires today in the midst of an orgy of publicity and hero worship unmatched since Dwight D. Eisenhower left the military.The remarkable parallel is that most press coverage speculates about whether General Powell, the son of poor Jamaican immigrants, will be tapped by the Republican Party to run for president, as Eisenhower was.Already we're reading silly opinion polls saying that if the 1996 election were held today, General Powell would defeat Bill Clinton.

CHICAGO -- The Graduate School of Management at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., wants to hire three faculty members for next year to teach operations management, accounting and organizational behavior.Salaries for such jobs range from $48,000 to $58,000 nationally for faculty members with experience. Applicants must be able to do research, be good teachers and have strong human-relations skills.And they must have doctoral degrees."There definitely is a shortage of available Ph.D.s," said Robert A. Ullrich, dean of the Clark graduate school.

Martin L. Doordan could have run a chicken farm. Instead, he's running Anne Arundel Health System, one of the largest employers in the county.The new president of the Anne Arundel Medical Center's parent company is a self-described country boy who grew up in a rural Delaware town and almost followed in his father's footsteps, running orchards and chicken coops. Instead, he has landed in the jacket-and-tie world of hospital administration."You never know what might have been," said Mr. Doordan, 51.There are traces of the anti-bureaucrat in him -- he wears his graying hair just a bit longer than average, has a penchant for country music and cowboy hats when he's not at work and goes by the nickname "Chip."

Morgan P. Bodie Jr., a World War II veteran who received the Purple Heart and went on to become a claims agent for Lloyd's of London in Baltimore, died on Dec. 8 from a heart attack after a year-long illness. He was 81 and lived in the Keswick neighborhood of Baltimore. Mr. Bodie was born in Lexington, S.C., and raised in North Carolina. He graduated from The Citadel, a military college in South Carolina, in May 1942 and enlisted in the Army. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and later, on March 18, 1945, was seriously injured by shrapnel from a grenade and was blinded in one eye. After recovering from his injuries, Mr. Bodie attended graduate school, completing graduate work at what is now known as Thunderbird, the American Graduate School of International Management, in Glendale, Ariz.

Gail HodgesSchool: Atholton High School.Hometown: Fulton.Age: 18.Sports have always played a big part in Gail's life. This year, she led the school's cross country team, which won the regional championship, as well as the school's indoor track team.While she enjoys running, outside of school she's well known for her other sport: jumping rope. She's reigned as the Canadian Open Double Dutch Champion and the Maryland Double Dutch Champion. She placed seventh in the World Double Dutch competition and was a runner-up in the Eastern Regional All-Around Competition.

AUniversity of Baltimore student was observed asleep last week inside the school's brand-new student center. It thrilled the school's president: Until the spiffy $20 million building was dedicated a week ago, the upper-division and graduate school's students - all commuters, many working and attending parttime - had no place to catnap other than their cars. The center reflects big changes at the often-overlooked school. For the first time in decades, UB will be admitting freshmen and sophomores in the fall of 2007 - part of plans to increase enrollment from about 5,000 to about 7,000 students over the next few years.

Daniel McCarrior, 17, of Severn.School: Old Mill High School.Accomplishments/Interests: Daniel maintains a 3.95 grade point average and is a member of the National Honor Society, a peer tutor, the school's varsity basketball statistician and on the literary magazine staff.Since his freshman year, he has been a member of the marching band and this year is the mellophone section leader. Three of the past four years, the band has been recognized as state champion.Outside of school, Daniel spends time volunteering as an assistant coach and trainer for soccer with the Severn Athletic Club, an organization for which he played for five years.

I grew up in the 1950s in a sports-deprived area of southeast Georgia. Except for a not-so-close and generally unnoticed Georgia Florida league baseball farm team, there was no major league baseball, football or basketball. Sports meant cow pasture baseball, share the ball, bat and glove and not much of a distraction. The 1960s came with some participation in the voting rights and integration struggles, along with the new arrival of professional baseball, an interesting but not an embedded passion.

When Secret Mountains released its long-awaited first album, "Rainer," in February, the band seemed poised to make a leap to higher prominince in the indie music world. The shoegazed-inspired Baltimore sextet had already garnered positive write-ups from online tastemakers Stereogum and Pitchfork. Even the New York Times joined in the praise with a concert review in 2011. The band achieved all of this without a full-length album to its name. But lately, things have been relatively quiet with the band, and last week, singer Kelly Laughlin announced to The Baltimore Sun why: She had left Secret Mountains right before "Rainer" was released.