Hood College

Hood College in Frederick has been awarded a $40,000 grant from the New York Times Foundation to provide scholarship support to minority students from the New York area.The grant will be used to support recruitment efforts in the New York area.

This past season, Hood labored its way through a 3-14 season, which included a winless 0-8 record in the Middle Atlantic Conference and the jettisoning of head coach Jeremy Mattoon. But assistant coach Brad Barber predicated that the team would reverse course next spring. “Next year, I think it's going to be a totally different story,” he said. “If we have this conversation next year, I think you'll have a totally different view of Hood College lacrosse. I'm fairly confident.

FREDERICK -- Shirley D. Peterson, a former commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service and a partner in a Washington, D.C., law firm, was named yesterday as the seventh president of Hood College.Mrs. Peterson, 53, will succeed President Martha E. Church, who announced earlier this year that she will step down as head of the small liberal arts college in June."I am thrilled to have the opportunity to lead Hood College," said Mrs. Peterson, receiving a standing ovation from about 400 faculty, students and Hood trustees who showed up at Rosenstock Hall yesterday afternoon to hear the announcement of a new president.

As the end of my son's first year in middle school approaches, I look back in amazement at how much he has changed. Physically he is much taller and slimmer. Emotionally, his moods swing from silly to serious. One moment he wants a hug and the next he wants to be left alone. Over these last few months, I've seen him trying to figure out who he is and where he fits in with his peers. The most dramatic example of this is his wardrobe. This year he has vacillated from preppy, with button down polo shirts, to gangsta, with his hat turned sideways and his pants falling down, to skater dude, with graphic tees and hat worn backwards.

FREDERICK -- Martha E. Church is spending her final day, today, as president of Hood College removing cherished mementos from walls, cleaning out her desk and tending to last-minute duties.Her office in Alumnae Hall is nearly empty. A hiking stick -- with Hood carved on its stem -- rests near a fireplace. Under a blue drape is an oil portrait of Dr. Church, the college's first woman president, waiting to be hung in the stately lobby of the building.As Dr. Church, 64, prepares to embark in a new direction after 20 years as Hood's leader, it's clear she really is leaving the small, largely women's school behind.

Frederick police are investigating the death of a Hood College student whose body was discovered in her dormitory room yesterday after she failed to show up for class. Police are calling the death of Rebecca Sullivan, a senior honors student from New Jersey, "suspicious" and are looking into "every possibility," including suicide or an accidental death, said college spokesman Dave Diehl. Students - 1,900 undergraduates and graduates - were notified of the death in two e-mails yesterday, and a letter will go out to parents today, Diehl said.

Shirley D. Peterson, who survived a vote of no confidence from the Hood College faculty and student petitions for new leadership last fall, has announced that she will quit as president of the Frederick school on June 30. The 59-year-old Peterson, who signed a contract last year through 2004, could not be reached for comment Friday. "This is part of the life cycle of colleges," said Allen Flora, a professor of physics and acting dean. "Presidents come and go." Complaints centered on Peterson's leadership style.

FREDERICK -- In the mid-1970s, Hood College, the liberal arts school in downtown Frederick, counted 500 undergraduates and just "a handful" of graduate and commuter students among its enrollment.Under the nearly 20-year tenure of President Martha E. Church -- who recently announced her plans to retire in 1995 -- that enrollment has grown to 1,100 undergraduate and 970 graduate students. About one-third of the undergraduates are commuters; and about 10 percent are male.Hood College's enrollment last fall was the highest in the 100-year-old institution's history.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- Hood College fell to Hampden-Sydney College, 68-65, last night in the first round of the NCAA Division III men's basketball tournament at the Batten Center on the campus of Virginia Wesleyan. The Tigers (19-10) advance to the second round and will face the winner of the Virginia Wesleyan-Averett game. The Tigers and Blazers (21-8), who earned an at-large bid to the tournament, traded baskets in the opening minutes. Hood penetrated the Tigers' interior defense with several layups on a 10-0 run that gave the Blazers a 22-12 lead with 7:14 to play in the half.

FREDERICK -- With little fanfare, Hood College, a small, expensive institution in downtown Frederick, has raised three-quarters of an ambitious $52.7 million fund-raising goal in three years."

In seven minutes, Tim Kuhn will progress from first date to realizing he'll never be straight. And that terrifies him. As part of Monday night's Stoop Storytelling show at Center Stage, Kuhn will share with a crowd of strangers how he came to terms with being gay. As the show approached, he spent a considerable amount of time revisiting his breakthrough moment, practiced his monologue several times and now says he's more or less ready....

The world recently learned of the astounding story   of the three women who were found alive in a house in Cleveland after being kidnapped on the streets about 10 years ago. Two of the women were teenagers when they disappeared.   I've never been one to let sensational news guide by parenting. I send the kids off to school each day without thinking of the terrible Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. I try not to think of all the people who die in car accidents when I hand the car keys to my 16-year-old son.   But every now and then I stop and wonder if I'm making the right decisions in the freedom I give my kids.

I teach journalism at Hood College and it's my job to keep up with the latest trends in social media. I don't know if it's a good or bad thing that my 12-year-old is often the one who teaches me.   Last week, I signed up for  Instagram , the picture-sharing Internet service. My goal was to explore its journalism and public relations capabilities, but what I stumbled upon is a tween networking haven. While I have a number of friends and former colleagues on Instagram, I was surprised to see how many  tweens  are using it to communicate.

How do you keep your kids from doing things you don't want them to do? Barack and Michelle Obama try reverse psychology. The president told an interviewer on the Today show that's the approach he and Michelle are taking when it comes to tattoos. “What we've said to the girls is, 'If you guys ever decided you're going to get a tattoo, then mommy and me will get the exact same tattoo in the same place. And we'll go on YouTube and show it off as a family tattoo,'” President Obama said.

The middle school years are the most mystifying time. They enter middle school in the sixth grade as little kids and exit in the eighth grade well on their way to becoming young adults. In the years in between, they try to figure out their own identities, including who their friends will be. What do you do when you don't like the friends your child is hanging around with? I've been wrestling with this question. On the one hand, I think it is impossible to dictate to my son who his friends should and shouldn't be. He'll probably want to do the opposite of what I say anyway.

A guest post from Liz Atwood: I wouldn't normally look to Mick Jagger for parenting advice, but an item in the news a few days ago caught my eye. Jagger's ex-wife Jerry Hall is reportedly asking him to buy three houses for their grown children (their youngest, 15, still lives at home). According to the story, Jagger says he believes his kids should make their own way in the world and not expect him to give them handouts. Lately I've heard my friends talking about helping their children after they graduate from college.

Beginning elementary teachers in Carroll County schools will get a crash course this fall in how to teach students about insects, magnets, rocks and minerals, and electrical circuits.Hood College in Frederick will sponsor a one-day workshop that will feature lesson demonstrations by veteran county science instructors from the school system's award-winning "Hands-On Elementary Science Program." The program has been adopted in about 3,000 schools nationwide.The college received a $6,500 grant last week from the Foundation for Independent Higher Education to develop the workshop for Carroll teachers.

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich will be campaigning in Western Maryland ahead of Tuesday's primary. Gingrich is scheduled to hold a rally at the Frederick Motor Company at 11 a.m. Monday and to speak at Hood College at 2 p.m. Hood spokesman Dave Diehl tells The Frederick News-Post that Gingrich's campaign called the college's director of student activities to schedule the visit. Gingrich will meet with student Republicans after his speech. Gingrich has conceded that Mitt Romney is the likely Republican nominee, and his campaign laid off one-third of its staff last week to save money.

Officials at McDaniel College in Westminster said Friday, Oct. 28, that the college has been named on a list of "Best Value" colleges by Kiplinger's Personal Finance - the only Maryland liberal arts college to make the list. The rankings are available online at Kiplinger's website, and will be published in the magazine's December issue, which is actually circulated beginning Nov. 8. McDaniel came in at No. 92 among liberal arts college's nationwide. While the Westminster school was the only liberal arts college from Maryland on the list, three other universities from the state earned the "value" ranking: Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore (No. 25)