Maryland Community

Maryland Community Kitchen's "2001 Fall Gala" had all the earmarks of an earlier elegant era. It began with a pre-party reception at the 1906 Mt. Vernon town home which serves as home base for Kirk Designs. Party-goers -- fully decked out in sophisticated cocktail attire -- swept through the marble-floored, rosewood-paneled foyer into several parlor rooms that boasted elaborate plaster relief ceilings, gilt wallpaper, and ornate crystal chandeliers. There, they were greeted by event chair Kevin Bareham, who expanded upon the evening's 1930s theme by wearing white spats with his tux. Across the street, "An Evening At The Chanticleer" was in full swing.

Members of Maryland's Board of Regents are awaiting a private telephone briefing - scheduled for late this afternoon - by university president Wallace D. Loh on the school's proposed move to the Big Ten. The conference call is in advance of a regents meeting on Monday to consider the move. Regents heard about Maryland's talks with the Big Ten over the past several days. Loh's briefing today is believed to be an important step in explaining the school's rationale for considering leaving the Atlantic Coast Conference, of which Maryland was an original member.

Going to see the musical "Cabaret" took on extra meaning for 200 ticket holders as they gathered for a post-performance reception at the Mechanic Theater. They not only got to enjoy the show and dessert, but they also raised $10,000 for Maryland Community Kitchen. Among those discussing the show over coffee and pastries in the Mechanic Theater lounge: Dr. Wayland Wong, event chair; Sandy Rubenstein, Virginia Hook, Steve Schwartzman, Michael Stevens and Charles "Chip" Geiger, event committee members; Jim Williams, Maryland Community Kitchen executive director; Dr. Tim Holland, Maryland Community Kitchen board president; Dan Proctor and Phil Cooper, board members; Marcia Jordan, Bank of America vice president; Barbara Stern, Ventiv Health USA account executive; Ricki Rutley, sales and marketing director for Dental Technology Channel; John Shields, Gertrude's at the BMA owner; Edward Sweeney, Edward Amato Salon president; Troy Piro, US Airways flight attendant; Joshua Reiter, ApplicationsOnline LLC president; Robin Siegel, attorney with Gordon Feinblatt.

On Election Day, voters will have the opportunity to continue the state's long tradition of welcoming new Americans and valuing education by supporting the Maryland Dream Act at the polls. A "For" vote on Question 4 will affirm the law signed by Gov. Martin O'Malley that provides in-state tuition to students who were brought to the U.S. at a young age, have been here for at least three years, graduate from high school in Maryland, and whose parents pay their taxes. The students must attend a community college for two years before entering one of the state's public four-year colleges or universities.

Dr. Margaret M. Mohler, director of strategic planning and community development in Howard Community College's Office of Continuing Education, recently presented two papers at the National Conference of the American Nurses' Association Council on Continuing Education in Seattle.Dr. Mohler's first presentation, "Teamwork in Action," related to her work as co-founder and chairperson of the Maryland Community College Consortium for Continuing Education in Nursing.Her second paper, "Preferences of a Random Sample of Registered Nurses for Noncredit Continuing Education Through Maryland Community Colleges," focused on her statewide assessments of the educational needs of registered nurses.

On Election Day, voters will have the opportunity to continue the state's long tradition of welcoming new Americans and valuing education by supporting the Maryland Dream Act at the polls. A "For" vote on Question 4 will affirm the law signed by Gov. Martin O'Malley that provides in-state tuition to students who were brought to the U.S. at a young age, have been here for at least three years, graduate from high school in Maryland, and whose parents pay their taxes. The students must attend a community college for two years before entering one of the state's public four-year colleges or universities.

Three distance learning classes in history at Carroll Community College will give area students the opportunity to learn from professors at colleges outside county lines. Two of the classes, which will be offered this fall, are the product of an interactive video exchange with Howard Community College. They enable students at the Howard and Carroll schools to interact with each other and the instructor. "Basically I'm teaching in two locations at the same time," said Vladimir G. Marinich, a Howard Community College professor of social sciences who will teach "History of Modern Russia" on interactive video this fall.

Secretary of Higher Education Shaila R. Aery has recommended to Maryland community colleges that they charge a registration fee for continuing education courses taken by senior citizens.The recommended $20 fee would help defray the cost of offering continuing education courses to seniors, who by law may take courses without paying tuition.During the 1988-1989 academic year, there were more than 134,000 senior citizen registrations in Maryland's community college system.In a memo to community college presidents, Aery pointed out that demand for community college courses increases during economic slowdowns.

A master plan and preliminary plans for a new classroom building for Howard Community College will be designed by Rubeling & Associates of Towson.The college's board of trustees awarded a $55,000 contract to the architects at its September meeting.The $7 million classroom building is to be constructed in 1991-1992. It will provide space for classes in entry level and professional update career courses, training and retraining for the business community, microcomputers and English as a second language.

An economics professor and four members of the news media were honored at Loyola College in Maryland yesterday during the Jesuit school's annual Maryland Day celebration. The announcement that the Rev. Francis G. Hilton had been selected for the college's Distinguished Teacher of the Year was greeted with resounding applause and then a standing ovation, the first a professor has received during the presentation in recent years, faculty members said. Honored with Andrew White Medals for their contributions to the Maryland community were National Public Radio talk show host Diane Rehm; Washington TV news anchor Beverly Anne Burke; John S. Carroll, editor of The Sun; and Gene Roberts, editor in chief of the American Newspaper Project at the University of Maryland and former editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The Orioles have been losers the last 14 years. They'll crash any day, you say. They have a lot more winning to do before you'll buy a ticket and cheer for them. But do you remember the last time you tried to change your losing ways? Bet it wasn't easy to break a habit. This year the O's are magical and fearless. As the classic underdog, they are a formidable force for justice for the little and forgotten people. They win games that confound the most knowledgeable baseball fan. Players with minuscule batting averages hit home runs.

The waffle fry wars have hit College Park, with hundreds of people signing a petition to get the Chick-fil-A restaurant booted from the University of Maryland's Stamp Student Union over the company president's anti-gay marriage activism. A petition on the website change.org says "It is clear that Chick-fil-A does not represent the values embraced by the University of Maryland community. Allowing such an organization to continue to operate in the [student union] runs counter to the spirit of equality that the university claims to champion.

We write as members and leaders of Maryland's faith community. We are glad that a special session of the Maryland General Assembly to resolve the state's budget impasse now seems likely. We cannot stress strongly enough how vital it is to fashion a full fix to the doomsday budgetary scenario We each witness in our own congregations and communities the harm the Great Recession has wrought. Now is decidedly not the time to slash more from a state budget that already has left families and communities reeling.

Outhouses. Potbellied stoves. Four-mile walks in the snow. These are legacies of the Rosenwald Schools. For the past several weeks, county students have been studying the schools, a loosely affiliated network for African-American children that a white businessman, Julius Rosenwald, helped start with a grant in 1917. Twenty-three would spring up in Anne Arundel County alone. But what fascinated history students at North County High School in Glen Burnie and Southern High School in Harwood were the minutiae -- where children went to the bathroom, how they stayed warm and got to school, and what their classrooms looked like.

Leaders from the state's community colleges pledged Friday to substantially increase the number of students earning associate's degrees across the state by 2025 following a federal directive to ramp up the number of college graduates nationwide. The Maryland Association of Community Colleges, made up of college presidents from the state's 16 community colleges, signed the pledge to increase the annual number of students earning degrees from two-year colleges by 7,300 students statewide.

To our shame, 46 million people in this country lack health care coverage, and 800,000 of them reside in this state. A similar number of Marylanders have inadequate coverage. Though we are the nation's second-wealthiest state, officials have rejected proposed improvements in health care as too expensive, and it has been nearly impossible to build the consensus necessary for reform. Happily, it turns out that we've already allocated our health care system much of the money it needs. Hardly anyone has heard of community benefit dollars, but they're ours to use. Here's how. The Internal Revenue Service requires that nonprofit hospitals spend community benefit funds at the recommended rate of 5 percent of their total operating costs.

Community bands, the groups of accountants, tailors and grocers who picked up horns and drums to play Sousa marches and show-music medleys from gazebos in parks on summer Sunday evenings, may seem like a thing of the past, but they are alive and well.Eight community bands from Bel Air to southern Maryland and Baltimore to Gaithersburg will perform Saturday at Downs Park, partly for their listeners and partly for themselves, during Maryland Community Band day.Bay Winds, the host band, opens the concert at noon, followed by the Columbia Concert Band, Montgomery Village, the Baltimore Symphonic Band, the Southern Maryland Concert Band, the Rockville Brass Band, the Bel Air Community Band and the Rockville Concert Band.

HAUSSNER'S restaurant, the Southeast Baltimore landmark that closed last year with a great crescendo of civic sadness and an eye-popping art auction, could be busy again soon - but don't expect to have lunch there. Maryland Community Kitchen, which prepares and delivers thousands of free hot meals to homebound low-income Marylanders with HIV or AIDS, might soon move its operation into the vacant Highlandtown restaurant. The agency won't serve meals on site but will package and deliver them from there.

Voters in West Virginia produced a split decision over the weekend when it came to authorizing table games at two of the state's racetracks. The result was good news for Maryland racing: Jefferson County voters decided they didn't want blackjack, poker and the like at the horse racing track at Charles Town, a facility already awash with slot machines. But the episode also provided a model of how such decisions ought to be made - only with the approval of the communities where gambling venues would be located, that is. Because while Jefferson County voted its proposal down, voters in Ohio County went the other direction and approved table games for a dog racing track in Wheeling by about a 2-to-1 ratio.

The streets in Baltimore's County's Halethorpe have always gotten me twisted into pleasant knots. This unincorporated community looks like a life-size Baltimore Christmas garden, with whistling trains passing the tidy bungalows, front porches, and lilacs and crape myrtles. I'll confess to low (none, really) resistance to the sound of a train.