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| The College Magazine - Winter 2006 | |||
 Meeting President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush was exciting, but the best part, according to Christopher Nelson and Eva Brann, was hearing St. John's praised as a "National Treasure." November 10 and 11 were whirlwind days for long-time Annapolis tutor Eva Brann: feted at an award dinner hosted by the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington, D.C., meeting George W. and Laura Bush in the Oval Office, and being one of the guests of honor at a State Dinner with luminaries including Judith Martin (Miss Manners) and actor Robert Duval. But what is one of the first things she mentions when asked to recount the experience? The books she was given. One was a novel, Henry and Clara, written by NEH’s acting deputy chairman, Tom Mallon, who sat at her table during the awards dinner. “It is about Henry Rathbone, who was in the box with Lincoln when he was shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre. He later goes stark raving mad and kills his wife. The book was very well done,” Miss Brann says. The second was Thieves of Baghdad, a new work published by a fellow honoree, Col. Matthew Bogdanos, who wrote about the efforts he led to save Iraq’s antiquities. “It is a thriller,” Miss Brann says. “The work he did required courage and ingenuity.” In addition to bringing home a couple of very good books, there was another tremendously gratifying aspect to the events, Miss Brann says. Both President Bush and NEH Chairman Bruce Cole referred to St. John’s as a “national treasure,” something that caused her to glow with pride. “It is nice to know that the college has a reputation in Washington and with the NEH that is real and serious,” she says. Miss Brann learned at the end of October that she was selected to receive the National Humanities Medal, given in recognition of outstanding scholarship. The honor is awarded to those “whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the humanities, broadened citizens’ engagement with the humanities, or helped preserve and expand America’s access to important humanities resources.” The news came from Mr. Cole, who phoned her personally. “I was dumbstruck,” Miss Brann recalls. Soon after, she received a call from the White House social secretary, who filled her in on the protocol for the White House ceremony with the President and the State Dinner. Miss Brann, who gets by with the most basic of wardrobes, was forced to go on a shopping spree, buying three outfits. She added costume jewelry that has been in her family for decades. “My father was a doctor in Brooklyn, and when patients had no money to pay, they would bring him their jewelry,” she explains. Miss Brann could choose three guests to accompany her; she invited her publisher and good friend Paul Dry and his wife, Cecie, of Philadelphia. The third invitation went to Annapolis President Christopher Nelson (SF70). The three attended a reception and dinner at the Madison Hotel, where Miss Brann was pleased to meet one of her personal heroines, Judith Martin. “I told her, ‘you’re the ruler of my life!’ She was very nice.” The next morning, Miss Brann, her guests, and other honorees were picked up by bus and brought to the White House. One by one, the honorees were led into the Oval Office. “I went in and Mrs. Bush and the President greeted me very kindly,” she says. “We had our picture taken, and the President said, ‘you have a nice smile!’ He was very fit and very friendly.” The President hung her medal around her neck, and soon all the medalists and their guests were gathered in the Oval Office. “After talking with Miss Manners, the President said, ‘I think now that I’ll send you over to the Congress.’ ” The President told his guests about some of the famous items in the Oval Office, including the Resolute desk, made from the timbers of the H.M.S. Resolute, a gift from Queen Victoria to President Hayes. “Then he said he had to go—‘I’m going to meet the president of Yemen,’ he said, ‘to talk to him very seriously about terrorism.’ ” Many speeches followed at the NEH ceremony at the Metropolitan Club. “Again, the college was very much to the fore,” Miss Brann said. Next, the honorees were brought to the NEH Building for a panel discussion. “I was asked whom I would most like to meet among the dead—I said Lincoln.” St. John’s student Mark McClay (A09), whose father, Bill McClay (A73), is a member of the National Humanities Council, attended the discussion. “It was very nice to have a student there,” Miss Brann says. “I made him absent from lab.” After resting and changing into her formal wear, it was back to the White House for the State Dinner. “It was very elegant, without being overpowering,” Miss Brann says of the event. “There were endless, beautiful corridors, a quartet playing Mozart.” She and President Nelson took their places in the receiving line, “and this was really the high point,” Miss Brann says, “President Bush said, ‘Good evening, Eva. You have a wonderful college.’ ” Miss Brann was seated at a table with Mrs. Bush. “We sat down to a wonderful dinner,” followed by a performance by Allen Toussaint, a jazz musician and composer who had lost his New Orleans home in Hurricane Katrina. Miss Brann tried with no success to find out who nominated her for the award. After the story hit the national news, she received warm letters from alumni all over the country. She is pleased, she allows, but still a bit perplexed. “I think the college has more to do with this than I,” she insists. Her only disappointment in the whole affair was that Dolly Parton, a Medal of Arts winner, was not able to attend. “I am a great admirer,” says Miss Brann. Seeing the White House, chatting with Robert Duval about his films, and hearing accolades for his college also made the event memorable for President Nelson, who had never been to the White House before. He found it remarkable that the President knew several former and current St. John’s students. One especially enjoyable moment for Mr. Nelson was walking up to President Bush in the receiving line and hearing the greeting, “and here’s the other president.” By Rosemary Harty Back to top
 Carol Warren, Santa Fe President Mike Peters, Robert Warren (SFGI93), and Santa Fe GI Director Krishnan Venkatesh Celebrate a New Scholarship the Warrens have endowed. Robert Warren (SFGI93) and his wife, Carol, signed a planned giving agreement that establishes a scholarship for working teachers pursuing master’s degrees in the Graduate Institute in Santa Fe. The agreement, signed in December, will provide financial assistance to students attending either the Liberal Arts or the Eastern Classics programs who are full-time primary or secondary school teachers and living and working in New Mexico. The need-based scholarship may be granted to either full-time or part-time students in the graduate program. The scholarship, tentatively valued at between $325,000 and $475,000, will be funded by a percentage of the Warrens’ residuary estate. The Warrens believe in the value of a St. John’s education and are particularly interested in supporting the Graduate Institute. Moreover, they want their gift to recognize the value of the GI to individual teachers living and working in New Mexico because they believe the program enhances teachers’ effectiveness in the classroom. When he attended the Graduate Institute from 1991 to 1993, Bob Warren saw educators who were committed to teaching and to learning but who did not have the resources to complete their graduate studies in the same timeframe as other students. “I was with a number of teachers who were doing the GI one-third of a segment at a time. The reason was money,” he says. Warren is glad to be able to help teachers who must take out loans. “If we can help free someone to get out from under that rock of graduate school debt, then it’s undeniably a worthwhile undertaking,” he says. Krishnan Venkatesh, director of the Graduate Institute, says that teachers need this kind of assistance. In New Mexico, the average starting salary for teachers is approximately $27,500. The Warren Family Scholarship at St. John’s College is the Warren’s fourth endowment to a college. They have established and funded scholarships at his and Carol’s alma maters, Hobart and William Smith College in Geneva, New York, at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law, where Bob earned his J.D., and a single funded scholarship to enable an underprivileged Seneca Indian girl to attend a private elementary and secondary school in Bob’s hometown of Buffalo, N.Y. For Bob Warren, creating the Graduate Institute scholarship is something he has wanted to do for a long time. He hopes that others will follow in his footsteps; in particular, he would like to see more support for the Graduate Institute in Santa Fe. “Education is everything,” he says. “What’s happened to the idea that anyone who could do well academically could receive a higher education in this country? It’s become reprehensibly expensive, curtailing that opportunity for many who deserve better.” Santa Fe president Mike Peters was delighted with the Warrens’ support of the Graduate Institute. “This is the kind of continuing commitment to the college that is really vital,” he says. While the Warrens’ scholarship agreement will help Graduate Institute teachers in Santa Fe at some time in the future, the college’s own National Educator’s Grant is available now to support teachers in the GI on both campuses. For full-time public or private school teachers with at least three years of teaching experience, the college will grant a scholarship to pursue either of the college’s graduate programs. The grant provides one-third of either program’s tuition. Administrators, curriculum developers, and other educational professionals are also eligible for this new grant. By Andra Maguran Back to top
 Beyond Sophistry: The topics may be bizarre, but these Johnnies take debate seriously. Left to right are Annapolis studetns Max Kronberg, Meghan Lockard, Brian Jones, Genna Hinkle, and Christopher Stuart One of the most idiosyncratic parts of life on the Annapolis campus in recent years has been the proliferation of clubs with names like “Mabel the Swimming Wonder Monkey,” which meets to watch and comment on campy movies, and “Hoi Strategoi,” organized with the sole purpose of playing the board game “Diplomacy.” One of these odd clubs, though, the “Tuesday Nite Fites,” has outstripped them all in popularity. On a good night, more than 40 students participate in the “fite,” a kind of sophistry contest. It all began two years ago with a series of lectures given by Annapolis tutor Michael Comenetz. Comenetz sent out a note to the Polity that ended with the statement, “there will be some etymology and prostitution.” Erikk Geannikis (A06) thought this was such a strange juxtaposition of subjects that he wrote the two words on a chalkboard in the King William Room of the Barr Buchanan Center. Throughout the day students drifted in and out of the room, some deciding to vote on which concept was superior by putting a mark under one of them. Geannikis saw this and thought it was so funny that he decided to pit two new concepts,“Politeia vs. Caramella,” against each other, for people to debate about and then vote on. Shortly thereafter Geannikis institutionalized the process by securing a charter for the club from the student council. The kind of debate that goes on at a fite is, in part, something we are used to at St. John’s. It is an exercise in comparing two concepts in the abstract, even though we may not have related the two ideas before. “That’s the benefit of Tuesday Nite Fites,” says Brian Jones (A06)—gaining a clear idea of concepts we use every day.” But the TNF format gives students the chance to indulge in something we can’t do in seminar: debate, compete, and argue. “It’s a kind of catharsis,” says Jones. “I think that’s why so many students show up.” Nevertheless, as in seminar, the merit of an argument depends on its ability to get to the heart of the matter. “It’s not a candy shop,” says Schuyler Sturm (A08), quoting one of the club’s mottos. In other words, the outcome does not depend on which concept people like more, but which one is demonstrated to be superior. For example, in the debate “Pants vs. Dance,” at first the debaters were at a loss even to compare the ideas, let alone decide which one was better. Diagrams of pants were drawn on the chalkboard, and fiters vehemently tried to persuade the other side that they were right. Eventually, though, the thought struck someone that “pants” could also be the plural for “pant,” as in panting for breath. And since “pants,” as breaths, are necessary in order to “dance,” pants ended up winning because of its priority. Often, if something can be shown to be a priori, that concept will win the fite. There is always a “Title Fite,” which is the main fight of the evening, and which is usually a little more serious, for example, “Ways vs. Curves”; this is followed by the “Two Hole,” which some have called “earthier” than the rest; the “Brian Jones Fite,” and the “Seminar Fite,” which pits two, usually senior, seminar topics against each other. At the end of the nite, each fiter votes for a winner. A memorable recent Title Fite was “Furniture vs. Friction.” Most people sided with friction following the priority argument. But then one of the combatants, struck by the blindness of his peers, walked up to the blackboard and wrote, “Friction: too subtle to be serious?” And after a fierce debate, furniture won. “It won,” says Sturm, “because superiority is based on a stronger concept, what affects the human mind more. For this reason, I often discourage people from using the priority argument. Many of the debates can be reduced simply to Nature vs. Art.” Geannikis is graduating this year, but he has passed on the archonship of the Tuesday Nite Fites to Sturm. Sturm was the only freshman to show up for the first fite of his freshman year. Sturm sees a bright future for TNF, which he views as more than just a weekly sophistry contest. “It’s useful as exercise for seminar in that we can think of concepts purely in the abstract. I don’t know that this could exist at another school; it would probably seem strange to outsiders. But people here are used to strange oppositions between subjects,” he says. By Chris Utter (A06) Back to top Buildings and Grounds Supervisor Pat McCue sits on the frozen fish pond, due for a major overhaul this spring. Students read by it. Faculty fiddle by it. Children peer over its edge. With the exception of the belltower of Weigle Hall, no physical feature is more emblematic of the Santa Fe campus than the fishpond on the Upper Placita, in front of Peterson Student Center. The pond and surrounding garden were gifts from film actress Greer Garson, who donated funds for the project in 1964 in memory of her mother, Nina S. Garson. Garson’s husband, Buddy Fogelson, was a member of the Board of Visitors and Governors, and the two were supporters of the college. Designed as a two-foot deep reflcting pool, the pond was not originally intended to accommodate fish, says Pat McCue (SFGI83, EC97), landscape and grounds supervisor. It’s not quite deep enough for healthy and happy fish, but that didn’t stop local residents from releasing overgrown goldfish into the pool. It quickly became a refuge for Santa Fe’s rejected fish. (Several “legitimate” koi, an ornamental variety of the common carp, were donated by former president John Balkcom, SFGI00.) Later this spring, the fishpond and its residents will benefit from a much-needed renovation project. The pool will be made deeper, the waterfall will be repaired, and a water line that runs beneath the pond will be replaced. During construction, he says, all of the fish except the koi will be up for adoption. Fish that are not adopted will be distributed to the pond in Schepp’s Garden, to the president’s home, and to a fish tank. Most of the pond’s fish are goldfish; a few catfish and minnows have also taken up residence with the elegant koi, and every once in a while something exotic—a rainbow trout, for example—turns up. When he has time, McCue feeds the fish, though they could easily survive on the pond’s algae and larvae. For the most part, pond maintenance is minimal, that is until McCue has to repot all 18 of the water lilies. Among the fish pond flora there is one special variety, a lotus flower symbolic of Eastern philosophy that McCue donated in honor of the Eastern Classics program. Johnnies seem to develop a special affection for the ichthyoid residents of the pond. Several years ago, “Stan,” a very large koi, ruled the pond for four years. When Stan died, some students paid to have him stuffed and mounted in the dining hall, where he hung for a few years until he mysteriously disappeared. By Andra Maguran Back to top Johnnies churn up the Severn River during crew practice last fall. Annapolis Athletic Director Leo Pickens (A78) has been seeing more and more students turning out for crew and sailing. An analytical sort, he crunched some numbers. “With 61 students involved—45 in crew, 16 in sailing—that’s 13 percent of the St. John’s undergraduate students spending time in boats on the water,” he says. Also a competitive sort, Pickens did some comparing: Washington College, on the Chestertown River, and St. Mary’s College, a sailing powerhouse regularly atop the collegiate rankings, each have just 7 percent of their student bodies involved in boat racing sports. “Then I thought, ‘what about the Naval Academy? They have all those boats,’” Pickens says. The academy has just 9 percent of its midshipmen in crew or sailing. That’s 360 individuals, Pickens allows, but percentage-wise, St. John’s wins. In part, the new interest in sailing is due to a fleet with nine good boats. The program also has a dedicated coach in Skip Kovacs, also the college’s boathouse manager, “a world-class sailor,” Pickens says. “Sailboat racing is just plain fun,” Pickens says. “They practice as a team on Tuesdays and Fridays, and on Wednesdays, members are invited to go and scrimmage with Navy.” This spring, the team will take part in a competition hosted by the Mid-Atlantic Intercollegiate Sailing Association. “We’re taking advantage of the great natural resource of the Chesapeake Bay, to get students out and involved in water sports. It’s a great fit for us—not like football,” says Pickens. Back to top Santa Fe sophomore Laura Sook made her directorial debut with "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", produced last fall by the Santa Fe students. It was met with critical acclaim from both the campus community and locals who turned out for an evening of musical theater featuring "mistaken identities, pirates, and of course, a love story," Sook says. From left to right, the thespians are: sophomores Abby Petrey and E. Einowski, and senior Jeanne Bustamante. Award for President Nelson One of the cultural treasures of Philadelphia, the Rosenbach seeks to inspire curiosity, inquiry, and creativity through its exhibitions and programs. A quick review of the museum’s collections indicates why the Rosenbach’s board of directors would appreciate President Nelson and St. John’s College. Among the museum’s collections are the finest known copy of the first edition of Don Quixote, original drawings and books by William Blake, manuscripts by Joseph Conrad, and a manuscript of James Joyce’s Ulysses. New Tutors SF Chooses Philos Society Chairman The society’s newest initiative, the Xenos Program, seeks to involve St. John’s students in their community by arranging informal gatherings at the homes of local residents, who provide students with career advice, local networking contacts, or just a home-cooked meal. Search & Rescue Honors Volunteer About 40 current and former team members came together to honor Allen. During the ceremony, the center—located in the basement of the Evans Science Laboratory—was officially renamed the Jerry Allen Emergency Operations Center, with a bronze plaque installed. The center is the team’s command post, where radios are tuned to state police and civil air patrol frequencies and mission boards track teams in the field. In his remarks, Allen shrugged off the attention. “I would have to say that for all the years I was on this team, I got far more from the team than the team got from me,” he said. p> Team President Mike Ongstad (SF06) recounted his first meeting with Allen. “I showed up for my first mission with my pack full of gear. It was about 2 a.m. And here was this old guy who was going to lead our team into the wilderness, and I thought, ‘oh great, this is going to be so slow.’ After the first hour on the trail the students had to ask him to slow down so we could catch up,” said Ongstad.Team founder Herb Kincey said that over the past 32 years, Allen invested “tremendous” effort into the volunteer organization. “He’s worked with generations of St. John’s students and has always been there for them,” he added. By John Hartnett (SF83) Back to topA few hours after their last seminar in December, five Annapolis Johnnies piled into a car and headed south to New Orleans to work in the city’s devastated Ninth Ward. They had volunteered for a group called Common Ground, a New York-based nonprofit housing and community development organization. Caleb Nolen (A08) had been looking for a way to help, and his Web search led him to the group. Nolen and Jessie Seiler (A08) organized the trip, which also included Joshua Becker (A08), Micah Gates (A09), and Rebecca Harrison (A09). Some of the students stayed for the whole winter break, sacrificing holiday celebrations with their families to go to New Orleans. The students spent their nights sleeping on cots in the community center of a church and their days gutting homes that were badly damaged by flooding and rendered uninhabitable by mold. The experience was unsettling, the work was exhausting and even dangerous, and at times, the students felt overcome by a tragedy of such proportion. “The night we drove in, we saw these mountains of trash piled everywhere,” Seiler says. “It was eerie, apocalyptic.” At the same time, the dedicated volunteers the students encountered, especially those working for Common Ground, gave them some hope for the city. “There are a lot of really good people doing really good things,” Nolen said. Each person in the group was assigned work suited to his or her skills. Gates did technical work; Becker worked in the kitchen feeding volunteers. Nolen, Seiler, and Harrison gutted flood-damaged homes in the lower Ninth Ward. As they worked in damaged homes, the students wore respirators and suits to protect them from mold and asbestos. Using sledgehammers and crowbars, they gutted the walls of homes right down to the two-by-fours, tearing out insulation, paneling, ceilings, and drywall. Both Seiler and Nolen got very sick, and Seiler had to move to another assignment: assisting the Common Ground legal team. One project she worked on included trying to get FEMA trailers to the city’s homeless. Thousands of the trailers sat unoccupied while political and practical obstacles kept them from being used. In addition to the stench of rotting refuse, the acrid smell of bleach—used to eradicate mold and to disinfect tools, boots, and protective clothing—will stay with the volunteers for a long time. So will the things they threw out: a notebook in which someone had copied half of the psalms from the Bible, a man’s photo album with pictures of his daughter, all of a child’s dolls and other toys. Walking through the city, Nolen and another volunteer marveled at surreal scenes such as an abandoned Mardi Gras float and homes spray-painted with bright red numbers indicating how many dead were found inside. They spotted a dead dog that had been rotting on the street for several months. To Nolen, it seemed like a small but important thing to do something about that dog. “Jessie and I went back the next day and put it in a plastic garbage bag,” says Nolen. “I was afraid it was going to fall apart when we picked it up.” “That was a long day,” Seiler adds. Nolen is taking the spring semester off to continue working in the lower Ninth. It would be difficult for him to study right now. “Here is a chance to do some good,” he says. Seiler plans to go back over spring break and hopes to spend next summer volunteering in the city. She is certain there will still be plenty of work to do. By Rosemary Harty Back to topAnnapolis campus Johnnies have long used College Creek as a source of recreation. Today’s Johnnies also use it as a source of study, ever since a 1999 project turned a portion of the shoreline back to its original marsh. Now, a $200,000 challenge grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations will help return the entire shoreline to marsh. College Creek, a Chesapeake Bay tidal tributary, has for a long time been considered a prime candidate for shoreline restoration. Stabilizing the shoreline will create natural filters for stormwater runoff and keep nutrients from the creek, creating healthy habitats for vegetation and wildlife. The 1999 restoration returned approximately one-fifth (170 linear feet) of the shoreline to marsh. The marsh has been used as a laboratory field site and has been integrated into the laboratory curriculum. It also provides opportunities for independent student and faculty study. Annapolis tutor Nicholas Maistrellis describes some of the work done with the marsh: “We collect and identify estuarine organisms, particularly fish, and marine invertebrates. We identify the plants indigenous to the marsh and think about their distributions over the marsh. This allows us to raise the question of whether the plants are restricted primarily by physical factors or by competition with others. This, in turn, leads to the study of the changing distribution patterns of different types of Spartina alterniflora. The latter problem, whose study requires the use of molecular biological techniques, has so far been done only by students working independently. However, I would like to see it included in the senior lab curriculum.” St. John’s is now in the planning stages to remove the remaining 680 feet of structural bulkhead and restore this area to its natural wetland and shrub buffer. Current funders, in addition to the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, include the Vernal W. and Florence H. Bates Foundation and the Chesapeake Bay Trust. Maistrellis lists the ways the fully restored marsh will benefit St. John’s: “As an outdoor site for scientific investigation of living things; as a resource that can be shared with the larger Annapolis community; as a way to decrease the amount of sediment entering the creek. This improves water quality, and thus the fruitfulness of the creek in life forms.” And, he says, “it is beautiful.” By Susan Borden (A87) |
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Copyright © 2006 St. John’s College
