The McDaniel College family mourns the loss of Matt Cowdrey, a sophomore and member of the lacrosse team. Matt died when his canoe overturned in the icy waters of the Big Annemessex River near Frenchtown, Md. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.
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HEADLINES

Nobel Laureate to receive honorary degree
Mobilizing Martin Luther King's dream
Festival celebrates differences
Student's recipe lands in cookbook
Las Vegas for credit
From McDaniel senior to Washington insider
Chamber Music on the Hill presents concert
Winter sports roll into 2005
Marketing team brings home honors
Hill Happenings

Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel will receive an honorary degree from McDaniel College during a special convocation on April 18, 2005. The visit is a joint program of the College and the Interpreter's Forum in residence at McDaniel.

Details of Wiesel's visit to the Westminster campus are incomplete at this time, but will be announced as plans are finalized.

Wiesel, a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps of World War II, has long been a supporter of human rights and spokesperson for the oppressed worldwide. His book, "Night," is a classic account of the Holocaust, a word he first used in reference to Hitler's terrible mistreatment of Jews during that period.

In 1985 Wiesel was awarded the Congressional Medal of Freedom, and in 1986 he received the Nobel Prize for Peace. His book, "All Rivers Run to the Sea," contains his memoirs.

The McDaniel College community will celebrate the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr. at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 31 on campus in WMC Alumni Hall. The celebration, "Mobilizing the Dream: encouraging change, inspiring action," features keynote speaker the Rev. Jamal-Harrison Bryant, founder and pastor of The Empowerment Temple in Baltimore, Md., and former NAACP leader.

The event is free and open to the public.

The program also includes the lighting of candles with the participation of many College departments and several student organizations.

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At first, the audience will no doubt be mystified as to what exactly it means.

The red and gold costumes. The procession. The rhythmic beating of African drums. The dancers with slippers that resemble fancy flip-flops. The African music reverberating in the Forum.

Then Lisa Moore will tell all. The McDaniel senior will explain the festival she's recreated for her senior honors presentation. She will tell of the dancing – and the fact that everyone dances. She will talk about the West African ceremony to honor the Queen Mother's anniversary, telling the audience that in this matriarchal society in Ghana the mother of the King is celebrated.

And Lisa is uniquely qualified to design and orchestrate this festival. She spent the spring semester in 2004 in Ghana, learning the culture, the music, the customs, the recipes and to some extent the language of this West African society.

All that she learned comes together in "Celebrating Differences: Studies in West African Music and Festival" presented at 7 p.m. Feb. 5 in the McDaniel College Forum on the lower level of Decker Center. The event is free and open to the public.

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Michael Vyskocil has been experimenting with recipes for nearly two decades. The McDaniel senior first dabbled in cooking in the family kitchen in Glen Rock, Pa., even before first grade.

Recently, just three days into 2005, he received the news that his recipe for Trail Mix appears in 2005 Taste of Home Annual Recipes – and counts as just one more accolade for Michael's culinary skills.

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Assistant Professor of Sociology Jean Shin and 15 students went to Las Vegas for credit. One of McDaniel's three-week Jan Term classes, the trip to Sin City offered the students lessons in consumption, deviance, work issues and urban development problems.

Shin learned even more.

"One of my great lessons is that it takes a whole different energy level to keep the schedule of a 21- or 22-year-old," he said, explaining that it took a whole week of 9 p.m. bedtimes for him to catch up.

Joking aside, Shin held class at 9 a.m. each morning. The eight women and seven men – required to be 21 or older – had assignments and not once was anyone tardy or absent from class. They kept a journal and wrote papers about what they learned and saw in this capital of consumption.

Upon their return, when Associate Professor of Communication Robert Lemieux taught the remainder of the class, each student wrote an analysis of films about Las Vegas and an artifacts paper – a paper on the souvenirs and other things they brought back that they thought communicated Vegas.

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Krystle Allen will spend her last semester as an undergraduate gaining real-world work experience in the nation's capital. The McDaniel senior will participate in a stimulating seminar series with Washington insiders and tour embassies and other official sites – all while living in a swank suburban apartment with college students from across the country.

As a participant in The Washington Center Internship and Academic Program, the sociology major with a concentration in criminology plans to get a jump on life after graduation. Her assignment at the Department of Justice in the Division of International Affairs will give her a taste of work she might like to pursue as a career.

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Chamber Music on the Hill, in residence at McDaniel College, presents "An Elephant, a Wolf, and Two Pianos" at 3 p.m. Feb. 6 at the Scott Center for the Arts at Carroll Community College.

Tickets are $15 for adults and $8 for seniors. All students admitted free with valid ID. Children admitted free. Tickets may be purchased at the door before the concert. For more information, call 410-857-2599.

The concert of music for children and the young at heart features dancers from the Patty Neivert School of Dance, McDaniel Music lecturers Don Horneff and David Kreider in a piano duet and the Mistral Winds. Associate Professor of Music Robin Armstrong narrates.

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McDaniel's winter athletes didn't need to worry about gaining a few extra pounds over the holidays.

The women's and men's basketball, wrestling, indoor track, and swimming teams have kept busy schedules from the end of 2004 straight through the opening of 2005.

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Left: Sara Franz '06

McDaniel's Communications and Marketing team garnered four awards in the CASE District II Accolades Awards program.

McDaniel's electronic newsletter, News@McDaniel, placed second, earning a Silver award. The 2003-2004 Report of Gifts earned a Bronze and an honorable mention in two different categories. And a brochure showing donors what their gifts support – the "Your Gifts Are Working" brochure – was awarded a Bronze.

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• "Gleanings, Meanings: Etchings and Woodcuts" by Trudi Y. Ludwig, who teaches at the Maryland Institute College of Art, opens Jan. 24 in the Esther Prangley Rice Gallery in Peterson Hall on the McDaniel College campus. An artist's reception is 7 to 9 p.m. Feb. 1 at the gallery. The exhibit closes March 4. For gallery hours, call 410-857-2595. The exhibit is free and open to the public.
  
  
• Monday Night Music presents "Carnival of the Animals" featuring The Mistral Winds at 7 p.m. Jan. 24 in McDaniel Lounge. Free and open to the public.
  
  
• The Multicultural Services Film Series continues with Darker Side of Black at 7 p.m. Feb. 7 in Room 108 Hill Hall. Free and open to the public.
  
  
• The Eric Byrd Trio returns to Monday Night Music at 7 p.m. Feb. 7 in McDaniel Lounge. Free and open to the public.
  
  
• The McDaniel College Department of Sociology presents its campus-wide spring 2005 lecture, "Working More and Feeling Better: Women's Health, Employment, and Family Life, 1974-2002" by Dr. Jason Schnittker at 7 p.m. Feb. 7 on campus in Decker Auditorium in Lewis Hall of Science. Schnittker is Janice and Julian Bers Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. The lecture will critically evaluate the debate over women's health and employment, focusing on data trends over the last thirty years. Free and open to the public.
  
  
• "Something's Afoot" on the Hill when McDaniel College Theatre performs the murder mystery spoof at 8 p.m. March 2-5 on the WMC Alumni Hall Mainstage. Call 410-857-2448 for tickets and information.