Tag Archives: St. Mary's College of Maryland

A Public Liberal Arts Education

In which I assess what my students have gained from having attended a public liberal arts college.

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Commencement à la Wordsworth

Tomorrow our students graduate and they will sing a school song that draws heavily on Wordsworth. The song also has an unexpected twist not intended by the author that always gets a laugh.

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Lit for Handling a College’s Race Problems

After a series of arson fires and racist incidents, I turned to works in each of my courses to address the situation. In Intro to Lit, Lucille Clifton’s poetry; in Early British Literature survey, Aphra Behn’s “Oroonoko”; in British Fantasy, “Perdido Street Station.”

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My College Owes Its Founding to a Novel

My college, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, is celebrating its 175th birthday this year. The school owes its existence to an 1838 novel, John Pendleton Kennedy’s “Rob of the Bowl.”

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Making the Invisible Visible

Tuajuanda Jordan, our college’s newest president, turned to Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” to articulate her vision for the future.

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The Healing Power of Talking about Race

Race, as we learned from watching a play based on student experiences with the subject, is more painful when we avoid it than we we confront it head-on.

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Mold Causing Problems? Bring in a Ship

Our students, displaced by mold, are being housed in a cruise ship. A campus production of “As You Like It” may have given administrators the idea.

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Faulkner and a Love for the Liberal Arts

Dr. Joseph Urgo wove William Faulkner into his inauguration speech as the new president of St. Mary’s College. Above all, Urgo said, “St. Mary’s exists in the public trust, offering the love of liberal learning–an impassioned, dedicated, humanistic endeavor—to all segments of society.”

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