F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 3 Alumni News
Editors: Jeanne Johnson, Jeff Labrecque, A&S '95
Follow this link to
Send email to
Michael Britt, Peabody '84
Michael Britt, Peab '84, believes silent films should be
seen -- and heard. That's why he has devoted a good
portion of his professional life to playing the theatre
organ and accompanying silent shorts and full-length
movies.
For the past 23 years, Britt has served as director of
music and organist at the Shrine of the Little Flower in
Baltimore. He is also on the music faculty at the Community
College of Baltimore County at Catonsville, plays keyboard
for Shades of Blue (a popular Big Band orchestra), and is a
frequent recitalist. But the love of his life, he readily
admits, is the theatre organ -- the most extravagant of
pipe organs that was once the pride and joy of movie houses
across this country.
A child of the '60s, Britt is captivated by the silent film
era. Although its heyday was short-lived -- about 15 years,
until the first "talkie" in 1927 -- the experience of a
silent movie with live musical accompaniment is timeless,
according to Britt, and not to be missed.
Britt's interest in the theatre organ began around age 10,
when he penned a fan letter to a man hosting a private
theatre organ concert in his Thurmont, Maryland, home. The
letter earned young Britt and his mother an invitation to
an upcoming concert. "As soon as I heard the organ, I knew
that's what I wanted to do." Britt went home, turned on the
cartoons, turned down the sound, and started playing along
on his piano. In junior high, he persuaded teachers to
allow him to accompany a screening of The Thief of
Baghdad, Douglas Fairbanks' 1927 silent epic. "It was
the longest 90 minutes of my life," he recalls, "but
theatre organists learn by doing. The more you do it, the
better you get at composing your own scores."
Britt is in constant demand throughout the East Coast as a
silent film accompanist, performing at numerous regional
theatres and for chapters of the American Guild of
Organists and the American Theatre Organ Society. When he's
not playing for an audience, he can always play for
himself; a 1920s theatre organ salvaged from a Philadelphia
movie house resides in his Baltimore home. The 400-plus
pipes take up most of the second floor, but Michael Britt
wouldn't have it any other way. -- Marlene
England
A highly ranked and well-regarded Marine officer, Major
General Clifford L. Stanley, SPSBE '77, is bringing his
three decades of management experience to academia. Named
last fall executive vice president at the University of
Pennsylvania, Stanley is the university's chief operating
officer.
Stanley joined the Marine Corps in 1969 and earned
progressively more senior command responsibilities. From
2000 to his departure for Penn, he served at Quantico,
where he was the base commanding general responsible for
training and education, planning, and concept development
for the U.S. Marine Corps' active duty and reserve
personnel. He was also the Marine Corps' Principal
Representative to the Joint Requirements Board in support
of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"Cliff is a superb manager and strategic thinker with a
natural ability to bring out the best in people," said
Patrick Harker, dean of Penn's Wharton School. "I have
known him since we both served as White House Fellows and
have always been impressed by his energy and ability to
motivate people."
Harry Marcoplos, A&S '49, '58
In the ancient Greek fable The Odyssey, Odysseus'
men escape from the Cyclops by stabbing him in his one eye
and hiding beneath the bellies of sheep. The woolly fleeces
fool the blinded Cyclops and the men escape. Ancient
Icelandic sagas are also rich with sheep references. And
among many Biblical references, Christian believers are
compared to "the sheep of (Christ's) pasture."
Sheep, and the prominent role they play in literature and
psychology, fascinate Harry Marcoplos, A&S '49, '58, who is
also a strong advocate for the study of the classics. But
Marcoplos' interest is more than academic. For almost 30
years, he has been a sheep farmer who supervises all
aspects of the production of high-quality wool goods, from
royal fleece to finished product.
A former Hopkins lacrosse player, Marcoplos is also a
three-time field hockey Olympian who coached the women's
sport at Johns Hopkins for 20 years. You might say that,
like sheep, Marcoplos has spent a fair amount of time
outdoors in green pastures. "I'm an outdoor freak," he
says.
He's even won awards for an artistic, self-produced sheep
calendar that inspired an appreciative letter from a fellow
sheep fan, the sculptor Henry Moore.
Marcoplos calls himself a "missionary for the use of wool"
and says his close-knit (no pun intended) clan of knitters
are people who share his passion. "One of my longtime
knitters is a marine biologist and another is a triathlete
-- they're people who just love to knit," he says.
Sheep have much to teach us about human behavior, Marcoplos
believes. "They have a lot of qualities we should emulate,"
he says. "They're patient, gentle, and clean."
Sheep will always be an enduring interest for Marcoplos --
but as a business, he thinks it's time to hang up the
shears. "It's quite a bit of work and I've been doing it a
long time," he says. "I think it's time to move on to other
things."
Next on his agenda? Most likely, he'll satisfy his desire
to travel and write, no doubt inspired, in some sense, by
sheep. -- Jeanne Johnson
How to Avoid The Mommy Trap, by Julie Shields,
A&S '93, Capital Books, Inc. (2002)
Contemporary women can have it all -- a stimulating
professional life and a close, fulfilling relationship with
their kids and husbands -- provided both they and their
mates are willing to make some compromises at work (in the
form of reduced work schedules, flex time, etc.), according
to lawyer-turned-writer Shields.
Fox offers the first behind-the-scenes account of the
"day-to-day machinations that gave Enron its power and
fueled its demise." Both well researched and entertaining,
Enron depicts what happens when a company is allowed
-- encouraged, even -- to live well beyond its means.
When young Ana beings to despair before her first piano
recital, trusty Steinway Henry comes to life to coach,
reassure, and inspire her. A delight for kids and
parents.
Eric Schwartz, A&S '79 & Stan Liebowitz, A&S '71
The terminology -- music piracy -- conjures up images of
swashbuckling desperados who scoff at legal restraints and
relish bucking the "Establishment." But this particular
brand of pirate could be your clean-cut neighbor, your
roommate, or even you.
With the click of a mouse, the Internet's MP3 format can
easily be burned onto a CD or transferred to an MP3 player
without paying a penny to the composers, recording artists,
or record labels.
This illegal but pervasive practice is thought to be
particularly rampant on college campuses, where knowledge
and skills intersect with technology access and,
oftentimes, scarcity of disposable income.
Is this practice an unavoidable supply-and-demand
phenomenon, or is it blatantly illegal behavior that should
be punished to the fullest extent of the law? Two alums
offer their perspectives.
To some, the day that Napster shut down free music
downloads was akin to "the day the music died." Mourning
was brief. Soon, a flurry of other free downloading sites
popped up, and the prevailing attitude was one of
defiance.
This defiance is both legally and morally wrong, according
to Eric Schwartz, A&S '79, an attorney with Smith &
Metalitz, LLP, a legal firm that specializes in
intellectual property law. Schwartz served as a copyright
consultant to the attorneys who successfully challenged
Napster and other music downloading sites.
Many people don't realize what an important role copyright
law plays in encouraging the proliferation of the arts,
says Schwartz, a strong arts advocate who served as acting
general counsel with the U.S. Copyright Office from 1988 to
1994. "Digital piracy is unequivocal theft and not at all
funny to the thousands of musicians, composers, or record
company employees who make their living on copyright," he
says. "It's amazing to me how people who know it's wrong to
stuff their pockets with CDs and walk out of a music store
will think there's nothing wrong with downloading free
music -- just because it's done in the privacy of a living
room. I don't understand that moral logic."
"Think of who you're hurting. The music companies will
take a hit, but they'll survive. Already, labels are saving
money by backing 'sure' hits and not developing new
artists. The ones who might not survive are those on the
periphery -- for example, the talented but unknown composer
or recording artist whose only source of income has been
obliterated."
The scope of digital piracy worldwide is mind-boggling,
says Schwartz, and encompasses CDs, CD-ROMs, and DVDs,
often reproduced and distributed via large-scale organized
crime networks in Eastern Europe or Asia.
He sees it as a serious problem that will require some
drastic steps, but "the idea that you can sue as a solution
is silly," he says. "It has to be enforced with
technological protection measures." Changes in worldwide
copyright laws as the result of two 1996 international
"digital treaties" are a start, says Schwartz, but much
remains to be done.
It's All About the Pricing
Imagine downloading a favorite tune off the Internet, and
when you go to play it, instead of music, you hear static,
or a message that says, "It is unlawful to violate
copyright." This practice, called "spoofing," is one of the
least invasive measures currently being considered by the
music industry in order to prevent music piracy, says
University of Texas/Dallas economics professor Stan
Liebowitz, A&S '71, whose recently published book,
Rethinking the Networked Economy, looks at the
economic forces that drive the digital marketplace,
including digital music.
The problem with crackdowns, says Liebowitz, is that they
could result in public relations fiascos akin to what
happened when the music industry attempted to collect
royalties for songs that Girl Scouts sing around
campfires.
Liebowitz became the darling of downloading fans when he
first criticized the music industry for claiming that
downloading cut into profits. "Suddenly, I was getting
calls from reporters at magazines like Fortune and
Rolling Stone," says Liebowitz. He had previously
sided with the record companies, but when he saw that the
empirical evidence didn't match his theory, he revised his
views. "I was a convert and they loved me."
And he had history to back him up. Older copying
technologies like cassette or VHS tapes had not crippled
the entertainment industry, but instead, had eventually
proven to be a boon. "The movie industry now generates more
revenue off the sale of prerecorded movies than it does
from theatrical releases," he explains.
He stands by his criticism that the music industry failed
to prove any harm in the Napster case, but says the
industry turned out to be right anyway. After analyzing 30
years' worth of record sales data, he has now modified his
position. "Claims about the effects of music piracy have
been exaggerated," says Liebowitz, "but I can now say
there is evidence that downloading is hurting the music
industry. It's a sales decline that can't be attributed to
the economy or other factors."
Market forces are such that Liebowitz believes the
recording industry should embrace Internet technology with
pricing that reflects significantly lower Internet
distribution costs. That's just beginning to happen.
Eventually, Liebowitz believes record stores could end up
obsolete, victims of an "old distribution methodology that
will be seen for what it is -- primitive and inefficient."
-- JJ
"Is this sweet, or what?" asked Michael S. Steele, A&S '81,
in November, after being elected lieutenant governor of
Maryland.
Described as "one of the most promising leaders in the
GOP," Steele was elected chairman of the Maryland State
Republican Party in 2000, the first African American
elected Republican state party chairman in the United
States. He made history again on election night when he
became the State's first African American lieutenant
governor. His running mate, Robert Ehrlich, reversed a long
losing streak for Republicans in Maryland, becoming the
State's first Republican governor in more than three
decades.
A former Hopkins young trustee, Steele is founder of The
Steele Group, a business and legal consulting firm
specializing in Washington representation. He holds a law
degree from Georgetown University and once studied for the
priesthood.
Scientists now have a better understanding of how bacteria
communicate thanks to the work of Bonnie Bassler, A&S '90
(PhD), an associate professor of molecular biology at
Princeton who has won a "genius grant" from the John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Bassler will receive
$500,000 in "no strings attached" support over the next
five years from the foundation.
Bassler investigates quorum sensing, the chemical signaling
mechanisms bacteria use to communicate. An understanding of
quorum sensing could pave the way for the development of
new antibacterial drugs.
In its announcement, the MacArthur Foundation cited Bassler
for research that "reveals new insights into the basic
biology and ecology of bacteria, findings that may have
direct application in the future treatment of disease."
-- JJ
Morris W. Offit & David H. Bernstein, A&S '57
Morris W. Offit, and David H. Bernstein, both A&S '57,
first met in Baltimore when they were about 12 years old.
"Do you want to go out and meet some girls?" Bernstein
immediately asked Offit. Duly impressed, Offit reports that
he eagerly followed his newfound friend around the
neighborhood as they knocked on door after door. But no one
answered.
"To this day, I call David a fraud," jokes Offit. Bernstein
has a quick retort. "He married one of those nice young
ladies from my neighborhood," says Bernstein.
It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship that has
included mutual support for Johns Hopkins and the gift of a
strategically located building in Washington, D.C., to
house programs of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
and other university divisions.
The Krieger School is exploring the possibility of two
residential programs for undergraduates that would be
taught in the building. One program would be in government
and the other would involve the study of cultural
institutions and the humanities, both providing a
semester-long internship as well as course work.
"The Bernstein-Offit Building expands opportunities for
collaboration among our academic divisions and with the
political organizations, embassies, think-tanks, and other
agencies that make Washington the world capital that it
is," says University President William R. Brody. "The
benefit to our mission and to our students and our faculty
is incalculable."
Offit is the founder of Offitbank in New York City and CEO
of Offit Hall Capital Management. In 1984, he endowed the
Morris W. Offit Chair in International Finance at the Nitze
School. Bernstein, longtime chairman of Duty Free
International, endowed the David H. Bernstein Professorship
in Political Science in 1989, after a call from his friend.
"Morris told me I was going into the furniture business,"
says Bernstein. "He said, 'You're going to give a chair at
Hopkins.' It has opened up a lot for me to be active at
Hopkins and to take part and give something back."
-- JJ
As a senior writer and producer at The Food Network, Liza
Klein Hughes, A&S '87, finds that her work life centers on
food, glorious food -- namely food-related shows and
promotions. Her efforts seem to be paying off. The network
is a rising star in the cable market, boasting a 24 percent
increase in ratings between 2000 and 2001.
To Hughes, food is more than basic sustenance -- it's a
vehicle for self-expression and a tool that helps couples,
families, and societies to bond. She has become especially
passionate about the power our food choices can make upon
the community. "By purchasing from local farmers and
producers, we can support sustainable agriculture and keep
centuries-old farmlands in the hands of farmers," she says.
"Every time I can connect small producers with famous
chefs, I'm happy." -- Emily Richards
Brainstorming on Behalf of Alumni
What do alumni want? That's the burning question every fall
when the 158 members of the volunteer Alumni Council, from
all eight Johns Hopkins divisions, meet at Leadership
Weekend to discuss issues and programs of interest to
alumni.
Among the issues discussed at this year's meeting were
alumni involvement with students, international outreach,
and the creation of new career tools and networking
opportunities.
Connecting with Students
Not everyone knows that the
Alumni Association provides
about $40,000 a year to student organizations. "Students
really are a focus of the Alumni Association," says
President Joseph R. Reynolds, the co-founder and chairman
emeritus of Forensic Technologies, Inc. (FTI Consulting).
"Personally, it's been my contact with students that has
been the most thrilling part of my continued association
with Johns Hopkins," he says. "Students are the heart of
our university, and it's our job to encourage, support, and
mentor them. If we can perpetuate student involvement with
the university both before and after graduation, it can
only add to the vitality of the Alumni Association."
Projects supported in the past year ranged from the 2002
Spring Fair to marketing and publicity for a
Symposium on
Foreign Affairs, and support for the student-run
Milton S. Eisenhower (MSE) Symposium.
Networking and Career Services
"We have a strong alumni base, and we see ourselves as a
conduit to bring people together and build the Hopkins
community," says Morgan State University professor Charles
T. Johnson-Bey, Engr '89, who chaired the Council's
Networking/Career Services committee. "One way to do that
is by offering more networking and career services."
This past year, the Networking and Career Services
Committee focused on the addition of an Internet-based tool
that offers career services and products. CareerTools --
available at alumni.jhu.edu -- helps alumni find new jobs,
research career benefits and challenges, and improve their
marketability.
"In addition, the Alumni Association hopes to provide more
career counseling, support, referrals, mentors, and
networking opportunities for both students and alumni who
want to change jobs or careers," says Reynolds.
International Outreach
With campuses in Europe, Asia, and North America, ongoing
research on all seven continents, and alumni in nearly
every country on the planet, Johns Hopkins is truly an
international university. In the past two years, the
Council has increased its international activity and plans
for future expansion of clubs and programs.
Electronic Outreach
With the introduction in August 2001 of JHUpdate, an
electronic newsletter, the Association is now able to
broadcast alumni news and information on
association-sponsored events to more than 25,000 alumni on
a regular basis. JHUpdate also reports on the
worldwide impact of Johns Hopkins. Plans are under way to
update alumni web pages and to continue to capitalize on
the convenience and immediacy of electronic outreach.
Alumni who do not already receive JHUpdate, can sign
on at
alumni.jhu.edu. -- JJ
Alumni who would like to get involved can contact the
Alumni Association at: 800-548-5481.
The Alumni Association is debuting a new graphic identity
for its mailings and publications. Members of the Alumni
Council's Marketing/Communication Committee worked with
Adam Shanosky and Associates of Baltimore to create and
implement the new look and logo. The design uses Hopkins'
academic colors of old gold and sable and the University
seal.
Memories: The Chaplain Whose Legacy Continues
It was the spring of 1970 and, while revolution might not
have been in the air, a certain amount of tension was, even
amid the placid confines of the Homewood campus.
The focus for a few days that April -- weeks before the
war in Vietnam spread into Cambodia, causing campuses to
erupt nationwide -- was on the Baltimore police search for
Black Panthers wanted for a police shooting. Hopkins
students and faculty joined others in gathering before the
Panthers' headquarters on Gay Street.
"We were trying to see that there wasn't a shootout as
there had been in Chicago," says Chester Wickwire, the
longtime Hopkins
chaplain, referring to the death of
Chicago Panther leader Fred Hampton in a police raid the
year before.
To many at Hopkins, it was an odd juxtaposition: the
Panthers with their carefully-crafted tough image
surrendering to this kindly, soft-spoken man who leaned on
a crutch due to a bout with polio.
But Wickwire took the heavily-armed Panthers in stride. "I
know they were carrying guns, but that didn't surprise me
much because I came from a gun culture in Colorado. I grew
up thinking everybody slept on a .38."
Memories of those days were concentrated in the Stony Run
Friends Meeting House last spring. The occasion was a
memorial service for Ric Pfeffer, who brought his
charismatic radicalism to Johns Hopkins in 1969 when he
joined the political science department. Pfeffer, who left
the school in a tenure dispute a decade later and went to
work as a lawyer in the Labor Department, died of prostate
cancer at 65.
Wickwire presided at the ceremony, appropriate since his
quiet strength often stood behind the fiery rhetoric of
Pfeffer. Wickwire always seemed to be the calm center at
the eye of that era's storm, with a face given easier to a
smile than a scowl.
Levering Hall was Wickwire's campus home. He had come there
fresh out of Yale Divinity School in 1953 to run the
Hopkins YMCA operation, remained as its programs passed to
university control in 1969, retiring in 1984. For many he
is remembered for those few years when the civil rights
movement and the Vietnam War thrust him into the limelight,
a ubiquitous presence at rallies and demonstrations. The
wildly decorated coffee house atop Levering was known as
Chester's Place.
But for Wickwire, those years do not stand out. They are
part of a continuum in his life at Hopkins that started
with the fight against McCarthyism (which erupted in the
controversy over faculty member Owen Lattimore). It went
through the civil rights years when Wickwire faced censure
for sponsoring jazz concerts that would attract a
mixed-race audience -- considered a dangerous practice in
the Baltimore of 40 years ago. There was the Vietnam War
and the focus it brought on student discontent, but when it
ended, Wickwire kept going -- to Central America to oppose
right wing death squads, to the Soviet Union to speak for
Jewish dissidents, to the Eastern Shore to work on behalf
of migrant laborers. And there is the lasting legacy of the
tutoring program, over 40 years old and still going strong.
Chester's Place is long closed, but its colorful murals by
Bob Heironimus now look down on tutors and their young
students.
"One of the things I am proud of at least having tried to
do is to relate the campus to the city," he says.
Wickwire still speaks with the same combination of
impishness and self-deprecation familiar to all who passed
through Levering Hall during his time there.
He is about to turn 89. A broken hip means he spends most
of his time in a wheelchair. He and his wife Mary Anne are
looking to move out of their Ruxton home -- that they
bought when it was in the country -- to a retirement
community.
"We celebrated our 65th anniversary this summer," he says.
"That's a fairly long time."
They have three sons, four grandchildren, and four great
grandchildren. He is particularly proud of his son Brian
who works in a public health clinic in Texas on the Mexican
border. "He is very idealistic," he says.
"I know I'm damned lucky. There are still things I like to
do." Currently, there is poetry: two books out, working on
a third. Wickwire pauses.
"I've had a hell of a lot of fun," he says. "I'm still
above ground." -- Michael Hill '72
High-Tech Hodson Hall Proves Popular
"It's the most technologically advanced classroom space
here."
"It's very hip."
"Even with all the technology, Hodson is a warm and
congenial classroom building."
These are just some of the accolades heard from students
and faculty about Homewood's new Hodson Hall, dedicated
this fall.
The 44,200-square-foot, $15 million facility holds nine
classrooms, three lecture halls, and a 500-seat auditorium
-- all bursting with high-tech amenities. Standard room
specs include tiered seating, a JBL sound system, data and
power ports installed on all chairs, and wireless Internet
access. Users have access to single- or dual-projection
screens, CD/DVD players, VCRs, document cameras,
slide-to-video convertors, and dual-audio cassette decks.
Window blinds and lights can be adjusted with the touch of
a finger.
Hodson Hall allows professors to project high quality slide
images, show multimedia files and simulations, access
supplemental materials directly from the Web, and even
conduct virtual laboratory exercises during class, all from
an easy-to-use touch-screen podium.
"When you talk to students who have classes here, you hear
words like 'awesome' and 'fantastic,'" University
President William R. Brody
said at the dedication. "The
praise is not just for the technology-rich environment, but
for the overall ambiance and all the extra amenities that
make this building so special. Our students love the study
areas located organically throughout the building and out
on the terrace. They love the huge windows that flood the
classrooms with light. And they love the comfortable chairs
and especially, they tell us, the ones that swivel... This
building sets a new standard for our academic
buildings."
The building was made possible by a gift from The Hodson
Trust, established in 1920 by the family of Beneficial
Corporation founder Col. Clarence Hodson. Trust Chairman
Finn M.W. Caspersen singled out three things that excite
the members of The Hodson Trust Board about the new
building: "the pure technology"; the permanent home it
provides for the Beneficial and Hodson Trust archives,
which "will be a research resource for academic scholars";
and the educational opportunities it offers.
"The Hodson Trust believes firmly and completely in the
value of education," he said. "It makes a crucial
difference to the individual, to the United States, and to
the world." The Hodson Trust has given more than $132.5
million to Johns Hopkins and three other Maryland
institutes of higher education over nearly seven decades.
Complementing the building is the new
Center for
Educational Resources (CER) located in the Milton S.
Eisenhower Library and initially funded by The Hodson
Trust. Through the CER, faculty consult with instructional
designers and information technology specialists to craft
new approaches to teaching and learning in projects ranging
from the humanities and social sciences to natural sciences
and engineering.
Caspersen recalled a discussion in the 1970s, after he took
over as chairman of the Trust, with then Hopkins president
Steve Muller about what it would take to make Johns Hopkins
one of a handful of top universities in the nation. "We
laid out a plan ... and the Trust, along with many other
donors, helped to make it happen," said Caspersen. "Today,
Johns Hopkins is there."
Documentary Features Hopkins Pioneers
The unlikely partnership of Alfred Blalock, a renowned
white surgeon, and Vivien Thomas, a black research
technician with a genius for surgery, is the subject of an
inspiring documentary feature that will air as part of the
PBS television series American Experience.
Narrated by Morgan Freeman, and featuring many Hopkins
surgeons, Partners of the Heart will air in most
cities at 9 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 10.
Working together first at Vanderbilt University and then at
Johns Hopkins, Blalock and Thomas helped create modern
heart surgery and pioneered, with pediatric cardiologist
Helen Taussig, one of the century's major medical
breakthroughs -- a daring heart operation that saved
thousands of children affllicted with a congenital heart
defect called "Blue Baby Syndrome."
Blalock was a southern patrician with revolutionary ideas
for new treatments. Thomas was a gifted technician who
possessed the intelligence and dexterity to translate
Blalock's vision into reality. Together, they forged a
powerful team that changed the course of medical
history.
Thomas was eventually given an honorary Hopkins degree and,
along with Blalock, he helped to train two generations of
America's most prominent heart surgeons.
The documentary, funded by the National Endowment for the
Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, is
described as "a story of broken racial barriers and an
uncommon intellectual synergy; a story of two men who came
together in an unlikely time and place to leave the world a
life-saving legacy." The film is part of an educational
outreach effort funded by GlaxoSmithKline for schools and
communities that can be further explored online at
www.partnersoftheheart.com.
United
States
Boston Chapter
Denver Chapter
Los Angeles Chapter
New York Metro Chapter
San Diego Chapter
St. Louis Chapter
Washington D.C. Chapter
London
Heritage Award
William F. Ward Jr., Engr '67, is CEO of Ward
Machinery near Baltimore, a company founded by his father,
which has been a generous supporter of Johns Hopkins. A
Hopkins trustee, Ward serves as chair of the Whiting School
of Engineering's National Advisory Council and is
co-chairing the School's current campaign.
Distinguished Alumni Awards
Theodore O. Poehler Jr., Engr '56, '58, '61 (PhD), a
materials scientist, is Hopkins' vice provost for research,
responsible for research policy, coordination, and
commercialization. In 1996, he and a Hopkins colleague
developed an all-plastic battery, acclaimed as a materials
breakthrough, using polymers in place of conventional
electrode materials. |
The Johns Hopkins Magazine | The Johns Hopkins University |
3003 North Charles Street | Suite 100 | Baltimore, Maryland 21218 | Phone 410.516.7645 | Fax 410.516.5251 |