JHMI publication wins gold medal from CASE

Change won a gold medal from the Council for Support and Advancement of Education in the Internal Audience Periodicals category in a field of 70 entries.

The no-frills, unusually straightforward newsletter was created in 1997 by President William R. Brody as a vehicle for helping the medical faculty and senior staff deal with the overwhelming changes now taking place in their field.

Change is edited by Edith Nichols, but Patrick Gilbert handles the day-to-day management by serving as lead writer and managing editor.

Children's Center to hold annual memorial service

The Children's Center annual tribute service, a memorial gathering held for families whose children have died, will be on Tuesday, May 12, at 7 p.m. in Turner Auditorium, East Baltimore.

All faculty and staff are welcome to join in this tribute, to remember the children who have died and whose bravery and determination inspired those around them.

The address will be given by Dottie Ward-Wimmer, a bereaved parent and counselor for the St. Francis Center.

Earlier in the day, at 2 p.m. in room 240 of the Houck Building, Ward-Wimmer will deliver a message to care givers for chronically ill children. Faculty and staff are also invited.

On May 13, Lisa Phifer, director of Pediatric Nursing, and Polly Hesterberg, family care coordinator, will place flowers from the tribute service on the grave of Harriet Lane Johnson, founder of the Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children, which was the forerunner of the Children's Center.

Schernecke elected Young Trustee for four years

Matthew Schernecke, a history of science, medicine and technology major from Philadelphia, was elected as Young Trustee by the board of trustees at their May 3 meeting in New York. He will serve a four-year term beginning July 1.

Schernecke, a senior, is Student Council president. As a sophomore and junior, he was president of the class of 1998. He has also served as secretary of Student Council, co-chair of the Council Academic Affairs Committee and co-chair of Orientation 1997 Special Programs. He won a SEALS Award in 1995 and 1997 and a Provost's Award for Research and Excellence in 1996.

During his Hopkins years Schernecke held summer internships in the office of Sen. Paul Sarbanes; the Maryland State Department of Health and Mental Hygiene; and, as a Maryland State Governor's intern, the Maryland State Department of Education. He plans to work in the Washington, D.C. region for a year before attending law school or graduate school in philosophy.

Tickets going fast for world LAX games at Homewood

The International Lacrosse Federation World Championship, which will be held July 15-25 on Hopkins' Homewood Field, will be the biggest lacrosse event in the history of the game.

"It's the closest thing to the Olympics in the sport of lacrosse," says Steve Stenersen, executive director of US Lacrosse, the sport's national governing body, which is headquartered at the Lacrosse Museum and National Hall of Fame adjacent to Homewood.

Ticket sales for the 10,000 seats are brisk, according to a US Lacrosse spokesman, and it is anticipated that there will be no walk-in tickets available when the games open.

General admission tickets are $100 and admit the holder to all 36 games; Tent City, with food booths and vendors; Fan Fest, with interactive attractions; and the Masters Competition and Youth Festival. Tickets are available at US Lacrosse, 113 W. University Parkway, 410-235-6882.

Men's lacrosse team earns 27th straight NCAA trip

The Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse team received a bye in the first round of the 1998 NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Tournament. The Blue Jays, who are making their record 27th straight trip to the NCAA tournament, are seeded fourth and will play the winner of the first-round game between fifth-seeded Maryland and 12th-seeded Butler in the quarterfinals on May 17. That game will be played at Byrd Stadium in College Park, Md.

With its 27th consecutive trip, the Hopkins men's lacrosse team earned its 23rd top four seed and extended the longest active streak of competing in the NCAA tournament in any Division I sport.

Student engineers qualify for national competition

The JHU Student Chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers has earned itself a trip to Colorado for the May 22 national steel bridge competition, a student-run event co-sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers and the American Institute of Steel Construction.

The nine-person team, co-chaired by Steve Kelly and Joe Main, qualified by taking second place at the recent regional competition hosted by George Washington University.

In the event, teams of college students are given parameters for the creation of a 20-foot steel bridge. It is up to them to design it, get it fabricated, actually construct it at the competition and then load it with 2,500 pounds.

Central American delegates examine U.S. police practices

In an effort to stem the tide of police corruption in their home countries and learn more about community policing, 10 Central American delegates came to Johns Hopkins recently to examine U.S. police practices and policies.

During the one-day event, coordinated by the School of Continuing Studies' Police Executive Leadership Program, delegates from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua met at the Hopkins Downtown Center with former high-ranking police officials, U.S. Justice Department officials and members of the Police Executive Leadership Program.

Sheldon Greenberg, director of the police program, said the delegates were seeking to improve the quality of policing in their own countries and to learn about how police agencies operate in the United States. The delegates also wanted to learn how to change their culture of policing, which now allows considerable corruption and human rights violations.

"In many cases police are the cause of harm. They're heavy-handed, corrupt and not focused on protecting the individual rights of citizens," Greenberg said. And despite some countries' switching from a military to civilian police force, some of the problems just didn't go away.

"Many officials were confused as to why the new system just wasn't working," Greenberg said.

Greenberg said he was happy with the mix of delegates, which included human rights advocates, police officials and educators. He said that getting such a mixed group to sit at the same table was an incredible step forward.

"Many nations turn to the United States as a source of funds, but these people [who attended] weren't looking for handouts. They just saw a system that was corrupt, and they wanted to turn it into a system of policing that focused on the best interests of the community," he said.

The April 21 meeting was a joint effort with the U.S. Department of Justice. Greenberg said the delegates came to Hopkins because the United States is seen as a model for community policing, and Hopkins has played an important role in fostering the concept of community policing through education.

Following the meeting, several delegates arranged for some U.S. officials to visit their countries and begin follow-up inspection of their police programs.

JHU Press launches Albert Schweitzer Library series

Rhena Schweitzer Miller, the daughter of Nobel Peace laureate Albert Schweitzer, and Harold Robles, president and founder of the Albert Schweitzer Institute for the Humanities, were among the guests at a reception May 8 to celebrate the launch of The Albert Schweitzer Library, a new Johns Hopkins University Press book series.

Published in association with the Albert Schweitzer Institute for the Humanities, the series will reflect the extraordinary scope of Schweitzer's knowledge and achievements in theology, music, history and humanitarian philosophy. It will also restore to print his autobiographical writings and include new translations and collections of works never before published in book form.

The first four books of the series, to be published in 1998, are The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede, The Primeval Forest, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle and Out of My Life and Thought.

The Quest for the Historical Jesus, published this month, was written by Schweitzer when he was a young man and was originally published in 1906.