Some Recent Ink...

"Try as they may, administrators who plan the annual commencement ceremonies here at Washington College always seem to have a tough time competing with the star power of the Sophie Kerr Prize … But true to form, it was a 21-year-old fiction writer and her $53,609 check—the nation's richest undergraduate literary award—that drew much of the attention as family, friends, faculty and well-wishers gathered under the majestic beech trees lining the great lawn on Maryland's oldest campus."

—Reporter Chris Guy on Claire Tomkin, winner of 2005 Sophie Kerr Prize ("Fiction writer graduates to big time with award," The Baltimore Sun, May 23, 2005)

"A few years ago, Washington College decided to boost what seemed to be general public apathy about the man for whom the school was named by creating a book prize in his honor … And what happened when the first George Washington Book Prize was announced last night at Washington's home in Mount Vernon? It went to a biography of … Alexander Hamilton."

— Reporter Jonathan Pitts on the awarding of the first George Washington Book Prize to Ron Chernow, author of Alexander Hamilton ("Don't book first prize for Washington," The Baltimore Sun, May 8, 2005)

"'It's a myth of alliteration,' says Robert Day, an English professor at Washington College, noting that the phrase 'Sophie Kerr's curse' has the further poetic enhancement of smooth 's' sounds on both ends."

—"Sophie Kerr's Curse: Real, or Just So Much Smoke?" by Paul Fain, The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 22, 2005

"Karl Rove was out of his element. He left the security of his West Wing office and the Republican fundraising circuit to face an audience of smart-alecky students on a college campus—a liberal arts college, no less—here in this reliably blue state."

—Political columnist Dana Milbank on Karl Rove's April 18 Harwood Lecture at Washington College ("Rove's Reading: Not So Liberal as Leery," The Washington Post, April 20, 2005)

"When students look, they can find all kinds of scholarships—traditional and less so. Some are based on need and academic achievement, though a rapidly growing number of schools are using money to woo top students regardless of need. Washington College in Chestertown, Md., for example, offers a four-year $10,000 to $13,500 annual scholarship to members of the National Honor Society or the Cum Laude Society."

—"Some Scholarships Seek Out Peculiarities" by Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post, March 1, 2005

"Still, Washington ought to get credit for making gallons of lemonade out of a few lemons. He had a commission from a dubiously legitimate body of representatives who barely knew each other from states that barely trusted each other. The commission was to command a ragtag army of soldiers who showed up when they felt like it to fight against the military power of his day. He managed to parley that into independence and a free and strong nation."

—Reporter Tom Blackburn, Cox News Service, commenting on the results of Washington College's First George Washington's Birthday Survey ("First George W. getting less respect," The Minneapolis Star Tribune, March 1, 2005)

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