2024 Report of the President

The Class of 2025 returned to campus this fall, ready for the culminating experience of their time at Washington College. Their Washington education has followed a path similar to that of generations before them. In their first year, they became familiar with the College and how it worked. They explored a range of disciplines through coursework to help them identify where they wanted to focus their energies. In the second year, their focus narrowed. While still exploring, they began to work more purposefully in areas that would become majors and minors. The junior year saw them firmly working within majors with clarity around goals and future pathways taking shape. They took part in internships and externships to gain a deeper understanding of how their decisions at Washington could lead them into their professional and personal lives after graduation.

This year is when they pull everything together and demonstrate the knowledge and skills gained over their entire academic program in a Senior Capstone Experience (SCE) project. The SCE serves as a platform to propel students forward, whether to graduate or professional school or to start their careers.

I will admit to feeling a special kinship with the Class of 2025, because I too, am beginning my “senior” year. My journey at the College has shared much in common with our seniors. I came to Washington College because I saw it had all the ingredients to be one of the elite liberal arts colleges in the nation—and everything I have experienced over the past three years has confirmed my intuition. I spent my first year learning all I could about Washington College. I met with students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members to hear what their experiences at the College were like—both the highs and lows.

It should come as no surprise that the institution was ailing in the fall of 2021. The pandemic and enrollment concerns, which were exacerbated by the pandemic, had created an atmosphere of stagnation and uncertainty. Despite this, much of the community remained energetic and even cautiously optimistic, demonstrating a desire to roll up their sleeves to get the College turned in the right direction.

My second year was time to begin some purposeful work at the College to build a strong foundation for the future. Based on feedback from the campus community, we identified a series of significant initiatives to address issues that had built over time. We invested more than $20 million to improve the quality of the student experience. Projects included renovations to our historic first-year residence halls, Reid and Minta Martin; upgrading the campus network to greatly improve Wi-Fi connectivity; renovations in the dining hall and hiring a new food service vendor to improve the quality of the dining experience; student-inspired renovations to the Western Shore residence halls that saw new kitchens and living room furniture installed; the redesign of the library terrace; and a partnership with the energy company FESCO for a series of collaborative projects to improve sustainability at the College and reduce energy costs overall.

With these important projects in place, it was time to think about the future, so I initiated a strategic planning process. Once again, I turned to the community. Our strategic planning committee was made up of the students, faculty, staff, board members, and the senior leadership team. And because our relationship with Chestertown is such an important part of our story, we had our town council member on the planning committee as well. Working with a consultant to facilitate open conversation, we held visioning sessions that allowed faculty and staff to share their thoughts on the future of Washington College leading up to our semiquincentennial (or 250th anniversary) in 2032. In addition to these sessions, there were focus groups and individual interviews with a variety of stakeholders, all of which provided a wealth of input and ideas for the strategic planning committee to draw upon.

The process produced a strong framework for the College’s future, one that sees us working to continue to ensure innovation and academic excellence, strengthen the student experience, improve Washington College as a workplace for faculty and staff, increase recognition of the College, and financially strengthen the institution through improved enrollment and prudent investment. Underlying all these efforts is a commitment to foster a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community and deliver on our responsibilities to be a sustainable member of our region.

I began my third year with the launch of the strategic plan, and we have already seen so much progress. In building academic excellence, our faculty continue to shine with innovative work and outreach as exemplified by Associate Professor of Anthropology Julie Markin and Professor of Biology Mindy Reynolds, who each recently received independent grants in support of their work. Markin’s project explores the cultural heritage of the indigenous peoples of the Upper Choptank River on the Eastern Shore, an area that has historically received less study and attention. Her work unites archaeological data with geographic information, environmental reconstruction, and historical accounts, with the goal of developing a more robust database from which to ask questions about the nature and complexity of these civilizations.

Reynolds' work with original student research has the potential to become a national model for undergraduate science education. Rather than conducting standard lab research with pre-determined outcomes, she teaches students how to do lab research and then has them conduct original experiments. This not only provides our students with deeper learning but also prepares them for advanced research in ways that other schools can’t match. She recently received a National Science Foundation grant to develop kits for the Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience that will make this approach to research available to colleges and universities across the country. (Read more about this innovative approach on p. 38)

Like research, civic engagement is another integral part of experiential learning at Washington, as well as being central to our mission to challenge and inspire emerging citizen leaders. In 2022, with funding from the State of Maryland, we established the Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. Director of Civic Engagement at Washington College with the responsibility to strengthen and expand civic engagement across the institution. This past year saw that work begin to take hold through a number of opportunities.

Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Studies Meghan Grosse and Associate Professor of Education Studies Sara Clark-De Reza taught a course that asked students to research the question How do Washington College students understand and experience civic engagement? The result was a semester-long research project that saw students present their findings as well as recommendations to the campus community. This was important foundational work to help the community understand the ways in which we define civic engagement and gain a greater understanding of how we can all participate.

At the request of the Mayor and Town Council, 10 political science majors researched potential ways to deepen participation in the democratic process in Chestertown and Kent County. The students produced a report—the Democratic Revitalization Research Initiative—and presented their findings at a Town Council meeting. The Mayor and Council members thanked the students and immediately brought some of their recommendations forward for discussion.

Over the past year the College has collaborated with local organizations and Chestertown in developing an innovation and entrepreneurship hub. From public surveys to numerous open meetings, we have worked to create a center that will benefit both Washington College students and the local community. This effort, tentatively known as the Innovation Plant, recently received a grant of nearly $2 million to continue developing the project. (see p. 4) The Innovation Plant will be housed in the last remaining structure of the old Dixon Valve/Vita Foods plant along High Street.

Perhaps the biggest impact on academic innovation at the College came as a result of a $15 million donation from Beth Warehime Rizakos ’13 in support of a new school of global business, economics, and social impact. This gift enables us to construct a new home for this school and puts us in the unique position of having an interdisciplinary liberal arts business program that prepares students in a global context and foregrounds the social impact of business. This is the kind of innovative thinking that the strategic plan has spurred.

The student experience continues to grow outside of classes as well, sometimes in very unexpected ways. Our active Student Government Association started a leadership conference that brings together other student government associations so they can share their achievements and challenges and learn from one another. Following their first-place finish in the manned small craft class at the 2022 Promoting Electric Propulsion race—where they bested competitors from Princeton, Old Dominion, and the University of Kentucky—the Washington College Electric Boat Team set a world record for the longest distance travelled on a single charge (see p. 25). And new student-led organizations WACvotes and PoliTalks have seized on the election season to improve voter registration and education on campus.

Among the outstanding sports seasons, men’s soccer completed a stellar season with a trip to the NCAA DIII Final Four. Ten women and men earned All-Conference academic recognition with women’s lacrosse, volleyball, and baseball earning team academic recognition. Golf completed its first varsity season in spring 2024. Track & field and cross-country began this fall as club sports with an eye on varsity competition beginning in fall 2025.

This spring saw a major concert event on campus for the first time in years as country music star Jake Owen performed on the campus green to an energetic crowd. And the theatre and music programs collaborated to bring performances of The Lightning Thief to Decker Theatre. This was the most ambitious production in memory and played to a packed house over three nights.

We saw the implementation of new digital marketing campaigns for the College that generated 36.2 million impressions or views with 142,000 clicks resulting in 1,045 leads. In addition, the College ran sponsorships on National Public Radio stations in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Baltimore, and across the Eastern Shore and Delaware. In concert with a new media relations effort and a number of other marketing programs, we have seen a significant increase in the visibility of the College and are steadily building toward increased recognition of Washington and the incredible work that goes on here every day. And we relaunched this magazine as a celebration of Washington College and the outsized impact our students, faculty, staff, and alumni have on the world around us.

I am also pleased to report that this past year saw the largest number of applications the College has seen in more than five years. This is due in large part to new approaches to recruitment implemented by the Office of Admissions. Regional recruitment, targeted search campaigns, new recruitment publications that focus on our brand story, an expansion of communications with high school sophomores and juniors, and improved financial aid packaging have all upped our game with prospective students.

One of the most important developments of the past year was a $54.7 million gift from the Hodson Trust—the largest gift in the history of the institution—to support student financial aid, making a Washington College education accessible to everyone.

As I begin my “senior” year (before we take this analogy too far, rest assured I am not graduating this year), I am looking forward to taking the work we have accomplished and using what we have learned to accelerate our forward momentum.

The College has long offered a first-year program carefully crafted to help make students’ transitions to campus as smooth as possible. This year we are instituting a sophomore year program to keep students connected and engaged. The Office of Residential Life is providing programming in the Student Success Center in Corsica Hall centered around four themes: career exploration, academic exploration (advising, declaring majors), academic success (learning to leverage the Office of Academic Skills for tutoring and study skills), and student experience (joining a club and taking on leadership).

The Center for Career Development has launched the SPARK program (Sophomore Professional Awareness & Readiness Kickstart), which is built around four requirements each for the fall and spring semesters. SPARK continues the career center's programming for first-year students by requiring sophomores to meet one-on-one with a career coach, create a resume, attend events at the career center such as job fairs, complete a Clifton Strengths assessment, and engage in structured reflection about their goals and career readiness.

These programs improve student readiness and act as a springboard to the junior year when students formally enter a major.

This year, we have been working on a new campus master plan that will be completed this fall and help us further chart a pathway to strengthen the College over the next decade. We will create a vibrant campus that embraces the fullness of student life and be a leader in building sustainable communities. We will empower students through experiential learning opportunities and invest in the continued excellence of the academic experience.

Once again, we have been named one of the best colleges in the nation by U.S. News & World Report and the Princeton Review. But we also remain on lists of hidden gems. It is time to move beyond this part of our story. It is time for us to shed our humble nature and to proudly declare that Washington College is one of America’s truly great and distinctive liberal arts colleges. As we move forward, we will share news about the many ways you can participate in and support the bright future of Washington College.