Amber in Costume at Charles Towne Landing

Amber Clawson, a candidate for the Master of Arts in History and a Graduate Assistant here in the Grad School Office, is quite obviously a woman of many talents. In addition to her academic and professional career at The Graduate School of the College of Charleston, she has distinguished herself as a volunteer and researcher at the Charles Towne Landing State Historic Site.

For those who may not know, Charles Towne Landing is a park and interpretive center depicting the lives of the earliest settlement in Carolina Colony, established in 1670. Special exhibits include living history interpreters in costume, a native forest featuring flora and fauna indigenous to the area during the time of European settlement, and a fantastic replica of a seventeenth-century ship. You can see the park for yourself this Saturday as they celebrate Colonial Trades and Harvest Day. Demonstrations such as musket and cannon firing and natural wool dying will be on display, and Amber will be giving a featured presentation on the first women of Carolina. This is a history topic that is not very often explored in depth, and Amber will be presenting some fascinating original research. Here’s a summary of what she’ll be discussing:

Women, at first glance, appear absent from the historical record but further research demonstrates that women played a vital role in the establishment of the Carolina colony.  Despite hardship, servitude and enslavement, the women of Charles Towne forged a community in the Atlantic World.  This presentation examines the initial settlement at Albemarle Point from 1670 until 1700, specifically the European, African, and Native American women.  Grounded in court documents and personal correspondence, the work highlights themes of family, diversity, and power in the colonial community.  In the historical memory the colonial South is a place characterized by plantation hierarchy.  This presentation provides a glimpse at the multitude of experiences of the first women of Carolina, before the plantations, when the success of the colony was still uncertain.

This has been an in-depth project for Amber, and she wishes to express her thanks to Dr. Scott Poole, our Graduate History program director, for his support and guidance. She also wishes to thank Interpretive Park Rangers Michelle Crouse and John Hiatt, who introduced her to the world of state historic sites, shared their research, and were always willing to help.

Be sure to come and witness a day of engaging history and learn about lives of women who have so often been overlooked in history. Amber will be presenting her findings in the Visitors’ Center Classroom at 1 P.M. The park is open 9 A.M. -  5 P.M.; for admission prices and park details visit the Charles Towne Landing website.

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David Wojslawowicz is certainly no exception. A 2008 graduate of our M.A. in  History program, and now a student in our Master of Public Administration program, Senior Police Officer Wojslawowicz embodies the qualities that so many of our graduate students share: a dedication to the greater good, a strong intellect, and a desire to make a positive impact on the world. As an officer with the City of Charleston’s DUI task force, he makes a definitive impact by keeping drunken drivers off our streets and literally saving the lives of the city’s residents and visitors.

His outstanding work caught the attention of The Charleston Post and Courier’s David MacDougall, who wrote this article about him in today’s paper:

DUI’s Worst Enemy

Officer among state’s most prolific in enforcing drunken driving laws

By David MacDougall

The Post and Courier

Monday, November 9, 2009

Charleston Sr. Police Officer Matthew Wojslawowicz administers a field sobriety test to a driver. He was testing for horizontal gaze nystagmus, an involuntary jerking of the eyes as a result of intoxication.

It’s a Friday night, and Charleston Senior Police Officer Matthew Wojslawowicz is staring intently into the eyes of a young man he’d just pulled over.

Wojslawowicz, a member of the city’s DUI Task Force, is among the most prolific officers in South Carolina in enforcing the state’s drunken driving laws.

He was staring into the young man’s eyes to see how smoothly they were able to follow a moving object, a ballpoint pen he was slowly and ever so deliberately moving far to the mans’s left, and then far to his right.

It’s the first part of the Standardized Field Sobriety Test. He was looking for horizontal gaze nystagmus, an involuntary jerking of the eyes as a result of intoxication. The other parts include the “nine-step walk and turn test” and the “one-legged stand.”

Pronouncing his last name correctly (voy-sla-VOH-vitch) is not part of the test. If it were, most of his fellow police officers would fail. They simply call him “Wojo.”

Wojslawowicz, 28, is a certified instructor in the Standardized Field Sobriety Test and frequently holds classes for other officers.

A native of Bayonne, N.J., Wojslawowicz decided in high school that he wanted to be either a police officer or a teacher. He enrolled at University of Richmond with plans to teach history in high school or college.

“One day I woke up and decided my skills would be better used in law enforcement,” he said. After graduating with a master’s degree in history, he applied to the Charleston Police Department. He wanted to move even farther away from the cold weather he grew up in, and he was fascinated by the region’s history, he said.

Wojslawowicz was hired by former Police Chief Reuben Greenberg in 2003 and worked as a regular patrol officer for the first three years.

In 2006, he moved to the Traffic Division and started handling more DUI cases. In June 2008, he wrote up a proposal for a DUI Task Force and presented it to police Chief Greg Mullen. This year, the S.C. Department of Public Safety honored Wojslawowicz as Officer of the Year for his DUI enforcement efforts in 2008.

He said he likes working DUI cases, despite the verbal abuse he often gets from drunks. “Some people get into this because they have a relative killed by a drunk driver or something,” he said. “Fortunately, that hasn’t happened to me. That’s not why I do it. I think I am really doing something that saves people’s lives.”

Not only the lives of drunk drivers, he said, “but the lives of countless others who could be killed by them.”

Mullen has beefed up traffic enforcement considerably and emphasized getting drunk drivers off the road. There were two officers on the task force when it started. Now there are six. The department just received a $169,697 highway safety grant that will be used to strengthen the task force, said police Lt. Chip Searson, supervisor of the traffic unit.

“Over the past several years, the Charleston Police Department, with the inception of the DUI unit, has made a renewed commitment to remove individuals who chose to drive impaired from our streets and highways,” Searson said. “Matt Wojslawowicz is a dedicated professional who has made a significant impact towards that unit’s success.”

Arrest records show that the effort has been successful. In 2006, there were 143 DUI arrests. In 2007, there were 489 and in 2008, there were 662. The department had more than 600 DUI arrests in 2009 as of last Friday.

Officers on the task force would not have such high DUI arrest numbers were it not for the participation of all of the city’s police officers. Task force members can, and will, spot drunken drivers on their own, but many of their cases begin with a call for help from a regular patrol officer.

Though task force members specialize in DUI cases, they also write regular traffic tickets.

On this past Friday night, Wojslawowicz parked his cruiser in a position where he could aim his radar at traffic crossing the Ashley River Memorial Bridge from the peninsula into West Ashley. The posted limit on the bridge is 35 mph. Few people were driving that slow. Wojslawowicz could get them all for speeding if he wanted to.

“I don’t write anybody a citation for anything that I would do myself,” he said. “We all go over the speed limit.”

Like most police officers, Wojslawowicz allows a certain amount of leeway between the posted speed limit and the speed that will get him coming at you with blue lights flashing.

A pickup truck came off the bridge at 54 mph. Wojslawowicz flipped on the blue lights, wheeled the cruiser around and pulled the driver over. Wojslawowicz sees every stop for speeding as an opportunity to look for a DUI. This driver was not visibly intoxicated. He was issued a citation for speeding.

Wojslawowicz doesn’t let people off with warning tickets. “How can I let one person go with a warning and give a ticket to another person? I go to sleep at night knowing I was fair to everybody,” he said.

His cruiser, a police-package 2008 Dodge Charger with a 5.7-liter, 368 horse power V-8 engine, serves as his office, complete with a laptop computer, a printer, a radar system, and an in-car video system. Personal accessories include a GPS navigator and a satellite radio receiver.

He described himself as a huge sports fan and said he listens to games on the satellite radio. That Friday night, he was listening to NCAA basketball games.

Though he is single with no children, Wojslawowicz said he doesn’t have a lot of time for fun because he’s working toward a master’s in public administration at the College of Charleston. The coursework keeps him busy, but he has season tickets to Cougars basketball games. He and his father attend them whenever they can. His parents moved to Charleston last year.

Though he loves the satellite radio, the most valuable gadget in his car is the video camera. It records video and sound for every traffic stop, every DUI arrest. In DUI cases, the video alone is often enough to elicit a guilty plea, he said. And the camera protects him from citizen complaints.

“If you are doing what you’re supposed to be doing on this job, the camera will be your best friend,” he said.

He has set a personal goal of writing at least 10 traffic tickets and taking at least one drunk driver off the street every night he works. “It’s a goal,” he said. “Not a quota.”

There are no quotas in the department, he said. Still, there was a misunderstanding recently when Searson sent out a motivational memo with suggested goals for traffic officers, Wojslawowicz said.

Meeting his self-imposed goal is rarely a problem, he said.

On that same Friday night, he was able to write four speeding tickets while watching the traffic coming off the bridge. Then he started cruising the streets of the city, looking for intoxicated drivers.

The crunch and squeal of a pickup truck’s tire hopping a curb as it turned onto Calhoun Street caught his attention. He followed the driver closely for a block and saw the truck swerving from side to side. He flipped on the blue lights and pulled the truck over.

Wojslawowicz approached the driver, a 21-year-old college student, and smelled alcohol on his breath. The driver said he’d been to a party where he’d had a few drinks.

Wojslawowicz asked the driver to step out of the truck and he began the field sobriety test. The driver failed the test, and he was arrested and handcuffed for a trip to police headquarters on Lockwood Drive.

There, in a jail cell where the city’s two Datamaster breath analysis machines are installed, Wojslawowicz gently instructed his prisoner on the procedure. The driver refused to take the breath test, choosing instead to lose his driving privileges for six months.

All told, it took about 90 minutes from the time Wojslawowicz pulled over the driver to the time a police transport officer took charge of the prisoner for the trip to the county jail. Had the man’s friends not been on the scene and able to drive away his truck, there would have been additional time spent waiting for a tow truck, Wojslawowicz said.

And he would spend an additional half-hour or so back in his cruiser, writing up his arrest report, before being able to go back on the street to hunt for another DUI offender.

Wojslawowicz doesn’t mind the time it takes. “When you take someone off the street for DUI,” he said. “You’re making a sizable impact.”

So, we send our congratulations and much-deserved appreciation to David Wojslawowicz for his outstanding service, and we wish him the best in his continued studies at The Graduate School of the College of Charleston.

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It’s hard for me to believe that I just turned in my second midterm as a graduate student. Part of me hopes that time continues to fly this fast and that I’ll have my degree in no time. The other part of me wants to slowly savor the challenge the next 11 courses will undoubtedly bring. But I suppose that’s what trade conferences are for; continually learning more about your industry and those you serve.

I love being challenged, but what I’ve found to be most challenging as a grad student is finding the energy and time to read for class. Granted this semester is a little insane on my schedule. Take this week for instance. I have to read a 100+ page book which is typically no issue for me. Since I stare at a blank wall at my desk at home, and because I can’t stay away from Twitter if I’m at my desk in the office, I decided I would try to find a good place to call my “study home.”  The college doesn’t have a formal student union, so the library is the typical hot spot on campus. I tried studying there last semester, but that was an utter failure for someone with such short attention spans like myself. (Although, a man sitting in the cubicle next to me one night had the brilliant idea of ear plugs.)

My job has allowed me to embrace a work shifting mentality, and I’ve found a great home in Panera Bread as a temporary office when I leave Charleston. With that in mind, I figured I could attempt studying at a local bookstore. It worked for my boyfriend, so it could work for me, right? How about no. I was more focused on the music coming from the ceiling above my chair than I was on the words in front of me. Plus, my left foot kept falling asleep.

In hopes of getting through at least a chapter of the book Monday night, I went home thinking I would sit at my desk and read until I found a better place. That’s when procrastination kicked into fifth gear and I felt the need to clean up my usually spotless room.  Finally, after the room was vacuumed, the receipts put away and all the old magazines recycled, I was able to finish the last few pages of Chapter One.

I haven’t opened the book since Monday night, which means I need to get moving and finish the book before the Buffalo Bills start playing on Sunday.  Even though I know how it will end, I still want to watch the game and munch on a chicken finger hoagie. So, hope for the best for the Bills and wish me luck in finding a good study place!

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Robert Behre’s article was originally posted in The Post and Courier on Monday, October 12:

Walking around McLeod Plantation gives a sense of the opportunities and challenges that await the College of Charleston, should it close the deal and buy this historic site.

Robert Russell, director of the college’s Historic Preservation and Community Planning program, has been considering these buildings for months as the college quietly considered buying the property.

The quiet ended late last month, when the Historic Charleston Foundation announced a plan to sell the 40-acre plantation to the college, which has three months to study the pros and cons before finalizing the deal.

McLeod offers a paradox to the college

On one hand, it would give the college much more room for classrooms and a potential laboratory for historic preservation, archaeology and African-American studies, as well as possible recreational space. The site could serve as an important release valve for its downtown campus now tightly bound by historic neighborhoods.

On the other hand, the plantation’s relatively pristine condition, a stark contrast to much of James Island, and its high visibility near Folly Road and Maybank Highway have given it a powerful constituency of people who want to see its buildings and open space remain much as they are.

McLeod Plantation is the historic James Island site that the College of Charleston is preparing to purchase.

Russell notes the current buildings are in varying conditions of repair and lend themselves to different uses.

The main house, which dates from the 1850s but was remodeled around 1925, has the most potential for use, both as classrooms and possibly event space.

“The house is in good shape. It does not need any stabilization as far as I know,” he says. “It needs work, but it’s mostly cosmetic.”

The slave cabins, which many consider the property’s most unique and evocative feature, also are in relatively good shape, and they will remain much as they are.

Russell points to the shingle roof on a cabin near the main house and notes that its black cypress shingles are only 10 years old but already are succumbing to rot. He says that itself can be a sort of lesson to students, a lesson in how today’s materials, even while ostensibly the same, often prove inferior to what earlier generations had on hand.

The most urgent preservation challenge can be found on the opposite side of the main house, where a two-story gin has a good roof but advanced rot problems.

“The sills are gone,” Russell notes. “Everything is gone here.”

A nearby barn, privy and garage are in nominally better shape, and their repairs probably won’t prove as tricky as figuring out how they can be used.

“That’s the question, too. Once you get the buildings back in shape, what do you do with them?”

Russell says the dairy or gin could be used to display historic materials — bricks, slate tiles and other remnants that currently are stored out of sight, or they could be used to store other stuff, perhaps things as mundane as the lawn mower the college’s grounds crew will use.

Dottie George of the Friends of McLeod, a nonprofit with hundreds of members, says the group isn’t hostile to the idea of the Historic Charleston Foundation selling the property to the college for $4 million, but the group realizes many details remain to be ironed out as far as how the property is used.

“We would like a place at the table while they’re drawing up these easements,” George says. “That’s a very important part –that’s where it all is determined.”

Concerns range from the number and character of the parking areas to any lighting or equipment there to the siting and appearance of any recreational fields or new buildings.

“Whatever we do is going to have to be inconspicuous or low impact,” Russell says. “As far as I can tell, that’s what the president has in mind.”

The Graduate School and the Office of Research and Grants Administration are teaming up with the coordinator of Nationally Competitive Awards to present you with a workshop on applying for grants, scholarships and fellowships.

Topics covered include:

• Identifying opportunities for research grants, scholarships and fellowships.
• How to make an average proposal a really competitive proposal.
• What and who are the local offices, and who can really help.
• How does a research grant really work at a university.
• How to choose your battles, and win them.
• What scholarships and fellowships are available to College of Charleston graduate students.
• Grant terminology, grantsmanship strategies, and how grant budgets work.

Be sure to register for this opportunity today. (The registration button is at the top of the page.)

P.S. Don’t forget to register and attend Saturday’s Responsible Conduct of Research. This workshop is highly recommended for all graduate students, regardless of discipline.

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Hello fellow graduate students,

MJ, Crystal and Joe at the first GSA Kickoff

I am writing on behalf of the GSA telling you to mark your calendars for Saturday, September 12th from 5-9 pm for the 3rd Annual GSA Kickoff. It will be held on James Island at the Fort Johnson Marine Lab Complex (same place that CofC’s Grice Marine Lab is). There will be food provided by Moe’s. There will be limited free beer as well. Only graduate students with college ID will be allowed in. 21+ only. Students are allowed one guest. There is a limit to 200 people at a time, so get there early.

There is a tentatively scheduled hurricane date of the following Saturday, Sept. 19th at the same times.

If you have any questions, feel free to email the GSA at gsa.cofc@gmail.com.

Hope to see you all in a couple of weeks.

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As summer winds down and classes begin, you will most likely find me between stacks of paperwork, and my mouse flipping between Mapquest and university websites. The next three months happen to be the most eventful out of the year for me.  Part of my job is to spend the autumn months attending Graduate and Professional School Fairs, talking with undergraduates and faculty about the 28 graduate programs the College of Charleston offers.

The travel season is a little different for me this year. For one, I have added more universities and fairs to my list of trips. I am literally traveling the Eastern seaboard, visiting schools from New York to Florida. The second reason this season is a little different is because I am also a part-time grad student. This means I have to juggle classes, homework, emails, planning events, managing hotel reservations and attending meetings galore across five states in just under seven weeks.

Over the next few months, I will blog my way up and down the I-95, relaying my tales as a grad student who happens to work full-time. Wondering if I was crazy for taking on a class with this type of schedule, I touched base with a colleague in our undergraduate admissions office who was also a part-time grad student. She knows the demands of a recruiter, and I asked her if I was crazy thinking I could balance said demands and a class.  My spirits nearly died when she piped up with, “Absolutely!” She then gave me tips on making it work, and I hope that I can help other working professionals find ways to balance work, life and school.

I can’t say it will be easy. I know for sure that I’ll be out of town for two of my classes, which was approved by my professor.  But I’ll give it everything I have to make sure it works. Even if that means finishing the 15 hour drive it took from New York a mere two and a half hours before my first class started Monday night.

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Recently, the Obama administration launched economic stimulus package includes a new Textbook Tax Credit for which many College of Charleston students are eligible. This new government program will now reimburse students for up to 100% of the cost of required textbooks and other course materials. For example, if your student has out-of-pocket course material expenses or tuition and fees during 2009 or 2010 and no other financial grant aid covers those expenses, they would be able to claim the expenses as a credit. For each student the credit is limited to $2,500.

In the past, the Hope and Lifetime Learning credits did not cover textbooks. This exclusion disadvantaged many students for which textbooks are a high proportion of their total costs of higher education. This stimulus bill creates the American Opportunity Tax Credit, which will credit 100% of a student’s first $2000 in tuition, fees, and course materials, and 25% of the next $2000. The credit is also 40% refundable, so even if a student doesn’t owe taxes, he or she can effectively get a 40% rebate from the federal government for all tuition, fees and course materials.

At the bookstore, we are very excited about this new government program and want to ensure that our students are aware of this new opportunity. We are spreading the word here in the Bookstore, but it would make a huge difference if you could help us raise awareness by mentioning this tax credit in class to ensure that all students hear about it.

For more information, you can check out www.textbookaid.org

Wow, so what can I say. It’s been a whirlwind few months since graduating from the MPA program in May.

I had spent the last two years working as a graduate assistant on campus while obtaining the Masters in Public Administration.

The final week of school I was informed that I had been selected for the Charles Koch Associate Program, which is a one-year program that trains futures leaders of nonprofits interested in liberty. I am spending the year working for the South Carolina Policy Council as a Policy Analyst, while also learning Market-Based-Management — a management philosophy created by Charles Koch, CEO of Koch Industries. The program lasts until May 27, 2010.

My first week was spent in Washington DC, where the program is based out of, for a crash course in the program. There are 81 other associates in the program scattered throughout the country — 60 based in DC, 21 in other cities.

The mission of the South Carolina Policy Council is “to promote limited government, free enterprise, individual liberty and responsibility.” It has been a great experience working in a nonprofit organization, after spending two years learning about the nonprofit world in the classroom. Working as a policy analyst, it has extremely rewarding to be a part of important state and national issues that are shaping our world.

Being able to apply the academic principles I learned at the College to read world problems is another great reminder of why the MPA degree is so helpful!

If you’re curious about social networking, are dabbling in it a little here and there like I am, or are a veteran to social media, join us for this event.  As anyone will tell you, there’s no telling where social media will be in the next year, or how it will further define the way we do things.

The World According to Jared W. Smith
Jared is the College of Charleston’s Webmaster and is “very engaged in an increasingly vibrant social media scene in Charleston.” Keep tabs on the weather, BarCamp and SMC through his blog.

Social Media Club Charleston
A listing of all the SMCC events. Or visit their Facebook page.

Lowcountry Bloggers
“LowcountryBloggers.com intends to be a resource for the local blogging community providing tutorials and workshops, encouraging growth through traffic and commentary, and building community through meetups and conversation.”

Charleston Twitter Hashtags
#CHS: Charleston
#CHSEATS: Food in Charleston
#CHSNEWS: News
#CHSBRKG: Breaking news
#CHSTRFC: Traffic
#CHSBIZ: Business
#CHSWX: Weather
#CHSCOOL: Cool stuff
#SMCCHS: Social Media

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