Students & Colleagues,

We have received additional H1N1 live nasal vaccine and plan to administer it:

Stern Center Lobby

Tuesday, November 17^th

10 am – 12 pm     2 pm – 4 pm

We expect to have an adequate supply.  Please keep in mind this live vaccine is for those individuals who are no older than 49 years and who do not have chronic medical conditions.  If you are in doubt about which vaccine you should get, please email me.

Additionally, we have temporarily depleted our limited supply of the H1N1 injectable vaccine which we had been giving to those at high risk for complications of this virus.  If you have not done so, please email to the following address, your name, contact phone # and your high risk condition H1N1highrisk@cofc.edu You will be contacted by a Student Health Service staff member as vaccine becomes available.  Please be patient the list is long.

Seasonal flu vaccine is still available please call Student Health Services for an appointment.

Again thanks go out to all of our colleagues and students who have helped in this important campaign.

Jane Reno-Munro, ANP

Director of Student Health Services

College of Charleston

Charleston, SC 29424

843-953-5520 Phone

843-953-6377 Fax

As always, we will keep you posted if any additional announcements regarding H1N1 Influenza are issued from Student Health Services.

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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At the College of Charleston, we are fortunate to have one of the nation’s foremost centers of study for African-American history and culture: The Avery Research Center. Many students, especially those studying African-American history and literature, find the Avery Center’s amazing wealth of knowledge and resources to be an invaluable asset for their scholarly work. Their museum also hosts fascinating exhibits of interest to anyone who desires to explore the cultural heritage of the South Carolina Lowcountry, with the current exhibit featuring Sweetgrass Baskets.

And tomorrow night, they will be hosting a panel presentation on the role of youth in the Charleston Civil Rights Movement from 1960-1965. For more information, read their announcement below:

Panel Presentation: “Role of Youth During the Charleston Movement, 1960-1965″

Particular attention will be given to members of the NAACP Youth Council, as they gave leadership to direct action campaigns.  These campaigns sought to desegregate schools, lunch counters and motels, improve employment opportunities and secure all other rights of full citizenship.

For additional information contact: Curtis Franks – 843.953.7610

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Students & Colleagues,

Thank you for your patience as we slowly receive supplies of the H1N1 vaccine.  Just to give you an update, initially we received 100 doses of injectable H1N1 vaccine.  These doses were given to the highest risk students, faculty and staff on our campus.  We then received 300 doses of the Live Nasal Spray H1N1 vaccine which were given to students and other healthy individuals.  We have recently received another shipment of the live nasal H1N1 and will conduct another clinic, details follow:

Stern Center Lobby
Thursday, November 12^th
9 am – 12 pm     2 pm – 4 pm

We expect to have an adequate supply.  Please keep in mind this live vaccine is for those individuals who are no older than 49 years and who do not have chronic medical conditions.  If you are in doubt about which vaccine you should get, please email me.

Additionally, we also received a limited supply of the H1N1 injectable vaccine which we are arranging to give to those at high risk for complications of this virus.  If you have not done so, please email to the following address, your name, contact phone # and your high risk condition H1N1highrisk@cofc.edu You will be contacted by a Student Health Service staff member as vaccine becomes available.

Special thanks to all our flu volunteers and the extraordinary staff at the Stern Center.  Thanks again for your patience as we make our way through this challenging semester.

Jane Reno-Munro, ANP
Director of Student Health Services
College of Charleston
Charleston, SC 29424

843-953-5520 Phone

843-953-6377 Fax

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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Howdy,

The Graduate Student Association has formed a team to participate in this year’s Dance Marathon and we want you to be a member.

Dance Marathon is the largest philanthropic event on our campus. This is the third year at CofC raising money for Children’s Miracle Network and MUSC Children’s Hospital right down Calhoun Street. Each participant pledges to raise at least $150 leading up to the 15 hour event February 26th-27th. This event is essentially an all-night party for all of the participants to thank them for their hard work and dedication. There are various bands throughout the night, energy drink flip cup, root beer pong, great giveaways, and excellent food. Also, every hour participants will learn segments of a 6 minute dance that is performed for the patient families in the morning. It is an amazing event that helps others in our community as well as bringing students from our campus together.

This year the Dance Marathon committee is trying to get 650 participants and GSA wants to help them accomplish this goal. If you are interested in participating in Dance Marathon as a member of our team you can register for the event at:  www.dancemarathon.clubs.cofc.edu

When you are filing out your registration form, add yourself as a member of the GSA team. Also, please send me an email at keclancy@edisto.cofc.edu, with your name and your t-shirt size is so that I make sure we have all of our participants. Please join us for a night of fun and help the Children’s Miracle Network and MUSC Children’s Hospital.

Thanks,
Kathleen Clancy
keclancy@edisto.cofc.edu
GSA Social and Outreach Committee Chair

I returned to my hotel that evening, ready to write a Monday Motivation post providing links to blogs that talk about life after college. My hope was to provide enough links to show those facing graduation that they’re not alone. There are so many people, from those ready to graduate to those ready to retire, who have no idea what they want to do with their life. And then, like the woman I talked with in Florida, there are some who have an idea but they have yet to clearly identify the path that will lead them to their career aspiration.

I was Googling phrases like, “life after college” and, “after I graduate” when I found this gem of an article from the NPR archives. Then I found another referencing the same book. And then finally in his own words, the author of What Should I Do With My Life has a six-page feature in Fast Company. This morning, I read that Po Bronson has released a sequel, What Should I Do With My Life, Now?

“Your calling isn’t something you inherently ‘know,’ some kind of destiny. Far from it. Almost all of the people I interviewed found their calling after great difficulty. They had made mistakes before getting it right.” -Po Bronson

Graduate school is full of people looking to fulfill their calling, whether they’re changing careers or enhancing the knowledge they already have in a certain field. But, it will not help you find your calling unless you can decide whether,  “your choice is something that will stimulate you for a year or something that you can be passionate about for 10 years?”

Bronson’s first book is a journal about the experiences of 900 people realizing their dreams and making them happen. I haven’t read the book yet, but the two articles mentioned above are enough to make me consider purchasing a copy. Hopefully, they will spark hope and inspiration with those getting ready to graduate and those who are still trying to figure out what it is they want to be when they grow up.

(Photo Credit: brunkfordbraun)

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The College of Charleston Library is part of a consortium of 40+ academic libraries across the state that make borrowing quick and easy.  The consortium is called PASCAL (PARTNERSHIP AMONG SC ACADEMIC LIBRARIES) and the service is called PASCAL Delivers.  (We librarians are clever folks)

If  you don’t find the book in the College catalog, you might see the bright blue PASCAL Delivers logo:

Click on the logo and you’ll  see the other libraries in South Carolina that own the book.   And if you click “Request this item,” you can quickly request the book and get it delivered to the Interlibrary Loan Office within three days.

It’s that simple – as many of your colleagues have already discovered.

Of course,  you may need books that are not owned by any South Carolina academic library.  In those cases,  fill out the standard Interlibrary Loan Request form  and our staff will borrow the book from libraries beyond SC borders.  But you’ll discover, PASCAL Delivers will make Interlibrary Loan even faster and easier than ever before.

Questions – call the friendly staff at Interlibrary Loan at 843-953-8010.

Hypergraphia: an overwhelming urge to write.

One would assume hypergraphia might come in handy if you’re writing a thesis for your graduate or doctoral degree. But let’s face it, everyone suffers from writer’s block and struggles when writing their thesis. Since College of Charleston graduate students have eight weeks left to submit their thesis, this Monday’s Motivation is focused on tips that hopefully renew some writing energy. And if you’re planning on submitting your thesis this semester or next, you may want to consider attending our thesis submission seminar on November 11.

Get a regular writing routine
In this post, Peg Boyle Single debunks two writing myths. This is her first installment in a four-part series that focuses on finding your voice and creating a regular writing routine.

Find a good idea
If you’re going to spend nearly two years thinking about, researching and writing your thesis, you might want to find a topic that genuinely interests you. If you’re lost on ideas, this post will help ignite your creativity.

Make sure you’re focused. Have enough in the bank.
Having enough cash in reserve while you finish your thesis is helpful in a multitude of ways. First, you’re not concerned about finding additional ways to make sure you can pay all the bills. Second, you may need to travel to conduct more research to complete your thesis. This post lists even more reasons why you should have extra cash on hand.

If you have the option of choosing a thesis over an internship, choose wisely.
Nova doesn’t have any tips to offer in this post, but it does give you insight to one woman’s life and her thoughts on completing a thesis.

Know your timeline
Our thesis manual provides a recommended timeline for thesis development on page four.

Related posts:
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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.”