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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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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One Year Down!

Upon entering the history graduate program at the College of Charleston, two more years of school seemed like a lifetime!  But here I am, the first year flew by, and I’m no worse for the wear.

I improved scholastically and met some incredible people!

The GSO Grad Assistants, Bree, Amber, Bonnie, Gwen and Tiffany

I moved from a small mountain hamlet to Charleston, South Carolina.  Before the school year began, I was hired as a graduate assistant.  Through this quirky office setting, I found a surrogate family.  The ladies keep me laughing and the impressive career of a gentleman in the office, reminds me what I have the potential to accomplish.  The position keeps me in contact with prospective students, current students, and faculty from our 28 different programs.  I am exposed daily to the exciting projects and research happening throughout the College.  The most important thing I learned in this office is that the faculty is dedicated to student success.

Joi, Chris, Amber, Gwen and Eric

Initially afraid that dedicated, academic pursuit might limit opportunities to make friends, I soon experienced quite the opposite.  The first-years in my program bonded during class discussions, over research, and even an occasional beer.  We ran the gauntlet of a staggering workload and survived!  (”Survive” may seem like a strong word for me to use, but there were definitely times we wondered whether or not we’d make it)  Once we realized that we could survive, my fellow first-years and I relaxed.  We became friends.  We continue to hone our academic skills.  On a professional level, we learned one another’s research interests and career goals.  My colleagues and I share ideas, pass along readings, and support each other.  And when our brains need a rest, we get to play in Charleston!

Joi, Kristin, and Amber

I am so fortunate to have these friends and colleagues in my life.  When I left my small home town for the first time, I was convinced that making friends in graduate school would be impossible.  But I found them and am better for it.

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Why she chose South Carolina over Michigan, by Bree Tomlinson

Hungerford, a candidate for a History Master’s candidate with The Graduate School of the College of Charleston, writes that Chesnut was not your typical Southern Belle.  As a childless wife whose in-laws owned and managed the plantation, Chesnut was free to travel with her husband and by herself.  More, because of her father’s political stance and her husband’s career as a state senator and aide to Confederate president Jefferson Davis, Chesnut recorded her opinions about public politics in her diary.

While she “recorded her pride in her own personal charm,” she also attacked “the patriarchal system instead of herself” which made her so different from other southern womens’ diaries.

“Mary Boykin Chesnut should be remembered as the individual she was: an uncommon southern belle who experienced strikingly distinct circumstances, and from them developed a distinct talent for social perception in a time when women were not seen as perceptive or political.  In her own words, she was truly ‘a rebel born.’”

To receive a copy of this article, contact Katherine W. Giles at 843.723.3225 or visit The South Carolina Historical Society online at www.schsonline.org.

Reviews include:
Charleston City Paper, March 18, Will Moredock
The Post & Courier, March 15, Ben McC. Moise
The Post & Courier, March 15, Bill Thompson
The Post & Courier, March 12, Bill Thompson
The Post & Courier, March 11, Bill Thompson

Pick up a copy today.

One of the topics we covered is January’s Graduate Student Research Poster Session.  This morning’s list of participants included 23 students from six programs and the titles are super exciting!  See more after the jump.

Communication

Bryn Burkard: Examining Communication Messages and Weight Loss: Politeness Theory and the Concept of Face

Carrie Busch: Charleston’s Museum Mile: An Analysis of Organizational Collaboration

Anna-Fiona Cooke: Text and Instant Messaging in the Workplace and Its Effects on Management

Kurtis Miller: The Speech Act of Complaining: Preliminary Quantitative Research

English

Jennifer Burgess: Adjunct Anxiety: The position of Part-Time Composition Instructors at the College of Charleston

Environmental Studies

Guinn Garrett: Application of Geochemical End-Member Mixing Analysis to Delineate Water Sources in a Lowland Watershed

Tyler Lawson: Habitat Effects on Chytridiomycosis Infection in the Critically Endangered Agalychnis moreletti

Jennifer Scales: Variation in Territorial Aggression in Relation to Environmental Impacts

Kelly Sloan: The Effectiveness of Multilevel Modeling in Analyzing Sea Turtle Nesting Trends

History

Rachel Allen: A Violent Redemption: Charleston’s Own Civil War in the Gubernatorial Election of 1876

Hillary Lentz: The King of England’s Sickness: A Description of the English Sweat and an Analytical Discussion of its Origin and Treatment during the REign of Three Tudor Monarchs

Angela Dembiczak: The Axe, the Noose and the Fire: What Forms of Execution during the English Peasants’ Uprising of 1381

Kate Jenkins: School Desegregation in Charlesotn County

Neal Polhemus: Natural Disasters and Disastrous Politics: Rebuilding Charleston’s Fortifications 1752-1756

Marine Biology

Jesse Alderson: Distributions of Injured Loggerhead Sea Turtles (Caretta caretta) in the Southeastern United States: A 9-Year Regional Study

Jennifer Fountain: Monroe saxatilis, Release Strategies and Improve Hatchery Contribution

Megan Kent: Relative Contributions of Taxanomic Groups Within Microbial Biofloc Communities to the Growth of Litopenaues vannamei When Provided as Dietary Supplements

Allie Kreutzer: The Role of Crab Traps in Oyster Reef Restoration

Steven O’Connell: Perfluorinated Contaminant Concentrations in Loggerhead Sea Turtles (Caretta caretta): Expanded Spatial and Temporal Trends along the East Coast of the United STates

Katie Olds: TBA

Kolo Rathburn: Transcriptional Profile of the Penaeid Shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei to Hypoxia and Hypercapnic Hypoxia

Drew Wham: TBA

Science and Mathematics for Teachers

Sadie Fox: Robotics Curriculum for CE Williams Middle School for Creative and Scientific Arts.

Also, there has been a call for posters for the North Carolina Museum Council/South Carolina Federation of Museum’s Annual Meeting.  The deadline to submit a poster is January 16, 2009.  You can find more details here.