Thanks to Mr. Paul Peck, who has given $5,500 to the Paul Peck Humanities Institute, generously funding five summer internships.

Art
Professor Michael Sellmeyer had two prints in The County Collects: Selected Works on Paper from Montgomery County’s Contemporary Art Program at the MC TP/SS Campus. Professor Komelia Okim offered a lecture in conjunction with the show Spring News from Washington exhibited from March 19 through April 5 at the Crafts House Gallery in Seoul, Korea. Along with Prof. Okim, among the 10 artists featured were Eun Mee Chung, MC adjunct professor; Jan Maddox, retired MC professor, and Jan Mandel, former MC jewelry student. Prof. Okim’s lecture was attended by more than 200 college students and other guests. Prof. Okim also gave a lecture to 100 James Renwick Alliance Caucus members for their Spring Crafts Weekend event. This program highlighted Korean Art & Culture with a special exhibition (April 14-24) at The KORUS HOUSE of The Embassy of Republic of Korea in Washington, DC. Adjunct professor Michaele Harrington had work accepted into the Laurel Art Guild Regional Exhibition in the main gallery at the Montpelier Cultural Arts Center. The exhibition ran through March 29. She also served as the judge for an exhibition of art for the Women's Club of Chevy Chase that opened March 27. Jean Hirons, adjunct professor of pastel painting, was one of three featured artists at the South Street Gallery in Easton, MD, during the month of March. Longtime Rockville art student Pat Kagan was invited to show at Agora Gallery in Chelsea, New York. Her show ran from March 21 to April 10.

Computer Applications
Prof. Deborah Solomon and a team of MC Gaming & Simulation students released the Beta version of Water Life: Where Rivers Meet the Sea - a new online game for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to teach 4th-7th graders about estuary environments and pollution. The release was announced on NOAA's new gaming website games.noaa.gov, in an article in Federal Computer Week, an upcoming article in the Gazette, as well as online coverage in environmental education blogs and websites. The MC team has been contracted by NOAA to create a sequel that will focus on loggerhead turtles and ocean health. Play the beta version at http://games.noaa.gov/oscar

Paul Peck Humanities Institute
The Paul Peck Humanities Institute will hold Montgomery College’s annual Holocaust Commemoration on Yom Hashoah, the Day of Remembrance of the six-million who died, Tuesday, April 21 from 6:30-8:30 PM in the Theater Arts Building on the Rockville Campus. The program will feature two Holocaust survivors, Estelle Laughlin and David Bayer, who will share their experiences. In response to the remarks by last year's speakers about the ongoing genocide in Darfur, we have also invited Mohammed Yahya, a refugee from the Darfur region of Sudan and founder and Executive Director of Damanga Coalition for Freedom and Democracy. Yahya was part of the first human rights group to alert the international community to human rights abuses in western Sudan. Readers can learn about Yahya's Coalition and its work by visiting this site: http://www.damanga.org/ There will also be profiles of some victims of the Holocaust read by student volunteers, a candle lighting ceremony involving representatives of six Montgomery County survivor groups, and live music by professor Dawn Avery and her students. A partial exhibit of Portraits of Life: Holocaust Survivors of Montgomery County, a documentary projects created to tell the stories of survivors who have lived in and around Montgomery County, Maryland, will be shown at the commemoration.

The Paul Peck Humanities Institute, the Women’s Studies Program, and the Arab American Heritage Month Committee are joining forces to bring Israeli storyteller Noa Baum to Montgomery College on Monday, April 27 at 7:00 PM in the Theatre Arts Arena. Baum will perform A Land Twice Promised, a 70-minute show which explores the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine through the narratives of women’s lives. The performance “takes us behind the rhetoric and headlines to hear the true stories of four women, two Israelis and two Palestinians. In the process we experience the most precious ingredient for the resolution of any major conflict: compassion for the humans on each side.” For more information about A Land Twice Promised, see: http://noabaum.com/index.php?page=a-land-twice-promised

The Paul Peck Humanities Institute Smithsonian Faculty Fellows Opening, celebrating the eleven-year partnership between the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies and Montgomery College, was held on Thursday, February 26, 2009, at the Smithsonian Castle, Washington DC. The reception, attended by nearly 100 people, included talks by the Smithsonian’s own Secretary G. Wayne Clough and MC’s Mr. Paul Peck. Board members, administrators, and faculty from both institutions were present. The reception recognized Smithsonian staff and past and present Fellows, and featured a video about the program, produced by John Watson, reflecting the ingenuity, scope, and achievements of the faculty and students who are fortunate enough to be touched by this exemplary professional development program. For more information, and to view the video, please visit: http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/humanities/?page=faculty_fellows

Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice
On April 7, the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice sponsored guest speaker Dr. Katherine Ramsland who holds graduate degrees in forensic psychology, clinical psychology, and philosophy. Currently she teaches forensic psychology at DeSales University in Pennsylvania and has published 30 books. Her discussion topic at MC was on Psychological Sleuthing.

The Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice will be presenting their fourth annual Student Poster Session in the department (Humanities 224) from April 14 to April 17, 2009. This is an interdisciplinary event in conjunction with the Communication Arts Technologies Department where art students read and illustrate selected student papers from all three disciplines in the department. A reception on April 16th will celebrate the student authors’ work and will facilitate dialogue between other students and faculty members about courses and programs in our department.