Spring Fair 2012

The 41st annual Spring Fair (by the way, it’s the oldest student run college fair in the country!) at Hopkins was a it! From April 21-Apr 22nd, the Homewood campus was transformed into an enticing area for food and fun. This year, the Fair featured 30 food vendors–they sold everything, from fried Oreos to the ever-popular Chicken-on-a-Stick to corn dogs and ice-cream…you name a fair food, we had it! Long lines, groups of students, faculty, and community members alike spotted campus and gave it a livelier-than-usual vibe. In addition to the food vendors, there were fabulous vendors selling goods such as jewelry, wooden arts, soaps and perfumes, clothing, and accessories.

Ladybirds Spring Concert

On Friday April 13 the Ladybirds Dance Team held their annual Spring Concert at Shriver Hall. The night included guest performances by other dance groups on campus including S.L.A.M., JHU Ballet, the Eclectics and the all-female acapella group, the Sirens. The performances were broken up by fun trivia about the Ladybird crew with prizes for whoever answered correctly.

The Ladybirds hold the title of oldest dance group on campus. The team is entirely student-run and student-choreographed, and focuses on dance styles including Pom, Jazz, Hop-Hop and Tap. The girls perform at sports games including football, basketball and lacrosse, as well as other Performing  Arts events on campus.

The Team danced to songs including Candy Man, Sexy and I know it, and Bulletproof. As is tradition in the Ladybirds family, there was a seniors-only dance, along with a Babybirds-only dance. The Ladybirds said goodbye that evening to their three seniors, Monica Harris, Stephanie Curtin and Tara Brailey.

For more information about the Ladybirds Dance Team, check out their website here. Also be sure to check out videos of some of the Team’s performances here.

Peak Performance

Name: George Dittmar

Parent of: Allysa Dittmar ’14

I think we all have had some experience of peak performance. It may last a moment or a few hours. It could be a medical person saving someone from a grave illness, an artist spilling creativity over his painting, or maybe even a student simply being inspired by a professor. The experience usually takes us out of the day to day routine and gives a glimpse of “other worldliness.” A glimpse of how special life can be. Someone said life is a metaphor and I tend to agree. The best metaphor for peak performance in my opinion is sports, especially lacrosse (…you know where this is
going, right?)

Allysa '14 and son Dan at lacrosse game

When I first set foot on the campus at Johns Hopkins I felt that this is a place where peak performance is possible. For my daughter, it was love at first sight as well. I suspect for some of the same reasons I had. I saw a student body that exudes goodwill, concern, and brilliance – peak performance. A Dean of Students that treats my daughter as if she were the only person she had to worry about and not thousands – peak performance (thank you, Dean Boswell). Professors that truly care for their students – peak performance. And watching my daughter thrive and excel at Johns Hopkins – peak performance.

Did I mention the lacrosse team? Excellent. Extraordinary. Often and for sure capable of peak performance. I know because I saw it. I drove all the way down from New Jersey and I had the good fortune to witness the UVa game (the Blue Jays won in OT, becoming 8 – 0). Peak performance. Coach Pietramala has created a team and attitude where the “other worldly” can take place. It was such an intense game. I have never seen such defensive focus and patience – peak performance. Those lacrosse games are the kind of experiences that can stay with those players all their lives and perhaps help them through the difficulties life invariably presents. Experiences that we all can carry with us.

At the Navy game last year

I’ve experienced it myself. After I graduated from college, I played on an unknown rugby club. We played a great team from Washington D.C. Their team was filled with New Zealanders, Englishmen, South Africans, and Australians. My counterpart at scrum half was purported the best in the world. We played on the National Mall at cherry blossom time in the spring. From the time I set foot on the pitch, I knew I would best my man and that we would win. And we did – peak performance. That experience still stays with me today. I love to watch my daughter’s friend play rugby at Hopkins; it brings back great memories and I see the peak performance in him too. At Hopkins, be it rugby players, artists, or students, will all experience such extraordinary peak performance. Much more than what I’ve experienced. And it will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Family

I love Johns Hopkins University for the harmony, kinship, and brilliance that it has helped create in my daughter’s life at a time when one would have believed these experiences would be impossible.

Johns Hopkins: peak performance.

George, Allysa and Aaron '14

SOHOP 2012

The Johns Hopkins University undergraduate student body and faculty is thrilled and incredibly excited to welcome what will soon be the newest addition to our campus – the Class of 2016!  Another admissions cycle has gone by, and another group of incredibly talented, bright students have been granted a place in the Fall 2012 incoming class.  To aid these students in the process of choosing the university at which they will enroll next fall, the Office of Admissions here at Hopkins has organized an extremely unique open house program called SOHOP that offers an open glimpse into the life of a Hopkins undergraduate.

What makes SOHOP so unique?  For starters, SOHOP is an overnight program, and anyone who attends SOHOP has the option to stay with one of the hundreds of undergraduates who have volunteered to host a student.  The huge number of undergraduates who volunteer to take part in this event was a huge part of what made this event become a reality and was also a strong indicator of the enthusiasm that Hopkins undergraduates have for their university’s incoming class.

This year, SOHOP took place during the second and third weeks of April and lasted from Wednesday afternoon until Thursday evening.  Wednesday was an exciting kick-off day for SOHOP, as prospective students were given the opportunity to meet undergraduate representatives from an enormous variety of campus clubs and organizations.  After the scheduled dinner program, several members of the Hopkins faculty volunteered to give lectures about their programs of study and to answer questions from any admitted students that attended.  The idea of the faculty lectures was for prospective students to explore their interests, to envision themselves taking on a particular field of study, and to meet faculty who in a few short months could be these students’ new professors.

Thursday was an equally exciting day in which students were given the opportunity to tour campus, tour the dorms, attend academic presentations by major, and become familiar with Hopkins’ various student services such as Pre-Professional advising, Career Counseling, and Study Abroad.  Hundreds of undergraduate student volunteers made this day a possibility, and many could be spotted walking around campus, mingling with both students and parents to give them a better idea of life at Johns Hopkins University.  Although SOHOP is a very new program, this being only its second year, it is an event that the Hopkins Office of Admissions and the Hopkins student body is particularly proud of, as we feel it gives prospective students unique insight as to what it means to be a member of the Johns Hopkins community.

Beat of the Nile: Back to Africa

On Friday March 30, the African Student Association held their annual Dance and Fashion Showcase: The Beat of the Nile. Sophomore Malcom Douglas created a promotional advertisement for the event, along with a brief narrative about his work. Both are below!

Hi, my name is Malcolm Douglas. I am a sophomore Biology and Film Double Major. I am also the publicity chair for both the Black Student Union and Dunbar Baldwin Hughes Theatre Company. However, I also publicize a lot of events for other campus organizations as well! This video was a promotional advertisement for the African Student Association’s annual Dance and Fashion Showcase: The Beat of the Nile. The premise of the video was to travel around our beautiful campus showcasing both African dance and a royal, traditional African wardrobe. We played African music and danced with students all over campus to see how they would groove to these funky African tunes. And as always, I like to keep my audience thoroughly entertained. So I sprinkled in a few surprises that are bound to keep you smiling. I hope you enjoy! This is another Malcolm Douglas Exclusive.

I Will Remember You

Name: Josh Gleason

Graduation Year: Class of 2011

Current Town: Valencia, CA

Hometown: Park Ridge, NJ

Major: Film and Media Studies

I am an alumnus.  Even after almost a year now, it still sounds strange.

Sometimes it feels like I’ve broken up with Hopkins.  It was mutual, of course.  But there are times when I’ll be reminded of my former school, and it brings back the pangs of love.  Little things.  A breeze that reminds me of sitting on the Beach.  A face that looks like an old friend.  A rare damp day out here in southern California that reminds me of one of those dreary Baltimore spring days.  I’m still in love with Hopkins, but it’s moved on and so have I.

Life has since taken me to grad school.  But not without a journey.

After graduating, I had a few last hurrahs.  My first was working on another film by Hopkins professor Matt Porterfield called I Used to Be Darker (http://ww.iusedtobedarker.com/)  It was a really great experience and continued to help me understand more about film production by being thrown into the fire.

The other amazing experience was the cross-country road trip I took with my best friend.  Both of us left Hopkins to go to grad school on the west coast.  He is at a PhD program in Materials Science at UCSB, and I am in an M.F.A. program at CalArts.  Originally our plan was to backpack through Europe (which would have made for better pictures), but we ultimately decided to spend our last few days together before school driving from my house in New Jersey to our new locations in southern California.

In fact, our journey spanned over 3,400 mi.  I live about 40 mins from the Atlantic on the east coast and about 45 minutes from the Pacific now.  So it was nearly coast to coast -  The trip took us to lots of places we hadn’t been before.  We got a chance to visit some old friends, see some amazing sights, and surprisingly only had two arguments in 10 days trapped together.

We tried to summarize the trip along the way with taglines.  Here are some of the ones that will make sense to other people:

• Western PA: “The land of sights and extreme smells”
• Pittsburgh: Jekyll and Hyde City (alive by dead, dead at night), Home of the Legends of the Hidden Temple Bar
• Ohio: “The land of strict 9-5 business hours”, The Moderately Okay State, The Pizza State (apparently there are more pizza places per capita than any other state)

• Indiana: “What happens in Indiana stays forgettable.”, The Land of Regularaly Spaced Clouds
• Illinois: The Last EZPass State
• Iowa: Middle of Nowhere, Corn as Far as the Eye Can See
• Des Moines: “Des Moines: Pleasant Surprises”, Skywalk City, this is where we coined the phrase “It’s not weird.  It’s roadtrip.”
• Missouri: BBQ City, Generic City, USA
• Kansas: There’s No Place Like Home (as long as it’s not Kansas), Racist Cop State, Home of Prairie Dog Town, The Glad We Didn’t Stop Overnight There State, Winner of Flattest State in America & The Scariest Pizza Hut in America

• Colorado: EVERYTHING is Beautiful in Colorado
• New Mexico: The Roadside Indian Frybread State
• Arizona: “When they say Grand Canyon, they mean it” State, The Land of Giant Holes in the Ground

When we said goodbye, it marked the end of an era.  It felt like my last moments as a Hopkins student.  The aforementioned breakup was finally setting in.  The next step was quickly approaching.

And as this year has gone on, I’ve realized how grateful I am to have had Hopkins in my life.  It made me a stronger person, a more confident person, and it gave me the tools I need to succeed at the next level.  I came in to grad school a step ahead, and every once in a while, I look back and realize that Hopkins helped me get there.

Editor’s Note: Josh was a Hopkins Interactive blogger for nearly all four years he was at Hopkins. Take a look through his archived blog: The Reel Life of Josh. 

Alternative Spring Break

There’s no doubt that Hopkins is home to a wide range of community service organizations that make an impact in Baltimore city.  Hopkins students of all majors have found many different ways of connecting to their surrounding neighborhood, such as through tutoring local elementary school students, organizing health advocacy programs, and building houses for those in the Baltimore communities.    In addition to volunteering throughout the semester, a great opportunity that Hopkins offers its students is a Baltimore-based alternative spring break program.  Not only does this program provide Hopkins students with a fantastic opportunity to help citizens of their own community, but it also educates students about critical problems that Baltimore currently faces and how they might be remedied.

The Center for Social Concern this year has facilitated three different alternative spring break trips that each address a different critical issue in Baltimore: food justice and poverty; HIV, AIDS, and STDs; and challenges faced by the East Baltimore Community, home of the Hopkins medical campus.  In each trip, students learn a great deal about the history of the issue, the current policies that affect it, the areas that are most affected, and the solutions that are being explored.  In addition, students do daily volunteer work relating to the explored theme.  Each trip is one week long, during which time students live with and often grow very close to their small group of other student volunteers.  Students also have the opportunity to meet and connect with members of crucial community organizations such as Feeding America and the National Food Bank, which opens many doors for students to continue their involvement in their university’s hometown.

Hopkins students each year find new ways to utilize their interests or talents to better their community, and an alternative spring break is for some students the perfect way to accomplish this.  The impressive community involvement of Hopkins student body has certainly demonstrated that taking advantage of one’s four years at Hopkins means not only consists of exploring Baltimore’s tourist attractions, but it also entails learning about the dilemmas that Baltimore faces and helping to pursue a solution.

High Table 2012

On March 12th, the 3rd annual Hopkins High Table tradition commenced in grand fashion–taking place in the Recreation Center, this year’s High Table was the largest ever. In 2010, the High Table tradition (Hogwarts, anyone?) was created to emulate the British Tradition of “Formal Hall” (think Oxford and Cambridge). The High Table dinner is very academic in nature, as students are joined by deans and professors while the “High Table,” occupied by the freshman class council and administrators, sits eruditely at the front. Freshman President Joshua Goodstein started the evening with an inspiring speech, and he was followed by Provost Lloyd Minor and President Daniels, who addressed the freshmen about the importance of faculty-student interaction.

Think long, banquet style tables, deans in academic robes, lavish decorations, students in semi-formal attire, and fancy catering. The High Table was an opportunity for students to engage in meaningful and personal conversation with professors and deans. It was also an opportunity to have all of the class of 2015 in one place at one time, something that hadn’t happened since Orientation in August. Professors and deans were purposefully interwoven between students and discussed matters regarding classes, student life, and future aspirations. For many, the High Table was a nice change, and will surely be a tradition that will do nothing but grow in years to come.

Guests included President Ron Daniels, Provost Sarah Steinberg, Dean Susan Boswell, Dean Katherine Newman, Provost Lloyd Minor, and of course, the unique individuals that comprise the class of 2015.

Foreign Affairs Symposium Spring 2012

Every spring the Foreign Affairs Symposium brings a series of amazing speakers to campus. The speakers complement and contrast the Fall lineup from MSE, and usually depict a range of topical international issues. This year’s series is organized around the “Paradox of Progress,” and explores the impact of increased globalization and technology in the areas of politics, economics and the environment. So far, the lectures have featured John Ashcroft, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, David Frum, and a panel of Occupy organizers that included representatives from New York, Baltimore, Oakland and Austin. This week, Valerie Plame came to campus to speak about her career as a covert CIA agent and her subsequent exposure by Scooter Libby; it was an exciting speech and an amazing opportunity to hear such an interesting story first-hand!

Dance Marathon 2012

On Friday March 3 JHU held its second annual Dance Marathon fundraiser. This event is held to raise money for the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. Dance Marathon is a nation-wide movement that raises money for The Children’s Miracle Network hospital in their community. Over 150 schools participate.