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Maryland Humanities Council Appoints New Board Members

Slate Includes Business Leaders, Educators, and Circuit Court Judge

Baltimore - The Maryland Humanities Council (MHC) elected seven new members to its Board of Directors at its October meeting held at the C. Burr Artz Public Library in Frederick. New members hail from the business community, academia, and the Baltimore City Circuit Court.

Board members' primary responsibilities include strategic planning, approving and monitoring the organization's programs and services, ensuring effective fiscal management, fundraising, selecting and orienting new Board members, allocating grant funds, fundraising, and promoting MHC's activities. Members serve without pay and are eligible to serve up to two three-year terms.

New Additions to the MHC Board of Directors

Diedre L. Badejo is the inaugural dean of the Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Baltimore. Over the years, she has been a dedicated humanities scholar and speaker for Humanities Councils in Ohio, California, and Kentucky. In Louisville, she was a featured speaker and selected as the Council's Research Project Director to conduct oral historiographies and archival data for the Kentucky Derby Museum's project on African Americans in Thoroughbred Racing. Badejo is a professor of African and African Diaspora Studies and has published and presented widely in the United States, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Europe. She has served as Fulbright Senior Research Scholar at the University of Ghana, Rockefeller Fellow at Brown University, and senior editor and head of the editorial department at Ahmadu Bello University Press in Nigeria. Badejo holds a doctorate in comparative literature and a master's in African Area Studies specializing in West African theatre, oral traditions, and history from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a resident of Baltimore City.

Gordon Cooley, a Frederick County resident, is the Western Maryland Regional President of PNC Bank. He has previously served as Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for Mercantile Bankshares Corporation, as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for F&M Bancorp, and from 1978 to 1985 had a private practice with a small firm offering general legal services to individuals and businesses, especially involving matters in litigation. Cooley currently sits on several Boards including Frederick County Chamber of Commerce, The Frostburg State University Foundation, and the Weinberg Center for the Arts. He is a graduate of Randolph-Macon College, the University of Richmond's T.C. Williams School of Law, the American Bankers Association's Stonier Graduate School of Banking, and Maryland Banker's School.

Michael S. Glaser is a Professor Emeritus at St. Mary's College of Maryland where he has served both as a professor of literature and creative writing and as an administrator for nearly 40 years. He is a recipient of the Homer Dodge Endowed Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Columbia Merit Award from the Poetry Committee of the Greater Washington, D.C. area for his service to poetry, and Loyola College's Andrew White Medal for his dedication to the intellectual and scholarly life and for his commitment to sustaining the poetic tradition in the State of Maryland. Glaser has published over 500 poems in various anthologies, journals and newspapers, seven collections of his own work, and has edited three anthologies. Widely sought as a speaker and workshop leader, Glaser served as a Maryland State Arts Council poet-in-the- schools for over 25 years, and has been active with the Maryland Humanities Council's Speaker's Bureau. He served as Poet Laureate of Maryland from 2004 - 2009. Mr. Glaser lives in St. Mary's County.

Peter Kelly-Detwiler is Senior Vice President of Energy Technology Services for Constellation New Energy, Inc., a subsidiary of Constellation Energy, where he is responsible for development and implementation of energy management platforms. He has been active in nearly all aspects of competitive energy markets since their inception in the late 1990s. Prior to Constellation, Kelly-Detwiler served the International Institute for Energy Conservation in Chile as Program Manager, and also worked for several Boston area energy companies. In the 1980s, he spent significant time in Africa, including a year in Ghana as Assistant Country Representative for Catholic Relief Services and six months in Somalia as a contractor with the United States Agency for International Development. Kelly-Detwiler earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in German Literature from Williams College and a Masters degree in Development Economics from the Tufts University Fletcher School. He resides in Baltimore City.

Heather Sarkissian is a business strategist at the Baltimore-based analytics firm, Community Analytics. Previously, Sarkissian was CEO of mp3Car, a Baltimore-based automotive computing company. Sarkissian is an active social entrepreneur who has established programs to support, educate, and entertain the growing creative class in Baltimore such as BmoreSmart, Betascape, and FOOD = ART. Heather lives in Baltimore City and holds a BA in economics and political science from McGill University.

Stephen J. Sfekas is a judge of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. Prior to his appointment he had practiced health care law for 35 years with the Office of Attorney General and in private practice. He also taught health care law and administrative law in the graduate school of the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) for 26 years and at the University of Baltimore Law School for 8 years. He has served on the Boards of Directors of several organizations including The ARC Baltimore, the Maryland Disabilities Law Center, the Society for Values in Higher Education, and the President's Advisory Council for UMBC. He holds a bachelor's degree in international relations from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, a master's degree in history from Yale University, and a juris doctorate from Georgetown University Law Center. He has frequently lectured on a variety of topics including health care law, American history, and church history. Judge Sfekas lives in Baltimore City.

Joseph R. Urgo is president and professor of English at St. Mary's College of Maryland. Past administrative assignments include Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty at Hamilton College and Chair of the Department of English at The University of Mississippi. Urgo began his academic career as an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in American Studies at Vanderbilt University and served for eleven years as a faculty member at Bryant University. He completed his PhD in American Civilization at Brown University, holds a Masters of Liberal Studies from Wesleyan University (CT), and a B.A. in Political Science from Haverford College. Urgo has published extensively in the area of American literature, particularly on authors Willa Cather and William Faulkner. He resides in St. Mary's County.

Recent Gubernatorial Appointees:
Two new gubernatorial appointees were added to the MHC board in August. They include Lauren Dugas Glover from Prince George's County and Dr. David Wilson from Baltimore City. Lauren Dugas Glover currently serves as the Assistant to the Chair of the Maryland Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee. She was recently appointed to the Maryland Commission on Public

Art. Dugas is also a Board Director for the National Children's Museum and serves as a member of the Maryland 9/11 Memorial Dedication Planning Committee. She holds a BA in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a MBA from Manhattan College. Dr. David Wilson is the 12th president of Morgan State University and was selected as one of The Daily Record newspaper's Influential Marylanders for 2011. Wilson serves on the Boards of Directors of the Greater Baltimore Committee, the United Way of Central Maryland, and the Governing Board of the Maryland Longitudinal Data System Center and the P-20 Leadership Council of Maryland.

The current Maryland Humanities Council Board includes attorneys, writers, business professionals, museum administrators, college and university administrators, and professors of classics, ethics, and sociology. New members join 17 other leaders on the Board of Directors. They are: Thomas Crain (Past Chair Ex Officio), Montgomery County; Elizabeth Cannon (Vice Chair), Garrett County; Paula Cleggett (Secretary), Montgomery County; Monique Dixon, Baltimore City; Lauren Dugas Glover*, Prince George's County; Albert Feldstein, Allegany County; Sylvia Golombek, Baltimore County; Adam Goodheart, Queen Anne's County; Lenneal J. Henderson, Jr., Baltimore City; Judi Moore Latta, Montgomery County; Christopher M. Leighton, Baltimore City; O.F. Makarah, Prince George's County; Katrina Bell McDonald*, Baltimore City; Adrianne Noe, Montgomery County; David Phillips (President, Government Liaison), Howard County; Davis Sherman (Treasurer), Baltimore City; David Wilson, Baltimore City*.

*Gubernatorial Appointee
The Maryland Humanities Council is a statewide, educational, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization which serves nearly a half a million Marylanders annually. The mission of MHC is to stimulate and promote informed dialogue and civic engagement on issues critical to Marylanders. For more information about MHC, please visit www.mdhc.org.

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