Academics
Jasper Colt '09
A history major and future educator, Jasper Colt '09 has taken advantage of the unique opportunities for study that Washington College offers.
Last summer, he traveled around the Chesapeake area with a small group of students and local history teachers. "They were teaching us to teach about slavery," he said. "The best part was seeing the places that had been sort of imaginary places, unconnected to real places and people."
The trip was sponsored by the College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, where Jasper is a student associate.
"I help with their events, but they're basically paying me to do research and work on my own project, which is a radio show based on oral histories," he said. Inspired by Michael Buckley's "Voices of the Chesapeake" segment on WRNR, Jasper became interested in oral histories after attending a conference at the College last fall.
"I really enjoyed it," he said. "Adam Goodheart [director of the Starr Center] was there and we talked about doing a radio show."
Such close collaboration between students and faculty is simply part of life at Washington College. "You get a lot of interaction between professors and students you wouldn't get at a larger university," Jasper said.
Outside the classroom, members of the history department meet on the campus green during the fall and spring for cutthroat games of townball.
"It's an early form of baseball that Dr. Ken Miller, an assistant professor of history, brought to the College. It's like stickball—there's very little equipment and you have to actually peg someone to get them out. It's a good opportunity for history students to meet other history students and faculty," Jasper said.
Jasper, whose ultimate goal is to earn his doctorate and to teach at Washington College, is not your average history major.
"I'm a non-traditional student. It's been very different to be a married, 30-year-old college student," he said. "I'm more focused than I would've been at a younger age, but it's tough to be a homeowner and a husband and juggle school, too."
Were it not for his wife, it is unlikely Jasper would've ended up at WC.
"My wife's parents [Ford '73 and Marilee Wilson Schumann '71] met at Washington College. I knew it was a great college because her parents both loved it," he said. "When Brook first brought me to Chestertown, I fell in love with it. I think we'll raise our kids here and I hope we'll live here happily ever after."
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