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Alumni News

News Associates: Jeanne Johnson, Emily Richards
Contributing Writer: Mike Field
 

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April's Alumni Notes

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Martha Hanson, SPSBE '91: A Glowing Tapestry of Meditation
Hard-hat Fanfare
Caleb Deschanel, A&S '66: Bringing the World of Imagination to Life
Book Review: Event Flattering Stereotypes Can Hurt
Shelf Life
Tom Cirillo, A&S '76: The Power of Miracles
Alumni Association Dues Bring Kids to Camp
Home Away From Home
Felix Posen, A&S '48: Providing a Forum for Secular Jewish Studies
Then & Now
Harry K. Charles Jr., Engr '72 (PhD): The New Science of Deep Space Medicine
Benjamin Baker, Med '27: One Hundred Years Later, "Here I Am"
Chapter Chatter
Distinguished Alumni Awards
Heritage Award


Hanson, right and below, at work on one section of a nine-paneled work of stained glass that will mark the entrance to the meditation room of Hopkins' Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Building. With Persistence, Hanson intends to create the effect of an eternally crashing ocean wave. Her goal: to convey feelings of endurance and tenacity -- "something I feel all cancer patients need to survive."
Photos by David Harp
Martha Hanson, SPSBE '91
A Glowing Tapestry of Meditation

The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg building, home to Hopkins' state-of-the-art cancer treatment center, opened in 1999 to rave reviews. After a while, however, one problem became apparent. No one could find the meditation room. "It opens into the main lobby right next to the Juice and Java Bar, but it blends in so nicely that no one knows it's there until you point it out," says the Rev. Nick McDonald, staff chaplain.

All that should change this spring, when the room's inconspicuous entrance is replaced by a swirling wall of stained glass designed and fabricated by Martha Hanson, SPSBE '91. Founder and principal artist of Paned Expressions Studio of Edgewood, Maryland, Hanson was one of several respected stained glass artisans asked to submit proposals for the space. Of the three designs she submitted, her favorite--titled Persistence--was deemed "excellent" and she was commissioned in 2001 to execute the design.

The work consists of nine individual panels of various sizes that complete the overall effect of an eternally crashing ocean wave. Incorporating design elements used throughout the Weinberg building, it contains nearly 500 shaped pieces of stained glass hand-selected from manufacturers in Germany, the U.S., and France. The panels in their metal framework traverse the entire wall separating the meditation room from the building's lobby, and include a 10-foot-tall entrance door.

"When it's complete, you'll have to stand and look carefully to find the actual door," Hanson says of her work, in which an encompassing whole is meant to convey feelings of endurance, resoluteness, and tenacity. Those attributes of persistence are "something I feel all cancer patients need to survive," she observes.

She speaks from personal experience. Hanson credits Hopkins with helping her father recover from lung cancer two years ago. In gratitude, she is donating two of the nine panels to Hopkins' Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. Spectrum Glass, a manufacturer she has used on many previous projects, has joined her recognition of the Kimmel Center by donating the swirling "baroque glass" that provides the design's background.

"Our studio is noted for pushing the envelope when it comes to cutting and shaping glass, and this window will be no exception," says Hanson. "The background glass surrounding the wave will be a special challenge to match from piece to piece due to the swirling textures of the glass. We have to allow a certain privacy for those within the meditation room."

Hanson will use techniques that date back to the earliest methods in creating stained glass, yet will also employ the more modern Tiffany copper foil method of construction. It is, she says, a "hostile art" that demands both artistry and a certain physical fortitude. "One may be cut, pelted with flying glass particles, burned with acids or a soldering iron, poisoned with lead, and so on," she says. "But the rewards lie in selecting just the right glass effect which, when completed, gives you chills as the light passes through it. To have created a painting in glass, without painting on the glass, is our goal."

In Persistence, Hanson has painted a glowing tapestry of meditation. "Martha's work is open to the contemplative, and I think that's freeing in a good way," says chaplain McDonald, who keeps a drawing of the window by his desk. "In the cathedral tradition, stained glass was first used to tell stories. Then the rosette windows evolved as objects of meditation. Martha's circle is in that tradition. It's dynamic: you see waves, clouds, sky, flow. It moves within the circle, and below it, and it ends up moving the viewer. I know it moves me. I see a dream catcher from the Native American tradition. I see a portal. The more I live with it, the more I get it." --Mike Field


Hard-hat Fanfare

Peabody students trumpet the breaking of ground for the Institute's $24 million capital improvements project, which focuses around a magnificent Grand Arcade. The project's launch was made possible by generous gifts including $10 million from an anonymous donor, the largest gift ever received from a private individual in Peabody history. Other leadership donors honored during the ceremonies were the Rouse Company; the Richard and Rosalee Davison Family Foundation; and Hilda and Douglas Goodwin. The State of Maryland provided a $3 million matching grant.



Caleb Deschanel, A&S '66
Bringing the World of Imagination to Life

Whether in the midst of a Revolutionary War battle scene, or knee-deep in mud during a Malaysian monsoon, Caleb Deschanel, A&S '66, loves the often messy and unpredictable process of movie making. "I don't know if I could survive a 9-to-5 job," he says, explaining that he thrives on the adrenaline rush and creative challenge of making a world of imagination come to life.

The Oscar-nominated cinematographer, who has also directed a couple of films and episodes of the TV series Twin Peaks, speaks a multi-faceted visual language that runs the gamut from the exotic grandeur of Anna and the King to the graphic historicity of The Patriot. Whether exploring outer space in The Right Stuff or expressing inner melancholy in The Natural, he views his work as a rewarding combination of the rational and intuitive, the deliberate and subconscious, the overt and subliminal.

Cinematographers are responsible for the overall look of a film, so they must work with a myriad of factors that vary according to the moment, including lens type, lighting, visual effects, camera movement, and production design. Deschanel describes the process as "infinitely malleable" and always surprising and new because there are so many variables. "The script can be altered by the casting, performance, weather, politics, studio pressure, and so many things," he says. "Working in movies is a good career for people who like unpredictability and can think on their feet."

Deschanel assesses lighting for a battlefield scene on the set of The Patriot
Photos by Andrew Cooper
Deschanel exhibited a talent for thinking on his feet during his years at Johns Hopkins, to which he was originally drawn by the sciences. But once on campus, he tended to gravitate toward more artistic and literary pursuits: He was co-editor of Hopkins' News-Letter, a yearbook photographer, and he worked on assignment for a New York-based still photographer.

Deschanel was inspired by professors like Richard Macksey, who involved Deschanel and other students in producing a 16mm film for a class, and chaplain emeritus Chester Wickwire, who organized on-campus screenings of art films. "It was hard for me to relate to big-budget Hollywood movies like Ben Hur, but when I saw the French New Wave films, and work by directors like Fellini and Bergman, I thought maybe that was something I could do," says Deschanel. "It whetted my appetite."

He became friends with what he calls a "fringe group" of people at Hopkins, including Walter Murch, A&S '65, who went on to become an Oscar-winning Hollywood sound designer. Deschanel remembers when his friends staged a "Happening" on campus. "We spread the word and a lot of people came, but then it ended up just being Walter sitting on a chair in Shriver Hall, eating an apple and watching the audience," Deschanel says, laughing. "It took a while for people to realize that was all that was going to happen."

Murch, who has won three Academy Awards for his sound and editing work on such films as Apocalypse Now, was a year ahead of Deschanel at Hopkins. He was among those who encouraged the young photographer to attend the University of Southern California's film school, which solidified Deschanel's career choice.

"It was really my experience at Hopkins that determined who and what I am today," says Deschanel. "There are so many brilliant people at Hopkins. You can be inspired in so many different ways." --Jeanne Johnson

Oscar Nominations for Cinematography
- The Right Stuff (1983)
- The Natural (1984)
- Fly Away Home (1996)
- The Patriot (2000)

Recent projects
- Currently working on Timeline, based on a Michael Crichton novel
- Recently completed The Hunted, starring Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro

Directorial Credits
- Crusoe
- The Escape Artist
- Twin Peaks (television series)

Awards
- The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Outstanding Achievement Award for The Patriot.
- Nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography by The American Society of Cinematographers for Fly Away Home.

Family
- Wife Mary Jo and daughters Zooey and Emily are all in the acting profession.
 


Book Review
Even Flattering Stereotypes Can Hurt

Frank Wu, A&S '88, is Chinese American, which, he points out, is quite different from being of Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese ancestry. Yet in the minds of many, he says, the fact that he is Asian means he possesses certain attributes that are common to all Asians: Great at calculus. Excessively polite. Chronic wrecker of the grade curve. "The stereotype of me is that I'm a geek," he says.

In his first book, Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White, Wu set out to show that stereotypes are always limiting, even when they're considered flattering. His goal, he says, is "to talk about race and civil rights in a way that's inclusive," with a book that's aimed at readers of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds, not solely Asian Americans.

Despite his effort to explode stereotypes, Wu has become something of a "professional Asian American," finding himself cast as the voice of the Asian American community even as he argues for Asian Americans to be treated as individuals. The first Asian American to be named a law professor at Howard University, Wu also enjoys an active career as a commentator, having written for The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, and The Nation. He also writes a regular column for Asian Week.

In Yellow, Wu argues that the prevailing image of Asian Americans as the "model minority" can be damaging, because it can limit one's range of opportunities. Wu himself had the fortitude to swim against the tide but he admits it wasn't always easy. He was a Writing Seminars major at Hopkins at a time when most of his Asian American friends were premeds, then went on to law school while they pursued medical school or scientific research.

"My parents are a little disappointed that I'm not a doctor," Wu admits. As a result, he says, "part of my book is written for Asian American parents. If you have a community of doctors and engineers, what are you going to do if you get sued? You have to have the full richness of life." --Eileen Murphy


Shelf Life

Snow Island, by Katherine Towler, A&S '82 (MA), MacAdam/Page Publishing (2002).

What is life like for a girl coming of age in the shadow of World War II on an isolated island populated by clammers and eccentrics? In her debut novel (the first of a planned trilogy), Towler answers this question with a host of characters at the same time original and realistic, sympathetic and funny. -- ER


 
Random Beauty, by David B. Axelrod, A&S '66 (MA), Ameron House (2001)

The poet's favorite method is to juxtapose observations of a tiny moment (a child waking, a cricket singing) with philosophical or historical musing. His frequent conclusion: There is much random beauty all around us. The great America poet William Stafford said of Axelrod's poems: "[They are] to be cherished and passed around." --ER


 
Dream Date, by Jean McGarry, A&S '83 (MA), Johns Hopkins Press (2001)

In her sixth book of fiction, McGarry, chair of The Writing Seminars, offers up a collection described by writer Grace Paley as being "surprising in its riskiness and humor, and smart as ever." --ER


 


Cirillo (left) was given the mission of recovering a downed U.S. Navy Seahawk helicopter like the one pictured below. Tom Cirillo, A&S '76
The Power of Miracles

In peace or war, the Navy is always on watch and prepared to do its part when the nation calls, says Tom Cirillo, A&S '76. Little did Cirillo know that doing his duty would renew his faith in the power of miracles and personally involve him in a television show on the PAX-TV cable network.

In September 1990, Cirillo was in California training to go to the Persian Gulf when a helicopter from a neighboring squadron lost both its engines off the Northwest Pacific coast. The entire crew, including young co-pilot Tim Hanusin, was lost when the helicopter crashed into the ocean and eventually came to rest at the bottom of nearly 900 feet of water. With one aircraft salvage attempt foiled by bad weather, recovery was postponed until safer summer conditions.

Later, it became Cirillo's job to lead the mission to recover the helicopter. Using a submersible camera drone, crew members surveying the wreckage noticed a pilot's helmet on the ocean floor about 30 feet from the aircraft pieces. Cirillo, knowing time was tight and personnel limited, instructed them to leave the helmet where it was and focus on the central mission of recovery. Although the aircraft was in two pieces, the salvage crew successfully recovered both sections.

By November 1993, Cirillo had become commanding officer of the HSL-43 Battlecats, the squadron to which Tim Hanusin and his crew had belonged. One day, after a series of severe storms in the Pacific Northwest, Cirillo received an intriguing phone call from the Coast Guard off the Washington coast. A fishing trawler had pulled up a helmet in its net. It was the same helmet that Cirillo's crew had left on the sea floor. The helmet turned out to have belonged to Hanusin.

Cirillo had it cleaned up, and then contacted Hanusin's family. He explained the extraordinary odds against which the helmet had been found, and asked if he could deliver it to them personally. He knew that when a family loses someone and the body is not recovered, the return of such a personal item can be a key to dealing with grief. With another officer he set out for the Hanusin home in New York, not fully prepared for the welcome they received.

The home was filled with family, who urged Cirillo to stay and visit. After he made his presentation, he heard a surprising story.

"Tim's mother had recently passed away from a prolonged illness," Cirillo later recounts. "During her last days she told her children that she would do her best to give them a sign that she and Tim were together in heaven." The family believed Hanusin's helmet--recovered by fishermen on Tim's birthday--was that sign. The name of the fishing boat that recovered the helmet? The Rosemarie, which, in an additional twist of fate, is also the name of Cirillo's mother.

Cirillo isn't sure what others might think of the Hanusins' story, but for him, he says the event reaffirmed his belief "that there are no circumstances that occur on their own--there is a grand design."

The story didn't end there.

After Hanusin's helmet was returned to his family, his sister Kathy shared the story with a local television network. Eventually the account came to the attention of PAX's "It Took a Miracle" program, which created an episode around it. "It's a Miracle!" was aired nationally as a Christmas special on December 13, 2001.

Footage Cirillo had filmed of the helicopter recovery became part of the show, as did interviews with him about the events. He and most of Hanusin's family re-enacted such scenes as the return of the helmet. Although reliving the events was emotional for Hanusin's family, Cirillo says, "they wanted the story told."

Cirillo wants the story told, too. "It truly was a miracle. The odds that Tim's helmet would ever have been recovered and the confluence of events that had to align to get it back into the arms of his family are unbelievable. It points out to me the power of faith, hope, and the divine nature of God's purpose." --Kathie Dickenson


A camping trip last summer, funded in part by Alumni Association dues, proved a big hit with kids from Baltimore. Alumni Association Dues Bring Kids to Camp

What happens when you take a group of urban kids to the woods for a camping trip?

"One girl showed up in glitter camouflage gear--very Destiny's Child era," remembers Erica Hart, Med '01. "And the first thing you noticed was, these kids are loud." During the van ride out of the city, Hart says, the van was "bouncing up and down the whole time."

Yet there was a moment on that first night in the woods when the sound of the girls' giggles, the orange glow of the leaping campfire, and the scent of burned marshmallows combined to convince Hart of one thing: This is a success!

The trip Hart organized was just one of 43 projects funded last year by the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association, which each year awards some $35,000 in grants to students and student groups to support community service projects and campus activities.

Among the projects funded last year: a breast cancer awareness campaign at Homewood, an aerobics class for students at Peabody, a community garden project for senior citizens, and publication of a scholarly journal on international affairs compiled by students at the Bologna Center of SAIS. In 2001, the committee of alumni who decide on funding voted to make the student-run Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium a regular line item in the annual budget.

"Many alumni might not know it, but their Alumni Association membership dues make a significant difference in the lives of current students and in the life of the local community," says Association President Idy Iglehart, Med '83. "We're really proud of the community work Hopkins students do, and we're proud to be a part of that."

Erica Hart organized the camping project (which included three separate trips last summer for students from Baltimore's Rosewood Community Center and the Druid Hill YMCA) in collaboration with fellow members of the Hopkins Chapter of the Student National Medical Association. "The theory behind the whole thing is that in order to set goals for your future, you have to know what's available in the world," explains Brad Sutton, Med '01. "They were really amazed by the animals, the bugs," he recalls.

Hart says there was a "hilarious contrast" between the van ride to the campgrounds and the ride back into the city: "On the way home, they were all fast asleep." --Emily Richards


Home Away From Home

Last year the Baltimore Host Family Program matched 209 Hopkins students with 160 local alumni hosts. Far from home--and home-cooked meals--students enjoy the brief respite from the rigors of dorm living that the hosts provide. (At left, Allen Salzman, SPSBE '71, and his wife, Gloria, visit with Matthew Cohen, A&S '03, and John Dickinson, Engr/Peab '03.) "Hosts appreciate the opportunity to show off Baltimore to students. A connection to the local community is especially important for the foreign students," explains program chairman Jim Schaefer, A&S '92 (MA). Baltimore alumni who would like to participate can call the Alumni Office at 410-516-0363 or send an e-mail to alumni@jhu.edu.


Felix Posen hopes even non-religious Jews will cherish their heritage. Felix Posen, A&S '48
Providing a Forum for Secular Jewish Studies

A self-described non-religious Jew, Felix Posen, A&S '48, is committed to providing non- Jews and others like himself the opportunity to learn about Judaic history and culture in a secular setting.

In the past decade, he has established two colleges in Israel--Alma Hebrew College and Meitar, the College of Pluralistic Judaism--and initiated the first programs in secular Judaism at seven Israeli institutions of higher learning.

Now, at Hopkins' Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, he has endowed the Felix Posen Professorship in Modern European Jewish History in the History Department. A search is currently under way for a scholar to fill the chair.

A native of Germany, Posen traces his passion for secular Judaism back to the end of his college experience at Johns Hopkins. He had been religious, he says, "but when I came back home after Hopkins I realized that the religion itself wasn't for me anymore. It didn't answer the questions for me.

"The funny part is," he recalls, "when I left religion, I became more Jewish."

Now living in London and retired from his career as partner in one of the world's largest international trading firms, Posen is working to educate the world about the cultural, intellectual, economic, and historical contributions of Jews over the centuries.

He is governor emeritus of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, and has been the main support of the Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Posen doesn't imagine he is alone in his experience as a non-religious Jew. In fact, according to a recent survey funded by the Posen Foundation, 2.5 million Americans who consider themselves to be Jewish say either they have no religion, or they identify with another religion.

Giving up their religious beliefs shouldn't mean that Jews turn their backs on their heritage, Posen emphasizes. But, he notes, most education about Jewish history for youngsters is tied to religious institutions, especially in the U.S.

Says Posen, "I am helping to redefine the Jewish world in the sense that I want to be a service provider for those Jews who are no longer religious by giving them a chance to learn about their civilization and culture." --EM


Hopkins nursing students circa 1910.
Photo courtesy Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives
Then & Now

When Johns Hopkins first began educating nurses in 1889, the field was solely the domain of women--a state of affairs that continued through much of the 1900s. In 1971, the first men in Hopkins history--three in all--graduated from the Hopkins training program. By 1990, there were 15 men enrolled at the School of Nursing; this year, 39 of the 577 students enrolled are men. Says Steve Allen, Nurs '98 (left): "These days, all the old ideas about what's a man's job and what is a woman's job are changing. It makes sense that while many doctors are women, more and more nurses are men."


Photo by Keith Weller


Illustration by
Charles Beyl
Harry K. Charles Jr., Engr '72 (PhD)
The New Science of Deep Space Medicine

More than 30 years after man first set foot on the moon, work is under way to plan and accomplish a voyage that will take astronauts to the surface of Mars and bring them safely home again. Few people understand just how difficult and daunting a task that will be.

"Right now, a plausible scenario is one in which six astronauts will spend a year getting there, six months on the planet surface, and a year coming back. And this is in a spacecraft that won't be large when compared to the shuttle," says Harry K. Charles Jr., Engr '72 (PhD), an assistant department head for engineering at Hopkins' Applied Physics Lab.

Charles is leading a group that is working on how to keep astronauts healthy--and how to administer effective medical care in the event of an emergency--during prolonged travel into deep space. Since a manned mission to Mars is unprecedented, Charles and other scientists are essentially operating in uncharted territory.

"On a shuttle mission or on Mir, the protocol for injury or serious illness is: stabilize and transport," says Charles. "Essentially, get the sick person back to Earth as quickly as you can. But on a mission to Mars that just won't be possible."

The problems may be difficult to predict, but Charles is well prepared. As a senior engineer in APL's micro-electronics group, Charles has worked for years on space and biomedical projects, including the development of a lightweight X-ray system. He is now leading the technology development team of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, a multi-site consortium of universities and research centers that is working to prevent or solve health problems related to long-duration space travel. NASA established the NSBRI in 1997 to bring some of the best medical minds in the country together to effectively invent the new science of deep space medicine.

A space mission that takes astronauts more than 32 million miles from home for a period of years presents new challenges for man and machine alike. By contrast, the Apollo 11 mission that first took men to the surface of the moon lasted just slightly longer than eight days, two of which were spent in lunar orbit. The distance between Earth and the moon is less than one-hundredth the distance to Mars.

Charles's responsibility as head of the technology development team is to help invent the new medical devices that will allow an onboard physician/surgeon to monitor, diagnose, and treat the ship's crew. It is anticipated that the physician will be faced with conditions that aren't seen on Earth. Most of the difficulties will result from weightlessness--more correctly described as "microgravity"--which profoundly affects the human body over long periods of time. "All the body's systems are geared for one 'g' [normal Earth gravity]," notes Charles. "In micro-g, the body begins to adapt. There is bone loss, muscle loss, heart arrhythmias, and sleep anomalies, to name some of the more serious effects." In addition, without the protection of the Earth's atmosphere, the spacecraft is subject to a steady bombardment of neutrons and other radiation that may kill cells, damage tissues, or cause mutations and other types of injury.

Charles's team is currently at work on eight projects, each funded in the $200,000 to $400,000 range annually, that are focused on developing lightweight, compact tools and medical devices that could one day be carried aboard a spacecraft. They include exercise equipment that may help prevent bone loss, a radiation-monitoring portable neutron energy spectrometer, an ultrasonic bubble detector (for prevention of decompression sickness), a small MRI machine capable of examining arms and legs, and several other diagnostic medical devices that will measure bone and muscle loss and monitor other vital functions non-invasively. Several of these instruments will also be important for the delivery of improved health care on Earth.

"Our goal is to have equipment on board the spacecraft that will enable real-time measurements and diagnostics," says Charles, noting this represents a complete change in approach from earlier space missions. "Previously, samples were collected and stored and analyzed later. But on a trip to Mars we won't have that luxury." --MF


As Hopkins Hospital's chief resident in the late 1920s, Baker (now a centenarian) supervised wards like those at right.
Photo courtesy Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives
Memories
Benjamin Baker, Med '27
One Hundred Years Later, "Here I Am"

Rhodes Scholar, track star, master physician and teacher Benjamin Baker, Med '27, has witnessed many changes during his century-long lifetime. His longstanding association with Hopkins has also sometimes brought him into association with the rich and famous. But whether wealthy or poor, prominent or not, every patient, Baker believes, "deserves the best we've got."

The year Ben Baker was born, 1901, Picasso had just started his "Blue Period," Marconi transmitted the first telegraphic radio messages across the North Atlantic, and Teddy Roosevelt became president following the assassination of William McKinley.

During his 100 years on this planet, Baker (pictured at right) has witnessed tumultuous societal changes and the implementation of medical advances that, at one time, existed only in the realm of science fiction. He has also treated numerous celebrities--men like actor Clark Gable, England's Duke of Windsor, and the great journalist and critic H.L. Mencken. Another was novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose penchant for gin combined with his recurring bouts of tuberculosis ultimately thwarted Baker's attempts to keep him healthy.

Baker's first inspiration was his father, a prominent physician in Norfolk, Virginia, who made house calls from a horse and buggy, and then later owned one of the first automobiles in Norfolk. Baker remembers, as a 12-year-old, that his father left him alone for hours with a man who was passing kidney stones. The patient was in excruciating pain. "It was my job to divert the man's attention from his pain, administer chloroform, and notify my father when enough time had passed to administer another morphine dose," says Baker. "It's amazing it didn't kill the both of us." It was an awesome responsibility for a 12-year-old, but the young Baker handled it well and the incident impressed upon him the important role a physician can play in offering relief.

While a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, Baker raced with the runners portrayed in Chariots of Fire. Pursuing his goal of becoming a doctor, Baker attended the University of Virginia, where he excelled both academically and athletically, breaking track records. He went on to Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, graduating at the top of his class. During his time at Oxford he continued to compete in track; He once held the audience of the King of England, and also raced with the runners portrayed in the award-winning 1982 film Chariots of Fire.

Baker came to Johns Hopkins on the basis of a coin toss. He and a friend, another Rhodes Scholar, were accepted into medical school at both Hopkins and Harvard. "To decide where we would go we tossed a shilling. It landed on the Hopkins option," says Baker, so it was off to Hopkins they went.

In those days, patients were housed in wards separated by sex and race, it was not uncommon for pneumonia to be fatal, and an EKG machine was a room-sized contraption.

Baker graduated with honors from the School of Medicine in 1927, after only two years of study. After his internship, he became chief resident at a time when residents were put fully in charge of the hospital at night. Among many problems he addressed as chief resident was an epidemic of typhoid fever that depleted Hopkins' medical staff. The outbreak was eventually traced to a hospital kitchen worker.

One of the accomplishments of which Baker is most proud is his association with the treatment of pernicious anemia using liver serum, a technique first developed at Harvard but proven effective by Baker and others at Hopkins. "It was so exciting to be a part of that because pernicious anemia was a uniformly fatal disease," he says. "Treatment made the difference between death and a complete cure, and it was a wonderful thing to witness."

During World War II, Baker was involved in treating malaria, and then became a medical consultant to General Douglas MacArthur, stationed in the South Pacific. It was an intense time. "I could write a whole book about my wartime experiences alone," he says. "I went into Okinawa on D-Day with 25,000 pints of blood collected in the United States and gave it all out in the first month." Lacking the help of trained medical personnel, he says, "my principal transfusion-givers were a bootlegger from the mountains of Tennessee and a ladies' hairdresser."

Baker's long and distinguished medical career includes private practice, teaching, and clinical investigation. In his early years, Baker served as principal investigator at Hopkins for a study that first established a link between diet and coronary heart disease. As a Hopkins professor, he later changed his focus from heart disease to colon cancer, establishing the Bowel Tumor Working Group. Baker and his family have been among Hopkins' most generous benefactors. His mother- and father-in-law in 1947 established the Clayton Fund for Medical Residents at Hopkins. This fund and Baker's family in 1993 endowed the Clayton Professorship in Oncology.

As an internist in private practice, Baker developed a reputation as a master diagnostician. Consistent with his reputation for gentlemanly thoroughness, he has always maintained that "everybody who is sick needs the best we've got."

Baker says there is no secret to his longevity. He attributes his long life merely to luck. "Because of kidney problems, I was told by some of the best doctors at Hopkins that I wouldn't live to be more than 55," Baker says, smiling, "but here I am." --JJ

Baker on H.L. Mencken:

"Whenever he'd get a cold, he'd raise pluperfect hell. He'd blow his top because he couldn't work as hard." When sodden with hay fever, "(Mencken) would say, sneezing and blowing as loud as he could contrive to do, 'What a heinous affliction that baffles you quacks!'"

Occasionally, Baker would see Mencken walking around town with Blanche Knopf, the wife of his publisher. "Mencken would be streaming with hay fever, hair awry, mopping his face, perspiration coming through his seersucker suit, and here she was, looking like Mrs. Vogue, walking down the street with sweating, disheveled Mencken and they'd go into the Belvedere and eat lunch together. She adored him, and he adored her."

Baker on F. Scott Fitzgerald:

"He would sit there (in the emergency room) especially on weekends and holiday nights when the emergency room was a madhouse, trying to acquire material for short stories. He'd get so in debt that he had to produce things, so he'd hole up in the Stafford Hotel with a goodly supply of cigarettes and gin and come out with five short stories bound to sell for $2,500 a piece."

Fitzgerald's alcohol addiction, combined with his co-dependent relationship with his wife, Zelda, made his behavior frustratingly compulsive and erratic, but, "When Scott was sober he was a charming and delightful man. He looked you in the eye, was interested in you."
 


President Brody (center) in Philly with Mark Rubenstein, Engr '62, '67 (MA) and Terry Glauser, SPH '95 (MA) Chapter Chatter
Focus: Philadelphia Chapter

I was so impressed that President Brody found a way to speak with just about every single alum here," reported a Philadelphia alum last November. The occasion, a cocktail reception followed by an update on university affairs from the university's president, was held in the Market Street Philadelphia offices of University Trustee Mark Rubenstein, Engr '62, '67 (MA). Nearly 100 alumni attended. President Brody, Hopkins president since 1996, travels around the country meeting with alumni throughout the year.


Quick Facts
Philadelphia Chapter

Hopkins alumni in the greater Philadephia area: 2,527
A&S alumni: 1,078
Engineering alumni: 365
Medicine alumni: 198
Public Health alumni: 249
Peabody alumni: 115
Nursing alumni: 104
SAIS alumni: 131
SPSBE alumni: 270
Former News-Letter staffers: 45
Former JHU Band members: 25
 


Distinguished Alumni Awards

Recognize personal, professional, or humanitarian achievement

William H. Miller, A&S '50, Med '54, collaborated on investigating the anatomy, optics, chemistry, and physiology of invertebrate and vertebrate eyes, which led to basic understandings of photoreceptors, including the optics of visual acuity. He is particularly distinguished for his studies of the molecular mechanisms of vertebrate photoreception.

Barry A. Solomon, Engr '69, is former president and CSO of Circe Biomedical in Lexington, Massachusetts, a spin-off that he established from W. R. Grace & Co. Circe resulted from Dr. Solomon's dedication to the development of a liver-support system and an artificial pancreas. His liver-support system has already saved many lives.


Heritage Award

Recognizes outstanding service to Johns Hopkins University

Marshal L. Salant, Engr '80, helped devise the annual Wall Street trip for undergraduates and served in the Second Decade Society and on the Alumni Council. A member of the Whiting School's National Advisory Council, he has established a program providing undergraduates the experience of investing, with proceeds going to scholarships.

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