Starr Center Team Members Appointed to Four Statewide Boards
Center leaders and fellow tapped for their collective knowledge on Maryland heritage, preservation and culture.
The team behind the compelling work at the Washington College Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience continue to share their extensive collective knowledge of regional and national heritage with the greater Maryland community. Recently, three members of the Starr Center team were appointed to serve as experts and changemakers on several regional and statewide boards whose missions mirror the Starr Center’s own charge to explore the American experience in all its diversity and complexity.
Adam Goodheart, the Starr Center’s Hodson Trust-Griswold director, recently joined the Board of Trustees of the Maryland Center for History and Culture (MCHC) which is charged with collecting, preserving, and interpreting the history, art, and culture of the Free State. Goodheart’s tenure on the board will afford him the opportunity to guide its work in inspiring critical thinking, creativity, and community. As a historian who believes that intellectually serious work can speak to wide audiences beyond the academy, he is excited to seek connections between the past and present that will further the MCHC’s goal of deepening the understanding of the present through dialogue with the past.
A historian, essayist, journalist, and New York Times bestselling author, Goodheart proudly helms the Starr Center as it explores new approaches to America’s past and present. Under his direction, the Center continues to foster the art of historical writing and opens doorways to on- and off-campus opportunities for Washington College students.
"I’m honored to join the board of Maryland’s oldest cultural institution,” Goodheart said. “The Starr Center has already partnered with the MCHC on numerous projects in recent years—including digitizing important items in their collection and sending Washington College students there as paid interns each summer. I hope my new role will help enlarge that relationship.”
With two recent appointments to add to his impressive body of work and service, the Starr Center’s newly hired deputy director, Jaelon T. Moaney, was chosen by Governor Wes Moore to join the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture (MCAAHC) as the State’s youngest commissioner. The Commission is committed to discovering, documenting, preserving, collecting, and promoting Maryland’s African American heritage. As Moaney points out, this body became the nation’s first statewide ethnic commission upon its founding in 1969 “as the Commission on Negro History and Culture under the leadership of Senator Verda Freeman Welcome—the first Black woman elected to the Maryland Senate—and famed Morgan State University historian Dr. Benjamin Arthur Quarles. The MCAAHC remains a revered beacon, and it is an indescribable honor to join this vanguard.”
Moaney was also recently elected to serve on the board of Preservation Maryland an organization which strives to “save places that matter for the benefit of current and future generations.” The organization also serves as an important force for investment in building sustainable, livable communities centering heritage conservation and smart growth, in rural and urban environs alike. As an Eastern Shore native and descendant of two founding Black families, Moaney is passionate about empowering advocates, memory keepers, tradition bearers and culture makers of all ages in the stewardship of historic resources and the just interpretation of related spaces that realize equity-driven outcomes.
"The gravity of these opportunities to serve with resonant empathy and Delmarva authenticity is not lost on me,” Moaney has said of both opportunities to serve the regional and statewide communities that continue to shape him. “We are our ancestors’ wildest dreams, and I invite the Chesapeake Bay region to join us in reimagining and reclaiming this renowned cultural heartland."
Finally, Darius Johnson ’15, the Starr Center’s digital justice fellow, joins his colleagues in serving to preserve and interpret the legacy of Maryland’s unique history. Last month, he was appointed to the Board of Trustees for the Maryland Historical Trust. Through research, conservation and education, the Trust assists the people of Maryland in understanding their historical and cultural heritage.
“I am humbled and incredibly honored to have been appointed by Governor Moore to the Board of Trustees for Maryland Historical Trust,” said Johnson. “I believe that all Marylanders should be reflected in the research, conservation, and education of our state’s historical and cultural heritage, and I am eager to channel my energy towards the advancement of more inclusive and engaging histories that have a positive impact on our communities.”
Johnson, another Eastern Shore native and a Washington College alum, is a scholar-practitioner focused on public history, historic preservation, community development and philanthropy. Through his fellowship, he is working with faculty, staff, students, and community members to develop the next phase of Chesapeake Heartland: An African American Humanities Project and to expand the project’s digital archive through collaborative digital repatriation partnerships with the Maryland State Archives, Maryland Center for History and Culture, and the American Antiquarian Society. His position as the Starr Center’s digital justice fellow was funded with a prestigious grant from the American Council of Learned Societies.
“I am thankful for my wonderful colleagues and admire their continued efforts to document, preserve, and share the deep and rich history of our home state,” said Washington College Provost Kiho Kim. “It is fitting that the accomplishments of our Starr Center’s team have been recognized with these appointments.”
For the past two decades, the Starr Center has sought creative approaches to illuminating the past with nuance and has inspired thoughtful dialogue informed by history by offering college students dynamic immersive learning experiences unequaled at other small liberal arts schools. In addition to teaching and mentoring hundreds of Washington College students from every department and major, the Starr Center has collaborated with U.S. senators, Pulitzer-winning writers, Smithsonian curators, New York Times editors, schoolteachers, a legendary Hollywood director, an opera librettist, and even a cabaret troupe. Head to the Starr Center’s page to read about the Center’s Chesapeake Heartland Project, Explore American internships, numerous fellowships, the Washington Prize and more.
— Dominique Ellis Falcon