Too many organizations find themselves in a catch-22: They desperately need volunteers but lack the resources necessary to recruit them and put them to work. Last spring, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Engr ’64, launched the NYC Civic Corps to tackle that problem.

Anne Marie McKenzie-Brown, Med ’87 Investing by Proxy For Anne Marie McKenzie-Brown it is all about the vicarious satisfaction of helping others help others. As chair of the Alumni Council’s Student Grants and Programs Committee, McKenzie-Brown supports the enterprising efforts of students who pitch projects that aim either to serve others through community-based work or […]

A few years after graduation, Steve Naron landed a job as a high-level consultant with the Center for Naval Analyses, thanks in part to his Johns Hopkins education. But when the center shipped him off to Toastmasters International, the public-speaking organization, he realized one thing he hadn’t learned in school was how to present effectively in front of a crowd.

Adam Segal, A&S ’03 (MA) And Justice for All Adecade ago, Adam Segal heard a moving speech by the leader of the National Black Farmers Association (NBFA). The speaker, who was in the midst of an ultimately unsuccessful bid for a congressional seat, told of thousands of black farmers discriminated against by the U.S. Department […]

Nancy Glass, Nurs ’94, Nurs/SPH ’96 (MSN/MPH) Pork Project Nancy Glass, associate director of the Center for Global Health and associate professor in the School of Nursing’s Department of Community Public Health, believes economic empowerment is often the key to helping victims of violence reclaim their lives. Yet in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the […]

Robert Duncan, A&S ’71 A Bit of Baltimore Lawyer Robert Duncan has cultivated a Johns Hopkins community far from his alma mater, in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. Every year the longtime president of the Alumni Association’s Denver chapter leads a corps of volunteers in planning at least three events for that region’s 1,000 […]

1947 Walter A. Lyon, Engr ’47, ’48 (MS), has helped to bring Johns Hopkins’ Engineering Innovation Program to Harrisburg Science Tech High School in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. 1953 Robert A. Erlandson, A&S ’53, former Baltimore Sun correspondent, presented on his life and career at an event sponsored by the Historical Society of Baltimore County in October. […]

This is your brain on art Beauty is in the brain of the beholder. Sure, the eye may appreciate lush colors and graceful lines, but the chain of command goes like this: The optic nerve delivers hues and shapes to the mind. Specific clusters of neurons fire off. And we experience pleasure, or some other […]

Musical improvisation looks so straightforward: Simply take your instrument and make something up. Timothy Murphy, Peab ’84 (MMA), says it’s not quite that simple. A keyboardist and Peabody Conservatory faculty member, Murphy also tours and records as a jazz musician who has practiced improvisation for years. He prefers to do so in a band. “Playing […]

A life worth living? John Freeman wants Americans to think differently about death. It is not a discussion that most people will like because what the Johns Hopkins clinical bioethicist and professor emeritus of neurology and pediatrics wants is for Americans to think about death not as a failure but as an answer. “I want […]