While there is no clause in Washington College‘s charter saying it must be so, for decades, perhaps longer, Maryland’s oldest institution of higher education has received a rare form of stewardship from a long line of Baltimore’s most highly respected civic leaders.
From the 1970s forward, the College has been under the watchful eyes of such Baltimore leaders as Al Decker of Black and Decker, Jim Price of Alex. Brown, the legendary urbanist Walter Sondheim, and Furlong Baldwin at Mercantile Bank. It is an endless list.
For reasons known and unknown, each decided to adopt Washington College after years spent running boards of their own alma maters, as well as some of Baltimore’s largest nonprofit and cultural organizations. But the one common theme found with each one of them was a sense of duty to help guide and preserve Maryland’s first college.
Interim President Jay Griswold is the latest example of that. A leader in Baltimore real estate, a former president of the Maryland History Society, as well as service on the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s board, Griswold started his formal WC relationship in the early 1990s as member, and later chair, of WC’s Visitors and Governors. And now he has been called back into service as acting president while the college conducts a search for its 29th president.
In his interview with the Spy, Jay recalls his first visit to Chestertown, when he and his parents were guests for one of local legend Wilbur Hubbard’s famed fox hunting parties in 1957, where he proceeded to be thrown from his horse into the Chester River. He also talks about his long-time interest in Washington College ever since his daughter Sarah enrollment in the late 1980s.
Jay also talks very seriously about Washington College’s relationship with the Town of Chestertown, the waterfront, Stepne Farm, and the school’s request for zoning changes impacting property they own at the intersection of Route 213 and Route 291. He also talks candidly about the political realities that come with such requests, and empathizes with the town mayor, Chris Cerino, in not wanting any quick changes to Chestertown’s comprehensive plan.
This video is approximately eleven minutes in length
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