Award recognizes well-rounded premeds

Though Jessica Yeatermeyer has always wanted to help other people as a doctor, this summer she'll get a chance to fulfill her altruistic needs as a piano teacher in inner-city Baltimore.

Yeatermeyer, a junior writing seminars major, is getting this opportunity thanks to the Louis E. Goodman Award, a cash award of up to $2000 which is presented each year to junior premeds who are interested in pursuing a summer project in the arts. This broad category has in the past varied from performing arts to fine arts, as well as architecture and archeology.

Yeatermeyer was one of three recipients of the award, which will be given out at commencement. Alexandra Sowa will be setting up and instructing a theater program at the Southeast Youth Academy, an after-school program for middle-school aged children in Baltimore. Mary Chen will be working with Chinese calligraphy and brush painting.

The Goodman Award was created in 1988 shortly after the death of Louis E. Goodman, a surgeon who graduated from Johns Hopkins in 1934. Goodman is described by his family members as a well-read man who was very passionate about art and music.

"My father felt that doctors who were only interested in science were not particularly interesting people," said Goodman's son, Thomas, who helped establish the award.

Over the years, the award has helped attract like-minded Hopkins students, the ultimate goal being to inspire premeds to pursue a more well-rounded education rather than simply enrolling in the prerequisite science courses.

"People in my science classes don't take me seriously when they find out I'm a writing seminars major," said Sowa, who is also majoring in the natural sciences branch of Public Health Studies. "But I can do biochem with the rest of them."

In addition to fulfilling her premed requirements, Sowa has also found time to enroll in several theater classes with Writing Seminars Professor John Astin, and she is also a member of the Barnstormers, Hopkins' theater troupe. Sowa had originally planned on attending theater school but decided that she wanted a more "solid" education.

"And Hopkins was the only school that didn't laugh at me when I asked if I could be a premed and also study theater," she said.

Indeed, it often seems that science and humanities students keep their distance, academically-speaking. Thomas Goodman feels that this problem is remedied by the students who receive the Goodman Award.

"These award winners are exemplary of how broadly-educated Hopkins students can be, and how far-reaching their interests are," he said.

Yeatermeyer has a similar view of what a premedical student's education should consist of.

"I couldn't bear to just study science," she said. "Physicians should be in touch with the arts."

Yeatermeyer, whose mother is a professional pianist, claims that she has been playing ever since she could reach the piano, and she has been giving lessons for a number of years as well. Using the money granted by the Goodman Award, Yeatermeyer plans to give piano lessons to young Baltimoreans and eventually take them to see a performance by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, or to a show at Peabody.

"Music is such a release for me, and private instruction is something that people in a low-income family don't always have the opportunity to get," she said.

Yeatermeyer does admit, however, that she hasn't really gotten around to planning the logistics of the award yet.

"I'm a little busy studying for the MCAT right now," she said.