Monday, December 16, 2013

The University of Maryland’s Independent Student Newspaper

M O N DAY, D E C E M B E R 1 6 , 2 013

OUT OF THEIR HANDS Questionable calls, defense cost Terps first title since 2008 in 2-1 loss to Notre Dame

MIDFIELDER ALEX SHINSKY (right) lies on the PPL Park grass after the No. 5-seed Terps fell to No. 3-seed Notre Dame in the national title game, 2-1, yesterday evening in Chester, Pa. The Terps were playing for their first championship since 2008. christian jenkins/the diamondback

By Daniel Popper @danielrpopper Senior staff writer

CHESTER, Pa. — Yesterday, Patrick Mullins scored a goal he’ll regret for the rest of his life.

In the 35th minute of the NCAA championship game between the Terrapins men’s soccer team and Notre Dame, midfielder Tsubasa Endoh curled a corner kick from the right side into the

18-yard box. Midfielder Alex Shinsky connected on a volley, but the ball deflected off the arm of Fighting Irish midfielder Patrick Hodan, who was standing on the goal line.

Referee Chico Grajeda didn’t whistle for a hand ball, however, and play continued. Mullins, a senior forward, then deliberately knocked the ball down with his hand at the top of the 6-yard box — something not apparent in replay footage but a fact Mullins admitted after the game —

and finished with his left foot to give the Terps a one-goal lead.

The Fighting Irish went on to score two goals in the final 55 minutes of action to escape PPL Park with a 2-1 victory and the program’s first national title. As for Mullins, his disappointment after the loss stemmed less from the defeat and more from his uncharacteristic decision to flout the See irish, Page 9

Grad student Univ workers continue parking protest Applicants’ hopefuls still Demonstrators part of online lives long-standing dispute dislike GRE not focus of admissions

By Talia Richman @talirichman Staff writer

By Madeleine List @madeleine_list Staff writer

Housekeepers, shuttle bus d rivers a nd other u n iversity workers stood at Campus Drive and Route 1 on Wednesday afternoon, wearing sandwich board signs with words such as “Honk a protester holds a sign calling for public support regarding some university workers’ outrage about the for Fair Parking Rates” written in university’s parking prices. The administration has not responded to a proposal. james levin/the diamondback the union’s proposal to restructure Castro, a housekeeper who parboth English and Spanish.

The demonstrators were greeted parking prices for university employ- ticipated in the demonstration. with hundreds of honks — some ees, nearly 100 days after workers first “We will continue until we have a drivers laid on the horn as they proposed the plan Sept. 10. Workers fair contract and they accept our parking proposal. The process of crossed the intersection, while held a caravan protest on Dec. 4.

“It’s disappointing that they negotiations should move faster so others offered staccato bursts of support — but the university ad- haven’t responded, but it’s given me ministration has yet to respond to more strength to fight this,” said Iris See parking, Page 2

Although the GRE underwent revisions recently to increase its efficiency and improve scoring, graduate students say the test’s format isn’t the only aspect that needs an upgrade.

The Graduate Record Examination is an entrance test mandatory for most programs in this university’s graduate school. And though parent company Educational Testing Service made significant changes to the exam in the past few years, students said See GRE, Page 3

In July, Residence Hall Association President Omer Kaufman invited the organization’s executive officers to his home in Olney to start planning for the year ahead — a month earlier than the

body typically begins meeting.

In the meeting, the board planned a new advertising campaign, rethought how to introduce first-time RHA senators and laid the groundwork for a sexual health awareness week.

“In years prior, the job really began around August, but I was elected in April,” Kaufman said. “We thought

that, why start in August when there’s so much to do in the meantime?”

The early start is indicative of a new era for RHA in which the organization is more visible and influential by following through on issues that affect the more than 12,000 students living on the campus. Since last spring, the RHA helped implement a smoking ban,

By Annika McGinnis @annikam93 Senior staff writer

helped lead a successful meal point donation drive and spearheaded a campaign against disposable plastic water bottles, working with a variety of campus groups and authorities.

“I think that other people in the university have begun to take

Nationwide, more college admissions officers than ever are checking applicants’ Facebook pages and reviewing their backgrounds, but officials at this university said they don’t have the time to do so, except in extreme circumstances.

Kaplan Test Prep recently surveyed 381 admissions officers from across the country and found that 29 percent of officers had Googled an applicant, and 31 percent had looked up their Facebook or other social media pages.

Of those officers, 30 percent said they had found something that hurt an applicant’s chance of admission.

But at this university — which received 26,247 applications in 2012-13 — ad m issions of f icers s a id t hey a re so c au g ht up i n going through applications that

See RHA, Page 3

See admissions, Page 8

More visible, influential RHA reviews new era in policies

By Dustin Levy @dustinblevy Staff writer

Officials: little time to scrutinize social media

FINALS EDITION ISSUE NO. 59 , OUR 104 TH YEAR OF PUBLICATION

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After projected starter Seth Allen’s injury, the Terps have been attempting to find the right ball handler to run their offense successfully P. 12

SEMESTER IN REVIEW OPINION — Our editorial board takes stock of

developments with the Big Ten and more. University President Wallace Loh considers his New Year’s resolutions. Editor in chief Mike King discusses The Diamondback’s digital successes P. 4 DIVERSIONS — Writers argue for the best in movies and pop culture moments this year P. 6

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THE DIAMONDBACK | NEWS | MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2013

parking From PAGE 1 we feel more comfortable working at the University of Maryland.”

Wednesday’s protest along Route 1 was just the latest of the workers’ attempts to voice their opinions. They have handed out pamphlets, passed around petitions and led a caravan though the campus in an effort to influence the next round of negotiations, which will be held tomorrow.

Un iversity President Wallace Loh said any university response to the proposal will likely not be made public.

“Under our agreement, all of our negotiations with the union have to be kept confidential,” Loh said. “All the benefits, all the salaries, whether or not their parking rates go up or down — which is part of the compensations — all the negotiations with the unions are confidential.”

The workers’ main grievance, the issue that has defined

the union’s efforts since the previous contract protecting workers’ rights expired June 30, is the parking rate system. Until workers reach a compromise with the university, enforcement of the other conditions they’ve fought for — including longer lunch breaks and more safety regulations — will rely on verbal agreements.

“Until we actually ratify this contract, it’s almost like a wish.

It’s not codified yet, so it could go away,” said Jeff Pittman, a spokesman for American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. “The issue of parking is holding up everything else.”

T he workers’ proposa l would turn a two-tier system, in which workers earning less than $50,000 a year pay $452 per year for parking, and those making more than $50,000 pay $676, into a five-tier system, in which parking fees are based on smaller salary brackets.

With this change, housekeepers like Castro, who make about $21,000 a year, won’t pay the same price for parking as em-

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“It would be a huge difference,” said Castro, who would save about $40 a month. “I have children — I could take them out to eat or buy gas.”

Workers also criticized the parking policy for requiring those such as Castro who begin their workdays at 4 a.m., to pay for parking during the early morning hours, while parking is free for other campus visitors from 2 a.m. to 7. The proposal suggests workers should only have to pay half the normal parking fee from 4 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

“I had a meeting on campus about a month ago and parked before 7 a.m. right by where housekeepers park,” Pittman said. “I didn’t have to pay, but when you work here, you have to pay. That makes no sense.”

As soon as workers reach an agreement with the university on parking rates, workers said they plan to turn their attention to raising the minimum wage

university EMPLOYEES protest what they say are unfair parking rates on Dec. 11. Parking prices are determined by a two-tier system: Workers who earn less than $50,000 pay $452 per year, and those who make more than $50,000 pay $676. file photo/the diamondback on the campus and improving communication between workers and administrators.

“The parking rates are too high and our wages are too low,” said Renee Brown, a Shuttle-UM bus driver. “We want to be treated with dignity and respect. When we have

an issue raised, we would like them to come to us and talk and get an understanding on how we feel and not just be a name on a piece of paper. We want real interaction. I like working here, but unfortunately, I don’t feel good about working here.”

As Pittman prepares for the

next round of negotiations, he said he hopes the administration will “meet us in the middle and acknowledge the fair parking proposal.”

“That’d be a great Christmas gift,” he said. trichmandbk@gmail.com

MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2013 | NEWS | THE DIAMONDBACK

RHA From PAGE 1 note that RHA really is influential and these students are incredibly dedicated and work to get things done,” said Tracy Kiras, Department of Resident Life leadership programs coordinator and 11-year RHA faculty adviser.

RHA helped implement a campuswide smoking ban, the result of a University System of Maryland mandate, which went into effect July 1 after the University Senate voted on it in April. The RHA held town hall-style meetings in the 15 dorm and community councils on the campus in the spring, collecting information and eventually endorsing the four designated smoking areas on the campus.

“We said, rather than anecdotally try to figure out what people want, let’s ask them,” Kaufman said. “I think we were perhaps the most active

gre From PAGE 1 t hey’re st i l l quest ion i ng whe t h e r t h e f l awe d te s t should be used to quantify their academic abilities.

“T he old one wa s a lot harder in general,” said Josie Mo ore, do ctora l st udent studying communications who has taken both the old and the new versions of the GRE. “They’re both pretty terrible; testing of that nature is always pretty terrible, but the new one was less painful.”

The computerized general knowledge test includes three sections: a multiple-choice

3

group, student or nonstudent, as far as gathering that data.”

Since the ban’s implementation, the RHA has turned its attention to enforcement, addressing students’ complaints and planning to lead an awareness-raising poster campaign next semester with Resident Life.

This year, the RHA collaborated with the Food Recovery Network, helping the organization raise a record $3,334 through a meal point donation drive.

And Campus Recreation Services initiated a campaign against single-use plastic water bottles, beginning with the RHA encouraging CRS staff not to use the bottles next semester. The plan took hold after Sree Sinha, RHA student groups and organizations liaison, brought the idea to CRS Director Jay Gilchrist.

Gilchrist said he took the RHA’s input seriously because of the group’s widespread representation on the campus.

That representation includes i nvolvement from many campus organizations, including the library committee, the University Health Center and the Campus Recreation Advisory Board.

It includes more voices: Campus leaders from Resident Life, the Department of Residential Facilities, the Department of Transportation Services, Dining Services and the Office of Sustainability attended town halls this year. RHA input is “incredibly important” to Resident Life, and the group often brings important issues to the forefront, said Deb Grandner, Resident Life director.

Even university President Wallace Loh got involved. Loh attended an October meeting and fielded questions from RHA senators on topics that ranged from helping start a new charter school, College Park Academy, to the university’s move to the Big Ten. “[Loh] told me afterwards

that he really enjoyed it, and if we ever have any feedback about anything campus-related to let him know,” Kaufman said. “That’s tremendously important so that we can take that one student voice and turn it into concrete action later on.”

T he R H A’s work hasn’t gone unnoticed — the organization received several regional awards this year for its achievements.

At a regional conference of residence hall organizations representing Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, Washington and Middle Eastern country Qatar, the Central Atlantic Affiliate of College and University Residence Halls awarded the RHA the Program of the Year award for “Bag the Bag,” a campuswide campaign against plastic bags.

T he R H A a lso received awards at the regional organization’s November conference, including one for creating the best banner and one for leading

the board retreat. The conference recognized the RHA for Sinha’s “We Do It In the Dark” campaign, which focused on sustainability in college life.

“It was really wonderful to see that UMD not only is doing great things here, but all of these things are also recognized by our peers as being substantial and important,” Kaufman said. “And that means a lot.”

Heading into the spring semester, the RHA hopes to partner with new groups and

administrators and continue to step up its efforts serving thousands of on-campus residents.

“We are looking to continue to advocate for the resident voice, one or 12,000, and, in some instances, 27,500 undergraduates, or in some instances, 35,000 — all the student population,” Kaufman said.

“The goals are anywhere from little [and] small to big and extravagant, but we are ready to try to tackle them all.”

verbal portion, a quantitative math and data analysis segment and an analytical writing section. In an older scoring system, each question was worth 10 points, which led to high final score variability; students typically scored between 200 and 800 points on the verbal and quantitative reasoning sections.

The median scores submitted to this university for the 2012-13 academic year, scored under the old system, were 670 on the quantitative analysis section and 560 on the verbal section, according to Shama Akhtar, senior research analyst at the graduate school.

“Somebody might have a

660 and another might have a 680 even though they didn’t do that differently in their performance,” said Mike, an ETS agent who declined to give his last name because he is not an official spokesman.

T he test wa s of f ici a l ly rev ised a nd released i n August 2011, Mike said, and now has a new scoring system and format that makes the GRE more similar to undergraduate entrance exams.

Questions on the new test are worth one point, with final scores ranging from 130 to 170 points, Mike said.

A nother issue w ith the old test was its adaptiveness, meaning that one’s re-

sponse to a question would determine the difficulty of the following question. An incorrect answer resulted in an easier next question and a right answer brought a harder follow-up. Test takers couldn’t go back and change answers, skip questions or look ahead, Mike said.

“This presented like you were being straitjacketed; you had to keep on going forward,” he said. “It was very different than a paper test.”

The new format is no longer adaptive by question but by section, Mike said. The verbal and quantitative sections are each broken up into 10 smaller

sections of questions. Test takers can go through the smaller sections freely, but how they perform will determine the difficulty of the next section, he said.

Moore said the old version, which she took in 2008, was confusing and the questions were difficult to understand.

The adaptive question-byquestion format of the old test was nerve-racking for Adam Greeley, an atmospheric and oceanic science doctoral candidate. He could tell how well or badly he was doing by the difficulty of the questions, which he said was distracting.

“I remember trying to play

out the game in my head,” he said. “You’re thinking about the whole thing rather than the question at hand.”

It’s too soon to tell if the changes have made an impact because not enough university students have taken the new version to calculate a median score, Akhtar said.

But based on her experiences, Moore said standardized testing as a whole is fl awed.

“I think they should do away with them altogether,” Moore said. “There are better ways to showca se someone’s abilities.”

THE RESIDENCE HALL ASSOCIATION has worked to be more visible this semester by following through on issues that affect students living on the campus. file photo/the diamondback

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THE DIAMONDBACK | MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2013

Opinion

EDITORIAL BOARD

Mike King

Editor in Chief

DAN APPENFELLER Managing Editor

MATT SCHNABEL

Deputy Managing Editor

maria romas Opinion Editor

ADAM OFFITZER Opinion Editor

CONTACT US 3150 South Campus Dining Hall | College Park, MD 20742 | opinionumdbk@gmail.com PHONE (301) 314-8200

SEMESTER IN REVIEW The Diamondback editorial board takes a look back at the biggest issues from the past few months.

UNIVERSITY SENATE

BIG TEN The ACC has continued its seemingly inexorable march toward squeezing a $52 million exit fee out of this university.

In the continuing fallout of this university’s November 2012 decision to leave the ACC for the revenue-sharing Big Ten athletic conference, the former has been hot on the legal heels of university administrators to ensure the university pays the $52 million fee raised from $17.4 million on July 1. The university and its attorneys have fallen flat at every turn, in attempts to get the

case heard in this state and to dismiss it altogether. And with the ACC already beginning to withhold television revenue from university athletics, the situation only gets worse.

Ongoing litigation, with its high price tag and potentially costly verdict, will only serve to hurt student-athletes and students alike.

We can only hope the university chooses to cut its losses and find a way to reach a settlement with the conference — one hell-bent on kicking the cash-strapped Terps while they’re down.

SMOKING BAN This year, a campuswide smoking ban was implemented, and it’s now common to see little stickers that label us as “Smoke-free UMD.” This policy was met with diverse opinions, many of which fall on extreme ends of the spectrum.

Some are fully in support of the ban and agree with its intended effects. Others are angered by the University System of Maryland’s attempt to prevent smokers from smoking. But one thing smokers and nonsmokers both seemed to agree on is the worry about how the university possibly could implement this change.

The University Senate has considered and pushed through several wonderful initiatives this semester. It expanded the Code of Student Conduct, which provides the student judiciary with a farther-reaching jurisdiction in hopes of encouraging those who have been sexually assaulted or hazed off the campus to come forward.

Especially after seeing an unrealistic zero so-called “forcible rapes” reported to University Police for the past two years, it’s impor-

STUDENT GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION

The Residence Hall Association unanimously passed a resolution last month to try to improve the ban’s enforcement, including upholding administrative sanctions and supporting possible new efforts such as more resident assistant training and a memo to the campus community — but this editorial board is not optimistic about the influence the resolution could have.

So far, we have seen nothing to convince us that this ban will see any sort of widespread implementation any time soon.

Expectations for the SGA ran high this year after representatives came through for students on a number of legislative fronts in the 2012-13 academic year. But after one semester of SGA President Samantha Zwerling’s second term, there’s remarkably little to cheer about, especially given last year’s impressive turnaround.

The simple yet effective nature of last year’s legislation, such as the WTF UMD Facebook page, is largely absent, and the governing body continues to face long-standing

funding allocation woes. Student groups and the SGA both struggled with the transition to a new rolling application system for group funding — fi ling mistakes left many groups unable to receive the funds they requested, and the SGA found itself incapable of meeting widespread demands for funding.

Still, the SGA was occasionally able to extend a positive influence this semester,specifically with its efforts to educate students about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and its involvement in the Keep Me Maryland 5K.

GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

COLLEGE PARK DEVELOPMENT It’s been a strange semester for the city of College Park. A plan to redevelop the university golf course into a brand new “academic village” was announced, debated and eventually scrapped before ever being formally proposed. The Maryland Book Exchange, an unofficial College Park landmark for 77 years, was torn down in a heartbeat, to be replaced by yet another new housing complex with nearly 14,000 square feet of retail.

The Knox Box apartments, more long-standing pieces of College Park history, will be torn down this summer, replaced by — you guessed it — another new housing complex.

tant the senate took the lead to help victims on the campus and encourage them to ignore stigmas and speak out.

The body also voted to mandate sexual assault education for every member of the university community. Former Diamondback editor Lauren Redding proposed the policy change, and the fact that the senate took the initiative to make a change on the campus makes this editorial board hopeful for the future.

It’s not hard to see that the city is changing rapidly. With The Varsity, University View, Domain College Park, Mazza Grandmarc and now two more high-rise apartmentstyle facilities to be built, the area is trying to squeeze high numbers of incoming students into housing and create new spaces for retailers. As the city continues to develop, it’s important for our city representatives and university President Wallace Loh to always consider what’s best for incoming students: affordable housing and the development of a truly great college town.

The federal government shut down in October. The words “brinkmanship” and “responsibilities” come to mind from our multiple staff editorials about the days of doubt and fear after the latest silly handwringing from the 113th Congress.

But in the months since, The Diamondback’s news section has mostly stopped mentioning the shutdown, and the editorial board has not written one staff editorial about the topic. So why are we not still writing staff editorials about how ridiculous that shutdown was? (Well, we are right now,

but we stopped for a while.)

We don’t have an answer for why you haven’t seen a staff editorial about the shutdown since October. Generally, the news media create a sort of historical amnesia by moving from crisis to crisis, and The Diamondback is no different. Are people still being affected by the government shutdown?

Surely. Are we still writing about it? Not so much. But that’s not how it has to be.

As always, if you want to see different coverage in The Diamondback, please let us know.

EDITORIAL CARTOON

Be thankful during the holiday season MATT DRAGONETTE

ASHLEY ZACHERY/the diamondback

GUEST COLUMN

An open letter to Provost Mary Ann Rankin

D

ear Provost Rankin, I’m sure that, as provost of a major research university, you get plenty of mail and don’t have the chance to read all of it. I totally understand. But I hope this letter reaches you and you get the chance to consider my proposal.

The university is hiring a Title IX investigator. As you know, this administrator will conduct all investigations into complaints of sexual assault, harassment and misconduct. As such, he or she will play an important role in the lives of the estimated thousands of students who become victims of sexual violence every year at this university.

Here’s what I’m proposing: Once you pick your top candidates, hold an open forum to give the campus community — specifically students — the chance to ask questions and play a role in the hiring process.

This idea isn’t a new one. Over the past few years, the university has held forums to garner community input on everything from its alliance with the University of Maryland, Baltimore, its move from the ACC to the Big Ten and its very serious problem of staff workplace abuse. It has even held forums for staff appointments: In April 2012 now-journalism Dean Lucy Dalglish was one of two candidates to speak to students at an open forum before getting the job.

The Title IX investigator is going to have a huge impact on the university and the way it responds to reports of sexual violence. When a student reports a rape, the Title IX investiga-

tor will interview the survivor and any witnesses, collect evidence and ensure both the victim and the perpetrator are given fair treatment. (And as a rape survivor myself, I can tell you, more often than not, we are treated unfairly by administrators and police.)

Simply put: There’s too much at stake for us to get this hiring appointment wrong.

Universities and colleges across the nation — including Yale University, Amherst College and Dartmouth College — have been or currently are being investigated by the Department of Education for violating Title IX and the Clery Act for either not following through on sexual assault complaints or failing to offer survivors the much-needed treatment and services to which they are entitled. In fact, students at two of this university’s peer institutions — University of California, Berkeley and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — have filed complaints. I’ve heard horror stories from survivors at these universities about administrators telling them to “get over it” or “just move on,” letting the perpetrator go free without the slightest bit of effort because they didn’t want to accept that sexual violence happened on their watch.

In September, North Carolina held an open forum for its own Title IX coordinator position. (That’s where I got the idea for this proposal.) And I strongly believe this university should follow in its footsteps, except there will be one critical difference: You won’t be doing it to save face. You’ll be doing it

because you truly want to create a safe and fair campus community.

This is a chance for the university to show once again that it takes sexual violence seriously. In October, the University Senate approved my proposal to mandate sexual assault prevention education for every incoming student.

You publicly supported the program at a Student Government Association meeting last spring, and I’m incredibly grateful for that.

So I’m asking one last time for you to take a proactive step to eliminate violence on the campus. Give students a chance to ask the candidates questions and have input on this critical appointment. Show the campus community — and every institution of higher education in the country, for that matter — what it looks like when a university truly cares about sexual violence prevention.

Show other schools that it shouldn’t take a federal complaint for adminstrators to start aggressively tackling sexual violence. And there’s only one way we’re truly going to eradicate rape on the campus, Provost Rankin: By involving every member of the campus community in that effort. We took a giant step in October. Let’s take one more and show everyone that when it comes to violence prevention, Terps don’t mess around.

Thanks for reading.

Lauren Redding is a 2013 university alumna and former editor for The Diamondback. She can be reached at laurredding@gmail.com.

have had so far and will continue to have. It is easy to take our friends for granted, but we should not. I am not asking you to write them thank-you notes — that’s just weird — but remember to appreciate them through your thoughts and actions. Don’t forget the people who dedicate their lives to serve students — professors, administrators and other university staff. You may never meet most of them, or you may disagree with some of them — as anyone in my classes can attest — but most are here because they genuinely care about improving our quality of education. That’s a serious commitment.

I would be remiss if I forgot family.

Family doesn’t have to just be the traditional family, but it can be anyone who has molded us throughout our lives.

We might fight and argue, but that’s nothing compared to the bond of family.

I should stop listing things for which to be thankful — you have a better idea of what to be thankful for in your lives than I — but there’s one more thing everyone should be thankful for: yourself. Be proud and happy to be you. Even as we always strive to improve ourselves, we have to remember to be thankful for ourselves. Each person is unique with intrinsic, equal value. You and I both know our personal blessings, anything from talents to gadgets, and we should be thankful for those.

Once we wrap up finals and leave the campus for a while, let’s make some time for appreciation. For me, it can be as trivial as my (passing) resemblance to Jason Segel or as important as my family’s presence. Just be thankful. We live in a time and place that allow us the opportunity to live a free life and make what we want out of it. That’s the ultimate blessing.

In a world full of negativity, it is easy to overlook our blessings. We often fall into the trap of complaining about our problems instead of taking the time to be thankful for the gifts we’ve received. I say this not to discourage us from fixing problems; rather, we should remember to be appreciative of the things we have and the people who have helped us get to where we are today. During the holiday season, we typically get caught up in presents, parties and desserts, and we tend to miss out on a great opportunity for appreciation.

Perhaps our most overlooked blessing is this university. Lots of things upset us — read my other columns if you need any examples — but this place still does a lot of things right. For one, it provides a world-class education at a fairly affordable price. We have opportunities here that most people in the world, even people in our great nation, simply do not and will not have. This does not mean we need to brag or act self-righteous, but it should remind us to appreciate this blessing and not take it for granted. We should use this blessing to help others in our careers and lives. Terps do great things for people around the world. Be proud to be a Terp.

Even more awesome than the institution itself is the community of individuals who study and work at the university. I am blessed to know hundreds of good people who go to school here. I have no doubt that there are thousands of others who you all know and count as friends. Matt Dragonette is a sophomore In my own group of friends, I am accounting major. He can be reached thankful for all the memories I at mdragonettedbk@gmail.com.

OPINION EDITOR WANTED Must be enrolled at the university. Ideal candidates have an understanding of university, state and national issues, a familiarity with journalistic writing, strong managerial skills and the ability to meet deadlines. Opinion editors typically work 30 to 35 hours per week. The position is paid. For more information on the position or how to apply, please contact opinion editors Maria Romas and Adam Offitzer at opinionumdbk@gmail.com.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2013 | THE DIAMONDBACK

5

Diversions

THE REST OF OUR FAVORITE THINGS

ON THE SITE

For the complete diversions and opinion sections throughout the week, head online to check out the full coverage of the best of 2013 and additional columns at diamondbackonline.com.

ESSAY | THE BEST OF 2013

A FEW OF OUR FAVORITE THINGS

By Diamondback staff | @DBKDiversions | diversionsdbk@gmail.com

From Kanye to Katie Crutchfield, our writers look back at their pop culture favorites of 2013 “NEW SLAVES” There’s the Kanye who rents out an entire baseball stadium and a live orchestra for a $3.3 million marriage proposal. There’s the Kanye who fashions himself a post-racial Martin Luther King Jr. and restarts a line in “All of the Lights” because his mostly white crowds won’t sing the n-word. There’s the Kanye who co-opts a song about lynchings in the Deep South and samples it to craft a six-minute ode to baby mama drama. There’s the Kanye who throws fits because he can’t lock down a high-end fashion deal.

And then there’s 2:51.

Just less than three minutes into “New Slaves,” one of the few radio-friendly hits on this summer’s challenging, confounding Yeezus, vaguely menacing synths transition without warning into an uplifting drum roll.

The only accurate description of the next minute or so is transcendence. For all the diatribes and think pieces, the YouTube-ready interviews and over-the-top ridiculousness that have come to define his public image, this is Kanye in his element, and it’s beautiful.

Drums melt into a soaring orchestral arrangement culled from

Hungarian band Omega’s “Gyöngyhajú Lány,” and an auto-tuned Kanye and a crooning Frank Ocean wax eloquently yet simply on drugaided escapism.

For just more than one minute, all the sometimes-laughable earnestness he’s exhibited in interviews this year seems believable. However briefly, he’s Jordan, Jackson, Jobs, all of his oft-mentioned idols rolled into one, and he won’t — or can’t — lose.

—Matt Schnabel

2013 crafting the most beautiful, confessional melodies of this or any other year.

THE CRUTCHFIELDS Regardless of what apocalyptic rubbish gains traction on mainstream radio, pop music isn’t dead.

Instead, listeners looking for hummable hooks and intensely relatable songwriting should take their attention off the dial and turn it to the punk record bin, where twin sisters Katie and Allison Crutchfield wait, sticker-plastered guitars in fingerless-gloved hands.

Though they did it separately — Katie as the driving force behind Waxahatchee and Allison as the front woman for pop-punk outfit Swearin’ — the two sisters spent

photo courtesy of thisismax.wordpress.com

In early March, Waxahatchee’s second full-length, Cerulean Salt, dropped. A step above the band’s intimate girl-with-a-guitar debut, Cerulean Salt beefed up the group’s sound while losing none of the songcraft: “Swan Dive” is a lilting singalong about suicide, while “Peace and Quiet” spins the story of a dysfunctional relationship over classic rock noodling.

And just more than a month a go , A l l i s o n C r u tc h f i e l d ’s Swearin’ unveiled Surfing Strange, a dark, difficult record that nonetheless manages to showcase the Crutchfield gift for melody: Album opener “Dust in the Gold Sack” begins with a strummy acoustic gift and Allison’s naif voice before exploding into a glorious march of washed-out guitars and bombastic drumming.

On the one hand, 2013 was a dreadful year for pop — Miley, Katy and Gaga’s mediocre albums all saw to that. On the other hand, indie artists such as Katie and Allison Crutchfield spun perfect musical cobwebs that are still sticking to the inside of my skull. Pop isn’t dead; it’s just hiding in the attic.

—Eric Bricker

PRINCE AVALANCHE Prince Avalanche is a film with a heart so wide and genuine that Apatow-ian masturbation gags can exist alongside heartrending monologues in the aftermath of a forest fire without either feeling out of place.

The multifaceted nature of the film bleeds through to the plot. On the surface, it’s a cliche buddy cop story without the cops. But squint and Prince Avalanche becomes the arthouse Mario and Luigi adaptation you never knew you wanted, where Mario is a borderline-autistic lout unable to plant his roots while Luigi suffers from bouts of uncontrollable rage.

Miraculously, Prince Avalanche never becomes too small or stretches too far. Writer-director David Gordon Green (Joe) gently expands his tale’s borders to encompass a mood and feeling larger than the two protagonists without ever losing track of the characters at the heart of the story.

It’s as if Green has managed to combine his frat-boy comedy filmography with his Malickian dramas to create one of the funniest, sweetest and most quietly moving films of the year.

—Warren Zhang

OPINION FROM THE EDITOR IN CHIEF

FROM THE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT

My New Year’s resolutions WALLACE LOH ’Tis the season for New Year’s resolutions. Here are my top 10 for 2014.

10. Get myself named an honorary captain of the Terrapins football team for the first Big Ten home game, which will be against Ohio State. The most deafening sound from a sold-out Byrd Stadium crowd will come from Buckeyes fans when they learn to fear the turtle.

9. Enlist more Twitter followers so that I get more interactions beyond pleas to close the campus whenever it snows.

8. Lose weight. Stop reaching mindlessly into the glass jar for my 20-a-day Hershey’s Kisses, the fix that keeps me awake through nonstop meetings.

7. Continue to lobby Congress to end the budget sequester. It has reduced funding for scientific research and student financial aid over the past year, to the great detriment of our nation.

6. Work with local officials so the thousands of university students who reside in College Park are able to have

representation and a voice in the affairs of their city.

5. Promote a safer learning and work environment by implementing the recommendations of the new sexual misconduct policy — including mandatory training for all faculty members, staff and students — that was recently mandated by the University Senate.

4. Shovel dirt for the construction of new facilities: a four-star hotel and conference center, with innovation incubators for student-led start-ups and the Edward St. John Learning & Teaching Center with state-of-the-art classrooms for online and on-site education, serving 8,000 students a day.

3. Cut the ribbon at the inauguration of new facilities, including Prince Frederick Hall, a wonderful dorm with expanded living-learning communities; the world-class Physical Science Complex, where faculty and student research might produce transformative innovations such as quantum computing; and the Data Center that houses a new supercomputer, one of the fastest of its kind on a U.S. college campus.

2. Finalize an educational and artistic partnership between this university and the Corcoran Gallery of Art and

the Corcoran College of Art + Design.

It would elevate the arts to new distinction; create synergies between art, design, media and technology; and give our university a prominent footprint in our nation’s capital.

1. Continue to advocate in the upcoming legislative session in support of funding educational excellence, keeping tuition affordable and increasing salaries for faculty and staff members. This month, Kiplinger’s Magazine again ranked this university in the top 10 U.S. public colleges and universities, based on quality and affordability. This is a winning combination that our governor and the General Assembly have made possible.

According to one study, only about one in 10 New Year’s resolutions succeeds. But with your support — and can-do Terps attitude — I expect many of these resolutions will be achieved.

I wish everyone happy holidays.

And may you fulfill your New Year’s resolutions, too.

Wallace Loh is the president of this university. He can be reached at president@umd.edu or on Twitter @presidentloh.

The duty of today’s youth in politics TOMMY CREEGAN My last semester at this university has thrust me into a pensive state. I have been thinking about where I was before I came here, the experiences I’ve had here, where I am now and where I want my life to go. Taking this hard look at myself has allowed me to gather the lessons I’ve learned from the past 40 months of my life.

As a government and politics major, I have spent much of my time thinking about how the world can be a better place and how to bring about justice and quell evil. These reflections have led me to many perspectives that I need not go deeply into here, except for one on which I would like to focus.

My unabashed interest in government theory has gotten me into a number of political debates. Because of this, I have engaged in political discussion with people, young and old.

Particularly among “adults,” there is a common perception that the youth are a politically marginal group whose views are idealistic or implausible. I am using this final column to address

the destructiveness of this sentiment, which seeps into our minds and dissolves a necessary facet of society.

While adults should be respected for their experience, the youth provide an important counter to this experienced age group that, for the most part, holds the reins of societal institutions. This control makes it easy for the youth to be ignored. However, casting off youthful revolutionaries only cripples society’s already-forming waves of change.

The youth contribute a fresh perspective to our culture as they come to understand the world as it really is. With reality-based perspective comes the ability to meaningfully contribute to public debate. Particularly with young adults, entering the electorate often leads to demands for change. These new perspectives are better at identifying problems in the current system — similar to having a fresh pair of eyes look over your communication class speech.

The youth provide a necessary and critical lens through which to view society that can reveal major flaws in our institutions.

Soon enough, it will be our generation’s turn to run the show. We will have our own problems, and the next

generation of educated 20-somethings will take on causes to improve how things operate. I hope I will remember how I feel now and the importance of young people who inject the questioning spirit of democracy into our political discourse. I also hope to carry this with me into whatever professional work I find, and I encourage all of you to rise to this responsibility we have as young people to keep society on its toes.

Don’t be discouraged or dissuaded from political engagement or creativity because “we are young” implies “your opinion doesn’t matter.” Understanding the world now will not only better prepare you to be an informed member of your community, but it will start the process of developing your perspective on how the world ought to be.

Rather than go along with the norms we are taught, challenge yourself and those around you to question standards and share ideas. Do this not just to be a contrarian or appear smart — but do so with an open mind and receptive attitude. This will shine through and affect others in a positive way.

Tommy Creegan is a senior government and politics major. He can be reached at tcreegandbk@gmail.com.

Embracing change Successfully printing less, creating more

MIKE KING

been keeping track of the Friday digital edition as part of our issue count — our reasoning was that the gap in print papers between Thursday and Monday would confuse readers keeping track through the issue number.

Maybe we shouldn’t have done that, though, because as the staff and readers have seen, the Friday digital edition is just as much an issue of The Diamondback as the print issues from Monday to Thursday. When we first started putting out the Friday digital edition, we were concerned about readers responding negatively. But as it turns out, you’ve decided that edition is an issue of The Diamondback, too.

We’ve put out dozens of issues this semester, and this staff will produce dozens more next semester. So between now and then, we want to hear from you, our readers, about what The Diamondback can do better to serve you.

That’s why I’ve created a new email address, diamondbackeditor@gmail. com, that will persist through the years for consistency’s sake. A few big ideas are cooking on the back burner right now, and I’ll be able to write more about them in my opening edition column for the spring semester.

I’ve written weekly columns for the Friday digital edition this semester, a practice that has allowed me to review each week at its conclusion. That’s given me an odd sense of hindsight every Thursday night, but more than anything else, I’ve been proud to look over a week’s papers because every week has been amazing in some way. With this job, it’s easy to get lost in the minutiae and forget the broader picture that we’re working to put out a newspaper for thousands of readers. The weekly columns gave me a time to reflect.

It’s an exciting time for The Diamondback, and your readership has validated our work here in the newsroom more than anything I dreamed of before taking this job. While it’s fun to try new things on the website and talk about future-proofing this newspaper, the readership is what matters in the end. The positive reactions to our new commenting system, ReadrBoard, and the many new Twitter followers we’ve gained show us that you’re interested in what The Diamondback can provide.

So thanks for that. Everyone in the newsroom has cheered our digital developments, but the most important part of this job, as always, is you.

At the beginning of this semester, I told The Diamondback’s readers about the decision to cut the Friday print edition of the newspaper. It was a challenging time to lead the newsroom staff, and none of us was certain how readers would respond to the drastic change.

But in the months since I wrote that column, The Diamondback’s staff has seen immense success with its all-new Friday digital editions, bringing the greatest traffic to our website in at least a couple of years, and maybe ever. We’ve completed most of what I set out to do, and we’ll do the rest next semester.

I told you then that we’d use the extra time gained from not designing a print edition on Thursday nights to create exciting, dynamic digital content for our website.

That’s exactly what we’ve done: From a Diversions bulletin board of staff-submitted recipes to an interactive John F. Kennedy memorial and a blowout feature on university President Wallace Loh, our website has been more active and engaging than ever before.

You’ve responded, too; we’ve seen our best social media numbers since we created those accounts. And while our website traffic used to dip on Fridays, likely because readers start their weekends early, that traffic has stayed on par with the rest of the week this semester — and sometimes even surpassed other days of the week.

But we also know how much there always will be left to do. Part of working at a newspaper is never being satisfied: We go home after every shift having put out great content for that issue, but we always have to come back in and put out the next one. (There’s a slightly sexist old Diamondbackbranded notebook somewhere in the newsroom with a provocative silhouette of a woman and the words “We put out daily” above “The Diamondback.”)

We number every print issue in the bottom left corner of the front page. So when we have our editors’ meeting at the beginning of every workday, we remark on how far along we’ve gotten in the semester. Mike King is the editor in chief of Some landmarks for me were No. 10, The Diamondback. He can be reached No. 25 and No. 50. But we haven’t at diamondbackeditor@gmail.com.

6

THE DIAMONDBACK | diversions | monday, december 16, 2013

LIST | THE BEST MOVIES OF 2013

beloved blockbusters 2013 was a fantastic year for fantastically depressing movies

By Robert Gifford @rcgiff Senior staff writer

4. 12 Years a Slave

of evil and doesn’t blink.

2. TIE: All Is Lost and Gravity

1. The Act of Killing In the mid-1960s, Indonesia’s ascendant military regime conducted an American-backed purge of suspected communists, leading to the deaths of at least 500,000 people — many landless farmers. Fifty years later, the men who conducted the campaign are considered national heroes. The filmmakers behind the astounding documentary The Act of Killing asked Anwar Congo, a grandfather and former death squad leader, to make a film recounting his own experiences as a way of trying to understand the psyche of a man who personally killed 1,000 people.

What emerged is a haunting portrait of the decades-old guilt and rationalizations of a man who is at once unspeakably monstrous and unexpectedly sensitive, a person whose palpable humanity makes him only the more chilling. The Act of Killing is the rare film that stares into the face

It is nothing short of a travesty that it took this long for American slavery to get the brutal, horrifying Hollywood epic it deserves, but 12 Years a Slave is exactly the movie the subject needs, pulling no punches in its indictment of a system that turned some into property and others into masters of unrestrained perversion. It is a film of lashings and rape, of physical and spiritual debasement, of desperate howls gone unanswered. It is the movie American history demands.

The two purest expressions of the apocalyptic dread that haunted cinemas in 2013 — a year that had Superman laying waste to New York City in Man of Steel to the debauchery-turned-disaster of The World’s End and This Is the End — All Is Lost and Gravity each offered stories of basic survival so simple yet heroic that they approach the power of myth.

Whether it wa s Ro b e r t 5. Before Midnight Redford clingOne of the best films ing to a capsized about long-term relationl i f e b o a t i n t h e photo courtesy of fox searchlight ships — and the fault lines former or Sandra Bullock careening that inevitably grow between those into deep space in the latter, these in them — Before Midnight is all the films were unequaled in their por- more powerful because the couple trayal of people standing at the brink on the rocks is one the audience has of death and trying to hang on one already spent two movies desperately moment longer. shipping. But Before Midnight works as

a standalone movie as well as a (possible) series finale, patiently establishing the relative bliss of the central couple while simultaneously prying at the cracks in their facade until the tension explodes in a third-act fight that is among the most emotionally harrowing and downright real committed to film.

radical social statement or just a story of two women whose mutual passion (and love of pasta) can’t overcome their differences, Blue is the Warmest Color is something special.

9. TIE: The Great Beauty and Spring Breakers At first glance, The Great Beauty and Spring Breakers don’t have much in common. The former is a fashionable, Fellini-esque tale of aging Roman literati, the latter a deliberately trashy pop-art celebration and mockery of crazed coeds in Florida.

But they share a sense that, during a secular age lacking in majesty and awe, hedonism is the only escape from banality that remains — whether it’s Italian gallery owners doing lines of coke or frat boys downing Natty Light while Skrillex plays, everyone’s just looking to be something other than ordinary. Balancing the rush of headlong indulgence with moments of near-divine grace, each is among the most beautifully stylized movies of the year, working hard to find the vulnerability and disappointment that pushes the most hard-core partiers to do just one more line, one more shot, one more score.

6. TIE: Inside Llewyn Davis and The Past These two symphonies of sorrow traffic in all manner of despair, but at their core they’re both about suicide and its aftermath. Each film is haunted by the dead or dying — the title character’s ex-partner in Inside Llewyn Davis, a comatose wife in The Past — who leave a void the living can’t seem to fill.

Shot in wintry, elegiac tones, each film expresses the beauty and regret of the love that remains after loss.

8. Blue is the Warmest Color This Palme d’Or winner sparked controversy for its extended and graphic lesbian sex scenes, the very public spat between director Abdellatif Kechiche and stars Adéle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux and its messages on class and sexuality. While there’s no shortage of political subtext to unpack, the fact that Blue is the Warmest Color actually works as well as a simple love story as it does a Renoirian examination of the privileged and the proletarian got lost beneath the thunder of the blogosphere. Whether viewed as a

rgifforddbk@gmail.com For more of senior staff writer Robert Gifford’s favorite movies of the year, visit diamondbackonline.com/diversions.

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MOnDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2013 | The Diamondback

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Features ACROSS 1 Eye protector 5 Specks on a globe 10 Tough fiber 14 Mountain refrain 15 Wingspreads 16 Suits to -- -17 Kind of tradition 18 Baker’s “must” (2 wds.)

20 Basted 22 Primary color 23 Hair conditioner 24 Scuba enthusiast 26 Ailurophobe’s fear 27 Smelling salts 30 Treadmill enthusiast 34 Grasshopper 35 “Sorry!”

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Pool member Gullible person Midnight -Well-driller’s concern (2 wds.)

Canal of song Tax shelters Run -- of the law Give a high-five Ale ingredient Not clean Carbon deposit

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33 Perch 35 W. Hemisphere alliance

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Mal de -Drought Grand house Cornelia -Skinner 46 Best 47 Flounce on a garment

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HOROSCOPE STELLA WILDER

orn today, you are one of the most ambitious individuals born under your sign, often driven beyond the bounds of common sense or rationality.

What is important for you and others to remember, however, is that what is good for you does not have to be good for anyone else, and vice versa. The fact is that though others may judge you for being what they would call obsessed, you are doing what you were hard-wired to do, and you are almost certain to enjoy a great deal of success as a result. You are not one of those who has to explore a great many options before deciding on your life’s path; that course is likely to be charted for you by the stars, perhaps long before you are born.

There is one serious hazard that may befall you on several occasions throughout your lifetime, and that is isolation as a product of overwork. You must never let yourself lose friends or sacrifice loved ones in favor of a project that has won your dedication. You must always balance the personal and the professional!

Also born on this date are: Ludwig van Beethoven, composer; Jane Austen, author; Billy Gibbons, guitarist; Benjamin Bratt, actor; Benny Andersson, singer-songwriter; Wassily Kandinsky, painter; Margaret Mead, anthropologist; Arthur C. Clarke, author; Lesley Stahl, journalist; Noel Coward, playwright and actor; Steven Bochco, TV producer; Ben Cross, actor.

To see what is in store for you tomorrow, find your birthday and read the corresponding paragraph. Let your birthday star be your daily guide.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17 SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) -- You’re probably going to have to add something to your already full schedule, which will require you to multitask all day long.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) -- Communication from someone far from home may have you wondering if you’ve made the right choices lately. You need more evidence.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) -- You can use every bit of time available to you, but take care that you don’t stretch yourself too thin or risk burnout.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) -You’ll uncover certain key indicators that will give you precisely the perspective you’ve been looking for of late.

ARIES (March 21-April 19) -Now is the time for you to dedicate some time and energy to another’s efforts. Your own projects are going well; he or she needs a boost.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) -- You’ll be starting a new project very soon, and you’ll want to be fully prepared. You have time to learn the backstory.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) -- You’ll feel as though you have made very little headway, but by the end of the day, you may actually be a little ahead of schedule.

CANCER (June 21-July 22) -- You’ll want to choose just the right mode of transportation today.

Remember, getting there quickly isn’t the only consideration.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) -- You can enjoy things more if you try to look at them from the inside out.

You must get more involved on a personal level.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) -- You can frolic with the best of them, but take care you aren’t unconsciously slipping further and further from what makes you you.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) -Something you keep forgetting is going to figure quite prominently today -- and finally, perhaps, you won’t need any more reminders.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) -- Seek and ye shall find -- if not today, then tomorrow or the next day. But it all depends, of course, on putting in a good effort today.

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8

THE DIAMONDBACK | NEWS | MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2013

admissions From PAGE 1 t h e y d o n’t h a v e t i m e to do ex tensive backg rou nd checks on each student, said Shannon Gundy, undergraduate admissions director. An initial read of an application takes about seven minutes, she said.

Reviewing Internet profiles isn’t prohibited, Gundy said, but officers won’t research a student unless they feel application information looks falsified or misleading.

“The reality is those things just don’t happen very much,” G u n d y s a i d . “ We’re n o t sleuthing; we’re not trying to find dirt on students applying for admission.”

When officials review appl ications, they consider students’ grades, standardized test scores, letters of recommendation, short answer questions and essays. Sometimes, it’s easy to accept or deny students after a first read, Gundy said.

But some “on the fence” applications will go to an admissions committee of seven to 12 officers for further review, Gu ndy sa id . Somet i mes, they’ll fact-check students who list unusual awards or those whose grades and extracurricular activities don’t seem to match the awards they said they’ve received. The committee might also look into students who said they spend an extensive amount of time using social media.

“Let’s say a student says to me, ‘I’ve created a website,’” Gundy said. “I see on the front page of their website they’re d ri n k i ng; they’re u si n g d r u g s — t hen ye s, that’s going to affect a student’s admission decision.”

Decisions aren’t always limited to what students send to the university, either. An officer might call high school counselors or the students themselves for more information, Gundy said, or outside sources might contact the admissions office with concerns about a particular applicant.

That doesn’t mean the information necessarily will have an effect, Gundy said.

For instance, Gundy remembers getting an email from someone concerned about a negative news story about an applicant. But the office had a l ready i nvest igated the incident and decided to offer the student admission, Gundy said.

The most common instance in which admissions officials will conduct additional research is if a student notes that he or she has received some sort of disciplinary infraction. The number of disciplinary infraction notes has more than doubled in recent years — 373 in the 2012-13 admissions cycle, up from 168 in 2009-10.

If a student’s application information is up to university admissions standards but he or she marked “yes” for a violation, officers will send the application to the

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Office of Student Conduct.

There, James Bond, student conduct associate director, and a graduate student assistant will review the violation and clear or reject a student.

“If we can find that information ourselves, then we will,” he said. “Sometimes what we’ll do is, if students are being coy or not completely forthcoming, we’ll do a Google search and see what there is to see.”

Research often involves checking court case records, reading news articles or contacting students individually for more information, Bond sa id. Facebook a nd other social media sites usually don’t factor into the review, Bond said, because they don’t a lway s prov id e accu rate information.

“It’s not like we wouldn’t use Facebook, but if I see something on Facebook …

We need to ask them directly what happened here; give me your explanation,” Bond said.

Most disciplinary cases, s u c h a s m i nor t ra f f ic or a lcohol v iolations, a re cleared, Bond said. One applicant was denied in the 2011-12 admissions cycle out of the 324 reviewed and four were denied out of last year’s 373.

B o n d s a i d t h e s t u d e nt conduct office is most concerned with students who lie on their applications. Officials might deny otherwise “perfect” applicants, or they might suspend or expel enrolled students if the office later learns about violations

BY THE NUMBERS

>10 percent of admissions officers checked applicants’ Facebook pages in 2008

24 percent of admissions officers checked applicants’ Facebook pages in 2011

31 percent of admissions officers checked applicants’ Facebook pages in 2013

through news reports or by word of mouth. “[If] we see it wasn’t just an alcohol thing but it was drugs and you attacked the police … we would look into that and say, ‘You lied on your application here,’” he said. “Had they not lied, they would still be in consideration.”

In one i ncident, Gu ndy sa id , u n iversit y of f icers learned a student had taken the SAT for another student.

Both students had been admitted, but because of that, the admissions office rescinded their offers, she said. The office learned of the incident just a few days before their fall move-in day, which she said was “heartbreaking.”

Not all incidents are reported or discovered. A senior history and journalism major, who asked to remain anonymous because he talked about a disciplinary infraction, said he was caught bringing alcohol to a high school foot-

a maryland images tour guide shows prospective students around the campus. When considering students for admission, university officials said they look at many factors, but they do not usually have time to monitor students’ online presence. sung-min kim/the diamondback ball game and served a fiveday suspension. But he didn’t check “yes” on his application to this university because his high school principal said the school didn’t release such information.

Though his suspension remained private, the student said he thought admissions officers had a right to use publicly available information on social media sites to review students’ backgrounds.

“The only thing that’s unacceptable is if they ask you for your private Facebook or Twitter,” he said. “If it’s public and they see something they don’t like … it could be a concern.”

Over the next few months, the admissions office plans to hire a new marketing staff and develop social networking pages to interact with applicants, Gundy said. The office will post information

about events a nd a nswer questions, but Gundy said it doesn’t want to “intrude” on applicants’ personal lives.

“We recognize that in many cases, this is their means of communicating with their friends and family,” Gundy said. “We want to make sure they’re comfortable with inviting us to come with them in that manner.”

Regardless of how information is used, Gundy recommended students be wary about what they post online.

“Once it’s out, you ca n delete it, but if someone’s already captured it, it’s still o u t t h e re ,” G u n d y s a i d .

“Don’t make negative decisions that you ca n’t fi x later on. First of all, don’t do it, but if you’ve done it, don’t publicize it — that’s ridiculous.” amcginnisdbk@gmail.com

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9

MORE NEWS ONLINE Univ Senate makes progress on smoking ban, conduct expansion

Sustainability research, collaboration benefits campus community

life in the full university legislature has been different this year.

One of the senate’s most noteworthy legislative items of the semester, a requirement that During the 2012-13 academic year, the Uni- all university community members undertake versity Senate saw the passage of an expanded some form of education on sexual assault and Good Samaritan policy to cover all drug-re- misconduct, passed overwhelmingly after lated emergencies, an implementation plan for nearly a full year of review and a special task the campuswide smoking ban that went into force’s report and recommendations on dealing effect over the summer and an expansion of with sexual misconduct.

The senate’s final meeting of the semester, set the university’s conduct code jurisdiction to for Dec. 10, was postponed when the university cover violations that occur off the campus.

While all of those votes came after months closed due to inclement weather. The body will or years of intense debate on the senate floor, next meet on Feb. 5.

By Erin Serpico @erin_serpico Staff writer

Students flock to Green Tidings; sales stay strong in cold weather

Scientists warn of poor air quality, call for emissions reduction

During the fall semester, lines of customers often snaked around the mobile vendor to purchase specialties such as a so-called pumpkin explosion salad or ginger-infused Until Green Tidings rolled onto the dining ice cream. The food truck closed Friday and scene this summer, junior Chavi Rehani felt will reopen in the spring. So far, dining ofthat healthy food options were limited on the ficials said they’ve seen a great response from campus. But the addition of the university’s the campus community.

The biweekly menu changes are what make food truck has changed that — and Rehani said she looks forward to days when the Green Tidings successful, executive chef Will Rogers said. The menu keeps the same types of truck is parked near her classes.

“I really like that the food is different,” foods — sandwiches, salads, soups and drinks said Rehani, a bioengineering major. “It’s — but updates the specific items based on what a good break from diner food and, let’s face is in season.

“It has worked very well to have the menu it, the more food options, the better. College Park is sorely lacking in healthier options.” change every two weeks,” Rogers said.

Erin Serpico @erin_serpico Staff writer

By Alex Kirshner @alex_kirshner Senior staff writer

By Holly Cuozzo @emperorcuozzco Staff writer

As the field of environmental research grows nationally, this university has worked to increase opportunities for scientists, resulting in a successful semester for campus sustainability initiatives.

From research breakthroughs to decreasing carbon emissions, this university has been applauded for its green efforts this semester with awards, grants and national media attention.

But the impact of these successes, driven by the

university’s collaborative research environment, is felt on the campus as well, with more opportunities for student involvement and a heightened awareness of sustainable practices.

Patrick O’Shea, chief university research officer, said he attributes the success to interdisciplinary collaboration, something the university hopes to continue fostering as researchers seek to understand the environment in College Park and beyond university borders.

“It’s important to integrate these areas together and take a look at the big picture and the big issues,” O’Shea said. “We look at problems in the context of another.”

those with respiratory problems. These levels are not common for December, said Ashwani K. Gupta, a mechanical engineering professor, and area residents should take steps to reduce While hot and humid summer temperatures their environmental impact.

The air quality levels across the Washington are long gone from this area, some Maryland and Washington residents experienced air metropolitan area have been hovering at modquality close to typical midyear levels earlier erate levels, according to AirNow.gov reports.

“In December, it all has to do with how the this month.

The Maryland Department of the Environ- air pollutants transfer into the atmosphere,” ment declared a code orange air quality alert Gupta said.

While some pollutants may travel up from starting Dec. 2 for the Washington metropolitan area and other parts of the state, indicat- ground level, in other cases they may travel ing that air pollution conditions surpassed back down with warmer temperatures and the healthy level for certain health-sensitive a different temperature gradient from the groups, including children, the elderly and ground up.

For these headlines and more, head to diamondbackonline.com.

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rule book on the final goal of his illustrious career.

“That’s not who I am,” Mullins said. “And I’m very disappointed in how that play resulted. All I can control is my actions, and I’m not happy with that action.

It is definitely hard for me to swallow because I don’t think that’s the type of player I am or the type of person.”

H a d G ra je d a wh i s t l e d Hodan for a hand ball, the midfielder would have received a red card and the Fighting Irish would have been forced to play a man down for the remainder of the contest.

“It wasn’t anything deliberate,” Hodan said. “It was just more of a reaction.”

That was not the only questionable call in the game, though. With just more than 23 minutes remaining in the second half, a Terps corner kick deflected off the arm of Fighting Irish defender

Connor Klekota, but Grajeda — a Major League Soccer referee who also was assigned to the MLS Cup final on Dec. 7 — again did not blow the whistle.

“I think Chico is the best referee in this country,” coach Sasho Cirovski said. “I have full faith in him. I think once I review it on video, I’m sure I might be hurting a little more. But at this point, we have no control over any of the situation, and I have no regrets about the game.”

After Mullins’ first-half tally, it took less than five minutes for Notre Dame to respond.

Fighting Irish midfielder Nick Besler flicked a header to forward Leon Brown off a throw-in from the right sideline. Brown charged the ball, which was inches from the goal line, and slipped a sliding shot past goalkeeper Zack Steffen to even the score.

Brown had replaced forward Vince Cicciarelli about nine minutes into the contest when Cicciarelli left the game with a broken collarbone.

“One of the mantras we had as a team was to respond to things that happen in the game,” Notre Dame defender Andrew O’Malley said. “Not everything is going to go your way during a game, so you try to make sure you’re mentally strong enough to come back from something like that. And I think Leon came in and responded really well.”

The Terps nearly took the lead again with 4:07 remaining in the first half. Defender Jereme Raley curled a cross in from the right wing that Shinsky headed on net, but goalkeeper Patrick Wall dove and saved the ball off the line.

The Fighting Irish took the lead in the 60th minute. A hard foul from Endoh 25 yards from the goal earned Notre Dame

“THAT’S NOT WHO I AM. AND I’M VERY DISAPPOINTED IN HOW THAT PLAY RESULTED. ALL I CAN CONTROL IS MY ACTIONS, AND I’M NOT HAPPY WITH THAT ACTION. IT IS DEFINITELY HARD FOR ME TO SWALLOW BECAUSE I DON’T THINK THAT’S THE TYPE OF PLAYER I AM OR THE TYPE OF PERSON.” PATRICK MULLINS

Terrapins men’s soccer forward a free kick near the corner of the 18-yard box. O’Malley rose and headed the service from forward Harrison Shipp — who was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Offensive Player — into the right corner of the net to give the Fighting Irish a one-goal advantage.

Despite pushing numbers fo rwa rd ove r t h e f i n a l 20 minutes, the Terps couldn’t find an equalizer.

The first goal, though, affected Mullins, who finishes his career second on the program’s all-time scoring list with 47 goals. It weighed on him, and he simply couldn’t respond mentally — a reaction Cirovski said only further establishes Mullins’ unwavering integrity. “ H e p u t to o m u c h o n himself,” Cirovski said. “There were many players who had intentional hand balls in the game. It will be a learning lesson for him, but his character shining through is worthy of a championship.” dpopperdbk@gmail.com

10

THE DIAMONDBACK | SPORTS | MONDAY, DECEMber 16, 2013

PHOTO OF THE SEMESTER

PPL Park Chester, Pa. Dec. 13, 2013

Staff photographer Christian Jenkins captured the celebration after Terps men’s soccer forward Patrick Mullins scored his second goal of Friday night’s 2-1 win over Virginia in the College Cup semifinals.

The Terps fell to Notre Dame yesterday, 2-1, in the national title game.

For complete College Cup coverage, visit diamondbackonline.com. christian jenkins/the diamondback

GUARDS From PAGE 12

c o m i n g i n , we go t s o m e pretty good guards in the program. One’s hurt; he’ll be back soon,” Turgeon said. “I know everybody thinks the world is coming to an end if you’re a Terp basketball fan, but I’m really positive about the future and what lies ahead for us.”

Last season, Allen was third on the team in assist rate — a stat that measures assists against teammates’ field goal percentages — but also turned the ball over at the third highest rate. In other words, he has the tools to be a pure point guard but has struggled taking care of the ball.

For now, Turgeon’s “clearcut” best option at point guard is Peters. The freshman leads the team with a 29.9 assist rate, which ranks 115th in the nation. That means Peters is a more than serviceable passer, someone who can run the Terps offense effectively.

The issue has been Peters’ 33.7 percent turnover rate, which is second-worst on the team, and Turgeon has been upset with his defensive performance.

According to kenpom.com, though, Peters’ stats are similar to that of Louisville guard Peyton Siva’s freshman year. Siva led the Cardinals to the national title as a senior last season.

P l u s, Tu rge o n a n d h i s players believe Peters will o nly improve, co nsidering he’s playing significant minutes as a freshman.

“Roddy’s playing big,” Wells said after the Terps beat Boston College on Thursday.

“He’s getting his confidence up. That’s what we need from him. He’s going to be lights out once he finally really gets it and starts to think the game a little more at the college level. He’s going to be unbelievable.”

There’s certainly promise for the Terps at the point guard position. Peters appears capable of filling the role and the team brings in Melo Trimble, a highly ranked point guard prospect, next season.

At this point, though, Peters is still prone to mistakes. That leaves the Terps’ point guard situation somewhat in flux, just as it’s been since Turgeon took over the program.

It remains to be seen just how well the Terps’ point guards will be in the future, but Turgeon has made one thing clear: He wants his ball handlers to be better than they have been during the first few years of his tenure in College Park.

“We got good players,” Turgeon said. “It’s no fun right now, but we got a great opportunity.”

struggled when tasked with ballhandling duties.

Seth Allen was supposed to be the answer this season, but he broke his foot 10 days before the season started and hasn’t returned to the court since.

As a result, Wells, Peters and former walk-on Varun Ram have manned the point.

Ram started once, Peters started four times and Wells started six games at point guard in the Terps’ first 11 games. According to kenpom.com, Peters and Ram have the two highest turnover rates on the team, but the two players are also the only healthy natural point guards.

“It’s not where we want it now,” Turgeon said. “But our point guard play is going to be good in the future.”

Though Peters and Ram have struggled as steady options, the Terps don’t want to turn to Wells as the primary ball handler because it takes away from his ability to score.

Wells’ field goal percent and effective field goal percentage — a stat that takes into account the value of 3-pointers while still measuring shots inside the arc — are both down significantly this season while he’s been tasked with playing point guard.

Turgeon even said that it feels like the team “loses half of Dez” when he takes over the point guard role.

“He’s tremendously more confident [on the wing],” Ram said. “He’s scoring layups at will pretty much off the ball.

It’s tough to do that as a point guard because you want to get everybody involved and run the offense.”

The problem with moving Wells off the ball, however, is that a team’s success correlates heavily with its point guard play. The three teams kenpom.com rates as the best in the country — Louisville, Ohio State and Oklahoma State — all have primary ball handlers with offensive efficiency ratings of more than 111.

By comparison, Ram has an offensive efficiency rating of 73.2 and Peters’ is 95.1.The Terps haven’t had a single point guard with an offensive efficiency rating of more than 100 since Stoglin’s 110.4 rating in 2011, but he spent time off the ball while Faust handled the point in his freshman campaign to the tune of an 86.8 offensive efficiency rating.

Turgeon has hope, though, because Allen is likely to return from injury sometime in the next month, Peters appears to be improving, and the team will bring in a guard-heavy top-10 recruiting class next season. “ We g o t s o m e g u a r d s akasinitzdbk@gmail.com

MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2013 | SPORTS | The Diamondback

11

FOOTBALL

Reigniting the rush A self-described ‘fireball,’ Monroe returns from injury to bolster Terps pass rush

By Daniel Gallen @danieljtgallen Senior staff writer Andre Monroe announced his return from injury to the Terrapins football team with authority.

After missing 2012 with a knee injury, the redshirt junior defensive end sacked quarterbacks 2.5 times in the Terps’ first two games.

But as the season wore on and the Terps entered ACC play, Monroe’s production dipped.

The sacks weren’t coming as easily, and he took down the quarterback once over a stretch during which the Terps fell four times in five games.

“I feel like I’ve been a fireball but not as consistently as I would like, as I want to be, and that’s something I still need to work on,” Monroe said in midOctober. “Obviously everybody has things they need to work on, and that’s something I need to stay true to consistently.”

At the end of the regular season, Monroe broke out.

He recorded five sacks in the Terps’ final three games as they clinched bowl eligibility and then the first winning season of coach Randy Edsall’s tenure in College Park. And with the Military Bowl less than two weeks away, Monroe could be considered the Terps’ most dangerous defensive lineman.

“It was definitely a journey,” Monroe said after the Terps’ 41-21 win over N.C. State on Nov. 30. “I’m sure it’s going to sound repetitive, but my time

DEFENSIVE END ANDRE MONROE (93) ranks second on the Terps with 8.5 sacks and 14.0 tackles for loss this season. He missed last season because of a knee injury. file photo/the diamondback off, I learned a lot of things and to just be able to come back and do what I’ve done — and I feel like I’m not finished at all — but to do what I did ... it just reminds me of how much hard work can do for you, and that’s one of the biggest things through this whole process.”

The injury wore Monroe down. Normally one of the more upbeat players on the team who always has something interesting to say, he struggled at times to reconcile his injury and continue through a grueling

rehabilitation process.

“At first, I was like, ‘I’m going to stay positive. I’m going to be the little voice on the sideline to uplift everybody’ and things like that,” Monroe said in October. “But it really does mess with your head and your emotions. It’ll be some days where you are just like, ‘Man, I don’t want to do anything, I wish I was out there, blah, blah, blah.’”

It was another challenge for Monroe’s career. An Upper Marlboro native who attended St. John’s College High School

in Washington, Monroe was considered undersized coming out of high school at 5 feet, 11 inches. His coach, Joe Patterson, said Monroe’s “combination of quickness and power was unparalleled,” but his height held him back when it came to recruiting.

Rivals.com ranked him as a two-star prospect, and he signed with the Terps after also receiving offers from Akron, Bowling Green, Miami (Ohio), New Mexico and Ohio.

After a redshirt year, he worked his way into the rota-

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“I feel like injuries usually occur because it’s something that you haven’t been doing that you need to do in order to move on,” Monroe said. “I definitely feel like that was a time for me to capitalize and take advantage and sit back and look at myself as a self-reflection like, ‘What do I need to do to be even better?’ or ‘What haven’t I done to be better?’”

In August, Edsall praised Monroe for his return from injury. Even though Quinton Jefferson and Keith Bowers were the starters at defensive end and Monroe was on the second team, Edsall was pleased with his progression.

“Andre looks better than he’s ever looked since I’ve been here,” Edsall said at the Terps’ media day. “There’s somebody there that we think can help us.”

By the end of the season, Monroe was starting. He moved inside to nose tackle to back up starter Darius Kilgo for a few games before switching back to the outside. While he said he was more comfortable inside, Monroe knew that with his ability, he could make plays no matter where he was on the defensive line.

He was the only Terp to sack Heisman Trophy-winner Jameis Winston in the Terps’ 63-0 loss at Florida State on Oct. 5. His three sacks of Virginia Tech quarterback Logan Thomas were part of a dominant pass-rushing performance in the Terps’ 27-24 overtime upset Nov. 16. And he’s worked all the way back from injury to be a key contributor on a bowl-bound team.

“I feel like I have matured as a player,” Monroe said. “I’ve come a long way. I’ve gotten wiser and also the injury made me hungry to play the game. So I feel like I play with even more passion than I played with before.”

tion in 2011 and led the team with five sacks despite missing three games due to injury. He was the third freshman since 2002 to record five sacks in a season, and he seemed poised to become a force along the defensive line.

Then the injury happened before the 2012 season even started.

“I think that injuries are one of the toughest things that a football player can deal with because everything they are training for is predicated on being able to perform,” Patterson said. “Obviously, the injury prevents that and I know that it was a tough time for him, but he battled through it for sure.”

The time away from the field gave Monroe a chance to revamp his approach to the game. He started watching more film and picking u p o p p o s i n g te n d e n c i e s t h r o u g h t h e e x t ra t i m e dgallendbk@gmail.com

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MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2013

MEN’S BASKETBALL

A POINT OF EMPHASIS Turgeon, Terps search for stability at point guard after first 11 games

By Aaron Kasinitz @AaronKazreports Senior staff writer

GUARDs RODDY PETERS (top), Varun Ram (bottom left) and Dez Wells (bottom right) have all started at point guard this season with mixed results in guard Seth Allen’s absence due to injury. Coach Mark Turgeon and the Terps have started the season 7-4. file photos/the diamondback

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It’s hard to blame coach Mark Turgeon for the reluctant chuckle he gave last week when assessing the Terrapins men’s basketball team’s point guard play since he took over the program in 2011.

“We’ve had some bad luck,” he said.

Injuries, suspensions, a transfer and overall inconsistency have combined for a lack of stability at point guard over the past three seasons.

Though Turgeon is confident play at the vital position will improve with the maturation of freshman Roddy Peters, the Terps have been visibly hampered in recent years by the absence of a steady option as the primary ball handler.

Kenpom.com, a basketball analytics website, ranked the Terps outside of the country’s top 100 teams in both assist-to-field goal ratio and turnover percentage in the past two seasons. This season, the Terps have the 260th-best turnover percentage in the country and the 308th-best assist-to-field goal ratio in the country.

The team, meanwhile, has missed the past two NCAA tournaments and is off to an underwhelming 7-4 start this season. Forward Jake Layman believes that finding a clear-cut starting point guard would alleviate some of the Terps’ issues.

“We need point guards to not turn the ball over so much,” Layman said last week. “It’s been a big problem for us.”

But it’s an issue the Terps have had since Turgeon, a former point guard at Kansas, took over in College Park.

The Terps’ primary ball handlers over the past three seasons also provided inconsistent play.

There was Terrell Stoglin, a natural scorer best suited to play shooting guard who was suspended and entered the NBA draft after his sophomore year, and injury-prone Pe’Shon Howard, who transferred to Southern California in the offseason after a spotty run with the Terps.

Current Terps Nick Faust and Dez Wells have tried their hand at the position, but neither is a natural point guard and they have both See guards, Page 10

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